1379. Rom. iii. 285.
The Venetian fleet stole out to sea on the evening of the twenty-first of December, consisting of thirty-four galleys, sixty smaller armed vessels, and hundreds of flat-bottomed boats. Pisani led the van, towing two heavy old hulks laden with stones. There is a disagreement of authorities as to the day of the month on which he left Venice, but all agree that the Venetians appeared off the Chioggia entrance and landed four thousand men on the point of Brondolo island at dawn on the following morning—no inconsiderable feat, though the night had been the longest of the year. The distance, on a modern admiralty chart, from the port of Lido to the Chioggia entrance, outside the islands, I find to be about thirteen nautical miles; by the canals within the lagoons it is considerably farther, but it is certain that Pisani went by the open sea.
The Genoese were taken by surprise. The three cruisers on duty as sentinels outside the port were not where they should have been, and we hear no more of
THE CITY IN THE SEAS
them; it almost looks as if, in their security, the invaders must have given up that last precaution.
In the face of a heavy fire and with the loss of one vessel, burned by the enemy, Pisani succeeded in sinking his hulks across the entrance. To the last the Genoese do not appear to have understood his intention, for they themselves, or their own fire, helped to sink the heavily-ballasted vessels, and it was not until all was over, and the barrier had been made insurmountable by heaping other material upon it, that they plainly saw what had happened. They were caught like mice in a trap, unless they could get their fleet out by some other way. The mouth of the Brenta river at Brondolo, two miles to the southward, still remained navigable, and Pisani proceeded to blockade it in the same way, though with far greater difficulty. Federico Cornaro was entrusted with the dangerous and difficult task, and accomplished it under a terrific fire, Pisani protecting him meanwhile from any attack from the Genoese vessels.
This being done, the enemy’s fleet was paralysed, and the result could only have been a matter of time, if Pisani had been in command of a regular force. Instead, his men were volunteers and raw recruits, capable of magnificent courage in a single engagement, as they had shown, and ready to shed their blood as they had given their treasure; but they were ill accustomed to exposure, to night work at sea in the depth of winter, to a hundred small daily sufferings to which a trained seaman is hardened and indifferent. Clearly, Pisani could not leave the scene of action, even for a day, and even if he had consented to such an act of folly, there was the old Doge, swearing upon the hilt of his sword never to return to Venice till the enemy was thoroughly beaten. Yet the volunteers of the people cared little for such an example, and threatened to go home to Venice in a body, leaving the Genoese to dig their way out if they could, and indifferent to the fact that if left to themselves they could certainly find means of reaching Venice within a few days, though they could not bring their fleet. They had been in real danger now, and they would waste no more time in idleness or futile skirmishing.
It was in vain that Pisani tried to cheer such a force by reminding them that Carlo Zeno, with a strong fleet manned by veteran seamen, was expected to return. The people knew well enough that he had been expected for months, and that there was no reason why he should appear providentially at the present juncture. It was the Christmas season; they had fought like lions, shut up their enemies, and momentarily averted extreme danger; for amateur soldiers this seemed enough, and they clamoured to be allowed to go back to their wives and children.