The family name of Carrara, like that of the Scottish Macgregors, was proscribed. A branch of the House which still (1831) exists, or did exist not long ago, at Padua, was compelled to adopt the name of Pappa-fava, a sobriquet the origin of which has been traced as follows by Gataro. Marsilietto da Carrara, Signor of Padua for one short month before his assassination, in 1345, when a boy, was lodged, during a Pestilence which raged in the Capital, in a Monastery at Brondolo. ‘Now in all the great religious houses it is an ancient custom to have vegetable broth at dinner every day of the week. On Monday it is made of beans (fave), on Tuesday of haricots, on Wednesday of chick-peas, and so on. Marsilietto was so fond of beans that it always appeared a thousand years to him till the Monday came round, and, when it did, he devoured the beans with such delight as was a pleasure to behold. He was, therefore, nicknamed Pappa-fava (Bean-glutton) by the rest, and his descendants have retained the name.’
The threefold murder of the Carrara, for it was nothing else, must be regarded as the first result of the continental development of Venice after the war of Chioggia, a development which brought her into closer contact with a number of thoroughly unscrupulous princes and governments. If her misdeeds can be condoned at all, it must be upon that ground; but I find it impossible to agree with Mr. Hazlitt, the author of a recent valuable history entitled The Venetian Republic, in considering that, on the whole, Carrara had something like a fair trial, and deserved his fate. The whole body of evidence goes to show that, for his times, he was an exceptionally frank and courageous prince, and much of the so-called proof that was used against him in the end was obtained by the merciless application of torture. Mr. Hazlitt’s real love of Venice has, I think, prejudiced him too much in her favour in this instance, and his affectionate industry has discovered everything that can be said in her defence, without bestowing the same care on a fair statement of the other side. In a similar way, a little farther on, he speaks of the outrageous condemnation of Carlo Zeno to a year’s imprisonment as an act not unjustifiable, because it was proved that Zeno had actually received a small sum of money from Carrara; but Mr. Hazlitt passes over Zeno’s defence in silence. The invincible warrior admitted, indeed, that he had received the money, but his explanation was perfectly simple and honourable. He had lent the little sum to the prince when the latter had been an outcast, wandering through Italy with his young wife, and Carrara had repaid the money when he had regained Padua. Zeno was over seventy years of age at the time when he was condemned to a year’s imprisonment in a dungeon for this act of charity and its consequences; he was the bravest and truest Venetian of his times; he had saved his country from destruction, and had served her with the most perfect integrity under the most trying circumstances, and more than once in the face of her basest ingratitude; he reaped the reward which fell to the share of almost every distinguished Venetian, for he was feared by the government, hated by the fellow-nobles whom he had outstripped in honour, and condemned by men who were not worthy to loose the latchet of his shoes. And he was convicted on account of a paltry sum of three hundred ducats, lent to a wanderer in distress and duly returned—he, who had given thousands from his own resources to satisfy the demands of the sordid mercenaries whom Venice had employed in the war of Chioggia! In trying to make out that he was treated with justice, Mr. Hazlitt attempts to prove too much. Before quitting a point to which I shall not return, let me, however, testify to the value of Mr. Hazlitt’s work, and to the great and useful industry with which he has consulted and accurately quoted a number of authorities not only inaccessible to the ordinary reader, but rarely mentioned, and in some cases not at all, by such historians as Daru, Romanin, and even Sismondi.
The stern justice of former days degenerated into cold cruelty in the fifteenth century. When the Republic set a price on the heads of Carrara’s two youngest sons, after vainly attempting to get possession of their persons by diplomatic means, they were mere boys.
Rom. iv. 42.
When Zeno was called before the Council of Ten on the night of the twentieth of January 1406, the warrant for his examination authorised the use of torture, if it should seem necessary. But even the Ten hesitated at that. He admitted and explained the matter of the money lent and repaid; his explanations of his reasons for having received and talked with an envoy from Padua were as honourable as they were clear, and the Ten being mercifully inclined that night, did not proceed to stretch Venice’s greatest hero on the rack, but only condemned him to the Pozzi for a year, and to the perpetual loss of all offices he held.
He accepted the sentence without a murmur, and his frame of steel did not permanently suffer from the confinement, for he lived twelve years longer in perfect
PONTE FIORENZOLA
health, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, was once more in command of the troops of the Republic, defeated the Cypriotes, and died at last in the full possession of his faculties, leaving his name to undying glory, and the memory of his judges to eternal shame.
The Venetians had buried the elder and the younger Carrara with great magnificence, dressed in rich velvet, with their golden spurs on their heels and their swords by their sides. When Zeno died at last, it was necessary that his funeral should outshine at least the obsequies accorded to the murdered foes of the Republic. The Doge and the Senate attended, and the citizens followed him to his grave in their thousands; but it is good to read that what was left of him was borne to its last rest on the shoulders of brave seamen who had served with him, fought under him, and shed their blood with him. He lies in the church of Santa Maria della Celestia, where you may see his tomb to this day.