Salve Venetia, gleanings from Venetian history; vol. I

by F. Marion Crawford

Rom. iv. 106.

This remarkable man’s real name was Francesco Bossone, an appellation derived from the village in which he had been born of peasant parents. He had enlisted at an early age, and had attracted the attention and favour of Filippo-Maria Visconti, immediately after Facino Cane’s death, by almost catching Ettore Visconti, whom Filippo wished to murder. After this, Carmagnola’s advance to fortune was rapid and unchecked. In ten years we find him with the title of Count of Castelnuovo, as Filippo’s governor over Genoa, married to a widowed Antonia Visconti, who passed for a daughter of Giovanni Galeazzo; and so he prospered, till he had acquired such wealth that he deemed it safe to invest a part of it in foreign securities. As an especial favour, by a decree of the Great Council of Venice, he was allowed to buy bonds of the Venetian debt with his money, a privilege rarely granted to any foreigner. Before long he had cause to congratulate himself upon this piece of fortune, and upon his own caution, which had led directly to it.

1424.

Various explanations have been given of his disgrace with Filippo Visconti; it has been said that he lost the prince’s favour by the calumnies of people who envied him. Romanin says Filippo grew suspicious of him, because he was too successful and too popular with the troops, and that the envy of courtiers did the rest; that on being recalled from the governorship of Genoa he attempted in vain to obtain an audience of the Duke, and did all he could

1425.

to justify himself; but that, as he failed altogether, he withdrew to Piedmont, and did his best to incite Amadeus of Savoy against Filippo; that the latter then confiscated all his possessions, and arrested his wife and daughters, whom he held as hostages; and that, finally, Carmagnola went to Venice, and offered his services and those of eighty men-at-arms whom he had with him, the Republic being then on the eve of yielding to the entreaties of Florence and declaring war on Visconti.

The plain truth of all this seems to be that Carmagnola was an unprincipled scoundrel, who meant to be on the winning side whatever happened, and who, being very well informed, foresaw that a league was about to be made, with Venice at its head, which would be in a position to defy his old master. The latter, of course, tried to poison him by secret agents, who failed, were caught, and were duly tortured and hanged by the Venetian government, which took the diplomatic precaution of not mentioning the Duke of Milan in the case. There is a sameness about the crimes of the Visconti which makes them almost tiresome; Carmagnola was bolder and quite as profound, but the habit of superiority in actual fighting made him underestimate, in the end, the cool prudence of Venice and the many-sided duplicity of the Duke.

Venice accepted the adventurer’s offer, and soon afterwards placed him in command of her land army; and before long Mocenigo’s prediction was fulfilled, and the Republic was reduced to something like slavery under the iron hand of the captain she had hired. He, on his part, played a double game from the first, and made up his mind that if he must beat his old master, he would hurt him as little as he could in so doing, and would try to renew secret and friendly relations with him while acting as the Republic’s general.

It was about this time that the Doge Foscari made a speech in favour of the Florentine alliance, which was first published by Romanin. It bears the stamp of a genuine report, and much of it is in the Venetian dialect. Foscari argued that unless Venice would help Florence, the latter would shortly be annihilated by Visconti, who would then proceed at once to the destruction of Venice herself. He referred incidentally to a speech just made by Carmagnola, and assured the Republic that under such a general’s leadership there was nothing to fear, whereas there was great hope of extending the boundaries of the Republic. He wound up by saying that Visconti aspired to rule all Italy, despised reason, both human and divine, and was always taking other men’s property by fraud and deception; and Foscari called upon the Venetians to help in crushing a common enemy, for the perpetual peace of all Italy.

The speech is hot and warlike. Nevertheless Romanin, three pages farther on, declares that it is a great injustice to accuse Foscari of having promoted war, and complains that historians have made the Doge the scapegoat to bear the blame of all the wars in which Venice then became involved. But Romanin was not only an enthusiastic Venetian; he was also, to some extent, the apologist of the elder Foscari.