Salve Venetia, gleanings from Venetian history; vol. I

by F. Marion Crawford

Much sentimental nonsense has been written about the two Foscari, and even such a historian as Daru has had the courage to tell us that the Doge presided in the court which condemned his son, and that Jacopo received his sentence from the mouth of his own father. Not content with stating these impossibilities, Daru has actually described the scene, with many details, though it could not, under any circumstances, have taken place, since a special edict of the Council of Ten expressly forbade the Doge, or any member of his family, to be present at the trial.

Jacopo’s troubles began soon after his marriage in 1441 with Lucrezia, a daughter of Leonardo Contarini.

Rom. iv. 266 sqq., and Molmenti, Dogaressa, 250 sqq.

The wedding had been celebrated with great splendour, and the bride had been conducted home over a bridge especially built for the ceremony across the Grand Canal; there had been boat-races, a tournament in which the great Francesco Sforza himself took part, and there had been illuminations of the city and endless other festivities. The bridegroom is said to have been a very cultivated young man of great personal charm, a Greek scholar, a lover of poetry, and a collector of rare manuscripts; but of weak character, careless and extravagant. It really looks as if his fate had been the final consequence of some momentary lack of means wherewith to satisfy his luxurious tastes. Three years after his marriage he was accused before the Council of Ten of having received gifts from several important citizens in consideration of obtaining honorific or lucrative posts for them through his influence with his father. One of his servants and several other persons were examined under torture, and their evidence led to an order for his arrest. He had been informed of what was going on, however, and had already escaped.

The trial proceeded without him, and it was sufficiently proved that a box existed in the Doge’s house containing valuables which he had received. The law forbidding any member of the Doge’s family to receive any gifts whatsoever, under any circumstances, was most rigidly enforced in Venice, and Jacopo was justly sentenced to a temporary exile; he was known to be in Trieste, and a galley was ordered to proceed thither to convey him to Modon in the Peloponnesus, whence he was to journey at his own expense to Napoli di Romania, near Corinth, within one month; and while there he was to present himself to the governor every day, to sleep in the city every night, to keep no more than three servants, and to be treated in all respects as a private

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citizen. If he refused to go on board the galley a price was set on his capture; he was to be brought to Venice and beheaded between the columns. Several minor personages were at the same time sentenced to short terms of exile, and to the loss of any public offices they might be holding at the time.

The offence was patent, the trial was legal, and the condemnation was just; but Jacopo cared for none of these things, and altogether declining the invitation of the Ten to go on board the galley sent for him, he continued to live in Trieste as if nothing had happened. The Ten, on their side, were by no means anxious to incur the odium of decapitating the Doge’s son, as they had declared that they would do if he refused obedience, and they now begged the Doge himself to use his paternal influence with Jacopo, in order that they might not be driven to extremities; but as this measure also remained without any effect, the Council confirmed its sentence and confiscated Jacopo’s property. At any moment he might have been arrested, brought to Venice, and beheaded; but instead of this, a committee was named to examine into the circumstances. It was ascertained that Jacopo was in bad health; it was voted that this fact should be accepted as a sufficient excuse for his disobedience; and, by way of smoothing matters over, it was decreed that he should be exiled only to Treviso and the Trevisan district, almost within sight of Venice. Jacopo thought fit to submit to this mild decree, which was not modified, although it was soon afterwards discovered that he had received two thousand and forty ducats, with a quantity of silver plate, from Francesco Sforza. A year later the Doge presented a petition to the Council of Ten begging that, in consideration of his own old age, and of the fact that Jacopo, his wife, his children, and all their servants, suffered from malarious fever in the climate of Mestre, Jacopo might be allowed to return to Venice. This petition was actually granted, doubtless owing to the signal services rendered to the Republic by the old Doge during a reign which had already lasted twenty years.

Jacopo returned, and during the next three years nothing is known of his mode of life. It must be admitted that, so far, the Ten had acted with unusual clemency. They can hardly be blamed, however, for having watched Jacopo afterwards.