1484. Taking of Gallipoli, Tintoretto; ceiling, Hall of Great Council.
their private ends. The result was that the Republic, finding herself alone, made another ignominious peace with the Turks. But even now she had no rest, for she was at war with the Duke of Ferrara, who enjoyed the protection of the Pope. The latter exhausted every diplomatic means to induce Venice to withdraw; but the only result was that the Republic recalled its ambassador from Rome. Sixtus IV. now excommunicated Venice, and attempted to send notice of
1484. Victory of Vittor Soranzo over the men of Este, Tintoretto; Hall of Great Council.
the excommunication by the political agent whom the Venetian ambassador had left in Rome. That official, however, declined to take the message, and the pope sent a special envoy, who was to present himself at the palace of the Patriarch. But the prelate succeeded in avoiding him by feigning illness, so that official notice
1484. Defeat of the Duke of Ferrara, Francesco Bassano; ceiling, Hall of Great Council.
of the interdict never reached the Signory, a result which delighted the Venetians and proportionally scandalised all other Catholics. Venice gave formal notice to the Emperor, the King of France, the King of England, the Duke of Burgundy, and the Duke of Austria, that she appealed against the excommunication to a future council, and meanwhile no further attention was paid to the interdict. It was, in fact, removed by the next Pope, Innocent VIII., who had no especial reason for maintaining it.
The Republic had to deal at this time with internal troubles as well as external difficulties. It happened that two men of the same name and family were successively elected to be doges, and that the house in question was one of those known as ‘the new.’ For the aristocracy divided itself into two classes, of which ‘the old’ included only the families of tribunitian descent, who considered themselves vastly superior to all the rest. Nevertheless, the younger houses succeeded in keeping the ducal honour to themselves for more than two hundred years. In 1450 sixteen of these families had solemnly sworn never to allow the election of any doge from amongst the elder houses, and sixty-eight years had already passed since one of the latter had been chosen. On the death of Marco Barbarigo it was noised abroad that the old houses were about to make a determined effort to recover the desired dignity. Agostino Barbarigo was elected with some difficulty, and it was quite clear that there were now two hostile factions in the Venetian government which were more occupied with their party spites than with what concerned the welfare of the Republic.
It was a period of contradictions in Venetian history, for while the State seemed to be often gaining territory it was frequently losing influence and undermining the sources of its own wealth; and, on the whole, the loss during the fifteenth century considerably exceeded the profit.
It was at this time that Venice accomplished that remarkable piece of juggling which ended in the annexation of Cyprus.
b. 1454, d. 1510. Smedley, II. chap. xiv.