These things happened as I have told, and though the chroniclers do not all agree precisely as to the year, the differences between their dates are not important, and all tell how the event was commemorated down to the last days of the Republic. For it appears that a great number of those men who so bravely pursued the pirates were box-makers, ‘casseleri,’ of the parish of Santa Maria Formosa, and when that famous day was over the Doge asked them what reward they desired. But they, being simple men, asked only that the Doge of Venice should come every year to their church on
Rom. i. 240.
the second day of February, which is the Feast of the Purification. ‘But what if it rains?’ asked the Doge, for that is the rainy season. ‘We will give you a hat to cover you,’ they answered. ‘And what if I am thirsty?’ the Doge asked, jesting. ‘We will give you drink,’ said the box-makers. So it was agreed, and so it was done, and the feast that was kept thereafter was called the Feast of the Maries, and it was one of the most graceful festivities of all the many that the Venetian imagination invented and kept. I shall describe elsewhere more fully how the Doge came to Santa Maria Formosa every year on the appointed day, and how, in memory of the bargain, the people of that quarter made him each year a present of straw hats and Malmsey wine. It was a sort of public homage to the women of Venice until the war of Chioggia, towards the end of the fourteenth century, and it is only fair to say that the lovely objects of such a splendid tribute did much to deserve it. But after that time many things were changed, and there remained of the beautiful Feast of the Maries nothing more than the Doge’s annual visit to the church, instituted by Pietro Candiano III.
The immediate result of the bold attempt and condign punishment of the Istrian pirates was a series of punitive expeditions against them which laid the foundation of Venice’s power on the mainland, and in this struggle, if in nothing else, the Doge was fortunate in his last years. But an evil destiny was upon him at home.
In his old age he associated one of his sons with him in the ducal authority, also called Pietro, ‘at the suggestion of the people,’ says Dandolo in his chronicle. As I have said, this was the usual plan followed by the families that sought to make the dogeship hereditary. The younger Pietro was wild, ambitious, turbulent, and wholly without scruple, and he at once took advantage of his position to plot against his father, in the hope of reigning alone. But he was found out and hindered by the people, who rose suddenly in stormy anger and laid violent hands upon him, to kill him without trial. Yet his father was generous and succeeded in saving him from death, and tried him for his deeds, and sent him into exile.
Mol. Dogaressa.
Then Pietro the younger turned pirate himself, and armed six fast vessels and harassed the Venetian traders all down the Adriatic. But meanwhile he still had a strong party of friends for him in Venice, and their influence grew quickly, even with the people, and many secret influences which we can no longer trace were brought to bear for him; until at last the Venetians themselves, who had tried to murder him, decreed him the ducal crown and the supreme power, and recalled him and deposed his aged father. The old man died within a few weeks, and all he could bequeath to his wife was ‘a vineyard surrounded by walls’ on the shore of San Pietro; and Pietro Candiano IV. ruled alone.
He did outrageous deeds to strengthen his power. To win the protection of the Emperor Otho he forced his wife to take the veil in the convent of Saint Zacharias, and obliged his only son by her, Vitale, to become a monk. Having thus disposed of them, he took to wife Gualdrada, the sister of the Marquis of Tuscany,
THE CHRIST OF ST. MARK’S