Cecchetti, Dubbii.
It is not long since writers of democratic tendency still attempted to make Tiepolo seem a martyr to liberty. The Provisional Government of Venice, on July 13, 1797, invited the citizens to restore to honour the memory of those heroes, born in times of tyranny, who had fallen victims to their own generous efforts, and much more in the same manner. It was proposed to set
Rom. iii. 39, note 2.
up a statue to Tiepolo, as well as to the proto-martyr, Marin Bocconio; but in the end, even the democratic government was obliged to concede that its hero had been nothing but a seditious egotist, and the name of Bajamonte has not lost the odium it deserves even to our own time; for in spite of his standard blazoned with the word ‘Liberty,’ he had really meant to seize the government of his country and to make the dogeship hereditary in his family. After the conspiracy the public feeling against the Tiepolo and Quirini families was so strong that those branches of the Tiepolo which had remained faithful to the republic changed their coats-of-arms. The innocent branches of the Quirini, however, resorted to an expedient which is quite unique in heraldry, so far as I know. In Italian ‘bono’ means ‘good’; the Quirini simply charged their coat with a capital B, to show how good they had been!
Marco Donà, the man who had revealed the plot, was rewarded by being admitted to the Great Council, and his name was inscribed in the ‘Golden Book,’ making the honour hereditary. The woman who had killed Bajamonte’s standard-bearer, and whose name was Rossi, on being asked what reward she would prefer, requested to be allowed to fly the standard of Saint Mark from her window on the day of Saint Vitus (June 15), and on the other solemn festivals of the year; and that neither she nor her descendants should ever be required to pay a higher rent for the house in which she lived, and which belonged to the patrimony
Fulin, Arch. Ven. (1876), and Soranza Soranzo.
Molmenti, Dogaressa.
of the Basilica of Saint Mark. There exists under date of the year 1468 the protest of a certain Rossi, her descendant, whose rent had been raised from fifteen ducats to twenty-eight. He won his case. The house is called in our own time the ‘House of the Miracle of the Mortar.’ It is in the Merceria, at the corner of the Calle del Cappello. The standard which Lucia Rossi used to display at her window is preserved in the Correr Museum.
The Rector of the guild of painters also received special honours, as well as the brethren of the Carità, who had lent armed assistance.
One might be surprised at the lenity with which the Republic judged the ringleaders of the Tiepolo-Quirini conspiracy; but it must not be forgotten that the conspirators, entrenched on the Rialto, were beyond the Doge’s power, and still threatened the safety of the city and of the Republic, which was no doubt glad to be rid of them at any price. Moreover, we have record of a pitiful episode, which shows that the Venetian government could be severe to cruelty without necessarily employing the executioner.