Salve Venetia, gleanings from Venetian history; vol. II

by F. Marion Crawford

It has happened that in the prisons of Saint Mark a number of convicts who were to remain there till they died have plotted to escape; they elected for their chief that Loico Fioravante, who killed his father on the night of Good Friday in the church of the Frari. There was also Marco Corner, sentenced for an unnatural crime; Benedetto Petriani, thief, and many others. On the evening of the fourth, when the jailers were making their usual rounds, the prisoners succeeded in disarming and binding them, and went on from one prison to another, their numbers increasing as they went, till they reached the last (novissima); there they found arrows and other arms, and began to discuss a plan of escape. Now it chanced that two Saracens who were amongst them wished to get out more quickly, without waiting for the deliberations of their comrades. One of them was almost drowned in the canal, the other took fright and began to cry out for help. A boat of the Council of Ten which was just passing picked up the half-drowned man; the fact that he was a Saracen suggested that he might be a fugitive, and he was frightened into confessing. The plot was now revealed and the guard was immediately informed. On the following morning the chiefs of the Ten, Cosimo Pasqualigo, Niccolò da Pesaro, Domenico Beneto, went to the prisons with a good escort, but they could not get in, for the prisoners defended themselves. Then wet straw was brought, and it was lighted in order that the smoke might suffocate them. And they were advised to yield before the order of the Council of Ten was repeated thrice, for otherwise they would all be hanged. Marco Corner was the first to surrender, and after him all the others. They were taken back, each to his prison, under a closer watch.

In Marco Corner’s case the love of liberty must have been strong, for in the same journal of Sanudo we find that in little more than a year after their unsuccessful attempt at flight, he and some companions actually succeeded in getting out and made their exit through the hall of the Piovego, that is to say, through the Doge’s palace. Their numbers were considerable, and six of them were sentenced to imprisonment for life. During the night they reached the monastery of Saint George, and at dawn they were already beyond the confines of Venetian territory.

Having disposed of the Inquisitors of State, I shall now endeavour to explain the position and duties of the Inquisitors of the Holy Office, with whom the ordinary reader is very apt to confound them.

In the first place, the Holy Office in Venice was a much milder and more insignificant affair than it was at that time in other European states. In Venice it seems to have corresponded vaguely to the modern European Ministry of Public Worship. There are some amusing stories connected with it, but no very terrible ones so far as I can ascertain.

The Republic had long resisted the desire of the Popes to establish a branch of the Holy Inquisition in Venice, but by way of showing a conciliatory spirit, while maintaining complete independence, the government had created a magistracy which was responsible for three matters, namely, the condition of the canals, the regulation of usury, and—of all things—cases of heresy. It is perfectly impossible to say why three classes of affairs so different were placed under the control of one body of men. Considering the gravity of the Venetian government we can hardly suppose that it was intended as a piece of ironical wit at the expense of the Holy See. It may, at all events, be considered certain that the Savi all’ Eresia, literally the Wise Men on Heresy, of the thirteenth century, had not accomplished what was expected of them, since in 1289 the government recognised the necessity of establishing a special court to deal with affairs of religion, presided over, at least in appearance, by a person delegated for that purpose from the Vatican. The Holy Office was thereby accepted in Venice, but with restrictions that paralysed it.

Molmenti, Stud. e Ric.

The tribunal was, in principle, composed of three persons, the Apostolic Nuncio, the Patriarch, and the Father Inquisitor, all three of whom had to be approved by the Republic. As a first step towards hindering them from acting rashly, they were strictly forbidden to discuss or decide anything whatsoever, except in the presence of three Venetian nobles, who were appointed year by year, and preserved their ancient title of Wise Men on Heresy. Next,

Rom. ii. 252, and viii. 348.

the Holy Office was not allowed to busy itself about any religious matter except heresy, in the strictest sense; it could not interfere in connection with any violation of the laws of the Church, not even in cases of sorcery or blasphemy, for magicians fell under the authority of the Signors of the Night, and blasphemers were answerable to the Executives against Blasphemy.

These laws had not changed in the sixteenth century, and the Holy Office had less to do than most of the contemporary tribunals. An examination of the documents preserved in its archives shows that from the year 1541 to the fall of the Republic there were three thousand six hundred and twenty trials, of which fifteen hundred and sixty-five fell in the sixteenth century, fourteen hundred and ninety-seven in the seventeenth, and only five hundred and sixty-one in the eighteenth. In the majority of cases the testimony was declared insufficient; in others, the accused hastened to abjure their errors. Sometimes, however, we find long trials in the course of which torture was used as by the other tribunals, and in these cases the end was frequently a sentence of death or a condemnation to the galleys.