Though the professionals were infinitely more dangerous than the others, it is a remarkable fact that they enjoyed the same sort of popularity which was bestowed upon daring highwaymen in England in the coaching days. They were called the ‘Bravi,’ they were very rarely Venetians by birth, and they had the singular audacity to wear a costume of their own, which was something between a military uniform and a mediæval hunting-dress. One might almost call them condottieri in miniature. They sold their services to cautious persons who wished to satisfy a grudge without getting into trouble with the police, and they drew round them all the good-for-nothings in the country. ‘Bandits’—that is, in the true interpretation of the word, those persons whom the Republic had banished from Venetian territory—frequently returned, and remained unmolested during some time under the protection of one of these bravi. The most terrible and extravagant crimes were committed in broad day, and the popular fancy surrounded its nefarious heroes with a whole cycle of legends calculated to inspire terror.
The government cast about for some means of checking the evil, and hit upon one worthy of the Inquisitors of State. The simple plan consisted in giving a free pardon for all his crimes to any bravo who would kill another. We even find that a patrician of the great house of Quirini, who had been exiled for killing one of Titian’s servants, obtained leave to come back and live peacefully in Venice by assassinating a
THE RIALTO AT NIGHT
bravo. It is easy to imagine what crimes could be committed under this law, and the government soon recognised the mistake and repealed it in
Pinelli, Raccolta di Leggi Crim.
1549, in order to protect ‘the dignity of the Republic, and the goods and lives of its subjects.’
Thereafter the bravi and the bandits led more quiet lives, and returned to their former occupations.
There existed at that time a statue of a hunchback modelled by the sculptor Pietro di Salò, which had been used to support a ladder, or short staircase, by which the public criers ascended the column of the Rialto, in order to proclaim banns of marriage and other matters
