It would be curious to examine into the first causes
PALAZZO DARIO
of the relations between Venice and the other European states. It was the exchange of raisins for wool which obliged England and Venice to send each other permanent diplomatic missions. Up to that time only occasional special envoys had been necessary. The first time that England addressed a letter to the Signory she employed as her official agent a Neapolitan monk, the Bishop of Bisaccia, chaplain to King Robert, and this was in 1340. The envoy came to say that King Edward the Third of England had the honour to inform the Doge Gradenigo that he had defied Philippe de Valois to say that he was the anointed of the Lord. The envoy further stated that the two rivals were about to invoke the judgment of God, either by going unarmed into a den of wild beasts, who would of course respect the Lord’s anointed and promptly devour the pretender, or else by ‘touching for King’s Evil.’ Beginning in the
Rawdon Brown, Archives.
fifteenth century there is a long list of English ambassadors and ministers resident in Venice. The last English diplomatic representative in Venice was Sir Richard Worsley, of whom I shall have occasion to speak hereafter.
All the foreign diplomatists in Venice were constantly on the look-out for the arrival of the special mounted messengers attached to each foreign embassy. These were celebrated throughout Europe for their speed and discretion. In the fifteenth century they were thirty-two in number, and formed a small guild which was under the protection of Saint Catharine; and they were almost all natives of Bergamo, a city which is still singularly noted for the honesty and faithfulness of its inhabitants, and which even now furnishes Venice with trusty house-porters and other servants of whom responsibility is required.
CALLE BECCHERIA
In the Souvenirs of M. Armand Baschet, I find that the courier who brought the news of the signing of the treaty of Cambrai from Blois to Venice covered the distance in eight days, the best previous record to Paris, which is about the same distance, having been nine, and the usual time employed being fifteen. The employment of State courier could be bought and could be left by will.