the Holy See. Paul V. now hesitated no longer, and discharged a major excommunication against the whole Venetian State. This measure produced little impression on the Senate, and none at all on the Doge Leonardo Dandolo. He declared openly that the sentence was unjust, and therefore null and void. The Capuchin, Theatin, and Jesuit orders closed their churches in obedience to the Pope, and were immediately expelled from Venetian territory by the government. The Pope’s wrath was as tremendous as it was futile, and it is impossible to say how far matters might have gone if Henry IV. had not used his influence to bring about a reconciliation. It was his interest to do so in order that Venice, being friendly to him, might in a measure balance the power of hostile Spain, and he sent the Cardinal de Joyeuse to Italy to try and obtain from the Pope some concession which
Rom. vii. 53.
might facilitate an act of submission on the part or the Republic. Spain was playing a double game as usual, but the Cardinal was too much for the Spanish diplomatists, and he brought about an arrangement by which Venice handed over to the Pope the two priests who were on trial, and
Rom. vii. 64.
permitted the Patriarch to undergo the examination required by the canonical law. On his side the Pope exempted from that examination all future Patriarchs.
It is a singular fact that the usually docile Venetian population greatly resented the attitude taken by the government towards the Holy See. The Doge himself was hissed and howled at when he went to the church of Santa Maria Formosa on the Feast of Candlemas. ‘Long live the Doge Grimani, the father of the poor,’ yelled the rabble, for Grimani had been a man of exemplary piety and had been dead and buried for some time. ‘The day will come when you shall wish to go to church and shall not be able!’ screamed others. Even after the reconciliation with the Pope,
Rom. vii. 251.
Spain did not cease to conspire against the Republic, and while persecuting the Catholics in Valtellina tried to make out that the Republic was allied with the Protestant powers because it opposed those persecutions.
It is impossible to speak of the quarrels between Venice and Rome without mentioning the monk Paolo Sarpi who played so large a part in them. At the
