The Lion of Saint Mark: A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century

by G. A. Henty

The Lord of Padua was so disgusted that he withdrew his troops to the mainland. Doria remained before Venice until the early part of October, but without making another attack. Indeed, the defences had long before become so formidable, that attack was well-nigh hopeless. At the end of that time he destroyed all his works and fell back upon Chioggia, and determined to wait there until Venice was starved into surrender.

The suffering in the city was intense. It was cut off from all access to the mainland behind, but occasionally a ship, laden with provisions from Egypt or Syria, managed to evade the Genoese galleys. These precarious supplies, however, availed but little for the wants of the starving city, eked out though they were by the exertions of the sailors, who occasionally sailed across the lagoon, landed on the mainland, and cut off the supplies sent from Padua and elsewhere to the Genoese camp.

The price of provisions was so enormous, that the bulk of the people were famishing, and even in the houses of the wealthy the pressure was great. The nobility, however, did their utmost for their starving countrymen, and the words of Pietro Mocenigo, speaking in the name of the doge to the popular assembly, were literally carried into effect.

"Let all," he said, "who are pressed by hunger, go to the dwellings of the patricians. There you will find friends and brothers, who will divide with you their last crust."

So desperate, indeed, did the position become, that a motion was made by some members of the council for emigrating from the lagoons, and founding a new home in Candia or Negropont; but this proposal was at once negatived, and the Venetians declared that, sooner than abandon their city, they would bury themselves under her ruins.

So October and November passed. Carlo Zeno had not yet arrived, but by some letters which had been captured with a convoy of provisions, it was learned that he had been achieving the most triumphant success, had swept the seas from Genoa to Constantinople, had captured a Genoese galleon valued at three hundred thousand ducats, and was at Candia.

This intelligence revived the hopes of Venice, and on the 16th of November Luigi Moroceni was despatched to order him, in the name of the government, peremptorily to hasten to the rescue of Venice. Almost at the same time, Giovanni Barberigo, with his light craft, surprised and captured three of the enemy's vessels, killing many of the sailors, and taking a hundred and fifty prisoners. The success was not in itself important, but it raised the hopes of the Venetians, as being the first time they had taken the offensive. Pisani himself had endeavoured to reconnoitre the position of the enemy, but had each time been sharply repulsed, losing ten boats and thirty men upon one occasion, when the doge's nephew, Antonio Gradenigo, was also killed by the enemy; but in spite of this, he advised government to make a great effort to recover Chioggia.

He admitted that the chances of failure were great. Still, he maintained that success was possible, and it was better that the Venetians should die fighting than by hunger.

As the result of his expeditions, he had found that Doria had at least thirty thousand men, fifty great ships, and from seven to eight hundred light craft. Moreover his troops were in high spirits, well fed, and well cared for, and should therefore be, man to man, more than a match for the starving soldiers of Venice. Nevertheless, there was a possibility of success, as Zeno would doubtless arrive by the time the siege had fairly commenced.

After much debate, the council determined that the undertaking should be attempted. To stir the people to the utmost exertion, the senate, on the 1st of December, published a decree that the thirty plebeians, who should most liberally meet the urgent necessities of the state by the proffer of their persons or estates, should, after peace was made, be raised to the rank of nobility, and summoned to the great council; that thirty-five thousand ducats of gold should be distributed annually among those who were not elected, and their heirs, forever; that any foreign merchant, who should display peculiar zeal for the cause of the republic, should be admitted to the full privileges of citizenship; and that, on the other hand, such Venetians as might endeavour to elude a participation in the common burdens, and hardships, should be held by so doing to have forfeited all their civil rights.