There was an irritating papal bull which was issued and reissued under the stimulus of the reinvigorating Counter-Reformation, entitled In Coena Domini (for the Lord's Supper), usually read on Maundy Thursday. It was probably the very bull that Montaigne heard read from the balcony of St. Peter's. This bull asserted papal claims of extreme character, not unworthy of Boniface VIII, and, in fact, revealed complete consciousness of renewed youth and vitality. Other states in Italy bowed and accepted, or pretended to accept, this declaration of papal authority; but Venice refused to publish the bull. In fact, though Venice had always professed great respect for the Holy See, she had been consistently self-willed and opposed to papal pretensions, and likewise somewhat free-thinking. Moreover, there had been festering disagreements concerning territory and politics. Venice insisted upon the right to tax Church property within the state, and to try priests charged with crime before her lay tribunals. Acting upon the latter right she arrested and tried two priests guilty of crime. This action traversed the doctrine laid down in the papal bull. The Pope put Venice under an interdict (1606). In retaliation the Signory issued a decree of banishment against all priests and monks who should obey the interdict. Various Orders quitted the city. The Pope stood firm in his position that "there could be no true piety without entire submission to the spiritual power." All Europe looked on, the Protestants backing Venice, the Catholics supporting the Pope. War was in the air; but the danger of a European mêlée was too great. The French King, Henry IV, enacted the peacemaker; and the forces in favour of compromise succeeded in reëstablishing peace.
Out of the quarrel one man issued with a noble historic reputation. Fra Paolo Sarpi (1552-1623) was the last of the great Venetians. In boyhood he was so precocious a scholar that at eighteen he was made professor of Positive Theology, and, a little later, of Philosophy and of Mathematics. Grown up, he became a man of science, the foremost of his time excepting Francis Bacon. He discovered the valves of the veins, and also, independently of Harvey, the circulation of the blood. He made discoveries in optics. He studied heat, light, sound, colour, pneumatics, the magnetic needle. In astronomy Galileo called him, "il mio padre e maestro—my father and my master." Sir Henry Wotton, the English ambassador to Venice, said, Fra Paolo is "as expert in the history of plants as if he had never perused any book but Nature." In addition to these achievements, he wrote a very celebrated history of the Council of Trent. At the time of the breach with the Papacy, this brilliant savant was appointed Theological Counsellor to the Republic, and was abruptly flung into the confusion and passion of violent political strife. Deeply patriotic,—his last thought was for Venice, "Esto perpetua, may she live forever,"—he held a brief, as it were, for his country, and as her advocate argued her cause before all Europe with brilliant success.
At this period the Venetian Signory belonged, in spirit at least, to an international political party which was opposed to Spain and to the Papacy, and for that reason was favoured by the French, especially when Henry of Navarre was on the throne. In fact, this quarrel between Venice and the Papacy may be considered an episode in the great struggle between the party of European freedom and the tyrannical House of Hapsburg, seated on the thrones of Spain and Austria, and supported by the Papacy.
But Venice was not able to concentrate her attention upon European affairs. Later in the century war with the Turks was renewed; she was too weak to resist them single-handed, and, after a struggle which lasted for twenty-five years, she lost Crete (1669). Not many years later, having obtained allies, she renewed the war, fought with great gallantry, and actually conquered the Morea, which, on the conclusion of hostilities, was ceded to her (1699). This conquest, now best remembered from the fact that in the attack on Athens a Venetian bomb blew up the Parthenon, was the last great military exploit of the Venetians, and within twenty years the Morea was lost again.
Martial vigour ebbed slowly but surely. During the war of the Spanish Succession, when, the course of fortune having shifted, Europe combined to resist the overbearing power of Louis XIV and the House of Bourbon, Venice remained neutral. Like an old dog which has fought many good fights in its youth and prime, and now, lame and scarred, maintains a dignified abstention from canine frays, Venice lay back. In 1718, after the war with Turkey in which she lost the Morea, she took part in the treaty between Austria and Turkey. This was her last active diplomatic intervention in the affairs of Europe. She had lost Cyprus, Crete, the Morea; and now her province in Italy, bits of Illyria, and some of the Ionian Islands, alone remained from her old empire. She shut her eyes to the past, and concentrated her attention on making her beautiful city "the revel of the earth, the masque of Italy." On the eve of the mighty upheaval of the French Revolution, her old sea glory flashed up under her last great admiral, Angelo Emo (1731-92), who cleared the seas of the Algerine pirates; but it was too late, Venice had run her course, and the end was at hand.
Spanish Provinces
West of Venetian territory, the unfortunate duchy of Milan fulfilled its melancholy lot of being the prize possessed by Spain, yet coveted and fought for by France. Its history takes no special hold upon the memory. Against a constant background of French ambition (Richelieu, Mazarin, Louis XIV), the Spanish governors step forward upon the Milanese stage, levy taxes, scheme how to circumvent the French, and how to extend Spanish dominion, and then go home, a little richer but without leaving any definite impression on the page of history except as they have served to create the scenes depicted in the romantic novel "I Promessi Sposi." One has a vague idea of ceremony, bows, obeisances, ignorance, rapacity, and cruelty, but the idea is nebulous, and we need not stop.
Leaving local affairs aside, we will proceed at once to see how the titles to Milan and other Spanish provinces in Italy passed from Spain into other hands. History here acts as an attorney and coldly records the transfer from one monarch to another. Like lots of land the provinces of Italy were bartered and granted in consideration of war, dynastic love, and affection, or for the sake of the political equilibrium of Europe. The great Powers fell to blows over the succession to the crown of Spain (1700-14), to the crown of Poland (1733-35), and other matters in which Italy had no voluntary concern; and, after years of war, made treaties to reëstablish European equilibrium by an elaborate system of weights and counterweights. Where the balances hung unevenly, a province of Italy was thrown in to restore them to a level. In this way Milan, Parma, Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia were disposed of. All we need do is to remember that in place of conveyances there were treaties, and in place of offer, counter-offer, haggling, and bargaining, there were battles, sieges, devastation, and pillage.
The records of conveyances in the office of history read as follows:—
| LOT | GRANTOR | GRANTEE | DATE |
| Milan | Spain | Austria | 1713 |
| Naples | Spain | Austria | 1713 |
| Naples | Austria | Spanish Bourbons | 1738 |
| Sicily | Spain | Savoy | 1713 |
| Sicily | Savoy | Austria | 1720 |
| Sicily | Austria | Spanish Bourbons | 1738 |
| Parma | Spanish Bourbons | Austria | 1738 |
| Parma | Austria | Spanish Bourbons | 1748 |
| Sardinia | Spain | Austria | 1713 |
| Sardinia | Austria | Savoy | 1720 |