APPENDIX.
1. FOUNDATION OF VENICE.
I find the chroniclers agree in fixing the year 421, if any: the following sentence from De Monaci may perhaps interest the reader.
“God, who punishes the sins of men by war sorrows, and whose ways are past finding out, willing both to save the innocent blood, and that a great power, beneficial to the whole world, should arise in a spot strange beyond belief, moved the chief men of the cities of the Venetian province (which from the border of Pannonia, extended as far as the Adda, a river of Lombardy), both in memory of past, and in dread of future distress, to establish states upon the nearer islands of the inner gulphs of the Adriatic, to which, in the last necessity, they might retreat for refuge. And first Galienus de Fontana, Simon de Glauconibus, and Antonius Calvus, or, as others have it, Adalburtus Falerius, Thomas Candiano, Comes Daulus, Consuls of Padua, by the command of their King and the desire of the citizens, laid the foundations of the new commonwealth, under good auspices, on the island of the Rialto, the highest and nearest to the mouth of the deep river now called the Brenta, in the year of Our Lord, as many writers assure us, four hundred and twenty-one, on the 25th day of March.”[93]
It is matter also of very great satisfaction to know that Venice was founded by good Christians: “La qual citade è stada hedificada da veri e boni Christiani:” which information I found in the MS. copy of the Zancarol Chronicle, in the library of St. Mark’s.
Finally the conjecture as to the origin of her name, recorded by Sansovino, will be accepted willingly by all who love Venice: “Fu interpretato da alcuni, che questa voce Venetia voglia dire VENI ETIAM, cioè, vieni ancora, e ancora, percioche quante volte verrai, sempre vedrai nuove cose, enuove bellezze.”