Italian Yesterdays, vol. 1

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

Gambara may well and reasonably be called the Last of the Despots, for he was assuredly the last private person to terrorise a large district of Upper Italy, with both comparative impunity and a certain measure of hereditary authority. As one of Thackeray’s characters says of Lord Mohun in “Esmond,” he could handle a foil—and a bloody one, too—before ever he learned to use a razor. At an age when most boys are in the Fourth Form of an English public school, Gambara was the terror of the countryside in which his paternal castle of Pralboino was situated; so that, when he was only about fifteen years old, the Venetian Government found itself compelled to place him under restraint, his father being dead and his mother unable to control him. Finally, he was confined as a prisoner, first in Verona and then in the fortress of Palma, from the latter of which he escaped; for a while he wandered about the country, pursued by the police, who were unable to lay hands on him, until at last he decided to surrender himself to the authorities, of his own accord, which he did, and was exiled to Zara, the Governor of Dalmatia being requested by the Venetian Government to treat him with all possible consideration and to provide him with good company for the benefit of his moral welfare!

Gambara, however, was soon allowed to return to his estates, and once there lost no time in gathering about him a bodyguard of “bravi,” with whose assistance he soon signalised himself in various encounters with the representatives of law and order in the province. Having engaged upon a kind of warfare with the Customs officials at Calvisano—a village near Porella, some distance south and east from Brescia—a detachment of Gambara’s bandits raided the Custom-house there and killed one of them, beating the others and all but murdering their captain as well. On being summoned to appear before the Council of Ten at Venice, to render an account for his misdeeds, Gambara retorted by fortifying his two castles and adding to his little army of “bravi,” thus openly setting the law at defiance. And now a reign of terror was inaugurated by him and by his henchman, Carlo Molinari, the head of his band of assassins.

This period of Gambara’s career terminated with a peculiarly atrocious episode. His protection having been sought by a smuggler, Gambara took the man in as an additional member of his band. Shortly afterwards, a party of police happening to enter his territory in search of the smuggler, Gambara invited them to pass the night with him as his guests. This invitation they foolishly accepted, and the next day their dead bodies, hidden under a covering of green boughs, were brought into Brescia in a cart, which was left opposite the house of the Venetian Podestà or Governor of the city.

The result of this diabolical exploit was that Gambara was forced to seek refuge in flight—what other consequences he could have expected one cannot imagine—and he retreated into the neighbouring Duchy of Parma. Before long, though, he petitioned the Venetian Government to pardon him, which it was weak enough to do, and so he returned to his estates, where he continued to live—spending a good part of his time in Venice itself—much as he had done before. I do not know when he died, but I fancy he must have attained to a ripe old age, dying somewhere about the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. One can only hope that the grace of a final repentance may have been granted to him!

CHAPTER XIX LEGENDARY VENICE

Venice, Bride of the Sea—Its Glorious Children—Pledge of the Crown of Thorns—The Miracle of Saint Saba’s Relics—Intellectual Humility and Faith—St. Mark, Patron of the Venetians—Theft of the Saint’s Remains from Alexandria—Reception in Venice—Early History—Tales of Hardships—The Gate of the Damsels—Legends of the Saint.

There is hardly a street or a building in Venice that cannot flower with some whisper of legend, if the soil of its story be but cultivated with determination; but a house-to-house search would involve the labour of years; and, though the pursuit of legend is doubtless an enthralling business, yet life is a small package, and it is difficult enough to find a room in it for all that it has to contain.

Still, if I am fortunate enough to lead some, through the lure of the legend, to the serious study of the history from which the legend is culled, my labour will have been repaid many times over. In the rush and scurry of to-day, when excitement is mistaken for labour and bustle for speed, scholarship—that is to say, the real and serious study of real and serious subjects—has become, except for the illustrious few, a thing of the past; but those few have gathered together, for our benefit, a precious mass of material, a rich harvest of romance wherewith we can brighten many a heavy hour; so let us wander into the garden, culling as we go, and acknowledging our heartfelt gratitude to those who planted it at the cost of such infinite toil.

The Bride of the Sea, seen from the distance, seems to rise like a softly coloured pearl from the misty embrace of the waters, and the effect is one of such awesome charm that, for a while, the mind can hardly carry the suggestions that crowd in upon it. What Venice contains! Is there any city in the world, save only Rome and Jerusalem—the cradle and the House—that can compare with that jewel-case?

The home, in one way or another, of Titian, Tintoretto, Giorgione, Veronese, and Barbari—the story of Venice is so illuminated with the glory of her children that its tragedy is almost lost in it, as black rocks emerge with their surroundings in the glint of the mid-day sun. From its meagre beginnings—a few slivers of land, half covered by the sea, where some hundreds of exiles took refuge and sheltered themselves in huts of mud and osier, down through the ages, she comes like an Easter “Gloria”—first a whisper, then a murmur, and then, from note to note, onwards and upwards, to the crashing splendour of her triumph.