Italian Yesterdays, vol. 1

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

Venice has grown old now, and she is content to doze in the sun’s warmth and to dream of the golden past. Her gates are open now to inquisitive sightseers, and one can imagine her smile of amusement when, every now and again, some impudent brat digs her in the ribs, Ruskin-like, and bellows his fortnight-formed opinions of her in her ear.

“Oh, you were beautiful!” they cry, “but what a shocking condition of ignorance and idolatry you did live in! Of course you could not be expected to be as wise as Manchester or as spiritually enlightened as Piccadilly Circus—still!”

“Still?” she answers mildly. “I once held the Crown of Thorns in my hand—did you know that? It was a very long time ago—seven hundred years and more—but I did.”

It was soon after the death of John of Brienne, when the revenues of France were so eaten up by wars—with Bulgaria among others (it seems queer to think that that state which has been fighting the battle of the Crown so gallantly should once have been the cause of the pawning of the Crown!)—that the government of the Regency was compelled to open subscriptions for a loan. The one movable thing of value which they possessed was the Crown of Thorns, and this was given in pledge to a certain Albert Nerosini, as representing the Venetian and Genoese merchants who had taken up the loan (one wonders that some of them were not struck dead for the impious sacrilege!). It was taken from its resting-place in the chapel of the Bouillons, and, after the term of the loan had run out and the payment of the note was not forthcoming, by an arrangement with a rich Venetian banker, made in order to evade a scandal (one cannot help thinking that it was a little late in the day to be talking about a “scandal”), it was transferred for the sake of safety to the Church of Pantocrates, in Constantinople, whence, in the case of the Regency failing in the performance of its agreement, the banker was at liberty to remove it to Venice and keep it there for a further term of four months; also, it was agreed that if the money was not paid by the 19th of June, 1238, the Crown should become the property of the mortgagee.

We are not told what the Holy Louis IX of France said when he came to hear of this transaction, but when we remember that in those rough times even the most saintly of men were apt to “let fly” upon lesser occasions and under far less temptation, one can imagine. He acted, however, with commendable promptitude and sent off two Dominicans on the spot to Constantinople to redeem the relic from pawn and bring it back, if possible, to their own country—a congenial task, no doubt, to the sons of St. Dominic.

It was a long journey that they had to make before they completed their mission, for the Imperial government had not liquidated its obligations, and the owner had already hired a ship to convey the Cross, and had set sail some time before the two monks arrived at the Golden Horn. But they tracked it to Venice, and there they obtained an audience with the Doge, Tiepolo, who must have been in an extraordinarily good temper, for him, for he seems to have made no objections, either to the audience or to taking them in person to St. Mark’s, where he showed them a golden casket, sealed with his own arms, wherein lay the treasure they sought.

Louis IX had picked his men well, they paid the mortgagee instantly, and as instantly claimed the restitution of the Crown. It is rather difficult to see upon what they based their claim, but it was a pious age and they seem to have had no great difficulty in obtaining the surrender of it, for they were well on their way home before any question arose upon the subject between the Imperial government of Constantinople and the banker from whom they had redeemed the Crown.

Upon their return to Paris, Louis took the Crown in procession to the Sainte Chapelle, which had been built especially to contain it, carrying it in his own hands and walking barefoot and in his shirt through the streets, and there it remained for many centuries, to attest the devotion and piety of the Royal Saint.

The Venetians appear to have been ardent collectors of sacred objects at all times, for it is related that, as early as 992, a certain Pietro Barbolano, afterwards Doge, having been sent upon a diplomatic mission to the Byzantine Court, came across the remains of Saint Saba and conceived an ardent desire to transport the holy body to his own country. In parenthesis, and without in the least impugning the moral sense of either party to the transaction, the bargaining that followed between Barbolano and the officials, for the purchase of the Saint’s remains, makes queer reading. There seems to have been no hesitancy in haggling for the relics, and no sense of any sordidness or sacrilege.

Even the storm that descended upon Barbolano on the night of his embarkation does not seem to have carried any message to him, but the priests were alarmed and begged him to reconsider his intention. But he, being on the spot with his two sons and some servants, soon had the casket on board, and set sail. The weather cleared up and equable winds soon brought them to the Venetian shore, when Barbolano ordered the chest to be transferred from the ship to his own house, which stood next to the Church of Sant’ Antonino at Olivolo. But the casket would not move. So heavy had it grown that no human agency could be found to lift it an inch; and, while they were still struggling with it, the bell of the Campanile began to peal so violently as to make the great tower rock.