CHAPTER XXII WAR WITH GENOA
Supernatural Recovery of the Apostle’s Body—Ruskin’s Account—Origin of the War—Early Life of Carlo Zeno—His Conquests—Governor of a Province in Greece—Return to Venice—Adventures at Constantinople—Escape of Zeno—Tenedos Becomes Venetian—Attack of the Genoese—Their Repulse—Carlo’s Popularity in Venice—Pisani’s Career—Carlo Routs the Genoese—Peace—Carlo’s Fame—His Visit to Jerusalem—Last Scuffle with the Genoese—Life in Venice.
It has been told how, after the assassination of the Doge Saundo IV, the mob, in a state of ungovernable fury, set fire to the ducal palace, and how this fire, spreading, injured many noble buildings including St. Mark’s itself. Orseolo, it may be remembered, left the world within two years of his election, and the repairs were finished under Vital Falier.
Then, to the dismay of the Doge and everybody else, it was discovered that the original resting-place of the Holy Apostle had been forgotten; and the pious Doge, having exhausted all the possibilities, resolved to leave the matter to the Almighty, who, by the intercession of the Evangelist, might enlighten them if He saw fit.
So a general fast was proclaimed, for how long we are not told, and prayers were offered up in all the Churches and in every home; a procession was arranged for the 25th of June, when the people—or as many of them as could—assembled in the Church and all prayed together with their whole hearts.
As they were doing so, to their wonder and delight the marbles of one of the pillars began to shake a little, which, as they watched, fell down completely, disclosing beneath it the bronze chest in which the body had formerly been laid.
Ruskin, of course, stigmatises this “as one of the best arranged and most successful impostures ever attempted by the clergy of the Romish Church”—how he does love that expression! He goes on to say that the body of St. Mark had, doubtless, perished in the conflagration of 976, but since St. Mark’s was not burned to the ground in 976, but merely damaged, it is not difficult to see upon what he bases the suggestion. Because the site was forgotten? There is not the slightest doubt that it was. Even if they had wished to, the clergy could not have deceived any one then, for all had had access to the spot formerly. It was not a secret at all.
Besides, the stone pillar was solid. It had been in place for a long time. To insert a bronze coffin into solid stone is no light task, while to do it unobserved and to replace the marble afterwards well enough to escape detection, in a church whose doors are open from the early hours of the morning until late into the night, savours of the impossible. The story is perfectly true, for the record of it is to be found, as Ruskin tells us, in a mosaic of the North Transept.
In the histories of all states and countries there are names that stand, as it were, as the very pillars upon which those histories are built; and, of these, some are solid and practical, some light and ornamental. Venice has had her share—Carmagnola, Pisani, Carlo Zeno, Marco Polo, Andrea Contarini, and many others.
Two, at least, of these served together—namely, Vittor Pisani and Carlo Zeno—during that incident in the almost ceaseless state of war between Venice and her maritime and business rival, Genoa, which is known as the War of Chioggia. So like the accounts which we read in our time of quarrels between great corporations, is that of the origin of this particular war, that it is worth explaining, if only to illustrate the unchanging quality of our human nature.