A Golden Book of Venice

by Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

However pungent the tone, the words of this man could no more be attributed to personal bitterness than they might be influenced by personal interest; and although the opinion which they indicated was a surprise to some of the company, instinctively they felt the situation to be graver than they had feared, and the evening's talk drifted as wholly into the current of Church and State as if this ridotto were a commission appointed by the Ten to prepare resolutions upon the situation. And the list of grievances now reviewed, which had occupied the Senate during the closing years of Clement's reign, was, in truth, long. Vast differences of opinion concerning the Turks and the piratical tribes who infested the shores of Italy and the uses their villainy might be made to serve; troubles at Ferrara, teasing and undignified, temporarily brought to a close by the sending of the galleys of the Republic to prevent the seizure of their fishing-boats by agents of his Holiness; questions of boundaries and taxes; attempts to divert the trade of Venice, to arrest improvements redounding not only to the advantage of the Republic but to that of the neighboring country; to forbid, under pain of excommunication, all commerce with countries tainted with heresy. These were matters meet for discussion by temporal sovereigns touching the balance of power—so viewed and strenuously resisted by the clear-headed Venetians, with much deference of form, whenever practicable—as became loyal sons of the Church; but occasionally, when nothing might be expected from temporizing, with a quiet disregard which proved their consciousness of strength.

From time to time, as the informal summary progressed, there was an outburst of indignation.

"Could an aggression be more palpable than that Index Expurgatorius demanded by Rome in 1596, when the ruling doctrine of exclusion involved no question of morality or irreligion, but solely concerned books upholding rights of consciences and rulers!"

"It was a contest honorable to Venice, and one which Italy will remember," responded a secretary of the Senate, who was a regular member of this ridotto. "I am proud that it was my privilege to transcribe for the records of the Republic the papers relating to that Concordat which secured so great a measure of freedom for our press."

There had been a short truce between Rome and Venice since the accession of Paul V, who had been so immediately concerned with a certain prophecy foretelling the death of a Leo and a Paul that his fears were only set at rest by a further astrological announcement, judiciously arranged in the palace of his eminence the brother of the Pope, to the effect that "the evil influences were now conquered." Whereupon Paul had undertaken in earnest the work which he conscientiously believed to be the highest duty of a sovereign pontiff, had recalled all nuncios not in full sympathy with his views of aggrandizement, and had replaced them with envoys whose notions of authority were echoes of his own; and, as an opening move, had made the demand, so resented by Venice, that the new Patriarch Vendramin should be sent to Rome for examination before he could be allowed to take possession of his prelacy.

"But what hath Venice to fear from a Pope who is paralyzed for the first two months of his reign by a reading of a horoscope!" exclaimed one of the company scornfully.

"Nay, then," said Donato, who had seen much of the world; "it is a petty superstition of the age; it is not the fault of the man, who hath sterling qualities. And by that same potency of credulity have his fears been set at rest. It is a proof of weakness to undervalue the strength of an adversary—for so at least he hath recently declared himself on this question of temporal power, by his petty aggressions and triumphs in Malta, Parma, Lucca, and Genoa."

"I crave pardon of the Cavalière Donato," Antonio Querini responded hotly. "May one call the action at Genoa petty?—the compulsion of the entire vote of a free city, the placing of the election of the whole body of governing officials in the power of the Society of Jesus?"

"And it was under threat of excommunication, which made resistance a duty from the side of the government," Giustinian Giustiniani asserted uncompromisingly.

"But impossible from the Church's point of view. It is the eternal question," Leonardo Donato answered gravely.