Ordelafo Falier is remembered in Venice to-day by two monuments: one of art—the famous Pala d’oro in St Mark’s; the other of civic utility—the scattered squeri or shipyards were concentrated by him in the great Arsenal, whence issued the mighty vessels innumerable that for centuries maintained the naval supremacy of Venice. It was this Arzanà, now the Arsenale Vecchio, which Dante saw and immortalised in the famous description of the fifth of the Malebolge:—
“Quale nell’arzanà de’ Viniziani
bolle l’inverno la tenace pece
a rimpalmar li lor legni non sani,
che navicar non ponno, e in quella vece
chi fa suo legno nuovo, e chi ristoppa
le coste a quel che più viaggi fece;
chi ribatte da proda, e chi da poppa;
altri fa remi, ed altri volge sarte;
chi terzerudo ed artimon rintoppa.”[13]
The first duty of Dom. Michiel, 1118, was to make peace with the King of Hungary, that he might be free to devote himself to Eastern affairs. The King of Jerusalem was a prisoner in the hands of the Saracens and a stirring appeal from the Pope for Venetian help was read in St Mark’s. A year was spent in building and equipping a fleet of forty great galleys, twenty-eight transports, and many smaller craft. It was a magnificent spectacle when the vessels, painted with many colours and bright with banners, set forth bearing a gallant army of knights and footmen, their armour flashing in the sun, the banner of St Mark and the consecrated standard of the Cross waving proudly from the Doge’s ship. But the captive king was to linger yet another year, for the Doge had pressing affairs nearer home. The Greek Emperor Johannes must be chastised for his unfriendly attitude. The fleet anchored before Corfu and spent the winter in an attempt to capture the island. Having wreaked what damage they could and having “invoked the divine assistance,” they resumed their voyage in the spring. After devastating Chios, Lesbos and Rhodes they reached Cyprus, where news came that a Saracen armament was off Jaffa. The fleet at once pressed forward and fell upon the infidels. The Doge’s galley went straight for the Emir’s ship and sank it. Confusion seized the enemy and a memorable victory was won. The slaughter was terrible. For years the mariners of Jaffa declared the sea to be infected with the corpses of the Saracens. The Doge was met at Jaffa by the clergy and barons of Jerusalem and borne in triumph to the holy city, where he was acclaimed as the champion of Christendom. Being urged to further service the Doge replied that nothing was nearer the hearts of the Venetians than to increase the Christian dominion in the East, and that the piety and religion which had always distinguished them was burning to express itself in deeds. In the name of the King and his barons it was agreed that of the captured cities and all spoils one-third should be the portion of the Venetians, one-third of the King, one-third of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and that the cost of the war should be met in thirds. The trading privileges granted in Sidon were confirmed and were to be extended to all future conquests. A hot discussion arose as to whether Tyre or Ascalon should be the objective of the next expedition. It was decided to cast lots, and a boy drew from the urn the word “Tyre.”
The capture by the Venetians and Franks of Tyre, mother of Carthage, “the mart of nations made very glorious in the heart of the seas,” is one of the epics of history. The besiegers attacked with desperate courage. The flower of Saracen chivalry garrisoned the city. The warriors of Damascus and fleets from Egypt fought in vain to raise the siege. In the alternations of the struggle murmurs were heard among the Franks of impending desertion by the Venetian fleet. The Doge, when the report came to his ears, had a plank knocked out of the side of each ship and borne before him to the Frankish camp. With grave words he rebuked the slanderers and offered to leave those material pledges of Venetian loyalty. Towards the end of the siege money failed: the Doge cut coins of leather, promising to exchange them for good ducats when the fleet returned to Venice. After five months’ resistance, famine wore down the courage of the Saracens. Honourable terms of surrender were granted and the banners of the King of Jerusalem and the standard of St Mark floated over the captured city. Venice had planted her foot in Syria. The fleet turned westward, but its work was not yet done. Johannes had expelled the Venetian traders from the ports of the Empire, and the Greeks were to be taught another lesson. The course of the avengers through the eastern seas was marked by the ravaged cities of the Greek islands spoiled of their wealth and bewailing their captive sons and daughters. The Doge paused in his work to recover the Dalmatian fiefs from the King of Hungary, and cities reduced to heaps of smouldering ruins bore witness to the power of Venice to vindicate her sovereignty. Reinforced from Dalmatia the victorious fleet turned again on the Greeks, who hastened to make peace and agreed to the Doge’s terms. Great was the rejoicing in Venice when the triumphant Doge returned bringing the bodies of St Isidore from Chios and of S. Donato from Cephalonia, and such spoil of Eastern magnificence as had never yet been seen there since she rose from the sea. But before we follow him to his retreat and death in the Monastery of S. Giorgio Maggiore, where to this day may be seen a partially obliterated epitaph to the “Terror of the Greeks and the Glory of Venice,” we may record one domestic innovation worthy of grateful remembrance. Few things are more charming to the wayfarer in Venice than the little shrines of the Virgin and Child decked with flowers and lighted by night with an oil lamp in the nooks and corners of the city. Though no longer needed for their original purpose of illuminating the ways, they are still tended by the piety of the people. It was to Michieli that this provision was due. To aid the watchmen in ridding the dark and tortuous lanes of the thieves that infested them, and to light the city, the clergy were ordered to provide for the public safety by erecting and maintaining the shrines, and were empowered to levy a rate to meet the cost.
From the retirement of Dom. Michieli to the election of Vitale Michieli II. in 1156, two Doges, Pietro Polani and Dom. Morosini, presided over the growth of the lagoon state. In spite of troubles with the Adriatic pirates, the Hungarians in Dalmatia and the Paduans, new markets for Venetian commerce were won by the familiar process of squeezing the rival Cæsars of East and West. It was a time of building. The Campanile was finished, many churches were erected, and a hospital was founded for the mothers and widows of seamen fallen in the service of the state.
Political theories that no longer correspond to realities are dangerous in proportion to the character and genius of those whose imagination they seize upon. Actually the Roman Empire had fallen to pieces, but so faithfully had the Romans wrought that it was regarded even by the northern invaders as an integral part of civilisation. The Church accepted and sanctified it, and the Holy Roman Empire continued to exist in theory until the wit of Voltaire and the big battalions of Napoleon destroyed the sham for ever. In the poetic mind of Dante, with his passionate aspiration for peace and righteousness, it became a beautiful but ineffectual ideal of a kingship over kings; an Emperor curbing the warring factions and states of Christendom and coercing such as threatened to break the common peace, so that the golden days of the Pax Romana might be seen of men again. But the times were making for nationality and not for empire, and the attempts of the great emperors to realise their theoretical power were foredoomed to failure.
