In 1265 the banner of the Cross was again raised in Venice, this time against an Italian prince, Eccelino da Romano, the black-browed monster of Padua, who for his infamous cruelty was immersed by Dante up to his eyes among the tyrants in the river of boiling blood. A platform was erected in the Piazza, from which the papal legate, the Archbishop of Ravenna, inveighed against the atrocities committed by the serverissimo tiranno whom the Pope had excommunicated, declaring that if he were permitted to live longer it would be to the shame of Christendom. The Doge made an oration in support of the crusade, and Venice joined the league against the tyrant. Eventually Padua was stormed and captured, Eccelino’s victims released, himself in a later engagement mortally wounded by a bowshot. He fell, asking the name of the place where he was struck. “Sire,” replied his attendant, “it is called Cassano.” An astrologer had foretold that he should die at Bassano. “Bassano, Cassano,” the dying lord was heard to mutter, “small difference is there between Bassano and Cassano.” He plucked the arrow from the wound, thrust aside a friar who sought to confess him and died impenitent. Never was such joy in Italy, says Da Canale, as when the news came that the tyrant, more cruel than Pharaoh or Herod, was slain. The bells were rung all over Venice in praise of God, even as they do on saints’ days. In the evening all the towers were illuminated with candles and torches so that it was a great marvel to see. The same annalist, writing of Venice with all the enthusiasm of an Elizabethan singing the praises of England, gives a vivid picture of his native city as it appeared towards the end of the thirteenth century. “In the year of the Incarnation of our Lord 1267, I, Martin da Canale, toiled and travailed so that I found the ancient story of the Venetians and how they made the fairest, noblest and pleasantest city in the world, filled with all beauty and excellency. And I have set me to translate this story for the honour of that city men call Vinegia from Latin into French, for that language hath course throughout the whole world and is more delightful to read and to hear than any other. For I would have all men to know, who may travel thither, how the noble city is built; how filled with all good things and how mighty is the lord of the Venetians, the most noble Doge; how powerful are her nobles; how full of prowess her people and how all are perfect in the faith of Jesus and to Holy Church obedient, for within that noble Venice neither heretic, nor usurer, nor murderer, nor thief, nor robber dares dwell. And I pray Jesus Christ and His sweet mother, St Mary, and Monsignor St Mark, the Evangelist (in whom after Jesus Christ we have put our trust), that they may grant health and long life to Monsignor the Doge and to the Venetians. From all places come merchants and merchandise, and goods run through that city even as waters do from fountains. Provisions in abundance men find there, and bread and wine and land-fowl and water-fowl, meat, fresh and salt, and great fish from the sea and from the rivers. You shall find within that fair city a multitude of old men and youths, who, for their nobleness, are much praised; merchants, and bankers, and craftsmen, and sailors of all kinds, and ships to carry to all places, and great galleys to the hurt of her enemies. There, too, are fair ladies, youths and maidens adorned most richly.” The chronicler describes the Piazza much as we see it in Gentile Bellini’s picture (p. [262]). “St Mark’s is the most beautiful square in the world. Towards the east is the fairest church in the whole world, the Church of Monsignor St Mark, and next is the palace of Monsignor the Doge, great and most marvellously beautiful. Towards the south is the end of the Piazza over the sea, and on the side of that Piazza (the Piazzetta) is the palace of Monsignor the Doge, and on the other side are palaces to house the commoners, and these hold as far as the Campanile of St Mark, which is so great and high that the like could not be found. And there, next the Campanile, is a hospital which Madonna the Dogaressa has built to receive the sick, and men call it the Hospital of St Mark. Next are the palaces of the treasurers, whom the Venetians call the procurators of St Mark, and next to their mansions are the palaces to lodge nobles, and these houses go far along the Piazza up to a church (S. Geminiano). On the other side (N.) are noble buildings for high barons and gentlemen, and these reach as far as the church of St Mark.”
The firm hand kept by the aristocracy on civil government was felt during Zeno’s reign. The Genoese were too high-spirited to submit to terms while under the shame of defeat and a new naval war was imminent. To meet the cost the corn tax was increased and a bread riot took place on the Piazza. The Doge tried in vain to reason with the mob, and at last was driven to resort to force. Troops were levied; the sedition was crushed; the ringleaders were beheaded between the red columns. But when order was restored the obnoxious tax was quietly withdrawn. The Government was severe to aristocratic brawlers. Two of the Dandolo family sided with the people, and Lorenzo Tiepolo, son of Doge Giacomo, headed the Government party. The rival leaders met in the streets and Tiepolo was assaulted. The Dandoli were at once heavily fined and a law was passed forbidding the people to have the escutcheons of any nobles painted on their houses or to wear any of their emblems. The Doge died in 1268 and was honoured with a sumptuous State funeral in S. Zanipolo.
Before the election of a successor the most complicated machinery ever devised by the wit of man for the election of a chief magistrate was elaborated by the Venetian aristocracy.
The youngest of the Privy Councillors having invoked the divine blessing in St Mark’s, issued forth and laid hands on the first boy he met on the Piazza. Meantime the Great Council met and having excluded all members who were under thirty years of age, those that remained were counted. Ballots equal in number to the purged Council were then prepared, into thirty of which was inserted a piece of parchment inscribed with the word “lector.” The ballots[24] were placed in a hat; the captured boy was introduced and bidden to draw out the ballots and hand one to each Councillor. The ballots were then opened and the thirty who held the parchment stayed in the chamber; the others left. The thirty reduced themselves to nine by the same process; which nine sat in close conclave until they had chosen forty, each by a majority of at least seven votes. These forty were reduced by lot to twelve. The twelve elected twenty-five, each by a majority of at least nine votes. The twenty-five were again reduced to nine, who chose forty-five, each by at least seven votes. The forty-five reduced themselves to eleven who made the final choice of forty-one by at least nine votes each. The electoral college of forty-one thus formed, having heard the Mass of the Holy Ghost, met and chose three presidents and two secretaries. Each elector in turn placed the name of his candidate in an urn. The secretaries unfolded the papers and read out the names. The papers were again folded and placed in the urn and one was extracted. If the candidate thus selected were in the room, he was ordered to withdraw, and each elector invited to state his objections to him. The candidate was then called in to refute any charges made against him, and a last vote was taken for or against the candidate. If he obtained twenty-five ballots he was declared Doge. The election was proclaimed, and a deputation led the Doge-elect to the Ducal Palace, and then by the ducal staircase to St Mark’s. He ascended the marble pulpit to the left of the choir and showed himself to the people. Having heard mass, he swore fealty to the State and to observe its laws. The Primicerio then solemnly invested him with the ducal mantle and handed him the standard of the Republic. He was then chaired and made the usual tour of the Piazza, distributing largess to the people. Afterwards he ascended the great staircase (after the Giants’ Staircase was built he stood between the statues of Mars and Neptune), where the oldest Councillor placed the ducal cap on his head. A banquet given by the Doge to the electors completed the ceremony.
Such, with slight modifications, was the machinery by which the Doges were elected until the fall of the Republic. The ceremony over, public festivities followed. By Da Canale’s vivid description of the rejoicings that attended the election of Lorenzo Tiepolo in 1268 we are able to gain some idea of what they were like. “On the day of S. Apollinare was such great joy in Venice that the mouth of man could not tell of it. For the Venetians had remembrance of Messer Jacopo Tiepolo, father of Lorenzo, how noble and debonnair, how famous for good deeds he was, and great were their hopes of Messer Lorenzo.” Soon as the good news was known the bells rang a glad peal, and all the people, even the little children, ran to St Mark’s shouting, “Messer Lorenzo Tiepolo is made Doge!” After mass and consecration he was given the gonfalon of St Mark all of gold. Having ascended the palace stairs he stood, gonfalon in hand, while the lauds[25] were sung, and again swore fealty to the people and spake wisely to them. Meanwhile his chaplains went to S. Agostino to fetch the Dogaressa, and to her also were praises sung. On the morrow, having made a public reconciliation with the Dandoli, a naval review was held on the Grand Canal in front of the Ducal Palace, led by Pietro Michiel, who with a great fleet of galleys was about to sail overseas. Choirs were aboard who sang the ducal lauds. The waters were alive with boats of all kinds, those of Torcello and Murano adorned with banners and shields distinguishing themselves by their splendour. A grand procession of Guilds next defiled before the Doge. First came the master smiths, two by two, each wearing a garland, accompanied by their trumpeters and other musicians and by their standard-bearers. As they came in front of the Doge they saluted him and wished him long life and victory. His serenity returned a gracious answer, and they then went their way shouting, “Viva nostro Signor Messer Lorenzo Tiepolo,” to S. Agostino, to salute the Dogaressa. Then followed the furriers, dressed in ermine, calimanco and taffeta; the tanners, richly clothed in rare furs and bearing silver cups and phials filled with wine; the weavers, clad in finest cloth; the tailors, magnificently arrayed in white garments, adorned with vermilion stars and trimmed with furs, “and the great joy they made must be truly told, for they set their gonfalon in front, with trumpets and instruments of music, and gave themselves up to great gladness, singing canzoni and folk-songs; and having in their turn saluted their new lord right well, went their way to Madame the Dogaressa rejoicing exceedingly.” The wool-workers bore olive branches in their hands and garlands of olive on their heads—they, too, were filled with great joy. The silk-weavers, “they that make pellisses right richly,” decked their bodies all anew with coats and mantles of fustian. The makers of quilts and doublets, to honour their lord, arrayed themselves newly with cloaks of white, trimmed with fleur-de-lys, and each cloak had a hood richly dight with pearls set in gold; little children marched in front of them. The makers of cloth of gold were apparelled in cloth of purple and of gold, with crowns of pearls set in gold; the shoemakers and mercers in fine silk and cloth of gold; the cheesemongers and pork butchers in cloth of scarlet and purple and divers colours, wearing garlands of pearls and gold; the fishmongers and poulterers followed, “and know, sirs, that right well should Messer Lorenzo Tiepolo have them that sold fish in remembrance as they passed, for many a fair trout and sturgeon and other great fish had he obtained from them.” The glass-makers bore some of the finest of their wares in their group, and the comb-makers a cage full of birds of all kinds, and as they passed, opened the door and set the birds free to delight the Doge. And “there, sirs, you would have heard great laughter on all sides.” But the barber surgeons were they that most distinguished themselves by their ingenuity. They had with them two men on horseback armed cap-à-pie, called knights-errant, who escorted four damsels, most gorgeously apparelled, two on fair steeds and two on foot. On reaching the Doge one of the horsemen dismounted and making obeisance, cried: “Sire, we be two knights-errant who rode to seek adventure, and enduring pains and travail have won these fair damsels. Now are we come to your Court, and if there be any knight who is minded to prove his body and win these strange damsels we are ready to defend them.” “Sirs,” answered the Doge, “ye are welcome, and may the Lord let you rejoice in your conquest, for I will that ye be honoured at my Court.” The knight then remounted his steed and all cried, “Long live our lord, Messer Lorenzo Tiepolo,” and went their way to repeat the play before the Dogaressa.
How many were the Guilds that took part in the procession we know not for Da Canale stays his narrative to tell of the Genoese wars, after describing the goldsmiths wearing on their caps and cloaks, pearls and gold and silver, sapphires, emeralds, jacinths, amethysts, jaspers and carbuncles and other precious stones. After the procession an exhibition was held in the palace, of all the arts of Venice, in honour of the Dogaressa.
Scarcely had the echoes of the music and shouting in the Piazza died away when the gaunt spectre of famine hovered over Venice. The wheat harvest had failed in Europe, the Crusaders had devastated Africa, and she appealed to her allies on the mainland for help. A strong state ever fighting for its own hand may win the respect born of fear, but sympathy, never. The entreaties of Venice fell on deaf ears. Strenuous efforts were made to collect cargoes of corn from Dalmatia, Greece and even Asia. In the nick of time a small consignment came in from Dalmatia and was immediately distributed with absolute impartiality among the people. When the pressure was relieved, a corn office, consisting of three magistrati delle Biade, was created to control the corn trade and take measures to prevent any future possibility of famine. The bas-relief in the Ducal Palace, now known as the Cobden Madonna (p. 253), commemorates the wise means adopted by these magistrates in a time of scarcity two centuries later.
The coronation oath sworn to by Tiepolo was made even more stringent on the accession of Jacopo Contarini in 1275. The Doge was fast becoming little more than the official mouthpiece of the aristocracy. A clause binding the Doge to keep himself informed of the number of prisoners in the cells at the Ducal Palace and to see that each and every prisoner should be brought to trial within a month of his incarceration, demonstrates how careful the aristocracy were to justify power by wise principles of government. Contarini was an old man of eighty when he accepted office, and after six years retired on an annuity of 1500 lire, the first pension ever granted to a Doge. The steady pursuance of commercial aggrandisement brought Venice in the previous reign into conflict with Bologna. Duties were levied on all ships trading in the ports between Ravenna and Fiume, and a captain of the Gulf of Adria appointed to exact them by force of arms. It was only too apparent that Venice aimed at making the whole Adriatic a Venetian sea, and in 1283 the territories of the Republic in Dalmatia were menaced by a formidable coalition of Aquileia, Ancona, and the Count of Goritz.
The Republic replied by laying siege to Trieste. During the armistice granted by Morosini, the Venetian commander, to enable the Patriarch of Aquileia to bury his nephew, fallen in battle, a certain Contestabile of Infantry, Gerard of the Long Lances, was found to have corresponded with the enemy by means of slips of paper attached to his arrows. He confessed under torture and was shot from a mangonel into the enemy’s camp, a mangled mass of treachery. The siege was, however, a failure, and Morosini on his return was disgraced and imprisoned. The victorious allies marched on Caorle, captured the podestà and burned his palace: they even singed the very mane of the Lion of St Mark by a descent on Malamocco. The executive, endowed with unlimited powers, made a levy en masse on the whole able-bodied population, another armament was fitted out and at length Trieste fell. The Pope, anxious to buttress the tottering fabric of the Latin dominion in the East, effected a peace, and a huge bonfire in the Piazza made of the surrendered Triestine artillery satisfied Venetian pride, though her attempt to dominate the Adriatic was but partially successful.