The sleepless eyes of Venetian statesmen were now turned southwards. Constance of Swabia, unhappy Manfred’s
“bella figlia, genitrice
dell’ onor di Cicilia e d’ Aragona,”[26]
by her marriage brought the strong arm of Peter of Aragon to enforce her claims to the throne of the Two Sicilies, which the Pope’s darling, Charles of Anjou, had won by the defeat of Manfred and the destruction of the Ghibelline cause at Benevento.
The Republic, still smarting under the commercial condominium of the Genoese at Constantinople, and enticed by the prospect of regaining her former ascendency, was drawn into an offensive and defensive alliance with the Pope and Charles against the Greeks. But on Easter Eve, in 1282, an insult offered to a noble Sicilian damsel by a French soldier fired the rage of the Sicilians, and before the dawn of Easter Day the blood of eight thousand French in Palermo alone had glutted their vengeance. The Sicilian Vespers wrecked Charles’s fortunes, and the Republic turned to renew her former understanding with the Greek Emperor. Martin IV., enraged at the defection of his ally, laid Venice under the ban of the Church, but his opportune death soon made reconciliation possible.
Visitors to Venice may have noticed a traditional motto written in brass nails on some of the gondolas that ply for hire which admirably sums up the old popular Venetian idea of government: Pane in Piazza: Giustizia in Palazzo (Bread in the market-place: Justice in the palace). This principle always inspired the rule of the aristocracy. In 1284, during Giovanni Dandolo’s reign, a calamitous inundation had plunged the people into misery. To meet their urgent needs a loan was raised on Government security, and ten thousand bushels of wheat were distributed at a nominal cost among the people.
In October of the same year the mint issued the first gold ducat of Venice, which for centuries was famous for its purity, fineness and weight throughout the whole commercial world. Orders were given that it was to be similar to and even purer than the golden florin of Florence, which had been coined thirty-two years before. Sanudo remembers to have seen an inscription on marble in the mint, dated 1285, commemorating the first striking of the gold ducat of the Venetians in honour of the Blessed Mark the Evangelist and of all saints, in the reign of the renowned Doge of the Venetians, Giovanni Dandolo. This beautiful zecchino (sequin) was worth about nine shillings and sixpence in English money, and admirably illustrates the dress of the Doges during a period of five hundred and thirteen years. The evolution of the corno or horn on the ducal bonnet may be clearly traced on the coins issued between the reigns of Francesco Foscari and Leonardo Loredano.
The sepulchre had hardly received the body of Giovanni Dandolo in 1289 when a formidable demonstration in favour of Giacomo, son of Doge Lorenzo Tiepolo, put the new constitution to a severe test. Giacomo, son and grandson of Doges, was known to have popular leanings, and so threatening was the attitude of the crowd on the Piazza that the Privy Council personally urged him to disclaim any intention of accepting the proffered honour.
Tiepolo, preferring his country’s peace to the gratification of his own ambition, exhorted the crowd to respect the law, and left for the mainland till the crisis should be past. But the delicate electoral machinery was never for a moment put out of gear. The provisional Government was appointed; through all the tumult the electors calmly rattled their ballots in the Ducal Palace, and to the sullen displeasure of the popular party a prominent aristocrat, Pietro Gradenigo, was proclaimed Doge twenty-three days after the death of his predecessor. For the first time the officer who recited the formula: Quest’è il vostro doge si vi piacerà, turned aside without staying to receive the approbation of the people.
The long reign of Gradenigo (1289-1311) is one of the most important in the annals of Venice. By the fall of Acre in 1291 the doom of the Christian power in the Holy Land was sealed, and Venice, whose interest in the Crusades and in the Latin dominion over Syria was frankly a commercial one, turned the new situation to her own advantage. Her policy was to frustrate her rivals, the Genoese. To the scandal of Christendom a treaty was concluded with the infidel in 1299, and ere long slaves and materials of war were openly sold by the Venetians in their ports. The Sultan declared in the charter his steadfast will that the Venetians should be protected and honoured beyond all people in the world, and entitled to the sole right of a Saracen escort for Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem. The Genoese found themselves squeezed out of the coast towns, and Venice in exclusive possession of the Syrian trade.