Doria had sailed into the gulph, burning Umago, Grado and Caorle. He turned towards the lidi, devastated Pelestrina, captured and utterly destroyed Chioggia minore, and prepared to attack Chioggia maggiore. On the mainland, the Hungarians had occupied important Venetian possessions; Treviso was besieged; Carrara, by strenuous engineering, had joined hands with his ally, and given Genoa a base on the mainland. On the 16th of August a general assault was made on Chioggia. The garrison fought bravely: Emo, their commander, with a handful of men resisted to the last. But he, too, was at length overpowered, and the banners of Genoa, Hungary and Padua floated over Chioggia. It was about midnight when the calamitous news reached St Mark’s. The great bell was tolled, and under the gloom of the disaster it was decided to open negotiations with the enemy. But the offer of the Signory was haughtily rejected. “Ye shall have no peace,” answered Doria, “until I have bridled S. Mark’s horses.” Venice prepared for a death-grapple with her adversary. The common peril evoked a noble enthusiasm. Patrician offered to share the last crust with plebeian and fight shoulder to shoulder in defence of the fatherland. After an unsuccessful attempt to secure the services of Sir John Hawkwood, prince of condottieri, as Captain-General, the post was given to Taddeo Giustiniani. But the people, with finer insight, shouted for Vettor Pisani, under him alone would they fight. The Senate gave way. A great multitude welcomed his release from prison, and bore him in triumph to St Mark’s, crying, “Viva Messer Vettor Pisani.” But their hero rebuked them, and bade them keep silence or shout, “Viva Messer S. Marco.” They only cried the more loudly, “Long live Vettor Pisani and St Mark! Long live Vettor Pisani our father.” As he was borne along, his veteran pilot, Corbaro, shouted, “Now is the time to avenge thee, make thyself dictator.” The answer was a blow from Pisani’s clenched fist. From St Mark’s to his house in S. Fantino, so great was the press of people that there was no place on the ground for a grain of millet seed. He reached home to find that his brother was dead, that his father, too, had gone to an obscure grave. On the morrow he went to the basilica to pray for divine aid, and after his devotions stood by the high altar, and made a bellisima sermone in the vulgar tongue to the people. With cries of “Galleys! galleys! arms! arms!” they streamed out to the Piazza. So great, however, was the disappointment when it became known that Pisani was to share the command with Giustiniani that the seamen refused to serve, and the Senate again gave way. The people’s leader being assured them, enthusiasm knew no bounds. Everyone able to bear arms enrolled himself. A forced loan produced the magnificent sum of more than six and a quarter millions of lire. Gold and silver, jewels and precious stones were cast into the treasury; citizens stripped themselves even of the clasps of their garments. The Signory decreed the ennoblement after the peace of thirty families who should have contributed most in men and treasure to the State. Foreigners were offered citizenship. The Doge himself, seventy-two years and all, reared his gonfalon of gold in the Piazza and decided to lead the armament. A new fleet was equipped: the fortifications strengthened. Meanwhile Doria planned to winter in Chioggia, and Pisani with daring and masterly resource determined to take the offensive and imprison the Genoese in the harbour. On the night of December the 21st, the Venetian fleet left its moorings, towing behind it great hulks filled with stones. Before dawn it had reached the channel of Chioggia. Five thousand men were disembarked on the tongue of land at Brondolo. They were soon attacked and forced by the Genoese to regain their ships. But the diversion had enabled Pisani to sink two of his hulks across the passage, and soon an insuperable barrier blocked the issue. Swiftly he turned under the very jaws of the Genoese cannon and succeeded in holding the enemy while his sappers dammed the channel of Brondolo. With equal skill and bravery the canal of Lombardy was choked, and Carrara cut off from his ally. In a few days every issue from Chioggia was barred, and Pisani hastened out to sea by the Porto di Lido to deal with any reinforcements that might be sent to raise the blockade. Slowly the dark, cold December days dragged on: the strenuous fighting, privation and hunger broke down the spirits of the Venetians. Some there were who murmured, saying, “rather than die here let us abandon Venice and migrate to Crete.” But the Doge met them, drew his sword and swore that though on the verge of eighty he would die sooner than return defeated to St Mark’s. The end of the year was at hand, a mutiny threatened, the Doge again appealed to them, and promised that if on January 1st Zeno had not been sighted, the blockade of Chioggia should be raised. On the morning of New Year’s day anxious eyes scanned the seas. At length a watcher on St Mark’s tower raised a cry. Fifteen sail were on the horizon. Was it invincible Zeno bringing salvation to Venice, or Genoese reinforcements bearing her doom? Some light, swift vessels were sent to reconnoitre. As they neared the squadron St Mark’s banner was run up on the foremost galley. The darkest hour had passed.
For six months after Zeno’s arrival the Genoese held out, but there was never any doubt as to the ultimate result, and on June the 24th the Lion of St Mark again waved from the Tower of Chioggia.
Two Genoese fleets were, however, still at large. Pisani was sent to run them down and died of fever and wounds at Manfredonia.[41] Zeno took up the chase, but the Genoese successfully eluded their pursuers. It was the end of Genoa as a great maritime power. Even as Spain did in her struggle with England two centuries later, Genoa had entered on a contest which tried the nation beyond its powers. Hostilities on the mainland continued till, by the mediation of the House of Savoy, a congress met at Turin and a general treaty of peace was signed in August 1381. For three years no merchant ship had left Venice, yet she emerged from the contest stronger than ever, the acknowledged mistress of the seas.
In September 1381 the Great Council met to elect the thirty contributors to the success of the war, who were to be ennobled. The balloting lasted all day and great part of the night, and on the morrow the names were cried at the edict stones of the Rialto and St Mark’s. Those thus honoured went each bearing a lighted taper in solemn procession to St Mark’s, and the ceremony ended in popular rejoicings.
CHAPTER IX
Aggression on the Mainland—Arrest and Execution of Carmagnola—The Two Foscari
“Are these thy boasts—
To mix with kings in the low lust of sway,
Yell in the hunt and share the murderous prey.”
—Coleridge.
IN June of the next year the venerable and faithful Doge Andrea Contarini was laid to rest in the cloister of S. Stefano, and Michele Morosini was elected in his stead. Morosini was one who in the gloomiest time of the Chioggian war had given an inestimable pledge of his faith in the Republic by buying some house property belonging to the commune for 25,000 ducats, and when rallied by his friends for his folly, replied,[42] “If ill befall the land, I have no desire for fortune.”
Plague carried off Morosini in less than a year, and in October 1382 Antonio Venier became Doge. Peace was a brief sojourner in Italy. A long period of war and diplomacy with the despots of North Italy opens, in which Venice is now the ally and now the foe of Carrara or Visconti. Bribery, treachery and violence were among the weapons used on either side. More than once the Senate and the Ten connived at attempts to poison their country’s enemies. It was the time of the great Condottieri. Patriotism was an affair of the highest bidder. Martial courage and science were sold for a price. No gold, no army. Turk or Christian, English or German, Italian or French, all were welcome who would sell a strong arm and professional skill. English soldiers were much in demand. “Let us have as many English as possible and as few Germans and Italians.” “It would be well for the Paduan contingent to be furnished with the English company, for a thousand lances of theirs are worth more than 500,000 of others.” Such were the instructions of the Signory to their commanders.
In 1387, by a secret treaty, Galeozzo Visconti of Milan and the Carraras of Padua agreed to partition the Scala dominions between them. Visconti was to have Verona: the Carraras, Vicenza. The feeble descendant of Can Grande, Dante’s “magnifico atque victorioso domino” became a Venetian pensioner until poison did Visconti’s work in Friuli, and the widowed and orphaned family of the lord of Verona was reduced to beggary.[43] Before, however, the Carraras had realised what had happened, Visconti had stealthily seized Vicenza. They weakly appealed to Venice for support. But the wounds left by the Chioggian war were not yet healed, and the Signory lent a more willing ear to Visconti, who offered the bitter-sweet morsel of revenge and a tempting prize. Treviso became Venetian once more and territory commanding two passes into North Europe was ceded to the Republic. She averted her eyes while Visconti grabbed Padua. Lord of a wide domain, he now turned his lustful regard on Florence. Venice, alarmed at the monster she had fostered, swung round and helped the Carraras to regain Padua. But in 1402, when the aim of his life seemed near achievement, death struck Visconti down and his dominions became a prey to his generals and his enemies. The Carraras joined in the scramble and attacked Vicenza. Visconti’s widow appealed to Venice for help. The deal was a hard one: Verona and Vicenza were the price of a Venetian alliance. The Carraras, summoned to raise the siege of Vicenza, stood defiant. When their herald reached the edict stone at St Mark’s to deliver the formal challenge, he would have been stoned to death on the Piazza by the boys and populace, if some nobles who happened to be passing had not shielded him; for a story had reached Venice that when the trumpeter of the Republic arrived at the Paduan camp before Vicenza he was seized by order of Jacopo Carrara, his ears and nose cut off, and himself dismissed with the brutal jibe: “Now I have made thee a S. Marco.”