Venice and Its Story

by Thomas Okey

For a few years all went well. By a clever exploitation of dynastic trouble the Signory was able to acquire the long coveted island of Cyprus. On the death of King John II., Carlotta, the rightful heiress and wife of Louis of Savoy, banished her father’s bastard son James and seated herself on the throne. By the help of the Sultan of Egypt James was able before a year was past to lead a revolt, expel the Queen and her consort from the island and seize the crown. He made friends with the Venetians and to ensure their goodwill desired the Signory to bestow on him the hand of a Venetian maiden of noble birth. Caterina, daughter of Marco Cornaro, who with two other patrician houses held the greater part of the island in mortgage, was chosen and given a dowry valued at 100,000 ducats. The espousals were quickly celebrated with great pomp, the Doge himself presenting a consecrated ring to James’ proxy, the Cypriote ambassador, who placed it on Caterina’s finger in the name of the King of Cyprus. The little maid was but fourteen years of age and went from the splendour of the ducal palace to her usual life at home, while James was affirming his authority in the island.

During the same year (1468) the Senate learnt that Ferdinand of Naples was intriguing to draw James into an alliance with his own family. Stern words were used to the King and at length in October 1469 Venice was able to proclaim that she had taken the King and the island of Cyprus under her protection. In the summer of 1472, escorted by a fleet of four galleys, Caterina sailed to make a royal entry into Cyprus, but in a few months her joy was changed to mourning. James died, leaving her with child. The Senate aware that Carlotta was busy with the Italian powers and the Sultan, despatched their Captain-General, Pietro Mocenigo, to protect Caterina and to fortify and garrison the chief stations on the island. Before he arrived, the partizans of Carlotta burst into the palace, slew Caterina’s physician before her eyes and cut in pieces her uncle Andrea and her cousin Bembo who were hasting to her aid. Mocenigo on his arrival quelled the insurrection and hanged the ringleaders. Two Venetian Councillors and a Civil Commissioner were sent to watch events. A prince was born but died in a few months. Fearing a reversion of power to the former dynasty, James’ mother, sister and bastard sons were deported to Venice and Marco Cornaro was despatched with instructions to comfort his daughter, to maintain the allegiance of the Cypriotes and to declare the absolute will of the Republic that no change should take place in the order of things. An emissary of Ferdinand, Rizzo di Mario, was caught plotting at Alexandria, sent to Venice and condemned to death by the Ten. The Sultan, who had known him as the ambassador of Naples, threatened the Republic with his displeasure if the sentence were carried out. The Ten had Rizzo strangled in prison and informed the Sultan that he had poisoned himself. The Signory now determined to force Caterina’s hand. Subtly but firmly the two Councillors and the Commissioner usurped more and more power, and poor Caterina’s position was made intolerable. She wrote pitiful letters to the Doge complaining of the insults and petty persecutions suffered by herself and her father; scuffles took place on the very stairs of the palace. In October 1488 her brother Giorgio was sent by the Ten to persuade her to abdicate, while Captain-General Diedo was instructed to haste to Cyprus and “by wise, circumspect, cautious and secure means to get the Queen on board a galley and bring her here to us at Venice.” To persuasions and threats Caterina at last yielded. The banner of St Mark floated over Cyprus and an envoy assured the Sultan of Egypt of the sympathy of the new government which was the “consequence of the full and free determination of our most serene and most beloved daughter Caterina Cornaro.” The deposed Queen received a pompous welcome at Venice; made a solemn renunciation and a formal donation of Cyprus to the Republic in St Mark’s; and went to live in petty state at the little township of Asolo which was given to her by the Republic. There, the centre of a literary circle, she passed many years of her life in works of charity, until the storm of the league of Cambrai drove her for shelter to Venice where she died, universally mourned, in 1509. To the end she signed herself Queen of Cyprus, Jerusalem and Armenia, and Signora of Asolo.

During the closing years of the fifteenth century the mercantile supremacy of Venice, already threatened by the Ottoman conquests, was doomed by two momentous geographical discoveries. The voyages of Columbus and of Diaz were to change the face of Europe from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, and to shift the commercial centre of the world from Venice to the Spanish peninsula and ultimately to England. The former event excited curiosity in Venice, but not alarm. The Secretary of the Venetian Embassy in Spain, with the alertness of his class, won the confidence of Columbus, and finding him short of money, was able to secure a chart of his discoveries and a copy of a long treatise on the voyage which he caused to be translated and sent to the Signory. Far otherwise was the effect of the latter event, by which the ancient trade routes to the East were to be superseded by the ocean route to India. Priuli gives a graphic story of the consternation which seized the citizens, when, in the early sixteenth century, the report was verified that Vasco da Gama with a Portuguese fleet had reached Calcutta by rounding the Cape of Good Hope, and had returned to Lisbon with a cargo of spices. The wiser heads at once saw the gravity of the news. Owing to the heavy dues exacted by the sultans and princes the cost of a parcel of spices was increased from one ducat to sixty or a hundred by the time it reached Venice. The Portuguese, carrying by sea, would escape the levies and undersell the Venetian merchants in the markets of Europe. Their large and profitable trade from the East would be captured. Leonardo da Ca’ Masser disguised as a merchant was sent to Lisbon to get information. An attempt was made to throttle the nascent commerce by working on the fears of the Sultan of Egypt. Envoys were sent to warn him of the danger to his revenue if the Portuguese were allowed to succeed, and to urge him to ally himself with the Indian princes, and give military aid if necessary, to destroy their trade. But the efforts of Venice availed nothing, for they were directed against the very course of the world’s evolution.

The flourishing Eastern trade began to wither, but events seemed to offer opportunity of compensation by permitting a forward policy on the mainland. Venice had opened the gates of Italy to the French king, and it was not long before Charles VIII. marched in with an army such as had never before been seen in the peninsula to achieve his designs on the kingdom of Naples. From his camp at Asti came to Venice Philippe de Comines as an envoy seeking alliance with the Republic. The French diplomatist in his memoirs has left us a charming description of Venice as it appeared in 1494.

As he approached the city he marvelled at the innumerable towers and monasteries, the fair churches, the great mansions and fine gardens all founded in the sea. Twenty-five nobles, well and richly clad in fine silk and scarlet cloth, bade him welcome and conducted him to a boat, large enough to seat forty persons, covered with satin cramoisy and richly carpeted. He was prayed to take his seat between the ambassadors of Milan and Ferrara. “I was taken,” he writes, “along the grande rue, which they call the Grand Canal, and it is very broad. Galleys cross it, and I have seen great ships of four hundred tons and more near the houses, and it is the fairest street I believe that may be in the whole world, and fitted with the best houses, and it goes the whole length of the said city. The mansions are very large and high and of good stone; the ancient ones all painted. Others, made a hundred years ago, are faced with white marble, and yet have many a great piece of porphyry and serpentine on the front. Inside they have chambers with gilded ceilings and rich chimney-pieces of carved marble, gilded bedsteads of wood, and are well furnished. It is the most triumphant city I have ever seen and that doeth most honour to ambassadors and to strangers, and that most wisely doth govern itself, and where the service of God is most solemnly done: and though they may have many faults I believe that God hath them in remembrance for the reverence they bear to the service of His Church.” De Comines found the Doge (Agostino Barbarigo) an amiable, wise and gentle prince, experienced in Italian politics, and after a stay of eight months, left with his mission unfulfilled. The Most Christian King, if we may believe the Venetian ambassador Contarini, lacked many inches of regal majesty. He was short in stature, ill-formed, had an ugly face, prominent white eyes, a big, coarse, aquiline nose, thick lips always open, and a nervous twitching of the hands very unpleasant to see. He was slow in expressing himself and dull-witted. Nor was Anne of Brittany, the Queen, portrayed less rudely. She, says the ungallant diplomatist, was short, bony and lame, with a rather pretty face. She was only seventeen, but most astute for her age, inordinately jealous of the King’s majesty, and always succeeded in getting her way by the use of smiles or tears. The Cristianissimo marched triumphantly through the length of Italy to realise his dream of winning Naples, and then overthrowing the Mussulman power in the East. Florence, Rome, Naples were successively occupied; the balance of Italian politics was disastrously overthrown, and the unhappy land soon became a cockpit where the rival ambitions of France and Spain were fought out. Milan and Venice had each thought to use the Transalpine Powers for her own ends; they both became their prey. Charles had himself crowned King of Naples, Emperor of the East, and King of Jerusalem, but soon discovered that to conquer was easier than to hold. The rival powers began to league themselves against him, and in the bewildering moves on the political chess-board Venice and Milan came into line. In March 1495 the Signory assured De Comines that his master should have a free passage for the return of his army through Italy; in July of the same year she concerted with Milan, and fell upon the French at Fornovo di Taro, as they were toiling down the Cisa Pass to Parma. The French were severely punished, and in the fighting the King himself narrowly escaped capture. How the news was received at Venice, a letter dated July 9, 1495, and transcribed by Malipiero, gives a vivid picture. “I arose early and went my usual way to St Mark’s,” says Nicolo Lippomano, “when I saw a great fury of people running to the Piazza, crying—‘Marco! Marco!’ I asked the cause and was told the French camp had been routed. I arrived at the corner of St Mark’s, where the elders are wont to meet, and found them all glad and many shed tears for joy. I went to Rialto and found everybody talking of the victory, and one kissed the other for very gladness. In a trice all the banks and shops were closed. Boys with flags began to run about the streets shouting of the victory and sacking the fruit-sellers’ shops on the way. On the Rialto they met eight Savoyards whom they pelted with eggs, lemon peel and turnips, and otherwise ill-treated. All the people shouted—‘To Ferrara! to Ferrara!’ All my days I never saw the city in greater uproar. To God be the praise.”

The spot is still shown where, in 1498, Charles broke his foolish head against a beam in a dark passage of the castle at Amboise. His successor, Louis XII., to the ill-hap of Italy, united in his person the claims both of the Orleans princes to Milan and of the French kings to Naples. Ludovico Sforza, fearing for his duchy, approached the Signory, but, to his disgust, learned that Venice had already secretly agreed to aid Louis in his designs on Milan, in return for Cremona and other cities and lands on the east of the Adda. Sforza, to revenge himself on Venice invited the Turks to attack her. In twenty days Louis had won the Milanese, and Venice was paid the price of her shame.

In November 1499, despatches from Constantinople warned the Signory that the Sultan was preparing to attack. Strenuous efforts were made to raise money. Antonio Grimani was sent with a large fleet to the East, and came upon the enemy off Sapienza, a name of ill-omen in Venetian naval history. The Turks had made amazing progress in naval construction; one of their ships is said to have been manned by one thousand Janissaries and sailors. The first encounter, after four hours’ fighting, ended on August 12, 1499, in a Turkish success. On August 20, a small French fleet joined the Venetians, and on the 25th the final engagement was fought. The Venetians suffered a disastrous defeat. Malipiero, who was present as civil commissioner, roundly accused Grimani of want of patriotism and faint-heartedness, and declared if he had done his duty, the whole Turkish fleet would have fallen into their hands surely as God was God, and that, owing to want of discipline among the Venetian sailors, the French had retired disgusted from the operations. “We have lost eight hundred men, and the reputation of Venice.” Grimani was sent home in irons. As he landed, his son, Cardinal Domenico, fought his way through the crowd, and lifted his father’s chains to lighten his burden as he was led to prison. At the trial Grimani defended himself eloquently, and was banished to Dalmatia. The operations on land were not less humiliating. Such was the paralysing terror inspired by the Turk, that the native militia in Friuli refused to take the field, and the commander of the Stradiote mercenaries struck not a blow. Venice sued for peace. She weakly tried to inculpate Sforza for the outbreak of hostilities, but was told that the Duke of Milan had no power to move the Sultan; the depredations of her own subjects were the cause of her chastisement. On trying to soften the hard conditions exacted, her envoy was advised to bid the Signory hasten to accept the Sultan’s terms: “Tell your Doge,” said the Pacha, “that up to the present he has wedded the sea; it will be our turn in future, for we own more of the sea than he does.” The Signory rejected the terms offered by the Porte. Allies were sought, and a league was made with the King of Hungary and the Pope. The King of Portugal promised help; Spain sent a fleet; France a small contingent of men. Some small successes failed to compensate for the loss of Lepanto, Modone, Corone and Navarino. Practically Venice was left, as usual, to fight single-handed, and ultimately peace was made with the Sultan, at the price of further territory in the Morea. Before the treaty was concluded, Agostino Barbarigo, who had succeeded his brother Marco in 1486, died. In October 1501, Leonardo Loredano, whose shrewd, clear-cut and ascetic features in Giovanni Bellini’s portrait, are so familiar to visitors to the National Gallery of London, was preferred to the Dogeship. Owing to poor health, says Sanudo, he lived abstemiously. He was kindly, though of uneven temper, wise in counsel, very skilful in the conduct of public business, and his opinion generally prevailed with the Council.

In August 1503 the death of Pope Alexander VI. had foiled the plans of his bastard son, Cesare Borgia, to recover Romagna for the Papacy. Venice had been closely watching events, and on the advent of the feeble Pius III., determined to slice up the Papal States. Instructions were sent to the podestà of Ravenna, informing him of certain negotiations between the Signory and some cities of Romagna. He was to confer with the military commanders, in order to bring the negotiations quickly to a successful issue; but he was to act cautiously and secretly. The chief cities, by promise of remission of taxation, placed themselves under Venetian protection. The Duke of Urbino followed their lead, and was promised an annual subsidy.