After the League of Cambrai a change comes over the Venetian temper. Patricians, instead of using their talent in commerce and discovery, chose to live on their invested capital and on the revenues of their mainland estates. The power of initiative was gone. In 1522, before Sebastian Cabot sailed for the New World, he contrived to meet Contarini, an emissary of the Ten, secretly at Valladolid, and told him he had no joy in selling his knowledge to the foreigner; that he had refused tempting offers from Cardinal Wolsey and was prepared to absolve himself from the King of Spain’s service and spend his genius in the advancement of his fatherland. But Contarini talked of things possible and impossible, and success is to those who will achieve the impossible. The supreme opportunity of retrieving her mercantile position was lost to Venice for ever. Sadder still, when Loredano had called on the Senate for volunteers and patriotic gifts for Padua and Treviso, not a man stirred. Venice had lost faith in herself.
In 1521 Leonardo Loredano died and was buried with more than usual pomp at S. Zanipolo. Antonio Grimani, the disgraced of Sapienza, who had redeemed himself by faithful service, reigned for two years and gave place to Andrea Gritti, a distinguished civil commissioner with the army during the wars. Between Gritti’s death in 1539 and the election of Sebastian Venier, the hero of Lepanto, in 1577, there follows a line of Doges, Pietro Lando, Francesco Donato, Marc’ Antonio Trevisano, Francesco Venier, Lorenzo and Girolamo Priuli, Pietro Loredano, Luigi Mocenigo, worthy magistrates all, but without distinction.
The wars had exhausted the State treasury. Her Indian trade was withered, and the wealth of Venice was no more commensurate to the demands of a long naval war. Her military pride had been chastened by the rod of the Emperor, and a dread of Spanish arms and Spanish gold hung like a pall over men’s minds. An era of subtle diplomacy begins, and the Council of the Ten, with its new instrument of the Inquisitors of State, tightens its grip upon the executive. Wave after wave of Ottoman fury surges against her Eastern possessions; one by one they are engulfed. In 1535 she lost Egina, Paros and Syra; in 1540, Malvasia and Nauplia. In 1570 Cyprus was marked out for conquest and the usual appeal to the Christian Powers was made. Spain and the Pope promised help. Zane, the Venetian commander, wasted his force waiting at Zara, then learned that the allies were at Corfù. He reached the island only to find the Spanish admiral without orders. Meanwhile the season had worn along and operations were judged inopportune. The whole island by this time was occupied by the Turks, Nicosia and Famagosta alone holding out. While the futile admirals were squabbling about plans the magnificent heroism of the garrisons and of the inhabitants was spent in vain, and the cities fell to the horrors of a Turkish pillage, and Marc’ Antonio Brigadin, the Venetian governor of Famagosta, was treacherously flayed alive in the Piazza after having surrendered on terms to the enemy. Zane was recalled to Venice, and Sebastian Venier given command. A new alliance of Spain, the Papacy and Venice being concluded, at length on October 7, 1571, the allied fleets came upon the Turkish armament off Lepanto in the Gulf of Corinth. The Spanish admiral, Don John of Austria, was in supreme command. Venier led the Venetians; Marc’ Antonio Colonna the Papalists.
It was a calm sunny morning. The line of the allied fleets was four miles in extent, the two armaments were a mass of glittering steel as the rays of the sun smote on the helmets, breastplates and shields, bright as polished mirrors. The banners of gold and tall galley lamps were resplendent in many colours. A beautiful, yet an awful spectacle. The Venetian flagship was fiercely assailed. Venier, spite of his seventy-five years, was seen, sword in hand, pressing to the thick of the fight, heartening his men and with invincible courage striking down his enemies, so that he wrought deeds beyond the belief of man. We cannot here linger on the vicissitudes of the struggle. Scenes of comic relief were not absent from the tragedy. Some Turks, their arms of offence failing, seized upon a quantity of oranges and lemons and threw them at their enemies, who with mocking laughter cast them back. At length after five hours of savage fighting, the Turks were scoured off the seas. The allied and victorious admirals met, embraced each other speechless from emotion; and as the venerable Venier and the youthful Don John of Austria stood clasped in each other’s arms shedding tears of joy, the eyes of even the most hardened of sea-dogs were moist with tears. Some 30,000 Turks are said to have perished; 3486 prisoners were divided among the victors as slaves; 94 ships were burned; 130 ships and 356 guns captured; 15,000 Christian slaves set at liberty. The allies lost heavily: 8000 men were slain including 25 Venetian nobles.[56] Among the Spanish was Cervantes, who lost an arm in the engagement.
As day broke on October 18th, a galley was seen sailing up to Lido trailing the Turkish colours at her stern, a pile of turbans on her deck. Amid the booming of the guns could be heard cries of “Victory! victory!” The reaction from the gloom of Cyprian news was tremendous. A frenzy of joy possessed the people. Shops were shut per la morte de’ Turchi. The streets from the Rialto bridge to the Merceria were covered with a firmament of blue cloth spangled with stars of gold; a pyramid of Turkish spoils stood on the Piazza, which was gay with scarlet cloth, tapestry and pictures. Four days’ rejoicings celebrated the triumph of the Cross. But to Venice the battle of Lepanto (or alle Curzolari) was a sterile victory. Dynastic jealousy in Spain and the old suspicion of Venice, which still clung to the allies, permitted the Turks to recover from the blow, and in March 1573 Venice agreed to purchase a separate peace at the cost of an indemnity of 300,000 ducats and a threefold increase of the tribute for Zante. The fair island of Cyprus was lost for ever. “Was it the Turks who were the victors at Lepanto?” asks Romanin.
On Doge Venier was conferred the consecrated golden rose, a supreme token of papal favour, but during the seventy years’ peace from Lepanto to the outbreak of the fifth Turkish war, the indictment at Rome against the refractory children of the lagoons increased in gravity, and in the beginning of the seventeenth century the Papacy determined to force them to yield to discipline. The Venetians were a stubborn folk when their national dignity was threatened by Rome. “These Signori of the Senate,” said Paul IV. to the Venetian ambassador, “are tough fellows and take a lot of cooking” (non sono molto buoni da cuocer). In 1527, when the Papacy was under the heel of Charles V., the Republic had reasserted her rights to nominate to ecclesiastical offices. Disputes as to the taxation of Church property, the right of the Pope to inspect the monasteries, the right of the Republic to try criminous clerics, exacerbated the situation until at length Gregory XIII. declared in 1581 that he would no longer consent to be Pope everywhere but in Venice, and sent his nuncio to make a visitation of the Venetian monasteries. The Republic refused permission, and the conflict called of the Interdetto began. But the fight between Italian Popes and Italian sovereigns, even in our own times, has generally been a comedy played for the mystification of Transalpine Powers and all ended in compromise. The Signory appointed the Bishop of Verona as the nuncio’s colleague, and persuaded itself that the nuncio went with the Bishop; the Pope satisfied his dignity by claiming that the Bishop went with the nuncio. In 1605 the Spanish party, ever the evil genius of the Sacred College, re-opened the quarrel. The Republic had refused to send their nominee to the Patriarchate of Venice for examination to Rome, and had tried and convicted two clerics on the mainland for criminal offences. On Christmas Day a brief from Pope Paul V. was delivered to the Signory threatening excommunication if they did not submit in the matter of the taxation of ecclesiastical estates. The Republic engaged the learned Augustinian friar Paolo Sarpi as their adviser at a salary of two hundred ducats and prepared for the struggle. In February 1606, a second brief followed on the matter of the convicted clerics. The Republic expressed her devotion to the Catholic Faith, but firmly though respectfully declined to surrender her ancient rights and privileges. On April 16th, the Republic was given twenty-four days to submit under pain of interdict. Venice calmly waited. In due time the bull of excommunication[57] and interdict was delivered. The Signory forbade its publication and ordered the clergy to continue their functions as usual. Some of the regular clergy who disobeyed were expelled. Sarpi advised the Republic with excellent prudence and wisdom, and became in the eyes of Europe one of the greatest protagonists of national liberty against papal aggression. A Spanish army having been mobilised on the Milanese frontier, Sir Henry Wotton, the English ambassador, suggested an alliance of Venice with England, France, the Grisons, and the German Protestant princes, but the Republic was deaf on that side. She declared to the Pope that the Venetians were as good Catholics as he himself, but that as Church property enjoyed the protection of the State, it must share its burdens, and that criminals, whether lay or cleric, must be equally subject to the laws of the land. Time wore on. Spain, humbled by the defeat of her Armada and the revolt of the Netherlands, was afraid to strike; the obsolete ghostly artillery of Rome failed to act; and the secular clergy stood loyally by the Republic. The Papacy reverted to her habitual policy of compromise. The services of Henry IV. of France as mediator were accepted and a solemn comedy was played. The Republic agreed to surrender the incriminated clerics, without prejudice, to the French ambassador; the Pope agreed to withdraw informally the bull of excommunication and interdict. The Republic continued to nominate for Church offices and try clerical delinquents as before. But the Spanish fanatics at the Vatican never forgave the Venetian friar for his share in their discomfiture. On October 25, 1607, three ruffians fell upon him as he was crossing the S. Fosca Bridge,[58] stabbed him, then left him for dead, and escaped to Papal territory. Sarpi, however, recovered. The surgeon who was dressing his wounds remarked on their jagged, inartistic nature. “Ah!” replied the witty friar, “agnosco stylum curiæ romanæ.” On his recovery the Republic gave him a pension of six hundred ducats and a house near the Piazza, where the great patriot-scholar devoted the remainder of his life to literature and science.[59] Two further attempts were made to assassinate him, in 1609 and 1610. He spent his last breath in the service of the Republic, advising the Senate in three important questions in 1623 as he lay on his death-bed. His mind soon began to wander. “It is growing late,” he murmured, “I must hasten to St Mark’s for I have much to do.” His last words were a prayer for his country. “Esto perpetua.”
The university of “Fair Padua, nursery of the Arts,” became under Venetian auspices the most famous and most honoured centre of learning in Europe. Liberal salaries and an atmosphere of intellectual freedom drew an array of the most eminent teachers in Christendom. Fallopius, in physiology and medicine; Galileo, in astronomy and mathematics, were names that crowded its halls with eager students. As many as eighteen thousand of all nations were gathered there daily in the sixteenth century. During his professorship of twenty years, Galileo invented the thermometer and the telescope. Tasso studied, and our own Harvey (Italians claim) learned the secret of the circulation of the blood there. The Earl of Arundel sent his two sons in 1622 to drink of its springs. The Admirable Crichton having called on one of the Aldi in 1580, was introduced to the Signory, and improvised before the Senate a Latin oration of “most rare and singular power.” The Fathers voted the impecunious youth one hundred crowns as a courteous recognition of his marvellous powers, and sent him to Padua with a warm introduction.
To Sebastian Venier succeeded Doge Nicolo da Ponte in 1577, a worthy scholar and student of theology, who had represented the Republic at the Council of Trent. At his death, in 1585, Pasquale Cigogna, descended from an apothecary ennobled after the war of Chioggia, was preferred to the ducal office. Cigogna saw the erection of the new stone Rialto bridge, and, after ten years’ peaceful reign, was followed by a popular and lavish prince, Marino Grimani, whose consort was exceptionally honoured by a gorgeous coronation ceremony.
Grimani died on Christmas Day 1605, the very evening of the delivery of the first papal brief, and Leonardo Donato was chosen to open the document, and to preside over the conflict with the Spanish papalists at Rome. When he died in 1612, weird stories were whispered by fanatics of shrieks and cries heard from his chamber as the Evil One bore him away.