Venice and Its Story

by Thomas Okey

The epoch-making victory of Charles of the Hammer over the Arabs at Tours had drawn the eyes of all men to France, and to a mighty race of princes destined to change the face of Europe. The restless Lombards in 752 had reoccupied Ravenna and the Pentapolis, and the Pope turned to the new Carlovingian dynasty for help against them. Pepin answered to the call, wrested the cities from their hands, and gave them to the Pope, who thus became a temporal sovereign. Twenty years later the papacy was again constrained to summon help. Charlemagne, Pepin’s son, crossed the Alps by the Great St Bernard pass, fell like a thunderbolt of war on the Lombards, and in 774 their dominion was finally crushed by the capture of Desiderio, their King, and Pavia, their royal city. Romanin argues from the silence of the chroniclers that the Venetians took no active part in the siege of Pavia, but from an old inscription in Venetian, on a thin plate of hammered lead,[4] preserved in the British Museum, we learn that on the invitation of Charlemagne, the Venetians sent a fleet of twenty-four galleys, with four nobles who knew the art of war (saveva far la guara) up the Po to the siege, and had the honour of guarding the captive King. Venice had indeed watched every phase of the struggle, seizing, as was her wont, any opportunity that offered for extending the trading privileges so vital to her existence. By secret information to the Church from her merchants at Constantinople, she had nipped a plot to recover the Exarchate, now for ever lost to the Greek Emperors. But in 781 Pepin, son of Charlemagne, had been crowned King of Italy by the Pope; the power of the Franks was growing apace, and their alliance with a territorial Pope alarmed the Heraclean party. They believed a wiser policy was to form an alliance with the weaker Empire far in the east against the Franks. In 778 Doge Maurizio Galbaio was permitted, on the plea of infirmity, to associate his son Giovanni with him, and on the death of Maurizio, the son stepped into his father’s office, thus effecting a subtle change in the nature of the Dogeship, by no means pleasing to the democratic party. The Franks were not long in making their power felt. Venetian merchants had acquired some territory near Ravenna, and many trading centres in the neighbouring cities. They were incorrigible slave traders. Pope Zacharias, a generation before, had been moved to compassion on seeing in Rome groups of Christian slaves,[5] men and women, belonging to Venetian merchants, destined to be sold to the pagans in Africa. He paid their price and set them at liberty. Charlemagne had recently published an edict against the traffic in slaves, and now called on Pope Hadrian to take action. The Venetians were expelled from Ravenna and the Pentapolis. In 797 the new see of Olivolo which had been created a few years before to meet the growing needs of the population, became vacant, and the new Doge preferred Christophorus Damiatus, a young Greek to the bishopric. The Patriarch of Grado, around whom the Frankish party centred, refused to consecrate one whom he regarded as a nominee of the Byzantine Emperor, and excommunicated Bishop and Doge. The Doge’s answer was swift and terrible. He despatched his son Maurizio with a fleet to Grado; the city was attacked; the Patriarch captured, thrown from the tower of his palace, and dashed to pieces. To allay popular indignation, Fortunatus, a nephew of the murdered Patriarch was appointed in his stead. The new prelate soon showed of what stuff he was made. With infinite resource and indomitable purpose he set himself to avenge the insult to the Church, and, but for the premature discovery of the plot, would have wrought the destruction of the Doge and his party. Fortunatus fled to the court of Charlemagne, who was now created Holy Roman Emperor, and harbouring no tender feelings towards the rebellious children of the lagoons. Obelerio, tribune of Malamocco, and the other heads of the conspiracy found safety at Treviso, whence they stirred their partizans to action with decisive effect. The Doge and his son were exiled to Mantua; Obelerio was proclaimed Doge in 804; the triumph of the Frankish party was complete. The Heracleans, however, soon rallied. In their civil fury they fell upon Jesolo, and almost wiped it out. The Doge immediately led a punitive expedition to Heraclea, and wreaked a similar vengeance on that hot-bed of Byzantine faction. The situation was now felt to be unbearable. By general consent a meeting of the whole dogado was called, and it was decided that in order to make peace, the remaining populations of Heraclea and of Jesolo should be transported to Malamocco.

Fortunatus meanwhile was watching events at Istria. Under the sun of Charlemagne’s favours he had waxed rich and powerful. He possessed four ships, and traded under royal patronage wherever the new western Emperor’s power reached. By skilful diplomacy he effected his recall to Grado, and placed a Frankish partizan in the see of Olivolo. But the Heracleans had lost their home, not their ideals and policy. They appealed to the Byzantine Emperor, and a Greek fleet sailed up the Adriatic. Fortunatus once again was a fugitive. The Doge and his party protested a loyalty to their suzerain, which in 809 was translated into acts by the despatch of a fleet to aid him to recover the exarchate for the Greeks. It was unsuccessful, but none the less irritating to the Pope and Emperor, who now determined to subdue the Venetians and incorporate them into the Holy Roman Empire of the West. The immediate cause of the rupture is not known, but when the princes of the earth are bent on war a pretext is seldom hard to find. A great empire, aiming at universal dominion, is ill at ease with a sturdy freedom-loving state on its borders, and the far-reaching arm of the invincible Carlovingians was stretched forth to grasp, as they thought, an easy prey.

In the stress of a common danger, faction was silenced. Obelerio and his brother Beato, whom he had associated with him a year after he was proclaimed Doge, advised that the Venetians should agree with their adversary before it was too late, but a wave of popular indignation swept them from power, and Angelo Participazio, a Heraclean by birth, and one of the tribunes of Rivoalto, was made head of a provisional government of national defence. The churches were filled with earnest, determined men, entreating with fasting and prayer the divine aid in their hour of need; a call was made on every citizen at home and abroad to hasten to the defence of the fatherland. Provisions were accumulated, ships built, fortifications raised, channels blocked by chains and sunken hulks, guide posts drawn.

Meanwhile, King Pepin had summoned his allies, and a fleet sailed up to the lagoons. On the mainland the advance of the Frankish armies was irresistible; north and south they closed in on the Venetians. Grado soon fell; Brondolo, the Chioggie, and other cities were captured; fire and sword wasted their settlements. The porti of Brondolo, Chioggia, and Pelestrina were forced, Malamocco[6] the capital threatened. At this crisis the momentous decision was taken to abandon Malamocco and concentrate at Rivoalto (Rialto), the compact group of islands between the mainland and the lidi.

On the lido of Pelestrina, south of S. Pietro in Volta, where the steamer to Chioggia now calls, is the little fishing village of Porto Secco. Here in olden times was a porto called Albiola. North of this passage was the city of Albiola on the lido which stretched towards Malamocco. South began the lido of Pelestrina. It was here that, according to tradition, a stand was made. The Frankish host of horse and foot gathered on the lido of Albiola, waiting for their fleet to force the porto, which was deep enough to allow of the passage of the transports. Opposite, on the lido of Pelestrina, stood the Venetians near their boats, which were armoured with ramparts of sails, cordages, and masts, behind which their archers did much execution. For nigh six months the desperate fight was waged. “Ye are my subjects,” cried Pepin, “since from my lands ye come.” The Venetians answered, “We will be subject to the Emperor[7] of the Romans, not to thee.” Malamocco was at length captured, but was found to be deserted. Rough rafts and pontoons were constructed to thread the maze of shallow channels that led to Rivoalto, but the light, waspish boats of the Venetians drove them on to the shoals by the canal Orfano, where they were caught front and rear, and those who escaped suffocation in the water and the mud were quickly cut down by their enemies. The summer heats came; the arrows of the sun, more deadly than Venetian arms, wrought havoc among the Franks, whose forces wasted away, and the Carlovingians were baffled. A Greek fleet threatening his rear, forced Pepin to come to terms. He promised to withdraw, to restore the captured territory, and to reaffirm all the ancient trading rights and privileges in his dominions in return for an annual payment. The Venetians emerged from the struggle a victorious and a united people centred at Rialto, and the State of Venice was now firmly rooted in the lagoons.

CHAPTER II

St Mark the Patron of Venice—The Brides of St Mark—Conquest of Dalmatia—Limitation of the Doge’s Power

“But I must tellen verilie
Of St Marke’s . . .
. . . holy shrine
Exalt amid the tapers’ shine
At Venice.”
—Keats.