A romantic incident in the ever-recurring battles with the Narentine (Slav) pirates may be referred to this reign. On the feast of the translation of St Mark it was the custom for the marriageable damsels of Venice to repair to S. Pietro in Castello, bearing their dowries with them in caskets, to be formally betrothed to their lovers and receive the benediction of the Church. Informed of this anniversary, some pirates concealed themselves in the thick bush which then covered part of the island, and during the ceremony forced their way into the church, seized brides and dowries, and regained their boats. The Doge, who was present, hastened from the church, and called the people to arms. Some vessels belonging to the Cabinet-makers’ Guild, whose quarter was near the Church of S. Maria Formosa, were offered to the Doge. The avengers set forth in pursuit, and came upon the pirates dividing their booty in a remote part of the lagoon of Caorle, afterwards called porto delle Donzelle, defeated them, and returned in triumph to Rialto with brides and dowries, the Cabinet-makers having greatly distinguished themselves. To commemorate the rape and rescue of the brides of St Mark, the Doges were used on the day of the Purification to proceed in solemn state to the Church of S. Maria Formosa to render thanks to the Virgin. Twelve poor girls, the Marie, were dowered and took part in the procession, together with the chief guilds of Venice. Simple in its origin, the celebration became more and more sumptuous, till at length so great was the burden on the private resources of the families whose lot it was to provide for the Marie, that in 1271 the number was reduced to four. Later, a tax was imposed on every family to meet the cost of the eight days’ festa. In 1379 the funds were swallowed up in the financial demands of the Genoese wars, and all that remained of the old magnificence was the annual visit of the Doge to the church, and the offering made to him by the parish priest of oranges, muscat wine, and gilded straw hats. The origin of the Doge’s attendance at this church, and of the quaint offerings, is traced to a legend that the Cabinet-makers, in acknowledgment of their prowess, asked of the Doge the favour of an annual visit. To the Doge’s objection, “But if it be too hot,” they answered, “We will give you refreshment”; and to the further objection, “But if it rain,” they answered, “We will furnish you with hats.” The custom lasted till the end of the Republic. Da Canale gives a graphic description of the festival as it was celebrated in the thirteenth century. On the vigil of the feast of the translation of St Mark, a company of noble youths came by water to the ducal palace, and having distributed banners to some children, formed in line two by two, accompanied by trumpeters and players of cymbals, and by other youths bearing trays of silver loaded with sweets, silver vessels filled with wine, and cups of gold and silver. The clergy followed, arrayed in Calamanco cloth of gold, chanting a litany, and the whole procession went its way to S. Maria Formosa, where a number of dames and damsels were met, to whom wine and sweets were presented. On the last day of January the procession was renewed with greater splendour. Over five hundred banners were distributed, and more than a hundred lads bearing crosses of silver took part. Following the priests came a clerk, dressed as the Virgin, in Damascus cloth of gold, borne in a richly decorated chair on the shoulders of four men, gonfalons resplendent with gold waving around. The Doge, surrounded by the Venetian nobility, stood at a window of the ducal palace, while three of the clergy chanted the usual lauds of his greatness and power. The Doge then joined the procession, which wended its way to S. Maria Formosa. Here stood another clerk dressed as the angel Gabriel, who sang the “Hail Mary” as the figure of the Virgin appeared. The ceremony being ended, twelve great banquets were held, at each of which one of the Marie was present, clad in cloth of gold adorned with jewels and pearls innumerable, and wearing a crown of gold set with precious stones. On the day following, a gorgeous aquatic pageant, more than a mile and a half in length, with the Doge in his mastro nave, the clergy and the Marie made the tour of the Grand Canal, and “if you were there you could see the whole waters covered with boats filled with men and women, so that no one could count them, and a throng of dames and damsels at the windows and on the banks, apparelled so richly that none in Venice might surpass them.” Regattas, balls, and music followed; the whole city gave itself up to joy and gladness.
Pietro Candiano’s reign of seventeen years set in storm and calamity. His son and colleague, Pietro, rebelled, and sought to drive his father from the throne. There was a sharp fight on the Piazza; the rebellion collapsed and the Venetian Absalom was only saved from death by the entreaties of his aged father. He was excluded from the succession and banished, but only to turn pirate and harry his countrymen. The scourge of the plague and sorrow for his son’s impiety embittered the last days of the old Doge, and in 959 he died a broken-hearted man. But scarce was he laid to rest when a splendid fleet, gay with banners, bore a deputation of nobles and clergy to Ravenna to invite the proscribed pirate to become lord of Venice: the pressure of a powerful family and the fear of civil discord had led to the recall of the only prince who seemed strong enough to rule the troubled state. He began by blinding and exiling the Bishop of Torcello, guilty of simony, and by calling a synod to deal again with the persistent abomination of the slave trade at Venice. There was no concealment. Slaves, chiefly young girls from twelve to sixteen years of age, bought in the ports of Russia and Circassia, were openly sold by auction at Venice and the deed of sale drawn up by a notary. Doge, clergy and people met in St Mark’s and the disgraceful traffic was again prohibited under severe penalties. Another scandal of Venetian commerce was challenged by the Greek Emperor, who in 971 sent an embassy to Venice threatening to burn cargo and crew of any vessel found trading in munitions of war with the Saracens. It was decided that no arms, or iron, or wood for naval construction should be sold to the infidels, exception being made of utensils of carved wood, such as goblets, platters, basins.
But the demons of Pride and Ambition still lurked in the unquiet breast of the Doge. He forced his wife to take the veil at S. Zaccaria that he might marry Gualdrada, sister of the Marquis of Tuscany, who brought him a rich dowry of money and lands. He affected a state of Imperial magnificence, surrounded himself with mercenaries and dragged his subjects to fight for his feudal rights on the mainland. The indignant populace rose in revolt and attacked the palace. Foiled in their purpose by the devotion of the Doge’s foreign guards, the insurgents fired the adjacent houses and drove the doomed prince to seek safety by a passage that led into the atrium of St Mark’s. Here he was met by a company of Venetian nobles to whom he prayed: “And have you, too, my brothers, willed my destruction. If I have sinned in word or deed, grant me life and I will remedy all.” There was an angry shout of, “He is worthy of death,” and a dozen weapons were plunged into his breast. His infant son was spitted on a spear in its nurse’s arms; the hated mercenaries were slain. The bodies of father and babe were cast to the shambles, and only redeemed by the entreaties of a saintly monk who removed them for burial to the abbey of S. Ilario.
In a city built mainly of wood, fire is a disastrous weapon. Their vengeance glutted, the revolutionists turned to count the cost, and were sobered. The churches of St Theodore, St Mark and S. Maria Zobenigo, the ducal palace, three hundred houses and a large number of factories were destroyed. It was a subdued assembly that met in S. Pietro on August 12th, 976, and elected Pietro Orseolo, a rich patrician descended from an ancient Roman family of the earliest settlers in Torcello. Threats of Imperial vengeance hung over the Republic, and Gualdrada’s claims for compensation had to be met. For this, and to rebuild the city, a subsidy of a decima was voted to be imposed on the property of each citizen. Artificers were brought from Constantinople and plans for a new St Mark’s[8] and a new palace made. The Doge dedicated nearly all his patrimony to the building; founded a hospital for the sick poor near the Campanile, and spent much time as well as money in works of charity. He soon grew weary of the cares of state, and an opportune visit of the Abbot of St Michael’s in Aquitaine to Venice confirmed his desire to enter a cloister. He asked for time to prepare. The abbot promised to return and claim him. A year later, on a September night, the abbot and two friars repaired to the monastery of S. Ilario, where they were met by the Doge, his son-in-law and a friend, disguised as pilgrims. Horses were in waiting; they were ferried across the lagoon, and at full speed the party rode for France. On the morrow the Venetians awoke to find their beloved prince fled and the ducal chair vacant. The Candiani who had never ceased intriguing to regain power were ready, and their nominee, Vitale Candiano, was raised to the Dogeship, to retire after fourteen months, sick and disillusioned, to die in a monastery. Pietro Memo succeeded him in 978, a feeble prince, whose reign was dishonoured by the rise of the Caloprini and Morosini factions that in the end nearly compassed the destruction of Venetian liberties. It was the old strife renewed with increased bitterness. The Morosini being partisans of the Orseoli favoured the Byzantines: the Caloprini standing for the Candiani leaned on the western powers. For the first and last time in her history Venice saw her children traitorously inviting a foreign sovereign to enslave their fatherland. The Caloprini, having assassinated Dom. Morosini, fled to the court of Otho II., and impiously laying bare the weak places in their country’s defences, called him to conquest. The Emperor was nothing loth. Venice was a standing challenge to the Empire; the only state in Western Europe that stubbornly refused to be absorbed in the feudal system. His subjects were forbidden to trade with the Republic; her food supplies were cut off; her enemies goaded on to attack her; the Caloprini faction in Venice stirred to rebellion; ships of war collected to blockade if not to attack the islands. It was the gravest danger that had ever threatened Venice, for the foes were partly those of her own household. But the stars, which watched over her birth, seemed now in their courses to fight for her salvation. The mighty arm of the Emperor was raised to crush the little state, when the angel of death touched him and it fell impotently to his side.
At this epoch arose to guide her destinies one of the greatest princes that ever sat in the ducal chair. Memo, suspected of complicity in a more than usually atrocious assassination, was deposed and forced to enter a monastery, and in 991 Pietro Orseolo II. began his eventful reign. By his consummate statesmanship the Republic soon found herself at peace with east and west and able to deal with the problem of the Adriatic pirates. The Doge at once abolished the feeble expedient of paying blackmail to their chiefs, and on a renewal of their depredations chastised them into respect. The unhappy borderland along the Dalmatian coast, nominally under the lordship of the eastern Empire, but actually eluding control by east or west, was dotted with a number of small trading communities—Zara, Trau, Spalato, and Ragusa—continually harassed by Slav and Saracen pirates from the sea and by Croats on land. The defeated pirates in their rage now united with the Croats and turned on the Dalmatians, who appealed to Venice, the only power which seemed able to protect them. The Doge at once grasped the importance to Venetian commerce of a protectorate over Dalmatia. The greatest fleet that had hitherto sailed from Venetian waters set forth with banners consecrated by the Church to police the Adriatic. The voyage was a triumphant procession. Chief after chief submitted. At Zara and elsewhere the Venetians were magnificently received: the last stronghold of the pirates, impregnable Lagosta, yielded to the splendid courage of the Venetian seamen. Slavs and Croats were cowed and hostages given for future good behaviour. The woods of Curzola now made Venice independent of Italy for timber. It was the first stage in her development as a European power. The title of Doge of Dalmatia was added to that of Doge of Venice and a ceremony instituted which a hundred and eighty years later became the famous Sposalazio del Mare or Wedding of the Adriatic. On the morning of Ascension Day a State barge covered with cloth of gold bearing the clergy of the Chapter of St Mark’s in full canonicals and furnished with a vessel of water, a vase of salt and an aspersoir of olive branches, sailed to the Canal of S. Nicolo del Lido to await the Doge’s barge, called later the Bucintoro. On its arrival two Canons intoned the litany and the Bishop rose up and solemnly pronounced in Latin the words, Deign, O Lord, to grant that this sea be calm and peaceful to us and to all that sail upon it; thus we pray. O Lord hear us. The Bishop blessed the water and, having reached S. Nicolo, drew near to the Doge’s barge before the procession advanced into the open Adriatic. The Primicerio then prayed: Purge me, O Lord, with hyssop, and I shall be clean; the Bishop aspersed the Doge and his suite, and poured what was left of the water into the sea. Such was the origin of the famous festa of La Sensa of which we shall hear more later.
The fame of the Doge’s exploits had fired the imagination of the young and ardent Emperor Otho III., who made a mysterious voyage by night to the great Orseolo at Venice and disguised in mean attire went about the strange city marvelling at the glories of its architecture. The new ducal palace had just been completed, a stately embattlemented edifice, in which was constructed a small chapel rich in precious marble and gold and furnished with an organ of wondrous craftsmanship. A romantic affection sprang up between the two potentates which was cemented by the Emperor standing god-father and giving his name to one of the Doge’s sons. The friends parted, after much intimate converse, embracing each other and in tears.
Honours too from the East were lavished upon the Doge. Responding to an appeal from the Greeks he led a fleet to Bari, which was invested by the Saracens. Signs and wonders in the heavens heralded his coming, and after three days of hand-to-hand fighting the siege was raised and a Greek army delivered from destruction. The Byzantine Emperor showed his gratitude by bestowing the hand of his niece on the Doge’s son Giovanni, and joyous festival was held at Constantinople in honour of the alliance. But whatever pride may have been engendered in the Doge’s breast by this almost more than mortal success was soon chastened by failing health, affliction at home, and the desolation wrought by plague and famine in the city. Rich in piety and charity this noble and heroic servant of the people declined to his end, and at the early age of forty-eight was laid to rest in S. Zaccaria.