The execution took place on the following morning at the hour of tierce. Giovanni Mocenigo, the senior privy councillor, followed by his five colleagues, the decemvirs, the advocates of the commune, and the other great officers of state, advanced to meet his serenity, who had been conducted under guard from his own apartments to the great council saloon. Forming a circle round him, they escorted him to the fatal spot which had been selected for the horrid catastrophe. A stupendous concourse of persons of all conditions had congregated to witness the spectacle. A gloomy and awful stillness reigned throughout the Piazza. The doge, amid a silence in which a whisper or a sigh would have been audible, implored the forgiveness of his countrymen, and extolled the equity of the doom which he was about to undergo. He was then uncrowned and disrobed. A black cap was substituted for the biretta, and a cloak of the same colour was cast across his shoulders. At an appointed signal he laid his head on the block, and at a single stroke the executioner severed it from his body. Immediately after the removal of the latter, the doors of St. Mark’s were thrown open, and the crowd entered in wild disorder, eager to catch a glimpse of the mutilated corpse, which was there exposed to view preparatory to burial (Friday, April 17th, 1355).
[1355-1405 A.D.]
Thus miserably perished, at the ripe age of seventy-seven, one of the greatest soldiers and statesmen whom Venice could boast; that same Falieri who during two and forty years of public services had earned as count of Valdemarino a splendid and enviable reputation. Such was the ignominious fall of a man whose versatile talents had enabled him to shine in every branch of official life, and whose uncontrollable passions brought his white hairs before the close of seven months from a throne to a scaffold. Falieri had survived most of his early friends, if not his domestic happiness; it was ruled that he should survive his honour also.
The ducal remains were interred without any mark of pomp at San Giovanni e Paolo, behind the monastery, and in the direction of the chapel of Santa Maria della Pace; and from a mixed motive of delicacy and pride the Ten directed their secretary to omit all direct allusions in the books of their transactions to his sentence and execution. The words, “Let it not be written” formed the sole clew afforded by the Misti to a great crime and a great tragedy. The effigy of Falieri found its place after the sepulture in the hall, where the portraits of all his predecessors were hung. It was not till twelve years posterior to the event which has been narrated that the Ten, by a decree dated the 16th of March, 1367, caused it to be cancelled, and a black crape arras to be substituted, surmounted by the words, “Hic est locus Marini Faletri decapitati pro criminibus.”
Three centuries had passed away, when some labourers digging near the spot accidentally exhumed a sarcophagus. The discovery did not at the moment attract much curiosity, but the sarcophagus was eventually opened, and it was then found to contain a skeleton with the skull placed between the knees. This peculiarity was designated to indicate that the person, whose spirit was once dwelling in the now uniformed clay, had died by the hand of the executioner; and if any doubt still remained, the half-defaced inscription on the urn served to show that the bones of the unhappy Falieri were there.[k]
Venetian Wars and Conquests
[1405-1450 A.D.]
We have already earlier in this chapter told of the wars between Genoa and Venice, culminating in the humiliation of the former at Chioggia. The first success of Venice whetted the appetite of her people for further conquests. And the queen of maritime cities did not confine her aspirations to the scenes of her former victories.[a]
Her anxiety once more to display her banners upon terra firma induced Venice to lend her aid to Gian Galeazzo Visconti against the Carraras, under the promise of the restitution of Treviso, which she had lost during the war of the Chioggia. The bad faith of the lord of Milan would fain have defrauded the Venetians of their share of the spoil, had not dread of their power compelled their ally to be reluctantly honest in his spoliation. By their friendly demonstrations towards Caterina, the widowed duchess of Milan, the Venetians next obtained the cession of Vicenza, Feltre, and Belluno; and Francesco Novello da Carrara, who already counted Vicenza as his prey, was ever baffled in his hopes. His son-in-law, the marquis of Ferrara, was compelled to declare against him; and the citizens of Verona, worn out by siege and famine, opened their gates to the troops of Venice. This important acquisition was followed up by a succession of easy victories; the greatest part of the Paduan territory submitted without a struggle; and the capital itself, wasted by hunger and the plague, promised a speedy surrender. A last desperate sortie was repulsed with terrible slaughter; and treachery opened the gates and admitted the forces of Venice. Carrara and his son Francesco Terzo had now no hope save in the clemency of the conquerors. They proceeded to Venice, were received with apparent cordiality, and immured in a dungeon. In this horrible vault they had the miserable satisfaction of embracing a son and brother, Jacopo da Carrara. After lingering nearly two months in this region of despair, the father was privately strangled in prison; and on the following day his two sons perished in a similar manner. Two brothers of this illustrious family still survived; of these, Ubertino terminated his life by sickness soon after the ruin of his house; and Marsilio expiated a rash attempt to regain Padua by a public execution in 1435. Thus by the destruction of the once potent families of Scala and Carrara, the tyrant of the Adriatic was predominant in Lombardy, and invested with a splendid territory, including Padua, Verona, and Vicenza. Fifteen years afterwards Friuli was wrested from the patriarch of Aquileia.[g]