'^^ssmi^^^exif: ^^ ^ X. f^. Mn. n 1 Cat ineL A 1)0- V. i CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 189I BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE w ~> S25i DATE DUE ncr^ i— T*^ Ucb ^^tzmi uux Tv^- v MAYla,tf»9-!^^ T ...."^ L ^B^ ? ■ ; .■^5!J5,5158T«l«%:„.^y ■m E GAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S.A. 9.? ^^S.S^'',^S^er.^ J906 '" '■'"'aT Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027050040 Part I, Volume I VENICE BY POMPEO MOLMENTI Translated from the Italian by Horatio F. Bkown, British Archivist and author of "In and Around Venice," etc. Parti Venice in the Middle Ages 2 volumes Part II Venice in the Golden Age 2 volumes (ready Spring of 1 907) Part III The Decadence of Venice 2 volumes (ready Fall of 1907) Six volumes, 8vo Sold only in two-volume sections Per section, $5. 00 net A. C. McCLURG & CO., Publishers /^ ARMENTS of the Venetians of the ^-^ XIV Century. From the Mosaic in the Chapel of St. Isidore in St. Mark's Cathedral (Coloured aquarelle by Professor S. Misinato) VENICE ITS INDIVIDUAL GROWTH FROM THE EARLIEST BEGINNINGS TO THE FALL OF THE REPUBLIC BY POMPEO MOLMENTI TRANSLATED BY HORATIO F. BROWN Part I — THE MIDDLE AGES Volume I CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG & CO. LOnSON, lOHH MURHjt.Y BERGAMO, ISTITUTO ITALUSO 1906 (■ - ic Ui: I t f f.;K/;l;Y B: I Copyright, 1906 Bt The Uhiversitt Press ENTERED AT STATIONERS* HALL, LOKDOR ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published, October i3, igo6 THE UNIVERSITT PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. .1,1 ii'i'tio;). w,.i CONTENTS PAGE Introduction The Origins . ^ i Chapter I The Aspect and Form of the City 2 3 Chapter II Houses and Churches 46 Chapter III The Constitution 70 Chapter IV The Laws gS Chapter V Commerce and Navigation 1 1 5 Chapter VI Finance, Economy, Currency i44 Chapter VII The Nobles and Citizens — The People and the Craft-Guilds — The Jews i63 Chapter VIII Martial Exercises — Sports and Festivals — The Company of " The Hose " 197 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Garments of the Venetians of the XIV century — from the mosaic in the Chapel of St. Isidore in St. Mark's Cathedral (coloured aquarelle by Professor S. Misinaio) Frontispiece A. View near Venice 2 Semicircular tomb in stone resting on a square base ; and stone coffin of a babe (Altino) 2 AmpuUa and ointment box of thick glass ; cinerary urn of violet glass 6 Amphorae from Altino 6 Monuments and fragments in the museum at Aquiieia .... lo A small sepulchral monument from Altino (Museo di Treviso) . . lo Sepulchral shrine from Altino lO The Necropolis or Sepulcretum at Concordia I2 Remains of the Ancient Baptistry at Torcello (VII century) ... 1 4 Interior of the Cathedral at Grado (VI century) 1 8 Byzantine window let into the wall of a house at S. Tomli, Venice (VII century). Property of Comm. Guggenheim .... 20 The Ancient Plan of Venice, published by Temanza (Library of S. Marco) 24 The Rialto Bridge — detail from the picture "The Miracle of the Holy Cross " by Carpaccio (Royal Academy at Venice) ... 26 Venice, from an illuminated codex in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (early XV century) 28 Plan of Venice attributed to Jacopo de' Barbari 3o The Chair of S. Marco (Tesorodi S. Marco) 82 The Piazzetta — from a picture by Lazzaro Sebastiani (Museo Civico) 34 The Bronze Horses on the Facade of S. Marco 36 Marble Medallion in the Corte Angaran at S. Pantaleone .... 38 The House of the Quirini (Stalon) at Riaho 4o The Columns of the Piazzetta 42 viii ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE The Bridge and Canal of S. Lorenzo (XV century) — from the picture "The Miracle of the Holy Cross," by Gentile Bellini (Royal Academy at Venice) 44 A Street 46 Foundation piles, Palazzo da Mula at Murano 48 A Liagb and Outside Stair in the courtyard of the Palazzo Loredan at SS. Giovanni e Paolo (XIV and XV centuries) .... 5o Well-head in the Corte Battagia at the Birri (XI century) ... 52 Stone brackets, Calle del Paradise at Sa. Maria Formosa .... 5a Cross from the summit of the Campanile of S . Paterniano (Archivio di Stato) 52 Chimneys and elevations from Giovanni Bellini's picture ' ' La Processione suUa Piazza di S. Marco" 54 Ceiling of the Palazzo Contarini dalla ' ' Porta di Ferro " in the SalizzadaSa. Giustina (XV century). Architect, Matteo Reverti 56 Bedroom — from Carpaccio's ' ' Nativity of the Virgin " . . . . 58 Hall of the Great Council — from an old engraving (Museo Civico) 6o The Campo of S . Paterniano as it vras with the Campanile erected in 999 and now pulled down 64 The Arsenal — from the plan attributed to Jacopo de' Barbari . . 68 Lion on the door of the Campanile of S . ApoUinare 86 Sarcophagus of the Faliero family in which was laid the body of the Doge Marino FaHero (Museo Civico) 86 Column marking the house of Baiamonte Tiepolo (Museo Civico) 88 Justice — from the Capital of the Ducal Palace ii4 The Judgment of Solomon — lower portico of the Ducal Palace . Ii4 Acazia — bas-relief (Museo Civico) lao Dromone (Mosaics of S. Marco) I20 Roscona — river boat (Mosaics of S. ApoUinare at Ravenna) . . 120 Trireme — detail from a picture by Carpaccio in the Sa. Orsola series (Academy of Venice) 182 Abyssinia — from Fra Mauro's Atlas 1 4o Genoa and Venice — Chart of Francesco Pizigani (XV century) (Ambrosiana) i42 Venetian Coins i46 The Mint built by Jacopo Sansovino (i536) ........ i5o ILLUSTRATIONS ix PAGE Illumination representing the Grand Chancellor beside the Doge Andrea Dandolo i68 Gold seal of the Doge Michele Steno, i4oo-i4o4 (Bottacin Museum at Padua) 176 Notary, Carpenter, and Smith (Cronologia Magna) 176 From the Anthem Book of Sa. Maria della Cariti (i365). Initial of the first page of the text (Marciana, It. CI. II, n. 1 19) . . 178 From the Anthem Boot of Sa. Maria della Cariti. The procession of the brotherhood in front of their church and with their standard bearer (Marciana, It. CI. II, n. 119) 178 Sculptures of the columns on the Piazzetta (early XIII century) . 180 The Old Guild of Misericordia i84 Houses of the Ghetto 190 Giovanni da Bologna. The brothers of the Guild of S. GioYanni Evangelista (XIV century) (Royal Galleries of Yenice) . . . 190 An Archer — detail of a picture by Carpaccio (Academy at Venice) 198 Hunting on the Lagoon — from the " Customs" of Franco, 1610 . 200 Fist-fight — from the " Customs " of Franco 202 The Regatta — from the Plan of Venice by De' Barbari .... 2o4 Forze d'Ercole — from a wooden model in the Museo Civico . . 206 Giorgione — San Liberale — detail of a picture by Castelfranco . . 208 Arms of the Dogi Francesco Foscari and Cristoforo Moro (Arsenal of Venice) 210 Battle-axe (XIV century) (Museo Civico) 2io Venetian Swords (XV century) (Arsenal of Venice) 210 The Marriage of the Sea — from the " Customs " of Franco . . . 2i4 The Celebration of Maundy Thursday — from the "Customs" of Franco 216 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES INTRODUCTION — THE ORIGINS THE Veneti were among the most ancient peoples of Italy. The story of their arrival and settle- ment in the district which took its name from them, belongs in part to mythology. A vast forest, spreading from the mouths of the Po to the Taglia- mento, was called after Phaethon, while tradition speaks of the voyages of Jason, Hercules, and Antenor, and preserves the myths of the oracular Gery on, — at whose command golden dice were thrown into the springs at Ahano, — of Daedalus and Icarus at work on statues in the islands of the Electerides, of a nymph called Sola, who gave her name to Solana on the edge of the lake at Arquk. In the dawn of a nation's history the myths, which contain in themselves a psychological meaning indicative of the earliest consciousness in the race, have all a common source and an intimate resemblance. Nor even when we reach historic times does the origin of the Veneti become clearer. The most an- cient authors, both Greek and Latin, — Herodotus, Scylax, Strabo, Ptolemy, Livy, Virgil, Pliny, — when talking of events before the Roman era, only tell us that the Veneti belonged to the lUyrian race, that they preserved their independence, and were constantly torn by fierce struggles with Gauls, Insubres, and Etrurians. We have no other certain information on this point till modern research laid bare in the 2 VEIVIGE IN THE MIDDLE AGES districts of Verona, Treviso, Este, Belluno, and Friuli, and in the valleys of the higher Alps, those monuments, tombs, vases, and other precious remains of art and history which serve to throw light on the life and the civilisation of the Venetian people during the period upon which written tradition is silent. That region of Italy, bounded on the one side by the Adige, on the other washed by the northern sweep of the Adriatic, and protected by the Rhsetian and Julian Alps, was, according to classical tradition, in- habited first by the Euganei and then by the Veneti. To the Euganei, perhaps, — certainly to an Aryan people antecedent to the Veneti, — belong the pile-dwellings found in the lakes of Fimon, Arquk, and Garda. They date from a period in which the inhabitants, though they preferred stone, still knew the use of bronze. Later on, about the time when the use of stone was abandoned and people began to employ bronze and even gradually iron, that is, about the eighth century B.C., the Veneti emigrated from lUyria and took up their permanent abode in the new country. There they found themselves brought into contact and trade- relations with Italic and Etruscan races, who successively inhabited the Bolognese territory, and with the Greeks, who, at Adria, held one of the most flourishing mari- time emporiums of upper Italy ; and thus the Veneti, little by little, from the seventh to the fifth century b.c, made progress in the arts and industries, and even learned from the Greeks the rudiments of writing. Italic industries and arts spread over Central Europe till at the beginning of the fourth century e.g. they sufiered pernicious contact with the Gallic tribes which had invaded the valley of the Po. Under this influence the Veneti received and assimilated many elements of the Gallic civilisation, though they preserved intact THE ORIGINS 3 their sepulchral rites, their language, and, above all, their political independence.^ According to the plausible conjecture of certain scholars, based on discoveries in excavations, Este, the ancient Ateste, pleasantly placed on the slopes of the Euganean Hills, was the metropolis of the Veneto before the Roman era.'' Certainly it was a flourishing city, and archaeologists are able, thanks to the discovery of the necropolis at Este, vast in extent and rich in metal and earthenware utensils, to reconstruct to some extent the history of the early Veneti, and to evoke from their sepulchral monuments some conception of their ancient life. The Veneti burned their dead, and the ashes, enclosed in urns, were laid at first in the bare earth, later on in square stone tombs. Even at that early date social differences were indicated in the tombs ; some had rich and elegant, others but poor and mean fittings. The earthenware vases found in the sepulchres mark the gradual development and refinement of the ceramic art. More striking still is the advance in metal work. A bronze bucket (situla), now world-famous, brings be- fore our eyes, by the scenes portrayed on it, the manners and customs of the ancient Veneti, their arms, utensils, tools, and ornaments, among which the delicate and graceful safety-pins take a high place, and teach us that, side by side with bronze, the primitive metal iron was gradually coming into use. All these objects, some of them of exquisite workmanship, constitute most precious documents for the story of ancient Italic art.^ 1 Ghirardini, / Veneti prima delta storia. A lecture delivered in the University of Padua, 1901. 2 Id., ibid. ' Id., La situla italica primativa studiata specialmente in Este (in the Mon. ant. T^vhMsheihy the Accademia dei Lincei. Roma, 1892, 1898, 1901). 4 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES In the year ai5 b.c. theVeneti allied themselves to the Romans to fight their neighbours the Gauls, and in 1 83 they voluntarily made submission to the mighty empire of Rome, accepting its religion, law, culture, and language. Under Roman dominion the Venetian territory formed, with Gallia Cisalpina, a single province. Ancient writers draw a pleasant picture of the great cities, the fruitful soil, the riches of Venetia, which was both an ornament and a source of strength to the capital. Even in the days of the decline Venetia and Insubria were able to bear heavy taxation, thanks to their commerce and their sea trade. The great country houses, the broad consular roads, such as the Via vEmilia, the salubrity of the air, the amenity of the villages, all rendered these provinces worthy to rival the famous shores of Raise : Mmula Bajanis Altini litora villis.^ In the towns the people were full of vigorous life ; imperial palaces rose at Altino, Aquileia, and Verona; there was a public mint at Aquileia,^ and a manufactory of arms at Concordia, whose necropolis, discovered in 1878, shows us stone urns adorned with inscriptions and decorations ; everywhere stood flourishing towns and villages. Nevertheless the antique severity of manners did not change, and Pliny assures us that this people always pre- served its modesty and ancestral frugality. The women were chaste, soberly dressed, and without insolent pride, — a fact that, as Filiasi justly observes, allows us to measure the character of the society ; for women do not become light unless the men have first grown dissolute. 1 Martial, Lib. IV, Ep. XXV. Cfr. Pavanello, La Citlh d'Altino e I'Agro Altinate orientale. Cap. I. Treviso, 1900. 2 Filiasi, Memorie storiche dei Veneti primi e secondi, T. I. Padova, tip. del Seminario, MDCCCXI. THE ORIGINS 5 The inclinations and affections of these people were guided by the serenity of their minds. Family life was submitted to the governance of the State, even in the choice of a wife; for, following a usage of the older lUyrian Veneti, which Herodotus records for us, every year on a certain day the virgins were gathered together, and, in the presence of the public officials, each youth selected his companion. Of course the beauties were chosen first, but a wise law provided that the man who carried off one of the fair should pay a certain sum of money to help to dower the less fortunate or the deformed, for whom a husband would thus be secured.^ Traces of this custom are to be found among the later Venetians. Before and during the Roman era, in which they adopted the toga, the .Veneti were quietly dressed, and never became infected with the corruption, effemi- nacy, and luxury of the Etruscan colonies in the neigh- bouring territories, nor were they acquainted with silk, linen, gauze, or other precious stuffs. The bardo cucullus, a rough cape, was worn not only by the poorer country folk, but also by the well-to-do ; it is mentioned in Juvenal.''^ Like the other Italians, their neighbours, they used blue serge, blue being a colour they always loved to such an extent that among the Romans ' ' blue " and ' ' Veneto " Avere synonymous, and at Rome the blue faction in the circus was called the Venetian faction.^ They wore baggy breeches, on their heads a Phrygian cap, and round their necks a chain of gold or some other metal. In the field they used a shield and a large curved sword. 1 Pignoria, op. clt.. Cap. XI. 3 Contentusque illic Veneto duroque cucullo. Sat. 3. s Filiasi, op. oit., T. VI, p. 67. 6 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES But if their manners were simple they did not neg- lect their personal cleanliness, and at Rome a certain composition of vitriol for cleansing the skin, called terra Veneta, was much appreciated. When the Veneti became Romans they naturally felt the influence of the capital, though they did not abandon the simpUcity of their man- ners. For example, they adopted several of the Roman games most in vogue, and combats of men and beasts and of gladiators took place in the amphitheatres of Altino, Aquileia, Padua, and Verona. But bloody spectacles were repugnant to the gentle character of the people, who took greater pleasure in chariot and horse races, — the horses they bred with great care, — in scenic representations, and in the so-called iselastici games, or gymnastic sports, followed by challenges to poetry and song. Throughout this period of the empire we meet with an alternation of fortunate and unfortunate events, among the latter the siege of Aquileia in 288 by Maximinus, the rival of the two emperors, Maximus and Balbino, elected by the Senate. Aquileia offered a stout resistance, not to be cowed by dread of famine or of death. Acts of valour were common. As bowstrings ran short the women offered their own hair, and therefore, after the death of Maximinus and the end of the siege, a medal was struck to commemorate the abnegation of the people of Aquileia. It bore on the obverse the figure of Quintia Ci'ispilla, wife of Maximus, and on the reverse a temple with the legend Venere calva. The fifth century is marked by slaughter. After the awful but temporary invasions of the Vandals and the Huns — ' ' the scourges of God " — there came the more permanent occupations by the Eruli, the Ostrogoths, who were less barbarous, and finally the Lombards, A Ampulla and ointment box of thick glass; cinerary urn of violet glass. B and G — AmphoriE from Altino THE ORIGINS 7 very fierce at first, but gradually tamed by the gen- tleness of the climate and by intermarriage with the conquered Italians. The empire collapsed at the shock of the barbarians; the stormy incursions of those northern peoples, ill satisfied with their poverty-stricken country, set all Italy in a blaze, and she became the theatre of appalling and incessant carnage. During this miserable and cowardly period, the larger part of Italian vitality withdrew to the extreme and neglected corners of the peninsula. The glorious heritage of the Italians was preserved by some .few fugitives who, thanks to the fruitful operation of their united efibrts, gave birth, among the marshes of the Adriatic coast, to a State whose history is full of varied episodes, some felicitous, some disastrous, almost all glorious. Let us now observe in some detail the localities in the Venetian estuary where national freedom took refuge from the barbarian inroads, and what were the elements which went to make up the new people. Our guides shall be the Gronaca Altinate,^ the Ghronicon Gradense, the Chronicles of John the Deacon, and of the Doge, Andrea Dandolo.^ Venetian chroniclers, in the spirit of their time, not only attached the origin of Venice to the legend of Troy and ^neas, from whom they derived the name Eneti or Veneti,^ but they further desired to surround 1 Cronaca Altinate, ei. Simonsfeld. (Mon. Germ. Hist., Vol. XIV. Hannover, i883.) Cronache veneziane antichissime, edited by G. Monticolo. (Fonti per la storia d'ltalia. Vol. IX. Roma, 1900.) The Ghronicon Gradense at pages 17 et seq. ; The Ghronicon Venetum by Giovanni Diacono at pages 57 et seq. 3 Dandolo, Ghronicon (Rer. Ital. Script., Vol. XII). 8 The Cronaca Altinate (p. 33) says, "Tote iste . . . civitates (Adria, Aquileia, Concordia, Padua, Mantua, Verona, Oderzo, Altino, etc.) 8 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES the early dwelling-place of their fathers with a halo of religious and poetical glory, and the Cronaca Altinate records the legend of supernatural voices indicating to the refugees the sure asylum of the lagoon. Legend, too, evokes from the silence of the vast Venetian estuary the figure of the saint who was one day to be the patron of Venice, and tells us how Saint Mark, journeying from AquUeia to Ravenna, touched at the island group of Rial to, where in a dream an angel appeared unto him and greeted him with the Avords, Pax tibi, Marce, hie reqaiescet corpus tuum, and in tones prophetic foretold to him the birth of a great city on those barren islets. Those islets, however, must certainly have been known and inhabited long before that. From remotest times the lidi between Grado and the mouths of the Po, clothed with evergreen pine forests, were occupied to some extent, for along that shore lay the shortest and the safest route between Ravenna and Aquileia. This would lead us to conjecture the presence of posting stations well provided with all that was required for the journey.^ If the waters of Grado were a perma- nent station for the Roman fleet, and the actual port of Aquileia ; if, again, Albiola and Malamocco and Fossa Clodia were the ports of Padua which extended its jurisdiction from Oriago to Chioggia^ ; if the people of Altino itself made use of the ports of Lido, Treporti, and Sant' Erasmo, as we must believe, we are forced to the conclusion that all these places were already known edifficaverunt ipsi Troiani, que cum Enea illorum princeps, quos antea gentiles fuerunt venientes de ilia antiqua magne Troie ; que modo ab Enea nomine Andreati Enetici nuncupantur." 1 Mommsen, Corpus Inscr. Lat., Vol. I, p. 2o5. ^ Gloria, Cod. dipt padovano (s£ecs. VII-XII) Diss., p. ixii. THE ORIGINS 9 and inhabited by sailor-folk and fishermen, who, how- ever, owing to their scanty numbers, were unable to form an independent political association and recognised the jurisdiction of the mainland. Behind the outer lidi, long strips of land, protected on the one side from encroaching tides, on the other separated from the mainland by broad swamps, thrust themselves into the upper estuary from the Taglia- mento to the mouths of the Piave, and there, in all probability, from fabulous times, was bred that race of Venetian horses allied to the Arab and famous in the circus at Rome, and also those herds of oxen which soon after gave their name to one of the lidi. Who can suppose that the islands of Torcello and Burano, lying in front of Altino, were unknown? Are not Latin inscriptions unearthed there, referring to the public gardens belonging to the Altinati P Nor can that little group of islands which lies between Torcello, the present city of Venice, and the lido have been quite devoid of any cultivation until the barbarian invasions, though the Cronaca Altinate calls them deserted. At Majurbio (Mazzorbo) there was a cele- brated and much frequented shrine to the god Belenus. What the Rialto group was like we shall see later on ; we may limit ourselves to stating that in front of the harbour, subsequently called the porta di Veniesia, on the point of Olivolo, from Trojan times there stood a castle, a sure indication both of population and of maritime movement and trade. The islands of the lower or southern estuary were less flourishing. Parallel with the line of terra firma ran long stretches of land, at first, without doubt, inhabited, whereon rose small villages, quickly obliterated by the changing courses of the rivers. lo VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES Such was the Venetian estuary. Let us look now at the new inhabitants. Ancient writers tell us that in /i52 , on the approach of the Huns, Secundus, Archbishop of Aquileia, bearing with him the treasury of his church, took refuge in the island of Grado, and that when the incursion had passed by, Nicetas, Secundus' successor, returned with the fugitives to ruined Aquileia. In face of the new invasion by the Goths in d8o, the Arch- bishop Marcellinus, accompanied by many people of Aquileia, again took refuge in Grado, which, after the further invasion of the Lombards in 568, offered once more an asylum to Archbishop Paulinus, and was even- tually chosen by his successor, the Patriarch Elias, as the permanent residence of the Metropolitan, who had under him six other sees of the lagoon cities.^ Grado was called the second Aquileia, and became in a short space of time the richest and most opulent among the islands of the estuary,^ and yet it never attained political importance, perhaps because it was the seat of the ecclesiastical power. The fugitives from Concordia sought asylum in the island which took its name — Caprule and then Caorle — from the goats brought there by the goatherds. At Caorle one still finds in the nomenclature traces of ancient families which have disappeared elseivhere. These people gave themselves to agriculture and to the breeding of herds, and slowly consolidated all the land that lies about the mouths of the Livenza. If we are to believe the Cronaca Altinate, the new inhabitants of Caprule even thus early undertook to regulate the waterways, in addition to the foundation of agricultural settlements and the normal occupations of fishing and shooting. Bibione, lying between Grado and Caorle, 1 Cr. Altinate ^ Caprip, Lagune di Grado. Trieste, 1890. A — MoKUMEMTS and fragments in the museum at Aquilela. B — A small sepulchral monument from Altino (Museo di Treviso). C — Sepulchral shrine from Altino THE ORIGINS ii was united with the mainland, and, as Zanetti remarks in his notes to John the Deacon, is not to be confounded with the distant Torre delle Bebbe beyond Chioggia. On the banks of the lower Piave, near the canals called Ramo and Grassaga, the city of Heraclea, so called in honour of the Emperor Heraclius, was peopled by the upper classes from the city of Opitergium, who fled before the ruin wrought by the Lombard Rotari. Heraclea was noted for its temples, its great buildings, and because it became the seat of the first Doge of the lagoon confederation.^ Seven miles away, and not far from the mouths of the Piave, was a town called Equilio, from the horses that were bred there along with herds of cattle and droves of pigs. Later on it took the name of Jesolo, and its inhabitants, who per- haps had come down from the hills of the Veneto, Avere a race at once proud and indomitable. Probably this was the sole cause of their quarrel, carried on for nearly ninety years, with Heraclea, where the remnants of the ancient Veneto-Roman aristocracy had concentrated itself and made its influence felt. The islets of Torcello gave asylum, during Attila's invasion in 452, to the inhabitants of Altino, who, in the fourth century, had been converted to Christianity by the Bishop Saint Heliodorus. As the danger died away, many returned to their native place ; but in the seventh century Torcello again received an immigration from Altino when the Arian persecution was raging. To Torcello the Bishops Paulus and Maurus removed their 1 Among the cane-brakes of the marshy land, about seven kilometres from the village of Ceggia, have been found Roman bricks, pieces of mosaic, fragments of balustrades and jars, all that remains of Heraclea. The town was destroyed in 8o5 and rebuilt by the Doge Agnello Partecipazio under the name of Cittanova. It was the see of a bishop, but quickly declined and disappeared. 12 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES see, and there rose churches and buildings, constructed to a large extent from stones and marble brought from Altino, which, however, was not entirely deserted, and down to the ninth century preserved a certain importance .^ The people of Altino occupied Amuriana also, and the town soon became rich and populous. Nor were Majurbio and its neighbouring lidi less flourishing. In the fifteenth century the remains of splendid ancient basilicas were still visible. At Malamocco we find a diflerent race and different manners. The old tOM'n lay about a mile from the present village and was surrounded by a flourishing cultivation. The commerce of Padua was concentrated there and thither weht the Bishop of Padua and a large number of Paduans when the Huns laid waste by fire and sword that ancient and famous city of the Veneto. We shall presently see the reasons which led to Malamocco being chosen as the seat of the Doge ; meantime we must note that the population could never forget that they drew their origin from Padua, one of the most illustrious cities of the mainland ; and therefore it was unlikely that they would submit for long to the domination of the fugitives from Aquileia. Here then are to be found the first roots of those bloody conflicts which mark the early centuries of the Re- public and which came to an end only when the great political idea of founding a capital in the middle of the estuary, and concentrating there the Avhole population, in spite of their various blood, character, and temper, was carried into effect. After passing the port of Albiola there lay, facing each other and prosperous on account of their salt 1 CipoUa, Riccrche sulle trad, intorno alle antiche immigrazioni nella laguna (Archivio Veneto, T. XXVIII, p. 33o and passim). THE ORIGINS i3 pans, the greater and lesser Chioggia, a name probably derived from the Fossa Clodia of the Romans . In the heart of the lagoons rose the smallest but the safest of all the islands, Rivoalto. The extremity of the lagoon opposite to that where stood Grado was closed by Capo d'Argine. The incessant operations of sea and rivers have modi- fied the aspect and even the position of the islands ; political commotions have destroyed some towns, while others have suffered change through the progress of time and the cataclysms of nature, and nothing of their ancient splendour now remains save the name. To- day, among the desolate lagoons of Grado, of Caorle, of Altino, of Jesolo, of Torcello, of Malamocco, one dreams of the life at a period which was flourishing in trade and industries, when the workmen swarmed in the factories, and Greek masters of mosaic laid the pavements of churches and public buildings whose mag- nificence we cannot reconstruct for ourselves save by the aid of scattered and formless ruins. With Romulus Augustulus the majesty of imperial Rome disappeared entirely, and mainland Venice, like the rest of Italy, fell under the sway of Odoacer and then of Theodoric, (493), until Justinian (553-555) reconquered the peninsula from the Goths. Lagoon Venice, if, as some hold, it retained its autonomy while at the same time recognising the overlordship of the Goths, most certainly admitted the suzerainty of the Byzantine Empire, and in due course the supe- riority of the other masters of the neighbouring main- land. When the Eastern emperors moved against the Goths, and the peninsula became a battlefield with all the horrors of famine and death, Cassiodorus, the min- ister of Theodoric, King of the Goths, wrote to the i4 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES Tribuni Marittimi of the Venetian lagoons begging them with their large fleet of boats to carry provisions from Istria to Ravenna. This famous letter of Cassiodorus, written in a style of artificial elegance, shows us the dawn of Venetian sea-power. It describes the whole population, various in condition, in habits, in age, but united together in one common activity. This people, which rose into being during the ruin of Italy, could hardly as yet take a first step towards amalgamation, but, renewed and strengthened by suffering, it emerged from its early difficulties and affirmed itself as a nation with a vigour and resolution which presaged for it a long and sure existence. With them lay the future and its power. The letter of Cassiodorus, though it has often been reproduced, is a document of such import- ance for the history of Venetian life and manners in the sixth century, one hundred years after the inva- sion of Attila, that we must quote it here, since records of that period are so rare. "You," writes Cassiodorus to the Tribunes, "own many and many a ship ; your vessels fear not the stormy winds. They come home safely to port, nor do they ever founder, they who time after time set sail from shore. The famous Venetia, already rich in no- bility, touches, to the south, Ravenna and the Po ; to the east it enjoys the smiling shores of the Ionian Sea, where the alternate ebb and flow cover and uncover the face of the land. There lie your houses, like water- fowl, now on land, now on islands ; and when the change comes, they are seen scattered like the Cyclades over the face of the waters — habitations not made by nature, but founded by the industry of man. For the land is made solid by wattled piles, nor do you dread to offer so fragile a bulwark to the waves of the sea when THE ORIGINS i5 the low-lying islands fail to beat back the weight of water because they are not high enough. Fish alone is abundant; rich and poor live there on equal terms. A single food nourishes all alike; the same sort of house shelters you all ; you envy not the lot of others, and living thus you flee the vice that rules the world. All your rivalry is expended in your salt- works ; in place of ploughs and sickles you turn your drying-pans, and hence comes all your gain, and what you have made is your very own. All products are dependent on your industry ; for it may well be that some seek not gold, but there lives not a man who does not need salt, which seasons all our food." The refugees of the Adriatic lagoons, who by long years of toil, rich in noble deeds, were slowly building up the new fatherland, were men of various conditions, — homeni degni et illustri,^ poor dependents, patrician, plebeian, — but all bound by the common tie of mis- fortune. A learned foreigner ^ declares that the rich and noble from the Italian mainland, subjects of the effete Roman Empire, cannot have sought asylum in the islands in any great numbers, for at the moment when Venice emerges we are brought face to face with a band of sea- farers, vigorous, flourishing, indefatigable, who show no traces of a corrupt and decadent civilisation. It is probable that the more courageous among the citizens of the mainland towns did not fly at the first appear- ance of the barbarian hordes ; nor did they abandon their country in its supreme need, as is proved by the long siege of Aquileia and the brave resistance of other mainland towns. On the other hand, it is likely that 1 Sanudo, Cronachetta. Venezia, 1880. ^ Gfrbrer, Storia di Venezia dalla sua fondazione fino all' anno 108i. Venezia, 1878. i6 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES the aged, the women, and the children — all who were unfit to fight — sought safety in flight, while the rich and noble, who besides their lives had also their prop- erty to save, would, in all probability, make for the sure asylum of the estuary sooner than the poor, who, even in moments of greatest danger, are always bound to stay behind and wait what the fates may bring them, be it good or bad.^ The dangers they ran, the loss of wealth, the perpetual struggle with an inhos- pitable soil and with robbers no less hostile, the necessity for a life of hardship and fatigue in which the weak must have disappeared, the continual use of arms, and the handling of ships, all contributed to build up the virile power of the new race. For the rest, the manners and customs of the Veneti, even the rich and noble, had not felt the action and the consequences of later-day corruption, and we may be sure that the asylum islands of the lagoon were not without some admixture of the patriciate which had fled from the mainland towns. We may conclude that after the first invasions many families returned to their homes, where lay their ancestral possessions^; but when the Goths first and then the Lombards enforced their grip on Italy, with all the suffering which history records, then the temporary asylum became the new and perma- nent home. The Cronaca Altinate records the names of many powerful families gathered in the islands, who later on removed from Heraclea, Jesolo, Torcello, Mazzorbo, Burano, Ammiana, and Costanziaca to Venice. The chronicle recalls the wise and benevolent Partecipazi ; the 1 Giannotti, Delia rep. e magistrati di Venezia, p. 283. Venezia, i84o. ^ " His sedatis invasionibus plurimi profugorum ad primiora domicilia redierunt." Dandolo, Chr., L. V, Gap. X. THE ORIGINS 17 Candiani, fierce in war and strong in body ; the rich Barbolani, from Parma ; the powerful Centranici ; the gentle Selvo, from Bergamo ; the MastaUci, from Reggio, who sought to combat ignorance and lying by building churches ; the petulant Magi ; the robust Mauroceni, from Mantua; the mild Grausoni, from Garda; the good Falier, from Fano ; the magnificent Caloprini, from Cremona; the Moncanici, with their great train of servants ; the mocking and incredulous Vallaresso, but church-builders all the same ; Contarini, from Con- cordia, wise in counsel and kindly ; the Barbarigo, learned in architecture ; the Saponari, of Salona, build- ers of many houses; the Pintori, painters, as their name implies ; the Sapini, given to agriculture ; the Villiareni Mastalici, who had brought with them vast sums of gold and silver ; and many another. Now, who were all these P They had not grown up from humble and unknown families among the natives, but came from many different cities, bringing with them the prestige of riches and of noble lineage. Who were those majores recorded by the chroniclers as forming the earliest of the ancient assemblies ? Beyond a doubt they were the leading families, who with the lapse of time became the patricians or patrons, the seed of the Venetian aristocracy, gathered together in lagoons, along with their clients, from whom descended the Venetian people properly so called. In Cassiodorus' letter we see the primitive, frugal, laborious early life of the Venetians entirely devoted to trade and the adornment of their new home. The details of this early life escape us. We can only follow in gen- eral lines the active industry which rendered the islands fit for habitation. "You," says Cassiodorus, "with your salt-pans sweat out coin, " and in truth from the very i8 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES beginning the neighbouring provinces] were tributary to the Venetians for salt, and connected with salt was an extensive trade in salt fish. Bread and salt they bartered for iron from Carinthia, to be used by themselves and also for export to the East. The activity was divided : some of the inhabitants dedicated themselves to agricul- ture and reduced the land to gardens and fields ; others selected the water for fishing or for salt-works. Be- sides the larger islands, every mound or hummock of sand brought down by the swirls of the Brenta, Sile, and Piave, every little islet surrounded by swamps or by narrow and tortuous canals, was rendered habitable. Thus the barren soil became the property of the new- comers, each island was a separate centre, a settlement as it were, with its own government and its own magis- trates, until the moment came for it to form a part of the great Venetian community. And so, while around the castles of Tuscany and on the plain of Lombardy the people lived in abject despair, while in Rome, fallen under the sword of the barbarian, patrician and plebeian alike suffered in servitude, the young community laid down its first regulations, its ships began to sail the Adriatic, its arms were called on to assist other races, its travellers pushed onward to the shores of the Orient. A strong people arose on the ruins wrought by the barbarians, the ancient civilisation came to life again and penetrated the institutions and customs of the new. It is not our purpose to follow the course of events which drove the commune of Venice into wars with the neighbouring conquerors, and finally with Pipin, the most important of them all, as being the immediate cause of the final and definite selection of Rivoalto, — the germ and heai't of Venice, — as the seat of the THE ORIGINS 19 government. Still anyone who undertakes to inquire into the nature of lagoon life at that time cannot escape the necessity of investigating the causes of this event, and of noting the effect on the ideas which moulded the relations of the citizens towards each other and towards the State. The existence of opposing factions in the islands of the lagoons had its origin in and was maintained by various causes . Part of the fugitives took refuge in lands which were already subject to their own municipal government, and therefore those fugitives may be said, as it were, to have found themselves at home. Others, and not a few, came to occupy land to which their ancestors had never put forward any claim. Thus the lower estuary, from the islands of Rialto to Capo d'Argine, was so fully populated that even as early as da i , according to Dandolo and other chroniclers, the city of Padua sent two consuls to govern it. But neither the Cronaca Altinate nor John the Deacon make any mention of these consuls ; and we believe this tradition, which has no other authority than a document in the Archives of Padua, ^ is to be attributed to local rivalries; nevertheless we do not wish to assert that it does not contain some element of truth, namely, some traces of a genuine bond of dependence which, prior to the barbarian invasions, attached the men of the lower lagoon to the Municipium of Padua. In like manner the islands of Torcello and the group known as the Con trade, Murano, 1 In a copy of this document which existed in the Stefani collection, now- dispersed, and which dates from the beginning of the fifteenth century, the names of these consuls differ from those given by Sanudo in the Vite del Dogi. The numbers also which are assigned to the various constellations, and the position of some of the planets, present notable differences. We reproduce the document in the appendix (Document A), not for its value, on which history has already passed judgment, but as a curiosity. 20 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES and the lido of Sant' Erasmo were probably attached to Altino, while the territories of Equilio and Heraclea, perhaps, were in a like dependence on Concordia, as beyond all doubt Grado formed part of the jurisdiction of Aquileia. At that period the common misfortunes can have left little leisure for discussing individual rights, but on the passing of the barbaric tempest, local jealousies and contests would inevitably come to life again. These considerations serve to throw some light on the struggles between Jesolo and Heraclea — struggles which often dyed the Canal dell' Arco the colour of blood — and also on the events which led to the removal of the ducal seat from Heraclea to Malamocco. They were struggles of conflicting elements fighting for supremacy — struggles, for example, of the people who came from Altino against the insolence of those who drew their origin from Aquileia ; or of the original citizens of Padua, who could endure no other superior. Add to this that, after the restoration of the Western Empire, difficulties and struggles must have [multiplied for the Venetians who dwelt on the confines of Italy. Early Venetians, for political reasons easily divined, desired to maintain that Venice was born free and preserved her freedom intact ; but as a matter of fact such complete independence was not in the spirit of the age, and no Latin race would ever have dreamed of refusing to acknowledge, at least in outward form, its obligations towards the Roman Empire and, later, towards the Greek. ^ 1 See the heading of documents — I'egnantibus dominis nosti-is, etc. More- over, prayers were offered in the churches for the health of the Emperor, who frequently negotiated and concluded treaties in the name of Venice. Gfrorer, however, exaggerates the dependence of Venice on the sovereign of Constantinople, who, according to him, even had the right to confirm B^ZAMTiNE window let into the wall of a house at S. Toma, Venice (VII century). Property of Coram. Guggenheim THE ORIGINS 21 On the other hand commercial interests influenced the new repubhc to remain united to Byzantium; with the decline of Byzantium, however, these bonds became relaxed. In the interned discords of the Venetian islands the Greeks took now one side now another, while the weaker party was wont to look for support from the lords of the neighbouring mainland, first the Lombards and then the Franks, and it is by no means improbable that many Venetian families still retained on the main- land a part at least of their ancient patrimony. We cannot beheve that these families voluntarily abandoned the entire heritage of their forefathers; on the contrary, that heritage was maintained even throughout the bar- barian invasions by a considerable number of Veneto- Romans, original owners of the soil, a fact which is demonstrated by the documents of the Codex Diplomaticus Padavinus. We are therefore bound to distinguish two parties, the Veneto-Grecians and the Veneto-Italians; both were reinforced, as time went on, by the immigration of dis- tinguished families of Greek origin, like the Partecipazi, or of Lombard origin, like the Candiani. The conflicts between the two parties led up to the invasion by the Prankish king, Pipin, whose career is said to have been checked by the rout at Malamocco and by the honourable peace which introduced a new and better disposition of the State. In the transference of the ducal seat to the islands of Rialto, we not only see the necessity for choosing a more central and secure abode, but also the desire to collect and fuse in one single spot, hitherto of minor importance, the best of the discordant elements the election of the Doge, It is true, however, that the Doge frequently received titles of honour, such as hypatos, spathai-ius, and pivtospatharius, from the Byzantine court. 22 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES scattered about the estuary. On the other hand change of place impHed change of constitution. If Heraclea had represented the supremacy of the Greek faction, and Malamocco the tendency towards the Franks, Rialto embodied the idea of national independence. The Doge Agnello Partecipazio, who in 8 1 li , in face of the supreme danger to the country, removed the seat of government to Rialto, gave life and form to the new State. From this date begins the glorious history of Venice. CHAPTER I THE ASPECT AND FORM OF THE CITY A SURE guide through the tortuous ways of the new city is wanting, and we are obliged to content ourselves with following the Pianta di Venezia edited by Temanza, attributed to the middle of the twelfth century, but certainly copied later than that, as buildings are represented in it which could not then have existed. To eke out our description we shall have recourse to documents and traditions. We have seen how the fugitives from the barbarian invasions raised ramparts against the waves and by their industry transformed a marshy land into solid ground capable of carrying more massive buildings than the mere huts of the first and few dwellers on these islands. The canals, the dykes, the drains are proof of the energy required to make the place in- habitable and are evidence of the pertinacious quality of a race which was able to wring from its inhospitable home both strength and security. And in truth that courageous toil was fruitful of great issues, for no sooner had the fugitives fixed their home in the group of islands at Rialto — called by John the Deacon "the second Venice" to distinguish it from Venice of the mainland — than they elected a triumvirate whose duty it was to enlarge the island of Rialto, to reclaim the marsh lands, and to secure the safety of the lido against the sea. Other islands joined themselves 24 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES to the new city : Scopolo, Dorsoduro, Spinalunga, Luprio, Mendigola, the two Gemine or Gemelle, Om- briola, and OUvolo, all of them formed of firm, cal- careous soil, intermixed with broken shells ; they were called tomba,^ from the Greek TVyti/3o? (a heap of earth) ; the mudbanks, called velme and barene, were reclaimed and rendered inhabitable ; such were Iria, Ceo, Biria, Plombiola, Cannaregio, Teran, Adrio, and Bancaria.^ There were sixty, or according to others seventy, of these banks which went to make up Venice. The churches, round which the houses were built and which formed the nucleus of the quarter or contrada, show us the development of the city, which, after the middle of the twelfth century,^ was divided into six districts (sestieri), three on one side of the Grand Canal — namely, Castello, San Marco, and Cannaregio — and three on the other — to wit, San Polo, Santa Croce, and Dorsoduro. The sesliere of Castello comprised the island of Olivolo, at the extreme corner of Venice, where stood the ancient castle that gave its name to the quarter. Legend would have us believe that this castle was founded by Antenor, the leader of the Eneti, as a protection for the lagoon islands. The castle was called Castrum OlivoU, and hence the name Castello was applied to that part of the city originally called Olivolo. Here stood the ancient church, subject to the jurisdiction of the patriarchs of Grado and dedi- ^ Gallicciolli, Delle memorie Ven. profane ed Ecclesiastiche, Vol. I, p. 59. Venezia, MDCCXCV. 2 Id., ibid.. Vol. I, pp. 54, 55. ' It would seem that this look place in 1171, under the Doge Vitale Michiel, and not under Agaello Pajtecipazlo (8i 1-827); as some er'ronBOtlsly gffi'^ii^Kiii'jjxJ lwiiiO(_ aljiiiilgi tjiIjO .D'jg odi Janiiigxs o\)ij :/3 o a Q a a o s > o B a H THE ASPECT AND FORM OF THE CITY 25 cated to Saints Sergius and Bacchus. They say this church was rebuilt in 774 by Magno, Bishop of Oderzo, and dedicated to Saint Peter. It was again rebuilt by Bishop Or so Partecipazio (82 a) and restored many times, and remained the Cathedral of Venice till 1807. Hard by the canal of San Pietro were the two churches and two monasteries of Sant' Anna and San Domenico and the hospital for seamen. On the left of the rio di Castello, not far from the Church of the Celestia, was the arsenal, embracing that part now known as the Arsenale Vecchio. This sestiere ex- tended up to the rio del Palazzo Ducale and contained, besides those mentioned, the following churches : San Biagio, San Martino, Santa Ternita (Santa Trinita), San Giovanni in Bragora, Sant' Antonino, San RocoUo, San Giovanni Nuovo, San Severo, Santa Maria Formosa, Santa Marina, and San Lio. The sestiere of San Marco contained San Basso, San Geminiano, Santa Maria in capite brolii (Ascensione), San Giuliano, San Salvatore, San Bartolomeo, San Luca, San Paterniano, San Benedetto, Sant' Angelo, San Vitale, San Samuele, San Maurizio, Santa Maria Zobenigo,^ San Fantino, and San Moise. The [sestiere of Cannaregio {canalecto, canaledo), probably so called from the stores of reeds gathered there from the mainland and used for thatching houses and churcMs, began at the canal subsequently called the rio del Fondaco dei Tedeschi and ended at the canal of Cannaregio. It contained the churches of San Geremia, Santa Lucia, San Leonardo, San Marcuola (Santi Ermagora e Fortunato), Santa Maria Maddalena, Santa Fosca, San Marcilian (San Marziale), San Felice, "1 So called from the island or else from the Jtib'anico,v the "name of the vf4kil^Jih#|iMgltiftii)!i .oJoiiyiM iiiicl ijiiij OJiiriiiM \al ilJioa 26 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES Santa Sofia, Santi Apostoli, San Giovanni Crisostomo, San Canciano, Santa Maria Nuova. Of the other three sestieri lying beyond the Grand Canal, the sestiere of San Polo embraced the churches of San Tom^, San Stin (Santo Stefanino), Sant' Apollinare, San Silvestro, and San Giacomo di Rialto. The sestiere of Dorsoduro, which derived its name from the greater solidity of its soil, was originally inhabited by poor fisher-folk, as it lay more exposed to attack from foes or pirates. It comprised the parish churches of San Raffaello, San Basilio, San Niccolb, San Trovaso (Santi Gervasio e Protasio), San Barnaba, Santa Margherita, San Pantaleone, Sant' Agnese, San Vio (San Vito), San Gregorio, and the island of Spina- lunga or Giudecca. Lastly, in the sestiere of Santa Croce we find San Simeone the Apostle and San Simeone the Prophet, San Giovanni DecoUato, Sant' Jacopo dall' Orio, San Boldo (Sant' Ubaldo), San Stae (Sant' Eustachio), Santa Maria Mater Domini, and San Cassiano. The names of the greater number of the founders of these churches were to be rendered illustrious by the valour of their descendants in years to come. Round about Venice lay, to the east, several islands which were gradually enlarged and made pleasant abodes : Sant' Andrea (now Certosa), Sant' Elena of the Olivetan monks, San Giorgio Maggiore, San Ser- vilio, San Lazzaro, destined to the care of lepers, and Santa Maria in Nazareth, where rose the monastery of the hermits of Sant' Agostino. At the point of the canal Orfano a little hut, that served as a shelter to the fishermen, was presently to be the nucleus of the hermitage and hospital of San Clemente. To the north lay Murano and San Michele, belonging to the The Rialto Bridge — detail from the picture "-The Miracle of the Holy Cross," by Carpaccio, in the Royal Academy at Venice THE ASPECT AND FORM OF THE CITY 27 Camaldolesi, where at the close of the tenth century there stood a church. ^ Venice, during this period of growth, must have ofTered a unique appearance. The chief means of com- munication was by water, in boats which traversed the innumerable little channels intersecting the tiny islands and also the wider canals which connected one group with another. The canal which divided the city like a winding band was called delta Zirada at Sant' Andrea and Businiaco at San Benedetto. The canal across the Piazza di San Marco was known as the rio Batario, the Giudecca canal was called Canal Vigano. Some of the public paths were ten or twelve feet wide, for example at San Marco, Rial to, and San Mois^ ; others were extremely narrow and frequently crossed each other, winding their way between the houses ; these were called calli.^ Others, again, stretched along the edges of the canals and were called fondamenta, or more {reqaently junctoria, irorajungere, to land. The stretches of land [terre vacue) most exposed to inundations were left untilled and only the grass- growing tracts were cultivated. The vast swamps were constantly reclaimed, the reeds cut, and the ground made fertile. Territori Avas the name applied to cer- tain spaces round the houses, campi, or campieli their diminutive, to the open places in front of the churches, while corii meant an inclosed court. Certain marshy lands retained the name of paluo, and arzere was the title given to the dykes that kept out the water. ^ Temanza, Antica Pianta. Trevisan Bernardo, Delia laguna di Ven., p. 79. Venezia, 1715. ^ They were almost all private property and were sold along with the houses. In ancient contracts we frequently find the concession of safe passage through the calle. 28 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES People walked on the bare ground, and down the streets ran the slops from the houses ^ ; the swine of Sant' Antonio nosed about in the grass, ^horses trotted through the town and down the street called the Merceria (the Mercers' street) which led from San Marco to Rial to. Here and there grew wide-spreading trees ; for example, near the old Procuratie a great elder to which the magistrates were wont to tie their horses when summoned to the Council by the sound of the bell, which was called the trottera, from the trot of the horses and mules which brought the magistrates to the Palazzo Ducale. In 1893 a law put an end to riding in the Merceria, on account of the crowd, and further obliged all horses and mules to carry- bells^ to warn the foot passengers. In the thirteenth century they began to pave the more frequented streets with brick {lapidibus salizare). The greater part of the streets, however, remained unpaved, and for a long time to come were traversed by horses. Frequently under the Doge Lorenzo Celsi (i36i-i365) a crowd of nobles were to be seen mounted on splendid chargers, following his Serenity, who was a lover of 1 Although the Cronaca Altinate says that the earliest inhabitants of the islands in omnique parte cloacas fecerunt, and although we find latrine sotterranee and subierraneos conductos in documents of ii34 and i2o5, nevertheless they usually emptied their slops into the street. Cecchetti, La vita dei Veneziani nel 1300 (Arch. Veneto, T. XXVII, p. a6). ^ Archivio di Stato, Magg. Consiglio, Leona, p. i88, Oct. lo, 1409. " Cum ista animalia porcina que sub specie et reverentia Sancti Antonii vadunt per civitatem nostram Venetiarum faciant et committant plurima et diversa mala tarn contra pueros quam in stratls et fondamentis, prop- ter suum rumare in damnum et deformitatem nostre civitatis. . . . Vadit pars," etc. 3 Ibid., ibid., ibid., c. 60, Aug. ag, 1892. " Pro obviando multis malis que in currendos equos in djebus .estivis in platea Sancti Marci possent occurrere." .-lUnj srij iljiuoull ■<^'i\^-.r,i\ THE ASPECT AND FORM OF THE CITY 29 show and a connoisseur in horsemanship ^ ; while the stables of the Doge Michele Steno (i/ioo-i/iiS) were among the finest in Italy. In the fifteenth century many of the streets were paved with brick, set edgewise and in herring-bone pattern, or with paving stones, whence comes the name salizada (selciato), or paved way. The word ruga, which at first indicated a row of contiguous houses {ruga domorum), came to be applied to some of these paved ways and roads, such as the ruga degli orefici a Rialto} The wooden bridges, of low span or even quite flat, without steps, for whose construction and up-keep the neighbourhood was responsible, were now built of stone. The most ancient of these stone bridges of which we find documentary record is the bridge of San Zaccaria (1170). The Rialto bridge was designed in 1178 by Nicolo Barattieri, and was carried on pon- toons. ^ It was known as the bridge della moneta (the paying bridge) or del quartarolo (the farthing bridge), either because of the neighbouring mint or because before the bridge was built a farthing was the fare of the ferryboats, called scaule, which carried passeiigers from one side of the canal to the other. In 12 55 and 1264 the Rialto bridge was rebuilt, still in wood, but wider. The new bridge was carried on beams and could be raised in the middle.* The ferries, too, the traghetti, were an ancient insti- tution. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries we 1 Sanudo, Vite dei Dogi, p. 600 (Rer. It. Script., Vol. XXII). 2 Gallicciolli, Vol. I, pp. 266, 270. ^ But the Cronaca di Nicolo Trevisan, c. 44 (Biblioteca Marciana, CI. VII, Cod. DXIX), says, " Mistro Zuane fese el primo ponte de Rialto, che prima se passava con scolle (scaule)." 4 Gallicciolli, Vol. I, p. i^g. 3o VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES find recorded the ferries of San Gregorio, San Felice, San Tom^, San Samuele, San Cassiano, San Vito, Santa Lucia, also the ferries to Murano, to Mestre, to Rialto, and Cannaregio, Chioggia to Rialto, and Padua to Rialto. 1 The canals,'' which were closed with chains for greater safety, occasionally had trees along their banks. From a labyrinth of narrow ditches one came out into broad ponds {piscine) or lakes (laghi),^ into creeks or estua- ries, or else found oneself among green meadows, where the cattle grazed, or among vineyards or orchards, or else among low, thick-growing scrub. At Santa Marta was a wood known as "Wolf's Point," and an- other stretched along the Barbaria deUe Tole ; on the lagoon, in front of Saint Mark's, rose the black cypress- trees of San Giorgio, called therefore St. George of the 1 The boatmen of these ferries made little wooden boathouses, called cavane, to shelter their boats. The men united in a confraternity {fraglia), of which the by-laws, dating from the fourteenth century, are still extant. 2 The artificial canals were started .by excavation, the natural scour deepened them and kept them open. They were called comenzarie or scomenzere. ' Cecchetti (^Archivio Veneto), T. II, p. 96, calls attention to certain laghi and piscine. He gets the names from the archives of some of the suppressed convents preserved in the collection of Manimorte at the Archivio di State. Here are some of them, with their dates: ioi3, Dorsoduro, near the canal Businiaco ; 1076, at San Gregorio; 1079, belonging to Giovanni Morosini, the protospatharius, and to his brother Domenico, near the canal Vigano at San Gregorio; 11 65, belonging to the Badoer, close to San Giacomo dall' Orio and the rio Marin; 1188, at San Sime- one. Piscine are recorded in 1081, near the rio Tornarico ; Ii48, at San Moise ; 1166, at San Zulian ; 1177, at Santa Giustina ; 1178, at San Salvatore ; Ii85, at San Cassiajio ; 1198, at San Giovanni Evan- gelista ; 120/i, at Sant' Agoslino. Girolamo Zanetti {DeW orig. di alcune arti princ. appresso i Ven., p. 68, Venezia, i84i) records a notarial act, dated 11 07, mense madii, inditione VII, Rivoalti, which speaks of a lake, the property of the Church of San Pantaleone ; from the document marked 1222 we gather that this lalce was of great extent, as it spread ad Oram sanctae crucis. THE ASPECT AND FORM OF THE CITY 3i Cypresses. Here and there one came on salt-pans, built in stone, large and strong, Avith dams and banks, inlets and outlets, and channels for the water {transja- glacio), junctorio,^ and even with fishing and shooting preserves,* though it is true that fishing and shooting were generally confined to those tracts of the lagoon later on called valli, which were enclosed within a pali- sade of wattle (grisiole). The mills were shut in between banks in order to increase the power of the flood and the ebb tides on the floats of their wheels.. They were called acquimoli or sedllia} Among the houses and high over the roofs, on the. quiet surface of the lagoon, in a harmony of line and colour, rose the sails which were to open the era of that commercial 1 In August, HOI, a salt-pan belonging to the Monastery of San Giorgio was sold, et est cum scannos et secundas et lidis et virgis et geminis et piaduriis et divisionibus de argele et morariis et domnicis et saltariis et vigore et robore ab intus et foris (Arch, di Stato, Manimorte, San Giorgio Maggiore, B. 28). The salt-pans ■were let for a fixed number of years at a rent of one or more bushels (moggia) of salt, or for the product of one or more days (see in Appendix Doc. B). The salt-pans were very numer- ous ; for example, one Domenico di Foscaro Niciuro, of the village of Murano, sells duas sallinas de ipsas viginti octo erected on his property (Arch, della fabbr. di Santa Maria e Donato di Murano, March, lo^a) ; and on September aS, i343, the family of Gradenigo divide various salt- pans near Chioggia (Arch. priv. Correr, Cod. II). 2 Arch, di Stato, Manimorte, San Giorgio Maggiore, B. 37, die. 1084. ' Mills were either movable or fixed. The movable mills were carried in great boats, called sandonos, and were worked by the ebb and flow of the tide, six hours one way and six the other. Fixed mills were erected on the mudbanks. Above was the mill and the miller's house ; below, a large part of the lagoon was walled in so as to form a pond, with a door to let in the water, which was than directed by brick conduits so as to strike the floats of the mill-wheel, called formae. Filiasi, op. cit., T. Ill, Cap. LXII. At the beginning of the fourteenth century windmills were introduced. The first was erected in i332 upon the mudbanks near San Michele at Murano by a certain Bartolomeo Verde. Zanetti, G., op. cit., p. 68. 32 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES activity which, from year to year, brought fresh pros- perity to the country. The Eunuch Narses, who came to Venice in 553 to seek aid against the Goths, according to the Cronaca Altinate, built two churches in the islands of Rial to, in the orchard, or brolo, which afterwards became the praperty of the nuns of San Zaccaria, one on the rivo Batario, dedicated to San Geminiano, the other to San Teodoro, on the site of which Saint Mark's was subse- quently raised. 1 The Doge Giustiniano Partecipazio (827-829) bought the orchard, which was surrounded by trees and humble dwellings, from the nuns. In the ninth century, as a protection against attack, the orchard was enclosed by a battlemented wall. Another wall stretched along the present riva degli Schiavoni.'^ In the tenth century the campanile was begun in the orchard of Saint Mark's, when Domenico Morosini was Doge (ii48-ii56). It was carried up about sixty metres and finished between 11 78 and 1180 by Nicolo Barattieri.^ Hard by the campanile, Pietro Orseolo I (976) built a hospital or lodging for pilgrims to the Holy Land, and called it after San Marco. In 11 56, while Vitale Michiel II was Doge, the rivo Batario was 1 Dandolo, Chi'., XII, 92. The visit of Narses and the foundation of the two churches has been denied by some, but not on sufficient grounds. The better authorities have confirmed the account given in the Cronaca Altinate and by Dandolo. Cfr. Simonsfeld, Sulle scoperte nella Cron. Alt. (Archivio Veneto, T. XXXV, p. 127), and Monticolo, / niss. e le fonti della Cron. del Diac. Giovanni, p. 203, n. 1. Roma, i8go. ^ Pietro Tribuno (888-912), in the ninth year of his reign, built a wall from the rivo di Castello to Santa Maria Zoheuigo, where a great chain crossed the canal and was fastened to the Church of San Gregorio. Dandolo, Chr., p. Q^i. ^ The campanile foundations were hardly five metres deep and almost perpendicular. Boni, Campanile e suoi fondamenti (in La Basilica di San Marco, Cap. XXI. Venezia, Ongania, 1888). The Cua.ir of S. Marco (Tesobo di S. Marco) THE ASPECT AND FORM OF THE CITY 33 filled in, and in 1172 the Doge Sebastian Ziani widened the piazza, which later on was paved with brick laid edgewise and in herring-bone pattern, and adorned it with loggias that eventually became the dwelling of the procurators of San Marco. He pulled down the old church of San Geminiano and rebuilt it further back, right opposite the basilica.^ As early as 1177 three canons of Saint Peter's at Rome declared the piazza to be very wide and spacious — platea bead Marci magna nimis et spaciosa.'^ In the thirteenth century the Dogaressa Loicia da Prata, wife of Rinieri Zeno (ia53- ia68), enlarged Pietro Orseolo's hospital and brought it into line with the campanile. The campanile itself was renovated in 1 369 by an architect called Montagnana, and was frequently repaired and restored after the fires of i4oo and i4o3 and the lightning strokes of i388 and 1^17. Round the base of the great tower crowded the shops of hucksters {strazzarioli), stone-cutters, money- changers, and a loggetta, which in the thirteenth cen- tury served as a rendezvous for the nobles, and in i3oo, after the conspiracy of Marin Bocconio, became the meeting-place of the procurators of San Marco during sittings of the Great Council. Destroyed by fire and ruined by earthquake and lightning, it was frequently rebuilt during the fifteenth century. In front of the basilica, planted in sockets of wood called abati, the standards of Saint Mark — tantum pulcra quantum fieri possunt et de optima cendali torto^ — floated on all solemn 1 The enlargement of both the greater and the lesser piazza is due to the Doge Ziani, who pulled down the wall which surrounded them. Temanza's plan shows both piazza and piazzetta with battlements. 2 Sanudo, Le vite dei Dogi {Rer. Ital. Script.), ed. Monticolo, p. 3oa. Gittk di Castello, 1900. 8 Archivio di Stato, Collegia Notatoria, Deer. i5 febbr., 1876. VOL. I — 3 34 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES occasions. Facing the Ducal Palace stood bakers', butchers', and other shops, as well as inns for strangers. In the piazzetta, close to the twin columns, there was a market for poultry and fish. In the year i34a the foundations of the quay or molo were laid, and in i363 the wooden bridge — known as the Ponte della Pagha, from the boats laden with straw that moored there — was built. Where Sansovino's mint now stands rose the old mint built in 1227, and where to-day one sees the greenery of the Royal Garden there used to be a ship-building yard, which, in 1298, put as many as fifteen galleys in the water. This subsidiary arsenal was known as Terranova, and when it was suppressed the government, in i34o, built upon the site a vast public granary. Hard by was a zoological garden and the Doge's stables, while at no great distance lay the prisons. In 1 365 Petrarch thought the piazza so beautiful that he exclaimed, nescio an terrarum orbis parem habeat. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, by order of the Great Council, some wells were sunk in the piazza. The piazza itself was paved with stone in 1392, under the Doge Antonio Venier ; and possibly in i4o6 they laid down that design in bands of white marble which, according to some authorities, marked off the position of merchants' stalls, and in the opinion of others gave the name of the liston to this public prom- enade. A picture in the Museo Civico, attributed to Carpaccio, but more probably the work of Lazzaro Sebastiani, shows us the piazza of San Marco as it was in the middle ages, before the cinquecento had left upon it its magnificent imprint. There we see the old loggetta at the foot of the campanile, and in a line with it, and just opposite the Palazzo Ducale, the The Piazzetta, from a picture dy Lazzaro Sehastiaki. (Museo Civico) THE ASPECT AND FORM OF THE CITY 35 beautiful building of the public bakery with two loggias of Saracenic arches. An idealised view of Venice, executed with rude simplicity, is to be found in a manuscript of the early quattrocento preserved in the Bodleian Library^; and Breydenbach, a pilgrim to the Holy Land, on his way through Venice, made a sketch of the mediaeval city which was reproduced in a woodcut designed by Erard Reiiwick. In his book the pilgrim dwells on the naval power, the commercial and artistic prosperity of the city which he names anti- quissima, clarissima, et Jlorentissima.^ It is enough to compare the Antica pianta di Venezia of Temanza with the view in Breydenbach, the panorama in the Cronaca Norimbergense,^ and the beautiful plan attributed to Albert Diirer, but now assigned to Jacopo de' Barbari,* to see how the city had grown from its humble beginnings to an admirable amplitude, and bad already, at the close of the fifteenth century, begun to accumu- late triumphs of Renaissance art. From its earliest infancy Venice took every care to make the seat of her government commodious and beautiful. From Ravenna, rich in gems of ancient art, from Istria and Dalmatia, where Roman remains were abundant, from the East, from Syria 1 Lwres da graunt Caum qui parole de la graunt Armenie de Persie et des Tartares, etc., c. ai8. Blbl. Bodleiana, Oxford, MS. n. 264. The view of Venice is on page 218. ^ Breydenbach, Sanctarum Peregrin, in Montem Syon, etc. Maguntia, 1486. * On page xliii. Norinvberga, i^gS. * Its date is i5oo, and it represents Venice and its islands, in high relief. The original -vvood-block. in six pieces is preserved in the Museo Civico. Some impressions of this plan, bearing the date MD, show us the campanile with a low bell chamber covered with tiles and without the pyramid. In other impressions the bell chamber is crowned by the pyramid. 36 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES and Egypt, the ships of Saint Mark returned laden with inscriptions, with bas-reliefs, with pictures, lions, columns, statues in precious marbles, destined to adorn the growing city.^ From Acre, as it would seem, came the porphyry group of four figures, near the Porta della Carta of the Palazzo Ducale. They prob- ably formed part of a monumental column. In the twelfth century three great columns were brought from Constantinople,' two of which were erected in the piazzetta by that same Nicolb Barattieri who made the first Rialto bridge. In i2o5 the four horses that adorned the hippodrome of Constantinople were placed over the porch of the ^ Nor must we omit the gifts of emperors and kings. For example, in the treasury of Saint Mark's there is the marble chair, believed to be the chair of the evangelist, which they say was presented by the Em- peror Heraclius to Primigenio, Patriarch of Grado, in 63o. There is also another marble chair given to the Republic by the Emperor Michael Palasologus, believed to be the chair whereon Saint Peter sat in Antioch. It is now in the Church of San Pietro di Castello. The first is Byzantine work belonging to the last years of the sixth century or the opening of the seventh. The second has its back made of a funeral cippus showing Saracen soldiery slain in battle, and has on it a verse of the Koran. ^ There were originally three columns brought from Constantinople, but one fell into the sea and was never recovered. Of the two columns now in place, one is of gray oriental granite and carries on the top the lion ; the other is of reddish oriental granite and bears the figure of San Teodoro. That figure is chiefly made up of a Roman fragment. Some historians give the date of the transportation of these columns as iiaS, others as 1171, others place it earlier or later. It is improbable that the two columns lay for many years on the ground for lack of an architect capable of erecting them. The story is that they were raised to the perpendicular in 117a by Nicolo Barattieri. On the other hand, the Cronaca of Trevisan says. Fa edato da Constantinopoli tre colone grande, delle qaal una de esse descargandola la cazete ne lacque, e mai non se pote averla. Le allre doi fo trate in terra e per Zuane (the man who made the Rialto bridge) le fo levate impiedi, si come si vede ne la piaza de San Marco. THE ASPECT AND FORM OF THE CITY 87 basilica, and in 1266 the two pilasters captured at Acrei were put in position before the door of the bap- tistery. Then as now the pigeons, which give an air of life and movement to the Venetian monuments, fluttered above the buildings, undisturbed by the roar of business or the noise of the crowd. On Palm Sunday they were let loose from Saint Mark's, and flew away to breed and multiply and to find everywhere food and shelter.^ Castello was the religious centre of the new city, the see of the bishopric. Around Saint Mark's, the shrine of the evangelist, and the palace of the Doges the magistrates, both civil and political, had their abode, and by their authority held in check what might have been the too exuberant vitality of the growing nation ; while the active business life of Venice Avas concen- trated at Rialto in the throng of sailors and merchants. For long the city was known as Rivoallus and its port was called San Nicol6 di Rialto ; while the name Venezia was applied to the group of townships of the Venetian 1 It is also said that in ia56 Lorenzo Tiepolo brought from Acre that marble medallion which is still to be seen on the outer wall of a house in the Campiello Angaran, called Zen, at San Pantaleone. Some hold that it is one of the spoils of Constantinople (i2o4). It represents in bas-relief a Byzantine emperor of the second half of the tenth or the beginning of the eleventh century. Schlumberger, Bas-relief da campo Angaran, etc. (Rivista Bizantina. Leipzig, i8g3). Venturi (Sf. dell' arte Italiana, Yol. II, p. 540, n. I. Milano, 1903) thinks the work belongs to the late twelfth century. ^ An ancient legend has it that the pigeons of San Marco are the de- scendants of those flocks of pigeons which followed — natis in beccis — the fugitives from Oderzo in their flight from the barbarians. The chronicles, on the other hand, record an ancient custom of liberating pigeons on Palm Sunday. Others, again, think their introduction is due to an imitation of the habit, common in Russia and Persia, of keeping pigeons at the public expense. 38 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES littoral, which, with Heraclea as its capital, formed the dukedom under the first Doge Paoluccio Anafesto.-^ The actual island of Rial to, so called either because a stream called Prealto flowed into an arm of the Brenta there, or from the height of its banks, was made up of the parishes of San Jacopo, San Matteo, and San Giovanni Elemosinario. The trafEc of the civilised world centred at Rialto. Even in the tenth century, there were shops on the ground floor, a slaughter-house, and one reads of its admirable order in 1097, — onore nostri mercati} Later on they put up a clock and a loggia for the merchants, and towards the close of i3oo the porticoes {cohopertara ornatd) were rearranged and became the meeting-place for the traffickers of many nations. The mint lay on the other side of the canal at San Bartolomeo. It was built in the middle of the ninth century, and there is a record that the land on which it stood was sold in 1112.^ In iSaa orders were issued to enlarge the Rialto, and especially the fish- market, by pulling down quedam domus sea stationes parve quas tenent certi fruclaroli et caseroli, and by taking away the fishmongers' benches* ; and in iSSg the flesh-market was established in that part of the ' ' great house " of the Quirini which was still standing,^ known 1 The most ancient example of the use of the word " Venezia" as the name of the city we find in the following passage from Cod. Vat. 5378 : Anno Domini quatuor centum viginti unum edificaiio Venecie. Monticolo, Spigolature d'Archioio {Nuovo Arch. Ven., T. Ill, p. 386). ^ From a deed of gift of the brothers Tissone and Pietro Orio (1097). Codice Trevisaneo, p. Ii8. " Padovan and Gecchetti, Sommario delta nummograjia Veneziana, p. vii. Venezia, 1866. * Arch, di State, Commemoriali 11, p. 129 (i3 deoembra, iSaa). 5 The part of the Casa Querini which belonged to the brothers Mareo and Pietro, who had taken part in the conspiracy of Bajamonte Tiepolo, was destroyed. The part belonging to the third brother, Giovanni, who Marble Medallion in the Corte Angaran at S. Pantaleone THE ASPECT AND FORM OF THE CITY Sg as the sialon, which ended by becoming the poultry- market. In 1459 the long porticoes of Rialto were adorned with a chart or mappamondo, showing the trade routes of Venetian commerce. The clock on the tower of San Giovanni was famous even outside Venice ; it was made in the early years of the quattrocento, a marvellous piece of mechanism which, in the words of its maker, Gasparo Ubaldini, sona le ore et vene fora an galo el qualcanta tre volte per ora} Special officers were appointed to superintend the buildings and all else connected with Rialto. 2 The aspect of the city is described with rugged eflec- tiveness in a poem by Jacopo d'Albizzotto Guidi, a Florentine who came with his family to Venice in 1/127. The merchant-poet omits no detail, — the origin, the martial and civil glories of the State, its government, laws, magistrates, the islands of the lagoon, the art- guilds, the churches, palaces, arsenal, the possessions of the Republic, etc.^ When Jacopo found himself in front of the basilica and the Ducal Palace he was swept away in an ecstasy which he vainly tries to express in his rude verses. There, before him, were the Pro- curatie, and, hard by, the public bakery, the flesh- market, the fish-market, the fruit-market, the mint de ducati e de grossoni, the twin columns, the shops of the ironmongers, the hucksters, the sellers of plates and bowls. was not among tlie conspirators, was respected. It was afterwards acquired by the State and became the flesh-market of Rialto. Julin, La Casa Grande dei tre fratelli Quirini (^Arch. Veneto, T. XI, p. i47)- 1 Milanesi, Doc. per la st. dell' arte Sanese. Siena, i845. 2 Arch, di Stato, Provveditori al Sal. Capitolare, I, a. ' Rossi, v., Jacopo d'Albizzotto Guidi e il suo inedito poema su Venezia {^mvo Archivio Veneto, T. V, p. 897 et seq.). ho VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES E appresso a questo v'e un' osteria Si bene in punto e di camere belle Da raccettare ongni gran brigata D'ambasciatori e chi porta novelle.i (And hard by this there stands an inn so well appointed and with chambers fair, to house, however great, a suite of ambassadors or other bringers of tidings.) Guidi then moves up the Merceria, bella via ammat- ionata, "a fair, brick-paved street," with the fine shops of the cloth-of-gold mercers, the silk-mercers, the dealers in velvet and fustian ; further on came the druggists and the gold and silver smiths. When he reaches Rialto E un ponte non fatto di spalto Ma di legname si ben lavorato, (where stands a bridge not made of hewn stone, but of wood right skilfully wrought), Messer Jacopo is amazed at the busy crowd and wanders about among the benches of the fruit, fish, and poultry dealers, where he sees great quantities of osele tutte pelate ch'^ una meraviglia e tanto grasse che paiono par torte (a mar- vellous store of little birds all plucked and so fat that they look like doves). He pushes on into the side streets among the shops of the rope sellers, the bakers, the pork butchers, and the fleshers, until he comes to the street of the coopers, then turning back towards Rialto he looks at the shops of the goldsmiths, jewellers, em- broiderers, tailors, and cloth merchants. At last he comes out on the riva del Ferro^ called later on the riva del Vin ; he marvels at the custom house and the ar- rangement of the offices attached thereto, at the noble Corn Exchange, and all the warehouses bursting with tuns of Muscat and of Malmsey wine. 1 Perhaps, as Rossi thinks, this was the inn at the sign of the " Serpent," where, in i483, the Turkish ambassador was lodged. The House of the Quirini (stalon) at Rialto .■.,-, -">>,JiiS^s.&ii?^ THE ASPECT AND FORM OF THE CITY 4i The safety and the cleanhness of the streets, the canals, and the quays were the object of attentive supervision ; infringement of regulations was punished by fines. ^ From the days of Doge Domenico Michiel care was taken to light the narrow and dangerous passages by lanterns {cesendeli) at the public expense and under the charge of the parish.^ In i3oi the Great Council appointed a commission to report on the canals and ponds (piscine), which should be dredged out and which ought to be filled in.^ Excellent ar- rangements were made to insure a sanitary state of the cemeteries * ; works were undertaken to secure pure drinking water from sound cisterns ^ ; unhealthy in- dustries were removed from the inhabited quarters ^ ; public granaries were erected at San Biagio ' ; a fire 1 Arch, di Stato, Liber Plegiorum (laa/i). Libei- Commanis or Plegiorum, containing Acts of the Government from October So, 1228, to May, I253. A calendar has been published by R. Predelli, Venezia, 1872. This is the most ancient volume of official acts which exists in the archives, and is full of valuable details illustrating the private life of Venice. * These lanterns, called cesendeli, from the Latin cicindela (a little light), were, for the most part, hung before the images of saints, which stood by the wayside. In an ancient manuscript Angelo Amadi relates that, in i4o8, his grandfather, Francesco degli Amadi, caused to be painted a panel with the Madonna and Child, and placed it, al modo nostra Veneziano, at an angle of a narrow passage on the corner of a house clo^e to his own. This panel of the Amadi family gave rise to the church of the Miracoli, dedicated to the worship of this actual picture. Boni, Santa Maria dei Miracoli in Venecia (Archivio Veneto, T. XXXIII, p. 287). ' Cecchetti, La vita dei Veneziani nel iSOO (Archivio Veneto, T. XXVII, p. 16). For leave to fill in any part of the lagoon a fine of a pair of chamois- leather gloves, or a small sum of money, or a pound of fruit, or pepper, and so on, was due to the Doge. Cecchetti (p. 54) cites many documents relating to the dredging of canals and channels. * Arch, di Stato, Maggior Conslglio, Spiritus, p. i54, V" (April 3, i348). ' Ibid., ibid., Fronesis, p. i56 (Aug. 29, iSaS). ' Ibid., ibid., Pilosus, p. i5 B. (Nov. 8, lagi). ' Ibid., ibid., Fronesis, p. 96, V" (Sept. 18, iSaa). 42 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES brigade was organised^; and lastly, to omit many other regulations, the government, which overlooked no detail, did not forget to prohibit taverners from putting water in their wine.^ One of the oldest magistracies of the Republic, the Signori di Notte was organised in the middle of the thirteenth century. It was composed of six patricians appointed as guardians of the public safety during the night time, with power also to compel the payment of house rent, to proceed against bigamists, bravoes, assas- sins, and thieves, and entrusted with the up-keep of the roads. The Capitolare of the Signori di Notle^ begins in the middle of the twelfth century and ends in i34i. It contains a series of criminal laws which paint for us the habits of the time and give us certain minute particulars of citizen life, that bring before our eyes the ancient Venice. For example, it is for- bidden to boil pitch on the Biva degli Schiavoni between San Giovanni in Bragora and San Marco, nor was it allowed to drive piles or cast anchor in that space (1370). Orders and prohibitions follow one another in quick succession. Besides regulating the obstruction of the streets and the discharge of filth into canal or channel or onto the steps of landing-places, public health also received attention in laws forbidding industries which employ material quae faciunt fumum male sanum, and pre- venting rafts of rotting wood from being lashed to the quays. Care was taken against infection from leprosi et habentes injirmitates abhominabiles , who stood 1 Arch, di Stato, Maggior Consiglio, Fronesis, p. i63 (Dec. 26, iSaS). " Ibid., ibid., Spiritus, p. 69, V° (Oct. 21, i333). ^ Museo Civico, ms. Cigona, n. 3660. Published by F. Nani Mocenigo, Venezia, 1877. THE ASPECT AND FORM OF THE CITY 43 begging on the bridges or at the doors of the churches, by opening hospitals for their reception. After the conspiracies of the fourteenth century, greater attention was paid to the public safety, and each Signore di Notte had his guards increased by two. The messengers [pueri) of the government offices at Rialto acted as night watchmen ; the piazza and palace were patrolled at night by armed men chosen by the headmen of each sestiere ; they wore a breastplate and bellyband of iron. Wise regulations were applied to preserving the in- tegrity of the estuary ; a duty intrusted originally to the magistracies of the Piovego ^ and the Provveditori di Comune. Probably in the reign of Francesco Dandolo (iSaS-iSSg) the office of the water-commissioners was first established ; it was organised and made per- manent in i5o5.2 Its duties were to supervise and maintain the hydrostatic conditions of the lagoon. The lagoon is oblong in form and curved like a sickle. On the one side it is bounded by the main- land, on the other by the narrow line of lidi which separate it from the Adriatic. The government, from the very outset, devoted attention, ingenuity, and money to the preservation of the lagoon, upon which depended the health of the city, the existence of the port, and the safety of Venetian independence ; for, as a later decree of the sixteenth century phrases it, the waters about the city were regarded as ' ' the sacred bulwarks of the fatherland," — sanctos muros patriae. 1 It is said that the magistracy of the Piovego was founded in the ninth century. At first there was only one magistrate, but in 1282 two others were appointed. In old Venetian dialect, Piovego means "public." ^ Antichi testamenti, published by the Congregazione di Carita in Venice. Serie VII, p. 5. Venezia, 1888. 44 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES As early as the twelfth century began the battle with the rivers, which brought down their silt into the lagoon, and from that moment the RepubUo never ceased to assist the natural ebb and flow of the sea- water by wise regulations and by vast hydraulic works directed to preserve in its integrity the entire amplitude of the lagoon ; for any diminution of the lagoon surface meant a diminution in the activity of the lagoon- structure, which keeps in movement and determines the direction of the currents, which in their turn maintain the inner channels and the ports, preventing them from silting up and rendering the air unhealthy. Accordingly the lidi were constantly repaired, ports were opened or closed, and the fishing grounds were brought under obligations and restrictions which limited the use of banks and palisades ; but above all, the mouths of the rivers were diverted from the lagoon and were made to discharge direct into the sea ; while the main- land shore of the estuary was surrounded by a strong dyke in order to keep the fresh water from mingling with the salt and thus generating malaria.^ In every circumstance of city life the government proved that its vigilance and forethought were equal to any threatened danger. Let us take an example. The plague was a common occurrence in Venice ; and during that terrible epidemic of i348, la zente era in tanto spavenlo ch'el pare no voleva andar dal Jio nh el Jio dal spare,^ the government immediately took steps to meet the calamity and appointed a commission of three 1 At all periods of Venetian history we find numerous publications concerning the lagoon. The bibliographies of Cicogna and Soranzo furnish lists, but many works remain to be added. ^ From an inscription of January 25, i347, preserved in the atrium of the Royal Academy, originally the home of the Confraternity della Cariia. E 2 a ~ — o S p J3 H HOUSES AND CHURCHES 49 it, that is, as had survived destruction by man and by time.^ A more sohd method of building began to prevail when brick could be procured from kilns ^ and stone from the quarries of Istria, Verona, and Monselice. But the majority of the houses retained their primitive simplicity in keeping with the austerity of prevailing manners. The houses were low, with narrow windows few in number,^ and protected by iron gratings. At the edge of the roof they had stone or wooden eaves (revetenas). From the height of the first floor the walls were sup- ported on brackets {barhacani) or corbels {mensole) of wood, carrying the outer walls of the upper floors and stretching out hke a roof over the road, so that in many of the colli the light hardly penetrated at all, as they were aU but roofed in. Some houses had a portico on the ground floor, where goods could be stored ; in front of others spread a stretch of land (junctorium) with its landing-steps, known later on as the riva, where boats could be moored ; some again were accessible only by water.* In the middle of the courtyard was the cistern 1 Among the ruins of the campanile which fell on July i4, 190a, bricks of Roman make were discovered. They probably came from Aquileia. Some of them were very firm in grain and bore the imperial mark of Antoninus Pius, Imp. Anto. Aug., a formula noted by Mommsen in his Corpus Inscriptionum. ^ In the fourteenth century, to meet the growth of buildings, the government encouraged the establishment of brick kilns.' On January 20, 1827, the Great Council, cum terra maximum defectum fornacium paciatur, resolved to announce in Sancto Marco et Rivoalto quod guicumque vuU facere fornacem in Veneciis . . . debeat comparere, etc. Archivio di Stato, M. C, Spiritus, p. 12. Another decree of March 12, i33i, concedes to everyone the right to sell bricks. ^ Sansovino, F., Venetia citih nohilissima e singolare, with the additions of Martinoni, Lib. IX. Venetia, Curti, i663. * " Et quando ire volebat ad ecclesiam cum scaula, ibat per rivum, aliam viam non habebat." Arch, di Stato, Arch, di San Zaccaria, B. VII (March, 1 180). TOL. I — 4 5o VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES (pozzo), formed of an ample reservoir under ground, quadrangular in form, puddled with clay, and with a stratum of sand to filter the rain water that was led from the roofs into the reservoir by the eaves and drain- pipes. i The pozzo frequently had as parapet (vera) some remains of an ancient temple, some fragment of a pagan altar, some magnificent capital or drum of a Roman column, on which they would carve allegorical symbols, ribbon patterns, or Byzantine crosses. Some houses had their oven and some, but very few, were supplied with underground drainage (jaglacio and transjaglacio). In front of the houses were stone benches {banche de petra), sheds, and drain-pipes (cani) from the roof.^ Another peculiar detail of a Venetian house was the species of terrace-loggia {sollario), open on three sides and sometimes with windows, called a liagb, perhaps from the Greek ^Xcukoi (solar). The liagb is thus described by Temanza : "It was an integral part of the old Venetian houses ; there was a kind of loggia, open in front, but roofed and shut in on three sides. A small portico below it served as entrance, and there the staircase began. Ordinarily each house had only the ground floor and this loggia (sollaio). The word sollaio is still in use among the poorer people and especially among the fisher folk of the two sestieri of Dorsoduro and Santa Croce. As a rule, the liagb faced 1 From i332 to 1824 the government decreed the construction of fifty wells in fifty different districts, and intrusted the execution to the head- men of each sestiere, with power to spend about six thousand lire. The government saw to the purity of the wells, into which the people often flung twpitudines, scovaduUa, and filth. Cecchetti, La Vita, etc. (Arch. Veneto, T. XXVII, pp. 28, 29). '^ Saccardo, G. (I'Eremita), / campanili de Venezia, pp. 97, 112. Venezia, i8gi. A LiAGO and Outside Stair in the courtyard of the Palazzo Loredan at SS. Giovanni e Paolo (XIV and XV centuries) HOUSES AND CHURCHES Si due south, ^ so as to catch all the sun's rays." Besides the liagh we must mention the terraces, shut in between walls and called corteselle,^ and the altane, which were originally hanging balconies, but later on became wooden loggias placed on the top of the roof for drying clothes. The floors of the rooms were made of terrazzo, scagliola, and the shutters opened out, and in the earliest times were occasionally made of slabs of stone, but only for churches or public buildings. Galvano Fiamma (i34o) in his chronicle, quoted by Muratori, is in error when he writes that in the early centuries chimneys were not used in Italian houses, — non erant per domos camini ad ignem aul ulla caminata. Muratori, calling attention to the error, demonstrates the antiquity of chimneys, but he is not sure whether the smoke issued through the walls or under the tiles. ^ It is quite certain, however, that our ancestors had fireplaces, not only in their kitchens, with the hood {mappa), the chimney (buseno), and chimney-stack, but also in their dwelling-rooms ,; and in ancient documents one continually finds the words caminata and caminus magnus.* The hoods were adorned with painting and sculpture, and so were the chimney-stacks, which, as Giovanni Villani^ says, were both numerous, beauti- ful, and of varied form, — inverted cones, bell-shaped, supported on corbels, on ogee arches, on cubes, on tripods, vase-shaped, etc.® 1 Temanza, Antica Pianta, p. 3o. ^ Saccardo, G., op. cit., p. io3. 3 Muratori, Diss., XXV. 1 Gallicciolli, Vol. I, p. 344> Vol. Ill, p. 17. In Venice the word camini must not be confounded with caminate or poi'tici. 5 Cronaca, Lib. XII, Cap. 128. 6 Urbani de Gheltof, / camini. Venezia, 1893. 5a VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES Nor were towers wanting in the city/ for as early as the ninth century the Chronicle of John the Deacon mentions the "eastern tower" of the Ducal Palace^; and in the thirteenth century we have notice of the Ca' Molin on the Riva degli Schiavoni, celebrated for its twin angle towers, geminas angulares turres, in which Petrarch lodged. » Some of these towers were turned into campanili — for example, the pentagonal tower of San Paternian and the tower of the Maddalena, both of them destroyed not so many years ago. In remote and turbulent times these towers were erected only for protection, especially in the Ducal Palace, but when peace was secured they became the graceful ornament of private dweUings or served as lodgings and were sometimes even used to hang out the washing. Castles with towers were to be found scattered over the mainland country. Some belonged to patricians and were used during the villeggiatura — for example Bajamonte Tiepolo's castle at Marocco ; others were strongholds of the feudal nobil- ity. But feudalism, even on the Venetian mainland, was not, as elsewhere, fierce and inhuman. Round the castles of San Zenone, CoUalto, San Salvatore, Montegalda, Montebelluna, Montorio in the Veronese, Garda, Montalbano in Fruili, Fara in the Marches of Treviso, and so on,* fierce skirmishes and bloody fights 1 Note the mosaics in the atrium of Saint Mark's which represent the building of the Tower of Babel, curious also for the figures of the masons. 2 John the Deacon, describing the secret visit of the Emperor Otto II to Venice, says that the emperor "in orientali turre se cum duobus suis retrudi et servari voluit." 8 Petrarca, Senil, Lib. II, 3. In the plan of Venice of i5oo, attributed to Jacopo de' Barbari, we see the ancient palaces of Venice with their logge on the ground floor, shut in by two wings like towers, where goods were discharged before being taken to the warehouse. * In the tenth century one of the Othos gave to a Candiani the feudal jurisdiction of the castle of Musestre. From that time onwards many A — Well-head in the Corte Battagia at the Birri ( XI century ). B — Stone Brackets, Calle del Para- dUo at Sa. Maria Formosa. C — Cross from the Campanile of S. Paterniano. (Archivio di Stato) HOUSES AND CHURCHES 53 did not prevent the rise of populous and flourishing villages, sure sign of the protection extended to vassals. After the Crusades had introduced new ideas, and conquests in the East had wrought a change in the simplicity of primitive manners, the internal fittings of the houses underwent a transformation. Domestic life developed, one might say, in an atmosphere or tem- perature of new perceptions and new wants, so that if one entered the house of a rich man -^ one would have found the rooms furnished less roughly than heretofore. The characteristic note '\^'as not so much sumptuous- ness as a careful choice of form at once solid and varied, which gave to each piece of furniture its appropriate beauty adapted to the purpose for which it was designed. Wood, copper, iron, were all employed for their proper ends without being overcharged with ornament and decoration.^ other patricians received similar donations. In the fourteenth century the castle of Valmareno was ceded to Marino Falier. But in Venice there was no question of feudal customs such as prevailed on the mainland. One of the few remains which still speak to us of feudal life in the Veneto during the middle ages is the castle of San Salvatore, belonging to the Counts of CoUalto. In the early part of the thirteenth century the CoUalto family acquired from the Bonaparte of Treviso the hill of San Salvatore, and there they erected a formidable castle encircled by a triple wall, with gates and drawbridges, battlements, towers, and machicolations. In the Gothic chapel, afterwards painted by Pordenone, are still preserved some frescoes of the trecento in Florentine style according to Cavallcaselle. Schlosser, on the other hand, recognises the hand of Tomaso da Modeua (Tom. da Modena und die Altere Malerei in Treviso. Wien, i8g8). 1 A document of l363, quoted by Gallicciolli (Vol. II, p. 17), mentions a house at Santa Maria Formosa which had curiam, hortum, poniem, latrinas, anditum,porticum, stadium quod nunc est teneum et puleum. ^ Sketches of antique household utensils, as preserved in palaces, churches, and institutions at the close of the eighteenth century, are to be seen in Grevembroch's collection at the Museo Civico (Racolta Dolfin-Gradenigo). Giovanni de Grevembroch, a Venetian of German origin, was patronised by the noble family of Gradenigo of Santa Giustina. He died, at seventy- two years of age, in 1807. 54 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES Luxury began now to go hand in hand with simplicity, but had not yet reached the pitch of refinement and elegance. No traces remain of the interior arrangements of an ancient house if it be not in some few fragments of furniture, some wooden bracket or wrought-iron grille, some antique lock, or some household utensil. To help us to reconstruct the surroundings in which the intimate life of this early period was developed, we have only as a guide — far from eloquent but still trust- worthy — the mosaics of San Marco. As time went on, growing dominion and expanding commerce brought further innovations. Dwelhng- houses were arranged with more spacious apartments. But of these houses the external aspect alone remains — where not destroyed by restorations ; all the in- ternal fittings, which would have spoken to us of the private domestic life of Venice, having disappeared, liad we been able to examine attentively the actual character of household furniture we might have gained a clear view of Venetian domestic habits, of the peaceful daily life of men we are accustomed to think of as clad in mail, in the thick of a battle, or dressed in their gorgeous robes of state. Some few remains of furniture, of fittings, of utensils, a document here and there, an inventory or two, allow us to guess at the beauty of the objects which adorned these early dwell- ings; but a more genuine picture is offered us by the paintings of the early Renaissance masters like Gentile Bellini, Carpaccio, Mansueti — artists who still retained the taste of the middle ages in their heart and in their eyes and who represented the rich and refined apartments of Venetian dwellings with that precision and loving fidelity of which they possessed the secret. HOUSES AND CHURCHES 55 The houses of the nobihty prove that a certain refine- ment and elegance had already come into vogue, and the internal decoration of the chambers was no less graceful than the designs of the facades. In fact the delicacy of architectural tracery displayed in the marble facings finds its counterpart in the ceiling, the architraves, the doors — in short, in all the domestic fittings of the house. Cabinets, coffers (arcelle), trous- seau chests (albi de ligno), cupboards of walnut, trunks, tables, were all adorned with foliated carving and ogival interlacings, with little spiral columns, arches, niches, and fretwork. The high-backed oak chairs (cathedre) over which they used to fling ample draperies,^ the stools and seats before the fireplace, all had round or square cushions stuffed with feathers and covered in gold brocade or other rich fabrics.^ Over the wide beds, with their feather mattresses (j)lumacii),^ their linen sheets {linteamina) reaching to the ground, and silken bed-quilts,* rose canopies of fantastic form, some with curtains of foliated embossed velvet (ricellas)^ and a starry firmament above ending in a kind of dome,^ 1 Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionn. raisonne du mobil. fi-anoais. Vol. I, p. 55. ^ Galli, La mobilia di un canonico del secolo XIV (pxiblished per nozze), p. 3o. Pavia, 1899. Bertanza e Lazzarini, II dial. ven. fino alia morte di Dante. Venezia, iSgS. ' Plumacii de pignolato vergato. See Appendix, Doc. C, n. VIII, In- ventario di casa Dandolo (i34i). i Una cultra de cendato torto vermeio ; Dae cultre de catasmito (coarse silk) zalo. Inv. Dandolo, cit. 5 Ducange gives Ricellus speties panni pretiosi — perhaps soprariccio. ^ Leggenda dell' andata di Lodovico di Francia al Purgatorio (Museo Civico, MSS. Correr, n. i5o8). It is written in the vulgar tongue by a Venetian about the middle of the fifteenth century. The MS. is on parch- ment and is illustrated by forty-one coloured drawings, of which the last is the most remarkable. It represents the Virgin Mary, taken from a fresco 56 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES others with columns and carved capitals. ^ Jacopo d'AIbizzotto Guidi gives us the following highly coloured poetical description of a bedroom : — Molte cortine intorno a loro letti Con capoletti si ben lavorati, Con piu figure e caccie con diletti, Che paion tuUi vivi s' tu li guati, Tanto son fatti con gran maestria, Che per gran pregio si son comperati. A dir la lor valuta par resia, S' i' ti dicessi quel che costan lore. Ma nel mio dir non ti diri bugia : Ben dugento milia ducati d'oro Tengo per fermo queste cose vaglia.^ Near the bed stood the prie-dieu under the wooden shrine (ancona), with its little pinnacles of carved fret- work containing the black Byzantine Madonna on a ground of gold, or a rude picture from some early Venetian brush. Among the paintings by Vittore Carpaccio, through whose masterly art both men and things reassume their actual life, there are iwo which show us two separate by Guariento in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, with the four verses wrongly attributed to Dante above her head : L'amor che mosse gik I'eterno Padre Per figlia aver de sua deitk trina Costei che fu del suo fiol poi madre De I'universo qui la fa regina. Cfr. Frati, Tradizioni storiche del Purgatorio di S. Pairizio (in Giovn. star, d. lett. Hal, Vol. XVII, pp. 46-79). 1 See the mosaic in the atrium of San Marco, near the Capella Zen, representing the birth of Cain and Abel. One can get some idea of the interior of a chamber at this date from Giotto's frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel at Padua. 3 Rossi, v., Jacopo d'AIbizzotto Guidi, etc., cit., p. 423. fr*7T . fH -a _j- II is as "43 o a Ocfi HOUSES AND CHURCHES 67 bedrooms. The imprint of the middle ages is still clearly visible in the style of the hangings and furniture, and yet the first touch of Renaissance art, just on the point of breaking away from Gothic, is diffused throughout the atmosphere. In Saint Ursula's dream, the sleeper, to whom appears the angel with the palm of martyrdom in his hand, lies there surrounded by objects which breathe an air of gracious placidity and refinement, serene by virtue of their owner's gentle blood. Two windows with roundels of glass, and with two pots of flowers on the sill, give light to the fair and orderly chamber. In the other picture, the Nativity of the Virgin, the grace of the furnishings is not less evident. The alcove is hung with curtains ; the bed has a rich coverlid and fine linen sheets. From the predella or dais on which the bed stands, descends a magnificent oriental carpet. The little cupboard, the architraves above the door, the architectural design of the ceiling and the walls display an exquisite mastery of art. And yet, if in the picture of Saint Ursula, iii that atmosphere of serene colour and aristocratic refinement of form, the artist clearly intended to pourtray a patrician dwelling-place, it is certain that in the Nativity of the Virgin he in- tended to introduce us to a more modest household. From the bed the new-made mother, leaning her head on her hand, watches with quiet attention the women preparing the swaddling clothes and the bath for the new-born babe, while another woman is bringing her a basin of broth. The old man, Joachim, in one corner leans on his staff and contemplates the whole scene ; further away two rabbits are quietly nibbling a cabbage leaf. Through the open door is a vista of rooms, the first of which is the kitchen with its ample hood 58 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES over the fireplace, where a serving -woman bends over a fowl she is plucking ; the walls are adorned with dishes and pots of copper in orderly rows. Every- thing reveals the application to the uses of everyday life of an art which visibly displays the essential qualities of the period, — simplicity and strength. A severe taste characterised all the adornment of the various chambers : carpets, gilt vases, ^ basins and spoons of silver of many shapes, candelabra,^ joca/ja et argen- tariae pro usu domus.^ Some mosaics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in the atrium of San Marco show us a table with couches about it resembling those of the ancient trichnium, and some horseshoe benches ; on the table itself are knives, plates (messori or mensori), which at the opening of the trecento began to be made of majolica, cups with legs (pladene), and plain saucers.* For wine they used peculiar little flagons, glass tumblers being very rare even at a later date. Tumblers were usually made of pewter, as indeed were all the other vessels ; only in the houses of the aristocracy were they of gold or silver. ^ The kitchens were furnished with a number of utensils . We find the following names in inventories : lavezi, saucepans of copper, bronze, and stone ; catene, ewers ; fresora or fersora, frying-pans ; cogome, coffee pots, buckets; gratagazo, graters; spedi, spits; molete, tongs ; paleta, shovels ; bochali, bronze water-jugs, basins ; cavedoni, andirons ; tre pe, trivets ; coldere, 1 The mosaics of the atrium of San Marco show us gilt cups of grace- ful form. ^ See Doc. C in Appendix. Inventories of the fourteenth century. 8 Ibid. * Plalene, mensori, tabulae ad comendendum invernicate. Monticolo, Capitolare del pittori del 1271, p. 348 (Nuovo Arch. Fen., T. II, p. 348). * Galli, La mobilia di un canonico, cit., p. 26. (Photo. TaramelliJ Bedroom — from Carpaccio's "Nativity of the Virgin " HOUSES AND CHURCHES Bg cauldrons ; segli, pails ; panaroU, rolling-pins ; albuol, kneading-troughs ; and so on.^ In the houses of the rich they had staircases of wood communicating from one floor to the other, with fret- work balustrades and carved ornamentation, painted and gilded, as in that splendid specimen of the early quattrocento now in the Museo Civico, which came from the house of the Dell' Agnella family at Santa Maria Materdomini.^ The ohlong halls, formed like a crutch which had lost an arm {sala a crozzold), had roofs made of large, solid beams, painted and carved, and called intelaradare alia tedesca,^ or else of gilded coffers studded with stars, with cornices of hanging arches, as in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, begun in i3/i6 and finished in iSSa. Two old prints, one in the Biblioteca Marciana, the other in the Museo Civico, are the sole records of this sala, with its fresco by Guariento. It was destroyed by fire on December ao, 1677. Lionardo di Nicol6 Frescobaldi, a Florentine, teUs us that the house of Remigio Soranzo, who invited him to supper one evening in August, i38/i, "seemed aU of gold; there were many chambers which were simply one mass of gold and ultramarine." Peter, son of the King of 1 The will of Paolo Barbo (August 28, iSaS), which refers to an earlier will of March, 1277, published by Cecchettl, La Vila dei Veneziani nel 1300 (Le Vesti), p. 119. Venezia, 1886. Cfr. Bertanza e Lazzarini, II dial. Yen., cit. 2 A drawing by Bellini in the Louvre shows us a room with its beamed roof pierced by a wooden staircase. 3 The roof of the central nave of San Giacomo dall' Orio belongs to the fourteenth century. It is made of wood and built hke a ship's hull. Some roofs had tie-beams at intervals; above these beams, in a perpen- dicular line, depended another beam known as the monaco. See the churches of Santo Stefano and of the Misericordia. CaiE, Sulla seultura in legno, p. l4. 6o VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES Portugal, was in Venice in liaS, and chroniclers report him to have said that the houses of the nobles ' ' were not private houses, but palaces of princes and of crowned heads. "^ But, as if to assert that riches and refinement were powerless to enervate the mind and the arm, they used to hang on the walls of their chambers the hoofs of wild boars, antlers of stags killed in the chase, the banners of conquered foes, and the armour in which time after time they had proved the nobility of their blood. 2 Round the entrance courtyard were large cellars, and the merchandise brought from the East was unpacked there, as if to show that commerce was no stain upon nobility, and that bales of cotton or cases of pepper went quite well with armour and trophies of war without dimming their glory. The value of houses rose rapidly in a few years, as is proved by the valuation roll compiled first in the fourteenth century and then revised in i425 by a spe- cial commission of six experts, notaries and government officials,^ who brought to their task the greatest care. For example, in the sestiere of Castello alone the origi- nal estimates gave a value of 45,676 lire, while the estimate of i/iaS gave 70,167 lire. On this point a chronicler remarks, "Seeing that this increase in esti- mated values may wake wonder in the mind of the reader, I must tell you that in all six sestieri of the city of Venice noble houses, magnificently adorned, more worthy to be styled palaces than private dwellings, and 1 Filiasi, Vol. VI, Saggio, p. Ii4. 2 GalUccioUi, Vol. I, p. 896. ' Contento, II censimento della popol. soito la Repub. Ven. (Nuovo Archivio Veneto, T. XX, p. i5). Hall of the Great Council — from an old engraving. ( Museo Civico ) ^^^ ^' ^>"5?S*«eJW* JiSSI^M :-^ HOUSES AND CHURCHES 6i fitted in every way to lodge a mighty lord or an emperor, have recently been built." ^ The annual rent of a house per uxo de li geniilhomini varied from fifty to one hun- dred and twenty ducats of gold.^ In the midst of public broils, mid the din of battle, in the universal lack of education, we cannot refuse to admit the services rendered to the culture of mankind during the dark ages by monastic institutions. The monks were not only fairly educated in science and in letters, but they made great collections of books, of objects, of stufFs ; and we can see from their inventories that besides cloth, quilts, sheets, handkerchiefs for the use of the brothers, they stored up abundance of church fittings, — chalices, patenas, reliquaries, figures in ivory and alabaster, rings with precious stones, robes of silk and cloth of gold, thuribles, crosses of enamelled silver, and candelabra. Nor did love of artistic objects remain imprisoned in the cloister. As manners grew milder, art was applied to the adornment of life and be- came a source of enjoyment for private citizens as well. They gradually began to collect antiquities and objects of artistic value and to turn their attention to the deco- ration of their homes. The notary Oliviero Forzetta, the owner of a veritable museum, was no solitary instance of a connoisseur, and in the inventory of his possessions, compiled in i335, when Forzetta removed from Venice to Treviso, we have a document of the very highest importance. It records goldsmiths' work, cameos, pictures on panels, drawings, fragments of antique sculpture from San Vitale in Ravenna {qui 1 Trevisan, Cronaca, cit., p. 193. " Archlvio di Stato di Milano. Correspondence of the amhassador of the Duke of Milan in Venice, Antonio Guidobono (February 17, i462). Sanudo, Cronachetta, p. 3i. 69 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES sunt tagliati Ravennae Sancto Vitale), medals, codices, books of philosophy and literature.^ Besides the private houses the city also contained lodging-houses, albergarie or fondachi, which the Re- public granted to foreign merchants — Milanese, Tuscan, German, Turkish — for their use, with the right to live in them, to store their merchandise, and to govern them according to their own regulations, provided they assured to the government the payment of its dues.^ Of this nature were the Case Nove at Rialto, assigned to the Tuscans, and the Fondachi of the Ger- mans, the Turks, the Saracens, or Moors. If in the early days of the city the houses were humble, the same cannot be said of the churches. The citizen who lived in discomfort himself lavished his wealth on the building of basilicas, on the adornment of altars dedicated to the saints,^ and in this way called on his religion to sanctify the initial steps of his new fatherland. At Grado, on the site of the church of Sant' Eufemia, built by the Archbishop Nicetas in 456, the Patriarch Elias (56 1-586), with the help of Greek artificers, raised the cathedral and adorned it with J Federici, Memorie Trevigiane sulle op. di disegno dal 1100 al 1800, Vol. I, p. 184. 2 Some streets toot the name of the foreigners who inhabited them ; for example, Calle degli Albanesi, Campo del Tedeschi. One street was called Giulfa (Djulfa) because it was occupied by Armenians from the city of Djulfa, on the Araxes, destroyed by Shah Abbas. As early as the thir- teenth century many Armenians took up their abode in Venice, obtained trading privileges, their own quarter, and fondaco. Canestrini, Sul com- mercio del veneziani (^Arch. Storico Italiano, Appendice, T. IX, p. 338. Firenze, i853). The Fondaco dei Tedeschi also dates back to the thir- teenth century. Simonsfeld, Der Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venedig und die deutsch-venezianischen Handelsbeziehungen, Stuttgart, 1887. s Also in other cities the internal decorations of churches were sump- tuous ; for example, the golden altar of Sant' Ambrogio at Milan dates from 835. HOUSES AND CHURCHES 63 precious columns, rare marbles, and delicate mosaics. Equally beautiful were the baptistery and the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Grado. Already by the year 46 1 the church and the baptistery of Torcello were celebrated for their splendour. Ac- cording to the chronicles, the baptistery Avas adorned with columns of precious marbles and had a marble basin with symbolical animals wrought in metal which spouted water into a basin. The church was re- constructed in 697 and again in 864, and received a thorough restoration in 1008. No traces of the Benedictine nunnery, dedicated to Saint John the Evangelist, now remain, but its splendour roused the admiration of Maria, niece of the Emperors Basil and Constantino, who, about the year 1000, left the gor- geous oriental court and came to Venice as the bride of Giovanni, son of the Doge Pietro Orseolo II. About the middle of the seventh century the church of San Donato was built at Murano. It was, in large part, remodelled in 1100. In 820 the Partecipazi raised the abbey church of Sant' Ilario and San Benedetto on the Avestern border of the lagoon. The eleventh century saw the construction of the duomo and baptistery at Aquileia. It was renewed in the twelfth century. The cathedral at Caorle and the great church at Jesolo belong to the same date. Of the church at Jesolo the massive ruins are still standing in a district infested with malaria. A short distance off other mounds mark the site of the monastery of San Mauro. The religious sentiment displayed itself on the islands of Rialto also in the great development of church build- ing. Around the churches were grouped the houses, as if to fuse in one idea God and the family. Certain 64 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES chronicles, when recording the dates and founders of various churches, affirm that San Giacomo di Rialto (43 1) is the oldest church built in Venice; but modern criticism cannot accept this assertion regarding so re- mote and obscure an epoch. When the citizens had reclaimed a tract of land they would erect thereon a church, reserving to themselves the patronage and the nomination of the vicar. To the church was annexed gardens and vineyards, which GalliccioUi holds to have been their glebe. Each church had its tower, no longer for military purposes, but as a monument of rehgious devotion. Among the most ancient towers, though frequently restored, we must mention those of Torcello and San Geremia, belonging to the eleventh century; of San Samuele, belonging to the twelfth; of San Barnaba and San Zaccaria, dating from the thirteenth ; of San Canciano, the Frari, San Cassiano, San Polo, built in the trecento. At night, on the tops of some of these campanili, beacons were lit as guides for mariners. The campanile of San Marco, whose gilded summit reflected the rays of the sun far out to sea, served as a land- mark by day. The religious fervour which produced so many churches did not die away as time went on ; and about the fourteenth century the government found itself forced to place a limit on the number of ecclesiastical buildings, as their erection destroyed domos, terras, et possessiones .^ Yet it was the government itself that had set the example of religious zeal by raising notable buildings dedicated to divine service. Between 8i3 and 820, Giustiniano Partecipazio announced that on the orders of the Emperor Leo V, he was going to 1 Galliooiolli, Vol. II, p. 109. HOUSES AND CHURCHES 65 found a convent dedicated to San Zaccaria, and to adorn it with relics of the Prophet, some fragments of Our Saviour's garments, of the Virgin's robe, and other treasures.^ When the body of San Marco was secretly brought from Alexandria in 828, it found a temporary resting- place in the treasury of San Teodoro. The same Giustiniano Partecipazio at once bethought him of building a temple worthy of the evangelist. Death, however, overtook him and before closing his eyes he was merely able to indicate the site and determine the sum necessary for the building. The foundations were laid by his brother and successor Giovanni (829), and the fane was completed within three years (882). Dompnas Johannes dux Sanctissimi Marci Evangelistae ecclesiam consecrare et digne beatam corpus in eadem colhcare procuravit — to quote the words of Johannes Diaconus. This church was partially destroyed by fire in 976, when the people rose against the Doge Pietro Candiano ; it was restored by Pietro Orseolo (976-978). In io63 it was reconstructed on ampler lines and received its present form of a Greek cross when Domenico Contarini was Doge. Internally and externally it must, at that time, have presented an aspect of severe simpUcity with its bare walls, its arches of brick, the absence of marble veneering, mosaics, galleries, balustrades, cusps, shrines, taber- nacles — of all adornment in short. In 107 1 Con- tarini's successor, Domenico Selvo, covered the walls with mosaic and other ornament and the church began to assume the aspect we admire so much to-day. The Venetians, who enriched the new shrine with all the sumptuousness that art permitted, were inspired not I Archivio di Stato, Codice Trevisaneo, p. 35. VOL. I — 5 66 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES merely by religious zeal, but also by the highest interests of the State. They therefore resolved that the head of the State should enjoy the undivided patronage of the basilica not only in all that concerned the fabric, but also in regard to the lay and ecclesiastic ministers. No office pertaining to the basilica of Saint Mark's could be filled except by permission, order, and decree of the Doge — solus Dominus Patronus et verus gubernator Ecclesiae Sancti Marci. The authority of neither Pope nor Patriarch was above that of the Doge. San Marco represented the State and was, therefore, to be purely Venetian, exempt from all sacerdotal influence. As early as 979 Tribuno Menio declared the basilica to be the private chapel of the Doges — libera a servitute Sanclae Matris Ecclesiae. As a layman the Doge could not personally exercise the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, but for all that concerned the divine offices he, by express delegation, transferred his authority to the dean, the Primiciero. With a view to preserving and adorning in every possible way this building, which was, so to speak, the sacred ark or palladium of the race, the most honourable magistracy next to the dukedom, the pro- curatorship of San Marco, was created, possibly in the ninth century. The procurators were intrusted with the care and the administration of the church. The number of procurators was gradually increased till in 1 442 they amounted to nine in all. They were divided into three groups : the Procuratori de supra ecclesiam Sancti Marci, to whom were intrusted the care of the basilica and the piazza; the other two were called de ultra and de citra; they administered legacies and assumed wardships on "this side" and on "the other side " of the Grand Canal. They were lodged HOUSES AND CHURCHES 67 in the piazza of Saint Mark and gave their name to the Procuratie. But sumptuous magnificence was not confined to sacred buildings only. Public edifices gradually began to as- sume this characteristic, and first among them the home of the government. Hard by the temple of San Teodoro the Doge AgneUo Partecipazio laid the foundations of the Ducal Palace in 811. After the fire of 976 Pietro Orseolo I began the reconstruction which was carried to a conclusion in 1006 by Pietro Orseolo II, who in 998 had already received the Emperor Otto II as a guest in the palace. In i io5 the palace was burned a second time, in the reign of Ordelafo Falier, but was so speedily rebuilt that in 11 16 the Emperor Henry V was lodged in it. It must have presented the appearance of a mediaeval stronghold, with its flanking towers, its crenulated walls, and fosse with drawbridges.^ When the threat of foreign invasion and the danger of internal tumult died away, porticoes and loggias took the place of wedls and towers, and under the Doge Sebastiano Ziani (i 172-78) the whole palace was renewed and enlarged — renovavit et auxit, to use the words of Dandolo's Chronicle. In I a 02 the Seigneur de Ville-Hardouin declared the build- ing to be mult riche et biaux? With the lapse of time the Venetians grew more and more determined that the palace should be worthy of the rulers of so great a State. In i3/lo the Sala del Maggior Consiglio was enlarged and decorated at a cost of 85oo ducats, non comprendendo le pitture et ori, which were estimated at another 2000 ^ Paoletti, L'architettura e la ScuUura del Rinascimento in Venezia, Part II, p. i53. Venezia, 1898. * Histoire ou chronique da Seigneur Geoffroy de Ville-Hardouin, etc. Lion, Bouille, 1 60 1. 68 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES ducats.^ On this occasion the lagoon fa9ade was re- constructed, along with the first seven bays of the portico on the piazzetta. In i4oo they resolved to com- plete Sala del Maggior Consiglio, "quia est honor nostri dominii."^ In 1 409 the Doge's apartments were taken in hand, — "ita parvum et strictum quod in illo vix potest stare, quod est in magno incomodo suo." At the same time they altered the ' ' banchi porticus ubi stat ducissa . . . omnes fragidi et devastati, quod est cum magna defor- mitate Palacii."^ A few years later it was resolved to complete the piazzetta facade of the palace, and on this topic Francesco Sansovino says that in 1^2 3 the Senate, on the accession of Francesco Foscari to the dukedom, resolved to enlarge the palace and to make it worthy of so noble a piazza and so great a city. In March, i424, they began to pull down all that remained of the old palace built by Sebastiano Ziani. Worthy companion to the Ducal Palace, where the wisdom of the Senate watched over the destinies of the State, was that other vast edifice wherein they built their ships and forged the weapons that were to bring them riches and conquered territory. The first ships which sailed to spread the name of Venice afar were designed in the numerous yards which were scattered about among the islands. In iio4, on the island Gemine, in the eastern part of the city, hard by the castle of OUvolo, a large tract of land and water was enclosed by walls and towers, and there, under the open sky, they built ships for trade and for war. The place was called arzana, and 1 Archivio di Stato, Spiritus, p. ii3 (December a8, i34o). Caroldo, Cronaca, MS. in the Marciana (CI. VII, St. 128), p. 189. a Ibid., M. C, Leona, p. 106 V' (July 2a, i4oo). * Ibid., ibid., ibid., p. 181 V° (April 12, idog). "■':^- . «IK! ■^sg^jS'; The Arsenal, from the plan attributed to Jacopo de' Barbari i'* ;A**B«i'"">j^ t -^^'ai I"- HOUSES AND CHURCHES 69 among the many conjectures as to the derivation of the word the_ most probable is that which finds its etymol- ogy in the Arab word darsenaa, which still exists in the word darsena, and means a basin of water. The arsenal was finished in 1 155, and was restored in i3o3 with ample workshops, wide basins, just as Dante saw and sung it. But the old arsenal failing to meet the growing needs of the Venetian maritime power, the government from time to time enlarged this building, round which is concentrated the glory and the splendour of Venetian history.^ 1 Cason, Forze militari (in Venezia e le sue lagune, Vol. I, Part II, p. 94)- After the first enlargement in i3o3 there was a second under the Doge Giovanni Soranzo (iSia-iSag), a third between i3a5 and li']3, a fourth about iSSg, and a fifth in i56/l. CHAPTER III THE CONSTITUTION IF we wish to get a clear view of the manners, customs, and private life of a people, a study of their form of government and of their laws is necessary. The earliest form of political life in the lagoon islands was moulded by ancient Rome ; it received additions from the institutions of foreign peoples who succes- sively descended on Italy, and was modified by the special conditions of the place itself. The mention of "maritime tribunes" made by Cassiodorus compels us to inquire first of all who these tribunes were. The accredited hypothesis^ is that the tribunes were inferior Gothic ofiicials invested with military authority, and it seems that the Venetian tribunes must have been military officials intrusted with the defence of the growing community. When the Greek empire suc- ceeded the Goths, the Greeks, who maintained armies in Italy at least down to the sixth century, continued the ofiice of tribune in the hierarchy of duces, magistri militum, and tribuni, whose duty it was to see to the defence of places of minor importance. Some chronicles state that the tribunes were elected annually by the people from among the ancient noble {anteriores) families, which on that account were called 1 Hegel, Storia della costituzione dei Municipi Italiani, T. IV. THE CONSTITUTION 71 tribunizie ; but we do not think this statement can be accepted. The privileges of the aristocracy had no legal basis till much later, when the Great Council passed its restrictive measures; and that political rev- olution, the closing of the Great Council (1396), would not have been necessary had there already existed in the State a close caste which held in its hands the direction of affairs. It is probable that the people who from various districts of the mainland came together in the Venetian estuary brought with them their ancient traditions and their own special forms of ad- nainistration, and we must look for the origin of the tribunes in the equites and centurions who composed the municipal magistracy in the various mainland cities. Those offices were not hereditary under the Roman constitution, nor were they in the islands of the lagoon. Further, we must remember that the asylum of the lagoons in process of time doubtless served as a refuge for Goths, Lombards, and Franks, as each in turn was defeated and expelled, just as it had served for the Veneto-Romans ; and in the earliest centuries of the Republic we see families of Gothic, Lombard, or Frank- ish origin taking their place, in the government of the State, side by side with older families of purely Italic blood. Unbounded freedom is never safe; it almost always degenerates into license. When, under stress of circumstances on the mainland, the temporary asylum of the lagoons was gradually developed into a permanent home, we may be sure that the attention of the fugitives, who represented all that remained of so many famous Roman municipia, was early devoted to the construction of a government sufficiently organised to secure justice at home, sufficiently strong to protect the growing 73 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES community from external attack. Accordingly the primitive tribuni marittimi, being proved inadequate to the growing needs of the State, gave place to tribunes elected yearly, for the most part, in each lagoon island and in each centre of population. The tribunes them- selves soon felt the need for meeting together to discuss the common interests of the State, and thus gave rise to the consociazione, the germ of the famous commune of Venice, — Comune Venetiarum. As long as Padua and Oderzo, though undoubtedly decaying, still maintained, in the Greek duces, a rep- resentative of the empire and of Roman traditions as well as a bulwark against Lombard invasion, it is to be supposed that the magistrates of the lagoon islands referred to the Greek duces in all that affected their government ; though the growing activity of Venetian life was concentrated on sea traffic and industries. But when the Greeks finally disappeared from the Italian mainland (6/ii), the islands were not slow to feel the need for closer unity among themselves in the administration of public affairs. It may be that at this period some among the tribunes were invested with power over the others, and took the title of maggiores, but this conjecture is not con- firmed by any documentary evidence. It is certain, however, that little more than half a century after the disappearance of Greek dominion from Oderzo, the lagoon population found itself obliged to create a single head of the State, a Doge, whom the people called doxe, or dux, a title retained with slight modifications both in the common speech of the Venetians and in their rela- tions with foreign powers. This new institution, des- tined to give greater force and cohesion to the State, was intended to remedy the injury wrought by discords THE CONSTITUTION 78 among the tribunes who had not always known how to defend the lagoons either against the attack of the Lombards who came down the rivers in their boats, nor yet from the ravages of Istricp, Liburnian, and Dalmatian pirates who ravaged the ill-protected estuary. The first Doge, Paoluccio Anafesto, was elected in 697 at Heraclea, where a general assembly of all the Venetian nobility, people, and clergy took place. It has been observed that when recounting this event the chronicles name the people before the archbishop and the clergy. This indicates not only the high position held by the people, but also breathes the very spirit of the Venetian constitution in which the clergy, even before the year 1000, were kept in rigid subjection to the civil administration, even, some say, in matters spiritual.^ But this conclusion is open to grave doubts, even though it has the support of Andrea Dandolo,^ following whom we should be obliged to admit that the clergy from the very beginning of the dogeship were subject to the civil tribunals, and that synods were held and prelates elected by order of the Doge, that such elections were made by the clergy and people together, and that the prelates received from the Doge both investiture and induction. The conclusions of more recent students^ appear more reliable ; they accept the point of view advanced by Sandi and hold that the State of Venice, at least in the earlier period, while main- taining inviolate its full rights in matters temporal, assumed an attitude of great respect and even of 1 Monticolo, / manoscritti e le fonti delta Cronaca del Diac. Giovanni (in the Ballettino dell' 1st. Star. It., n. 9, p. 3i6. 1890). ^ Cronaca, Cap. I, p. I, col. 127. ' Rossi, Ag., Studi di st. politico-ecclesiastica anteriore al mille. Bologna, 1901. 74 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES protection towards the priesthood.^ In fact even if the right of the Doge to grant investiture to the patriarch and bishops of Venice 2 is proved by the testimony of antiquity, the proofs of furtli^r ducal rights are either absent, or weak, or even negative. It is therefore impossible to accept the evidence of Dandolo as absolute and beyond discussion, and still less can we wrest the words of his chronicle to a conclusion that is altogether too modern in its character.* The nobles, the clergy, and the people all took part in the election of the first Doge. This is a notable point, for it proves on the one hand that the State had reached in- dependence de facto, if not de jure, while on the other it estabhshes the direct participation of the people in the sovereign power. There are those who hold that even from the first the share of the people in the election of a Doge was illusory, or at least highly limited, because the phrases of the Cronaca Altinate, and of Dandolo, laudatus est and laudacione populi, etc., indicate merely a right to approve, not to vote. But if the people had possessed only an illusory or limited participation in sovereignty, there would have been no need gradually to curtail and finally to destroy the rights of the people. We find an example of a genuine and regulated exercise of the popular voice in 960. When the son and consort of Doge Pietro Candiano III, after rebelling against his father, was defeated and banished, the bishops, the lower clergy, and the comune dei cittadini met of their own accord and took an oath never to recognise the outlaw as Doge, neither during his father's lifetime nor after his demise. 1 Sandi, Principi di st. civ. della republica di Venezia dalla sua fonda- zione sino al 1700, Vol. I, p. i8o. Venezia, 1765. ^ Bossi, Ag., op. cit., p. 26. ' Ibid., ibid. THE CONSTITUTION 75 There is no precedent for such an occurrence as this solemn meeting of both clergy and people acting as the political authority and deliberating on an affair of State of such importance.^ But both clergy and people forgot their oath, brought back the outlaw in triumph, and acclaimed him as Doge. In order to render the consti- tution more stable and at the same time freer, a council was appointed to assist the Doge, who could undertake nothing without its consent.^ By such a step the Venetians endeavoured to curtail the ducal power and to secure a more liberal colour for the constitution. The convocation of the whole population of Venice for the election of a Doge recalls both the comitia of ancient Rome and the meeting of the freemen among the Lombards. Certain it is that such assemblies were foreign to Greek custom — a point which calls for atten- tion from those who are studying Venetian history. For if the people had preserved this sovereign right to ^ Gfrorer, XXI. That the people were comened upon important affairs of State is proved by documents and chronicles. For example, under the dukedom of Maurizio Galbaio (764-787), Dandolo says (Lib. VII, Cap. XII), " Venetoram popult et Cleri Synodus adunata, assistentibus Duce et Patriarcha, Obelerium clericum filium, Hencageli Tribunl mathemaucen- sis sedis praedictae Episcopum laudavit, et laudatus a Duce investitus, et intronizatus, a Patriarcha quoque consecratus est XI Ducis anno." Jaffe (Regesta Pontificum, p. 266. Berlin, i85i), for the year 876, in the reign of Pope John VIII, says, ' ' Delto episcopo significat de lite inter Petrum, palriarcham Gradensem et ejus suffraganeos. Mandat, ut quat- tuor quae praecedunt epistolas Venetiam perferat, ibique in conspectu tottus ecclesiae et populi legendas curet." On another occasion, wheu they wished to prohibit traffic in slaves, the Maggior Consiglio met under the presi- dency of the Doge and in the presence of the patriarch, the Bishop of Olivolo, and all the other prelates of the province, astanle in eomm praesentia magna parte populi, majores videlicet, mediocres et minores, that is, nobles, citizens, and people, and voted to forbid the said traffic. (Tafel and Thomas, Urkunden zar dlteren Handels und Staatsgeschichte der Rep. Ven., Vol. I, p. 356. Wien, 1 856.) 2 Gfrorer, XXI. 76 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES dispose of themselves, it is certain that in the period preceding the election of the first Doge the tribunes must have shared their authority with the citizens in some shape or other, possibly through the action of a council of heads of families, or of a general assembly summoned for special purposes, such as the approba- tion of laws or the imposition of taxes. These facts throw some light on the social life of the early Venetians, and the smallest ray is of high value in the general obscurity of the period. The election of the Doge, whatever may have been its full import, is at least a proof of common sense and of patriotism. It is rare to find a revolution of this sort carried through without a violent shock to the social structure ; hardly ever have the people voluntarily renounced their sover- eign rights in order to concentrate them in the hands of a single individual. The attributes of ducal authority must, at first, have been vaguely defined, although Dandolo thus rehearses the position of the Doge. Decreverunt, he says, omni- bus Ducem presse, quiequo moderamine populum sibi subditam gubernaret} The Doge was elected for life. His symbols of sov- ereignty were the sword, the sceptre, and the throne. Apparently the whole administration was in his hands, and abuses might easily arise which gave frequent occasion to disorders. It would seem, however, that neither the forms, nor the functions, nor the spirit of the old tribu- nitian administration had completely disappeared, for even after the election of the first Doge we find tribunes 1 Even in the later coronation oaths (promission!) no mention is made of the military or naval command. It seems that originally the command belonged to the Doge, but was subsequently transferred to the Maggior Consiglio. THE CONSTITUTION 77 in existence who, though subject to the supreme ducal authority, still administered justice in the various islands. The inhabitants of the islands had a right of appeal from the tribunes to the Doge, who was considered as the fountain of justice in the State, whose duty it was to handle sapienter et onorijtce Veneticorum causam in omnibus.^ We must not think, however, that the trib- unes were in any sense a branch of the administration intermediary between the Doge and the nation. In 787 we have a further demonstration of the will of the people. The office of Doge, elected for life, gave way to the annual office of ' ' the Master of the Soldiery, " the magisler militum.^ This was an office well known at Ravenna and in southern Italy under the Greek rule, but in the lagoons it implied more especially the defence of the estuary. From this fact we may conclude that the tribunes had never wilhngly renounced their judicial and administrative functions, and that the people, especially those of the southern lagoon, were far from content at having concentrated all authority in the hands of a Doge resident in Heraclea. When five years later the lagoon population returned once for all to the ducal form of government, two important modifications were introduced. One was to give the Doge two trib- unes^ as assessors, — the germ of the later Consiglieri ducali; the other, to remove the seat of government from Heraclea to Malamocco, on the sea margin of the lagoon, a point less open to attack from the mainland and more central for the whole lagoon community. 1 Giovanni Diacono, Chr., p. 98. 2 It is probable that the magistri militum, etc., existed contemporaneously with the doges and that during the sede vacante they exercised the ducal rights. 8 In the reign of Domenico Monegario (756). 78 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES Under the new regime the Gastaldi ducali^ took the place of the earUer tribunes in all that concerned the government of the lagoon communes, and under them came subordinates, the missi depalatio, charged with the exaction of tribute and quit-rents due to the fisc ; later on were added the giudici, the ministeriali, the decani, and the ripari, who drew up the judicial findings and saw to their execution. The boni homines and the council rogatorum were charged with the interpretation of the law, and if any serious dispute arose, the people had the right to appoint arbitrators. In the twelfth century the capi contrada and the capi sestieri were intrusted with the maintenance of public order. Clearly, then, Venice was already a State well or- ganised and provided with securities for civic life ; but it is an extraordinary thing that we find no trace of autocratic authority.^ The great Pope, Hildebrand, was justified when he declared that the spirit £md the independence of ancient Rome had come to hfe again in Venice. We must here observe that the period between the tenth century and the Crusades is remark- able in the civil history of Venice, for it shows us the State already absolutely freed from any political de- pendence on the Greek empire ; ecclesiastical depend- ence had also disappeared, and the Greek Saint Theodore, the patron of the early RepubUc, was replaced by the Evangelist Saint Mark, whose legend floated over the islands of Rialto. 1 The Gastaldi had a wide jurisdiction ; for example, in mi Domenico Canovario, son of the late Domenico Canovario, of Sant' Isaia, gives a receipt to Angelo, son of the late Domenico Orso of San Bartolomeo, de qualuor libris denariorum quas mihi dare debuisti de quibus multociens supra te prodamavi, et ante nostrum gastaldum et alios bonos homines ad rationem con- duxi. Archivio di Stato, Arch, di San Zaccaria, Pergamene Estere B*. 34- * Crotta, Memorie storico-civili, etc., p. 47- Venezia, i8i8. THE CONSTITUTION 79 In the year 828 two Venetian merchants, Buono of Malamocco and Rustico of Torcello, came to Alexandria, where lay the body of Saint Mark, jealously guarded by the Saracens. These two managed to steal the precious remains, and in order to avoid search by the custom-house officers, they carried them on board tiieir ship in a basket filled with pork, which Mussul- mans hold in horror. They spread their sails and brought to Venice the venerated relics, for which was presently built that glorious sepulchre, the basilica of San Marco. The evangelist, either in human form or as a lion, became the sole symbol of Venice.^ At the period we are discussing the Adriatic was commanded by the ships of Venice, and Venetian ^ Nothing authentic is known ahout the earliest use of the lion of San Marco as the ensign of the Republic. The evangelist's lion, with all its attributes, is not to be met with earlier than the fourteenth or perhaps the very end of the thirteenth century ; it is therefore improbable that the Venetians adopted the winged lion as their symbol earlier than the tre- cento. At the Museo Civico in Venice we have a high relief representing a lion issuing from the waves, with nimbus, wings, and the closed Gospel between its paws. This has erroneously been attributed to the year looo and described as the oldest known symbol of the RepubUc. Neither the lion on the door of Sant' ApoOinare, which seems very ancient, nor the one preserved in the Archivio di State, can be placed earlier than the fourteenth century (Urbani, Dom., II nuovo leone al Museo, in the BoUettino d'arti, etc., anno I, p. gS. Venezia, 1877-78)'. During the fifteenth century the banners of the Republic bore a cross. On Venetian coins we find the evangelist in human form as early as the twelfth century. The lion without wings and without the Gospel appears for the first time on the silver soldo of Francesco Dandolo (iSag-iSSg); with nimbus, wings, and book, on the tornese of Andrea Dandolo (i342-i354). That curious representation of the lion, full face, crouching, with nimbus, wings dis- played, and the hind paws holding up the open Gospel, was adopted on the gazzetta, a silver coin of the value of two Venetian soldi, first coined in i538 by the Doge Andrea Gritti. This form of the lion is known as the moleca, from its resemblance to that kind of crab which in Venetian dialect is called moleca (cancer moenas). Every public building in Venice and the Dogado was marked by the lion of San Marco. 8o VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES influence and even Venetian dominion took the place of Greek rule in Istria and Dalmatia. Both of these countries, though retaining their own laws, were, in the year looo, subjected to the maritime jurisdiction of Venice by the Doge Pietro Orseolo II, who was acclaimed Duke of Dalmatia and recognised as such by the Emperor Henry II in a diploma of 1002 in which the Doge is styled Dux Veneticoram et Dalmatinorum.^ The poverty of the lagoon district was a leading factor of Venetian enterprise and strength. Venice rose to a marvellous height of power in the teeth of difficulties and obstacles. Their home had cost the Venetians too dear, too much had they suffered, fought, rejoiced, there in the heart of their swamps, to allow us to credit that in 122a the Doge Ziani really dreamed of transferring the capital of Venice to Constantinople, and that the proposal was actually advanced in the Great Council and lost by a single vote. The best authorities make no mention of the episode, and if, perchance, the idea did cross the minds of some and was even discussed in the Council, we may take it that it was rejected at once and rightly. Meantime, in the internal management of the State, there had come about a change of great importance which materially helped to mould the constitution and laid the first foundations of aristocratic authority. On the violent death of Doge Vitale Michiel II, in 1172, it was resolved to crush, once for all, both the arbitrary power of the Doge and the sanguinary outbursts of the people. And here we come upon the real origin of the Great Council, that instrument by which the State was secured in her freedom and material prosperity. The violent acts of some of the Doges proved that the councillors 1 Musatti, La st. politica dt Venezia, p. 38. Padova, 1897. THE CONSTITUTION 81 and citizens invited (pregadi) to assist the head of the State, who had been instituted under the gentle rule of Domenico Flabanico, in loSa, were not sufficiently powerful to hold a headstrong sovereign in check. It was accordingly provided that for the future two nominators for each sestiere should, on Saint Michael's day of each year, appoint four hundred and eight citizens, nobles or plebeians, Avho should constitute the Maggior Consiglio, in which were concentrated the powers and rights of Doge and people alike. The Great Council was charged with appointment to all other councils and magistracies, and with the prep- aration of all subjects to be laid before the general assembly of the State. The senators (pregadi) and the ducal councillors, now increased to six, continued to act as before. The Doge and the Consiglieri Ducali together formed the Consiglio Minore. Later, in 1179, the Council of Forty (Quaranta) was created and event- ually became one of the most powerful branches of the administration. The right of judgment on appeal in cases civil and criminal was taken from the Doge and vested in the Council of Forty. The Doge was called upon to swear the Promissione Ducale, or coronation oath, by which he was constitutionally bound. On the other hand, to curb the people who hitherto had elected the Doge in tumultuary popular assembly, the Maggior Consiglio appointed eleven electors ^ who, in the basilica of San Marco, chose the chief magistrate, who was then submitted to the approval of the people. Thus the popular right of election, — which no State should ever abolish, but which the Venetian constitu- tion recognised in a very limited form, — was gradually I The electors, who were chosen by a long and tedious process, were increased to forty and then to forty-one. TOL. I — 6 82 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES restricted. At the election of Sebastiano Ziani (1173), when the people, seeing themselves robbed of their rights, raised an outcry, the leading citizens pointed out that the reform had no other object than to secure a more orderly selection of the Doge, and succeeded in persuading the populace to be satisfied with the mere right of confirmation, while the newly elected Doge strengthened this line of argument by scattering coin among the crowd. It was then resolved that the new Doge should always be presented to the populace with the formula, " This is your Doge, if so it please you." It would seem, however, that the people did make an effort to seize again the power that was slipping from their hands and attempted to hold an assembly at the election of Enrico Dandolo, which was attended by all the lagoon inhabitants from Grado to Capo d'Argine. The government, though it still retained the semblance of democratic forms, was gradually concentrated in the hands of one class, whose views were enlightened, whose constitution was regulated by wise provisions, and whose representative was the Doge. The changes which from time to time were made in the method of electing the Doge and in the constitution of the Great Council, by fixing the age of eligibility and by intro- ducing other modifications and further privileges, show that their object was to favour the aspirations of those families which by trade had come to the front in riches and in political ambition. By adhering to the primitive form of nomination to the Great Council, it might happen that in any given year the council might find itself composed of outsiders (^novi homines) — a result which suited neither the in- terests of the State nor the aims of the great families. To meet this danger, in 1286 a law was proposed, but THE CONSTITUTION 83 rejected, by which, with a view to excluding the ' ' new men," it was provided that only those should be eligible to the Maggior Consiglio whose father or paternal grand- father had already sat in the Great Council. Meantime provisions were made to secure the proper movement of commerce, the safety of the city, and the creation of such magistracies as are necessary in a well- ordered State. Everyone was bound, within the limits of his condition and his ability, to lend service to the State ; if anyone refused office to which he had been called, he lost his civil rights. For example, in 1 189 the Doge Orio Mastropiero and his six councillors decreed that Jacopus Julianas de conjinio Santi Juliani, who had refused an office conferred on him by election, nullum honorem, nullum ojfftciam de nostra curia habere deheat quod per electores Jiat et insuper nulla ei ratio debeat in curia nostra teneri?- Every citizen was inspired by such a lofty sentiment of duty as to feel remorse if he had ever failed to serve his country on every occasion and to the best of his ability. The will of Giovanni Contarini, dated March I2, i358, offers us a curious and noble example of expiation in the terms of the following leg- acy : ' ' Lasso al comun de Venezia per falli da Officii o de Consei, ch' io non fossi andato, che fossi tegnudo, lire L." 2 The period that closes with the end of the thirteenth century was both the happiest and most glorious in the whole history of the Republic, although it is true that it was marred by internal feuds between the more power- ful families, such as the Dandolo and the Tiepolo, whose quarrels divided the people for some years into two 1 Archivio di Stato, Ducali ed Atti Diplomatici, B*. VI. " Antichi Testamenti tratti daW Archivio della Congr. di Caritii di Venezia, Ser. VII, p. 25. Venezia, 1888. 84 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES hostile factions. At one moment also it would seem that the populace became impatient of their superiors, and, reviving their ancient rights, acclaimed as Doge Jacopo Tiepolo ; but the nobles held the upper hand, and after putting down the tumult in the piazza, they proceeded to elect Piero Gradenigo, whose character gave assurance that he would keep the popular in- solence sternly in check. A man of clear and sharp intelligence, full of common sense, with a spirit fortified in the arena of politics, Gradenigo, who placed his States above all other considerations, was firmly con- vinced that Venice would never be able to preserve and increase her prosperity unless even the most purely formal exercise of the unstable popular will was ex- cluded from the government. He had before his eyes the example of other Italian cities where the excesses of the populace had ended in bringing the commune under a despot. In February, 1297, Gradenigo reintroduced and car- ried the rejected law of 1286, which provided that only those who during the last four years had sat in the Great Council should be eligible for that council, with- out any further formality than twelve favourable votes in the Quaranta, and this eligibility was to be heredi- tary. There Avas a proviso that this law might be revised at the close of the year, but the aristocracy, whose mouthpiece Gradenigo was, handled the law for their own ends. This act of Gradenigo, which completely hampered all action by the "new men," the party that was always working for reforms, has been improperly styled " the closing of the Great Council " ; but the Council was not absolutely closed, and for many years after fresh elections took place and the leading families were not rigidly excluded from the patriciate. THE CONSTITUTION 85 It is true that admission became ever more and more difficult, but it is a mistake to suppose that the Council was at one stroke closed up in immovable rigidity. The great reform of Gradenigo, the true foundation of the hereditary aristocracy, gave rise to secret con- spiracies which broke out into open revolt. But the Republic, aided by good fortune and rendered vigilant by suspicion, emerged triumphant. The conspiracy of Marin Bocconio, in i3oo, was discovered and the ring- leader and his accomplices were hung. In i3io many of the nobihty, Quirini, Barozzi, Doro, Badoer, many clergy, and many of the people took part in the famous conspiracy of Bajamonte Tiepolo. Inasmuch as we are dealing chiefly with the private Ufe of the Venetians, the old tradition, which still survives in the phrase la vechia del morier, offers a curious little touch. When Tiepolo, with a strong band of armed men, was just on the point of emerging on the piazza, an old woman dwelling in the Merceria came to the window and flung a mortar at the head of Tiepolo 's standard-bearer.-' The banner 1 Cicogna (Iscr. Ven., T. Ill, p. 3o) says, "Some think, and I agree with them, that the woman who ran to the window at the noise in the street did not purposely fling the mortar, but accidentally pushed it over. Others, clearly in error, say that the mortar struck and slew Bajamonte himself. This woman, who some say was called Giustina Rossi, but who I find from a legal document was named Lucia, was sent for by the Doge Gradenigo, who wished to reward her. She would accept nothing but the privilege of hanging out of the famous window the standard of San Marco on Saint Vito's day and on other solemn occasions, and a promise that the procurators of San Marco should never be allowed to raise the rent either for her or her descendants. All her requests were granted (Tentori, Vol. V, p. 323, and Burchellati, Comm. Hist. Tarvis., p. 6oi). Curiosity led me to follow up the history of this house and of its rent, that was never to be raised. Giustina or Lucia, whichever it be, paid in i3io to the procurators, its owners, fifteen Venetian ducats a year." Cecchetti (Arch. Veneto, T. XXV, p. i44) published a document from which we learn that the lady of the mortar was called Maria de Oltise. 86 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES fell to the ground and the rebels lost heart, while the Doge and his men charged and routed Tiepolo. The Republic punished the rebels with death or exile ^ ; and with a view to probing and meeting omnia ista negotia istarum novitatum, it instituted the Council of Ten. That same year, i3io, the new magistracy ap- pointed two of its members Inquisitori dei Died ; these two were increased to three in iSSg and were then styled Inquisitori alia conservazione dei segreti di Stato.^ All through the fourteenth century Venice was torn by conspiracies. Among the most famous was that of the Doge Marino Falier, who was decapitated on the staircase of the Palazzo Ducale and buried without honours in the family tomb at SS. Giovanni e Paolo.^ 1 Arch. di. Stato, M. C, Presbiter, June 17, i3io, p. ao V". Among other resolutions it was determined to raze to the ground Tiepolo's house at Sant' Agostlno, at the place now called the Campiello del Remer. A column d'infamia was erected to mark the spot. It bore this inscription : Di Bajamonte fo questo tereno, E mo per lo so iniquo tradimento Se posto in Chomun per Altrui spavento E per mostrar a tutti sempre seno. The column was removed from the Campiello del Remer and placed at the angle of the church of Sant' Agostino. In 1786 it was taken to the VUla Quirini at Altichiero near Padua, and in 1829 it was sold to an antiquity dealer, who resold it to the Duca Melzi, who placed it in the garden of his villa on Como. Not long ago the heirs of Melzi restored it to the commune of Venice, and it is now in the Museo Civico. * Fulin, Gl' Inquisitori dei Died (Arch. Veneto, T. I, p. sa). ' The tomb of Marino Falier "served for long as a water tank for the hospital dispensary. It is now in the outer loggia of the Museo Civico. It has lost all traces of inscription or coat of arms. The portrait of the traitorous Doge, which was placed in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, was effaced by order of the Ten. Here is the decree : " i366 (Cons. X). Die XVI mensis decembris. Capta. Quod figura ser Marini Faletro posita in Sala nova Maioris Consilii amoveatur in totum et remaneat locus vacuus in colore azuro, et in campo scribantur litere albe. Hie fait locus Ser Marini Faletro decapitati pro crimine proditionis, dimitendo arma suam." Lorenzi, Mon. per servir alia St. del Palazo Due, p. 38. Venezia, 1886. (^) A — -LiOH on the door of the Campanile of S. ApoUinare. B — Sarcophagus of the FaHer family, in which was laid the body of the Doge Marino B'aliero. (Museo Civico) THE CONSTITUTION 87 In the tragic drama of this conspiracy the popular voice has always assigned a large place to the Doge's wife, Aluica or Lodovica, daughter of Nicolo Gradenigo. In fact the common opinion is that the conspiracy was due to an insult to the Doge's honour, which he thought that the governing nobility failed to avenge as he desired. Marin Sanudo relates that at a ball in the palace one of the Dogaressa's maids of honour was insulted by Michele Steno, who was ordered out of the hall by the Doge. In revenge for this Steno left on the ducal throne a paper with these words : Marin Falier doxe, da la bela moier, altri la galde e lui la mantien. Steno was flogged with a fox-tail — a mark of ignominy — and condemned, moreover, to a month's imprisonment and a fine of one hundred hre. "The Doge, ' says Sanudo, "took great offence thereat and began to conspire against the State of Venice."^ The older chronicles of the middle of the trecento, such as Lorenzo de' Monacis and Antonio Morosini, say that certain young bloods insulted the Doge and on their receiving merely nominal punishment Falier was swept away by his indignation and embarked on his conspir- acy against the Republic. Historical criticism must hold these tales as pure inventions. As a matter of fact the documents of the Council of Forty (Quarantia) give the lie to much of the popular legend, and Sanudo, who while still a young man had very likely based his account on the current gossip, added later on in the margin of his book, if not corrections at least queries, after he became better informed about the facts of the case. It was the Doge's ambition to make himself Signore of Venice, and not the wrath of an injured husband that was the real motive of the 1 Sanudo, Vite dei Dogi, cit., pp. 626 et seq. 88 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES conspiracy. The Dogaressa, after the condemnation of her husband, closed her days in suffering that upset her reason. 1 The sombre shadow of popular rebellion lurking in the city, the wrath and jealousy aroused abroad by the triumphant progress of the Republic, found expression in terms of rage and bitterness in the rude verses of the day. An anonymous Genoese celebrates the victory of his State over the Venetians, orgoioxi, tignosi, porci, levrosi, in the battle of Laiazzo in 1294, and in the capture of Curzola in 1298.^ Nicol6 Quirini, one of the conspirators in the rising of Bajamonte Tiepolo, in a sonnet accuses his compatriots of infamous crimes ' ; and Francesco Vannozzo, in iSgy, at the court of the Carraresi, those implacable enemies of the Republic, endeavours to ingratiate himself with his masters by turning to ridicule those hoche del mare, those superbi cani, those asenacci da hasta the Venetians, and heaps these vulgar insults on the city of the lagoons : da valle senli e da cannuzza s\ che tuo puzza soffrir non posso. Madre de 'nganni e de danni infiniti plena de sodomiti.* So too Giovanni Villani, speaking of the peace with Mastino deUa Scala, concluded against the will of 1 Molmenti, La Dogaressa di Venezia, Cap. VI. Torino, i884. La»- zarini, Marino Faliero. Venezia, 1897. 2 Monaci, Crest, it. dei primi secoli, fasc. II, p. 438. CitU di Castello, 1897- ' Lazzarini, Rimatori Veneziani del secolo XIV, p. 98. Padova, 1887. * Grion, Trattato di A. da Tempo, p. 298. Bologna, 1869. CoLUMM marking the house of Baiamonte Tiepolo. (Museo Civico) THE CONSTITUTION 89 Florence by its allies the Venetians, inveighs against Venice, which seemed to the Florentines to have proved a faithless ally. He calls the Venetians "per- fidi, estratti del sangue d'Antenore, traditore della sua patria di Troja."^ An anonymous Florentine launches fierce sarcasms against "faithless Venice" in these terms : Viva il Pugliese e '1 C6rso e '1 Romagnolo Caino e Giuda, e Antinfiro e Gano . . . Giugurta e Cassio e Bruto a mano a mano, E gli altri re che regnan sotto al polo . . . Poi che Vinegia, donna di leanza, parti per s6 e pose in su la fetta la particella a chi fiorl sua danza. Giustizia, se non muovi a far vendetta di tal nequizia e laida fallanza, cosa non s'atterri che s'imprometta.2 Boccaccio, who in the Decameron does not spare his own Florentines nor his dear Certaldesi, calls Venice d'ogni brultura ricevitrice,^ and applies the epithet of bergoli,^ fickle, to the citizens of the best governed State in Europe. He goes on to say, in the Commento a Dante, that the island of Crete is tirannescamente tenuia by the Republic, and in his work De montibus, silvis, 1 Villani, Cron., Lib. XI, Gap. go. In the early sixteenth century a Venetian made a note to the passage in Chapter III of Book V, where Villani records hovif the Emperor Frederic II was reconciled to the church, "Andd al passaggio d' altro mare e Ih morio." The Venetian commen- tator, alluding to the privileges granted by Pope Alexander III to the Republic, says, "See how this writer wiU not admit that the Signoria of Venice did much for the Pope. They were granted the Jubilee of the Karita, which endures to this day, i5i3, in which I, Sabastian of Venice, constable, read this book, which belonged to Misser Jacometo da Novelo, constable" (Bibl. Marciana, Cod. Ital., Zanetta 34, C. 4? tergo). * Died sonetti storici Jioreniini. Firenze, iSgS. ^ Decamevone, Giorn. IV, Nov. II. * Ibid., Giorn. VI, Nov. IV. go VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES fontihus, lacubus,fluminibus, etc., speaking of the Vene- tians, he affirms that they have the audacity et maris imperium occupare, sipossint, et novo nomine vetus delere conantur, a se venelum appellantes, quod per longa retro secula a Tuscis Adriaticum dictum. In the first part of this unmerited criticism we catch an echo of the jealousy which inspired French and Neapohtans alike, both of whom had dominions in the Morea and in the islands of the archipelago. Boccaccio, at the court of Naples, probably heard Venetian rule in Crete ^ painted in gloomy colours by French and Neapohtan lords. The Genoese Andal6 di Negro, master and friend of Boccaccio, may also have influenced the poet; he had travelled much and in speaking of his journeys he probably did not spare the rival of his own country. As regards the charge of having usurped the dominion of the Adriatic, the source of this is to be found in the rivalry between Venice and Naples over the dominion and the freedom of that sea. 2 On the other hand we have the enthusiastic admiration of poets and panegyrists bestowed on Venice, not only for her natural and artistic beauty and the magnificence of her shows, but also for the justice of her laws, the wisdom of her constitution, the might of her arms. Petrarch writes to Stefano Colonna : ne ibid quidem invenies (that is, in northern Italy) ubi virtutis amicus atque otiiconquiescat,praeternobilissimam illam Venelorum urbem. A Tuscan poet who flourished in the second half of the fourteenth century, Simone di ser Dino da Siena, praises to the skies the Republic which is governed 1 On Venetian rule in Crete, see Thomas, Commission des dogen Andreas Dandolo fur die Insel Crete vom Jahre 1350. Munich, 1877. 2 Hortis, Accenni alle scienze nalurali nelle opere di G. Boccacci. Trieste, 1877. THE CONSTITUTION 91 Non con tirannie ma con ragione, and declares that as far as liberty is concerned Questa solo nel mondo oggi sublima.^ In spite of the many political questions which, dur- ing the trecento, divided Florence and Venice during the struggles with the della Scala and the Visconti, a Florentine who fully represents the spirit of his fellow- citizens, Franco Sacchetti, in a long poetical review of the terrible political situation in Italy, makes an excep- tion in favour of Venice alone. After drawing a picture of the political misfortunes of Genoa, the Florentine novelist, an ardent admirer of the government of Venice, so different from his own, goes on to say : Sta con le giuste sorte ; Con virtti scorte, In acqua, sanza mura : Citti con dirittura, in state fermo E non infermo : Novecent' anni sanza mutar scliermo, Esser felice ; SiccM si dice : Fra I'altre meglio regna E degna vive.^ An anonymous poet of the quattrocento holds that no city, be it ancient or modern, can compare with Venice : Sopra ogni altra tu se iihperatrice Nesuna de queste mai anticamente Non forono za mai cotanto potenle.^ In a poem entitled Primo irionfo della glorioxa citta di Veniesia, written before i4i3, a certain Gechin or * Bini, Rime e prose del buon secolo della lingua, p. g/l. Lucca, i852. 2 Canzoniere di F. Sacchetti, p. 68a (Bibl. Laurenziana, Cod. Ashiurn- ham, 574). ^ Laude di Venezia di un Anonimo del UOO (Miscell. Marciana, 244i). 92 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES Zechin, a noble of Venice, fired by patriotic enthu- siasm, compares the condition of Venice with that of other ItaUan cities, and exclaims : Avventurata patria fra le oscure italiche clttk senza quiete ; che oggi senza te piangon sue sventure. Nicolb Cieco d'Arezzo, a poetaster by profession, writing in i/iaB, invites all "poetic souls" to sing the praises of " tanta donna," as he calls Venice in triplets composed in honour of the league between Florence and Venice ^ ; and finally, Jacopo d'Albizzotto Guidi sums up his enthusiasm in these words : Di tutta Italia, Lombardia e Toscana, sicondo che si vede per effelto Vinegia 6 la pHi nobile e sovrana. But Venice, paying little heed to praise or blame, calmly and surely proceeded to follow out her destiny. 1 Moschetti, Dae Cron. Ven., p. 98. Flamini, La lirica toscana del Rinascimento, p. 179. Pisa, 1891 (Ternario a laude dell' illus. Signoria di Venezia). Morpurgo in Riv. crit., VII, col. 70. CHAPTER IV THE LAWS WRITERS on Venetian history lament the absence of any written law before the twelfth century, or at least that such laws have not come down to us. It is even uncertain whether at that date we really have the earliest civil code in the Capitolare of the Magistrato del Propria .^ The Promissione of the Doge Orio Mastropiero, dated 1181, is, in title, contents, and subject-matter, concerned with criminal law. It is certain, however, that a more ample penal and civil code was compiled under the dogeship of Enrico Dandolo (11 95), though unfortunately not preserved to us.^ At the opening of the thirteenth century the work of legislation becomes fuller and richer. The Vice Doge, Rinieri Dandolo, in the absence of his father, published, in September, i2o4, a new series of civil laws and created the office of Giudice dell' Esaminador. Pietro Ziani added others, notably in February, 12 14, and in June, 1228. His work was continued by Jacopo Tiepolo, who published important reforms of the civil code in July, 1229, in November, 1281, and in May, 1233.^ This brings us to 12^2, when the Doge Jacopo 1 Foscarini, Letteratura Veneziana, Lib. I. " Fertile, St. del Diritto It., p. i53, Vol. II, Part II. Torino, 1898. ' We gather this from the edition of the most ancient civil statutes recently published by Riccardo Predelli and Enrico Besta {Nuovo Archivio Veneto, nuova serie, T. I, pp. i and 4a). Besta, in the Preface, throws light on this vast legislative activity. 94 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES Tiepolo collected, arranged, amplified in part and in part modified, that series of civil laws which bears the name of the Statuto Veneto and forms the starting-point of organised legislation. In laSa Tiepolo reformed the penal code as well. It cannot, however, be denied that even earlier than the Statuto there must have existed special written laws. Tradition, unsupported by documentary evidence, says that Marcello, second of the three earliest Doges, pro- mulgated sound and explicit laws.^ But this tradition does not prove their existence, which cannot, as some would wish, be confirmed even by the privilege con- ceded in 109/i to the people of Loreo that their causes should be tried by Venetian lex,^ nor yet by the fact, also resting on documentary evidence, that a certain Buono Orio, gastaldo of Torcello, heard a suit which arose in 1096 between the abbot and convent of Am- miana and a parish priest of that island per legge e per sua sentenza.^ For as far as the privilege to the people of Loreo goes, it is not certain if the word lex, as dis- tinguished from written law, referred to unwritten law, or even simply meant the practice of the courts * ; and as for the phrase per legem et sententiam judicare, it has been justly observed^ that in the middle ages the word lex was frequently used in a general sense to indicate law and justice in the abstract, and might be synonymous with sententia or even with curia. All the same there are not wanting documents to prove 1 Sandi, Principi, etc., cit., Lib. I, Cap. VIII. ^ Foscarini, Lib. I. ' Cecchetti, La Vita dei Veneztani Jino al 1200. Venezia, 1870. * Schupfer, Manuale di St. del Diritto It., p. 366. Citta di Castello, 1895. Besta, Enrico, II diritto e le leggi civili di Venezia fino al Dogado di Enrico Dandolo, pp. 29 and 3o. Venezia, 1900. » Ibid., loo. cit. THE LAWS 95 the existence of written law as early as the tenth century. For example we find that in June, 960, the Doge Pietro Candiano IV, when introducing legislation against traffic in slaves, makes reference to an earlier law of the Doge Orso I. Of the same date we have laws for- bidding the transmission of letters from Germany to Constantinople, and prohibiting the export of arms or wood for shipbuilding to lands owned by the Saracens.^ It is of importance to note that the Cronaca Altinate also gives us some positive information about the state of the law in the earlier period. There Ave find it recorded that the Venetians drew their own peculiar laws partly from Roman and partly from Salic law, and that suits were decided either by custom {consuetudine) or upon documentary evidence, whether holographic {chirografo) or notarial (memoriali). No one could be tried for theft except upon denunciation by two credible witnesses. If found guilty he lost an eye or a hand ; if convicted a second time he lost the other eye or hand. Such sentences seem to reveal the influence of Lombard or Prankish criminal procedure. Custom as a source of law always preserved grjat weight in Venice, more there, perhaps, than in any other State, and the Statuto itself recognised the right of custom to override the written law (desue- tudine)} We therefore find a number of works dealing with Venetian custom, of which the most remarkable is the Splendor Venetorum civitatis consuetadinum, written by Jacopo Bertaldo, ducal chancellor in 1298 and bishop of Veglia in iSik.^ 1 Gfrorer, XXIII and XXIV. ^ Fertile, op. cit., Vol. II, Part II, p. 60. Schupfer, op. cit., p. 873. * Bertaldo's SpZendor was published for the first time by Schupfer in 1896 in the Biblioteca juridica medii ami, whose editor is Prof. A. Gaudenzi. Cfr. Besta, Enrico, Jacopo Bertaldo [Nuovo Archivio Veneto, T. XIII, p. 109). As a precious monument of ancient Venetian law, the glosses briefly 96 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES Sandi, when rehearsing a long and varied series of laws which were in force in early times in Italy, is at pains to prove that Avritten law existed in the earliest centuries.^ We may accept his contention if for no other reason save the fact that the islands were beyond doubt in touch with^the Eastern Empire. There does not exist, nor has there ever existed, an organised assemblage of human beings without laws, and there- fore it is impossible to beheve that the law was not embodied in public acts, even in the primitive con- stitution of Venice. We have seen the condition of the early refugees who settled in the lagoon islands. The inhabitants of the ruined Roman colonies must have brought with them not only Roman civilisation, but Roman law and the intimate knowledge of Roman in- stitutions. Neither the jealousies, discords, nor internal feuds which followed avail to demonstrate either a state of anarchy or even the absence of law, for similar episodes are common to the history of every race. It appears then that we are justified in concluding that the task of reorganising civil jurisdiction can have been neither long nor arduous, and that the written law of Venice must have been of ancient date, based in part on Roman or Byzantine laws, and, as regards the criminal side, on the Lombard and Prankish codes. As far as Roman law is concerned, there are two questions which we must keep carefully apart : did Roman law enter as the creative element in Venetian jurisprudence, or had Roman law qua Roman law a direct authority as common law — that is to say, as the law to which recourse was had when the law of the country was silent? Taking noticed by Besta in the Atti del R. htitato Veneto, Ser. VII, Vol. VIII, deserve attention. I Lib. I, Gap. VIII ; Lib. II, Cap. IX. THE LAWS 97 the latter point first, it is certain that Roman law had not that position in Venice, where at the most it enjoyed a theoretical authority — that is to say, that Venetian judges would doubtless take into highest consideration the principles laid down by Roman jurists whenever they were called upon to fill gaps in the code or in the custom by the light of their own inteUigence.^ As regards the other point, beyond all doubt the basis of Venetian law was to a large extent Roman law. Bertaldo (p. Sa) declares that in Venice jura communia et leges a lalinis consuetudinibus derivata. But there are other elements to take into account, elements from which that second great fountain of Venetian law — custom — - drew its nutriment . There is the Byzantine source, which led Bertaldo to say omnes consuetudines venetae ... a grecorumfontibas derivatae (p. 53); there are the sources, Lombard, Prankish, barbarian in short, which left their trace on the penal legislation 2 — and more especially on many branches of private jurisprudence, and which stand out in the titles of certain officers, such as the gastaldi and the buoni uomini, who were assessors to the judges ^ ; lastly there was the canonical source, introduced mainly by the action of the bishops and prelates, who took a share in the political and legislative life of the State.* From all this we may naturally conclude that a special jurispru- dence existed and flourished, and this we find in various passages called Venetian law. 1 Fertile, op. cit.. Vol. II, Part II, § 63, p. 67, and § 68, p. 160. 2 Besta, Enrico, Appunti per la st. del dir. pen. nel dogado ven. innanzi al 1232 (in Filangeri del maggio 1899, n. 5, passim). The words of the Cronaca Altinate, — de romana autem sive de salica (franca) traxermt legem, — leave no doubt on the point. 3 Fertile, op. cit., Vol. II, Part I, § 53, p. 244- * Besta, Enrico, II dii-itto e le leggi civ., etc., p. ao. TOL. I — 7 98 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES The absence of written law is hardly more deplorable than the absence of all documentary evidence as to the several branches of the law prior to the tenth century. Profound darkness reigns over the early years. But if, with the help of documents of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, we can reconstruct an organised system of law, it is clear that an agglomeration of people in a growing and progressive community could not have held together during the preceding centuries — in which we find them making foreign treaties and sending out fleets even as far back as the eighth century — unless they had had to guide them a code that was both fixed and written. Let us now take a few facts which wiU enable us to form a judgment as to the nature of these laws and of their practical application in the civil and criminal jurisprudence of Venice.^ The relations between the government and the governed were from the very first both frequent and intimate. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries we have notices which prove that justice was administered in public, in the midst of the people, over whom the great ones (maggiorenti) presided, it is true, but from among whom they called up to the bench one or more simple freemen to sit along with the judges. If that were so in the eleventh and twelfth centuries we have every reason to believe that a like procedure 1 It is interesting to note that all ancient deeds, even private ones, are drawn up by notaries, almost as though the authority of the law was recog- nised as superior to the authority of the prince. The Promissione al Malejicio exists in the notarial acts of Paterniano da Pozzo (March, 1181, ind. XV, Rialto). In the Royal Notarial Archives, among many forms of notarial acts, we have found a singular one. On April i!i, 1289, a woman is excommunicated for not having maintained the vow of chastity which she voluntarily took. The notarial act is drawn up in barca episcopi jaxta ripam de ca' Barbani at Gastello. THE LAWS 99 obtained in the earlier centuries, and possibly with even wider authority for the people. The primitive procedure for the administration of justice was therefore very simple. Under the open sky, or at least in a place open to all comers, public affairs were handled, the judges having as witnesses of their acts the free air of heaven and the clamouring presence of the populace. Such we believe was the method of procedure down to the time when the first documents begin to throw a ray of light upon events, and enable us to make an induction as to earlier procedure from the facts of later procedure. After the year looo the Doge and his councillors ad- ministered justice, sometimes in the courtyard of the palace (cur lis palatii), which was the usual meeting- jDlace of popular assemblies, sometimes on the site of the property in dispute, sometimes in a church. The sworn evidence of parties was admitted in the absence of oral or documentary evidence.^ As a matter of fact, in iioo the Doge Vitale Michiel, at the instance of a certain Stefania, widow of a Lupareni and married to a Bembo, calls on her to bring evidence of her credit for her dower against the heirs of her first husband. Stefania appeared in court with her sureties and un- impeachable witnesses, proved her claim, and the Doge himself, with his judges as assessors, pronounced sen- tence, placing her in possession of lands and houses the property of her late husband. But the heirs of Bembo refusing to surrender this real estate, perhaps on the plea that it was merely subject to a lien, and Stefania having received no compensation of any kind, a fresh 1 About gSo the tithe tax was introduced. Some years later certain citizens were called upon to pay this tax ; they swore they had paid it and were released. This proves that an oath was accepted as full proof. Gfrorer, XXVII. loo VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES suit arose which was settled by the adjudication to Stefania of a fixed sum in cash, after a careful es- timate had been made of the whole value of the property in dispute. Here the procedure, though not quite clear from the documents, sufficiently proves that the proceedings were regular and judicial in form. The widow Lupareni appears in court, offers proof in support of her plea, and judgment follows the law. Why the losing side did not submit to the first sentence and surrender the real estate we cannot say, unless it be, as we have already conjectured, that the question was rather one of a lien on the property than of the property itself, and that the defendants sought to discharge the lien by a cash payment.^ Another Doge, Domenico Michiel (ii23), went to the Campo San Zaccaria and there, in the presence of the parties and assisted by a judge and some probi viri, established the terms of an accord between a certain Bonaldi and the abbess of San Zaccaria, who had been sued for the occupation of a tract of land in the very campo where the court was sitting. But some years later, either because the abbess had failed to fulfil the terms of the accord, or for some other reason, Bonaldi again sued her. The court again met in the campo, and the judge called on the abbess to produce her titles to the land. She said she could not, as they were burned. Bonaldi was then called on to produce his titles and put in a will of one of his ancestors. After reading and examining this docu- ment, the judge declared Bonaldi the owner in fee simple of the land,^ a judgment summary but just, as it was based on the legal proof of an unimpeachable document. 1 Cecchetti, op. cit. " Ibid., ibid. THE LAWS loi We must notice two documents of legal attestation and of testimony ; one dated 1073, in which Domenico Rosso declares himself to have been the witness of the consignment of a certain quantity of alum to Domenico Serzi, who, it seems, denied the receipt when sued by another Rosso.^ The second document is dated 1098 ; in it Martino Vetulo, priest of San Procolo, declares himself a witness in a suit about a hedge which was encroaching on another's property.^ In addition to a sentence of the Doge Pietro Polani, dated ii4o, in favour of a widow Gradenigo of Santi Apostoli, for restitution of her dower, ^ our attention is specially called to a document of April, 1086,* whereby a certain Paolo Salamon of Rialto gives to a certain Domenico Pantaleo, also of Rialto, a receipt for a number of documents relating to title in a certain prop- erty. The vendor, not the purchaser, in case of subse- quent dispute of title, was called on to establish his title ; this title was subsequently disputed and the vendor, not the purchaser, was called on to make it good. The vendor at the act of sale consigned to the purchaser the proofs of title, but he had the right to receive them back, if he required them, within a fixed date, after which attack on title was prescribed. We must also record a renunciation of rights over real estate made in September, 1061, by a priest, the vicar of San Zuliano,^ and a mortgage effected in 1 176, a perfectly clear and explicit document, by which Carlotta di San Zulian receives in loan from Giovanni the dyer 1 See, in Appendix, Documents D, Atti Giwidici (n. I). 2 Ibid. (n. III). * Arch, di Stato, Ducali ed Atti dipt., B" 5. * See Documents D (n. II). 5 Arch, di Stato, Arch, di San Zaccaria. 102 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES twenty soldi Veneti for six months ; for this she is to pay four soldi, and she gives as security the wooden house in which she dwells.^ Remarkable too is a deed of sale of land made by Felice Moro, parish priest of San Salvatore, a century earlier, that is, in July of 1078, which deserves attention for its legal form and for various contingencies which it foresees and provides for ^ ; also a discharge for legacies devised by a certain Giovanni Ferrario in favour of the priest Fiorenzo Bragadin in May, io56,^ noteworthy on account of its early date and for the regularity of its wording. We might cite many other cases to prove the existence of deeds of succession to, of surrender, or sale of property, of rights in the soil and hens over it, of leases, investitures, mortgages, burdens ; a whole armoury of documents, in short, referring to a juris- prudence which, considering its date, was clearly well organised. Justice was administered by judges, coun- cillors, tribunes, gastaldi, delegates, ripari, constables, juries, and notaries,* and showed quite clearly how deep its roots had struck. We are, therefore, authorised to affirm that down to the time when Venice became a free and independent State, civil law was sufficiently well developed in its four great branches, — rights of individuals and families, rights of property, rights of contract, and rights of succession. As to the rights of persons in the eye of the law, our notices are very scanty previous to 1200. The idea of association, of a corporate life, was more fuUy developed 1 See Documents E, Forme di documenti (n. III). 2 Ibid. (n. II). 8 Ibid. (n. I). * The Statuto annonario of the Doge Sebastian Ziani (1178) shows us laws, magistrates, judges, procurators fiscal, treasury officers, all flourish- ing in the twelfth century. THE LAWS io3 in the religious than in the civil world ; and as often happens, ecclesiastical institutions gave to the laity the type for the constitution of their corporate hfe.^ Nor can we be surprised that in Venice, as well as in other parts of Italy, the Roman concept pure and simijle of a corporate body recognised by the law and quite distinct from its component members should have un- dergone notable modifications, due, possibly, to the influence of barbarian law, Lombard or Frank. As regards the individual in his corporate aspect, if we begin with the lowest social grade we see that the condition of slaves was far from hard, and certainly was not to be compared to the condition of the parici in Cyprus, or the serventerie of Crete, of the men of the masnada or the mansi. 2 Although the slave in Venice certainly passed into the dominion of his purchaser, who looked on him as a chattel, res sua propria,^ slaves retained a certain personality ; they could ajiproach the tribunals, they enjoyed the rights of family, and had the power to enter into contracts, to acquire, and to possess.* Manumission became more and more fre- quent, either on the death of the owner, who freed his 1 Bests, Enrico, II dir. e le leggi civ., etc., p. 62. ^ Lazari, V., Del traffico e delle condizioni degli schiavi in Venezia nei tempi di mezzo (Miscell. di Star. It., Vol. I, p. 22. Torino, 1862). Cibrario, Delia schiavitii e del servaggio, etc. Milano, i868-6g. 3 In a list of effects (chosse) in the Chomesseria di Missier Sebastian Badoer, after mentioning bedsteads, hangings, sideboards, lamps, etc., three slaves are entered, Marcella, Ester, Benvegnuda, appressade ducati 180 (Arch. Not., Raccolta a parte. Atti Andreolo Cristiano, iSgo). * Besta, Enrico, II dir. e le leggi civ., etc., p. 62. Slaves were not without protection from the law even for trifling injuries ; we may cite a curious example: in May, 1872, a certain Antonio Avonal and Giaco- bello, a tanner, amused themselves by pricking with a long pin the slaves who passed by on their way to vespers at Saint Mark's. The first got three months and the second two in the prisons called the Pozzi. Gecchetti, La donna nel medioevo a Venezia (Arch. Veneto, T. XXXI, p. 4g).' io4 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES slaves in his will, or by simple forms such as cartulae libertatis or paginae testamenti. It is to be noted that in the later years the pre-Justinian formulas often sur- vived in the cartulae, though void of meaning. For example, it would be stated that the slave "inter liberos vadat cum omnibus heredibus libere quocumque ei placuerit a modo in antea civesque efficiatur romanus ita quod nuUus eum amplius audeat servitutis vinculo subjugare."^ The manumitted form a social class above the slaves but below the freemen. Both the persons and the property of foreigners were adequately protected in Venice even if no special treaties on the subject existed between the Repubhc and foreign States, and often in spite of the absence of reciprocity, at least in the twelfth century.^ For example, there is no trace of the right of aubaine. A Venetian who failed to satisfy the just claims of a forinsecus was ipso facto declared addictus to the stranger (Promissione del Mastropiero, § d), and foreigners were even allowed to acquire real property .^ Venetian subj ects abroad enj oyed the protection of the Republic. We have an example in a document dated Pisa, July i3, 1117, where we find the estimate of the property of a Gradenigo, who had died in Pisa, and the consignment of the effects to the Venetian envoy resident there.* In another docu- ment, of ii5o, we find that a Ziani, delegate of the Doge at Constantinople, was appointed arbitrator to dis- solve the partnership in a commercial concern between 1 Besta, Enrico, // dir. e le leggi civ., etc., p. 55. 2 The court for suits between Venetians and foreigners was the Magis- trato del Forestier, of extremely ancient date. In I244 the Magistrato del Petizione was created to deal with petitions presented by Venetians and foreigners alike. s Besta, Enrico, II dir., etc., pp. 66-70. 4 Bibl. Marc, Cod. lat., Gl. XIV, n. LXXI. THE LAWS io5 Enrico Jubiano of Murano and Raimondino Donno of San Biagio.i As regards family rights the State took into con- templation matrimony, but only in its legal aspect, leaving to the Church all disciplinary jurisdiction, as being within the ecclesiastical province. There was no community of goods between husband and wife, for Venice preserved more completely than elsewhere the Roman system of the dower. But in some cases, if the woman wished to enter into contract or to acquire rights, the husband's consent was necessary ; ipso viro meo consenciente, so run certain deeds of gift.^ In Venice the doctrine of the patria potestas was less rigidly enforced than elsewhere, although it Avas not confined to the period of minority. Children who shared the family life of their father were considered almost as co-proprietors in the family belongings, and in cases of alienation of family property it was the rule to recite their names along with those of their parents.^ Sons emerged from the JtUalis subjectio in virtue of a public deed ; daughters ipso jure on marriage.* The question of tutelage was provided for by law.^ To pass now to the rights of property. Real property undoubtedly ranked above personalty in the eye of the law, provided that it lay within the confines of the State. The right of preference in favour of relations, partners, and neighbours in all cases aflecting real property was undisputed. The theory of a dominium eminens, vested 1 Arch, di Stato, Ducali ed Atti dipl., B* 5. 2 See the deed of gift executed hy a Storlato in favour of the church of San Felice in Ammiana (Arch, di Stato, Arch. Not., Atti Rainaldo, priest, January, iiSa). ^ Besta, Enrico, II dir. e le leggi civ., etc., p. 75, * Ibid., ibid., p. 88. ' Ibid., ibid., pp. 91, 92. io6 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES in the Doge or the State, over all unoccupied lands, was accepted. The right to cultivate them required permission from the Doge, who in return for leave to occupy, and as a recognition of superiority, received as honorancia some small fine. The person who reclaimed from the sea a tract of land became its legal owner. It is clear, therefore, that even in the tenth century the rights of property were well organised. During the same period we find deeds of sale and purchase, the juridical theory and formulas of which are allied to those of later times and are affiliated to the theory and formula of Roman law. A deed of sale, dated io3i,^ concluded between a certain Giovanni Venerio BoUi and Martino Bianco and Orsone Nadal, and affecting lands lying in the district of Chioggia, drawn up by Domenico, priest and notary, contains a clause by which the purchaser, in case of eviction, had a claim for improvements made in the subject. A clause which reveals a just appre- ciation of rights. Another deed of purchase and sale, dated December, 1088,^ concluded between a second Giovanni Venerio BoUi and certain co-proprietors of a tract of land at Chioggia, the vendors, and Domenico Gradenigo, the purchaser, records the boundaries and the burdens of the property, and stipulates for the payment of five pounds in gold in case of eviction. In 1089 we have a deed of legal donation,^ granted by Maria Jubiani, with the consent of her husband, to Giovanni Stefano Jubiani, her relation, affecting a tract of family property in the island of Luprio, declaring that it is transferred 1 See Appendix, Documents F, Terreni venduti e ceduti (n. I). 2 Arch, di Stato, Arch. San Zaccaria, Estere, B* 24. ^ Ibid., ibid., Stabili diversi in Venezia, B' 7. THE LAWS 107 to the said Giovanni, nulla penita cogente aut suadente vel vim inferenie, with full and free right of possession to the donee and his heirs, and containing description of boundaries and other particulars corresponding to a just and prudent appreciation of the law. Leases of land, either on feu-duty or rent, were common ; they were rarely perpetual, the usual term being, twenty-nine years, a length of lease adopted in many other parts of Italy, and designed to avoid rights of prescription. For example, there exists a deed of January, 1098^; it is a lease on rent, granted for twenty-nine years by the Monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore, by which it places Vitale di Pellestrina in possession of a tract of land at Pellestrina, on an annual rent of three Veronese soldi and a pair of fowls, to be paid each Martinmas. The land was improved and the rent raised to a third of its annual product or its equiv- alent in coin. Venetian documents of the eleventh and twelfth centuries record various burdens on land, such as the right of way, the right of landing, the right of drainage, etc.^ An interesting document of August, 1087,^ drawn up by the notary Domenico, a clerk in Rialto, in virtue of which the partners in a wharf on the island of Luprio invite another of their partners, a Foscari, to take his share in the construction of a bank, shows us by the multiplicity of its reciprocal stipulations that even then, in order to avoid future divergences, mutual under- standings were made into legally binding deeds. For the rest, possession was well protected against molestation or violence, even if these were exercised 1 See Appendix, Documents F (n. II). ^ Besta, Enrico, II dir. e le leggi civ., etc., p. 137. * Arch, di Stato, Arch, di San Zaccaria, Stabili diversi in Venezia, B" 7. io8 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES by the proprietor himself, on the principle that no one may take the law into his own hands. The author of the assault was called upon to give surety that he would for the future abstain from all violence (^forciuni). Procedure in such cases was summary.^ Transfer of property was secured and published by the system known as investitiones .^ In the law of contracts more than elsewhere, we find that the foun- dation of Venetian law is Roman law, modified by Byzantine law, from which undoubtedly came the large use of penalties established by the deed itself (j)ene con- venzionali) ; even the Greek word ij-poaTLfiov (^prosti- mum) found its way into the lagoons.^ Other forms of security were the pledge (pegno), surety (Jideiussione or plezaria), which assumed the external appearance of the Lombard vadia, and in Venice even went by that name ; in proof whereof a breviarium testatum et rohoratum was erected in formulas that we gather from a deed of January, 1148.* We may cite a deed of pledge which a certain Scaranto of Lesser Chioggia, acting as surety for a certain Stania, caused to be drawn up by the notary and subdeacon Tribuno.^ This deed, which is dated October, loSi, sets forth that Stania bound himself to assign three salt-pans and two-thirds of a vineyard as security to Morari, a monk of San Giorgio, on the understanding that if Stania failed to fulfil his obU- gations the monastery should have the right to enter on the property as freeholders ; on the other hand the 1 Besta, Enrico, loc. cit., p. 121. ^ Ibid., ibid., pp. 1 24-1 26. ' Ibid., ibid., p. ll^2. * Cit. dal Besta, ibid., p. i43, n. 3. ' Arch, di Stato, Manimorle, San Giorgio Maggiore. THE LAWS 109 monastery pledged itself to receive as a monk a son of Stania and to disburse his dower or entrance fee of one hundred denari maneusi} It is obvious that very early in the history of Venice business transactions regarding commerce, and especially maritime trtifEc, must have been well devel- oped. Of this nature was the /oe/ius nauticum (advance on bottomry), which may be compared with what the Venetians called a contractus per finem^; such, too, were the coUigantiae, which especially referred to over-sea trade. These constituted the contracts known else- where as contratti di commenda, and in Venice were sometimes called commendatio. On this special subject the Venetian documents are earlier than any others in Western Europe, some even dating back beyond the year 1000.^ Furthermore documents prove that the system of insurance was of very ancient date in Venice. If we consider the steady progress of Venetian navi- gation it is clear that almost from the very birth of the Republic navigation laws must have existed. A cus- tomary nautical code, analogous to the Greek code, known as the false code of Rhodes, dating from the eighth century, whereby the parties interested in naviga- tion endeavoured to guard themselves against the grave risks of sea traffic, fusing in a single person the owner and the captain, was certainly adopted at Venice. But very soon the development of trade called for more definite regulations, and hence we get the compania de nave, which included the owner of the ship and the 1 A gold or silver coin in common use in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries. Its value varied from time to time. " Besta, Enrico, loc. cit., p. i56. * Sacerdoti, Le colleganze nella pratica dell' affari e nella legislazione Yeneta {Atli del R. 1st. Yen., 1899-1900, T. LIX, pp. i et seq.). no VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES owner of the cargo, who joined in council with tne navigating officer {noechiero), the supercargo (presbiter), the stevedore (j)enese), and other ship's officers.^ Thus there sprang up local nautical legislation, which would of itself prove that the Venetians did not accept the Consolato del Mare, even if such an assertion had not already been demonstrated on other grounds to be false. The Venetians, basing themselves on their own secular traditions, began to develop a nautical code of their own, and here again, as in every other department, we find them taking the lead among the States of Italy ^ ; and in fact in the ancient treaties with the Prince of Antioch (1167) and with the King of Armenia (laoi) we have record of nautical and mercantile legislation and of a maritime jus Venetum. In the Promissione al Maleficio (i 181), which contains several clauses aflecting nautical matters, distinct mention is made of an ancient local code of navigation laws ; and in the Capitolare Nautico of the Doge Pietro Ziani (1227),^ we find in compendium the regulations which in 1229 were de- veloped in the fifty-two chapters of the Statuti of Jacopo Tiepolo, and in i255, by the Doge Rinieri Zeno in his code, divided into one hundred and twenty-nine chapters entitled Statula et ordinamenta super navibus et aliis lignis, rendered complete and binding by a decree of the Great Council in 1288.* 1 Sacerdoti and Predelli, Gli Statati Marittimt Veneziani fino al 1225. {Naovo Arch. Ven., nuova serie, T. IV, pp. ii3 et seq.) ^ Sclopis, St. della legist. Hal., Vol. I, p. i6i. ' Ordinamenta super saornatione, caricatione et stivatione naviam (March la, 1237). Capitalare Naviam in the Liber PUgiorum (cfr. Sacerdoti and Predelli, cit.). * Tiepolo's Statato Nautico was printed in 1477 as an appendix to the Statuto Civile in ancient Venetian dialect, printed by Filippo di Piero. It was republished in the editions of the Statutes dated iliQ3 and 1628. Zeno's code was less fortunate. It appeared in fragmentary form in the THE LAWS III This code is the oldest document dealing with the fundamental rules of maritime law and navigation ; provision is made in regard to ballast, averages, crew, cargo, armament, victualling and finding of ships, ships' measurements, and so on. It is to be noted that at Venice, at least as early as the twelfth century, the jus naufragii yfa.s sternly repressed, first by Orio Mastropiero in 1 196 and then by the criminal code of Tiepolo. Let us turn now to examine the right of succession, a point of great importance, as the legislation on the subject reveals the influence of Byzantium. The legitimate line of succession passed first through de- scendants, then through ascendants, then through col- laterals, finally through other relations by blood or by alliance, among whom were counted children separated from the family, and their descendants.^ Women were placed in subordinate grade. Daughters, after receiving their dower, had no further claim on the paternal estate. Widows, however, shared with sons, and if they had brought with them a dower exceeding one hundred and twenty-five lire, they were by custom allowed, under the title of grosina or pelUccia vidualis, to exact an augmen- tation of their dower in proportion to the sum they had brought into the family. Great liberty in the devising fifteenth century (for example in the Capitolare della Corte dell' Esaminador). But it was only after the lapse of five centuries that it was discovered in its integrity in a codex belonging to the Quirini family. It is now in the collection of the Quirini Stampalia foundation. This, however, is not the oiEcial text. That is to be found in the R. Archivio di Venezia and has now been published for the first time in the Nuovo Archivio Veneto by Sacerdoti and Predelli. In Zeno's code a wise forethought provides for all that may concern commerce and navigation, from the powers of bajuli, daces, consules, rectores to the stazzatura, the gauging of ships, the duties of the captain and of the crew, and regulations as to ballast, averages, prizes, and armament. 1 Besta, Enrico, II dir. e le leggi civ., etc., pp. 94 et seq. ii4 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES her fortunes to the future. With a sentiment of fair dealing so intimate and profound, these principles remained clear and sharply defined among rulers and ruled. They were no vain shows or symbols, those figures of justice, those portraits of the wisest law- givers of antiquity which the Republic placed among the saints in the mosaics of St. Mark's or carved on the capitals of the columns, on the fapade, and on the angles of the Ducal Palace, to attest the fact and convey the warning that before the majesty of the law all other authority, however powerful, must make obeisance and submit. CHAPTER V COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION 4 BOUT the year looo John the Deacon tells us /% that Venice was far in advance of all the neigh- -*- -*- bouring provinces both in riches and in mag- nificence. Two centuries later Martino da Canal, when tracing the story of the city plus belle et plus plaisante dou siecle, ploine de hiauU et de tos biens, adds that les marchandies i corent par cele noble cite, com fait I'eive des fontaines.^ Venice owed this prosperity to com- merce. The refugees of the lagoons sailed the rivers whose mouths they commanded, and from the very first they traded in articles of common food, such as salt and fish. They soon secured trading privileges from the conquerors of the neighbouring mainland, from the Greeks with whom they carried on a lively traffic, especially in Ravenna, and from the Lombards, whose king, Luitprand, concluded a treaty of commerce and alliance with the Doge Paoluccio Anafesto.^ In the first quarter of the eighth century the Venetians, after having lent their fleet to aid the Greeks against the Lombards, passed from the protection of the Greek empire to an alliance with Byzantium. They pushed forward into distant seas, and, by the middle of the eighth century, they had already reached Africa and 1 La Croniqne des Veniciens de Maistre Martin da Canal, § 1 1 (Arch. Stor. Ital, Ser. I, T. YIII). 2 Dandolo, Cvon., XXIV, i3o. ii6 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES the ports of the Levant. By their dexterity, sagacity, and activity they obtained concessions in every quarter. To the golden bulls of the Eastern empire they added treaties with the Lombards which secured to them the most favoured position in the markets of the mainland. Later on, Charlemagne conceded special rights in the Prankish markets of Italy, among which was the cele- brated market of Campalto on the borders of the lagoon. Lothair, Charlemagne's son, allowed free tran- sit to Venetians and Venetian goods on every river and through all his territories, with exemption from dues, except wharfage, and granted free access to all ports of the empire. These concessions were renewed by Charles the Fat, in 883, who relieved the Doge Giovanni Partecipazio and his heirs from all customs dues.^ Other treaties follow — with the communes and sovereigns of Italy, with the Germans, with the Fati- mites of Egypt, with the Abbassides of Syria, with the lords of Cordova, with the sultans of Maghreb, and with Barbary generally. The astute Venetians were large in promises, but scanty in fulfilment. They showed their cleverness in eluding all claims not sanctioned by commercial treaties, and were ever ready to fly to arms to repel by force every attempt to interfere with their interests.^ They engaged in fierce struggles with the troublesome Slav pirates, with Narentines and Hunga- rians, with the towns of Comacchio and Ravenna, with the Marquis of Istria, who had rebelled against his superior and sought the protection of the Republic.^ From all these Avars, Avaged with varying fortune, the growing city emerged with new and important gains. 1 Bahmer, Reg. Carol., p. 967. 2 Giovanni Diacono, Chr. ' Manfroni, St. della Marina It., Vol. I, p. 71. Livorno, 1899, COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION 117 Under the Doge Pietro Orseolo II (991), who strengthened the commercial bonds with the emperors of the East, with the Saracens in Sicily and Africa, with the Emperor Otho III in Germany,' and by his conquests in Dalmatia paved the way for the dominion of the Gulf, Venice shared commercial supremacy in the East and West with Amalfi, whose prosperity began to decline toward the close of the eleventh century. While Amalfi sent her goods to Spain, to parts of France, and to lower Italy, Venice traded also in France, in Germany, and northern Italy .^ The lagoons from Grado to the mouths of the Po, connected with the centre of Italy by rivers and navigable canals, and lying on the borders of Germany and the Danubian Provinces, were the indispensable route of communica- tion between Greeks and Arabs and northern Italy, Germany, and France. Hungarians, Bulgarians, Bos- niacs, Albanians, Croats, Poles, Germans, Spaniards, Flemings, English, all flocked to the lagoons to buy and sell.^ During the bitter winter of 860 the lagoons were frozen and the foreign merchants came to Rial to, not in boats but in wagons. The Venetians exported to Constantinople wood, pig- iron, and wrought iron, grain, woollens, salted meat, salt, and imported merchandise of far higher value.* 1 Kohlschutter, Venedig unter dem Herzog Peter II Orseolo, Part II. Gottingen, 1868. s Ibid. ^ On a capital of the lower loggia of the Ducal Palace are represented some of the nations with whom Venice traded : Latins, Tartars, Turks, Hungarians, Greeks, Egyptians, Persians. * The goods imported from the East were more especially cloves, cin- namon, pepper, cassia, saffron, ginger, indigo, sandalwood, sulphur, amber, musk, bezoar, gallnuts, ivory, incense, myrrh, storax, alum, camphor, carda- mon, logwood, sugar, wax, unwrought metal, cotton, velvet, carpets. ii8 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES The receipts from export were eight times greater than the receipts from import dues at Constantinople. It is possible that sometimes Venetian merchants received goods on credit from Greek commercial houses, and at their own risk and peril sold them in Italy and other European countries.^ From the East too came that delicate jeweller's work upon which the Venetians made so large a profit, especially in the cities of western France, such as Limoges.^ The ships of the Republic touched on the coast of Morocco and ploughed the waters of the Black Sea and the Sea of AzofF; at Tana they took in cargoes of pitch, hemp, and other things necessary for shipbuilding, and bought the loot which the Tartars plundered in India or in China. The annual profits on this trade amounted to 47,000 ducats of gold each year.^ When the old and decrepit Eastern empire, threatened by the adventurous Normans, already lords of lower Italy, turned to the growing nation of the lagoons for help, the Venetians at once perceived that if Greece fell, as Apulia had fallen, into the hands of the Northmen, their trade with the East, the chief source of all their wealth, was at an end.'' They had every reason, there- fore, to wish to curb the Norman power; and on the promise of ample recompense, they accepted the Em- peror Alexius' invitation (1082). After a long struggle, tafTeta, ermine, cloth of gold, webs of all kinds, silk, dyed wools, wines, perfumes, pearls, jewels, and many other precious objects of luxury. Rawdon Brown, Calendar, Vol. I, p. cxxxv. London, i864. 1 Gfrorer, XXIX. 2 VioUet-le-Duc, Diet, raisonni da mob., T. Ill, Part VII, pp. 8a, 83. 8 Filiasi, op. cit., Saggio, T. VI. Scherer, Hisloire da commerce de loutes les nations, T. I, pp. 194, 198. Paris, 1857. 4 Armiiigaud, Venise et le Bos-Empire (^Arch. des missions scientijiqaes, Ser. II, T. IV, p. 359). COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION 119 carried on with varying fortune, Byzantium was saved by Venice, which received, as a reward, privileges of the widest character (io84): her dominion over Dal- matia and Croatia was confirmed; she was granted a special quarter in Constantinople; many concessions were made to the clergy and to churches ; Venetians were free to trade, in all manner of goods, in every part of the empire except Crete and Cyprus without paying customs, wharfing, or other dues. Such was the height of power which Venice attained by the eleventh century. A contemporary poet, William of Apulia, who sang the Norman war, is no niggard in praise of Venice : dives opum, divesque virorum. Qua sinus Adriacis interlitus ultimus undis Subjacet Arcturo. Sunt hujus moenia gentis Circumsepta mari ; neo ab aedibus alter ad aedes Alterius transire potest, nisi lintre vehatur. Semper aquis habitant ; gens nulla valentior ista Aequoreis bellis, ratiumque per aequora ductu.i The majestic flow of Venetian commerce continues through the following period. In the twelfth and thir- teenth centuries Venetian envoys renewed treaties, pacts, and conventions with the Greek empire and with the emperors of Germany alike ; with Swabian and Angevin; with the Soldan of Egypt and the Sultan of Aleppo ; with the Khan of Tartary ; with the kings of Armenia and Servia; with Syria, Hungary, and Croatia ; with the Duke of Carinthia and the Patriarch of Aqnileia ; with the Count of Biblos ; with the cities of Verona, Padua, Treviso, Vicenza, Bologna, Mantua, 1 Guilielmus Apulus, Hist, poema de rebus Normanornm, Lib. IV (fler. It. Script., Vol. V, p. 72). 120 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES Ferrara, Ravenna, Osimo, Umana, Recanati, Castel Ficardo, etc.^ San Marco sent his children far afield in search of fortune, and the constitution of the Republic and even the very aspect of Venice herself were reproduced in foreign cities. Whole colonies of Venetians settled abroad and were protected by special laws and by their own consuls. When the office of consul was first created we do not know, but already in 1 117 we find Teofilo Zeno first Venetian consul in Syria. ^ The con- suls represented the Doge, and appointed vice-consuls, or visdomini, in the cities within their districts. They exacted a tax, called the cottimo, an ad valorem duty on all Venetian goods imported or exported ; they watched over the well-being of the colony, acting either on their own immediate responsibility or on the advice of the resi- dent nobles ; they maintained friendly relations with the natives, and with other colonies ; they resisted all threats or acts of violence, and were always ready wherever the interest or the honour of San Marco was at stake. ^ The astute management and subtle intelligence of the Venetians, applied especially at Constantinople and in the lands acquired by the Crusaders, where Venice owned markets governed by her own laws and admin- istered by her own judges, led to an extension of her judicial authority even over the subjects of the nations with whom she traded.* 1 Lenel, Die Entstehung der Vorherrschaft Venedigs an der Adria, p. 48. Strassburg, 1897. ^ Tafel and Thomas, Urkunden zur alteren Handels and Staatsgeschichte der Rep. Ven., Vol. I, p. 77. (In the Pontes Rer. austr. Wien, i856.) 8 Zambler and Carahellese, Le relaz. commerciali fra la Puglia e la Rep. di Ven., Vol. II, p. 20. Trani, 1898. * Marin, St. del Commercio del Veneziani, Vol. Ill, Lib. I, Cap. VIII. Venezia, 1800. A — -AcAziA. — bas-relief. (Museo Clvico.) B — Dromone. (Mosaics of S. Marco.) G — Roscona — river boat. (Mosaics of S. Apol- linare at Ravenna) COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION lai When Enrico Dandolo entered Constantinople as conqueror (lao/i), Venice, who held the fate of the East at her disposal, received as her share a quarter of the immense booty and a quarter of the territory which belonged to the empire. Prudently, and evi- dently on full, minute, and exact knowledge, she chose the coast lands best suited to her commerce.^ She also obtained possession of three-eighths of Constan- tinople, with an arsenal and harbour, probably on the Golden Horn, toward the Palace of Blachernae, the most favourcible position.^ Furthermore, in the same cen- tury Venice secured the full command of the Adriatic. This supremacy was not based either upon imperial charter or upon her early imperfect conquest of Dalmatia (looo), which, as a matter of fact, was not brought into complete subjection till after the Hungarian inva- sion. It was due to the steady advance of Venice in political and commercial prosperity, in virtue of which all Italy recognised the trade superiority of the Venetians, who gradually repressed their competitors, especially in the traffic in foodstuffs.^ Albertino Mussato calls Venice dominatrix Adriaci maris^; and by the middle of the fourteenth century the term, "the Gulf of Venice," was used to denote the upper part of the Adriatic.^ Vigour of arms, activity of trade, ability in handling affairs abroad, were fostered at home by provisions designed to guide, encourage, and protect commerce and navigation. The court del Propria, before which came all commercial suits, was no longer able to cope 1 Tafel and Thomas, op. cit. 2 Heyd, Hist, da commerce du Ldvant, trad.. Vol. I, p. 286. Lipsia, i885. 8 Lenel, op. cit., pp. 83, 84. * Mussati, De gestis Ital. (Rer. It. Script., Vol. X, p. 583), ^ Lenel, op. cit., p. 74- •• 132 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES with the work, and the pressure was reUeved by es- tEiblishing (1182) the court of the Giudici del Comune, to hear causes between private individuals and the treasury, and the Giudici del Forestier, to try suits between foreigners.^ About the middle of the thirteenth century the office of Consoli dei Mercanti was created to settle questions of commerce ; its poAvers afterwards passed to the Cinque Savii alia Mercanzia. The Vis- domini alia Messetaria,. or court for deciding disputed contracts, also belong to the thirteenth century. They were also charged, as their name implies, with exacting the tax on the middlemen. In 1287, with a view to keeping a register of all merchandise that entered the city, the ufficiali alle tre tavole d'introito were called into being. One of the three registers was devoted to webs, another to goods in general, and the third to iron. The Visdomini da mare were charged with the exaction of the import duty on sea-borne merchandise, while the dues on oil, wood, foodstuffs, soap, and iron were drawn by the quattro visdomini alia Ternaria. The court of reprisals, established in the dugento and suppressed at the end of i4oo, granted letters of marque to private persons to indemnify themselves from the property of the persons who had done them an injury. The Cat- taveri, the Giustizieri Vecchi, and Nuovi were other magistracies designed to frame such commercial legis- lation as might seem necessary or prudent. The Venetians drew all their prosperity from the sea, and to the sea they devoted their whole attention and care. When, on the slaughter of the Doge Michiel, in 1 1 72, the constitution was reformed, careful provision was made on the subject of navigation. The lesser council was intrusted with the supervision of the 1 Marin, op. cit., Vol. Ill; Lib. Ill, Gap. II. COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION laS mercantile marine as well as of the grain supply and finance. The arsenal, which was always considered as the stronghold of the community, was governed by the Provveditori or Patroni all' arsenale, an office of very ancient date ; in l^go the Sopra Provveditori were added. The Liber Communalis , called also Liber Plegiorum, from the many deeds of surety it contains, furnishes us with many minute and curious details about the regulations which governed commerce and navigation. Import and export were subject to severe provisions ; the public criers announced both at San Marco and Rialto that no Venetian was to buy or sell merchandise nor food in certain cities, nor to lade grain or wood in foreign ports for any destination other than Venice. The punishment for infringement was either heavy fines or even confiscation of goods and demolition of dwelling-houses.^ If, as not unfrequently happened, the greed of gain proved stronger than the fear of the law, there were not wanting zealous citizens who would undertake to see that the law was obeyed. P'or ex- ample there was a law prohibiting the sale of wood in Egypt ; a Venetian patrician on his way through a port of the Adriatic saw a ship laden with wood which he suspected to be destined for Egypt. Calling to him the skipper and crew, he made them swear anew the oath that they would obey the laws of the Republic. ^ SmuggUng was carefully watched ; guard boats, with crews of men protected by iron corslets and belly- bands^ patrolled the waters round the city, while cruisers swept the Adriatic and seized all ships laden 1 Liber Plegiorum. Regesti del Predelli, n. 362, 872, 429, 433, 44'. 483, 5o3. 2 Ibid., n. i48. s Ibid., n. 87, 283, 287, 395. 124 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES with contraband goods. -^ A fleet of light river boats was always ready to protect the river traffic.'^ The State was never remiss in insisting on its rights. For example, wishing to reorganise its salt trade, it not only sent its ofiicers to Ravenna to insure the observ- ance of the law,^ but it actually employed force to prevent Bologna and the Marches of Ancona from drawing any advantage from the salt-pans of Comacchio and Cervia.* This salt trade was a most lucrative source of wealth, and its administration was intrusted to the Salinieri del mare, appointed in I243, called later on the Provveditori del sal, an office of the highest importance intrusted with the up-keep of public build- ings. There were two kinds of salt in Venice, the native, known as Ghioggian salt, and the foreign, called sal maris, which came from Cervia, Istria, Dal- matia, Sicily, even from the Black Sea and from Barbary. Not only Italy, but also distant lands, depended on Venice for their salt. Caravans numbering forty thou- sand horse came every year from Hungary, Croatia, and eastern Germany to fetch Venetian salt from Istria.^ The iniquitous traffic in slaves was also a source of gain to Venice.^ It flourished up to the eighth 1 Filiasi, op. loc. cit., T. VI. 2 Ibid., ibid. 8 Pasolini, Doc. riguardanti antiche relazione fra Venezia e Ravenna, p. g. Imola, i88i. 4 Filiasi, T. VI. 6 Scberer, Hist, da comm., pp. agS, 294. * Caroldo, Hist. Venetiana. Gfrbrer, VIII. Tafel and Thomas, Urkanden, cit., Vol. I, p. 17. In the middle of the eighth century some Venetian merchants opened a slave market in Rome, and bought a large number to be sent to the Saracens in Africa. Pope Zaccaria, unwilling that Christians should be sold into slavery to pagans, collected a large sum of money and liberated the captives. Anastasii Bibliotecarii, Hist, de vitis pontificum (Rer. Ital. Script., Vol. Ill, p. i64)- In 85o the Veronese made COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION i25 century. Slaves, for the most part Tartars, Russians, Saracens, Mingrelians, Bosniacs, Greeks, de genere avo- gassiorum, — that is, Circassians, — de genere alanorum (Teutons), were purchased from Slav or Saracenic pirates, and were resold — in s^ite oi the graves poenas contrafacientibus recorded by Andrea Dandolo — at public auction both at San Giorgio and at Rial to. A woman, whether Circassian, Georgiana, or from those parts, if twelve, fourteen, or sixteen years of age and certified sane ed integre deiloro membri occultiemanifesti} young boys, and grown men were sold, in the fourteenth century, for prices which ranged from sixteen golden ducats, equal to about 3 2 2 , to eighty-seven ducats , equal to 2 09 3 ducats .^ In the archives at Venice there are entire volumes con- taining nothing but deeds relating to the sale and pur- chase, exchange, cession, and donation of slaves. These documents go back as far as the twelfth century* and it is curious to note that some were drawn up by notaries a present to Venice of a gang of slaves who were destined to the service of the Ducal Palace and of the Doge Pietro Tradonico. Lazari, V., Del traff. e del Cond. degli schiavi in Yen. Torino, 1862. Orso Partecipazio I pub- lished a law forbidding the inhuman traffic, and in 960 Pietro Candiano IV prohibited the purchase and transport of slaves even if they were Jews. All prohibitions, however, were inefficacious, and trade in slaves was not only tolerated but even permitted by the State if it added to the guadagnum in patria or was made in the name of the Doge. 1 Sana omnibus suis memhris, infirmitalibus et magagnis, tarn publice quam occultis (Arch, di Stato, Sez. Notarile, Atti Fusculo Nicol6, October 7, i368, III, filza 4). Sana a male caduco, a male capitis et brachiarum et tibiarum el corporis (Istromento di compr. Vend, di una schiava tartara Ventenne. Atti Fusculo, March 3i, 1872). 2 At the Archivio di Stato (Arch, di San Zaccaria, Estere, nov. n. 6193) there is a deed of sale of a Saracen slave remaining over after the sale of other slaves made by Giannone Staniero and Domenico Contareno and others. The slave fetched 176 besants, — de illo sclavo saracino qaod nobis remansit post partitos alios. ^ Between iSgS and 1491 there are records of i5o sales of male and female slaves below the age of thirty-two. 126 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES who were actually priests, in defiance of the State, of Popes, and of councils. Without going into details of trade with the East and more distant lands, the speeches of the Doge Tomaso Mocenigo (i/ii3-i/i33), and especially the one he pro- nounced on his deathbed, suffice to prove how vigorous was the traffic with certain Italian cities. ' ' The Floren- tines," says Mocenigo, " bring to Venice yearly 16,000 bales of the finest cloth which is sold in Naples, Sicily, and the East. They export wool, silk, gold, silver, raisins, and sugar to the value of 892,000 ducats in Lombardy. Milan spends annually in Venice 90,000 ducats; Monza, 56, 000; Como, Tortona, Novara, Cremona, io4,ooo ducats each; Bergamo, 78,000; Piacenza, 52, 000; Alessandria della Paglia, 56, 000; and in their turn they import into Venice cloth to the value of 900,000 ducats, so that there is a total turn- over of 2,800,000 ducats. Venetian exports to the whole world represented annually ten million ducats ; her imports amounted to another ten million. On these twenty millions she made a profit of four millions,^ or interest at the rate of twenty per cent. On the neighbouring mainland the Venetians began to frequent the markets of Mestre, Campalto, Oriago, Musestre , PortobuQbledo , and Portogruaro . At first they traded in salt and in grain, ])ut presently extended their operations to other kinds of goods. In these markets they enjoyed particular immunities and exemptions, especially during the fair-time in the various cities, notably in Apulia. Thus Venetians came to take an important part in the commercial and industrial 1 Mocenigo's speeches, admirable examples of commercial acumen, are inaccurately given in Sanudo's Viie dei Dogi (Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script., Vol. XXII, pp. 942, 969, 960). COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION 137 movement of the mainland and also in the banking business, which always goes hand in hand with in- dustry and commerce.^ The city of Venice itself had its markets, called, in the fourteenth century, by the Persian word bazar, which we find in use in certain Venetian documents. ^ In the ninth century there was a flourishing market on the Campo di San Pietro at Castello. From the time of the Doge Domenico Contarini (1043-1070) this market was held on Saturdays. From 1299 onwards there was a market at San Marco every Saturday ; the names of the various trade guilds were cut on the pavement to mark the position of their stalls. Another market was held at San Giovanni Battista in- Gemini, which from the Greek word ayopd (market) is said to have given the name of Bragora to the whole quarter. At San Polo there was a market, mentioned in the twelfth century. Most famous of all was the market of Rialto, whose admirable arrange- ment, — honore nostri mercati, — stalls, and sheds are recorded in 1097.^ All this movement of business, this bustle, this throng of strangers, lent life and noise and the feverish gaiety of a festival to the city, and a" poet of the early quattrocento has left us a quaint picture of the scene. He is extolling the power of Veniexia franca, del mondo corona, donna del mare, del pian e del monte, and he briefly describes her constitution, and then at length he dwells on her dominions, first in the lagoon, 1 Zambler and Carabellese, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 22. ^ A document of August, 1892, mentions certain objects compradi a mold priexii in bazar de sabado. Arch, di Stato, Cons. X, Misti, reg. VIII, p. 6. ^ In a deed of gift executed by the brothers Tisone and Pietro Orio (1097). Codice Trevisaneo, p. 118. 128 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES then in Istria, Dalmatia, and the Orient, lastly on the mainland. He goes on to relate, " come I'e posta e come 1^ se vive." Dentro si alberga d'ogni condizione zente Todesca, e Italici e Lombardi, e, se el bel dir non tardi, Franzesi e Borgognoni e molti Inglesi, Ongari e Scbiavi, de molti paesi Tartari, e Mori, e Albanesi e Turchi che vien con nave e burchi a far sua vita, e mai non se ne parte. Italians from every province because Chi vuol denari qui conven che passa percbe 1'^ fonte de molto texoro, e tanto arzento et ore se trova qui che par ch'esca de vena. Both shores of the Adriatic, the Levant, and Naples send their wines in exchange ; others, corn and fruit. per6 con gran letizia possomo star nel mondo, a dir el vero. Non e za carestia di pomo e pero. anzi i ven carghi i burci a onda a onda, si che quasi se aifonda e in sul ponte son spazadi adesso. Then he gives us a picture of the riches at Rialto, where the shops display not merely the cinnamon and frankincense and arms and precious webs from the East, but also the humblest forms of food, fruit of every kind,^ fish, meat from Istria and the mainland, game, fowls from Padua, and luganega infinita e onto de porco con altre fossare ; ^ On the capital of one of the columns in the portico of the Ducal Palace the artist has carved the ordinary kinds of fruit : Serexis, Piri, Cochumeris, Persici, Cache, Moloni, Fici, Huva. COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION lag then he adds contar ve volgio de la condizione del navigar che fano le galie ; and he proceeds to describe the various journeys they make and the rich merchandise they bring back : Con gran trionfo torna i capitani tal che in Veniexia par che ee ritrona al campanon che sona per I'alegreza che fan quela zente . . . La zoventu par che vegna de Franza o Catalogna, o de strani paixi tanto sono devixi i lor vestidi de diversa foza. Su per le bauche di Rialto e in loza i vedi star con sue veste de sella che mollo ben s'assetta, che par sian nati nello empireo regno. Ognun de hen vestir se stima degno : el pover non cognosci dai mazori ; tulli me par signori stadi de terra o zitadi o castelli. He concludes by praising again the policy of Venice and her allies, whom she has throughout the world.* At the close of the fourteenth century Gibbon declares that Venice had revived the commercial activity of Europe and touched the apogee of her opulence. The ships of the State, armate in mercanzia, brought annually from 1 This sirventese has been attributed to Sanguinacci, a Paduan of the early quattrocento ; but it is perhaps safer to leave the authorship uncertain for the present. The poem is in i8g quatrains, woven together in the manner in vogue at the end of the thirteenth and during the v^fhole of the fourteenth centuries. It was first printed at Treviso in 1483 and was repro- duced by Gamba in iSSg (Venezia, Alvisopoli) in an opuscule per nozze (Quatrine in lode di Venezia) and again in his Raccolta di poesie in dialetto veneziano. The last strophe proves that the poem was written in May, i420. Vittorio Rossi (Nuovo Arch. Veneto, T. V, p. 4i2, n.) calls attention to a MS. copy in the Marciana (Ital. XI, 124, pp- IQ et seq.). VOL. I — 9 i3o VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES overseas merchandise that represented upwards of forty miUions of our modern hre ; this capital paid interest at the rate of forty per cent, and there were then in Venice more than a thousand nobles whose incomes varied from two to five hundred thousand Itahan Hre.^ Another great source of wealth was the shipbuilding industry. It grew steadily in numerical importance and in perfection, 2 as was natural in a city which at the close of the fourteenth century could number thirty-six thousand seamen, sixteen thousand arsenal hands, and thirty-three hundred ships on the sea.^ During the flourishing days of the Republic aU the talk was of ventures by sea ; sometimes the Doge himself took the command ; a patrician always filled the post of captain- general, the highest post in the service. The com- manders were clad in armour, and in later times had a uniform corresponding to their conspicuous rank, — a jacket and cap of crimson velvet, a mantle of cloth of gold, with a great gold button on the right shoulder. As time went on, new posts were created, such as the Provveditore Generale da Mar or Capitano del Levante, whose headquarters were at Corfu ; the Provveditore d'Armata; the Capitano in Golfo, charged with the patrol of the Adriatic. As to their land forces, the Venetians did not take them into consideration until the period when they turned to create a dominion on the mainland. In the infancy of the city the acazie, gandulae, scaule, plateae {burchi and peate) served for trade with the 1 Speech of the Doge Tomaso Mocenigo. ^ The Liber Plegiorum gives us, between 1228 and 1228, several esti- mates for ships. The wood required for building a galley cost 170 lire, 333 lire for an asiro. Masts nine paces in length cost five lire a pair. A boat cost 18 lire ; a galley, 65o ; a galleon, 700. 2 Speech of Doge Mocenigo. COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION i3i less remote portions of the estuary ; at the end of their voyage they were tied to the quays or laid up in boat- houses. The cursorie, olcadi, and roscone served the river communications and even sometimes put out to sea. Dromoni, galee, panjili, and chelandie, ships of war frequently mentioned in those remote times, must have resembled the ships in use among other peoples of that date down to the time of the Crusades. They were all propelled by oar and had beaks ; the prow had a castle above it.^ The name of the galley becomes more frequent about the eleventh century. The galley was propelled by oars, first of all two to each bench, then three and even four, so that they took the classical names of triremes and quadriremes. It was not till the middle of the sixteenth century that they adopted the single oar, forty or fifty feet long, rowed by four, five, six, seven, or even eight ^ men. Galleys for the most part had only one mast, which could be unstepped when in action. In the tops was the crow's nest (gabbia) for the outlook {sguaitd). Often amidships there was a castello, guarded by slingers (frombolieri) and bow- men (halestrieri) ; all round the bulwarks ran the im- pavesata, made of leather bucklers to keep off Greek fire ; on the prow were boatloads of stones to be hurled from the tops, catapults, crossbows, balistae, and other engines for launching stones. Up to the middle of the thirteenth century there were two great side-oars on the ship's quarters which acted as a rudder ; we find indications, but not very clear,^ of the use of the single wheel rudder. 1 Guglielmotti, St. della Marina Pontificia nel M. E., Lib. I, Gap. XV. Firenze, 1871. 2 Fincati, Le triremi. Roma, 1881. ' Manfroni, op. cit., Vol. I, Appendix, Cap. I. i33 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES The gatti, ships driven by a hundred oars, were heavier in build than the galee sottili or battle galley. The taride were used for transport of men, the usciere and the coche for conveying horses, provisions, and siege train. ^ Among warships we must mention the bacio, propelled either by sails or by oars, and a small rowing vessel of light draught for transport and perhaps for boarding purposes, as we may conclude from its name oi ganzaruolo or booking-boat (from ganzo, gancio, a hook). The "great galleys," galee grosse, were merchant ships with two masts, each of which carried three lateen-sails {artimonum, terzariolum, andpapajicum, top- sail). They had a larger freeboard and were of greater tonnage than the laride. They were used for purposes of trading, but if necessary could fight. ^ Other smaller merchant-service ships were the asiri, the panzone, the marsiliane, the palandre, the marrani, and so on. Carpaccio's pictures give us specimens.^ The State undertook the regulation not only of the arsenal, but also of private building-yards. Orders were sometimes issued forbidding any shipwright (ma- rangonus) or caulkers {calafato) to leave Venice, or to seek work elsewhere, without leave from the govern- ment. No Venetian might build a ship inside the limits of the Dogado unless it conformed to the follow- ing measurements : length of keel, fifty-six feet ; sheer, thirty-four feet ; deck-beam, twenty-four feet ; depth, nine feet ; width of keel bottom left open.* Thus the 1 Manfroni, op. loc. cit. 2 Ibid., ibid. 8 See also the drawings of G. CuUuris in C. A. Levi's Nam Venele da codici e marini dipinti. Venezia, 1892. We reproduce some of these sketches. * Lib. Plecj., n. 700. COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION i33 State, having at its disposal a large number of sister ships capable of being converted at a moment's notice into a war fleet, was able to repair its naval losses with marvellous rapidity. Besides the privately owned ^ ships which traded in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic there were fixed trading routes for which the State supplied galleys fitted out at the public expense. They were found in arms and ammunition and victuals, were put up to public auction and adjudicated to the highest Venetian bidder.^ The orders as to lading'^ were numerous, complex, and rigorous, as were the sailing regulations which governed officers and crew.* The man who hired a government ship attended to the lading of her and often took the command of her himself, after swearing that on all occasions he would maintain I'onor del Comune e di San Marco, and would abide by the prescribed route. These government fleets, Jlotte armate in mercanzia, sailed in company (made) and were divided into squadrons (carovane) of eight or ten galleys, each under a commander who was responsible for the safety of his squadron, as the seas were infested by pirates and no port was really to be trusted ; indeed, ships frequently had to enter port 1 The Liber Plegiorum records various names of ships : San Pietro, San Biagio, San Cataldo, Angela, Santa Savina, Seaiiaita, Cavalera, Peiia, Vei-ga d'oro, Calelonga, etc. " For example, on March ai, i333, Andreolo Giustinian hired the tsnth galley, the last of the fleet that was destined for Flanders. It cost him 75 lire di grossi. The first galley of the same fleet, which was knocked down to Zaccaria Contarini, was the dearest of all ; it cost 81 lire di grossi. The third on the list, hired by Ser Michele Scazo, was the cheapest, costing 65 lire. Arch, di Stato, Senato, Misti, reg. i5, p. 6. " Capilulare navium of the Doge Ziani, published by Sacerdoti e Pre- delli, cit. * Arch, di Stato, Senato, Misti (January 22, i3o3), reg. I, pp. 187, 188. i34 VENICE IN THE MIDDLE AGES stern foremost and with their crossbow men on guard, so as to be ready to fight or to fly.^ The fleet sailed and returned with a full cargo after bartering the entire contents in various ports. These fleets were called after their destinations ; for example, the Tana fleet, which made for the Black Sea and traded with Russians and Tartars; the Syrian fleet, which dealt with Asia Minor; the Roumanian fleet, destined for Constantinople and the ports of Greece and Roumania; the Egyptian fleet, touching at the ports of Egypt; and lastly the Flanders fleet, which sailed by Tripoli and Tangiers, touched Spain, jiassed the Straits of Gibraltar, coasted Morocco, and then passing up the shores of Portugal and France, reached Bruges, Antwerp, and London. The commanders of each galley, called comiti from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, and then sopra- comiti, were elected one by one in the Great Council or in the Senate.^ They took an oath to have every care of the ship, and to hand it over in sound condition, at the arsenal, on their return. They were bound to remain on board from the day they began to lade, to watch over the safety of the cargo, to see that the crew had their rations of bread, wine, and meat, to keep the ship's accounts, and in all things to consider the advantage of the State. ^ They were at liberty to choose their own pilot and crew — the best they could find,* but they were responsible for the efficiency and honesty of the men 1 Barberino, Docamenti d'amore (Riv. Marittima. Roma, February, 1878). 2 Arch, di Stato, M. C. (February 2a, lagi), Cerberus, p. 12. 5 Ibid., Atti del Procaratori di San Marco, from the archives of the amalgamated pious foundations (Serie Mista, B" 817). 4 Lib. Pleg., n. 58o. COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION i35 they selected^; they were also bound to find the crew in weapons.^ Owners were obliged to promise that they would never let nor sell their ships to any but Venetians, and to exact the same obligation from those to whom they consigned the ship ; they were bound to report the sale of a ship, and if that had taken place outside Venice, they were required to put in an affidavit of the oath admin- istered to the purchasers.^ A high sense of honour and a noble zeal animated the ships' captains — men who were brave soldiers, skilled mariners, vigilant not to waste their nights in harbour where, as a rule, they made but a brief stay.* Cautious in making up their minds, bold in execution, they faced all risks, and voyages which might well seem foolhardy to the most enterprising of modern seamen were undertaken by them for the honour of their country and in full rehance on their men, who were free, active, faithful, and obedient. For in the galleys of San Marco the crews, even to the oarsmen, were free citizens of Venice or of her subject lands, and the galleys themselves were called by a name of happy augury, — volontarie or 1 " Capitanei galeae debeant dicere probitatem et utilitatem Comitorum, NaucleriorumetProderiorum." Arch. diStato, M. C, Ce;-6e;'us (August lo, 1278). ^ ' ' Patroni teneantur babere pro quolibet marinaro unam lanceam de fao (faggio) vel de fraxino longam a quindecim pedibus supra: media cum ferris longis et media cum rampinis, omnes ferratae de lame per passum unum ad minus." Legge del 1279 cit. da Zanetti, G., Orig. di alcune arti, p. 3o. 8 Lib. Pleg., n. 649. * Fincati, Splend. e decad. delta marina mercantile di Venezia(Riv. Marit., Roma, May, 1878). To prove the rapidity of Venetian navigation, Fincati