WAR WITH GENOA
Supernatural Recovery of the Apostle’s Body—Ruskin’s Account—Origin
of the War—Early Life of Carlo Zeno—His Conquests—Governor
of a Province in Greece—Return to Venice—Adventures at
Constantinople—Escape of Zeno—Tenedos Becomes Venetian—Attack of
the Genoese—Their Repulse—Carlo’s Popularity in Venice—Pisani’s
Career—Carlo Routs the Genoese—Peace—Carlo’s Fame—His Visit to
Jerusalem—Last Scuffle with the Genoese—Life in Venice.
It has been told how, after the assassination of the Doge Saundo IV,
the mob, in a state of ungovernable fury, set fire to the ducal palace,
and how this fire, spreading, injured many noble buildings including
St. Mark’s itself. Orseolo, it may be remembered, left the world within
two years of his election, and the repairs were finished under Vital
Falier.
Then, to the dismay of the Doge and everybody else, it was discovered
that the original resting-place of the Holy Apostle had been forgotten;
and the pious Doge, having exhausted all the possibilities, resolved
to leave the matter to the Almighty, who, by the intercession of the
Evangelist, might enlighten them if He saw fit.
So a general fast was proclaimed, for how long we are not told, and
prayers were offered up in all the Churches and in every home; a
procession was arranged for the 25th of June, when the people—or as
many of them as could—assembled in the Church and all prayed together
with their whole hearts.
As they were doing so, to their wonder and delight the marbles of one
of the pillars began to shake a little, which, as they watched, fell
down completely, disclosing beneath it the bronze chest in which the
body had formerly been laid.
Ruskin, of course, stigmatises this “as one of the best arranged and
most successful impostures ever attempted by the clergy of the Romish
Church”—how he does love that expression! He goes on to say that the
body of St. Mark had, doubtless, perished in the conflagration of 976,
but since St. Mark’s was not burned to the ground in 976, but merely
damaged, it is not difficult to see upon what he bases the suggestion.
Because the site was forgotten? There is not the slightest doubt that
it was. Even if they had wished to, the clergy could not have deceived
any one then, for all had had access to the spot formerly. It was not a
secret at all.
Besides, the stone pillar was solid. It had been in place for a long
time. To insert a bronze coffin into solid stone is no light task,
while to do it unobserved and to replace the marble afterwards well
enough to escape detection, in a church whose doors are open from the
early hours of the morning until late into the night, savours of the
impossible. The story is perfectly true, for the record of it is to be
found, as Ruskin tells us, in a mosaic of the North Transept.
In the histories of all states and countries there are names that
stand, as it were, as the very pillars upon which those histories are
built; and, of these, some are solid and practical, some light and
ornamental. Venice has had her share—Carmagnola, Pisani, Carlo Zeno,
Marco Polo, Andrea Contarini, and many others.
Two, at least, of these served together—namely, Vittor Pisani and Carlo
Zeno—during that incident in the almost ceaseless state of war between
Venice and her maritime and business rival, Genoa, which is known as
the War of Chioggia. So like the accounts which we read in our time
of quarrels between great corporations, is that of the origin of this
particular war, that it is worth explaining, if only to illustrate the
unchanging quality of our human nature.
The long, long struggle that culminated in the War of Chioggia had
its origin in an alliance—what is known in our day as a “gentlemen’s
agreement”—between the two States, to boycott the Crimean Peninsula, in
revenge for the murder of some Venetian and Genoese traders there by a
certain Chief of the name of Zani Bey.
To be sure, very little incitement was needed on either side, at that
juncture, for affairs at Constantinople had been spurring Genoese
ill-feeling for some time past, and Venice, not to be taken by
surprise, had been pushing her preparations—just as the great monetary
powers are doing to-day—to a point where they were a threat and a
menace to every state in her neighbourhood.
Each was hiring bravi and condottieri in every direction, each was hard
at work forming alliances—the story of our own time all over again—and
when Venetians discovered that the Genoese were flirting with the
trade of the Crimea, in spite of their pledged word, and vice versa,
the trouble came to a head, and both Carlo Zeno and Pisani were set to
work.
Carlo Zeno came to the sword by devious ways. He was destined for the
Church, and was sent at an early age to Avignon, in order to bring him
under the eye of the Holy Father and into the circles where sinecures
and promotions were most easily obtainable.
Nor were the hopes of his relations disappointed, for it was not long
before he was appointed to a canonicate at Patras, that carried with it
a very comfortable income; soon after which, being still a boy, he was
sent back to his uncle’s people and thence, for his studies, to Padua.
Here the spirit of the future Terror of the Seas began to appear in the
boy, for he refused to study with any seriousness and spent most of his
time and all of his substance in gambling and riotous living.
At last, having sold his books, and lost the proceeds, he escaped, by
night, from the pack of creditors who had been dogging his footsteps,
and took service, though with whom it is difficult to discover.
For some time he wandered over Italy, learning, as he went, the trade
which was afterwards to make him famous, until, when five years had
passed, he began to feel the need of “ranging” himself, and returned
to his uncle, who had been mourning him for dead, and who received him
with open arms.
The German custom of the “Wanderjahr” is an old one, and, as far as can
be judged, a very good one, the idea being to harden the young man’s
mind with travel before he settles down definitely to the pursuit of
his business. In many trades it is demanded by the apprentice, and
in almost all, it is at least expected. No one enquires too closely,
upon his return, as to the sort of life he has been leading, for it
is assumed that he must have been busy, since it is a _sine qua non_
of his twelve months of freedom that he support himself by his trade.
Carlo’s uncle and brothers did not enquire either, but packed him
off, as soon as they could, to Patras, to take his Canon’s stall and
become a prosperous, comfortable, easy-going Prelate, just sufficiently
distinguished from the rank and file to be somebody, and far enough
from any chance of real responsibility to allow of his leading a serene
and unruffled existence.
The godson of the Emperor, he was a person of some considerable
influence, too, and the knowledge of war that he had acquired
during his service with the Condottieri was not at all amiss in an
ecclesiastic of the Fourteenth Century, when Bishops had as often
as not to guard their own marches with their own good swords. His
education in ecclesiastical subjects was sketchy, of course, but amply
sufficient for any need that he was likely to have of it; so he set
out for Patras, half a priest, half a soldier, a canon unordained, a
soldier unattached.
Now the Governor of Patras, just then, was engaged with the common
enemy of Christendom, the Turk, and since the soldier in Carlo was
always on the surface, the Governor, who had learned from some source
or another of the young gentleman’s temperamental proclivities,
and no doubt from Carlo himself of the various notable captains
under whom he had served, pushed him into the fight. Carlo was only
twenty-two, but he worked so well, and flung himself into the campaign
with such whole-hearted enthusiasm, that before long he was wounded
so desperately that for one night he was deemed to be dead and
preparations were made to bury him, a fate which was only averted in
the nick of time by his return to consciousness.
It was not for many months that he recovered of his grievous hurt, for
the better healing of which he was sent back to Venice. In Italy he was
fortunate enough to meet his godfather, the Emperor, and to make a good
lodgment in the great man’s favour, the result of which was to send him
on Imperial business to England, France, and Germany; so that, when he
returned to Patras, he was better equipped than ever for either of the
two causes, ecclesiastic or military, which he might choose to espouse.
At Patras, he found the choice made for him, since the place was once
more imperilled, this time by Frenchmen and Cypriotes, and the good
Bishop, handing over to him the tiny force which was available, bade
him do the best he could, as speedily as possible.
Carlo’s best—the best of “Zeno the Unconquerable”—was very good indeed.
So good, in fact, that it reads like a fable, but the authority is,
or ought to be, unimpeachable, so it must be accepted that during six
months of hard fighting he kept ten or twelve thousand enemies at bay
with seven hundred men, and ultimately persuaded them to draw off,
without the loss of a single man on his own side.
It must be borne in mind, though, that in those delectable days
fighting was less dangerous for the combatants than at any time before
or since. The accounts of the wars are very nearly bloodless—for
the combatants, _bien entendu_—not for the inoffensive and helpless
non-combatants, the sacking and looting of whom was the agreed
consideration for which the mercenaries gave their services.
It was shortly after this affair that the direction of Zeno’s life was
settled for ever; jealous of his success and his growing fame, a Greek
knight, in a moment of spleen, accused him, after all he had done, of
treachery!
There is a touch of to-day about the form which Sir Simon’s venom took
that brings that distant past very close to us. “Tradito!” “Nous sommes
trahis!” These are still the first cries to be heard when the gold of
the spendthrift years has run out and the horrible creditors crowd into
a nation’s House.
One would hardly have thought that a reasoning man in Zeno’s position
would have worried his head with such foolishness. The insult might
well have been the occasion of a righteous wrath and contempt, but that
is all. Carlo, however, did not see it in that light, and, despite
the protests of his more sensible friends and the pleadings of his
Bishop, he challenged his traducer, and, by so doing, threw up his
ecclesiastical ambitions and took the sword in perpetuity.
Free now, and without friends, he lost no time in marrying a rich and
noble lady who had fallen in love with him, at Chiavenna; her he left,
after a short honeymoon, in order to meet Sir Simon, according to
arrangement, at Naples.
That kingdom being in its usual condition, it was no easy task to
penetrate to its Capital or arrive there, even by sea, in anything
like safety. But Carlo was not a person lightly to be deterred when the
prospect of a fight was in question, and in due time he arrived in the
presence of Queen Joanna, who had been selected as an umpire.
But she, in the meanwhile, had come to the decision that it was a case
for damages rather than for a duel, and, a court having sat upon it,
the Greek was ordered to refund Carlo for his expenses. There being
nothing else to keep him, he returned to his wife in Greece, where he
was soon made governor of a province. Soon after his wife died, and
he, being unable to retain her dowry, reëmbarked for Venice, where he
struck out anew as a bachelor.
It was not long, though, before he married again, and his second wife,
the daughter of the Admiral, Marco Giustiniani, had a sufficiently
large fortune to permit of his establishing himself as a merchant in
the East.
Either he must have left his wife behind on undertaking this expedition
or else he sent her home later, for the adventures through which he
passed at Constantinople would have been too risky, even for him, had
he had any “incumbrances” with him.
Constantinople, at that time, was in the hands of a usurper,
Andronicus, who had deposed his father, Carlo Yhomuas. Now Carlo
Yhomuas was a friend to Venice and had gone out of his way, while he
was on the throne, to show favour to Zeno’s father.
When it came to his ears that Zeno was in the city, it seemed to him
that here was a chance to escape from his fortress and retake the
crown, and that since the wife of his gaoler was an old “friend” of
his, and still devoted to him, she would make an excellent go-between.
It was no very desirable undertaking for a woman, since Andronicus had
filled the court with spies, and discovery would mean certain torture
and death; but she accomplished her mission, and Zeno, to whom such
adventures were the salt of life, fell in with the idea instantly and
joyfully.
Having obtained the promise of support from some Greek soldiers, by
ways known only to himself, he strolled out one evening along the
shore, until he arrived at a point where, across the water and rising
straight up from it, stood a high tower; being assured that no one was
about, Carlo studied a window at the top of it speculatively.
It was not grilled, but it was small and it was a hundred and fifty
feet up. From the land side he could do nothing; it was too well
guarded, and all that he and the surprised captive up there had to rely
upon was a small woman.
He would have to wait for the dark of the moon, he saw, and, besides,
he must find some means of getting a long, stout rope into the
Emperor’s bedroom. This was accomplished, I think, by winding it around
the lady’s body, and since she had the privilege, while her husband’s
back was turned, of ingress to the ex-Emperor’s apartments, she waited
until the former was making his rounds in the evening and slipped past
the unsuspecting sentry in the dark.
Then she dropped the rope from the window and left Carlo Yhomuas to
himself. Carlo, who was as much a sailor as he was a soldier, speedily
climbed up and, having hauled himself through the window, begged the
Emperor to descend.
But, at this critical moment, Carlo Yhomuas’ nerve failed him. As
he told Zeno, he had two other sons who were both at the mercy of
Andronicus, and Andronicus was a desperate and bloodstained scoundrel
who would probably cut both their throats if their father ran away.
Zeno argued and pleaded and stormed, but all to no purpose, and,
finally, he was compelled to climb down again alone and make his way
home.
No sooner was Carlo Yhomuas alone again, however, than his courage
came back to him, and the gaoler’s wife was entrusted with another
communication for the young Venetian, to which the latter replied
instantly, spurred by the proposal which Carlo Yhomuas made to present
Venice with the island of Tenedos, in his will.
This time, though, Fate was against them. It is very rarely that
the hussy smiles upon a second attempt, if her favour has been too
lightly treated during the first one, and now she turned her face away
spitefully. The gaoler’s wife had hidden Carlo’s note in her shoe and,
just as she was reaching Carlo Yhomuas’ room, the shoe slipped off and
the sentry pounced upon the paper.
In an hour she was in the torture room and in an hour and a half she
had given up her secret, while Zeno (upon whom, as soon as the accident
occurred, Fate smiled again, as upon a well-loved child, who has caused
his parent a momentary displeasure by the company he has been keeping,
but who, once rescued from his friends, immediately becomes the adored
offspring again) escaped to sea and got on board a Venetian warship,
which happened to be visiting the port, and showed the will of Carlo
Yhomuas to the officer commanding.
It did not take this latter worthy long to come to the conclusion that,
since Carlo Yhomuas was the rightful Emperor, and, also, since he was
not likely ever to reach his youngest son, that the Venetians might
as well take possession at Tenedos before Andronicus could exercise
his illegally obtained power and make a present of the island to his
friend, the Genoese.
Fortune still smiled upon her son, for, when the fleet came to
Tenedos, they found it to be held by an officer of Carlo Yhomuas,
well fortified, and stocked with provisions; and he, having heard
everything and seen his Emperor’s will in his own handwriting, was
easily persuaded to place the island under the protection of Venice.
That done, and the seeds of a pleasant and profitable war with Genoa
sown, they garrisoned the island as heavily as they could, and sailed
for Venice.
The Senate, as it was to be expected, disapproved gravely and openly
of the whole affair—and promptly sent a fleet to Tenedos to hold it
against all comers! With this fleet sailed Carlo Zeno. After a brisk
but useless ruffle under the walls of Constantinople, Carlo returned
to Tenedos with three ships, just in time to get his men ashore and
his defences arranged before the Genoese swooped down upon him with
twenty-two ships. I cannot be quite sure if, on this occasion, he had
Michel Steno with him, though it is certain that the latter was, at one
time, his assistant in the island; but, if he had, the subsequent rout
of the Genoese becomes more understandable. Two such minds as Carlo’s
and Michel’s were worth a good many hundred men. Be that as it may, the
Genoese were repulsed, twice running in two successive days, and that
so fiercely and with such loss that they left the island in a hurry.
Nor did they come back, and Carlo, as soon as his wounds, of which
he had received three in the two days’ fighting, would permit of it,
returned to Venice in a blaze of glory.
Venice, at the time of his return, had a half-finished quarrel with
the Carrara upon her hands, and Carlo was immediately despatched to the
scene of hostilities.
In 1378, he was made military governor of Negroponti, but the sea
called him again, soon after, and from that time until the Genoese
siege of Chioggia he spent his time upon his favourite element and at
his favourite business—to wit, fighting the Genoese.
During the interminable wars that occupied the next thirty years, Carlo
became the one shining star in the State’s skies that no cloud or storm
could dim or hide. Vittor Pisani, his nominal superior, had his ups and
downs, and proved himself to be almost if not entirely Zeno’s equal,
but Zeno was the popular idol.
He raided the Genoese coast in such a fashion that his name was a
terror to the city of Genoa for a hundred years afterwards, and, by
closing the Mediterranean to his enemies, he struck a vital blow at
their prosperity. By keeping continuously on the move and darting
from point to point with his light ships, he contrived to keep a
considerable part of the Genoese fleet constantly employed, and a good
part of the Genoese troops on the coast; but his peripatetic methods
were not always to the advantage of Venice, for they made it extremely
difficult to reach him, either with news or orders, so that, although
the Senate despatched boat after boat and messenger after messenger
to acquaint him with the defeat of Vittor Pisani at Pola, by the
Genoese Admiral Luciano Doria, with instructions to return, it was by
accident that the story reached him, six months after the battle, as
he was standing out of Candia, where the Doge’s messenger arrived soon
afterwards.
He left Candia on the 2d of December, 1379, and sailed for Paranzo,
where he arrived upon the 14th. Although he knew of the defeat at Pola,
he had not as yet any real idea of the desperate condition of Venice
until he arrived at the Lido, where a government agent gave him a view
of the condition of affairs and begged him to hasten to Chioggia, then
closely blockaded by Vittor Pisani.
Chioggia had fallen to the Genoese on the 6th of August, but on the
21st of December, Pisani, who had only been released from the prison,
where he was incarcerated after Pola, because the people flatly refused
to follow or serve under any one else, had succeeded in bottling up
the Genoese fleet, much as the Japanese bottled up the Russians at
Port Arthur, with the difference that his operation was successful
and theirs was not. To bottle up a strong enemy is sensible; to pay
a broken one the distinguished compliment of sinking good ships, and
sacrificing life to prevent him from getting at you, is something else.
Unfortunately, his troops were amateur soldiers, and, though their
patriotism, helped by their acquired and inherited hatred of the
Genoese, had held them to their task for a while, yet a winter campaign
uses up the reserves of such passing enthusiasms quickly, and poor
Pisani found himself, as have others who have attempted to carry out
long and arduous operations with irregular troops, between the devil of
abandoning his enterprise altogether and the deep sea of the revenge
that the well-armed, well-disciplined, and half-starved enemy would
exact by land, the instant that the necessity for guarding the harbour
was over.
His men clamoured ceaselessly to be allowed to return home and attend
to their affairs, disregarding the probability that, if they did relax
their grip upon Doria’s throat, they would have no affairs to attend
to, save that of paying the heaviest indemnity that he could exact. But
the reasoning powers of human beings in the mass are not great, and,
at last, Pisani was compelled to promise that, should Carlo Zeno not
arrive within two days, he would sail for the Lido.
Heavy days they must have been for Pisani, with the very existence of
the Republic depending upon whether or no a person who had not been
heard from for many months past would, accidentally, arrive in time to
redeem the promise and save it.
As it has been already suggested, Carlo’s popularity was due in a
very large measure to his astounding luck; nor did it desert him now.
For forty-eight hours was Pisani compelled to endure his agony, in
order that Carlo might arrive exactly at the right moment—not an hour
too soon to spoil the splendid effect of his seemingly miraculous
appearance upon the scene, not an hour too late to save Pisani and
Venice.
It was at daybreak that Pisani, despair in his heart, climbed out of
his cabin and mechanically swept the horizon with his eyes. For some
minutes he staid there, unwilling to turn away from the clean, open sea
to the sight of the prize which he was being forced to give up when it
was already in his grasp. How his heart must have ached, as he recalled
the gathering of the citizens, the prayers, the shouting and boasting,
the speeches of the Doge, the “do or die” ranting of the weak-backed
people, who, having seen war (for they had, up till then, been a highly
respectable community and had hired their fighting men by the month or
year, as they needed them), were, of course, perfectly ready to plunge
in it, and still more ready, once they began to feel the weight of it,
to crawl out again.
His dreary meditations were suddenly disturbed by a cry from aloft, and
he came to himself with a start as the cry was repeated.
It was a sail, and, in answer to his furiously anxious questions, the
lookout presently reported that it was that of a fighting-vessel, and
that there were more of them coming up behind her.
At last he shouted down that he had counted eighteen of them—and then
Pisani, frantic to know the worst or the best as speedily as possible,
despatched a light boat to reconnoitre and see if this were light or
darkness that was descending upon him.
The little boat shot away into the morning haze and, when almost within
hailing distance of the leading vessel, her crew straining their eyes
to catch any hint which might tell them who and what these new arrivals
were, they saw a flag broken out from the peak.
It was the banner of St. Mark, and, with a yell of delight, they went
about and raced for Pisani’s flagship. Their demigod had arrived!
It was a long story that he had to tell when the Doge met him, and it
must have been balm to the wounded heart of the former when he heard
how Carlo had ravaged the Genoese coast, captured Genoese convoys,
dislocated Genoese trade with the East, and, to crown his triumphs,
had captured a Genoese galley off Rhodes, with half a million pieces of
gold in it.
Although he had been twice wounded, and, Pisani’s promise redeemed,
there was no need of haste, he insisted upon being allowed to
place himself opposite Buondolo. One night a storm sprang up of the
Mediterranean sort, and the Genoese attempted to take advantage of it
and break through the blockade to open sea; but Carlo drove them back
again. It was during this action that his ship dragged her anchor and
was driven in under the Genoese forts, and Carlo received an arrow
through the throat, which all but killed him. He did not leave the
deck, however, nor did he seem to pay the least attention to his wound,
until his ship was clear again, when he had the misfortune to stumble
over an open hatch and fall into the hold of the ship. Even then he had
sufficient presence of mind to turn over on his face and let the blood
run freely, thereby saving his life.
It does not seem to have taken him long to recover from a wound which
would have been the death of most men, for he was almost immediately
made General-in-Chief of the land forces of the Republic—to be exact,
on February 15—and he had received the wound some time either at the
end of January or the beginning of February!
Then it was that Zeno the leader appeared, as distinct from Zeno the
fighter and tactician.
By the capture of Lorado, Carlo had cut the Genoese off from their
remaining base of supplies at Icomea, and all that remained to
accomplish was the recapture of Chioggia itself, either by storm or
siege.
The former course having been decided upon, the famous Sir John
Hawkwood was sent for—he whose name is a household word in Italy to
this day, and his men were assembled at Palestina, an island in the
near neighbourhood of Chioggia.
But Sir John did not appear, and the unmilitary Venetians were faced
with the necessity of finding a man who could first reduce the wild
free-lances to some sort of order, and induce them afterwards to trust
him as their leader. Fortunately these gentlemen were shut up on an
island, which must have been a sweet place for any unfortunate natives
who might have been there in those days, for Hawkwood’s men were
drafted from half a dozen separate nationalities, most of whom were
fighting each other in France and Germany at the time.
The business of disciplining them was laid upon Carlo, as the only man
who had had any experience of condottieri; brave as he was, he might
well have shrunk from the task, as from entering a den of wild beasts,
but he accepted it instantly, put on his armour, and had himself rowed
over to the island.
When he got there he found the men, as he probably expected to do,
at each other’s throats, but he was not daunted by their savagery. We
are told that many of them had served under him before, so that when
he announced his arrival with a blare of trumpets, and called upon
them to listen to what he had to say, they did as they were told, and
surrounded him, pouring out their complaints as to a man who was a
soldier himself and who could understand them.
To be sure, he had known what was at the bottom of their grievances
before he started. They were mercenaries. They fought for pay and
for loot. The Senate, being extremely hard up, had not paid them,
nor had it shown any honest intention of doing so. Carlo himself had
already been told, and with all gravity, that the Senators were of the
unanimous opinion that it was his duty personally to serve without pay.
But, having temporarily calmed the storm, Carlo immediately
communicated with the Senate and informed that august body that, unless
the mercenaries’ pay were forthcoming, he must give up any idea of
storming Chioggia. It was an affair for regular troops, and, even in
the unlikely event of his being able to bring the Venetian amateurs
up to the defence, there was not the least chance of his being able to
induce them to attack with any seriousness. He even went so far as to
offer to subscribe five hundred ducats himself if the Senate would come
forward with a similar amount.
This they did, very unwillingly, and Carlo was enabled to give his
whole attention to the frustrating of the Genoese commander’s scheme
for saving his fleet by digging a canal through the island and bringing
his ships out to open sea, whence they could once more threaten Venice
effectively.
This captain’s name was Grimaldi, and he was, by all accounts, a
daring and resourceful man, but he had not reckoned with Carlo Zeno.
He could outnumber the Venetians by five thousand and more, but,
unless he contrived to cut or manœuvre his way out, he would be driven
to surrender by famine—one hope, albeit a very doubtful one, he had
besides, and that was the arrival of the Genoese fleet under Matteo
Maruffo, who, emboldened by an easy victory over Giustiniani, near
Naples, appeared off Chioggia on the 14th of May, when he immediately
challenged Pisani to an encounter.
Being a serious person, Pisani naturally refused to accommodate him and
run the risk of losing men and ships, when the ends of the campaign
could be attained without any further trouble than that of remaining
where he was; and, a short while afterwards, Matteo withdrew, and
the garrison of Chioggia were compelled to watch their last chance
disappear seawards.
Before this, it must be said, Carlo had succeeded in capturing
Brondolo, and the Genoese were running short of food and water.
The garrison tried to foment disorder in Carlo’s command, and even
attempted to assassinate Carlo, without success. At last, on the 22d of
June, the Genoese struck their colours, and on the morning of the 24th
Carlo made his entry.
Afterwards, Carlo captured the Castle of Marano, and finally drove
the Genoese into their own harbour of Genoa and kept them there,
which brought the war to an end. When peace was once more upon Venice,
Carlo, now about forty-seven years old, was made Captain-General of the
forces, and later was very nearly elected to the Dogeship, only being
defeated by the fact that, if Venice should again find herself at war,
there would be nobody to lead her troops, since the Doge’s place was
in Venice. For another thing, the Patricians disliked him intensely, he
having always and resolutely refused to follow their advice during the
war.
There being nothing more to be gained at the moment in Venice, Carlo
went a-visiting once more, and the receptions which he received at the
various courts of Italy must have been a source of great gratification
to him after the dark days he had been through.
Like a true soldier—one who has no personal ill-feeling for the
accidental enemy of the moment and who, the question in hand once
settled, is ready to do anything in his power for the man he has been
fighting—Carlo, on meeting a former adversary in the person of the
son of the Count of Padua, at Asti, and finding him in exceedingly
straitened and uncomfortable circumstances, took him to his arms
and lent him four hundred ducats. It is pleasant to know that his
generosity was not imposed upon, for the money was paid back later,
when the exile was restored to his possessions.
Later, too, Carlo again defeated the Genoese, led this time by a French
general, and, after that, hung up his good sword and turned to civil
affairs; though he once accompanied the troops against the Carrara, as
a “provveditore,” and, on Padua being taken, was made Governor of that
city.
Now, the real rulers of Venice were the dreaded and terrible Ten. From
any decision of theirs there was no appeal, and, since these decisions
were guided only by their own passions, it can be understood that the
civil affairs of Venice were in a precarious condition. On the taking
of Padua, Carlo’s old beneficiary, Francesco de Carrara and his son
were taken to Venice and there, by order of the Ten, strangled in their
prison. Carlo’s successor in the governorship of Padua, having nothing
better to do, took upon himself to go through the old city accounts,
and, among them, discovered the entry of the four hundred ducats which
Francesco repaid to Carlo Zeno. The account made no mention of any
loan, though, and the governor, anxious to get himself into the good
graces of the Ten, immediately sent them the document.
It seems hardly credible that even that vitiated council could have
refused to accept Carlo’s word for it, but, in spite of all his
glorious services, they insisted upon believing this was a bribe that
he had received and sentenced him to the loss of all his places and
titles and to five years of imprisonment besides! And yet Venice was
called a Republic!
By the lifting of his finger Carlo could have raised such a storm as
would have swallowed up the civil government of Venice in a week, but
he seems to have accepted the horrid injustice—as did Pisani before
him—with philosophy. It is not likely that the sentence was executed,
though—even the Ten were not powerful enough for that, one imagines—and
Carlo was soon off on a journey to Jerusalem, where he was knighted—he,
Carlo, the scourge of Genoa, the terror of the Turks!—by a Prince,
it is said, of Scotland, though of that, in view of the character and
occupations of such of the Scottish Princes of the times as our history
tells of, one cannot but have the gravest doubts.
An old man now, Zeno had one last scuffle with the Genoese, in the
service of the King of Cyprus, and after beating them soundly returned
home, at the age of seventy-four or seventy-five, and settled down. He
lived for several years afterwards, gathering around himself the best
of the city—artists, literati, scholars of all sorts. And when he died
he was carried to his grave on the shoulders of the seamen, as a sailor
should be.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “Pagus” signified “village.” The term “pagan” was first applied
to the dwellers in rural districts, who, from the remoteness of their
surroundings, were tardier in hearing of and embracing Christianity
than the inhabitants of the cities.
[2] “A Diplomatist’s Wife in Many Lands.”
[3] Constantinople and Jerusalem were added in after times to the list,
but only attained this honour by the consent of the reigning Pontiff.
[4] St. Ambrose, Sermo contra Auxentium, No. 13; Hegesipp., lib. III;
S. Greg. Magn. in Psalm IV, Penitentiæ.
[5] Cardinal Pole, after much research, came to the conclusion that
the site chosen for the Church of “Domine Quo Vadis” was a mistaken
one, and erected a tiny circular chapel at another crossroad which
he believed had witnessed the mysterious encounter. This chapel is
a humble little building, only a few feet in diameter. St. Peter’s
question is inscribed over the door.
[6] St. Clement was soon exiled to the Chersonesus, where he remained
for several years before his martyrdom there, and St. Linus during
his absence filled his place in Rome till the death of St. Clement
and his own succession to the Pontificate. Hence, many historians call
Linus the immediate successor of St. Peter. St. Clement occupied the
Papal Chair for 9 years, 6 months and 6 days, and, whereas modern lay
historians give the length of St. Linus’ reign as one year, he reigned
in reality for 11 years, 2 months and 23 days. The confusion of the
various Roman calendars at the time of the birth of our Lord gave rise
to the errors in the calculation of that event and others following it.
Our own accepted date is on that account some years removed from the
true one.
[7] Taken from the epistle of St. Denis the Areopagite to Timothy, in
which he narrates the incident and records the Apostles’ words.
[8] Dom Guéranger.
[9] See “A Diplomatist’s Wife in Many Lands.”
[10] Until the year 844 the Popes had continued to bear their own names
after being elected to the Throne, but when the choice fell on a holy
and humble man called Peter, he refused to keep the name of the Prince
of the Apostles and chose for himself that of Sergivs—a renunciation
which instituted the custom, followed ever since, of the Pope’s
selecting a new name on his accession.
[11] St. Novatus—apparently a brother or cousin of Pudens.
[12] This translation of Pastor’s narrative is the one used by Augustus
J. Hare in his “Walks in Rome.”
[13] She is often called “Eudoscia,” by historians, and was also named
“Athenaïs,” being the daughter of a famous rhetorician of Athens.
[14] See “A Diplomatist’s Wife in Many Lands.”
[15] “Argumentosa”—that which is proven.
[16] This hypothesis appears to me more reasonable than the one
usually put forward, viz: That Cecilia’s inscription was destroyed
by the Goths. They destroyed many such inscriptions, with the tombs
that bore them, but the resting-place of St. Cecilia when discovered
showed no marks of violence and answered precisely to the contemporary
description of it.
[17] It is amusing to note in this connection the statement
in Baedeker’s guidebook for Rome, p. 422: “St. Cecilia in
Trastevere—originally a dwelling house, which was converted into a
Church by Urban I., _who was misled by the erroneous tradition that St.
Cecilia had once occupied it_.” The italics are my own. Such ignorance
of history requires no comment.
[18] The coffin is four feet, three inches long, thirteen inches broad,
and seventeen inches high.
[19] Augustus Hare.
[20] Every Cardinal takes his title from one or other of the ancient
Churches—hence the term “Titular Cardinal of St. Cecilia,” “of St.
Clement,” etc., etc.
[21] The Acts of St. Cecilia have always been considered among the
most absolutely authentic of those preserved by the Church, and
every circumstance connected with the finding of her body, both by
Paschal and Sfondrato, bears them out. Tillesnaut, the lying Jansenist
historian so dear to heretic students, and who seems to have had a
particularly malevolent hatred for St. Cecilia, has made a ludicrous
attempt to prove—if such arguments could be called by that name—that
St. Cecilia was not a Roman, and as we know her never existed. He
supports this amazing theory on one line many times re-copied by
ignorant scribes, of the poet Fortunatus, who speaks of “St. Cecilia”
as having suffered in “Sicilia.” The Church knows of no Sicilian
martyr of that name, but there was one in Sardinia, a name which one of
Fortunatus’ copyists apparently mistook for “Sicilia.”
[22] Galerius, on his deathbed, by the so-called “Edict of Sardis,”
disavowed his errors and proclaimed liberty for the Christians, but
the war against them was still carried on both by the usurping Emperors
who were Constantine’s rivals, and by the hatred of the still powerful
pagan Governors.
[23] These words are always quoted in Latin and so I transcribe them,
but in reality they appeared in the Greek tongue.
[24] There is a mediæval legend that Constantine had been advised by
the pagan priests to cure his leprosy by bathing in the blood of three
thousand children, and that he was about to immolate that number for
the purpose, when, his pity being aroused by the despair of their
mothers, he forbade the sacrifice. That this is a pure invention is
patent, for Constantine was a just and merciful man, even before his
conversion, and, when he came to Rome, was familiar with the tenets of
Christianity and well disposed to embrace them.
[25] Tighe Hopkins: “The Man in the Iron Mask.” Hurst & Blackett,
Publishers, London, 1901.
[26] Hopkins, p. 196 _et seq._
[27] Baron: The celebrated French playwright and actor (1653-1729).
[28] “The Venetian Republic,” Vol. 4, p. 525.
Transcriber's Notes
Original spelling and punctuation have been preserved as much as
possible. Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.
End of Project Gutenberg's Italian Yesterdays, vol. 1, by Mrs. Hugh Fraser