have any immediate effect on the lives of fishermen, seamen,
salt-refiners, shipbuilders, and artisans to none of whom it had ever
occurred that the Council was meant for them. When a conspirator made a
pretext of vindicating the rights of the people, the people laughed at
him, and the motive which in all other countries has been the mainstay
of revolutionaries was found not to exist. The people of Venice were, on
the whole, honest, contented, and happy, and both laws and traditions
combined to preserve them in that enviable state; and the government
itself provided wise alternations of work and rest, which greatly
contributed to the same end. For every Venetian, whatever his condition
might be, was expected to be a good sailor and a good soldier, and the
regattas, public archery matches, and gymnastic exercises, which I shall
presently describe, helped to make men both. In 1332 these competitions
were made obligatory for all youths who had reached their eighteenth
birthday. But another matter must be briefly explained before proceeding
further.
In the story of the Venetian conspiracies no mention is ever found of
the two famous factions, the Castellani and the Niccolotti, although the
most bitter hatred was alive between them at the very time when Tiepolo
was conspiring against Gradenigo. It is interesting to follow the rough
and strong threads of those famous popular factions through the woof and
web of Venetian history; and it is curious to find oneself convinced
that they never did the slightest harm to the government of the
Republic, for the reason that both of them loved their country
sincerely.
[Illustration: THE GREAT LAMP, ST. MARK’S]
The reader may remember that in the days of Paulus Anafestus, the first
Doge elected by the popular assembly, a violent dispute arose between
the inhabitants of the islands of Heraclea and Jesolo, which turned into
a pitched battle in the woods of Equilio, so that the stream which
became the Canal Orfano was red with blood.
The former combatants, finding themselves shut up within the walls of
one city, cherished their ancient grudges from generation to generation,
and for more than five hundred years they gave vent to their hatred as
best they could, keeping themselves divided, first as separate parties,
then as separate wards, and finally both in wards and districts,
according to the later divisions of the city; and fighting freely with
one another whenever the public games brought them into conflict, under
the names of Castellani and Cannaruoli, taken from the parts of Venice
they inhabited--the one in the three districts of Castello, Saint Mark,
and Dorsoduro, the other in those of Santa Croce, San Paolo, and
Canarreggio at the other end of the city. They had continued their
separate existence about three hundred years without, seriously
disturbing the public peace, never intermarrying, never even entering
the cathedral by the same door. But in the year 1307 a certain Ramberto
Polo was the bishop of Castello, and the bishop of Castello was ex
officio the bishop of Venice, and depended from the patriarch of Grado.
Now this Ramberto attempted to exact certain tithes which his
predecessor had considered it right to renounce. Five districts of
Venice, and among them that of Saint Nicolas, refuse to pay these
tithes. The bishop insisted, and in spite of the threats of the people,
who had grown
[Illustration: THE CANARREGGIO]
riotous, he determined to visit the church of Saint Nicolas, situated in
that quarter, and to go on foot. At the turn of the street, being
accompanied only by a few persons, he was attacked and cruelly put to
death. That part bears to this day the name of ‘Malcantone,’ the ‘Evil
Corner.’ Those of the Castellani who were held responsible for this
murder were promptly
[Illustration: THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS]
excommunicated; and the others, who had submitted to the bishop, refused
to hold any communication with them, or to have any interest in common
with them, even after the removal of the interdict. The consequence was
that, by way of spite, they now joined the party of the Cannaruoli, thus
forming a numerous faction, which from that time forth was called that
of the ‘Niccolotti,’ and maintained as its device the black banner and
costume of the Cannaruoli, whereas the
[Illustration: S. PAOLO]
faction of the Castellani kept the red. The murderers repented and
obtained pardon, but the new hatred, which had grown upon the old
grudge, was relentless.
[Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Costumi._]
Up to this time the custom of fighting only with reed-canes had been
maintained by both sides; but having heard of the celebrated pugilistic
encounters which were practised at Siena, they now determined to
introduce a custom which offered such excellent opportunities for
fighting. From September to Christmas regular encounters took place
every Sunday upon the bridges, mostly built without parapets, where the
two factions met, each endeavouring to knock and throw as many of their
adversaries as possible into the canal. The bridge which was preferred
for this form of exercise was that of Saint Barnabas, which soon got the
name of ‘Ponte dei Pugni,’ the ‘Bridge of Fisticuffs.’ A less dangerous
form of competition was also practised by the factions, under the name
of ‘Forze d’ Ercole,’ literally the ‘Strength of Hercules.’ A platform
was erected upon empty hogsheads, if the game was to be played on land;
or on punts, if it was to be tried on the canal, as more usually
happened; and upon this foundation the men built themselves up into a
sort of human pyramid. The base was formed by a number of individuals
standing close together, and linking themselves still more firmly by
means of light joists which they held upon their shoulders; on these
joists other men stood, and others again above them, until the pyramid
came to its point in a small boy at the top. The prize belonged to that
faction which could set up the highest pyramid in this way, and keep
perfectly steady while the unenviable little boy at the apex performed
acrobatic feats. This lad received the name of the ‘crest,’ as if the
whole were a coat of arms.
The popular songs of that time exhibit the deep hatred that smouldered
between these divisions of the people; and they have come down through
the centuries to the Venice of to-day, with such little changes of
speech as give new life to a thought without changing its substance.
[Sidenote: _Dalmedico._]
The Castellani and Niccolotti, being constantly opposed to each other,
systematically abused each other in verse during the days that preceded
the encounters. Here is one from the side of the Niccolotti, for
instance:--
O thou great Devil, Lord of Hell!
Grant me this I ask of thee.
I recommend to thee the Niccolotti!
I pray thee carry all the Castellani off to hell!
Give the winning flag to the Niccolotti.
The following is a fine example of party pride:--
When a Niccolotto is born, a god is born!
When a Castellano is born, a brigand is born!
When a Niccolotto is born, a count is born!
When a Castellano is born, he turns out a gallows-builder!
And here is another:--
We are the Niccolotti, that is enough!
We will march with the black scarf, and with the flower in our hat;
and there are knife-wounds for the pigs of Castellani!
On the other hand, the Castellani sang as follows:--
Swine of ill-born Niccolotti, how can you expect the girls to love you?
All night you wallow in the mud, you ill-born swine of Niccolotti.
The mud is that of the lagoons, the Niccolotti being fishermen.
In spite of this constant exchange of amenities, and in spite of their
love of fighting each other, neither Bocconio nor Tiepolo nor Faliero
ever got any advantage from the popular factions. I can recall no other
case nor similar instance in history. They abused each other, but they
all felt that they were sons of Saint Mark, a sentiment which strongly
appears in another song of more generous type which was sung by the two
factions together on occasions of common peril:--
Are we not all of one nation?
Sons of Saint Mark, and of his state?
May God preserve it, and make it grow,
For all the good we have we get from Him!
[Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Less._]
[Sidenote: _Cecchetti, Corte._]
[Sidenote: _Sagredo._]
The Niccolotti had a species of constitution; they had special customs
of their own, and a head who was officially called their ‘gastaldo,’ but
who by an old tradition bore the title of the ‘fisherman’s Doge’; and
who on all public occasions arrayed himself in red like the High
Chancellor, with wide skirts lined with fur in the winter, and, like the
real Doge, wore red stockings and shoes of red morocco. He held so much
to the right of wearing these red hose that he never appeared without
them, even in ordinary life, and when fishing in his boat.
Little by little this chief of the people obtained the right to follow
the Doge to the ‘Espousal of the Sea’ in a beautifully decorated boat
towed by the Bucentaur; he was granted the privilege of dining with the
Doge
[Illustration: THE LITTLE FISH MARKET]
on solemn occasions of the year, and he received the more material
benefits of levying a duty on the fishing-boats of his district, and of
keeping two counters for selling his fish, one at Saint Mark’s and the
other at Rialto; for all the Niccolotti were fishermen by profession,
and they were associated together by their common interests like members
of one numerous family. These fishermen elected their head by a
complicated system, in a solemn assembly held in the church of Saint
Nicolas of the Mendicoli, in the presence of their parish priest and of
the real Doge’s doorkeeper, who acted as ducal ambassador, and regularly
presided over these assemblies in the name of the sovereign, in order to
put down any disturbance which might arise out of differences of opinion
between the voters. At a later time, instead of the porter, the Doge
sent one of the secretaries of the Senate for this purpose. After the
election was decided the Doge’s representative stood forth, carrying the
standard of the Niccolotti, and the new ‘gastaldo’ knelt down before
him, and received the flag with the following words of investiture: ‘I
confide to you this standard in the name of the Most Serene Prince, in
token that you are head and chief of the people of Saint Nicolas, Saint
Raphael, etc.’
The bells of the church were then rung out; and on the following day, or
within two or three days at the latest, the elected man, accompanied by
the parish priests, and preceded by drums, trumpets, and one halberdier,
who carried the standard with the image of Saint Nicolas, went to
present himself to the Doge, in order to receive confirmation of his
office. The Doge
[Illustration: WHEN THE FISHING BOATS ARE IN]
received him in one of the great halls, and exhorted him to be ‘a good
father to that family (of the Niccolotti), and to be careful of the
public dignity’; assuring him that if he did so the Doge himself would
constantly be his protector, and assist him on every occasion. Then the
head of the fishermen came near to the Doge, and knelt down before him
and kissed his hand and the border of his mantle.
The chronicles are inclined to explain the conflicts between the two
factions as the result of exaggerated rivalry in everything resembling
public games. The latter were very common, as the government took every
occasion to provide amusements for the people; and as Signor Molmenti
justly says, ‘the extreme frequency of popular festivals in Venice might
seem surprising, if one did not take into consideration the enormous
energy continually expended in business and work, which brought with it
the necessity of frequent interruptions and amusements.’ After all,
there was a great deal of hard work connected with the Venetian manner
of conducting such diversions. As early as the beginning of the
fourteenth century, there were rowing matches of small boats and skiffs
on all important occasions, and, moreover, races for vessels of fifty
oars. These boats were a species of outrigger canoes, each capable of
carrying fifty rowers, who stood to their oars. Similar boats, if they
may be dignified by that name, were rowed by the Castellani and the
Niccolotti, all wearing their red and black costumes or badges, and
their emulation was shown as much in the manner of adorning their craft
as in the
[Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Costumi._]
race itself. These rowing matches became celebrated throughout the
world, and first received the name of ‘regatta.’ The government
encouraged them as being useful for a people that depended chiefly upon
navigation for its livelihood, and offered large prizes to the winners.
The first prize was a red purse full of gold; the second purse was green
and filled with silver; the third blue, containing small change; the
fourth was empty, and of a yellow colour, and the figure of a little pig
was embroidered upon it, which denoted that the winner was to receive
the live animal for his share.
The practice of shooting at the mark was also very popular in Venice,
and as usual the government managed to derive advantage from it. All men
were obliged to take part in it after the age of eighteen, nobles,
citizens, and plebeians; and during the competition, a fact not
overlooked by the wise administrators of the Republic, the young
fisherman was in all respects the equal of the son or nephew of the Doge
himself, and if he won a prize over him was practically his superior.
The weapon most commonly used in those times was a cross-bow, which was
made entirely of walnut until 1352, and after that was constructed of
wood and steel. It was so cleverly made, we are told, that eight bolts
could be shot from it in quick succession; this being accomplished in
some way not clearly explained, by means of a wheel with eight cogs.
Bows and arrows were also used for shooting at the mark, the arrows
being made in a place which received,
[Illustration: CLOUDS OF SUNSET]
and still retains, the name of the ‘arrow manufactory,’ the
Frezzeria. They were of pine or poplar, about thirty inches long,
thicker at the point than at the butt, and provided with three feathers,
like most of the arrows used in the Middle Ages.
Great magnificence was shown in these shooting matches, both in regard
to the cross-bows and the quivers. We still have specimens of quivers of
that period, made to hold from fifty to a hundred bolts, of red leather
embossed under heavy pressure and carved with a sharp tool, being
ornamented at the top with double lions of Saint Mark. The targets were
set up at different points of the city, but the most famous was on the
Lido. On the appointed days, boats manned by thirty oars were in
readiness at the entrance to the Grand Canal, near the Piazzetta, and it
was the rule that these were to be rowed only by competitors in the
shooting. At twelve o’clock the heads of the ‘duodene,’ which seem to
have been sub-districts, arrived with detachments of from ten to twelve
men each, recruited in all classes of the city; they made their way to
the scene of the competition, followed and encouraged by the multitudes
that came to look on. Lots were drawn to determine the order in which
the young men were to shoot. At the meeting held at Christmas, whoever
hit the bull’s-eye first received ten yards of scarlet cloth; the second
received six yards; the third won a cross-bow and quiver. At the meeting
held in March, the prizes were of another stuff called ‘borsella’; and
in May, a third kind of material was given, called ‘tintilana.’
Among other popular festivals of the Venetians, the free fair held at
the Ascension was of great importance. Until 1357 this lasted eight
days, but, after that, it was prolonged during a fortnight. It was at
this time, as I have said elsewhere, that the famous function of the
‘Espousal of the Sea’ was held. During the fair, every kind of
merchandise was allowed free entrance to the port and was sold in the
Square of Saint Mark’s, in booths and on improvised counters, which gave
that enormous space the air of a market. About the beginning of the
fourteenth century it began to be the custom to wear masks during this
period of mingled business and amusement. It is needless to say that the
fair became a source of large wealth to the treasury, and an opportunity
for making money for many, since at that time an immense number of
foreigners came to Venice from all parts of the world. It has been
estimated that at times as many as two hundred thousand strangers were
present in the city for this occasion, which I shall hereafter take an
opportunity of describing with more detail in the form it had acquired
in a later age.
[Sidenote: _Cecchetti, Mercato._]
Strangers who visit Venice often wonder idly whether there is any
meaning in the half-cabalistic signs coarsely painted on the dyed sails
of the fishing-boats that glide in towards evening, one after the other,
and take their places for the night, like weary live things coming home
to sleep. There shines the roughly-drawn presentment of a cock,
apparently in an attitude of ecstasy before a rising sun that bears a
strong resemblance to an omelet; and there a mystic beast that may be
meant for a donkey, unless it stands for a grasshopper. You may wonder
which, unless you ask of some superannuated old fisherman loitering on
the quay at sunset with his pipe for company. But he will tell you that
the cock and the rising sun are the hereditary emblems of all the
descendants
[Illustration: OFF THE PUBLIC GARDENS]
of ancient Josaphat, a fisherman of Padua who adopted them long ago; and
that the monster grasshopper-donkey is really a horse, and belongs to
another family of fishers, the Cavallarin; and so on, through as many as
you can point out. It is the heraldry of the fisher people, begun long
ago by the Niccolotti and preserved religiously by their descendants to
this present time; and though heraldry is ancient in Venice, there may
be stone coats of arms on walls of time-worn palaces that look down upon
the Grand Canal, less old than some of these rude ancestral bearings of
the sea, that have been handed down from generation to generation
through uncounted centuries.
Possibly, though no one would be bold enough to call it certain, the
fishermen who were the Niccolotti formed the first and oldest guild in
Venice; at all events the others bear a strong resemblance to theirs
when we first hear of them.
[Sidenote: _Molmenti, Vita Privata._]
[Sidenote: _Cecchetti, Corte._]
[Sidenote: _Sagredo._]
They grew up in Venice, as they did in Florence and other cities of
Italy, close corporations of arts and trades, which were protected by
the State, and assured many privileges to those who belonged to them,
chief of which was a sort of monopoly of each branch of industry, which
enriched the workmen without injuring the State. Under laws by which no
new object could be sold except in properly authorised shops, there was
no fear of foreign competition nor of home depression. Each guild was a
little republic in itself, thriving in the heart of the great maritime
Republic, occupied in administering its own affairs, and never making
itself a source of anxiety to the government by meddling in politics.
It thus appears that on the whole the people not only entertained a sort
of natural devotion and a feeling of gratitude towards the nobility, and
lived a life of tranquillity and contentment, with plenty of holidays
and public feasts, with ample means of earning a livelihood, and under
such provisions of public charity as made anything like pauperism next
to impossible; but also that their true strength consisted in the
institution of the arts and guilds, which were recognised and protected
by the laws. I have already said, in respect of the eleventh century,
that each art existed like a small republic in the midst of the great
one; and in the fourteenth century more than one hundred of these
so-called arts had their individual constitutions. One of these
constitutions contained a statute which forbade the members of the arts
and guilds from doing anything which might interfere with or oppose the
ordinances of the government, and most expressly forbade anything which
could be looked upon as conspiracy. Each art had its own ‘gastaldo,’ or
judge, and a certain number of elders, who ruled it according to its
constitution, and as connecting links between their own tribunal, which
might be called a family court, and the central government of the State.
There were also three judges called ‘justiciaries,’ who were elected by
the Great Council. It was morally impossible for any one to exercise
even the simplest and humblest of these arts until he had been admitted
by the council of the one in which he wished to work. It would have been
as dangerous as to introduce into Venice any sort of merchandise that
was already manufactured there, and by that means bring about
competition between Venetian and foreign products. So far as the higher
arts and trades were concerned, such as, for instance, glass-making, it
was strictly forbidden to allow any workman to leave Venice who was in
a position to take abroad the secrets of an industry of which it was
intended to keep the monopoly at home.
Every sort of guild comprised many degrees and a number of officers, so
that the liveliest competition went on between the members, the
apprentice constantly striving to become a craftsman, while the
craftsman thought of nothing but the moment at which he should be able
to stand the test, which was a real examination, by which he might
obtain a right to the title of ‘master,’ not only because the latter
represented the highest degree to which he could aspire, but because it
conferred upon the sons of whoever obtained it the right to become
masters without being required to stand the test. The test examination
for the ‘degree’ of master consisted in executing a difficult piece of
work within a certain number of hours or days. For instance, a man
became a master of mosaic paving when he could lay out and finish the
pavement of a large room, so that not the smallest crack or crevice or
flaw could be detected in it, and so that the level of the whole surface
should nowhere vary by more than the thickness of a ducat.
In some of the arts apprentices were not admitted under the age of
twelve; in others, such as shipbuilding, where the work was done in the
open air, they could begin from the time when they were eight years old.
Glass-workers were forbidden to make use of children’s labour in such
work as grinding glass, or in any kind of occupation that could injure
their health, such as tending the furnaces during the hot season.
The workmen of the arsenal also formed several guilds of a superior
order, and had special rules, which I shall notice in another place, for
the arsenal did not reach the height of its importance and activity till
the sixteenth century.
Each corporation or guild elected its ‘gastaldo’ by a majority of votes,
and his authority may be described as partaking of the paternal, and of
that of a justice of the peace. When any conflict arose between two or
more members of the guild he was appealed to, and his verdict was
perfectly legal. In grave cases, where it became absolutely necessary to
appeal to the public tribunals, the latter were bound to take into
consideration the rules of the charter of that guild to which the
parties belonged; those rules were called the mariegole,’ and no
sentence was lawful which was in contradiction with them.