have been well aware that Pisani’s condemnation had been utterly unjust;
Pisani had suffered that condemnation without complaint, and well knew
that the Doge had voted for it; both were brave and patriotic men, who
believed devoutly in the system by which their own aristocracy repressed
among its members any attempt at individualism, spied upon itself, and
treated failure as a crime. Pisani, if the situation had been reversed,
would have condemned Contarini as unhesitatingly as Contarini had
condemned him. It was certainly against the theory of the Republic that
he should be taken out of prison before he had expiated his defeat; but
it was inevitable, and he was free.
Yet both men found something to say in these almost absurd
circumstances, which was neither commonplace, nor undignified, nor
merely complimentary.
[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 278._]
‘Your prudent and wise conduct,’ said the Doge, ‘will efface your
misfortunes, and avenge not only any offence which you may have received
yourself’--Pisani had been called a coward by the provveditor of the
Republic--‘but also the injuries which our country has suffered at the
hands of our enemies; you will therefore consider rather the favour done
you now than the past disgrace in which you have been, and you will
gladly seize this occasion of proving how unfounded those accusations
were which were made against you, and how much you desire to earn in
future the gratitude of our country.’
To this cleverly-worded and not wholly inane speech Pisani replied that
he had altogether forgotten the past, and that he should find means, by
the grace of God, to deserve the confidence placed in him.
Before he was allowed to depart he was informed that he was not to have
sole command of the Venetian troops, since Taddeo Giustiniani had been
entrusted with the defence on the side towards the Lido. Pisani bent his
head and answered that he had at all times obeyed the orders of the
Signory.
[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 279._]
But the people were less submissive to this schoolmaster justice; they
would have Pisani, and no one but Pisani. Even the soldiers who came
from the little island of Torcello protested. ‘Command us what you
will,’ they said to him, ‘we will do whatever you order us, but it must
be under your own eyes.’
So a deputation of the younger ones among them went to the ducal palace,
carrying the banner of Torcello before them, and addressed the
counsellors. ‘For the love of God,’ they said, ‘give us three galleys,
which we will equip at our own cost, on condition that we be always, and
everywhere, under the orders of Vittor Pisani.’
By way of answer they were ordered to go to the Lido and fight under
Taddeo Giustiniani. ‘We will be cut into small pieces rather than fight
under him,’ cried the men of Torcello, who were assembled in the square
when the deputation brought them the answer of the Signory.
[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 280._]
The Venetians took up the cry, and again the government was obliged to
yield. To paralyse the people’s enthusiasm at such a moment, to shake
their confidence, to trample upon their wholesale sympathies, was to
lose Venice herself. When it was known that Pisani was appointed
commander-in-chief of all the forces, the enthusiasm of the city broke
out in wild cheering for Saint Mark, for the Doge, for the government;
all the men hastened to enroll themselves under his standard, and all
the women brought whatever they possessed of value to the palace, both
jewels and other objects; they even ripped the silver trimmings and
embroideries from their clothes. Forty galleys which lay in the arsenal
were fitted out in three days, and in the same time two-thirds of the
crews necessary had been found.
The government promised great rewards to all who should distinguish
themselves in the struggle. It was announced that thirty citizen
families, whichever should contribute the most directly to the salvation
of the Republic, should be inscribed in the Golden Book of the nobles;
that all strangers who would take arms to defend Venice should be
adopted as children by the State, and should enjoy all the privileges
accorded to the original burghers; finally, the government promised to
distribute five thousand ducats, or over thirty-seven hundred pounds
sterling, to the poorer families of the city not belonging to the
nobility. Having made these promises, the State, by its decree,
proceeded to threaten vengeance against all who should desert the posts
assigned to them, or attempt to leave Venice so long as it was menaced
by the enemy.
When all was ready for the bold attempt the Senate took final measures
for the disposition of the troops, as well as for the police of the
city. In those quarters which were most exposed to an attack, as, for
instance, that of the Niccolotti, the inhabitants were to be continually
ready to fight at a moment’s notice; in the remaining quarters only
one-third of the men were to remain at home as a garrison, while the
rest placed themselves under the orders of Pisani at the front. A
careful watch was kept upon all vagabonds, idlers, and other suspicious
persons as long as the war lasted, lest any of them should enter into
correspondence with the enemy’s fleet.
When we consider the condition of the Republic at this moment, it must
seem little short of amazing that Venice should have survived at all.
The territory of the State was reduced by the invasion of the allies to
little more than the city itself; every outpost except the tower of the
salt-works was in the hands of the enemy; a large fleet with a very
strong force of men was in safe possession of Chioggia, the key to the
lagoons; and all attempts at negotiating with the enemy had signally
failed. The Republic had, indeed, gone so far as to send a suppliant
embassy to her former vassal, Francesco Carrara; he was addressed with
humility as ‘Powerful and magnificent lord,’ and a fair sheet of blank
paper was laid before him on which he was requested to note with his own
hand his own terms for peace, with the sole condition that Venice should
still be considered independent; and the ambassadors had brought with
them some Genoese prisoners whom
[Illustration: THE HORSES OVER THE GREAT DOOR, ST. MARK’S]
they offered to return without ransom. But these humble proposals were
haughtily refused, Carrara bade the suppliants to return and take their
prisoners with them, threatening that he would ere long bridle the
bronze horses of Saint Mark’s and keep them quiet for ever.
I have quoted this incident as it is given from Chinazzo’s chronicle in
Smedley’s _Sketches from Venetian History_, and there seems no reason to
doubt the authority of the Italian historian, whose work is to be found
in Muratori.
Pisani had lost no time, while the allies were wasting theirs in useless
reconnoitring and futile skirmishes. He had fortified the entrance of
the Lido with temporary towers built in the short space of four days, he
had sunk hulks in all the important channels, and had got ready a great
number of small boats with which to convey his men across the shallow
water. Moreover, as many among his troops had no experience of the oar,
he had trained them as well as might be, in the short time, on the canal
now known as the Giudecca. But he had kept his own plan a secret, and it
does not appear that when the Venetians made their bold attack upon the
allies they knew what their leader purposed. It was enough that he led
them; they followed him, to do or die.
Andrea Contarini, eighty years of age, but still as brave as any youth
in the host, would not suffer the expedition to go forth without him,
and his example not only roused the enthusiasm of every fighting man,
but was followed by a number of senators too old to bear arms. In the
last extremity of danger Venice had one vast advantage against
overwhelming odds, for her people were united to a man. Men gave not
only themselves but all their fortunes to save their country, and for
the first and, I believe, the last time in history, a commercial people
forgave one another their commercial debts for the sake of the common
safety. One individual burgher fitted out a galley at his own expense;
another bound himself to support a thousand men throughout the war; all
those who had anything to give gave it freely, and those who had nothing
gave themselves.
[Illustration: ON THE GIUDECCA]
The offensive movement of the Venetians had been preceded by several
successful skirmishes in October and November, the result of which had
been that the Genoese had more or less abandoned operations for the
winter, and had withdrawn their fleet into the safe harbour of Chioggia
to await the spring, leaving only three galleys to cruise before the
entrance in case a surprise should be attempted. They seem to have been
as sure of taking Venice as if they had been anchored opposite the
Piazzetta; and in accordance with the military practice of those days,
they and their allies hibernated, apparently taking it for granted that
the Venetians would do the same, and wait resignedly to be destroyed in
warmer weather. They were rudely awakened from their secure dreams of
victory and spoil.
[Sidenote: _1379. Rom. iii. 285._]
The Venetian fleet stole out to sea on the evening of the twenty-first
of December, consisting of thirty-four galleys, sixty smaller armed
vessels, and hundreds of flat-bottomed boats. Pisani led the van, towing
two heavy old hulks laden with stones. There is a disagreement of
authorities as to the day of the month on which he left Venice, but all
agree that the Venetians appeared off the Chioggia entrance and landed
four thousand men on the point of Brondolo island at dawn on the
following morning--no inconsiderable feat, though the night had been the
longest of the year. The distance, on a modern admiralty chart, from the
port of Lido to the Chioggia entrance, outside the islands, I find to be
about thirteen nautical miles; by the canals within the lagoons it is
considerably farther, but it is certain that Pisani went by the open
sea.
The Genoese were taken by surprise. The three cruisers on duty as
sentinels outside the port were not where they should have been, and we
hear no more of
[Illustration: THE CITY IN THE SEAS]
them; it almost looks as if, in their security, the invaders must have
given up that last precaution.
In the face of a heavy fire and with the loss of one vessel, burned by
the enemy, Pisani succeeded in sinking his hulks across the entrance. To
the last the Genoese do not appear to have understood his intention, for
they themselves, or their own fire, helped to sink the heavily-ballasted
vessels, and it was not until all was over, and the barrier had been
made insurmountable by heaping other material upon it, that they plainly
saw what had happened. They were caught like mice in a trap, unless they
could get their fleet out by some other way. The mouth of the Brenta
river at Brondolo, two miles to the southward, still remained navigable,
and Pisani proceeded to blockade it in the same way, though with far
greater difficulty. Federico Cornaro was entrusted with the dangerous
and difficult task, and accomplished it under a terrific fire, Pisani
protecting him meanwhile from any attack from the Genoese vessels.
This being done, the enemy’s fleet was paralysed, and the result could
only have been a matter of time, if Pisani had been in command of a
regular force. Instead, his men were volunteers and raw recruits,
capable of magnificent courage in a single engagement, as they had
shown, and ready to shed their blood as they had given their treasure;
but they were ill accustomed to exposure, to night work at sea in the
depth of winter, to a hundred small daily sufferings to which a trained
seaman is hardened and indifferent. Clearly, Pisani could not leave the
scene of action, even for a day, and even if he had consented to such an
act of folly, there was the old Doge, swearing upon the hilt of his
sword never to return to Venice till the enemy was thoroughly beaten.
Yet the volunteers of the people cared little for such an example, and
threatened to go home to Venice in a body, leaving the Genoese to dig
their way out if they could, and indifferent to the fact that if left to
themselves they could certainly find means of reaching Venice within a
few days, though they could not bring their fleet. They had been in real
danger now, and they would waste no more time in idleness or futile
skirmishing.
It was in vain that Pisani tried to cheer such a force by reminding them
that Carlo Zeno, with a strong fleet manned by veteran seamen, was
expected to return. The people knew well enough that he had been
expected for months, and that there was no reason why he should appear
providentially at the present juncture. It was the Christmas season;
they had fought like lions, shut up their enemies, and momentarily
averted extreme danger; for amateur soldiers this seemed enough, and
they clamoured to be allowed to go back to their wives and children.
Like Columbus, Pisani saw himself on the very verge of losing the result
of all his labour, for lack of a little more trust on the part of his
men. To keep them by force was impossible, for they themselves were the
male population of Venice, and for the time being they held good and
evil in their hands. Even the senators and other nobles murmured at
being obliged
[Illustration: RIO S. POLO]
to keep at sea, and often under fire, because the Doge had rashly sworn
a solemn oath to remain.
On the thirtieth of December Pisani was driven to such extremities as to
be forced to promise that unless Carlo Zeno appeared in forty-eight
hours the fleet should return to the Lido, in spite of the Doge and his
vow. There was no reason at all why Zeno should be expected; it was a
mere empty promise, but it gained time; something could still be done in
two days and two nights.
He laboured and fought on, and the short limit of time expired with the
dawn of New Year’s Day. Zeno had not come, and Pisani’s men would not
stay another hour. By his promise he must let them go, and it needed not
his wisdom to foresee that their defection meant the fall of Venice, the
end of the Republic, the general destruction of the insensate population
themselves with all they had. It was of little use to have been their
idol for years and their victorious dictator for ten days, if they could
not bear a little cold and a little hardship for his sake. The day rose
wearily for Pisani.
[Sidenote: _Marble bust of Carlo Zeno, unknown artist; Museo Civico,
Room XVI._]
Then, from aloft, a sail was sighted. It was the sail of a galley.
Another, and another, and another, all galleys unmistakably, they hove
in sight above the horizon, eighteen in all. Hostile, or friendly? That
was the question. Zeno, or destruction and the end? Then the banner of
Saint Mark broke out from the peak of the foremost, and floated fair on
the morning breeze. It was Zeno indeed.
And not only had the famous leader himself come at the one moment of
all others when he was most needed, perhaps in his whole life; he came
as a victor, bringing prizes and spoil of inestimable value. He had laid
waste the Genoese coast, almost to the city itself; he had intercepted
Genoese convoys of grain off Apulia, he had harassed the enemy’s
commerce in the East, and he had captured, off Rhodes, a huge vessel of
theirs with five hundred thousand pieces of gold.
All this he told the Doge on board the latter’s galley. He had been
twice wounded and was not yet recovered, but nothing could diminish his
energy nor damp his ardour; at his own request he was stationed at the
post of greatest danger, opposite Brondolo, and though the Genoese made
a supreme effort to destroy the barriers and get their ships out during
a gale, in which some of Zeno’s ships dragged their anchors, he drove
them triumphantly back into their prison, and blockaded them more
securely than ever. In this action he was nearly killed again. An arrow
pierced his throat when the gale had driven him under one of the Genoese
forts. Lest he should bleed to death he would not pluck out the missile,
but remained on deck to save his ship; till, stumbling in the dusk, he
fell down an open hatch. He was lifted up senseless, the arrow was
withdrawn, and he was half suffocated by his own blood; but his senses
revived, and he had himself turned upon his face, so that the blood
might run freely out and allow him to breathe. To such a man it seemed
as if nothing short of sudden death outright could be fatal; he refused
to leave his ship, and in a marvellously short space of time he was
about his duty again as if nothing had happened.
Meanwhile Pisani pushed the siege and bombarded Chioggia. In his force
there were numbers of German and English mercenaries, who came to blows
and killed each other by the score; but an English captain named William
Gold had authority enough to quell the disorder, and the regular
fighting went on.
[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 289._]
Pisani continued to bombard Brondolo. The beginnings of artillery were
unwieldy in the extreme, it being thought that the main object should be
to throw a missile of great size and weight, even at long intervals,
rather than to discharge much smaller ammunition with precise aim. One
of Pisani’s mortars is said to have thrown a marble ball weighing two
hundred pounds, and the smallest siege mortars projected masses of one
hundred and forty pounds. To clean, load, and once fire one of these
clumsy howitzers was often the work of a whole day; but if by any chance
the shot took effect, the result was formidable. A single ball from
Pisani’s great bombard knocked down the church tower of Brondolo with a
considerable piece of the ramparts close by, burying Pietro Doria and
his nephew under the ruins.
[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 288._]
The Venetians now held all the approaches to the lagoons from the sea;
and by taking the port of Loredo at the mouth of the Adige, they cut off
Brondolo and Chioggia from all communication with the Duke of Ferrara,
who had hitherto sent supplies of provisions and reinforcements by that
way. The time was not far distant when famine must begin to make itself
felt among the besieged, and the Venetians redoubled their efforts.
Meanwhile, after the death of Doria, a bold man of original mind,
Napoleone Grimaldi, took command of the Genoese. He soon saw that in the
existing conditions Brondolo must fall, and that his fleet could never
escape. It occurred to him that a canal could be dug straight through
the island to the open sea, by which he could bring his ships out during
the night, and immediately threaten Venice herself, before the Venetian
fleet could return.
The work was begun, but the Venetians discovered it in time. Grimaldi
had even then no less than thirteen thousand fighting men in Brondolo
and Chioggia; the Venetians had barely eight thousand. They had appealed
to the famous English condottiero John Hawkwood, whose engagement to
fight for the Milanese had just expired; but he either thought the
Venetians were playing a losing game, or else he found more lucrative
employment elsewhere, for after promising his assistance he failed to
come. Venice now called for volunteers, and all sorts and conditions of
men appeared in answer to the call. Among them there was even a canon of
Saint Mark’s, Giovanni Loredan, with four of his servants.
In the absence of any famous condottiero to take the command, the
Signory condescended to appoint Carlo Zeno to the command of the land
troops. He saw that if Grimaldi’s project was to be frustrated,
Brondolo must be taken at once, and the whole Genoese force must be
driven into Chioggia. He was as good a soldier as he was a sailor, and
he did not fail. His practice in all warfare was to take every possible
precaution before fighting at all, and then to engage with the most
reckless and furious energy.
Deceived by Zeno’s manœuvres, the whole garrison of Brondolo was drawn
out in the direction of ‘Little’ Chioggia. Seizing the opportune moment,
Zeno then succeeded in throwing himself between Brondolo itself and its
small army, at the very moment when the latter was attacked by Zeno’s
soldiers of fortune. The whole body of Genoese fled in a panic towards
the bridge of Chioggia, trampling upon each other, pursued and cut to
pieces by Zeno. Under the weight of the fugitives the bridge broke, and
hundreds were drowned in the canal, while the Venetians literally slew
thousands within a quarter of a mile of the bridge head. That night a
perfect suit of armour could be bought for a ducat--just fifteen
shillings.
Brondolo was lost that day. And worse followed, for though the Genoese
commander threatened to hang every fighting man who left Chioggia--if he
could catch him--the garrison deserted in great numbers during the
night, many of them being Paduans and subjects of Carrara, who had not
far to go in order to reach their homes.
It was clear to Grimaldi that since this last defeat he could expect no
further help except from Genoa itself; and, in fact, a fleet of twenty
galleys had left that city almost a month before Brondolo had fallen.
When this was known the Venetian soldiers clamoured
[Illustration: MOONLIGHT NIGHT, S. M. DELL’ ORTO]
to be allowed to attack Chioggia, and drive out the Genoese before
succour could reach them. But neither Pisani nor Zeno would hear of
this, and bravely assumed the whole responsibility of a protracted
siege, well knowing that Chioggia was a most dangerous place to attack,
but that it must inevitably yield to famine at last. So the winter wore
on and still the besiegers and the besieged faced each other, each side
wondering, perhaps, how long the other would persist.
For Venice herself, accustomed as she was to draw all her supplies from
a distance, was beginning to lack corn, and it at last became necessary
to send Taddeo Giustiniani with a convoy of ships to Southern Italy in
order to bring back wheat. On his return he was overtaken by the new
Genoese fleet, beaten and taken prisoner, and soon afterwards the enemy
appeared before Venice. The corn had already arrived in safety and all
danger of famine was relieved, for Giustiniani had sent the laden ships
on before him, protected by half his squadron; but its safety had cost
him the other half and his own liberty.
The enemy’s new fleet was commanded by Maruffo, a man of action, who now
did his best to tempt Pisani to a naval engagement; but the Venetian
admiral stubbornly refused to be drawn into a fight, and pursued the
siege of Chioggia with obstinate determination. It is clear that as the
Genoese fleet could not possibly get inside the lagoons, and could do no
damage from without, Pisani’s refusal to fight was equivalent to
paralysing the new fleet; it was as useless, for a time, as if it had
not existed. On the other hand, Pisani successfully intercepted more
than eighty barges laden with food supplies which Carrara attempted to
send to the beleaguered town, and Chioggia was approaching the last
extremity of famine.
[Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 291._]
The besieged then began to pull down some of the wooden houses of
Chioggia in order to make rafts, with which they hoped to cross the
shallow lagoon, and in some way to effect a junction with Maruffo’s
fleet; but Pisani’s cannon sunk many of these rafts, or punts, and the
remainder were either intercepted by Zeno or forced back to Chioggia.
Even the drinking water was now failing, and the besieged sent
representatives to make terms with the Doge. For in spite of the murmurs
of the elderly senators, who were obliged by mere decency to remain at
the scene of action so long as the chief of the Republic refused to
leave it, Contarini insisted upon abiding by his oath, to the very
letter. He answered that there could be no terms at all: Chioggia must
surrender unconditionally.
During two days longer the city held out, and in that short time secret
agents attempted to sow sedition amongst the mercenaries in the service
of Venice, and even tried to send letters to Carrara in order to concert
a last desperate attempt for freedom; but the dissatisfaction of the
condottieri was easily appeased by a promise of more money, and the
messengers to Padua were caught. On the twenty-fourth of June Chioggia
surrendered.