documents proceeding from opposite sources, it is now so hard to
ascertain the simple truth, that the story of the younger Carrara is
told in two quite opposite ways. The version I have given seems to be
the more reasonable one; the other tells us that it was not Visconti,
but Venice, that persecuted the young couple, and that it was not
Venice, but Visconti, who in the end recalled them to Padua. Be that as
it may, Carrara was once more in possession of his principality in 1392.
It seems to me thoroughly in accordance with the policy of Venice to
have thus installed him again at her very gates and under her
protection, in order to crush him and his family the more effectually,
as she soon afterwards did. Fourteen years later Venice had literally
forced him to declare war against her, and had sent the invincible Carlo
Zeno to command her armies; the inevitable result had followed, and
Carrara himself with two of his sons were prisoners in the ducal palace.
The three were condemned to death, and were strangled in prison.
The private execution of the noble prisoners of war was not acknowledged
by the government, and the city was gravely informed that they had, all
three, died of colds or coughs, vaguely described as catarrh. But the
people were not deceived, and were certainly not displeased; and within
twenty-four hours a triumphant song was bawled through the streets of
Venice, of which the burden was ‘A dead man makes no war.’ The words
have remained a proverb in Italy.
The elder Carrara, long a state prisoner in Milan, had been duly
poisoned with ‘magical liquors’ by the five court physicians of Visconti
in 1393. One of the younger Carrara’s younger sons died in Florence very
soon after his father, but the fourth survived to be murdered in his
turn nearly thirty years later.
I find in Smedley’s _Sketches from Venetian History_ a very curious and
interesting note with regard to him and to the disappearance of his
race.
[Sidenote: _Smedley, I. chap. x. note._]
The family name of Carrara, like that of the Scottish Macgregors,
was proscribed. A branch of the House which still (1831) exists, or
did exist not long ago, at Padua, was compelled to adopt the name
of Pappa-fava, a _sobriquet_ the origin of which has been traced as
follows by Gataro. Marsilietto da Carrara, Signor of Padua for one
short month before his assassination, in 1345, when a boy, was
lodged, during a Pestilence which raged in the Capital, in a
Monastery at Brondolo. ‘Now in all the great religious houses it is
an ancient custom to have vegetable broth at dinner every day of
the week. On Monday it is made of beans (_fave_), on Tuesday of
haricots, on Wednesday of chick-peas, and so on. Marsilietto was so
fond of beans that it always appeared a thousand years to him till
the Monday came round, and, when it did, he devoured the beans with
such delight as was a pleasure to behold. He was, therefore,
nicknamed _Pappa-fava_ (Bean-glutton) by the rest, and his
descendants have retained the name.’
The threefold murder of the Carrara, for it was nothing else, must be
regarded as the first result of the continental development of Venice
after the war of Chioggia, a development which brought her into closer
contact with a number of thoroughly unscrupulous princes and
governments. If her misdeeds can be condoned at all, it must be upon
that ground; but I find it impossible to agree with Mr. Hazlitt, the
author of a recent valuable history entitled _The Venetian Republic_, in
considering that, on the whole, Carrara had something like a fair trial,
and deserved his fate. The whole body of evidence goes to show that, for
his times, he was an exceptionally frank and courageous prince, and much
of the so-called proof that was used against him in the end was obtained
by the merciless application of torture. Mr. Hazlitt’s real love of
Venice has, I think, prejudiced him too much in her favour in this
instance, and his affectionate industry has discovered everything that
can be said in her defence, without bestowing the same care on a fair
statement of the other side. In a similar way, a little farther on, he
speaks of the outrageous condemnation of Carlo Zeno to a year’s
imprisonment as an act not unjustifiable, because it was proved that
Zeno had actually received a small sum of money from Carrara; but Mr.
Hazlitt passes over Zeno’s defence in silence. The invincible warrior
admitted, indeed, that he had received the money, but his explanation
was perfectly simple and honourable. He had lent the little sum to the
prince when the latter had been an outcast, wandering through Italy with
his young wife, and Carrara had repaid the money when he had regained
Padua. Zeno was over seventy years of age at the time when he was
condemned to a year’s imprisonment in a dungeon for this act of charity
and its consequences; he was the bravest and truest Venetian of his
times; he had saved his country from destruction, and had served her
with the most perfect integrity under the most trying circumstances, and
more than once in the face of her basest ingratitude; he reaped the
reward which fell to the share of almost every distinguished Venetian,
for he was feared by the government, hated by the fellow-nobles whom he
had outstripped in honour, and condemned by men who were not worthy to
loose the latchet of his shoes. And he was convicted on account of a
paltry sum of three hundred ducats, lent to a wanderer in distress and
duly returned--he, who had given thousands from his own resources to
satisfy the demands of the sordid mercenaries whom Venice had employed
in the war of Chioggia! In trying to make out that he was treated with
justice, Mr. Hazlitt attempts to prove too much. Before quitting a point
to which I shall not return, let me, however, testify to the value of
Mr. Hazlitt’s work, and to the great and useful industry with which he
has consulted and accurately quoted a number of authorities not only
inaccessible to the ordinary reader, but rarely mentioned, and in some
cases not at all, by such historians as Daru, Romanin, and even
Sismondi.
The stern justice of former days degenerated into cold cruelty in the
fifteenth century. When the Republic set a price on the heads of
Carrara’s two youngest sons, after vainly attempting to get possession
of their persons by diplomatic means, they were mere boys.
[Sidenote: _Rom. iv. 42._]
When Zeno was called before the Council of Ten on the night of the
twentieth of January 1406, the warrant for his examination authorised
the use of torture, if it should seem necessary. But even the Ten
hesitated at that. He admitted and explained the matter of the money
lent and repaid; his explanations of his reasons for having received and
talked with an envoy from Padua were as honourable as they were clear,
and the Ten being mercifully inclined that night, did not proceed to
stretch Venice’s greatest hero on the rack, but only condemned him to
the Pozzi for a year, and to the perpetual loss of all offices he held.
He accepted the sentence without a murmur, and his frame of steel did
not permanently suffer from the confinement, for he lived twelve years
longer in perfect
[Illustration: PONTE FIORENZOLA]
health, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, was once more in command of the
troops of the Republic, defeated the Cypriotes, and died at last in the
full possession of his faculties, leaving his name to undying glory,
and the memory of his judges to eternal shame.
The Venetians had buried the elder and the younger Carrara with great
magnificence, dressed in rich velvet, with their golden spurs on their
heels and their swords by their sides. When Zeno died at last, it was
necessary that his funeral should outshine at least the obsequies
accorded to the murdered foes of the Republic. The Doge and the Senate
attended, and the citizens followed him to his grave in their thousands;
but it is good to read that what was left of him was borne to its last
rest on the shoulders of brave seamen who had served with him, fought
under him, and shed their blood with him. He lies in the church of Santa
Maria della Celestia, where you may see his tomb to this day.
An age of transition is sure to be an age of contrasts. One may compare,
for instance, the Doge Michel Steno with his successor, Tomaso Mocenigo,
the extreme of extravagance with the extreme of economy, the increasing
indebtedness of each department of the State with the excessive severity
of the magistrates whose duty it was to watch suspected persons; and
from the officials who ‘defended the faith’ one may turn to the wild
band of noble youths who called themselves the ‘Compagnia della Calza,’
the ‘Hose Club,’ and whose chief occupation was to amuse and be amused.
The laws were full of contrasts, too. The Doge Michel Steno, the first
of the fifteenth century, kept
[Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Commercio._]
four hundred horses in his stables, and by way of adding absurdity to
extravagance he dyed their coats yellow, according to the ridiculous
custom of the times. Yet he was forbidden by law to blazon his
coat-of-arms on the ducal palace, or, in fact, anywhere else, and he was
not allowed to have himself addressed as ‘My Lord.’ The law required him
to wear a mantle of royal ermine, and to provide his servants with two
new liveries each year; yet he could be treated like a boy, and told to
be silent and sit down in Council, as actually happened to him a few
years after his election.
[Sidenote: _Armand Baschet, Archives._]
The story is worth telling. I have spoken of the ‘Avogadori del Commun,’
who were officers of considerable importance and power, and not at first
noble. They stood, in a manner, between private individuals and the
State in matters of law, civil and criminal; partly in the position of a
modern attorney-general, partly as representing the exchequer, but they
had a right of interference in many other matters. Two of them were
bound to be present at every Council, including that of the Ten, arrayed
in long red robes, and they had power to suspend all judgments during
three days in cases which, if not positively criminal, concerned the
execution of laws and edicts. Though at first not nobles, and perhaps
for that very reason, it had always been their business to act as a
Heralds’ Office for the purpose of examining into all titles of nobility
and claims for seats in the Grand Council.
Now it happened on the second of June in 1410 that a certain noble
called Donato Michiel proposed the repeal of a law which had been
approved six years earlier by the Great Council; the Avogadori opposed
the motion, and accused the patrician of encroaching on their rights.
But the Doge Steno, agreeing with the noble, lost his temper, and spoke
sharply to the Avogadori. Now the ducal oath forbade the Doge to speak
in defence of any one unless he could obtain permission to do so from
four out of six of his counsellors. Three of the latter now tried to
call him to order, but he would not listen to them. ‘Messer Doge,’ they
then said bluntly, ‘let your Serenity sit down and be silent, and leave
the Avogadori quite free to do their duty!’
Two other counsellors now took the Doge’s side, and he went on talking;
whereupon the Avogadori imposed on him a fine and threatened to bring an
action against him. Both parties grew more and more obstinate, and the
quarrel lasted several days, until some intelligent persons discovered
that the Doge had not broken his ducal oath, because the Avogadori had
not yet formally made accusation against Donato Michiel, so that what
the Doge had said had not been said in defence of any one, there being
no legally accused person, but as a general statement of opinion; and in
this way the affair was patched up without scandal.
Under the rule of Tomaso Mocenigo, Steno’s successor, the Republic seems
to have recovered something of its pristine vigour, and the germs of
internal corruption were retarded in their growth for a time. Mocenigo
was as austere, as prudent, and as active as
[Illustration: LAND GATEWAY, PALAZZO FOSCARI]
Steno had been extravagant, hot-tempered, and careless. Venice now
finally obtained possession of Friuli and Dalmatia, which made her
mistress of the Adriatic as far as Corfu.
Mocenigo was a man of iron will and inflexible principle. Nothing gives
a clearer idea of his character than his own recapitulation of his nine
years’ reign, when he lay dying of old age.
On his deathbed he assembled about him the principal officers of the
Republic, and drew a clear picture of the condition of the country at
the end of his administration, giving his hearers at the same time
valuable advice as to the election of his successor, which they
unfortunately did not follow. I quote the speech in full:--
My Lords, by the weakness in which I find myself, I know that I am
near the end of my life; wherefore, since I owe great obligation to
this my country, which has not only nourished and brought me up,
but has also
[Sidenote: _Rom. iv. 93._]
granted me as much pre-eminence and as many honours as can be
conferred upon one of her citizens, and although I have always
been devoted to my country with my life and with such poor means
as fortune gave me, yet I know that by this I have not repaid even
a small part of all the good which I have received; and being
brought to a limit where I can do no more for my country, it is for
my own satisfaction that I desired to assemble all of you here,
that I might commend to you this Christian city and exhort you to
love your neighbours, and to do justice, and to choose peace and
preserve it, as I have endeavoured to do. In my time four millions
of debts have been paid off, and there are other six millions
owing, which debt was incurred for the wars of Padua, Vicenza, and
Verona; we have paid every six months two instalments of the debts,
and have paid all my officers and regiments. This our city now
sends out in the way of business to different parts of the world
ten millions of ducats’ worth yearly by ships and galleys, and the
profit is not less than two million ducats a year. In this city
there are three thousand vessels of one to two hundred ‘anfore’
(Venetian register of capacity) with seventeen thousand seamen;
there are three hundred larger ships with eight thousand sailors.
Every year there go to sea forty-five galleys with eleven thousand
sailors, and there are three thousand ship’s carpenters and three
thousand caulkers. There are three thousand weavers of silk and
sixteen thousand weavers of cotton cloth; the houses are estimated
to be worth seven millions and fifty thousand ducats. The rents
are five hundred thousand ducats. There are one thousand noblemen
whose income is from seven hundred to four thousand ducats. If
you go on in this manner, you will increase from good to better,
and you will be the masters of wealth and Christendom; every one
will fear you. But beware, as you would be of fire, of taking what
belongs to others and of waging unjust war, for God cannot endure
those errors in princes. Every one knows that the war with the
Turks has made you brave, and experienced of the sea; you have
six generals fit to fight any great army, and for each of these
you have sea-captains, slingers, officers, boatswains, mates, and
rowers enough to man one hundred galleys; and in these years you
have shown distinctly that the world considers you the leaders of
Christianity. You have many men experienced in embassies and in the
government of cities, who are accomplished orators. You have many
doctors of divers sciences, and especially many lawyers, wherefore
numerous foreigners come here for judgment of their differences,
and abide by your verdicts. Your mint coins every year a million
ducats of gold and two hundred thousand of silver; it also coins
yearly eight hundred thousand ducats’ worth between ‘grossetti,
mezzanini, and soldoni.’ Fifty thousand ducats of ‘grossetti’ go
every year to Soria, and to the mainland, and other parts; of
‘mezzanini’ and ‘soldoni’ one hundred thousand ducats; the rest
remains in the country (Venice). You know that the Florentines
send us each year sixteen thousand pieces of cloth, which we make
use of (in commerce) in Barbary, in Egypt, in Soria, in Cyprus,
in Rhodes, in Roumania, in Candia, in the Morea, and in Istria,
and every month the Florentines bring into this city seventy
thousand ducats’ worth of all sorts of merchandise, which amounts
to eight hundred and forty thousand ducats yearly and more; and
they take back French woollens, Catalans, and crimson, and fine
corded wool and silk, gold and silver thread and jewellery, with
great advantage to the city. Therefore, be wise in governing such
a State, and be careful to watch it and to see that it is not
diminished by negligence. You must be very careful as to who is to
succeed in my place, for by him the Republic may have much good and
much evil. Many of you are inclined to Messer Marino Caravello, who
is a worthy man, and deserves that honour for his worthy qualities.
Messer Francesco Bembo is a good man, and the same is Messer
Giacomo Trevisan; Messer Antonio Contarini, Messer Faustin Michiel,
and Messer Alban Badoer, all these are wise and deserving. Many are
inclined to Messer Francesco Foscari, and do not know that he is
proud and untruthful; he has no principle in his affairs, he has an
exaggerated disposition, he grasps at much and holds but little.
If he be Doge you will always be at war; he who has ten thousand
ducats will not be master of one thousand, he who has two houses
will not be the master of one; you will spend gold and silver,
reputation and honour, and where you are now the chiefs, you
will be the slaves of your soldiers and men-at-arms and of their
captains. I could not resist the desire to tell you this opinion of
mine. God grant that you may elect the best man, and direct you,
and preserve you in peace.
Mocenigo died on the fourth of April 1423.
In spite of his admonitions and of a considerable opposition, the
electors chose Francesco Foscari to succeed him, and henceforth war with
Milan became a certainty. It was on the occasion of his election that
the last remnant of the people’s right of interference was done away
with. Hitherto it had been customary to announce each election to the
people, adding the words ‘if such be your pleasure.’ This time the High
Chancellor, who, it will be remembered, was never a noble, inquired,
with a smile, what would happen if the people answered that it was not
their pleasure. The result was that the formula was never used again.
But the people were easily amused and let the nobles do as they pleased,
even when, at a later date, the designation ‘Venetian Commonwealth’ was
abandoned, and the word ‘Signoria’ was officially substituted in its
place. This, literally translated, means ‘lordship,’ but it has long
been a convenient custom to make an English word of it, as ‘Signory.’
[Sidenote: _Lazzari, Guida._]
Some idea of the character of Francesco Foscari is given by the
following anecdote. The Giustiniani family had built three palaces on
the Grand Canal, one of which had been sold as a residence to the young
Duke of Mantua, whom his brother, when dying, had commended to the
protection of the Republic. Foscari could not endure the thought that
the Giustiniani should still have two palaces finer than his only one,
and when the government sold the third at auction in 1428, he bought it
and raised it by building another story in order that it might outdo
the others. It was then said to have three hundred and sixty-five
windows, and it was valued at twenty thousand ducats, say, at fifteen
thousand pounds sterling, which was a vast sum for those days.
Foscari’s name recalls dramatic memories, and, to tell the truth, it has
frequently been taken in vain by poets and playwrights, and even by some
chroniclers and historians. His son Jacopo was not the martyr he has
been represented to be, nor was he himself the ‘Roman father’ of the
play. I shall tell the true story--a terrible one enough, even in its
accurate form--after briefly reviewing his reign.
The dying Mocenigo had not been altogether wrong in his predictions
about Foscari, for before long the Republic was at war with Milan, as
the ally of Florence, and was squandering money and men at a disastrous
rate. Foscari undoubtedly belonged to the war party, yet in the true
interests of his country he really controlled his own fiery nature for
some time, and endeavoured to maintain a neutral position with regard to
the quarrels of the Visconti with the Florentines, during which it was
the constant aim of the latter to break up the alliance which was still
in force between Milan and Venice.
Giovanni Galeazze was dead. His eldest son, Giovanni-Maria, had
succeeded him, a maniac who is said to have fed his hounds on human
flesh; and he had been dethroned by Facino Cane, and then massacred by
the Milanese, as he richly deserved. His brother, Filippo-Maria, when
Facino Cane died childless, promptly married the latter’s widow, the
unhappy Beatrice da Tenda, in order to inherit something of Facino’s
popularity and all of his vast estates. This being accomplished, and not
caring for her company, as she was twice his age, he brought a false
accusation against her, tortured her and sent her to the scaffold, while
she protested her innocence. But this was only an incidental crime, and
would doubtless have been forgotten with a hundred others but for the
noble bearing of the unfortunate woman throughout the tragedy that ended
her life. The historically important fact is that Filippo-Maria
determined to recover every inch of the wide territory which had been
ruled by his father, and that if he had accomplished his end, Venice
would have been required to restore what she had taken from the
Milanese.
Florence was at that time in one of her only too frequent phases of
ill-luck, yet her hatred for the Visconti was such that she could not
resist the temptation to fight Milan under all circumstances. She needed
help, of course; above all, she needed money, and Venice was the richest
nation in Europe. As has been seen, too, from Mocenigo’s dying speech,
the two States were in close commercial relations. It was natural,
therefore, that Florence should seek assistance of Venice; it was
equally natural, according to the old traditions of Venice, that aid
should be refused, unless it could be given profitably.
Foscari was for war, but was not able to influence the Senate in favour
of the Florentines, to whom he had always been friendly. It was a
stranger and a fugitive, a soldier of fortune of the highest physical
[Illustration: PALAZZO REGINA DI CIPRO]
courage, of the lowest origin, and of no principles at all, who turned
the scale--no less a personage than the famous condottiero Carmagnola.
[Sidenote: _Rom. iv. 106._]
This remarkable man’s real name was Francesco Bossone, an appellation
derived from the village in which he had been born of peasant parents.
He had enlisted at an early age, and had attracted the attention and
favour of Filippo-Maria Visconti, immediately after Facino Cane’s death,
by almost catching Ettore Visconti, whom Filippo wished to murder. After
this, Carmagnola’s advance to fortune was rapid and unchecked. In ten
years we find him with the title of Count of Castelnuovo, as Filippo’s
governor over Genoa, married to a widowed Antonia Visconti, who passed
for a daughter of Giovanni Galeazzo; and so he prospered, till he had
acquired such wealth that he deemed it safe to invest a part of it in
foreign securities. As an especial favour, by a decree of the Great
Council of Venice, he was allowed to buy bonds of the Venetian debt with
his money, a privilege rarely granted to any foreigner. Before long he
had cause to congratulate himself upon this piece of fortune, and upon
his own caution, which had led directly to it.
[Sidenote: _1424._]
Various explanations have been given of his disgrace with Filippo
Visconti; it has been said that he lost the prince’s favour by the
calumnies of people who envied him. Romanin says Filippo grew suspicious
of him, because he was too successful and too popular with the troops,
and that the envy of courtiers did the rest; that on being recalled from
the governorship of Genoa he attempted in vain to obtain an audience of
the Duke, and did all he could
[Sidenote: _1425._]