box existed in the Doge’s house containing valuables which he had
received. The law forbidding any member of the Doge’s family to receive
any gifts whatsoever, under any circumstances, was most rigidly enforced
in Venice, and Jacopo was justly sentenced to a temporary exile; he was
known to be in Trieste, and a galley was ordered to proceed thither to
convey him to Modon in the Peloponnesus, whence he was to journey at
his own expense to Napoli di Romania, near Corinth, within one month;
and while there he was to present himself to the governor every day, to
sleep in the city every night, to keep no more than three servants, and
to be treated in all respects as a private
[Illustration: GRAND CANAL LOOKING TO CANARREGGIO]
citizen. If he refused to go on board the galley a price was set on his
capture; he was to be brought to Venice and beheaded between the
columns. Several minor personages were at the same time sentenced to
short terms of exile, and to the loss of any public offices they might
be holding at the time.
The offence was patent, the trial was legal, and the condemnation was
just; but Jacopo cared for none of these things, and altogether
declining the invitation of the Ten to go on board the galley sent for
him, he continued to live in Trieste as if nothing had happened. The
Ten, on their side, were by no means anxious to incur the odium of
decapitating the Doge’s son, as they had declared that they would do if
he refused obedience, and they now begged the Doge himself to use his
paternal influence with Jacopo, in order that they might not be driven
to extremities; but as this measure also remained without any effect,
the Council confirmed its sentence and confiscated Jacopo’s property. At
any moment he might have been arrested, brought to Venice, and beheaded;
but instead of this, a committee was named to examine into the
circumstances. It was ascertained that Jacopo was in bad health; it was
voted that this fact should be accepted as a sufficient excuse for his
disobedience; and, by way of smoothing matters over, it was decreed that
he should be exiled only to Treviso and the Trevisan district, almost
within sight of Venice. Jacopo thought fit to submit to this mild
decree, which was not modified, although it was soon afterwards
discovered that he had received two thousand and forty ducats, with a
quantity of silver plate, from Francesco Sforza. A year later the Doge
presented a petition to the Council of Ten begging that, in
consideration of his own old age, and of the fact that Jacopo, his wife,
his children, and all their servants, suffered from malarious fever in
the climate of Mestre, Jacopo might be allowed to return to Venice.
This petition was actually granted, doubtless owing to the signal
services rendered to the Republic by the old Doge during a reign which
had already lasted twenty years.
Jacopo returned, and during the next three years nothing is known of his
mode of life. It must be admitted that, so far, the Ten had acted with
unusual clemency. They can hardly be blamed, however, for having watched
Jacopo afterwards.
On the evening of the fifth of November 1450 an atrocious murder was
committed, and the fact that the victim, the noble Ermolao Donato, had
been one of the heads of the Ten during Jacopo’s trial, and that he was
killed just after he had left the ducal palace, cast suspicion upon the
younger Foscari. It was not until two months later that a formal
accusation was laid against him and he was arrested. There was certainly
strong evidence to prove the crime. Foscari had long made no secret
about his hatred of the murdered man; a servant of Jacopo’s had been
seen hanging about the palace as if waiting for some one just before
Donato had come out; and a good many minor pieces of testimony were
adduced.
There is not the slightest truth in the story that Jacopo Loredan ever
held the Foscari family responsible for the death of his father, who was
probably poisoned by Visconti, nor that he entered the crime as a debt
in his ledger, and wrote ‘paid’ opposite the entry when the elder
Foscari was deposed. Yet it is true that a sort of feud had long existed
between the two families, that Pietro Loredan had been the unsuccessful
candidate when Foscari had been elected, and that Jacopo Loredan now
took an active part in the proceedings against Jacopo Foscari.
The trial was not in any way a secret one. The evidence was only
circumstantial, and even under torture Jacopo confessed nothing. In
modern England or America he would not have been tortured, but he would
in all probability have been hanged for the murder. The Ten must have
felt the difficulty in which they were placed, and they met it by
condemning him to exile in Crete, not allowing his wife and children to
accompany him. Foscari was then taken from the ducal palace and placed
on board a ship, which conveyed him to his destination. He remained in
Crete unmolested during five years.
[Sidenote: _1456._]
Here, again, dramatists and writers of fiction have invented an
extraordinary tale. It is narrated that Jacopo, being unable to bear the
loneliness of exile, deliberately wrote a letter, in which he appealed
for help, to Francesco Sforza, then Duke of Milan, intending that the
missive should fall into the hands of the Ten, in order that the Council
might have him brought back to Venice to be tried; and we are asked to
believe that he risked the agonies of torture for the sake of once more
seeing his own people. What actually happened seems to be that Jacopo
had become intimate in his exile with certain Genoese, through whom he
attempted to establish a correspondence with Mohammed II., the conqueror
of Constantinople, in the hope that the Sultan would send a galley on
which he might escape from Crete. If he had succeeded, the Turkish
vessel would certainly not have brought him to Venetian waters.
Venice had suffered much in her commerce by the Mohammedan conquest; a
number of her citizens had fought in the last defence of Constantinople,
and some had been afterwards murdered in cold blood by the Sultan’s
orders. An agreement had subsequently been reached, it is true, but the
Ten could hardly be expected to look with leniency on a secret
correspondence between the son of her Doge and the despot of the
Osmanlis.
Jacopo Foscari was brought back to Venice and tried again. He now
confessed everything immediately, without compulsion. The story of his
having been horribly tortured during this second trial appears to be a
pure invention, for in the records of the Council of Ten the fact that
the cord was used is invariably stated on each occasion, and in this
case there is no mention of any such matter. I refer the incredulous
reader to Romanin’s fourth volume, in which abundant proof of this will
be found, with the most minute reference to existing documents. Smedley
wrote at a time when those papers had not been found, and confessed,
moreover, to having largely used Daru.
Jacopo was condemned to return to Crete and to be confined there in
prison during one year; he was told, however, that if he again wrote
letters to foreign princes, he should end his life under lock and key.
He was allowed to see his family and his father once more, before his
departure, and the aged Doge took leave of his only son with tears and
deep emotion; but to Jacopo’s entreaties that the Doge would endeavour
to procure his return, the old man could only answer, ‘Go, Jacopo, obey
and ask no more.’
None the less, after his final departure, the Doge made every effort to
obtain his pardon, and was seconded by several of the great patricians;
but Jacopo died in January 1457, long before his year of imprisonment
was out.
The blow completely broke down the Doge, who was now about eighty-four
years of age; he became unable to attend to any affairs of State, and
the Council of Ten, not unwillingly perhaps, but with a full
understanding of the importance of such a step, determined to depose him
and elect another Doge. At its best, the Council of Ten was a fairly
just court; at its worst, it was the most unscrupulous, sordid,
despotic, and yet cowardly body of men that ever called themselves a
tribunal, until the French Revolutionaries beat all records of infamy in
the name of the ‘rights of man’; but at no time did the Council ever
show the smallest inclination to be sentimental; and it was very rarely
generous, for generosity is probably one of the noble forms of
sentiment. Francesco Foscari had reigned too long, and was now useless,
even as the figure-head which the chief of a thoroughly constitutional
and non-imperial state should be. The Council of Ten deposed him, and
the Great Council elected another Doge in his place, Pasquale
Malipieri.
The proposition presented by the heads of the Ten is extant, and is a
masterpiece of sanctimonious cant, in which the Venetian State is spoken
of as having originated in the infinite clemency of the divine Creator,
and immense stress is laid on the administrative importance of the
Doge’s office. The fact was that the oligarchy hated Foscari, and felt
that the conduct of his son had brought great scandal on the Republic. A
committee of the Council waited on him twice, and requested him to
resign on the score of old age, but he refused to do so; the third time,
the request became an order, and he was told to leave the ducal palace
within eight days. The ducal ring was taken from his finger and hammered
to pieces, as was done when a doge died.
He did not wait longer than necessary, and on the following day he left
the palace, walking with a stick, but otherwise unaided. His brother
Marco went with him, and proposed that they should go to their boat by
the private and covered entrance, but the old man refused. ‘I will go
down,’ he said, ‘by that staircase up which I came to be Doge.’
The last legend concerning him is that he died of a broken heart on
hearing the great bell announce the election of his successor. He died
three days later, on All Saints’ Day, and the new Doge was at mass when
the news was brought to the church. Doubtless Foscari’s end was hastened
by the painful emotions of the last few days, however, and there was a
strong feeling in Venice against the Council of Ten for some time
afterwards.
As usual, there was also an attempt to make amends by giving the dead
man a magnificent funeral. This his widow proudly refused, saying that
she was rich enough to give her husband a king’s funeral without aid
from the State; nevertheless, his body was taken by order of the Signory
and was laid out in state, arrayed in the ducal garments with all the
insignia; and Malipieri, the new Doge, followed the bier to the Frari
dressed as a simple senator, as if Foscari’s successor had not yet been
elected.
Returning for a moment to the list of the condottieri who served Venice
in the fifteenth century, it is time to say that Carmagnola was
succeeded as general of the Venetian armies by the Duke of Mantua, who
before long went over to the enemy with his men, his weapons, and his
baggage. The next commander was one of his lieutenants, a certain Erasmo
da Narni, famous under the nickname of ‘Gattamelata,’ or Honey-Cat.
[Sidenote: _Eroli, Erasmo Gattamelata._]
Erasmo Gattamelata of Narni was the son of a baker in that town, and is
said to have got his nickname from his soft and cat-like ways, ‘and for
his speech, which was cautious and also sweet and suave as honey.’ As
there are still families of the name in northern Italy who were never
connected with his, I cannot see why we need assume that in his case it
was a nickname at all. Such appellations are common in Italy, and it is
probably only because he was such a distinguished condottiero that his
has attracted so much attention. He began his fighting
[Illustration: TOMBS IN THE FRARI]
career when he was young, and Braccio made him commander of his cavalry.
He served many employers, amongst others Martin V., the Colonna Pope,
and he
[Sidenote: _1434._]
found himself opposed in the field ‘both to Casa Braccio and Piccinino,
and also to Stella, his old friends and leaders.’ He was sixty years of
age when he entered the service of the Venetian Republic. He had a sworn
brother in arms, like many fighters of that day, a certain Count
Brandolini who was included in the agreement with Venice, which is given
in full in the Marchese Eroli’s book. It begins:--
Gattamelata and Count Brandolini are engaged as leaders of four
hundred lances with three horses to each lance, as is customary,
and also of four hundred footmen. And after six months they shall
have, besides what is above agreed, fifty lances more for their two
sons under them.
For the use of these four hundred lances there shall be given them
60 ducats for each lance.... Over and above this they shall have a
loan (an advance) on their personal security, of 2000 ducats, and
further, they shall soon have, on account of what the Sovereign
Pontiff owes them for their service, 10,000 ducats.
But Gattamelata and Count Brandolini shall produce for the
aforesaid money, and for the performance of their promise, suitable
sureties, having received which the Doge and the government will
provide the money....
As regards the booty which the said Gattamelata and Brandolini and
their band may collect in time of war, the custom of the tenth
shall be observed.
It was customary for condottieri to pay a tribute called Saint Mark’s
Fee, Onoranza di San Marco, to the Republic, which was a sort of
income-tax on loot. War was a matter of business.
Lack of space prevents me from giving the agreement in full. It is very
curious. Among other provisions is one forbidding the condottiero to
present, for the roll call, the same charger or man ‘more than once or
under more than one lance,’ a clause which gives an idea of the usual
methods of cheating. All unimportant prisoners were their property as
part of the booty; the important objects and persons, ‘cities, lands,
fortresses and their munitions, ruling princes and their brothers or
sons, and rebels and traitors,’ were to be handed over to Venice; but
other condottieri and military commanders, if taken, were to be paid for
by the Venetian government, if it chose to pay half their ransoms.
At the end of the campaign Gattamelata and his friend received in ‘noble
and gentle fee’ the castle and lands of Valmarino, on condition that the
population should continue to buy its salt from the Venetian Republic,
and that the two feudal holders should pay the Republic a yearly tribute
of ten pounds of wax at the feast of Saint Mark. Gattamelata bought out
his friend’s share, and was inscribed in the Golden Book.
He and Sforza fought together against Piccinino and amongst other things
took back Verona.
[Sidenote: _1439. Verona retaken by the Venetians, Giovanni Contarini;
Sala delle Quattro Porte, ducal palace._]
Gattamelata died of apoplexy not long after the end of that campaign,
and was magnificently buried, in the presence of the Doge and the
Signory. A picture representing his obsequies was painted by Mantegna,
but his biographer, Marchese Eroli, writing in 1876, had not learned
where it was, if it still existed, nor can I obtain any information on
the subject.
The great Francesco Sforza was also during some time in the service of
the Republic, but left it to marry Bianca Visconti with the prospect of
succeeding to the Duchy, and he fought against Venice as bravely as he
had lately fought under her standard. War was purely a matter of
business with the condottieri, and so long as they fulfilled the
conditions of each successive contract they undertook, no one ever
blamed them for changing sides as often as was profitable. It was not
even proper or customary to poison them for it, and in an age when
political murder was as common as mere political calumny is now, the
acts of Filippo-Maria Visconti were really looked on with disapproval by
his fellow-scoundrels in power. It was considered that he went too far.
[Sidenote: _Rom. iv. 196._]
[Sidenote: _Battle of Lake Garda, Tintorettto; ceiling, Hall of Great
Council._]
Astonishing things were done by the soldiers of that age. In the war
with Milan, for instance, Venice at one time judged it necessary to get
a small fleet into the Lake of Garda; and as the approaches by water
were guarded by the Milanese, it was actually found possible to haul six
galleys and twenty-five long-boats by means of oxen and capstans from
the river Adige up the steep slope of the Monte Baldo and down to
Torbole, where the vessels were launched into the lake--and promptly
blockaded by the enemy.
In the same war Brescia successfully withstood a siege of no less than
three years. It would take long to give even a slight idea of the feats
of arms performed on both sides by hired troops, at a time when all
Italy was on fire, and war was more or less continuous because the
condottieri, who lived by it, were obliged to make it so or starve. The
country was in a bad state; if the strong anywhere protected the weak,
it was in order to enslave them more effectually, and the weak often
revolted against the enforced protection they received.
Visconti died in 1447, leaving four wills, on the third of which Sforza
founded those pretensions to the dukedom which he soon succeeded in
establishing, though the Milanese declared that they would be a
Republic, like Venice and Genoa. We smile at the futility of such a
simple popular aspiration, in an age when soldiers were rulers and
rulers were tyrants. The Milanese were obliged to employ Sforza to fight
for them; he did so, routed the Venetians, forced them to a peace, and
then entered into an alliance with them which gave them all the
Cremasco, with Bergamo and Brescia, but landed him safely on the throne
of Milan.
He had in him the stuff of a good prince, and he is said to have
indulged dreams of uniting all Italy in a sort of federation to defend
the country from foreign invasion.
But greater events were happening in the East, where the Byzantine
Empire was at the last gasp of its existence. Even if Venice had thrown
all her strength into opposing the Turks and protecting her Eastern
commerce, instead of quarrelling with Milan, she
[Sidenote: _Smyrna taken by the Venetians, Paolo Veronese; Hall of the
Great Council._]
could not have retarded the fall of Constantinople by any long time. As
it was, she sent but little help to the last of the emperors. The
Byzantines had never been good fighters, and the tremendous
fortifications of the city alone checked Mohammed’s army of one hundred
and sixty thousand fanatics.
Constantinople was taken in 1453, and in the wild massacre of Christians
that followed, many Venetians were butchered. The Republic is said to
have lost property worth three hundred thousand ducats. Fifteen Venetian
ships succeeded in escaping, with eight Genoese vessels. But the mere
loss of money and valuables was nothing compared with that which must
have followed if the commerce of Venice in the East had been altogether
destroyed. There was much to overlook and forgive, it is true, if an
agreement were to be reached with Mohammed the Conqueror. He had impaled
a Venetian captain and beheaded thirty of his crew before the siege; he
had decapitated the Venetian Bailo and his son in cold blood afterwards,
a great number of Venetians had perished in the massacre, and
twenty-nine nobles had been held for ransom; and in return for these
injuries and insults, the Republic had not struck a blow. The exigencies
of commerce were great.
Venice played a double part in what followed, making a show of rousing
the Pope to preach a crusade on the one hand, and, on the other, quietly
drawing up a treaty with the Sultan, by which the Republic was to pay
tribute for her Eastern settlements, the slave-trade was to be allowed
to continue in the
[Illustration: CA D’ORO]
Black Sea, provided that only Christians, and not Mussulmans, were
bought and sold, and the Sultan was to force the Genoese of Pera to pay
what they owed the Venetians. The latter clause was, no doubt, a good
stroke of business, and the treaty contained many others which proved
that its end was sordidly commercial.
Two hundred and fifty years had passed since blind Enrico Dandolo had
led the Venetians to the conquest of Constantinople. What they did then
cannot be justified, it is true, but no man who has fighting blood in
his veins can help admiring the magnificent courage that performed such
a feat of arms. In the same way, I suppose that no one in whom the true
commercial spirit is alive will withhold his admiration from a people
who could forgive insult and forget injury so completely as those later
Venetians did in 1454, for the sake of making money. It avails not to
reflect that it was probably too late to stem the westward movement of
the Turks; the man of heart will always feel that the richest nation in
Europe might have done something to save Constantinople from her fate.
Pope Nicholas V. thought so, and expressed his disgust to the Senate
through his legate, but the Venetian government answered him in one of
those sanctimonious speeches which it knew so well how to frame on
occasion, and advised the Pope to turn his attention towards pacifying
and uniting all Christian princes in a general league against the common
enemy, well knowing that no such attempt could succeed.
In spite of the treaty, however, the Venetians never did well in the
East after that, and their old enemies the Genoese got the better of
them in the trade of the Black Sea, for the Turks were by no means
satisfied yet with what they had taken, and Venice was more or less
engaged during the next twenty years in trying to protect her
Mediterranean colonies.
She had suffered considerably in her fortunes, though her credit
appeared inexhaustible. Romanin has unearthed some curious figures. He
estimates the loss of property by the fall of Constantinople at three
hundred thousand ducats, and says that there were a number of bad
commercial failures in Venice in consequence, notably that of Andrea
Priuli, for twenty-four thousand ducats. The aggregate estimated value
of the houses in Venice diminished between 1425 and 1445 by thirteen
thousand ducats, which does not seem very disastrous where the whole
reached three hundred and sixty thousand; but the war with Milan alone
cost seven million ducats in ten years, in 1428 the Venetian Chamber of
Commerce owed nine millions, and Romanin adds that in 1440 the bonds of
the public debt were only worth eighteen and a half per cent of their
nominal value, a statement in which there seems to be some mistake,
unless that extreme depression was merely momentary. There can be no
doubt but that the acquisition of extensive territory by warfare, and
the reckless extravagance which became only too common in Foscari’s
brilliant reign, had led to a serious diminution of wealth and
population, and had burdened the Republic with a debt from which she was
never to free herself again.
An attempt was made by Pope Pius II. to send a crusade against the
Turks, and as such an expedition, if it had resulted in the expulsion of
the Turks, would have been much to the advantage of Venice, she lent her
support readily. The Pope, however, died suddenly when he was about to
bless the united fleet on its departure from Ancona, and the result was
that the whole alliance broke up at once, and those who had composed it
departed for their homes without delay.