Venice, and at the moment the army of barges and brigantines reached
it, they spread out in front of His Majesty, and a salute broke from
them all; “to which the galleys in the train of the King replied
in such ordered unity that His Majesty rose to his feet with great
curiosity to see them, praising exceedingly so wonderful a sight,
admiring to his right the fair and famous city marvellously built upon
the salt waters, and on the left a forest of so many ships and vessels
with so great noise of artillery and arquebuses, and of trumpets and
drums, that he remained astounded; while he openly showed himself not
less merry than content, seeing so rare a thing as was never before
seen of him.” Henry’s arrival at the Lido is portrayed in the Sala
delle Quattro Porte in the Ducal Palace. He is seen advancing with
sprightly step, between two dignitaries of the Church, up a temporary
wooden bridge towards the Triumphal Arch and Temple of Palladio. This
arch was decorated with paintings by Paolo and Tintoretto, and in
connexion with it Ridolfi tells a delightful story of the painting of
Henry’s portrait. “Tintoretto,” says Ridolfi, “was longing to paint the
King’s portrait, and in consequence begged Paolo to finish the arch by
himself; and, taking off his toga, Tintoretto dressed himself as one
of the Doge’s equerries, and took his place among them in the Bucintoro
as it moved to meet the King, thus furtively procuring a chalk sketch
of the proposed portrait, which he was afterwards to enlarge to life
size; and having made friends with M. Bellagarda, the King’s treasurer,
he was introduced with much difficulty, owing to the frequent visits
of the Doge, into the royal apartments to retouch the portrait from
life. Now whilst he stood painting, and the King with great courtesy
admiring, there entered presumptuously into the apartments at smith of
the Arsenal, presenting an ill-done portrait by himself, and saying
that, while His Majesty was dining in the Arsenal, he had done the
likeness of him. His presumption was humbled by a courtier who snatched
it from his hand, and ripping it up with his dagger threw it into the
neighbouring Grand Canal: which incident, on account of the whispering
it produced, made it difficult for the painter to carry out his
intention. Tintoretto had also observed on that occasion that from time
to time certain persons were introduced to the King, whom he touched
lightly on the shoulder with his rapier, adding other ceremonies. And
pretending not to understand the meaning, he asked it of Bellagarda,
who said that they were created knights by His Majesty, and that he,
Tintoretto, might prepare himself to receive that degree; for he had
discussed the matter with the King, to whom Tintoretto’s conditions
were known and who had shown himself disposed, in attestation of his
powers, to create him also a knight; but our painter, not being willing
to subject himself to any title, modestly rejected the offer.” When the
portrait was finished and presented to the King, it was acclaimed by
him as a marvellous likeness, and we may safely conclude from this that
it was fair to look on. The King presented it to the Doge. Perhaps the
picture from the first had been intended as a present for Mocenigo, and
this was the explanation of the secrecy observed in regard to it.
[Illustration: COURTYARD OF PALAZZO DUCALE.]
The climax of entertainment was reached in the festa at the Ducal
Palace on the second Sunday after Henry’s arrival (his visit lasted
ten days). The glories of Venice were gathered in that marvellous hall
still hung with the paintings of Carpaccio and Gentile Bellini, and
the exquisite Paradise of Guariento; for it was yet a year previous to
the great fire which was to give scope to the contemporary giants. The
later victories of Venice were as yet unchronicled except in the hearts
of living men. There was no thought of sumptuary laws on this day at
least of the great festival. Ladies were there clothed all in ormesine,
adorned with jewels and pearls of great size, not only in strings on
their necks, but covering their head-dresses and the cloaks on their
shoulders. “And in their whiteness, their beauty and magnificence,
they formed a choir not so much of nymphs as of very goddesses. They
were set one behind the other in fair order upon carpeted benches
stretching round the whole hall, leaving an ample space in the centre,
at the head of which was set a royal seat with a covering of gold and
entirely covered with a baldaquin from top to bottom, and round it
yellow and blue satin.” All the splendours of Venetian and Oriental
cloths were lavished on the Hall of the Great Council and the Sala del
Scrutinio adjoining. The King as usual entered whole-heartedly into the
festivity. His seat was raised that he might look over the company,
“but he chose nevertheless to go round and salute all the ladies with
much grace and courtesy, raising his cap as he went along.” After a
time musical instruments were heard, the ladies were carried off by the
gentlemen, and forming into line they began to dance a slow measure,
passing before the King and bowing as they passed. “And he stood the
whole while cap in hand.” The French courtiers were permitted by their
master to lay aside their mourning for the time, and they danced with
great merriment, vying with the most famous dancers of Venice. But the
great feature of the evening was the tragedy by Cornelio Frangipani--a
mythological masque in honour of the most Christian King and of Venice
herself--with Proteus, Iris, Mars, Amazons, Pallas and Mercury as
protagonists. To the first printed edition of his masque Frangipani
prefixed an apology for his title of tragedy, with the usual appeal to
classic precedent. “This tragedy of mine,” he says, “was recited in
such a way as most nearly to approach to the form of the ancients; all
the players sang in sweetest harmony, now accompanied, now alone; and
finally the chorus of Mercury was composed of players who had so many
various instruments as were never heard before. The trumpets introduced
the gods on to the appointed scene with the machinery of tragedy, but
this could not be used to effect on account of the great concourse of
people; and the ancients could not have been initiated into the musical
compositions in which Claudio Merulo had reached a height certainly
never attained by the ancients.” The masque is in reality a mere masque
of occasion, comparable to countless English productions in the
Elizabethan age, though lacking in the lyrical grace they generally
possess. Henry is addressed as the slayer of monsters, the harbinger of
peace, the herald of the age of gold--
Pregamo questo domator de’ mostri
Ch’eterno al mondo viva,
Perchè in pregiata oliva
Ha da cangiar d’ alloro
E apportar l’ antica età del’ oro.
The masque is without literary merit, but we need not regard it in
the cold light of an after day, caged and with clipped wings. To that
glorious assembly, illumined by the great deeds fresh in men’s minds
and the presence of a royal hero, Frangipani’s words may well have been
kindled into flame. For if time and place were ever in conspiracy to
wing pedestrian thoughts and words, it must have been at this fêting of
the most Christian King of France in the City of the Sea.
Pens were busy in Venice during the days of Henry’s stay. Unsalaried
artists, independent of everything except a means of livelihood,
exacted toll from the royal guest. From the 16,000 scudi of largess
distributed by the King, payments are enumerated “to writers and poets
who presented to His Majesty Latin works and poems made in praise of
his greatness and splendour.” Gifts, as well as compliments were
exchanged on all hands. The Duke of Savoy presented the Doge’s wife
with a girdle studded with thirty gold rosettes each containing four
pearls and a precious jewel in the centre, worth 1,800 scudi. And
Henry’s final token of gratitude to his entertainers was to send after
the Doge, who had accompanied him to Fusina, a magnificent diamond
ring, begging that Mocenigo should wear it continually in token of
their love. Most of these offerings and acknowledgments, without doubt,
would be merely ceremonial. Yet the young King’s delight in his visit
had been genuine, and his frank enjoyment of all Venice offered had won
him her sympathy and even her affection. Memories of the freedom of
his stay went with him to the routine of his kingship, and he looked
backwards with delight to her winged pleasures. She had spread gifts
out before him, as she does before all, but in his own hands he had
carried the key of her inmost treasures; for his spirit was joyful and
joy is the key to the unlocking of her heart.
Chapter Five
A MERCHANT OF VENICE
“Siamo noi calcolatori” was the confession of a modern Venetian, quoted
lately as expressive of the spirit that governs Venice to-day and has
lain at the root of her policy in the past. The confession is striking;
for most men, however calculating in practice, acknowledge an ideal
of spontaneous generosity which causes them to shun the admission of
self-interested motives. The charge, if charge it can be termed, is an
old one. Again and again it has been brought against Venice by those
to whom her greatness has been a stumbling-block--“sono calcolatori.”
But perhaps if the indictment be rightly understood it will be found
to need, not so much a denial as an extension, a fuller statement of
meaning. And this Professor Molmenti has supplied in his _Venice in the
Middle Ages_.[1] “The Venetians,” he says, in commenting on the support
they lent to the Crusades, “never forgot their commercial and political
interests in their zeal for the faith; they intended to secure for
themselves a market in every corner of the globe. But their so-called
egoism displayed itself in a profound attachment to their country and
their race; and these greedy hucksters, these selfish adventurers, as
they are sometimes unjustly called, had at bottom a genuine belief
in objects high and serious; the merchant not seldom became a hero.
These lords of the sea knew how to wed the passion of Christianity to
commercial enterprise, and welded the aspirations of the faith with the
interests of their country, proving by their action not only how vain
and sterile is an idealism which consumes itself in morbid dreams, but
also that the mere production of riches will lead to ruin unless it be
tempered, legalised, almost, we would say, sanctified, by the serene
and lifegiving breath of the ideal.” But because she was supremely
successful in her undertakings, Venice won for herself much perplexed
and hostile comment from those who were jealous of a mastery sustained
with such apparently effortless self-possession--of an organisation so
complete, so silent, so pervasive. She has been accused of perfidy, of
cruelty, in short, of shameless egoism. A nation, a state, is pledged
to the preservation of its identity, its conceptions must be bounded
and constantly measured by the power of other states. The neighbours of
Venice in the days of her glory were selfish and calculating also; her
prominence was due not so much to special weapons as to her skill in
wielding weapons everywhere in use.
[1] Translated by Mr. Horatio Browne.
And what can we say of the ends to which she directed her success, the
scope of her arts, the nature of her pleasures? It must be admitted by
all that the soul of Venice was capacious, unique in its harmony of
imagination and political acumen; unique in its power of commanding
and retaining respect. A great soul was in the men of Venice; it was
present in all their activities, in their commerce as in their art.
The two were most intimately allied. Again and again the chroniclers
of Venice crown their catalogue of her glories with the reminder that
their foundation is in commerce, that the Venetians are a nation of
shopkeepers, and “you have only come to such estate by reason of the
trade done by your shipping in various parts of the world.” Even in
the fifteenth century it was deemed complimentary to say to a newly
elected Doge, “You have been a great trader in your young days.” The
greatness of Venice was coincident with the greatness of her trade.
She was lit, it is true, with the ancient stars of her splendour after
the mortal blow had been struck at her commerce by the discovery of
the Cape route to the East, but the old unity of her strength had been
lost--the firm foundations of the days when the nobles of Venice had
been the directors of her enterprise. And at the end of the fifteenth
century they no longer sat, in their togas, behind the counters in
Rialto, or made the basements of their houses into stores. They had
ceased to apprentice their sons to the merchants on the sea-going
galleys. They still acted as commanders of the ships in times of war,
but in intervals of peace the gulf between noble and merchant was
constantly being enlarged. The commercial traveller was no longer
considered one of the most distinguished of citizens. The corner stone
had been taken from the building of Rialto; it had begun to crumble to
the dissolution lamented by Grevembroch in his strange book on Venetian
costumes. In the great days of Venice her commerce was great, and she
knew how to robe it in glory, how to attract to it the noblest, and not
the meanest, of her sons. Her shops were the objects of her proudest
solicitude, and the well-being of her merchants the first of her cares.
The hostels provided for foreign traders ranked with the most sumptuous
of her palaces, and the rules framed for their guidance were amongst
the most liberal in her legislature.
The calculations of Venice, growing with her growth, impressed on her
national consciousness the importance of her position midway between
the East and the West--her geographical qualification for becoming the
mart of the world. With steady and concentrated purpose she devoted her
energy to opening up fresh channels of communication. Sometimes by the
marriage of a son or daughter of the Doge with the heir of a kingdom or
a prince of Constantinople, sometimes by the subjugation of a common
foe, Venice wove new threads of intercourse with the East. She always
took payment for benefits she conferred in wider trading advantages.
Her merchant vessels were not private adventures, they represented
state enterprise and were under the control of the central government,
travelling with the fleet and capable of reinforcing it at need. Seven
merchant convoys left Venice annually for Roumania, Azof, Trebizond,
Cyprus, Armenia, France, England, Flanders, Spain, Portugal and Egypt.
By means of these vessels the glories of the Orient found their way to
the lands of the West; Venice was mistress of the treasures of Arabia,
and became their dispenser to Europe. And she was not merely a mart,
a counter of interchange; she tested the goods at their source; she
was not at the mercy of valuers, her citizen travellers came into
touch with the goods on the soil that produced them. The East, to
which the art of Venice owes much of its material--its gold, its gems,
its colours--was not an unfathomed mine but, in a certain sense, a
pleasure-ground for her citizens; they passed to and fro familiarly,
guests of its greatest potentates. They stood face to face with Cublay
Kaan, the monarch of mystery.
The journeys of the famous Poli are among the most thrilling and
significant records of Venetian history. Through them we are able to
realise something of the Republic’s debt to the lands of the East--a
debt not to be summed up in enumeration of embroidery and jewels and
perfumes and secrets of colour. In part at least it consisted of
legends and traditions that filtered into Venice through the hearing
and speech of her travellers--age-old lessons in wisdom, which must
have invested some of the common things of Venetian life with new
meaning and done something to break down the barriers which ignorance
erects between man and man, knowledge and knowledge. In the beautiful
Persian rendering of the story of _The Three Magi_, as told by Marco
Polo, she came into touch with comparative theology, the familiar
Christian tale drawn from an earlier source. Marco Polo tells how
he first found at Sara the beautiful tombs of Jaspar, Melchior and
Balthasar, with their bodies completely preserved; how the people of
that place knew nothing of their history save that they were the bodies
of kings; but three days’ journey onward he had come to the city of
the fire-worshippers and been informed of the three who had set out
to worship a newly born Prophet, carrying with them gifts to test
the extent of his powers--gold for the earthly King, myrrh for the
physician, incense for the God. “And when they were come there where
the Child was born, the youngest of these three Kings went all alone
to see the Child, and there he found that it was like himself, for
it seemed of his age and form. Then he went out much marvelling, and
after him went in the second of the Kings, who was near in age to the
first, and the Child seemed to him, as to the first, of his own form
and age, and he also went out much perplexed. Then went in the third,
who was of great age, and it happened to him as to the other two, and
he also went out very pensive. And when all the Kings were together,
they told one another what they had seen; and they marvelled much and
said they would go in all three together. Then they went together into
the Child’s presence, and they found Him of the likeness and age that
He really was, for He was only three days old. Then they adored Him
and offered Him their gold and incense and myrrh. The Child took all
their offerings and gave them a closed box, and then the three Kings
departed and returned to their country.” Marco Polo goes on to relate
how the Kings, finding the box heavy to bear, sat down by a well to
open it, and, when they had opened it, they found only stones inside.
These, in their disappointment, they threw into the well and lo! from
the stones fire ascended which they gathered up and took home with
them to worship. With it they burned all their sacrifices, renewing it
from one altar to another. Other tales he told them from the wisdom of
the East--of the idealist who found no joy in earthly existence, and
the chagrin of his father the King, who surrounded him with luxury and
with beautiful maidens, but could not persuade him. One day he rode
out on his horse and saw a dead man by the way. And he was filled with
horror at a sight which he had never seen before, and he asked those
who were with him the meaning of the sight, and they told him it was a
dead man. “What,” said the son of a King, “then do all men die?” Yes,
truly, they say. Then the youth asked no more, but rode on in front
in deep thought. And after he had ridden some way he met a very old
man who could not walk, and who had no teeth, for he had lost them all
by reason of his great age. And when the King’s son saw the old man he
asked what he was and why he could not walk, and his companions told
him that he could not walk from age, and that from age he had lost his
teeth. And when the King’s son understood about the dead man and the
old man, he returned to his palace, and said to himself that he would
live no longer in so evil a world, but that he would go “in search of
Him who never dies, of Him who made him. And so he departed from his
father and from the palace, and went to the mountains, that are very
high and impassable, and there he lived all his life, most purely and
chastely, and made great abstinence, for certainly if he had been a
Christian, he would be a great saint with our Lord Jesus Christ.” Did
he find his answer in the mountains? Perhaps in some dawn or sunset he
learned of the nature of “Him who made him, of Him who never dies”;
perhaps among the wild creatures he learned before he was old to sing
the lauds of our sister Death. But Polo’s comment on the story is
interesting, for the Venetians would have little natural sympathy
with its hero. They would prefer Carpaccio’s fairy prince who forsook
his kingdom to follow Ursula and her virgins. The tale of one who dared
not look on life in company with his kind, would strike a chill across
the full-blooded natures of Venice, so eager to grasp at all that
ministered to enjoyment and vitality.
[Illustration: SAN GIORGIO.]
But Marco’s pack held stories of a more tangible kind--tales of the
Palace of Cublay Kaan, with its hall that held six thousand men, the
inside walls covered with gold and silver and pictures of great beasts,
and the outside rainbow-coloured, shining like crystal in the sun, and
a landmark far and wide. And within the circuit of the palace walls
was a green pleasure mound covered with trees from all parts and with
a green palace on its summit. “And I tell you that the mound and the
trees and the palace are so fair to see that all who see them have joy
and gladness, and therefore has the great Sire had them made, to have
that beautiful view and to receive from it joy and solace.” He tells of
the wonderful Zecca where coins of the Great Kaan are stamped--not made
of metal, but of black paper--which may be refused nowhere throughout
the Kaan’s dominions on pain of death. All who are possessed of gold
and treasure are obliged to bring goods several times in the year, and
receive coins of bark in exchange; and therefore, Marco explains, “is
Cublay richer than all else in the world.” He describes the posting
system, the rich palaces built for the housing of messengers, the trees
planted along the merchant routes to act as signposts on the road;
“for,” he says, “you will find these trees along the desert way, and
they are a great comfort to merchant and messenger.” Visitors to the
chapel of San Giorgio dei Schiavoni will recall the use that Carpaccio
has made of these palm-tree signposts in the _Death of St. Jerome_ and
the _Victory of St. George_. Marco tells of magnificent feasts made by
the Great Kaan on his birthday and on New Year’s Day. He delights in
stories of the chase within the domain of Cublay’s palace of Chandu
(perhaps the Xanadu of Coleridge) the walls of which enclosed a
sixteen-mile circuit, with fountains and rivers and lawns and beasts
of every kind. He describes in detail, as of special interest to his
hearers, the size and construction of the rods of which the Palace of
Canes was built and the two hundred silken cords with which it was
secured during the summer months of its existence. He speaks of the
“weather magic” by which rain and fog are warded off from this palace;
and of the Great Kaan’s fancy that the blood of a royal line should
not be spilt upon the ground to be seen of sun and air, and of his
consequent device for the murder of his uncle Nayan, whom he tossed to
death in a carpet. Baudas (Baghdad), he says, is the chief city of the
Saracens. A great river flows through it to the Indian Ocean, which
may be reached in eighteen days. The city is full of merchants and of
traffic; it produces _nasich_ and _nac_ and _cramoisy_, and gold and
silver brocades richly embroidered with design of birds and of beasts;
and the woods of Bastra, between Baudas and the sea, produce the finest
dates in the world. He recounts the taking of this Baudas in the year
1255 by Alaü, the Great Kaan’s brother, who, when he had taken it,
discovered therein a tower belonging to the Caliph full of gold and
silver and other treasure, so that there never was so much seen at
one time in one place. When Alaü beheld the great heap of treasure,
he was amazed and sent for the Caliph into his presence and asked him
why he had amassed so great a treasure and what he had intended to do
with it. “Did you not know that I was your enemy and coming to lay you
waste?” he demanded. “Why, therefore, did you not take your treasure
and give it to knights and soldiers to defend you and your city?” The
caliph replied nothing, for he did not know what to answer. So Alaü
continued, “Caliph, I see you love your treasure so much, I will give
you this treasure of yours to eat.” So he had the Caliph shut up in the
tower and commanded that nothing should be given him to eat or drink,
saying, “Caliph, eat now as much treasure as you will, for you shall
never eat or drink anything else.” And he left the Caliph in the tower,
where, at the end of four days, he died. Marco must have opened up to
his listeners in Venice horizons of lands almost comparable in extent
to the sea-spaces familiar to their thoughts from infancy. He spoke of
deserts of many days’ journey, of the port of Hormos at the edge of
one of the most beautiful of the plains--a city whence precious stones
and spices and cloths of silver and gold brought by the merchants from
India were shipped to all parts of the world.