[Illustration: THE ANGELS OF THE SALUTE]
SALVE · VENETIA
GLEANINGS
FROM VENETIAN HISTORY
BY
FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD
_WITH 225 ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOSEPH PENNELL_
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1906
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1905,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published December, 1905. Reprinted
January, 1906.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. THE ARISTOCRATIC MAGISTRACIES AT THE BEGINNING
OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 1
II. GLEANING FROM VENETIAN CRIMINAL HISTORY 51
III. VENETIAN DIPLOMACY 77
IV. THE ARSENAL, THE GLASS-WORKS, AND THE LACE-MAKERS 95
V. CONCERNING SOME LADIES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 117
VI. A FEW PAINTERS, MEN OF LETTERS, AND SCHOLARS 132
VII. THE TRIUMPHANT CITY 168
VIII. THE HOSE CLUB--VENETIAN LEGENDS 189
IX. THE DECADENCE 207
X. THE LAST HOMES--THE LAST GREAT LADIES 232
XI. THE LAST CARNIVALS--THE LAST FAIRS--THE LAST FEASTS 266
XII. THE LAST MAGISTRATES 288
XIII. THE LAST SBIRRI 310
XIV. THE LAST DOGES 334
XV. THE LAST SOLDIERS 348
XVI. THE LAST DIPLOMATISTS 361
XVII. THE LAST HOUR 380
XVIII. CONCLUSION 412
THE DOGES OF VENICE 421
TABLE OF THE PRINCIPAL DATES IN VENETIAN HISTORY 425
INDEX 433
ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATES
The Angels of the Salute _Frontispiece_
The Last Rays, St. Mark’s _To face page_ 35
Palazzo Ressonico ” 72
Steamers coming in ” 96
Afterglow, the Grand Canal ” 134
Venice from the Garden ” 140
Entrance to the Sacristy, Frari ” 149
Campiello delle Ancore ” 208
The Salute from the Riva ” 246
Fondamente Nuove ” 313
From San Georgio to the Salute ” 326
Ponte Canonica ” 356
Out in the Lagoon ” 382
IN TEXT
PAGE
S. Maria degli Scalzi, Grand Canal 1
Hall of the Great Clocks, Ducal Palace 7
Hall of the Pictures, Ducal Palace 9
The Stair of Gold, Ducal Palace 13
Rio S. Atanasio 20
S. Samuele 30
On the Zattere 39
Rio del Rimedio 41
Mouth of the Grand Canal 51
The Rialto at Night 53
From the Balcony of the Ducal Palace 54
The Columns, Piazzetta 55
The Salute from the Giudecca 61
A Garden Wall 69
Palazzo Dario 83
Calle Beccheria 85
Ponte del Cristo 95
S. Michele 99
Venice from Murano 100
The Duomo Campanile, Murano 101
Murano, looking towards Venice 103
Murano 104
The House of Beroviero, Murano 105
The Palaces 109
The Rialto Steps 112
Noon on the Rialto 113
At the Rialto 115
Evening off S. Georgio 117
Casa Weidermann 125
The Grand Canal in Summer 132
Euganean Hills from the Lagoon, Low Tide 135
House of Tintoretto 145
House of Aldus 147
S. Giacomo in Orio 157
Doorway of the Sacristy, S. Giacomo in Orio 159
Fondamenta Sanudo 161
A Holiday on the Riva 168
Door of the Carmine 174
Interior of the Carmine 177
Campo behind S. Giacomo in Orio 181
The Piazza 185
Pigeons in the Piazza 187
Sotto Portico della Guerra 189
Ponte S. Antonio 193
S. Zobenigo 197
Ponte dell’ Angelo, Giudecca, Old Wooden Bridge 202
Rio S. Sofia, Night 207
Santa Maria Formosa 211
Grand Canal looking towards Mocenigo Palace 217
The Fondamenta S. Giorgio, Redentore in Distance 222
Steps of the Redentore 224
The Nave of S. Stefano 229
The Riva from the Dogana 232
Campo S. Bartolomeo, Statue of Goldoni 233
SS. Giovanni e Paolo 243
Night on the Riva 244
Rio della Toresela 253
A Narrow Street, near the Academy 259
Grand Canal 266
Church of the Miracle 271
The Procession of the Redentore 276
Near the Fenice 286
Grand Canal from the Fish Market 288
S. Barnabò 289
Instituto Bon, Grand Canal 293
When the Alps show Themselves, Fondamenta Nuove 300
Café on the Zattere 301
The Dogana 303
Rio della 310
Rio S. Stin 313
Rio della Guerra 318
Via Garibaldi 325
The Pesaro Palace, Grand Canal 334
Marco Polo’s Court 339
Ponte della Pietà 344
From the Public Garden at Sunset 348
Boat-Builders 353
The Vegetable Market 355
Fondamenta Weidermann 357
The Salute from S. Giorgio 361
From the Ponte della Pietà 365
On the Way to Fusina, from the Mouth of the Brenta 369
A Lonely Canal 374
Evening 380
The Salute from the Lagoon 385
From the Ponte S. Rocco 397
Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo 403
So-called House of Desdemona 407
Sails 412
A Gateway 413
SALVE · VENETIA
[Illustration: S. MARIA DEGLI SCALZI, GRAND CANAL]
I
THE ARISTOCRATIC MAGISTRACIES AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Like other aristocracies, the Venetian government rarely destroyed or
altogether abolished any office or regulation which had existed a long
time. When a change was needed the duties or powers of one or more of
the Councils were extended, or a committee of the Council of Ten was
appointed and presently turned into a separate tribunal, as when the
Inquisitors of State were created.
In one sense the government of Venice had now existed in a rigid and
unchangeably aristocratic form during two centuries, and that form never
changed to the very end. But in another sense no government in the world
ever showed itself more flexible under the pressure of events, or better
able to provide a new legislative weapon with which to combat each new
danger that presented itself. This double character of an administration
which inspired awe by its apparent immutability and terror by its
ubiquity and energy, no doubt had much to do with its extraordinarily
long life; for I believe that no civilised form of government ever
endured so long as that of Venice.
It is therefore either frivolous or hypocritical to seek the causes of
its ultimate collapse. It died of old age, when the race that had made
it was worn out. It would be much more to the point to inquire why the
most unscrupulous, sceptical, suspicious, and thoroughly immoral
organisation that ever was devised by man should have outlasted a number
of other organisations supposed to be founded on something like
principles of liberty and justice. Such an inquiry would involve an
examination into the nature of freedom, equity, and truth generally; but
no one has ever satisfactorily defined even one of those terms, for the
simple reason that the things the words are supposed to mean do not
anywhere exist; and the study of that which has no real existence, and
no such potential mathematical existence as an ultimate ratio, is
absolutely futile.
The facts we know about the Venetian government are all interesting,
however. It had its origin, like all really successful governments, in
the necessities of a small people which held together in the face of
great dangers. It was moulded and developed by the strongest and most
intelligent portion of that people, and the party that modelled it
guessed that each member of the party would destroy it and make himself
the master if he could, wherefore the main thing was to render it
impossible for any individual to succeed in that. The individual most
likely to succeed was the Doge himself, and he was therefore turned into
a mere doll, a puppet that could not call his soul his own. The next
most probable aspirant to the tyranny would be the successful
native-born general or admiral. A machinery was invented whereby the
victorious leader was almost certain to be imprisoned, fined, and exiled
as soon as his work was done and idleness made him dangerous. Pisani,
Zeno, Da Lezze are merely examples of what happened almost invariably.
If a Venetian was a hero, any excuse would serve for locking him up.
Next after the generals came the nobles who held office, and lastly
those who were merely rich and influential. They were so thoroughly
hemmed in by a hedge of apparently petty rules and laws as to their
relations with foreigners, with the people, and with each other, that
they were practically paralysed, as individuals, while remaining active
and useful as parts of the whole. No one ever cared what the people
thought or did, for they were peaceable, contented, and patriotic. Every
measure passed by the nobles was directed against an enemy that might at
any moment arise amongst themselves, or against the machinations of
enemies abroad. Of all Italians the Venetians alone were not the victims
of that simplicity of which I have already spoken. They believed in
nothing and nobody, and they were not deceived. They were not drawn into
traps by the wiles of the Visconti as Genoa was, and as many of the
principalities were; they were not cheated out of their money by royal
English borrowers as the Florentines were; they were not led away out of
sentiment to ruin themselves in the Crusades as so many were; on the
contrary, their connection with the Crusades was very profitable. For a
long time they could be heroes when driven to extremities, but they
never liked heroics; they were good fighters at sea, because they were
admirable merchant sailors, but on land they much preferred to hire
other men to fight for them, whom they could pay off and get rid of when
the work was done.
Like other nations, their history is that of their rise, their
culmination, and their decline. Like other nations, Venice also
resembled the living body of a human being, of which it is not possible
to define with absolute accuracy the periods of youth, prime, and old
age. But we can say with certainty that each of those stages lasted
longer in the life of Venice than in the life of any other European
state, perhaps because no one of the three periods was hastened or
interrupted by an internal revolution or by the temporary presence of a
foreign conqueror.
It can be said, however, that Venice was, on the whole, at the height of
her glory about the year 1500, and it would have needed a gift of
prophecy to foretell the probable date of the still distant end. At that
time the Great Council was more than ever the incarnation of the State,
that is, of the aristocracy; and every member of the great assembly had
a sort of ‘cultus’ for his own dignity, and looked upon his family, from
which he derived his personal privileges, with a veneration that
bordered on worship. The safety and prosperity of the patrician houses
were most intimately connected with the welfare of the country; a member
of the Great Council would probably have considered that the latter was
the immediate consequence of the former. As a matter of fact, under the
government which the aristocrats had given themselves, it really was so;
they were themselves the State.
It was therefore natural that they should guard their race against all
plebeian contamination. From time to time it became necessary to open
the Golden Book and the doors of the Great Council to certain families
which had great claims upon the public gratitude, as happened after the
war of Chioggia; but the book was opened unwillingly, and the door of
the council-chamber was only set ajar; the newcomers were looked
[Sidenote: _Rom. iv. 469._]
upon as little better than intruders, and the ‘new men,’ while they
were invested with the outward distinctions of rank before the law, were
not received into anything like intimacy by their colleagues of the
older nobility.
It is a law of the Catholic Church that baptism creates a relationship,
and therefore a canonical impediment to marriage, between the baptized
person or his parents on the one hand, and the godfathers and godmothers
on the other, as well as between each of the godparents and all the
rest. But it was the custom of Venice to have a great many godfathers
and godmothers at baptisms, and the nobles were therefore obliged by law
to choose them from the burgher and artisan classes. It was perfectly
indifferent that a young patrician should contract a spiritual
relationship with a hundred persons--there were sometimes as many
godparents as that--if these persons were socially so far beneath him
that he must lose caste if he married one of them; but it was of prime
importance that the law should forbid the formation of any spiritual
bond whereby a possible marriage between two members of the aristocracy
might be prevented, or even retarded. Every parish priest was therefore
required to ask in a loud voice, when he was baptizing a noble baby,
whether there were any persons of the same social condition as the
infant amongst the godparents. If he omitted to do this, or allowed
himself to be deceived by those present, he was liable to a very heavy
fine, and might even be imprisoned for several months.
The Avogadori now replaced their old-fashioned register by the one
henceforth officially known as the Golden Book, in which were entered
the marriages of the nobles and the births of their children. Every
noble who omitted to have his marriage registered within one week, or
the birth of his children within the same time, was liable to severe
penalties. But the
[Illustration: HALL OF THE GREAT CLOCKS, DUCAL PALACE]
names of women of inferior condition who married nobles were not entered
in those sanctified pages, since the children of a burgher woman could
not sit in the Great Council. Nevertheless, it happened now and then
that a noble sacrificed the privileges
[Sidenote: _Molmenti, Dog._]
of his descendants for the present advantage of a rich dowry; and as
this again constituted a source of anxiety for the State, the amount of
a burgher girl’s marriage portion was limited by law to the sum of two
thousand ducats.
The young aristocrats received a special education, to fit them for
their future duties and offices. We have already seen that young men not
yet old enough to sit in the Great Council were admitted to its meetings
in considerable numbers, though without a
[Sidenote: _Yriarte, Vie d’un Patricien de Venise, 67._]
vote. The instruction and education of young nobles were conducted
according to a programme of which the details were established by a
series of decrees, and especially by one dating from 1443; and in the
Senate very young noble boys were employed to carry the ballot-boxes, in
which office they took turns, changing every three months. There were
probably not enough noble children to perform the same duty for the
Great Council, which employed for that purpose a number of boys from the
Foundling Asylum.
The young nobles were brought up to feel that they and their time
belonged exclusively to the State, and when they grew older it was a
point of honour with them not to be absent from any meeting of the
Councils to which they were appointed. Marcantonio Barbaro, the
patrician whose life M. Yriarte has so carefully studied, missed only
one meeting of the Great Council in thirty years, and then his absence
was due to illness. When one considers that the Great Council met every
Sunday, and on every feast day except the second of March and the
thirty-first of January, which was Saint Mark’s day, such constant
regularity is really wonderful.
[Illustration: HALL OF THE PICTURES, DUCAL PALACE]
During the summer the sittings were held from eight in the morning until
noon, in winter from noon to sunset; this, at least, was the ordinary
rule, but the Doge’s counsellors could multiply the meetings to any
extent they thought necessary, and we know that when a doge was to be
elected the Great Council sometimes sat fifty times consecutively.
The public were admitted to the ordinary sittings of the Great Council,
and in later times one could even be present wearing a mask, as may be
seen in certain old engravings. But no outsiders were admitted when an
important subject was to be discussed, and on those occasions a number
of members were themselves excluded. If, for instance, the question
concerned the Papal Court, all those who had ever avowed their sympathy
for the Holy See, or who had any direct relations with the reigning
Pope, or who owed him any debt of gratitude, were ordered to leave the
hall. Such persons were called ‘papalisti,’ and were frequently shut out
of the Great Council in the sixteenth century, a period during which the
Republic had many differences with Rome.
In 1526, for instance, the Patriarch of Venice laid before the Great
Council a complaint against the Signors of the Night, who refused to set
at liberty a certain priest arrested by them, or even to inform the
ecclesiastical authorities of the nature of his misdemeanour. That would
have been one of the occasions for excluding the ‘papalisti.’ The
Patriarch seems to have been a hot-tempered person, for on finding that
he could get no satisfaction from the Great Council, he excommunicated
the Venetian government and everybody connected with it, and posted the
notice of the interdict on the columns of the ducal palace. The matter
was patched up in some way, however, for on the morrow the notice
disappeared.
The Senate met twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I find among
their regulations a singular rule by which the beginning of every speech
had to be delivered in the Tuscan language, after which the speaker was
at liberty to go on in his own Venetian dialect.
[Sidenote: _Fulin, Studii, Arch. Ven. I. 1871 (unfinished)._]
I have already spoken at some length of the Council of Ten; it is now
necessary to say something of the Inquisitors of State, to whom the Ten
ceded a part of their authority in the sixteenth century.
In the first place, the Inquisitors of State never had anything to do
with the ‘Inquisition,’ nor with the ‘Inquisitors of the Holy Office,’ a
tribunal, oddly enough, which was much more secular than ecclesiastic,
and which belongs to a later period.
Secondly, the so-called ‘Statutes of the Inquisitors of State,’
published by the French historian Daru, in good faith, and translated by
Smedley, were
[Sidenote: _Rom. vi._]
afterwards discovered to be nothing but an impudent forgery, containing
several laughable anachronisms, and a number of mistakes about the
nature of the magistracies which prove that the forger was not even a
Venetian.
Thirdly, the genuine Statutes have been discovered since, and are given
at length by Romanin. They do not bear the least resemblance to the
nonsense published by Daru. No one except Romanin would have attempted
to whitewash the Inquisitors and the Council of Ten, and even he is
obliged to admit that for ‘weighty reasons of state’ they did not
hesitate to order secret assassinations; but they were not fools, as the
‘Statutes’ of Daru make them appear.
The proof that the Statutes published by Romanin are genuine consists in
the fact that two independent copies of them have been found; the one,
written out by Angelo Nicolosi, secretary to the Inquisitors, with a
dedication to them dated the twenty-fifth of September 1669; the other,
a pocket copy, written out in 1612, with his own hand, by the Inquisitor
Niccolò Donà, nephew of the Doge Leonardo Donà. The Statutes in these
two copies are identical; the earlier one, which belonged to Donà,
contains also a number of interesting memoranda concerning the doings of
the tribunal in that year.
Lastly, it is conjectured by Romanin that the author of the forgery that
imposed on Daru and others was no less a personage than Count Francesco
della Torre, the ambassador of the Holy Roman Empire. He died in Venice
in 1695.
These facts being clearly stated, we can pass on to inquire how and why
the court of the Inquisitors of State was evoked, it being well
understood that although they were not the malignant fiends described by
Daru, who seems to have had in his mind the German tales of the
‘Wehmgericht,’ yet, in the picturesque language of their native Italy,
‘they were not shinbones of saints’ either.
Most historians consider that ‘Inquisitors of the Council of Ten’ were
first appointed by that Council
[Illustration: THE STAIR OF GOLD, DUCAL PALACE]
in 1314, and it is generally conceded that they did not take the title
‘Inquisitors of State’ and begin to be regarded unofficially as a
separate tribunal till 1539. The mass of evidence goes to show that
these two dates are, at least, not far wrong, and during more than two
hundred years between the two, the members of the committee were called
indifferently either the ‘Inquisitors,’ or the ‘Executives’ of the Ten.
They were at first either two, or three; later they were always three,
and they were commissioned to furnish proofs against accused persons,
and occasionally to make the necessary arrangements for secretly
assassinating traitors who had fled the country and were living abroad.
At first their commission was a temporary one, which was not renewed
unless the gravity of the case required it. Later, when they became a
permanent tribunal of three, two of their number were always regular
members of the Council of Ten, and were called the ‘Black Inquisitors,’
because the Ten wore black mantles; the third was one of the Doge’s
counsellors, who, as will be remembered, were among the persons always
present at the meetings of the Ten, and he was called the ‘Red
Inquisitor’ from the colour of his counsellor’s cloak.
The fourteenth century was memorable on account of the great
conspiracies, and it is at least probable that after 1320 the secret
committee of the Ten became tolerably permanent as to its existence,
though its members were often changed. Signor Fulin has discovered that
during a part of the fifteenth century they were chosen only for thirty
days, and that the utmost exactness was enforced on those who vacated
the office. A long discussion took place at that time as to whether the
month began at the midnight preceding the day of the Inquisitor’s
election, or only on the morning of that day; since, in the latter case,
an Inquisitor at the end of his term would have the right to act until
sunrise on the thirty-first day, whereas, in the other, he would have to
resign his seat at the first stroke of midnight. The incident is a good
instance of the Venetian manner of interpreting the letter of the law.
So long as the tribunal was merely a committee depending on the Ten it
had no archives of its own, and whatever it did appeared officially as
the act of the Council, of which the Inquisitors were merely executive
agents. They were dismissed at the end of their month of service with a
regular formula:--
‘The Inquisitors will come to the Council with what they have found, and
the Council will decide what it thinks best with regard to them.’
In those times they received no general authorisation or power to act on
their own account, and their office must have been excessively irksome,
since a heavy fine was exacted from any one who refused to serve on the
committee when he had been chosen. Though they were not, as a rule, men
of over-sensitive conscience, they felt their position keenly and served
with ill-disguised repugnance, well knowing that they were hated as a
body even more than they were feared, and that their lives were not
always safe.
In early times their actual permanent power was very limited, though the
Ten could greatly extend it for any special purpose. For instance, they
could not, of their own will, proceed even to a simple arrest; they
could not order the residence of a citizen to be searched; and they
could not use torture in examining a witness, without a special
authorisation from the Ten on each occasion.
Their work then lay almost wholly in secretly spying upon suspected
persons; and it often happened that when such an one was at last
arrested the whole mass of evidence against him was already written out
and in the hands of the Ten. It also certainly happened now and then
that a person was proved innocent by the Inquisitors who had been
suspected by the Ten, and who had never had the least idea that he was
in danger.
The machinery did not always work quickly, it is true, especially after
the accused was arrested and locked up. Trials often dragged on for
months, so that when the culprit was at last sentenced to a term of
prison, it appeared that he had already served more than the time to
which he was condemned. This abuse, however, led to a vigorous reform by
a series of stringent decrees, the time of inquiry was limited, for
ordinary cases, to three days, and for graver matters to a month, and
ruinous fines were imposed on Councillors and Inquisitors who were not
present at every sitting of the Court.
It was towards the close of the sixteenth century that the Inquisitors,
being then elected for the term of a year, were given much greater power
than theretofore. Though they were still closely associated with the
Ten, they now had a sort of official independence, including the right
to a method of procedure of their own, with secret archives quite
separate from those of the Ten. The year 1596 is generally given as the
date at which the separate tribunal was definitely created, with
permanent instructions to watch over the public safety, and to detect
all plots and conspiracies that might threaten the ‘ancient laws and
government of Venice.’
It cannot be said that the procedure of the Ten, or of the Inquisitors,
was arbitrary, and the supreme Venetian tribunals have not deserved all
the obloquy that has been heaped upon them; but at a time when the most
inhuman methods were used to obtain evidence, they certainly did not
give an example of gentleness.
Signor Fulin, to whose recent researches all students of Venetian
history are much indebted, says, with perfect truthfulness, that torture
was by no means used with moderation. He cites a document signed by the
Ten and the Inquisitors, dated the twenty-fifth of April 1445:--
‘We have received a humble petition from Luigi Cristoforo Spiaciario,
sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and ten years of exile for
unnatural crimes. The said convict has passed two years in prison
according to his sentence, and five years more in the corridors of the
prisons, because his feet having been burnt and his arms dislocated by
torture, he could not leave Venice. The said convict petitions that, out
of regard for so much suffering, he may be pardoned the last five years
of his condemnation.’
The same writer also tells us that in spite of the precautions which
were supposed to be taken, torture often ended in death; and in the
archives of the Ten there are instances of horrible mutilations besides
public decapitations, secret stranglings, and hangings and poisonings;
there are also some cases of death inflicted by drowning, though these
were less frequent than has been supposed; and lastly, the quiet waters
of the canals have more than once reflected the blaze of faggots burning
round the stake.
Romanin’s industry has left us an exact list of the official drownings
that took place between 1551 and 1604, a period of fifty-three years. As
it is not long, I append it in full. The list is made out from the
register of deaths which is preserved in the church of Saint Mark’s.
In 1551 there were secretly drowned 2 persons
1554 “ “ 2 “
1555 “ “ 2 “
1556 “ “ 3 “
1557 “ “ 4 “
1558 “ “ 1 “
1559 “ “ 8 “
1560 “ “ 7 “
1569 “ “ 6 “
1571 “ “ 4 “
1573 “ “ 7 “
From 1574 to 1584 “ “ 12 “
1584 to 1594 “ “ 55 “
1594 to 1600 “ “ 50 “
1600 to 1604 “ “ 40 “
---
Total number of drowned 203 during 53 years
===
The last person who suffered death by drowning was a glass-blower of
Murano in the eighteenth century.
Before going on to say a word about the prisons in the sixteenth century
it is as well to call attention to the fact that the Inquisitors of
State twice found themselves in direct relations with the English
government; once, in 1587, when they called the attention of England to
a conspiracy which was brewing in Spain; and again, a few years later,
in connection with the tragedy of Antonio Foscarini in which they played
such a deplorable part. Is it not possible that there may be some
documents in the English Record Office bearing upon those circumstances,
and likely to throw more light upon the tribunal of the Inquisitors?
In connection with the prisons, I take the following details, among many
similar ones, from documents found by Signor Fulin in the archives of
the Inquisitors of State. He says, in connection with them, that they
are by no means exaggerated. One of the most characteristic is a case
dated towards the end of the fifteenth century, and it will serve as an
example, since it is known that no great changes were made in the
management of the prisons until much later.
‘There has been found in the prisons a youth named Menegidio
Scutellario, whom the Council of Ten had sentenced to twenty-five blows
of the stick, which he received, and to a year’s imprisonment. He was
transferred from the new prisons to the one called Muzina, where he
contracted an extremely painful inflammatory disease which has produced
running sores. He has several on his head, and his face is much
[Illustration: RIO S. ATANASIO]
swollen. Moreover, this boy is shut up in the prison with twenty-five
men of all ages, which is very dangerous for him from a moral point of
view. A widow, who says she is his mother, comes every day to the Palace
begging and imploring that her son may not be left in this abominable
prison, lest he die there, or at least learn all manner of wickedness in
the company of so many criminals. We consequently order that in view of
the justice of these complaints the boy be kept in the corridor of the
prisons till the end of his year.’
As in the Tower of London, so also in the gloomy dens of the Pozzi,
former prisoners have left short records of themselves. For instance:
[Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Annali Urb._]
‘1576, 22 March. I am Mandricardo Matiazzo de Marostega’; ‘Galeazze
Avogadro and his friends 1584’; and lower down the following misspelt
Latin words, ‘Odie mihi, chras tibi (_sic_)’--‘My turn to-day, to-morrow
yours.’
Occasionally some daring convict succeeded in escaping from those deep
and secure prisons. In his journal, under the fifth of August 1497,
Marin Sanudo writes:--
It has happened that in the prisons of Saint Mark a number of
convicts who were to remain there till they died have plotted to
escape; they elected for their chief that Loico Fioravante, who
killed his father on the night of Good Friday in the church of the
Frari. There was also Marco Corner, sentenced for an unnatural
crime; Benedetto Petriani, thief, and many others. On the evening
of the fourth, when the jailers were making their usual rounds, the
prisoners succeeded in disarming and binding them, and went on from
one prison to another, their numbers increasing as they went, till
they reached the last (novissima); there they found arrows and
other arms, and began to discuss a plan of escape. Now it chanced
that two Saracens who were amongst them wished to get out more
quickly, without waiting for the deliberations of their comrades.
One of them was almost drowned in the canal, the other took fright
and began to cry out for help. A boat of the Council of Ten which
was just passing picked up the half-drowned man; the fact that he
was a Saracen suggested that he might be a fugitive, and he was
frightened into confessing. The plot was now revealed and the guard
was immediately informed. On the following morning the chiefs of
the Ten, Cosimo Pasqualigo, Niccolò da Pesaro, Domenico Beneto,
went to the prisons with a good escort, but they could not get in,
for the prisoners defended themselves. Then wet straw was brought,
and it was lighted in order that the smoke might suffocate them.
And they were advised to yield before the order of the Council of
Ten was repeated thrice, for otherwise they would all be hanged.
Marco Corner was the first to surrender, and after him all the
others. They were taken back, each to his prison, under a closer
watch.
In Marco Corner’s case the love of liberty must have been strong, for in
the same journal of Sanudo we find that in little more than a year after
their unsuccessful attempt at flight, he and some companions actually
succeeded in getting out and made their exit through the hall of the
Piovego, that is to say, through the Doge’s palace. Their numbers were
considerable, and six of them were sentenced to imprisonment for life.
During the night they reached the monastery of Saint George, and at dawn
they were already beyond the confines of Venetian territory.
Having disposed of the Inquisitors of State, I shall now endeavour to
explain the position and duties of the Inquisitors of the Holy Office,
with whom the ordinary reader is very apt to confound them.
In the first place, the Holy Office in Venice was a much milder and more
insignificant affair than it was at that time in other European states.
In Venice it seems to have corresponded vaguely to the modern European
Ministry of Public Worship. There are some amusing stories connected
with it, but no very terrible ones so far as I can ascertain.
The Republic had long resisted the desire of the Popes to establish a
branch of the Holy Inquisition in Venice, but by way of showing a
conciliatory spirit, while maintaining complete independence, the
government had created a magistracy which was responsible for three
matters, namely, the condition of the canals, the regulation of usury,
and--of all things--cases of heresy. It is perfectly impossible to say
why three classes of affairs so different were placed under the control
of one body of men. Considering the gravity of the Venetian government
we can hardly suppose that it was intended as a piece of ironical wit at
the expense of the Holy See. It may, at all events, be considered
certain that the Savi all’ Eresia, literally the Wise Men on Heresy, of
the thirteenth century, had not accomplished what was expected of them,
since in 1289 the government recognised the necessity of establishing a
special court to deal with affairs of religion, presided over, at least
in appearance, by a person delegated for that purpose from the Vatican.
The Holy Office was thereby accepted in Venice, but with restrictions
that paralysed it.
[Sidenote: _Molmenti, Stud. e Ric._]
The tribunal was, in principle, composed of three persons, the Apostolic
Nuncio, the Patriarch, and the Father Inquisitor, all three of whom had
to be approved by the Republic. As a first step towards hindering them
from acting rashly, they were strictly forbidden to discuss or decide
anything whatsoever, except in the presence of three Venetian nobles,
who were appointed year by year, and preserved their ancient title of
Wise Men on Heresy. Next,
[Sidenote: _Rom. ii. 252, and viii. 348._]
the Holy Office was not allowed to busy itself about any religious
matter except heresy, in the strictest sense; it could not interfere in
connection with any violation of the laws of the Church, not even in
cases of sorcery or blasphemy, for magicians fell under the authority of
the Signors of the Night, and blasphemers were answerable to the
Executives against Blasphemy.
These laws had not changed in the sixteenth century, and the Holy Office
had less to do than most of the contemporary tribunals. An examination
of the documents preserved in its archives shows that from the year 1541
to the fall of the Republic there were three thousand six hundred and
twenty trials, of which fifteen hundred and sixty-five fell in the
sixteenth century, fourteen hundred and ninety-seven in the seventeenth,
and only five hundred and sixty-one in the eighteenth. In the majority
of cases the testimony was declared insufficient; in others, the accused
hastened to abjure their errors. Sometimes, however, we find long
trials in the course of which torture was used as by the other
tribunals, and in these cases the end was frequently a sentence of death
or a condemnation to the galleys.
[Sidenote: _Molmenti, Stud. e Ric., and Cecchetti, Corte di Roma._]
No heretic was ever burned alive in Venice; death was inflicted by
strangling, beheading, or hanging. Each Doge promised, indeed, on his
election, to burn all heretics, but it is amply proved that only their
dead bodies or their effigies were really given to the flames.
[Illustration:
A: Clerk of the Exchequer
B: Commissioner of the Inquisition
C: The Patriarch’s Vicar General
D: The Nuncio’s Auditor
E: The Father Inquisitor
F: The Patriarch
G: The Pope’s Nuncio
H: A Venetian Senator
I: A Venetian Senator
J: A Venetian Senator
A B C D E F G H I J
Door used by the +-++-++-++-++-++-++-++-++-++-++-+
Father Inquisitor, the | ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ |
Nuncio’s Auditor, the | | Door used by the
Patriarch’s Vicar, -+ /-------------------------\ +- Patriarch, the
the Commissioner |Court of the Holy Office | Nuncio, and the
of the Inquisition, -+ \-------------------------/ +- three Senators.
and the Clerk of | |
the Exchequer. | |
+-------------------------------+
]
The tribunal of the Holy Office sat in a very low vaulted room in the
buildings of Saint Mark’s, which was reached by a narrow staircase after
passing through the Sacristy. The Court had no prisons of its own.
Persons who were arrested by it, or sentenced by it to terms of
imprisonment, were confined in the prisons of the State, probably in
those of the Ponte della Paglia. It is likely that the Court had at its
disposal two or three cells near its place of sitting, for the
detention of the accused during the trials. Signor Molmenti has
ascertained precisely how the members of the tribunal were placed, and
has published a diagram which I here reproduce for the benefit of those
who like such curious details.
As will be seen by the diagram, one half of the personages used one
entrance, and the rest came in by the other. Until the year 1560, the
Inquisitor himself was a Franciscan monk, but afterwards he was always a
Dominican.
The hall was gloomy and ill-lighted, the furniture poor; it did not
please the Republic to spend money for the delectation of a court which
it did not like.
It was here that two famous trials took place in the sixteenth century,
namely, that of Giordano Bruno, the renegade monk, dear to Englishmen
who have never read the very scarce volume of his insane and filthy
writings, and that of the celebrated painter Paolo Veronese. The
contrast between these two documents is very striking, but both go to
prove that the Holy Office in Venice was seldom more than a hollow sham,
and that its proceedings occasionally degenerated towards low comedy.
Having escaped from Rome, Giordano Bruno left the ecclesiastical career
which he had dishonoured in
[Sidenote: _Previti, Vita di Giordano Bruno._]
every possible way, and wandered about in search of money and glory. In
the course of time he came to London, where his coarseness and his loose
life made him many enemies. Thence he went on to Oxford, where, by
means of some potent protection, he succeeded in obtaining the privilege
of lecturing on philosophy; but the university authorities were soon
scandalised by his behaviour and frightened by the extravagance of his
doctrines; in three months he was obliged to leave. He revenged himself
by writing a libel called ‘La Cena delle Ceneri,’ in which he described
England as a land of dark streets in which one stuck in the mud
knee-deep, and of houses that lacked every necessary; the boats on the
Thames were rowed by men more hideous than Charon, the workmen and
shop-keepers were vulgar and untaught rustics, always ready to laugh at
a stranger, and to call him by such names as traitor, or dog. In this
pleasing pamphlet the Englishwoman alone escapes the writer’s
foul-mouthed hatred, to be insulted by his still more foul-mouthed
praise. One may imagine the sort of eulogy that would run from the pen
of a man capable of describing woman in general as a creature with
neither faith nor constancy, neither merit nor talent, but full of more
pride, arrogance, hatred, falseness, lust, avarice, ingratitude and,
generally, of more vices than there were evils in Pandora’s box; one
might quote many amenities of language more or less senseless, as, for
instance, that woman is a hammer, a foul sepulchre, and a quartan fever;
and there are a hundred other expressions which cannot be quoted at all.
Towards 1591, the patrician Giovanni Mocenigo, an enthusiastic collector
of books, found in the shop of a Dutch bookseller a little volume,
entitled _Eroici Furori_, which contains some astrological calculations
and some hints on mnemonics. The purchaser asked who the author might
be, learned from the bookseller that it was Giordano Bruno, entered into
correspondence with him, and at last invited him to Venice.
Bruno, it is needless to say, accepted the invitation eagerly, as he
accepted every thing that was offered to him, but it was not long before
Mocenigo regretted his haste to be hospitable. He had begun by calling
his visitor his dear master; before long he discovered the man to be a
debauchee and a blasphemer. Now it chanced that Mocenigo had sat in the
tribunal of the Holy Office as one of the three senators whose business
it was to oversee the acts of the Father Inquisitor, and he was not only
a devout man, but had a taste for theology. He began by remonstrating
with Bruno, but when the latter became insolent, he quietly turned the
key on him and denounced him to the Holy Office. A few hours later the
renegade monk was arrested and conveyed to prison. He was examined
several times by the tribunal, but was never tortured, and as the judges
thought they detected signs of coming repentance they granted him a
limit of time within which to abjure his errors. But the trial did not
end in Venice, for the Republic made an exception in this case and soon
yielded to a request from the Pope that the accused should be sent to
Rome. He was ultimately burnt there, the only heretic, according to the
most recent and learned authorities, who ever died at the stake in
Italy. He was in reality a degenerate and a lunatic, who should have
ended his days in an asylum.
M. Yriarte has published in the appendix to his study of the Venetian
noble in the sixteenth century the verbatim report of the proceedings of
the Holy Office on the eighteenth of July 1573. The prisoner at the bar
was Paolo Veronese. I quote the following from M. Yriarte’s
translation:--
REPORT of the sitting of the Tribunal of the Inquisition on
Saturday July eighteenth, 1573.
This day, July eighteenth, 1573. Called to the Holy Office before
the sacred tribunal, Paolo Galliari Veronese residing in the parish
of Saint Samuel, and being asked as to his name and surname replied
as above.
Being asked as to his profession:--
Answer. I paint and make figures.
Question. Do you know the reasons why you have been called here?
A. No.
Q. Can you imagine what those reasons may be?
A. I can well imagine.
Q. Say what you think about them.
[Sidenote: _The Supper in the house of Simon, Paolo Veronese;
Accademia, Room IX._]
A. I fancy that it concerns what was said to me by the reverend
fathers, or rather by the prior of the monastery of San Giovanni e
Paolo, whose name I did not know, but who informed me that he had
been here, and that your Most Illustrious Lordships had ordered him
to cause to be placed in the picture a Magdalen instead of the dog;
and I answered him that very readily I would do all that was
needful for my reputation and for the honour of the picture; but
that I did not understand what this figure of Magdalen could be
doing
[Illustration: S. SAMUELE]
here; and this for many reasons, which I will tell, when occasion
is granted me to speak.
Q. What is the picture to which you have been referring?
A. It is the picture which represents the Last Supper of Jesus
Christ with His disciples in the house of Simon.
Q. Where is this picture?
A. In the refectory of the monks of San Giovanni e Paolo.
Q. Is it painted in fresco or on wood or on canvas?
A. It is on canvas.
Q. How many feet does it measure in height?
A. It may measure seventeen feet.
Q. And in breadth?
A. About thirty-nine.
Q. In this Supper of our Lord, have you painted (other) persons?
A. Yes.
Q. How many have you represented? And what is each one doing?
A. First there is the innkeeper, Simon; then, under him, a carving
squire whom I supposed to have come there for his pleasure, to see
how the service of the table is managed. There are many other
figures which I cannot remember, however, as it is a long time
since I painted that picture.
Q. Have you painted other Last Suppers besides that one?
A. Yes.
Q. How many have you painted? Where are they?
A. I painted one at Verona for the reverend monks of San Lazzaro;
it is in their refectory. Another is in the refectory of the
reverend brothers of San Giorgio here in Venice.
Q. But that one is not a Last Supper, and is not even called the
Supper of Our Lord.
A. I painted another in the refectory of San Sebastiano in Venice,
another at Padua for the Fathers of the Maddalena. I do not
remember to have made any others.
Q. In this Supper which you painted for San Giovanni e Paolo, what
signifies the figure of him whose nose is bleeding?
A. He is a servant who has a nose-bleed from some accident?
Q. What signify those armed men dressed in the fashion of Germany,
with halberds in their hands?
A. It is necessary here that I should say a score of words.
Q. Say them.
A. We painters use the same license as poets and madmen, and I
represented those halberdiers, the one drinking, the other eating
at the foot of the stairs, but both ready to do their duty, because
it seemed to me suitable and possible that the master of the house,
who as I have been told was rich and magnificent, should have such
servants.
Q. And the one who is dressed as a jester with a parrot on his
wrist, why did you put him into the picture?
A. He is there as an ornament, as it is usual to insert such
figures.
Q. Who are the persons at the table of Our Lord?
A. The twelve apostles.
Q. What is Saint Peter doing, who is the first?
A. He is carving the lamb in order to pass it to the other part of
the table.
Q. What is he doing who comes next?
A. He holds a plate to see what Saint Peter will give him.
Q. Tell us what the third is doing.
A. He is picking his teeth with his fork.
Q. And who are really the persons whom you admit to have been
present at this Supper?
A. I believe that there was only Christ and His Apostles; but when
I have some space left over in a picture I adorn it with figures of
my own invention.
Q. Did some person order you to paint Germans, buffoons, and other
similar figures in this picture?
A. No, but I was commissioned to adorn it as I thought proper; now
it is very large and can contain many figures.
Q. Should not the ornaments which you were accustomed to paint in
pictures be suitable and in direct relation to the subject, or are
they left to your fancy, quite without discretion or reason?
A. I paint my pictures with all the considerations which are
natural to my intelligence, and according as my intelligence
understands them.
Q. Does it seem suitable to you, in the Last Supper of our Lord, to
represent buffoons, drunken Germans, dwarfs, and other such
absurdities?
A. Certainly not.
Q. Then why have you done it?
A. I did it on the supposition that those people were outside the
room in which the Supper was taking place.
Q. Do you not know that in Germany and other countries infested by
heresy, it is habitual, by means of pictures full of absurdities,
to vilify and turn to ridicule the things of the Holy Catholic
Church, in order to teach false doctrine to ignorant people who
have no common sense?
A. I agree that it is wrong, but I repeat what I have said, that it
is my duty to follow the examples given me by my masters.
Q. Well, what did your masters paint? Things of this kind, perhaps?
A. In Rome, in the Pope’s Chapel, Michel Angelo has represented Our
Lord, His Mother, St. John, St. Peter, and the celestial court; and
he has represented all these personages nude, including the Virgin
Mary, and in various attitudes not inspired by the most profound
religious feeling.
Q. Do you not understand that in representing the Last Judgment, in
which it is a mistake to suppose that clothes are worn, there was
no reason for painting any? But in these figures what is there that
is not inspired by the Holy Spirit? There are neither buffoons,
dogs, weapons, nor other absurdities. Do you think therefore,
according to this or that view, that you did well in so painting
your picture, and will you try to prove that it is a good and
decent thing?
A. No, my most Illustrious Sirs; I do not pretend to prove it, but
I had not thought that I was doing wrong; I had never taken so many
things into consideration. I had been far from imagining such a
great disorder, all the more as I had placed these buffoons outside
the room in which Our Lord was sitting.
These things having been said, the judges pronounced that the
aforesaid Paolo should be obliged to correct his picture within the
space of three months from the date of the reprimand, according to
the judgments and decision of the Sacred Court, and altogether at
the expense of the said Paolo.