sixty thousand infantry. The latter would fight in the
old-fashioned way, with bow, sword, shield, helmet, and with pikes
of one or two points which are excellent against charges of
cavalry. They are now beginning to use guns and artillery. The
English do not fear death. As soon as the battle commences, they
provoke the enemy and charge furiously; in very quick engagements
they are generally victorious, but they often yield if the war
drags on. They have not the slightest fear of Frenchmen, but they
are much afraid of the Scotch.
During forty days they are obliged to serve in the army without
receiving pay; after that time they receive three crowns and a half
for a period of service determined beforehand. The fleet consists
of one hundred and fifty vessels.
It now only remains for me to tell you who are the friends of the
King, and what consequences his divorce might have, and I shall
then add a few words on the most Reverend the Cardinal York.
Since the affair of the divorce has come up [Falier is writing in
1531, and Henry VIII. married Anne Boleyn the next year] the Pope
[Clement VII.] is not in his Majesty’s good graces. If the Holy
Father will not grant the King permission to divorce, the result
will be a very great advantage for the English crown, and a great
danger to the Roman Church, for the King will detach himself from
the latter, and will seize all the revenues of the ecclesiastical
benefices; this will yield the Crown more than six million ducats
[£4,500,000].
Falier was not mistaken, unless, perhaps, in his figures. He proceeds to
speak of the relations between England and all the other European
states, after which he returns to the question of the divorce,
expressing himself in a very singular way for a Catholic. It must be
remembered, however, that he was a Venetian, and therefore a man of
business first, and a baptized Christian afterward.
The Englishman [Henry VIII.] must necessarily divorce, for he
wishes to have a legitimate son, and he has lost all hope of one
being born to him by the Lady Catharine [of Aragon]. He will
therefore marry his favourite [Anne Boleyn] the daughter of the
Earl of Vuilcer (_sic_) [Wiltshire--note the Venetian’s phonetic
spelling!] as soon as possible. He will have trouble, for the
faction that is for the Queen will rise.
It is quite clear that Venetian diplomatists did not indulge themselves
in sentiment, and the information they presented to the Senate was as
brutally frank and coldly precise as a medical diagnosis. They sought
for facts and did not philosophise about them. Here is Falier’s opinion
of Cardinal Wolsey:--
The King and the kingdom were in his hands, and he disposed of
everything as the King himself might have done, or the Pope. All
the princes were obliged to bow down to him. He received one
hundred and fifty thousand ducats yearly over and above the gifts
which he had from the English and the foreign princes. He counted
much on France, with which kingdom he kept up extremely
affectionate relations. His court was magnificent, more magnificent
than the King’s. He spent all his income, he was very proud, and he
wished to be adored like a god rather than respected as a prince.
In connection with the great Cardinal, I shall translate a passage of
the letter in which Falier had informed the Senate of his disgrace. The
fragment has some value also, from the light it throws on the
comparative values of coins at that time. It must be remembered that the
value of the gold ducat never changed to the last, while that of all
other European coins varied greatly.
The King of England has had the Cardinal put in prison, has
deprived him of the government, and has confiscated all his
property. His fortune is valued at forty thousand pounds English,
equal to twenty thousand of our grossi [the silver mark], or two
hundred thousand [silver] ducats; in these forty thousand pounds
must be included thirty thousand pounds English in cash, that is,
fifteen thousand of ours or one hundred and fifty thousand
[silver] ducats. His real estate has also been confiscated,
consisting of his Archbishopric, which brought him a very large
sum.
At the risk of wearying my readers I give a short extract from the
report of another ambassador to England, Jacopo Soranzo, which was read
before the Senate on the ninth of August 1554 (Queen Mary then
reigning). The Venetian expresses his surprise at the way in which
trials by jury were conducted in England.
Crimes are tried before twelve judges who may not leave the court,
nor eat, nor drink, until they all agree, without one exception, on
the sentence to be passed.... When sentence has been passed, the
judges execute it immediately, but without ever resorting to the
mutilation of a member or exile. If the accused is innocent, he is
acquitted; if he is guilty, he is condemned to death.
I need not lay stress on the defective form of such trials; your
Lordships see for yourselves how reprehensible such a mode of
procedure is, for it often happens that eleven persons who wish to
acquit the accused decide to condemn him to death in order to be of
the opinion of the twelfth, who is determined to bear starvation
till this verdict is given.
Before closing this chapter it is worth while to note that if the
Venetian ambassadors abroad succeeded in knowing almost everything that
was happening, the
[Sidenote: _A. Bashet, Archives._]
government took good care that foreign representatives residing in
Venice should not follow their example. They were never told anything in
the way of news, and though honours and privileges were heaped upon
them, they were kept at arm’s length. As far back as the fourteenth
century there was a law forbidding all patricians to have any
acquaintance or social intercourse with any foreign representative
except under the most exceptional circumstances, and M. Baschet has
found material in the Archives sufficient to prove that the foreign
ambassadors lived in something very like the seclusion of exile, and
were altogether banished from all intercourse with the upper classes.
The same writer adds that the diplomatists resented this rude exclusion,
and that the practice of it made the Republic not a few enemies.
To such a criticism Venice would have answered, as usual, by the
argument of success on the whole during many centuries. Those who care
to examine the point more closely may read M. Baschet’s interesting work
on the Secret Chancery.
[Illustration: PONTE DEL CRISTO]
IV
THE ARSENAL, THE GLASS-WORKS, AND THE LACE-MAKERS
The old Arsenal is such a museum of shadows nowadays that it is hard to
realise what it once meant to the Venetians. Six hundred years ago, the
sight of it inspired one of Dante’s most vivid descriptions of activity,
and I have sometimes wondered whether in his day the three
dwelling-houses of the Provveditors were already nick-named Heaven,
Purgatory, and Hell, as they were always called at a later date.
The Arsenal was founded in the twelfth century, and from the very first
was one of the institutions most jealously watched over by the
government. In the sixteenth century it had grown to be a vast enclosure
of docks and basins, protected by a crenellated wall, and having but one
entrance, which was guarded by sentinels. In the interior, the houses of
the Provveditors had grown to be three great palaces, built round a
courtyard, each officer occupying one of them during the thirty-two
months of his term of office.
The Provveditors were nobles, of course, but they must necessarily have
been men who thoroughly understood nautical matters, for it was their
duty to oversee all work done in the place, to the minutest details, and
they had absolute control of all the vast stores accumulated for
building and fitting the fleet of the Republic. Every manufactured
article was stamped with the arms of the Republic as soon as it was made
or purchased, and not a nail, not a fathom of rope, not a yard of canvas
could be brought out of the storehouses without the consent of one of
the Provveditors. If anything was found outside the walls of the Arsenal
with the public mark on it, the object was considered by law to be
stolen, an inquiry was made, and if the culprit who had committed the
misdemeanour could be caught, he was condemned to the galleys.
In order to enforce the rigid regulations the government not only
required all three Provveditors to inhabit constantly the palaces
assigned to them, but insisted that one of them should remain day and
night within the
[Illustration: STEAMERS COMING IN]
boundaries of the yard, during a fortnight, without going out at all.
This service was taken in turn, and the official who was on duty was
called the ‘Patron di Guardia.’ Into his hands all the keys were given
every evening when work was over.
The artisans of the government ship-yard were the finest set of men in
Venice, and their traditions of workmanship and art were handed down in
their families from father to son for generations, as certain
occupations still are in Italy. I know of a man-servant, for instance,
whose direct ancestors have served those of the family in which he is
still a servant for more than two hundred years without a break. In the
Venetian Arsenal, it sometimes happened that an old man was foreman of a
department in which his son was a master smith or carpenter, and his
grandson an apprentice.
There was something military in the organisation, which bound the
artisans very close together, for they trained themselves in fencing and
gymnastics, and also in everything connected with extinguishing fires
and saving wrecks or shipwrecked crews, for in any case of public danger
it was always the ‘Arsenalotti’ who were called in. They were sober and
courageous and excessively proud of their trade, and the government
could always count on them. Twice, towards the end of the sixteenth
century, the ducal palace took fire, and would have burnt down but for
the prodigious energy of the workmen from the government docks. On the
first occasion they proudly refused the present of five hundred ducats
which the Doge offered them, but gratefully accepted an invitation to
dine with him in a body; and as they numbered over fifteen thousand the
Doge did not save money by the arrangement. Three years later, all their
efforts could not hinder the hall of the Great Council from burning, and
priceless works of art by such men as the two Bellini, Titian,
Tintoretto, and Pordenone were destroyed in a few moments. But the
Arsenalotti saved the rest of the building, and again refused any
recompense for their services.
When Henry III. of France came to Venice, the Arsenal employed about
sixteen thousand men, and could count on a budget of two hundred and
twenty-four thousand gold ducats, of which one hundred and twenty-four
went to pay the wages of the workmen, and the rest was expended for
materials. Those were large sums in the sixteenth century, but Venice
looked upon the Arsenal as the mainspring of her power, and spared
nothing to keep it in a state as near perfection as possible. In the
long struggle with Genoa, the enemy used every art to bring about its
destruction, but always in vain. The men who guarded the docks were
absolutely incorruptible. In the sixteenth century it seemed as if the
pure blood of the old Venetians ran only in their veins, and as if they
alone still upheld the noble traditions of loyalty and simplicity which
the founders of the Republic had handed down from braver days.
Next to the construction of her war-ships and merchant fleets, one of
the most important matters to the commerce of Venice was the
manufacture of glass, which brought enormous profits to the State and to
[Illustration: S. MICHELE]
individuals, as is usually the case when a valuable product is made out
of cheap materials by processes which are secret, and therefore have the
effect of a monopoly.
As early as the fourteenth century the government had understood the
immense importance of the art, and the glass-blowers of Murano were
protected and favoured in a most especial way. As in one part of France,
a sort of nobility was inherent in the occupation, and an early law
sanctioned the marriage of a master
[Illustration: VENICE FROM MURANO]
glass-blower’s daughter with a patrician by allowing their children to
be entered in the Golden Book.
The glass-works were all established in the island of Murano, as their
presence in the city would have caused constant danger of fire at a time
when many of the houses were still built of wood, and the whole
manufacture was subject to the direct supervision of the Council of Ten,
under whose supreme authority Murano governed itself as a separate city,
and almost as a separate little republic. Not only were the
glass-blowers organised in a number of guilds according to the special
[Illustration: THE DUOMO CAMPANILE, MURANO]
branches of the profession, such as bead-making, bottle-blowing, the
making of window-panes and of stained glass, each guild having its own
‘mariegola’ or charter; but over these the Muranese had their own Great
Council and Golden Book, in which the names of one hundred and
seventy-three families were inscribed, and their own Small Council, or
Senate. The Ten gave Murano a ‘Podestà,’ but he had not the power which
similar officers exercised in the other cities and islands of the
Dogato, and it is amusing to see that the people of Murano treated him
very much as the Venetians themselves treated their Doge. He was
required to be of noble blood; he was obliged by law to spend three days
out of four in Murano; he was forbidden to go to Venice when important
functions were going on; he could not interfere in any affair without
the permission of both the Councils of Murano, and altogether he was
much the same sort of figure-head as the Doge himself. On the other
hand, Murano supported a sort of consul in Venice with the title of
Nuncio, whose business it was to defend the interests of the island
before the Venetian government.
Neither the Missier Grande, the chief of the Venetian police, nor the
‘sbirri,’ were allowed to exercise their functions on the island.
Offenders were arrested and dealt with by the officers of the Murano
government, and were handed over to the Venetian supreme government only
in extreme cases, most trials taking place on the island.
The heraldic arms of Murano displayed on an azure field a cock with red
legs, wearing a crown of silver.
In the sixteenth century the population was about thirty thousand souls,
and the little city had a great reputation for the beauty of its
churches and especially of its gardens, in which quantities of exotic
plants and flowers were cultivated.
The two most powerful families amongst the glass-blowers were those of
Beroviero and Ballarin. I have told at length in the form of a romance
the true story
[Illustration: MURANO, LOOKING TOWARDS VENICE]
of Zorzi Ballarin and Marietta Beroviero, availing myself only of the
romancer’s right to be the apologist of his hero. The facts remain.
Angelo Beroviero, a pupil of Paolo Godi, the famous mediæval chemist,
worked much alone in his laboratory, noting the results of his
experiments in a diary which became extremely valuable. By some means
this diary came into the hands of Zorzi Ballarin, so-called by his
comrades on account of his lameness. He loved Marietta, and she loved
him, but he was poor, and moreover, as far as I have been able to
ascertain, he was of foreign birth, and could therefore not become a
master glass-blower. When he found himself in possession of the precious
[Illustration: MURANO]
secrets, he used his power to extort Beroviero’s consent, he married
Marietta, obtained the full privileges of a master, lived a highly
honourable life, and became the ancestor of a distinguished family, one
of whom was a Venetian ambassador, as may be read in the inscription on
his tomb in Murano. Beroviero’s house, with the sign of the Angel, is
still standing in Murano, and I think the ancient glass-works nearly
opposite were probably his. As for Zorzi Ballarin, I daresay that the
process by which he really got possession of the diary was not strictly
legal, but love has excused worse misdeeds than that, and Beroviero does
not seem to have suffered at all in the end. If there had been any
foundation for the spiteful story some chroniclers tell,
[Illustration: THE HOUSE OF BEROVIERO, MURANO]
a man of Beroviero’s power and wealth could have had Zorzi imprisoned,
tortured, and exiled without the slightest difficulty.
Venice was almost as famous for her lace as for her glass. On the
admittedly doubtful authority of Daru and Laugier, Smedley gives an
anecdote of the Emperor Frederick III. for what it is worth. It at least
illustrates the fact that all foreigners did not esteem Venetian glass
as highly as the Venetians themselves. When Frederick visited the city
on his way to Rome, he was most magnificently entertained, and amongst
other presents offered to him was a very beautiful service of Murano
glass. The Emperor was not pleased with the gift, which, to his
barbarous ignorance, seemed of no value; he ordered his dwarf jester to
seem to stumble against the table on which the matchless glass was set
out, and it was all thrown to the ground and smashed to atoms. ‘If these
things had been of gold or silver, they could not have been broken so
easily,’ said the imperial boor.
In contrast with this possibly true story of the fifteenth century, I
find that the lace collar worn by Louis XIV. at his coronation was made
in Venice, and was valued at an enormous sum. He afterwards bribed
Murano glass-blowers to settle in France.
In those times, more or less as now, women made lace at home, and
brought the results of their long and patient labour to the dealers, who
bought and sold it at a fabulous profit. A few specimens of the finest
lace of the sixteenth century are still in existence, and are worn on
great occasions by Italian ladies whose ancestresses wore them more than
three hundred years ago; but the art of making such lace is extinct.
Glance only, for instance, at a picture by Carpaccio, in the Museo
Civico of Venice, representing two patrician ladies of the fifteenth
century, one of whom wears white lace on her gown. It is of the kind
known as ‘point coupé’ or cut point, and is the same which Francesco
Vinciolo taught the French a hundred years later when it was no longer
thought fine enough, in Venice, for ornamenting anything but sheets and
pillow-cases. It is inimitable now. Or look at the exquisite lace of
network stitch with which Gentile Bellini loved to adorn the women he
portrayed. Yet in the sixteenth century still further progress had been
made, and the ‘air point’ was created, which surpassed in fineness
anything imagined before then, and for which fabulous prices were paid.
The collar of Louis XIV. was of this point, and it is said that as no
thread could be spun fine enough for it, white human hair was used.
There is also a story to the effect that the Emperor Joseph II., who
ascended the throne in 1765, ordered a set of air point worth the
improbable, though not very great price of 77,777 francs. As neither
Austrians nor Venetians used the franc, the story is most likely of
French origin.
Another lace greatly valued in Venice was the ‘rose point,’ which is
probably the best known of the ancient laces. It was preferred, for
collars, both by high officials and great ladies, and the Dogesses often
used it for their veils. The Doge Francesco Morosini possessed some
wonderful specimens of it, which I am told are still in the possession
of his descendants.
One more stitch was invented in the sixteenth century, which oddly
enough obtained the generic name of ‘Venetian point.’ There is a pretty
story about it. A sailor, says the legend, came home from a long voyage
and brought his sweetheart a kind of seaweed known to botanists by the
name of _Halimedia Opuntia_, of which the little branches were so fine
that the people called the plant ‘Siren’s hair.’ The man sailed again on
another voyage, and the girl, full of loving and anxious thoughts for
him, occupied herself by copying the dried plant with her needle, and in
so doing created the Venetian point.
The minister Colbert introduced it into France a century later, under
Louis XIV., and gave it his own name; and the King and the Republic
quietly quarrelled about this French infringement of a Venetian
monopoly. In the end, the Inquisitors of State issued a decree which was
intended to recall errant and erring Venetian lace-workers and
glass-blowers to the security of their homes:--
‘All workmen or artisans who carry on their trade in foreign countries
shall be ordered to come back; should they disobey, the members of their
families shall be imprisoned, and if they then return, they shall be
freely pardoned and again employed in Venice. But if any of them persist
in living abroad, messengers shall be sent to kill them, and when they
are dead their relations shall be let out of prison.’
The glass-blowers who were to be murdered were men, but the lace-makers
were women, and the decree, which was made about 1673, is a fine
instance of Venetian business principles, since the killing of men and
women by assassination was a measure introduced solely for the
protection of trade.
Coloured bobbin lace was also made in Venice, with dyed silk thread and
threads of gold, in the fifteenth century, and Richard III. of England
desired his queen to wear it on her cloak at their coronation in 1483.
The modern Burano lace was first made after the
[Illustration: THE PALACES]
end of the Republic, and is almost the only sort which is now
manufactured in any quantity. Some of the finer points are imitated, it
is true, and are vastly advertised, advertisement having taken the place
of assassination in business methods as a means of creating a fictitious
monopoly; but in spite of some really good pieces of needlework wrought
with great care--as advertisements--the mass of the work turned out is
of a cheap and commercial character.
The policy of Venice with regard to her manufactures was one of
protection, as has been seen, and the result was on the whole very
satisfactory to the people as well as to the great merchants. Very heavy
duties were levied on almost all imported articles, and among the very
few excepted were the silk fabrics from Florence known by the name of
‘ormesini.’ This material was in such common use in Venice that the
local silk weavers could not meet the demand for it. One of the reasons
why the working people of Venice were always satisfied was that they
were almost always prosperous; the price of labour was high, while that
of necessities was relatively low, and the people accordingly lived in
comfort without excessively hard work.
On the other hand, some of them were always extravagant, as some of the
nobles were, and some were unfortunate; and though there was no
pauperism, there were many families of hopelessly poor persons. In a
measure the hospitals, hospices, and orphan asylums provided for those
in want, but in Venice, as in modern cities, the candidates for charity
were always just a little more numerous than the shares into which
charity could divide herself.