priests were accused of an abominable crime, and were tried like
ordinary delinquents. This encroachment upon the bulls of Innocent VIII.
and Paul III. took place just when the Senate was passing a law which
greatly restricted the holding of property by the clergy. As if these
facts were not enough to show the Pope that the Venetian flock intended
to manage its own corner of the Catholic fold in its own way, the
government, on the death of the Patriarch, named as his successor a
member of the house of Vendramin, and merely announced the fact to the
court of Rome, although the old canonical law required that in cases
where governments were authorised to appoint their bishops, the latter
should be examined and approved by the Pope’s delegates.
Spain took advantage of all these circumstances to bring about a
complete rupture between Venice and
[Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 45, 50-51._]
the Holy See. Paul V. now hesitated no longer, and discharged a major
excommunication against the whole Venetian State. This measure produced
little impression on the Senate, and none at all on the Doge Leonardo
Dandolo. He declared openly that the sentence was unjust, and therefore
null and void. The Capuchin, Theatin, and Jesuit orders closed their
churches in obedience to the Pope, and were immediately expelled from
Venetian territory by the government. The Pope’s wrath was as tremendous
as it was futile, and it is impossible to say how far matters might
have gone if Henry IV. had not used his influence to bring about a
reconciliation. It was his interest to do so in order that Venice, being
friendly to him, might in a measure balance the power of hostile Spain,
and he sent the Cardinal de Joyeuse to Italy to try and obtain from the
Pope some concession which
[Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 53._]
might facilitate an act of submission on the part or the Republic. Spain
was playing a double game as usual, but the Cardinal was too much for
the Spanish diplomatists, and he brought about an arrangement by which
Venice handed over to the Pope the two priests who were on trial, and
[Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 64._]
permitted the Patriarch to undergo the examination required by the
canonical law. On his side the Pope exempted from that examination all
future Patriarchs.
It is a singular fact that the usually docile Venetian population
greatly resented the attitude taken by the government towards the Holy
See. The Doge himself was hissed and howled at when he went to the
church of Santa Maria Formosa on the Feast of Candlemas. ‘Long live the
Doge Grimani, the father of the poor,’ yelled the rabble, for Grimani
had been a man of exemplary piety and had been dead and buried for some
time. ‘The day will come when you shall wish to go to church and shall
not be able!’ screamed others. Even after the reconciliation with the
Pope,
[Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 251._]
Spain did not cease to conspire against the Republic, and while
persecuting the Catholics in Valtellina tried to make out that the
Republic was allied with the Protestant powers because it opposed those
persecutions.
It is impossible to speak of the quarrels between Venice and Rome
without mentioning the monk Paolo Sarpi who played so large a part in
them. At the
[Illustration: SANTA MARIA FORMOSA]
time when the attitude of the Pope made it clear that serious trouble
was at hand, the Signory felt the need of consulting a theologian in
order to give her resistance something like an orthodox shape. There was
at that time in Venice a monk well known for his profound learning and
austere life. He had entered the order of the Servites as a novice at
the age of thirteen, and was now fifty-four years old. In more than
forty years
[Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 73, 77._]
his love of retirement and study and his profound devotion had suffered
no change. He was brought from his seclusion by an order from the Senate
to give his opinions on the burning questions of the moment. Fra Paolo
Sarpi vigorously sustained the cause of the Republic, and was at once
denounced to the Pope as a sectarian and a secret partisan of the
Protestants. Fanatics attempted to assassinate him, and the government
spread the report that the murder
[Sidenote: _Statue of Fra Paolo Sarpi erected in 1812 in the church of
Santa Fosca, near the spot where he narrowly escaped assassination,
Marsili._]
had been attempted by the court of Rome. These reports further
exasperated the Vatican against him, while the Republic supported him
all the more obstinately and consulted him on every occasion. He was
installed in a little house in the Square of Saint Mark’s in order to be
within easy reach of the ducal palace, and the severest penalties were
threatened for any attempt against his life.
In spite of these precautions two more attempts were made to assassinate
him, and he was heard to say that death would be preferable to the
existence which the government obliged him to lead. Nevertheless he
lived sixteen years in the service of the Republic. The unbounded
confidence which was placed in him is amply proved by the fact that he,
and he only, in the history of the Council of Ten, was allowed free
access to its archives, a privilege which, oddly enough, proved fatal to
him; for it was while working on his own account amongst those documents
that he caught a cold from which he never recovered, and he died three
months afterwards in the winter of 1622. On the fourteenth of January he
felt his end approaching, and the news was at once known throughout the
city. The Signory at once sent for Fra Fulgenzio, his most intimate
friend. ‘How is Fra Paolo?’ inquired the Ten. ‘He is at the last
extremity,’ answered the monk. ‘Has he all his wits?’ ‘As if he were
quite well,’ answered Fra Paolo’s friend.
Immediately three questions regarding an important affair were sent to
the dying man, who concentrated his mind upon them and dictated the
answers with marvellous clearness and precision. His last words were a
prayer for his country’s enduring greatness. ‘Esto perpetua!’ he prayed
as he closed his eyes for ever.
The government gave him a magnificent funeral, and ordered the sculptor
Campagna to make a marble bust of him for the church of the Servites;
but the Venetian ambassador in Rome advised the Republic not to rouse
the Pope’s anger again by such a tribute to the great monk’s memory. We
are not called upon to decide upon the orthodoxy of Fra Paolo’s
opinions, but he was undeniably one of the greatest and most gifted
Italians of the seventeenth century.
The troubles with Rome, and the general excommunication which had
brought them to a crisis, had disturbed the confidence of the Venetian
people in their government more than anything that had happened for
years; and soon afterwards matters were made worse by the terrible
judicial murder of Antonio Foscarini, in which England was deeply
concerned.
Foscarini was a fine specimen of the patriotic Venetian noble, devoted
to his country, imbued with the most profound respect for the
aristocratic caste to which he belonged, haughty and contemptuous
towards most other people, as the following anecdote shows. He was in
Paris as ambassador when Maria de’ Medici, the wife of Henry IV., was
crowned, and as he had only recently arrived he was not acquainted with
all his diplomatic colleagues when he met them in the church of Saint
Denis. After the ceremony he bowed to the Spanish Ambassador, who
inquired who the stranger was who saluted him. Foscarini introduced
himself. ‘Oh,’ exclaimed the Spaniard, ‘the Ambassador of the
Pantaloons!’ ‘Pantaloon’ was a Venetian theatrical mask, and the word
had become a contemptuous nickname for the Venetians. But the Spaniard
[Sidenote: _Molmenti, St. e Ric._]
had counted without his host, for Foscarini fell upon him then and
there. He described what he did in a letter to his government: ‘I loaded
the Spanish Ambassador with vigorous blows and kicks, as he deserved.’
A Venetian, Pietro Gritti, who was in Foscarini’s suite, wrote a letter
at the same time in which he said that his chief kicked the Spanish
Ambassador down the whole length of the court.
Foscarini was afterwards ambassador in England, and the long series of
circumstances which led to his tragic end dates from that period. He was
still young, he was inclined to be fond of amusement, and for some
unknown reason the secretaries of embassy who were sent with him hated
him and calumniated him in the basest manner, accusing him to the
Council of Ten of being a Protestant in secret, and of carrying on a
treacherous correspondence with the Spanish government. But there was
worse than this. A famous French spy, La Forêt, bribed Foscarini’s
valet, Robazza, got access to the ambassador’s rooms when he was out,
and copied his most important letters for the French government.
His second secretary of embassy, Muscorno, obtained leave to return to
Venice on pretence of visiting his father who was ill, and when
Foscarini was suddenly recalled he found the ground prepared for an
abominable action against him. He himself, his valet, and his chaplain
were all imprisoned, and his trial for high treason began. It proceeded
very slowly, but he was acquitted after having been in prison three
years, for Robazza confessed his treachery without being tortured.
Having been declared innocent of high treason, Foscarini had little
difficulty in disproving some minor accusations that were brought
against him; and a few weeks after his release he appeared before the
Senate to give an official account of his embassy in England. Muscorno,
who had accused him falsely, was condemned to two years’ imprisonment in
a fortress; Robazza, the valet who had been bribed, had his right hand
struck off and was exiled for twenty years.
James I. of England sent Foscarini especial congratulations, and he was
again employed in important affairs. Unhappily, however, Muscorno had a
successor worthy of him in the person of Girolamo Vano, a professional
spy in the service of the Republic. If by any chance the smallest State
secret was known abroad, it was always insinuated by Foscarini’s enemies
that he was responsible for divulging it, and it was quite in keeping
with the ordinary practice of the Venetian government to employ spies to
watch a man who had been once suspected, even though he had been
declared innocent and was again in high office.
The spy Vano took advantage of Foscarini’s friendship, or affection, for
the English Countess of Arundel, as a means of making out a strong case
[Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 183._]
against him. Foscarini had known her in London, and she had afterwards
made long visits to Venice, in order to be near her sons, who were
making their studies at the university of Padua. At her house Foscarini
often met the Envoy of Florence and the secretaries of the Spanish and
Austrian embassies.
She did not spend all her time in Venice, however, but was often many
months in England. It was when she was returning to Venice after one of
these absences that she was stopped at some distance from the city by a
messenger from the English ambassador, Sir Henry Wotton, who entreated
her to turn back. The unfortunate Foscarini had been convicted of high
treason and strangled, and his corpse was that very morning hanging
between the two red columns of the fatal window in the ducal palace.
Lady Arundel’s name had been connected during the trial with that of
the condemned man, and the ambassador was anxious to save her any
possible trouble.
But she was not of the sort that turns back from danger at such times,
and that very evening she reached
[Illustration: GRAND CANAL, LOOKING TOWARDS MOCENIGO PALACE]
the English Embassy and demanded an audience of the Doge; it was with
the greatest difficulty that she could be made to understand the
impossibility of being admitted until the next morning, and she
reluctantly retired for the night to her hired house, that Mocenigo
palace which was afterwards successively inhabited by Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu and by Lord Byron.
On the morrow the ambassador went with her to the ducal palace, and she
must have passed below the window from which the body of her friend had
hung all the previous day. She was admitted to the presence of the
Signory, and the Doge made her sit on his right hand. She now learned
that she was believed to have allowed Foscarini to use her house as a
place from which to carry on intrigues with foreign courts. Sir Henry
Wotton spoke in the Countess’s defence, and proved that her relations
with Foscarini had always been of the most honourable character, and
that the two had not met for many months. England’s star was in the
ascendant, Elizabeth had reigned, and it was not good to contradict an
English ambassador nor to speak lightly of an English lady. The Doge
made the Countess his most humble excuses and promised to send them to
her husband, the Earl Marshal, through the Venetian ambassador in
London.
The Senate took cognisance of the affair also, and voted a small sum of
money to be expended in a present of comfits and wax to the Countess,
this being the custom for all persons of quality who appeared before the
Signory. But that was all. Lady Arundel had exculpated herself, but so
far Foscarini’s guilt seemed to be so incontrovertibly proved, that Fra
Paolo Sarpi refused to accept a legacy which the unhappy patrician had
left him in his last will.
But as time went on the whole of Vano’s fabricated evidence began to go
to pieces. The Inquisitors of State themselves seem to have been the
first to suspect that they had made a mistake, and before long the
dreadful truth was only too clear. Foscarini
[Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 196; Armand Baschet, Arch. 631._]
had been perfectly innocent and had been murdered by justice. It was not
a case that could be hushed and put out of the way, either, for too many
people knew what had happened.
The Council of Ten made amends: let us give them such credit as we can
for their public repentance, without inquiring too closely what pressure
was brought to bear upon them by the public, and not improbably by
England. Monsieur Baschet becomes lyric in his praise of their
magnanimity. For my part, I do not think it would have been safe for the
Council to try and hide its mistake. The Ten apologised amply before the
world: that is the important matter. Monsieur Baschet gives the original
text of the apology, of which I translate a part from the Italian:--
‘Since the Providence of our Lord God has disposed, by means truly
miraculous and incomprehensible to human intelligence, that the authors
and promoters of the lies and impostures machinated against our late
beloved and noble Antonio Foscarini should be discovered ..., it behoves
the justice and mercy of this Council, whose especial business it is,
for the general quiet and safety to protect the immunity of the honour
and reputation of families, to rehabilitate as far as possible those who
lie under the imputation of an infamous crime ...,’ and so on.
The Ten also decreed that an inscription should be set up in the church
of Sant’ Eustachio, recording the error of the court, a unique example
of such a public and enduring retractation.
Other circumstances occurred to prove that organisation of the Venetian
tribunals was beginning to wear out. Too many conflicting regulations
had been introduced, and there were too many magistracies. Venice was
‘over-administered,’ as generally happens to old countries, and
sometimes to new ones that are too anxious to be scientifically
governed. The jurisdictions of the different officials often encroached
upon one another. The three Inquisitors of State were frequently at odds
with the other seven members of the Council of Ten, and in the confusion
which this caused it was impossible that the laws should be as well
administered as formerly.
About this time a grave case enlightened the public as to certain abuses
of which the existence had not
[Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 210, 215, 223, 229._]
been previously suspected. The Council of Ten was always charged with
the duty of seeing that the Doge performed to the letter the promises of
the ‘Promission ducale.’ These solemn engagements were several times
violated by the Doge Corner for the advantage of his sons. He allowed
one of them to accept the dignity of the Cardinalate while two others
were made senators, but as the Council of Ten did not like to interfere,
one of its heads, Renier Zeno, took upon himself to impeach the Doge.
The latter was accused of illegal acts in contradiction with the
‘Promission,’ and the question was taken up by the whole aristocracy and
discussed before all the different Councils. The opposite parties were
fast reaching a state of exasperation, when one of the Doge’s sons
attempted the life of Renier Zeno. He and his accomplices were merely
exiled to Ferrara, and the lenity of the sentence sufficiently shows the
weakness of the government.
At the same time Renier Zeno was arbitrarily forbidden, contrary to all
law, to call into question the conduct of the courts in general, but he
was too proud and energetic to submit to such despotism, and what it
pleased the Council of Ten to call his ‘pride’ served his adversaries as
a pretext for accusing him. The Council had the imprudence to condemn
him to ten years’ imprisonment in the fortress of Cattaro; but this was
too much, and the Ten were soon forced to revoke the sentence as
completely as they had annulled that of the unfortunate Foscarini. But
the world saw, and the prestige of the Council was gone; the government
cast about in vain for some means of restoring it, and could find
nothing to do except to make a few reforms and changes in its old system
of spying and repression.
Ever since the fourteenth century there had been a locked box with a
slit in it, placed in a public part of the ducal palace, into which any
one might drop an anonymous written accusation against any one else,
from the Doge down. Little by little the use of this means of
‘informing’ developed, until it had now become common to try cases on
the mere strength of such unsupported accusations. The boxes were
called the Lions’ Mouths on account of the shape they had taken, and
there was much talk about them when it was attempted to reform the Code
of Laws in the seventeenth century. A decree of the year 1635 restored
the old regulations as to the nature of the misdeeds which might be thus
denounced.
[Illustration: THE FONDAMENTA S. GIORGIO, REDENTORE IN DISTANCE]
It was decided that if the accusation was signed, four-fifths of the
judges must agree before the case could be brought to trial; if the
information was anonymous there could be no trial without the consent of
the Doge, his counsellors, and the chiefs of the Ten to bring the case
before the Great Council, and the trial could not be opened unless it
were voted necessary by five-sixths of the assembly. These measures
were no doubt prudent, but it was the system itself that was at fault;
any Venetian was authorised by it to take upon himself the duties of a
detective, and was encouraged to spy on his neighbours, because the
courts generally rewarded the informer after a conviction.
It is always a fault in a government to make laws unchangeable like
those of the Medes and Persians, and some authors have said that the
Venetian Republic never looked upon any of its decrees as immutable.
This is true as regards the form, for no government ever remodelled its
laws more often in their text. Sometimes the same decree appears in more
than one hundred shapes, but neither the spirit nor the point of view is
modified. A law passed against the freemasons in the eighteenth century
is conceived in precisely the same spirit as the decrees against the
conspirators in the days of Baiamonte Tiepolo and Marin Faliero; the
last Missier Grande of the police was very like the sbirri of the Middle
Ages in character and in methods. The Republic was growing old; the tree
might still bear fruit, but the fruit it bore had no longer within it
the seeds of future life.
It cannot be denied that Venetian diplomacy was better of its kind than
Venetian magistracies. During the thirty years’ war, for instance,
[Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 275._]
Venice never once lost sight of the great object it had in view, which
was to abase the closely related powers of Spain and Austria, while
skilfully avoiding any action which might bring about reprisals.
On the other hand, it was impossible to remain neutral in the war of
succession to the Duchy of Mantua, in which Carlo Gonzaga, Duke
[Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 276._]
of Nevers, was supported by France, and Ferrante Gonzaga by the Emperor.
As Austria’s
[Illustration: STEPS OF THE REDENTORE]
enemy, Venice naturally backed the former. Venice furnished him
abundantly with money and soldiers, and between the month of November
1629 and the month of March following, spent six hundred and
thirty-eight thousand ducats to support the party which was defending
the cause of Italian independence against the Empire. Austria
nevertheless succeeded, and got the better of the formidable coalition;
but though the Imperials took possession of Mantua at the time, they
were obliged to give it up to Carlo Gonzaga soon afterwards, in April
1631, by the treaty of Cherasco.
About the same time Venice suffered another terrible visitation of the
plague, and more than thirty-six thousand persons perished in the city
[Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 302._]
alone. On a similar occasion in 1575 the Venetians had vowed a church to
the Redeemer if the plague was stayed, and the church they built is that
of the Redentore; in 1630 a church was vowed to the Blessed Virgin,
under the name of the Madonna della Salute. This was at first only a
wooden
[Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 306._]
building, in which a great thanksgiving took place on the first of
November. The present church was not finished until 1687.
Amongst the many circumstances which hastened the decadence of the
Republic during the seventeenth century was the terrible war in Crete.
In
[Illustration: _Quadri, 275._]
that memorable struggle with the Turks for the possession of the island
the Venetians displayed much of their old heroism and good generalship,
but the Republic was no longer young, and could not make such gigantic
efforts with impunity; Venice was permanently weakened by that last
great war. It originated in a piece of rash imprudence on the part of
the Knights of Malta, who seized a number of Turkish vessels; it lasted
twenty-five years, and it cost the Republic her best generals and her
bravest soldiers, besides vast sums of money. Yet the enthusiasm was
boundless; mindful of Enrico Dandolo and Andrea Contarini, the aged Doge
Francesco Erizzo determined to take command himself, but death overtook
him on the eve of his departure.
Prodigies of valour were performed. Tommaso Morosini, with a single
ship, victoriously resisted the attack of forty-five Turkish galleys,
but lost his life in the engagement. Lorenzo Marcello took eighty-four
Turkish vessels and their crews with a far inferior force, but like
Morosini he was killed in the fight. Ten thousand Turks were slain and
five thousand were taken prisoners.
Europe looked on in amazement and admiration, and many brave captains
and soldiers thought it an honour to serve under the standard of Saint
Mark. There were more Germans and Frenchmen among these volunteers than
soldiers of other nations, and Louis XIV. himself hoped to associate his
name with the campaign. He sent the Duc de Beaufort with a considerable
fleet, twelve of his best regiments, and a detachment of the Guards,
besides a great number of volunteers under the command of the Duc de
Noailles. Yet all was in vain, and after a quarter of a century of
fighting Venice was obliged to yield Crete to the Turks.
The peace was of no long duration, for the Turks attacked Austria next,
and, though the brave Sobieski drove them away from Vienna, they allied
themselves with the Hungarians, and became so dangerous to the Empire
that the Pope himself was in anxiety for the safety of Christianity in
general. Exhausted by her long war in Crete, the Republic attempted to
decline all requests that she should join a league against the Turks,
but was at last obliged to yield, and war was renewed in the Archipelago
and the Peloponnesus.
Francesco Morosini, the same general who a few years earlier had been
obliged to evacuate Crete after the most heroic efforts, was placed in