business on hand, they laid wagers with each other as to the courage of
their hired assassins. A bet of this kind was made and settled in 1724
between an Avogadro and a Masperoni, two country ‘knights’ who lived on
their estates in the province of Brescia. One evening the two were
discussing the character of a ruffian whom Masperoni had just taken into
his service. His new master maintained that the fellow was the bravest
man in the ‘profession.’ Avogadro, on the other hand, wagered that he
would not be able to traverse the road between his master’s castle and
Lumezzane, which belonged to Avogadro. Masperoni took the bet, and
explained the situation to the man. The latter, feeling that his
reputation was at stake, started at once, carrying on his shoulder a
basket of fine fruit as a present from Masperoni to his friend, and he
took his way across the hills of Valtrompia. When he was a few miles
from Lumezzane he was met by two well-armed fellows, who ordered him to
turn back, but he was not so easily stopped. He set down his basket, and
in the twinkling of an eye killed both his adversaries, after which he
quietly pursued his journey.
Avogadro was very much surprised to see him, and asked with curiosity
what sort of trip he had made.
‘Excellent,’ he answered. ‘I met a couple of good-for-nothings who
wanted to stop me, but I killed them, and here I am.’
Avogadro, filled with admiration, gave him a purse of gold and sent him
back to Masperoni with a letter of congratulation.
[Sidenote: _Molmenti, Banditi, 289._]
Incidents of this kind occurred long afterwards, even after the fall of
the Republic. The name of Cristofoli is associated with that of Count
Alemanno Gambara in a story which could not be believed if the documents
that prove it were not all preserved in the various archives, and
principally in those of the Inquisitors.
The Gambara family was of Lombard origin, and had always been very
influential in the neighbourhood of Brescia. The race had produced fine
specimens of all varieties--soldiers, bishops, cardinals, murderers, and
one woman poet, besides several bandits, traitors, and highwaymen. In
the late sixteenth century two brothers of the family, Niccolò and
Lucrezio, had a near relative, Theodora, an orphan girl of fourteen
years and an heiress, who was in charge of a guardian. On the
twenty-second of January 1569 the two brothers went to the guardian and
ordered him to give up the girl. On his refusal they threw him down his
own stairs, wounded his people who tried to defend him, broke down the
door of the girl’s room, and carried her off.
I only quote this as an instance of the family’s manners. The last scion
of the race who lived under the Republic, and who outlived it, was Count
Alemanno, a young monster of perversity. He was born after his father’s
death at the castle of Pralboino, on a feudal holding belonging to his
house. His mother was soon married again to Count Martinengo Cesaresco,
and she took the boy with her to her new home. He was naturally violent
and unruly; at fifteen he was an accomplished swordsman, and was
involved in every quarrel and evil adventure on the country side. When
still a mere boy his conduct was such as to give the government real
trouble, and the authorities imposed a guardian upon him in the person
of a priest of his family, who was instructed to teach him the ordinary
precepts of right and wrong; but the clergyman soon announced that he
was not able to cope with his young relative, and the Council of Ten
learned that the boy’s violent character showed no signs of improvement.
He was now arrested, brought to Venice, and confined in one of the
Piombi, his property being administered under the direction of the
government. The Inquisitors of State examined the record of the
complaints laid against him, and concluded that his faults were due to
his extreme youth; they therefore ordered him to reside within the
fortress of Verona, but gave him control of his fortune.
The Captain of Verona, knowing the sort of prisoner he had to deal with,
and being made responsible for him, sent for an engineer and asked his
opinion as to the possibilities of escape for a prisoner who was not
locked up in a cell. The engineer wrote out a careful criticism of the
fortress, concluding with an extremely practical remark: ‘With good
means of escape,’ he observed, ‘a man may escape from any place, but
without means it is not possible to escape at all.’
The Captain, only partially reassured, set to work to convert his
prisoner, and sent him a good priest to teach him his Catechism and
exhort him to the practices of Christianity; but the young Count would
have neither exhortation nor religious instruction. The Council of Ten
now sent him to the fortress of Palma for a change of air, and the
commander of that place inherited the feverish anxiety about his charge
which had tormented the Captain of Verona. He did not consult an
engineer, however, and one morning the prisoner was not in his room,
nor in the fortress, nor anywhere in the neighbourhood of Palma.
The Inquisitors now sent Sbirri in all directions throughout the
Venetian territory. They could not catch Alemanno, but he wearied of
eluding them, and judged that he could get better terms by submitting to
the Inquisitors. He did so, using the offices of his aunt, Countess
Giulia Gambara, who was married to a gentleman of Vicenza. The Podestà
of the latter city sent an officer and six soldiers to the place
designated by Alemanno, and he surrendered, and was taken first to
Padua, and then to Venice. As soon as he landed at the Piazzetta he was
put in charge of Cristofoli and the Sbirri, who took him before the
Inquisitors.
They exiled him to Zara, and wrote to the Governor of Dalmatia: ‘We
desire him to have a good lodging.... See that he frequents persons of
good habits, thanks to whom he may not wander from the right path on
which he has entered, and in which we wish him to continue.’
The Inquisitors, good souls, so mildly concerned for the wild boy’s
moral welfare, were soon to learn what Alemanno considered the ‘right
path,’ for the Governor of Dalmatia kept them well informed. Before long
they learned that a certain fisherman, who had refused to let the
Count’s butler, Antonio Barach, have a fine fish which was already sold
to another client, had been seized, taken into the Count’s house, and
severely beaten.
But the Inquisitors were inclined to be clement and paid no attention
to the accounts of his doings. In 1756 he was authorised to return to
his domains of
[Illustration: VIA GARIBALDI]
Pralboino and Corvione, and his real career began. His first care was to
engage as many desperate Bravi as he could find. One of these having had
a little difficulty with the police, and having been killed during the
argument, Alemanno captured a Sbirro, and so handled him that he sent
him back to his post a cripple for life.
Scarcely a year after his return from Zara, he rode through the town of
Calvisano, and without answering the Customs officer, whose duty it was
to ascertain if he were carrying anything dutiable, he galloped on and
escaped recognition. His servant, who followed him at a little distance,
was stopped, and as he answered the Customs men very rudely he was
locked up in jail. But when the officer in charge learned who the man
was, his fright was such that he not only set him at liberty at once,
but conversed with him and treated him in the most friendly manner.
The young Count was of course delighted to learn that his name spread
terror amongst government officials, and by way of showing what he could
do, he sent fifteen of his Bravi to Calvisano with orders to besiege the
Customs men. In the fighting that followed, one of the latter was killed
and their officer narrowly escaped.
The Council of Ten now interfered, and summoned Count Alemanno Gambara
to appear before them, and if he refused, the local authorities were
ordered to take him and send him by force. Instead of obeying, he
fortified his two castles, increased the numbers of his band of Bravi,
and defied the law. With his ruffians at his back he rode through the
length and breadth of the Brescian territory as he pleased, and once
even traversed
[Illustration: FROM SAN GEORGIO TO THE SALUTE]
the city itself with his formidable escort. No one dared to meddle with
him. His neighbours in the country were completely terrorised, and he
and his head ruffian, Carlo Molinari, committed the wildest excesses.
Alemanno seems to have especially delighted to watch the effect of
fright on his victims. One day his men chased a priest of Gottolengo and
three friends, who had been shooting in the woods not far beyond the
boundary of the estate of Corvione. The fugitives succeeded in reaching
the church of Gottolengo, in which they took refuge, barricading the
door against their pursuers. But the Bravi starved them out, and they
were obliged to surrender unconditionally. They were then led out to a
lonely field and were exhorted to commend their souls to God, as they
were about to be killed and buried on the spot. Alemanno watched their
agony with delight, concealed behind a hedge. When he was tired of the
sport, he came out of concealment and ordered his men to beat and kick
them back to Gottolengo.
A retired colonel lived quietly on a small estate near one of Gambara’s.
His servants accidentally killed one of the Count’s dogs; he had them
taken, cruelly beaten, and sent back to their master after suffering
every indignity. The colonel thought of lodging a complaint with the
Council of Ten, but on reflection he gave up the idea as not safe, for
Gambara’s vengeance would probably have been fatal to any one who
ventured to give information of his doings. No one was safe within his
reach, neither man, nor woman, nor child. A volume might be filled with
the list of his crimes.
At last, in 1762, the municipality of the town of Gambara, from which he
took his title, resolved to petition the Council of Ten for help and
protection against him. When he learned that this was their intention,
he rode into the town with his escort, and halting in the market-place
addressed the citizens; his threats of vengeance were so frightful, and
he was so well able to carry them out, that the chief burghers fell upon
their knees before him, weeping and imploring his forgiveness.
One day several Sbirri traversed some of his land in pursuit of a
smuggler who sought his protection. He met them smiling, and cordially
invited them to spend a night under his roof. With the childlike
simplicity which is one of the most endearing characteristics of most
Italians, they fell into the trap. On the next day, a cart loaded with
greens entered Brescia, and stopped opposite the house of the Venetian
Podestà. The horses were taken out and led away, without exciting any
remark, and the cart remained where it had been left, till the foul
smell it exhaled attracted attention. It was unloaded, and underneath
the greens were found the bloody corpses of the Sbirri who had accepted
Gambara’s hospitality.
This time the Inquisitors of State took matters seriously, and sent a
squadron of cuirassiers and a detachment of Sbirri, under the command of
an officer called Rizzi, to arrest him and his henchman Molinari. Rizzi
came to Pralboino and broke down the gates, but the two men were already
gone, and the expedition ended in the confiscation of a few
insignificant letters found in Alemanno’s desk.
He had understood that he must leave Venetian territory for a time, and
riding down into the Duchy of Parma he sought the hospitality of his
friend, the Marchese Casali, at Monticelli. He next visited Genoa, and
judging that it was time to settle in life, he married the Marchesa
Carbonare, whom he judged, with some reason, to be a woman worthy of his
companionship.
They returned together to Monticelli, where they led a riotous existence
for some time. Being one day short of money, Alemanno stopped the
messengers who were conveying to Venice the taxes raised in Brescia, and
sent them on after giving them a formal receipt for the large sum he had
taken from them. But this was too much for the Duke of Parma, who now
requested the couple to spend their time elsewhere than in his Duchy.
They consulted as to their chances of getting a free pardon for the
crimes the Count had committed on Venetian territory and against the
Republic, and the Countess addressed a petition to the Doge which begins
as follows: ‘Every penitent sinner who sincerely purposes to mend his
life obtains of God mercy and forgiveness; shall I, Marianna Carbonare,
the most afflicted wife of Count Alemanno Gambara, not feel thereby
encouraged to fall upon my knees before the august Throne of your
Serenity?...’ And much more to the same effect.
Another petition signed by both was addressed to the Inquisitors, and a
third, signed only by Alemanno, to the Doge and the Inquisitors
together. In this precious document he calls them ‘the most perfect
image of God on earth, by their power.’
The object of these petitions was that the Count might be sent into
exile, anywhere, so long as he were not shut up in a fortress, a
sentence which would soon kill him, as he was in bad health.
He had certainly committed many murders and had killed several servants
of the Republic in the performance of their duties; and he had stolen
the taxes collected in Brescia. Amazing as it may seem, his petition was
granted, and he was exiled to Zara for two years, after which he was
allowed to come to Chioggia on the express condition that he should not
set foot outside the castle, and should see no one but his wife and son.
He remained in Chioggia just a year, from the twenty-fifth of September
1777, to the twenty-sixth of September 1778, after which the Inquisitors
were kind enough to give him his liberty if he would present himself
before their Secretary, which he did with alacrity.
My readers need not be led into a misapprehension by the touching
unanimity which the loving couple exhibited in the petitions they
signed. They never agreed except when their interests did, and were soon
practically separated in their private life. The Countess took Count
Miniscalchi of Verona for her lover, while Alemanno showed himself
everywhere with the Countess of San Secondo. In the end they separated
altogether, and the son, Francesco, remained with his father, who
educated him according to his own ideas.
So far as can be ascertained, the man never changed the manner of his
life. After his pardon he returned to his estates in the province of
Brescia, where he found his old friends, who were few, and the
recollections of his youth, which were many. In a short time Pralboino
and Corvione were once more dens of murderers and robbers as of old, and
as in former days he had been helped in his blackest deeds by Carlo
Molinari, his chief Bravo, so now he was seconded by his steward,
Giacomo Barchi, who kept the reign of terror alive in the country when
it pleased the Count to reside in Venice.
He was sleeping soundly in his apartment in the capital one morning
towards the end of March 1782, after having spent most of the night at a
gambling house by the Ponte dell’ Angelo--he never slept more than four
hours--when he was awakened by an unexpected visit from Cristofolo de’
Cristofoli, who requested him to appear at once before the Secretary of
the Inquisitors. An examination of conscience must have been a serious
affair for Alemanno, and not to be undertaken except at leisure; and it
appears that on this occasion he really did not know what he was to be
accused of doing. The Secretary of the Inquisitors merely commanded him
not to leave the city on pain of the Tribunal’s anger, and on the
morrow he learned that his steward Barchi had also been arrested.
For some reason impossible to explain, nothing was done to either, and
before long even the steward was set at liberty. The Inquisitors
confined themselves to threatening the two with ‘the public indignation’
and their own severest measures, if the Count did not dismiss his Bravi
and ‘reform his conduct.’
After that, history is silent as to his exploits. He was no longer
young, and even the zest of murder and rapine was probably beginning to
pall on his weary taste. We know that he sincerely mourned the fall of
the Republic which had been so consistently kind to him, and he never
plotted against the government. He could not but feel that it would have
been an exaggeration to accuse it of having been hard on him.
His son Francesco, on the contrary, turned out to be one of the most
turbulent of revolutionaries, and helped to lead the insurrection at
Bergamo. But for the intervention of Bonaparte himself, he would have
been killed by the inhabitants of Salò, who remained faithful to the
Republic, when they repulsed the insurgents. He was one of the five
delegates whom the city of Brescia sent to Bonaparte, to name him
president of the Cisalpine Republic. He died in 1848, after having
written a life of his father, which was published eleven years later in
Trieste. One cannot but feel that in composing a memoir of his parent,
filial piety led him too far.
In concluding this chapter, which has dealt with criminals, I shall
take the opportunity of observing that the places in which criminals
were confined in Venice shared in the general decay of everything
connected with the government. In the seventeenth century and earlier
all prisoners had been carefully kept separate according to their
misdeeds; in the eighteenth, mere children were shut up with adult
criminals, and debtors were confined with thieves. In the women’s
prisons lunatics were often imprisoned with the sane, a state of things
that led to the most horrible scenes.
The gaolers of the Pozzi and the Piombi did not even keep the prisons
clean, and the state of the cells was such that I do not care to disgust
the reader by describing it. In the other prisons, or attached to them,
a regular tavern was tolerated and perhaps authorised, as a place of
gathering for the prisoners, and here games of chance were played, even
[Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Ult._]
such as were forbidden elsewhere in the city. The archives of the Ten
show how many crimes were committed in the very places where men were
confined to expiate earlier offences. As for the gaolers, they were one
and all corruptible. One of the Savi, the patrician Gritti, denounced to
the Senate, in 1793, a gaoler who let the healthiest and most airy cells
to the highest bidders.
[Illustration: THE PESARO PALACE, GRAND CANAL]
XIV
THE LAST DOGES
Between the beginning of the eighteenth century and the end of the
Republic eleven Doges occupied the throne. Of these the only one who
might
[Sidenote: _1700-1797._]
have saved the government or retarded its fall was the very one who
reigned the shortest time. Let us say that if he had lived, he might
have so far restored the strength of the ancient aristocracy as to admit
of its perishing in a struggle instead of dying of old age.
This Doge was Marco Foscarini, who was elected on the thirty-first of
May 1762, and died on the thirty-first of the following March. He was a
man whose integrity was never questioned, even by
[Sidenote: _Rom. viii. 142._]
the revolutionaries, and he accepted the Dogeship with the greatest
regret. He was a man of letters, and the endless empty ceremonial of the
ducal existence obliged him to leave unfinished his noble work on
Venetian literature. Even had the Doge’s action not been hopelessly
paralysed by the hedge of petty regulations that bristled round him,
Foscarini’s experience of affairs in the course of occupying many
exalted posts had left him few illusions as to the
[Sidenote: _Rom. viii. 302._]
future of his country. ‘This century will be a terrible one for our
children and grandchildren,’ he wrote some time after his election.
Like many of the Doges he was a very old man when he was elected, and
was over eighty-eight years of age when he died, apparently much
surprised at finding himself at his end, though not unprepared for it.
He complained that his physicians had not told him how ill he was, and
he asked for a little Latin book, _De modo bene moriendi_, which had
been given him by his friend Cardinal Passionei; presently he tried to
dictate a few reflections to his doctor, but was too weak, and expired
whispering, ‘My poor servants!’ He had apparently not provided for them
as he would have done if he had not been taken unawares.
His successor was Aloise IV. Mocenigo, who had been Ambassador to Rome
and to Paris. His election was celebrated in a manner that recalled the
festivities of the sixteenth century. A secretary was sent to the
Mocenigo palace to announce the news to
[Sidenote: _1763._]
his family, and the Dogess took four days in which to complete her
preparations, after which she came to the ducal palace accompanied by
her two married nieces, her sisters, her mother, all her own female
cousins, and all those of her husband; and this battalion of noble women
in their gondolas was followed down the Grand Canal by an innumerable
fleet of gondolas and boats. All the male relations were waiting at the
landing of the Piazzetta to escort the ladies to the palace, where the
Dogess, seated on a throne, received the homage of the electors and of
all the nobility. She did not wear the ducal insignia on that day. In
the evening there was a ball, which she opened with one of the
Procurators of Saint Mark.
A series of festivities began on the following day, at which she
appeared in a memorably magnificent dress: a long mantle of cloth of
gold, like the Doge’s own, with wide sleeves lined with white lace,
opened to show a skirt and body all of gold lace-work; a girdle of
diamonds encircled her waist; her head-dress was a veil, arranged like a
cap, but the two ends hung down to her shoulders, and were picked up and
fastened to her back hair by two diamond clasps.
On three consecutive evenings there were balls at the palace, and at
each the Dogess danced only one minuet, with a Procurator of Saint Mark,
[Sidenote: _Rom. viii. 148._]
as etiquette required when there were no foreign princes in Venice.
This reminds one of old times; it is even true that in some ways the
display at the ducal palace was greater than it had ever been. The
banquets especially took the importance of
[Sidenote: _G. R. Michiel, i. 289._]
public spectacles, and were always five in number, given at the feasts
of Saint Mark, the Ascension, Saint Vitus, Saint Jerome, and Saint
Stephen, after the last of which the distribution of the ‘oselle’ took
place, representing the ducks of earlier days, as the reader will
remember. At these great dinners there were generally a hundred guests;
the Doge’s counsellors, the Heads of the Ten, the Avogadors and the
heads of all the other magistracies had a right to be invited, but the
rest of the guests were chosen among the functionaries at the Doge’s
pleasure.
In the banquet-hall there were a number of sideboards on which was
exhibited the silver, part of which belonged to the Doge and part to the
State, and this was shown twenty-four hours before the feast. It was
under the keeping of a special official. The glass service used on the
table for flowers and for dessert was of the finest made in Murano. Each
service, though this is hard to believe, is said to have been used in
public only once, and was designed to recall some important event of
contemporary history by trophies, victories, emblems, and allegories. I
find this stated by Giustina Renier Michiel, who was a contemporary, was
noble, and must have often seen these banquets.
The public was admitted to view the magnificent spectacle during the
whole of the first course, and the ladies of the aristocracy went in
great numbers. It was their custom to walk round the tables, talking
with those of their friends who sat among the guests, and accepting the
fruits and sweetmeats which the Doge and the rest offered them, rising
from their seats to do so. The Doge himself rose from his throne to
salute those noble ladies whom he wished to distinguish especially.
Sovereigns passing through Venice at such times did not disdain to
appear as mere spectators at the banquets, which had acquired the
importance of national anniversaries.
Between the first and the second courses, a majestic chamberlain shook a
huge bunch of keys while he walked round the hall, and at this hint all
visitors disappeared. The feast sometimes lasted several hours, after
which the Doge’s squires presented each of the guests with a great
basket filled with sweetmeats, fruits, comfits, and the like, and
adorned with the ducal arms. Every one rose to thank the Doge for these
presents, and he took advantage of the general move to go back to his
private apartments. The guests accompanied him to the threshold, where
his Serenity bowed to them without speaking, and every one returned his
salute in silence. He disappeared within, and all went home.
During this ceremony of leave-taking, the gondoliers of the guests
entered the Hall of the banquet and each carried the basket received by
his master
[Sidenote: _G. R. Michiel, Origini i. 302._]