(_Continued from page_ 206.)
Such is Sanuto's brief narrative of the origin of this conspiracy; and
we have nothing more certain to offer. It is not easy to say whence he
obtained his intelligence. If such a conversation as that which he
relates really did occur, it must have taken place without the presence
of witnesses, and therefore could be disclosed only by one of the
parties. It is far more likely that the chronicler is relating that
which he _supposed_, than that which he _knew_; and, as it
must be admitted that the interview with the admiral of the Arsenal
occurred, and that, immediately after it, the doge was found linked
with the daring band of which that officer was chief, there is no
violation of probability in granting that some such conversation took
place, and that the train was ignited by this collision of two angry
spirits. Whether the plot was in any degree organized beforehand, or
arose at the moment, it is manifestly impossible for us to decide,
without information which cannot now be obtained.
Bertucci Faliero, a nephew of the doge, and Filippo Calendaro, a
seaman of great repute, were summoned to conference immediately. It was
agreed to communicate the design to six other associates; and, during
many nights successively, these plebeian assassins arranged with
the doge, under the roof of his own palace, the massacre of the entire
aristocracy, and the dissolution of the existing government. "It was
concerted that sixteen or seventeen leaders should be stationed in
various parts of the city, each being at the head of forty men, armed
and prepared; but the followers were not to know their destination. On
the appointed day, they were to make affrays amongst themselves here and
there, in order that the duke might have a pretence for tolling the
bells of San Marco, which are never rung but by the order of the duke;
and at the sound of the bells, these sixteen or seventeen, with their
followers, were to come to San Marco, through the streets which open
upon the Piazza; and when the nobles and leading citizens should come to
the Piazza to know the cause of the riot, then the conspirators were to
cut them in pieces; and this work being finished, my Lord Marino Faliero
the Duke was to be proclaimed Lord of Venice. Things having been thus
settled, they agreed to fulfil their attempt on Wednesday, the 15th day
of April, in the year 1355. So covertly did they plot that no one ever
dreamed of their machinations."
As a previous step, in order to arouse popular feeling against the Great
Council, it was determined to practise a singular stratagem. Parties of
the conspirators paraded different quarters of the capital in the dead
of night, and having stopped at the windows of some citizens of the
middle and lower classes, and there insulted the women of the family
by scandalous and unseemly propositions, they retired with rude bursts
of laughter, calling each other loudly by the names of the principal
noblemen. Perhaps the rapidity with which their design was framed,
tended much to its concealment. Scarcely a little month had elapsed
since its first projection, and now the following day was to destroy the
constitution of Venice, to deluge her streets with patrician blood, and
to pluck up all her ancient stocks from their very roots, without a
suspicion of the approaching calamity having glanced across the intended
victims.--Either the Council of X could not yet have obtained its
subsequent fearful and extraordinary ubiquity, or the conspirators must
have exhibited a prudence and self-control rarely, if ever, paralleled
by an equally large body of men, engaged in a similar attempt. To their
minor agents, their ultimate design had not been revealed; and even in
the end, the discovery arose not from treachery, nor from incaution, but
from "a compunctious visiting" of one framed of stuff less stern than
his associates, and who shrank from the murder of a benefactor. The part
played by Tresham in that yet more bloody conspiracy, which the Papists,
in after days, framed against the three estates of England, was but
a repetition of that now enacted in Venice by Beltramo of Bergamo.
Beltramo had been brought up in a noble family, to which he was closely
attached, that of Nicolo Lioni, of San Stefano; and, anxious to preserve
his patron's life, he went to him on the evening before the rising, and
entreated him to remain at home on the morrow. The singular nature of
the request excited surprise, which was increased to suspicion by the
ambiguous answers returned to farther inquiries which it suggested. By
degrees, every particular of the treason was revealed; and Lioni heard
of the impending danger with terror, and of the hands by which it was
threatened, with astonishment and slowly-accorded belief. Not a moment
was to be lost; he secured Beltramo, therefore, and, having communicated
with a few friends, they resolved upon assembling the heads of the
different magistracies, and immediately seizing such ringleaders as
had been denounced. These were taken, at their own houses, without
resistance. Precautions were adopted against any tumultuous gathering
of the mechanics of the Arsenal, and strict orders were issued to the
keeper of the _Campanile_ not on any account to toll the bells.
In the course to be pursued with the lesser malefactors, no difficulty
was likely to arise: the rack and the gibbet were their legal portion.
But for the doge, the law afforded no precedent; and, upon a crime which
it had not entered into the mind of man to conceive (as with that nation
which, having never contemplated parricide, had neglected to provide
any punishment for it), no tribunal known to the constitution was
competent to pass judgment. The Council of X. demanded the assistance of
a _giunta_ of twenty nobles, who were to give advice, but not to
ballot; and this body having been constituted, "they sent for my Lord
Marino Faliero the Duke, and my Lord was then consorting in the palace
with people of great estate, gentlemen, and other good men, none of whom
knew yet how the fact stood."
The ringleaders were immediately hanged between the Red Columns on the
_Piazzetta_--some singly, some in couples; and the two chiefs of
them, Bertuccio Israello and Calendaro, with a cruel precaution not
uncommon in Venice, were previously gagged. Nor was the process of the
highest delinquent long protracted. He appears neither to have denied
nor to have extenuated his guilt; and, 'on Friday the 16th day of April,
judgment was given in the Council of X. that my Lord Marino Faliero the
Duke should have his head cut off, and that the execution should be done
on the landing-place of the stone staircase, the Giant's Stairs, where
the doges take their oath when they first enter the palace. On the
following day, the doors of the palace being shut, the duke had his head
cut off, about the hour of noon; and the cap of estate was taken from
the duke's head before he came down the staircase. When the execution
was over, it is said, that one of the chiefs of the Council of X. went
to the columns of the palace against the Piazza, and, displaying the
bloody sword, exclaimed, "Justice has fallen on the traitor!" and, the
gates being then opened, the populace eagerly rushed in to see the doge
who had been executed.'
The body of Faliero was conveyed, by torchlight, in a gondola, and
unattended by the customary ceremonies, to the church of San Giovanni
and San Paolo; in the outer wall of which a stone coffin is still
imbedded, with an illegible inscription, which once presented the
words, _Hic jacet Marinus Feletro Dux._ His lands and goods were
confiscated to the state, with the exception of 2,000 ducats, of which
he was permitted to dispose; and, yet further to transmit to posterity
the memory of his enormous crime, his portrait was not admitted to range
with those of his brother doges in the Hall of the Great Council. In the
frame which it ought to occupy is suspended a black veil, inscribed with
the words, _Hic est locus Marini Feletro decapitati pro
criminibus._
The fate of Beltramo deserves a few words. He was amply rewarded for his
opportune discovery, by a pension of a thousand ducats in perpetuity,
the grant of a private residence which had belonged to Faliero, and
inscription in the Golden Book. Dissatisfied, however, with this lavish
payment for a very ambiguous virtue, he lost no occasion of taxing the
nobles with neglect of his services, and of uttering loud calumnies
against them, both secretly and in public. The government, wearied by
his importunities and ingratitude, at length deprived him of his
appointments, and sentenced him to ten years exile at Ragusa; but his
restless and turbulent spirit soon prompted him to seek a spot less
under the control of the signory, in which he might vent his railings
afresh, and with impunity. It is probable that the long arm of the
Council of X. arrested his design, for we are significantly informed
that he _perished_ on his way to Pannonia.
The volume is embellished with seven Plates, by Finden, from Drawings
by Prout; and nine characteristic Wood-cuts, chiefly from Titian.
Considering the excellence of the originals, more pains might have
been bestowed upon the latter; and Mr. Prout might surely have found
different points of view from those he has so recently given in the
Landscape Annual. The book altogether is a marvel of cheapness.
* * * * *