“Venice
seems a typeOf
life—’twixt blue and blue extends, a stripe,As
life, the somewhat, hangs ’twixt nought and nought.”—Browning.OF
the original home of the earliest settlers in that province of North
Italy known to the Latins as Venetia, little can be told with
certainty. Historians and antiquarians are pleased to bring them,
under the name of Heneti or Eneti, from Paphlagonia, and explain some
characteristic traits they subsequently developed—the love of
colour and of display, the softness of their dialect—by their
eastern origin. They were an independent, thriving and organised
community when the Roman Empire first accepted their aid in the
fierce struggle against the invading Gauls, and so they continued to
be until they were absorbed as a province of the Empire. The land
they cultivated, “mervailous in corne, wine, oyle, and all manner
of fruites,” was one of the richest in Europe. Its soil was formed
by ages of alluvial deposit brought by the rapid streams that drain
the southern slopes of the Alps.The
traveller who enters Italy by any of the Alpine passes will not fail
to note the contrast between the northern streams and the more
torrential water-ways of the south, which, however, being soon
checked by the deposit they bring, grow slack and fray out into many
and varying channels, through which the waters find their way with
small, at times almost imperceptible, flow into the sea. So lazily do
the rivers discharge that the north-east shores of the Adriatic are
formed of sandbanks, shoals and islets, which for nigh a hundred
miles from Cavarzere to Grado constituted the
dogado
of Venice. The famous Venetian lagoon is confined to some thirty
miles north of Chioggia, and is divided into the
Laguna morta,
where the tide is scarcely felt, and the
Laguna viva,
where the sea is studded with numerous islands and islets protected
by the
lidi,
a long line of remarkable breakwaters formed by the prevailing set of
the current to the west, with narrow openings or
Porti
through which the shallow tide ebbs and flows. This natural barrier
has made the existence of Venice possible, for the islands on which
the city is built afforded a refuge safe alike from attack by sea or
land. The colonisation, development and defence of these lagoons and
islands by settlers from the mainland make up the early history of
Venice. Some misapprehension exists as to the nature of these
settlements. The picture of terror-stricken and despoiled fugitives
from the cities of Venetia escaping from hordes of pursuing Huns or
Lombards to seek a refuge in the barren and uncertain soil of
mud-banks and storm-swept islands is true in part only. In many cases
the movement was a deliberately organised migration of urban
communities, with their officers, their craftsmen, their tools, their
sacred vessels, even the very stones of their churches, to towns and
villages already known to them. Among the settlers were men of all
classes—patrician and plebeian, rich and poor. “But they would
receive no man of servile condition, or a murderer, or of wicked
life.”
ON
THE LAGOONS
Some
islands were already inhabited by a hardy race of pilots and
fishermen: others by prosperous Roman patricians, with their villas,
farms, gardens and orchards. Grado was a busy commercial settlement
with rich vineyards and meadows, and joined to the mainland by a
causeway that led to Aquileia. Heraclea was rather a mainland than a
lagoon city; Torcello is said to have been a fashionable Roman
watering-place, and Roman remains have been found at S. Giorgio
Maggiore. Much of the ground was covered with pine forests, the
haunts of game and other wild creatures. For a long time the islands
were not regarded by the settlers as abiding places. Again and again
many of them returned to their old homes on the mainland when the
invaders’ force was spent. It was only in 568 that the Lombards,
more cruel, or perhaps more systematic in their oppression than
Marcoman or Hun, finally determined the Venetians to make the lagoons
their permanent home.Who
of us northmen that has reached the descending slope of an Alpine
pass, it may be through mist and sleet and snow, to gaze upon the
rich and luscious plains of Lombardy or Venetia smiling with vine and
fruit and corn; who that has felt the warm breath of sun-steeped
Italy caressing his face as he emerges from northern gloom, but will
feel a twinge of envy which is akin to covetousness, and which in
strong and masterful races quickly develops into lust of conquest?In
the fifth century of our era the Roman Empire decaying, like most
giants, at the extremities, lay defenceless before the inroads of
those forceful, elemental peoples who from north and east swept down
the passes to ravage the garden of Italy and to enslave her
inhabitants. In 452 Venetia became the prey of God’s
scourge—Attila. Aquileia, now a poor village just within the
Austrian frontier, but then a Roman city of the first rank, was
plundered. Altinum, a city famous for its strength and wealth,
resisted for a time but soon its inhabitants and those of Padua,
Asolo, Belluno and other mainland cities forsook their homes and
migrated to the lagoons.The
earliest settlements were twelve: Grado, Bibbione, Caorle, Jesolo
(now Cavallino), Eraclea, Torcello, Burano, Rivoalto (now Venice),
Malamocco, Poveglia, Cluges Minor (actual site now unknown, but not
Sotto Marina, as sometimes stated), Cluges Major (now Chioggia). Of
these, Grado was occupied by the Aquileians; Rivoalto and Malamocco
by the Paduans; Eraclea by the Bellonsese; Torcello and Burano by the
Altinese. To the pious imagination of chroniclers these migrations
were not without divine admonition. In 568 the terrible Lombards were
threatening Altinum, whose inhabitants entreated the help of heaven
with tears and prayers and fastings; and, lo! they saw the doves and
many other birds bearing their young in their beaks flying from their
nests in the walls of the city. This was interpreted as a sign from
God that they also were to expatriate themselves and seek safety in
flight. They divided into three bodies, one of which turned to
Istria, another to Ravenna. The third remained behind, uncertain
whither to direct their steps. Three days they fasted, and at length
a voice was heard saying: “Salite
alla torre e guardate agli astri.”
(Ascend the tower and look at the stars.)
S.
FOSCA AND THE DUOMO, TORCELLO
PONTE
S. GIUSTINA
Their
good Bishop Paul climbed the tower, and to his gaze the very stars of
the firmament seemed to set themselves in a constellation that
figured forth the fateful group of islands in the lagoon before him.
His flock, following this warning from heaven, went forth, headed by
their bishop and clergy bearing the sacred vessels and relics, and
passed to an island high and fertile, which they called Torcello,
from one of the twelve towers of their old city. The very hierarchy
of heaven, from Our Lord and His Blessed Mother to St Peter and the
Baptist, even to Giustina, the martyred little maid of Padua,
appeared to Mauro, the priest, in a vision, as he paced the sea
shore, and in sweet voices bade him build here a church and there a
church in their honour. The immigrants therefore had come to make the
lagoons their permanent home. Their new city was organised. In
process of time churches were built; trade guilds were formed;
painters and mosaicists enriched the buildings. The marble seat on
the grass-grown piazza of Torcello, to this day called Attila’s
chair, was probably the official seat of the tribune when he
administered justice to the people.It
will be seen that no definite date can be assigned to the foundation
of Venice, though Sanudo is very sure it was in “the year ccccxxi.,
on the xxv. of March, which was a Friday, that day on which our
father Adam was created, when about the hour of nones the first stone
of St Giacomo di Rivoalto was laid by the Paduans.” The great
diarist gives a charming picture of the earliest Venetians trading in
fish and salt with their little barks to the neighbouring shores:
“They were a lowly people, who esteemed mercy and innocency, and,
above all, religion rather than riches. They affected not to clothe
them with ornaments, nor to seek honours, but when need was they
answered to the call.”There
is little doubt that originally the settlers were subject to the
Consuls at Padua, but in 466 they were strong enough to meet at Grado
and to elect their own tribunes, one for each of the twelve
communities. A passage in a famous letter of Cassiodorus to these
Tribuni Maritimi
in 523 affords the first glimpse in history of the lagoon folk. The
secretary of Theodoric the Great writes urging them not to fail to
transport the tribute of oil, honey and wine from Istria to Ravenna,
and expatiates on their great security and the wonderful habitations
that he has seen, like sea-birds’ nests, half on land, half on sea,
or like the cyclades spread over the broad bosom of the waters. Their
land is made not by nature but by man, for the soil is strengthened
by flexible withy bands, and they oppose frail dykes to the waves of
the sea. Their boats are tied to posts before their doors like horses
are on the mainland. Rich and poor live in equality. They flee from
the vice of envy, to which the whole world is enslaved. Instead of
plough and scythe they handle cylinders. In their salt they produce a
merchandise more desired than gold, so all the fruits of the earth
are at their command.
THE
CUSTOMS HOUSE.
About
530, when Narses the Eunuch began the great campaign which wrested
the Italian dominions of the Emperors from the Goths, the Venetians
gave him effective aid by transporting an army of Lombard mercenaries
from Aquileia to Ravenna. As a reward Narses sent some Byzantine
masters, who from the spoils of the enemy built the Church of St
Theodore at Rivoalto on a plot of ground known as the
Broglio
or garden where now stands the Basilica of St Mark.Scarcely,
however, were the Goths defeated, when in 568 Alboin and his Lombards
menaced the land. Longinus, who succeeded Narses in the exarchate of
Ravenna, came to Venice and asked her aid as subject to the Emperor.
He was given an honourable and festive welcome, but the Venetians had
bought their freedom at a great price and stoutly refused to admit
his claim. They declared that the second Venice which they had made
in the waters was a mighty habitation and their very own by right of
creation; that they feared no power of Prince or Emperor, for it
could not reach them. They, however, furnished a ship and sent an
embassy with Longinus to Constantinople, and in return for valuable
trading rights, agreed to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Emperor
if no formal oath were exacted.In
584 the lagoon folk had so expanded that an additional tribune was
chosen for each community. Of these
Tribuni majores
was formed a federal council, the original tribunes now serving as
heads of local administrations.
a.
EARLY DUCAL CAP FROM AN OLD MOSAIC IN ST MARKb.
DUCAL CAP OF DOGE MORO, 1462-1471, FROM THE PORTRAIT IN S. GIOBBE
The
golden age so lovingly dwelt upon by the early chroniclers was of
short duration. Already, before the institution of the new tribunes,
family and local feuds, the ambition of the tribunes and jealousy of
the people, led to bloody affrays in the
Pinete
(pine forests) with which the
lidi
were clothed. Anarchy threatened the state; bands of Lombards under
the Duke of Friuli plundered the churches of Heraclea and Grado. The
crisis was met by the public spirit and wisdom of the Church. A
general meeting (Arengo)
was called by the Patriarch of Grado at Heraclea. Two vital problems
came to the front—the organisation of self-defence and the
maintenance of public order. The whole Assembly having invoked the
name of Christ, the great churchman stood forth, and after reviewing
the political situation, proposed that all the tribunes should be
relegated to purely local offices, and a
Capo
or chief elected for life. His new polity was approved and in 697
Pauluccio Anafesto was chosen first Doge and invested with sovereign
powers. Thus was constituted the Dogeship of Venice which, save for a
short interruption of six years, endured for eleven centuries. The
Doge could nominate, degrade or dismiss all public officers, convoke
or dissolve the
Arengo
and the synod. The appointment of Patriarchs and Bishops was subject
to his veto. The military authority, entrusted to a Master of the
soldiers, was subordinate to him; foreign affairs were in his hands,
though the approval of the people was required to declare war or
conclude peace. He could impose taxes; his feudal dues and rights of
corvée
were extensive. His state was regal. When he went abroad, girt with a
sword and surrounded by his guards, a state umbrella was held over
him, lighted tapers were borne by his side, trumpets blared and
banners waved. He sat enthroned in an ivory chair, holding a sceptre,
and arrayed in a silk mantle with a fringe of gold fastened by a gold
clasp over a tightly fitting tunic trimmed with ermine; he wore red
hose and a high biretta richly jewelled, which was subsequently
shortened by constricting the middle so as to form two lobes, one of
which soon disappeared, and the familiar horned cap of the later
Doges was evolved. A close cap of fine linen was worn beneath, so
that when the biretta was raised his head should be covered as a mark
of dignity. The Doge was no
fainéant.
He rose before the dawn, and having heard mass went forth to judge
the people and transact the business of the day. On solemn occasions
he gave his benediction. The blessing of God was invoked upon him in
the litany. The election, more or less democratic until the abolition
of the
Arengo
in 1423, was made by the whole people, who were summoned from Grado
to Cavarzere. Their chosen one was acclaimed and carried shoulder
high to the church, which he entered barefoot, and there swore to
govern according to the laws and to work for the good of the people.
The result of the election was communicated to the Pope and the
Emperor; to the latter usually by the Doge’s son in person.Anafesto
had a difficult task. The young state lay between two mighty powers:
Lombards or Franks and Pope in the west, the Byzantine Emperor in the
east. Only by vigilance and prudence could she escape subjection. And
these rival interests were active within her borders—aristocratic
Heraclea leaning towards the Eastern Empire; democratic Malamocco and
Jesolo towards the Western kingdoms and the Pope. One of the first
acts of the new Doge, after securing internal peace, was to conclude
a treaty with Luitprand, King of the Lombards, by which the
boundaries of the Republic were defined, and in return for an annual
payment, valuable rights of wood-cutting and horse-breeding and
trading were conceded. But political jealousy dies hard. Two powerful
families revolted in 717, and the Doge perished in a civil broil in
the Pineta of Jesolo.During
the reign of the third Doge, Orso of Heraclea, the Venetians were
called to meet a new danger. The rise of the Iconoclasts in the early
eighth century, and the zeal of their protagonist, the Emperor Leo
III., had set east and west aflame. Leo’s attempt to enforce the
decree against the use of images in the western Church was met by an
invitation to the Lombards from the Pope to attack the seat of the
eastern power in Italy. War was the very breath of their nostrils,
and they were not slow to respond. Ravenna was besieged and captured
and the Pentapolis occupied.[2]
The Exarch Paul fled to the lagoons and appealed to Orso for help.
The fugitive enlarged on the danger to Venice of the advancing
Lombards, now at their very door. The Doge agreed to furnish a fleet,
and by successful strategy Ravenna was surprised and recaptured and
the Exarchate restored. The gratified Emperor rewarded the Venetians
by conferring the title of Hypatos (knight) on their Doge, who
adopted it as a family name.This
imperial policy was, however, bitterly resented by the popular party.
A civil war ensued which lasted two years, and ended in the defeat of
the Heracleans, the murder of the Doge, and the banishment of his
son. Another experiment in statecraft was now made. The Dogeship was
abolished, and the Master of the soldiers appointed head of the State
for a term of one year. This new departure proved disastrous. After
six years of civil discord, the last of the Masters, a Heraclean, was
captured and blinded by the opposite party. An
Arengo
was called, this time at Malamocco, and a compromise effected.
Deodato, son of Orso, a Heraclean, was made Doge at Malamocco,
whither the capital was now transferred. But Heraclea and Jesolo were
rivals, fierce as ever, for the ducal chair. The internecine strife
went on with its savage incidents. Assassination, blinding,[3]
or banishment were the price of defeat. At length, by the election of
Maurizio Galbaio in 764, “noble by race, nobler in deeds,” the
distracted state was ruled with wisdom and firmness, and faction for
a time was silenced.
BASIN
OF S. MARCO.
The
epoch-making victory of Charles of the Hammer over the Arabs at Tours
had drawn the eyes of all men to France, and to a mighty race of
princes destined to change the face of Europe. The restless Lombards
in 752 had reoccupied Ravenna and the Pentapolis, and the Pope turned
to the new Carlovingian dynasty for help against them. Pepin answered
to the call, wrested the cities from their hands, and gave them to
the Pope, who thus became a temporal sovereign. Twenty years later
the papacy was again constrained to summon help. Charlemagne, Pepin’s
son, crossed the Alps by the Great St Bernard pass, fell like a
thunderbolt of war on the Lombards, and in 774 their dominion was
finally crushed by the capture of Desiderio, their King, and Pavia,
their royal city. Romanin argues from the silence of the chroniclers
that the Venetians took no active part in the siege of Pavia, but
from an old inscription in Venetian, on a thin plate of hammered
lead,[4]
preserved in the British Museum, we learn that on the invitation of
Charlemagne, the Venetians sent a fleet of twenty-four galleys, with
four nobles who knew the art of war (saveva
far la guara)
up the Po to the siege, and had the honour of guarding the captive
King. Venice had indeed watched every phase of the struggle, seizing,
as was her wont, any opportunity that offered for extending the
trading privileges so vital to her existence. By secret information
to the Church from her merchants at Constantinople, she had nipped a
plot to recover the Exarchate, now for ever lost to the Greek
Emperors. But in 781 Pepin, son of Charlemagne, had been crowned King
of Italy by the Pope; the power of the Franks was growing apace, and
their alliance with a territorial Pope alarmed the Heraclean party.
They believed a wiser policy was to form an alliance with the weaker
Empire far in the east against the Franks. In 778 Doge Maurizio
Galbaio was permitted, on the plea of infirmity, to associate his son
Giovanni with him, and on the death of Maurizio, the son stepped into
his father’s office, thus effecting a subtle change in the nature
of the Dogeship, by no means pleasing to the democratic party. The
Franks were not long in making their power felt. Venetian merchants
had acquired some territory near Ravenna, and many trading centres in
the neighbouring cities. They were incorrigible slave traders. Pope
Zacharias, a generation before, had been moved to compassion on
seeing in Rome groups of Christian slaves,[5]
men and women, belonging to Venetian merchants, destined to be sold
to the pagans in Africa. He paid their price and set them at liberty.
Charlemagne had recently published an edict against the traffic in
slaves, and now called on Pope Hadrian to take action. The Venetians
were expelled from Ravenna and the Pentapolis. In 797 the new see of
Olivolo which had been created a few years before to meet the growing
needs of the population, became vacant, and the new Doge preferred
Christophorus Damiatus, a young Greek to the bishopric. The Patriarch
of Grado, around whom the Frankish party centred, refused to
consecrate one whom he regarded as a nominee of the Byzantine
Emperor, and excommunicated Bishop and Doge. The Doge’s answer was
swift and terrible. He despatched his son Maurizio with a fleet to
Grado; the city was attacked; the Patriarch captured, thrown from the
tower of his palace, and dashed to pieces. To allay popular
indignation, Fortunatus, a nephew of the murdered Patriarch was
appointed in his stead. The new prelate soon showed of what stuff he
was made. With infinite resource and indomitable purpose he set
himself to avenge the insult to the Church, and, but for the
premature discovery of the plot, would have wrought the destruction
of the Doge and his party. Fortunatus fled to the court of
Charlemagne, who was now created Holy Roman Emperor, and harbouring
no tender feelings towards the rebellious children of the lagoons.
Obelerio, tribune of Malamocco, and the other heads of the conspiracy
found safety at Treviso, whence they stirred their partizans to
action with decisive effect. The Doge and his son were exiled to
Mantua; Obelerio was proclaimed Doge in 804; the triumph of the
Frankish party was complete. The Heracleans, however, soon rallied.
In their civil fury they fell upon Jesolo, and almost wiped it out.
The Doge immediately led a punitive expedition to Heraclea, and
wreaked a similar vengeance on that hot-bed of Byzantine faction. The
situation was now felt to be unbearable. By general consent a meeting
of the whole
dogado
was called, and it was decided that in order to make peace, the
remaining populations of Heraclea and of Jesolo should be transported
to Malamocco.Fortunatus
meanwhile was watching events at Istria. Under the sun of
Charlemagne’s favours he had waxed rich and powerful. He possessed
four ships, and traded under royal patronage wherever the new western
Emperor’s power reached. By skilful diplomacy he effected his
recall to Grado, and placed a Frankish partizan in the see of
Olivolo. But the Heracleans had lost their home, not their ideals and
policy. They appealed to the Byzantine Emperor, and a Greek fleet
sailed up the Adriatic. Fortunatus once again was a fugitive. The
Doge and his party protested a loyalty to their suzerain, which in
809 was translated into acts by the despatch of a fleet to aid him to
recover the exarchate for the Greeks. It was unsuccessful, but none
the less irritating to the Pope and Emperor, who now determined to
subdue the Venetians and incorporate them into the Holy Roman Empire
of the West. The immediate cause of the rupture is not known, but
when the princes of the earth are bent on war a pretext is seldom
hard to find. A great empire, aiming at universal dominion, is ill at
ease with a sturdy freedom-loving state on its borders, and the
far-reaching arm of the invincible Carlovingians was stretched forth
to grasp, as they thought, an easy prey.In
the stress of a common danger, faction was silenced. Obelerio and his
brother Beato, whom he had associated with him a year after he was
proclaimed Doge, advised that the Venetians should agree with their
adversary before it was too late, but a wave of popular indignation
swept them from power, and Angelo Participazio, a Heraclean by birth,
and one of the tribunes of Rivoalto, was made head of a provisional
government of national defence. The churches were filled with
earnest, determined men, entreating with fasting and prayer the
divine aid in their hour of need; a call was made on every citizen at
home and abroad to hasten to the defence of the fatherland.
Provisions were accumulated, ships built, fortifications raised,
channels blocked by chains and sunken hulks, guide posts drawn.
CLOISTERS
OF S. GREGORIO
Meanwhile,
King Pepin had summoned his allies, and a fleet sailed up to the
lagoons. On the mainland the advance of the Frankish armies was
irresistible; north and south they closed in on the Venetians. Grado
soon fell; Brondolo, the Chioggie, and other cities were captured;
fire and sword wasted their settlements. The
porti
of Brondolo, Chioggia, and Pelestrina were forced, Malamocco[6]
the capital threatened. At this crisis the momentous decision was
taken to abandon Malamocco and concentrate at Rivoalto (Rialto), the
compact group of islands between the mainland and the
lidi.
FISHING
BOATS
On
the
lido
of Pelestrina, south of S. Pietro in Volta, where the steamer to
Chioggia now calls, is the little fishing village of Porto Secco.
Here in olden times was a
porto
called Albiola. North of this passage was the city of Albiola on the
lido
which stretched towards Malamocco. South began the
lido
of Pelestrina. It was here that, according to tradition, a stand was
made. The Frankish host of horse and foot gathered on the
lido
of Albiola, waiting for their fleet to force the
porto,
which was deep enough to allow of the passage of the transports.
Opposite, on the
lido
of Pelestrina, stood the Venetians near their boats, which were
armoured with ramparts of sails, cordages, and masts, behind which
their archers did much execution. For nigh six months the desperate
fight was waged. “Ye are my subjects,” cried Pepin, “since from
my lands ye come.” The Venetians answered, “We will be subject to
the Emperor[7]
of the Romans, not to thee.” Malamocco was at length captured, but
was found to be deserted. Rough rafts and pontoons were constructed
to thread the maze of shallow channels that led to Rivoalto, but the
light, waspish boats of the Venetians drove them on to the shoals by
the canal Orfano, where they were caught front and rear, and those
who escaped suffocation in the water and the mud were quickly cut
down by their enemies. The summer heats came; the arrows of the sun,
more deadly than Venetian arms, wrought havoc among the Franks, whose
forces wasted away, and the Carlovingians were baffled. A Greek fleet
threatening his rear, forced Pepin to come to terms. He promised to
withdraw, to restore the captured territory, and to reaffirm all the
ancient trading rights and privileges in his dominions in return for
an annual payment. The Venetians emerged from the struggle a
victorious and a united people centred at Rialto, and the State of
Venice was now firmly rooted in the lagoons.