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 THE GREATNESS AND DECLINE OF VENICE. 
 
 k PRIZE ESSAY, 
 
 BEAD IN THE THEATRE, OXFORD, 
 
 JUNE 16th, 1858. 
 
 BY 
 
 LEWIS MOKE IS, B.A., 
 
 JESUS COLLEGE. 
 
 OXFOED: 
 
 T. and G. SIIRIMPTON. 
 
 MDCCCLVIII.
 
 ANALYSIS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Introduction . . . . .• . l 
 
 Origin of Venice, and successive steps in advance . 2 
 
 Great European movements of the eleventh, century. The 
 
 Italian towns engaged. Isolation of Venice . , 3 
 
 The fourth Crusade. The taking of Constantinople. Part 
 taken by Venice in the contest. Its influence on her. 
 Increase of her territory .... 7 
 
 Changes produced by these events. First more decidedly 
 
 aristocratic character ..... 9 
 
 Venetian government up to the shutting of the Grand 
 
 Council. The Council of Ten . . . . 1() 
 
 Second result of Eastern conquests. The collision with 
 Genoa. Wars of 1253, 1298, 1352. War of Chiozza, 
 and decline of Genoa . . . . . ib. 
 
 Wars of the Terra Firma. Death of Gian Galeazzo Visconti. 
 Venice under Foscari and Carmagnola. Death of the 
 latter. Conquests of the Eepublic. Zenith of Vene- 
 tian greatness . . •-,.'.. . . 14 
 
 The commerce of Venice. Her services to literature. 
 
 Her art. Painting . . . . . 16 
 
 Architecture . . . . . . 19 
 
 Aspect of Venice at this time. Venetian character de- 
 picted by native painters . . . . 20 
 
 Her government at this period ; its real nature and value . 21 
 
 Commencement of her decline. The first Turkish wars . 23 
 
 Invasion of the Terra Firma by the Turks. Venetian 
 commerce shattered by discoveries of Portuguese. The 
 Cape of Good Hope doubled. Projects of Albuquerque. 
 Capture or destruction of keys of commerce with Asia . 24 
 
 The League of Cambray. Atrocities of the spoilers of 
 Italy. Exhaustion of Venice. Turkish wars of 1537 
 to 40, and 1572 ..... 26
 
 IV 
 
 Fage 
 
 Wars with Turkey of 1 645 — 69. Loss of Candia. Glorious 
 struggle of 1632. Recovery of the Morea. Final loss 
 of Eastern possessions iu 1714 . . . .'27 
 
 State of Venice at this time. Her foreign policy. Her 
 internal condition. Extraordinary corruption and 
 license ....... 28 
 
 Heal meaning of this state of things. Characteristics of 
 
 Venetian history ..... 30 
 
 Conclusion . . . . . . 31 

 
 THE 
 GREATNESS AND DECLINE OE VENICE \ 
 
 Few educated men are not familiar with at least the most 
 striking features of that long and splendid pageant which is 
 known to us as the " History of Rome." The simple fables 
 which are so closely interwoven with the dawning narrative, — 
 the stories of the twin-brothers and their mysterious foster- 
 mother, — of the good King Servius and the wicked Tullia, — of 
 the proud Tarquin and the chaste Lucretia, — of the Horatii and 
 their bloody duel, — of Curtius and his magnificent self-sacrifice, 
 — of Cincinnatus and his grand simplicity ; these and many others, 
 coming as they do much nearer to us than the stories of Arthur, 
 or Alfred, or Cceur- de-Lion, impress themselves upon our minds 
 with a vividness and reality which no frigid rationalism can ever 
 completely efface. Later studies bring out with distinctness the 
 rising fortunes of the Commonwealth to the full effulgence of the 
 Empire under Augustus, and so through all the painful chronicle 
 of its decline, until the advent of the Goths. But when the 
 curtain has fallen upon the Western Empire, and the play is 
 apparently played out, few care to await its rise upon that great 
 life-drama which, during the mediaeval period, was acted again 
 upon the old classic ground. Many do not even suspect that 
 Italy, during that most critical period, was the theatre of great 
 events, of struggles for liberty as glorious and more obstinate 
 than those of the populus and the plebs, of factions and proscrip- 
 tions as fierce and sanguinary as those of Marius and Sylla, of 
 tyrants as depraved and cruel as the worst of the Caesars, of great 
 names and large patriotism, of pure art and wide-spread com- 
 merce, all with a greater claim upon our sympathies than those 
 of Rome, because, while she stands on the further side of that 
 great gulf which yawns between the old order and the new, the 
 Italian republics stand upon this side, the history of Rome is that 
 of a vanished yesterday, the story of mediaeval Italy is that of the 
 dawn of to-day. 
 
 It is no longer, however, one story which has to be told. The 
 
 a This Essay is based upon Sismondi and Daru, together with occasional 
 references to Hazlitt, Gibbon, Lord Brougham, Hallam, a lighter history by 
 Flagg, and other articles of less importance. 
 
 B
 
 2 
 
 broad canvass of history, before occupied by the gigantic pro- 
 portions of one Titanic form, is filled with numerous groups of 
 diminutive figures, brilliantly coloured and exquisitely finished; 
 all with something of resemblance to the great original, whether 
 in their beauties or their deformities. But there is no longer 
 any great central figure, and what the picture gains in intensity 
 of meaning, it certainly loses in simplicity, and as an artistic 
 whole. There is altogether a want of breadth and grandeur in 
 the history of mediaeval Italy ; the outlines are hardly sufficiently 
 well marked, the confused maze of petty systems become irre- 
 coverably entangled ; their wars are as tedious and unsatisfactory 
 as those of the Yolsci and iEqui. Some well-defined figures, 
 however, grow upon us out of the obscurity; Florence, Milan, 
 and Rome herself, have all eventful histories : Venice in parti- 
 cular recalls the traditions of the past, whether by the extent of 
 her empire, the brilliancy of her story, or her extraordinary per- 
 manence. Her story is worth telling, because it is incomparably 
 the most romantic, and indeed, anomalous, of modern times ; and 
 because, as a whole, it bears a rough kind of resemblance to our 
 own. It is more interesting than that of the other Italian cities, 
 because, in addition to the charm of a direct and unbroken de- 
 scent from ancient Rome, which she alone could trace, only in 
 Venetian story is there anything like a distinct moral significance, 
 only this conforms to the test by which all really useful history 
 may be tried — the possession of " a beginning, a middle, and an 
 end, a moral progress, and a mournful decline' 1 ." Her rise is 
 coincident in point of time with the last agonies of the Empire. 
 Fourteen centuries ago, the fertile plains of Upper Italy and the 
 peaceful cities of Venetia were exposed to the first rush of savage 
 invasion which broke in upon the weakness of Rome. Never 
 had barbarian conquerors reaped so rich a harvest. Year after 
 year they came, different in name, but alike in fierceness and 
 rapacity, — Attila with his Huns, Alboin and his Lombards, Clovis 
 and his Franks, Theodoric and his Ostrogoths ; scarcely had one 
 tribe passed away, or been absorbed, before another came to re- 
 open the still bleeding wounds, and to turn the whole of the hap- 
 less country into one bloody battle-ground. One can picture even 
 now, (for war is always essentially the same,) the warning signal- 
 fires blazing out on the distant hills, the dull suspense of the 
 succeeding days, then the smoke of burning homesteads upon 
 the horizon, the terror always drawing nearer and nearer; at last, 
 the dark masses of the enemy, first in the open fields, then swarm- 
 ing in the streets of the city, and presently the awful realities of 
 savage warfare. And so there came a time when it seemed to 
 the bolder spirits that these horrors were to be avoided, at what- 
 
 b The remark is in substance Mr. Stanley's : " Sinai and Palestine."
 
 ever sacrifice of old associations ; and they wandered forth from 
 their homes to seek some place of security for life and labour, 
 some little spot of dry ground for the soles of their feet, amid 
 the wide-spread waters of barbarism. They chose, with a wise 
 prescience, the chain of almost inaccessible Lagunes which lie at 
 the head of the Adriatic. Each succeeding wave of invasion, (and 
 there they were many,) which swept over the mainland, drove before 
 it, to some of the many islets, its band of outcasts, to swell the 
 number of those who were to form the nucleus of the future re- 
 public. There they coalesced into a number of separate com- 
 munities, not bound together by any very powerful tie, often, in- 
 deed, distracted by mutual jealousies, and only combining against 
 common perils. Thus they went on for two centuries and a half, 
 pursuing a humble commerce, constantly at war with their ene- 
 mies, or with each other, yet never losing their independence. 
 Then there came a notable change; the citizens of each little 
 island met together at Heraclea, and elected a Duke of maritime 
 Venetia. Prom this period there existed one state only, and the 
 results of the union must have made themselves felt in the greater 
 security for the lives and commerce of the citizens — effects which 
 must in their turn have given rise to a far more ambitious policy 
 than that of mere self-defence. The fortunes of the growing 
 state are still, however, long involved in obscurity. The main- 
 land was in the power of heretics and enemies. The sea was in- 
 fested by swarms of piratical adventurers. From the former the 
 Venetians had little to fear. Their inaccessible position was their 
 surest safeguard. Against the latter they soon became able to 
 hold their ground. They were, in the quaint words of the mini- 
 ster of Theodoric, like water-fowl c , and they penetrated in safety 
 along the canals and navigable waters of Lombardy. Meanwhile 
 their long isolation was consolidating the national character. One 
 of the few strongholds which defied the Lombard power, they were 
 rewarded by the Eastern Empire, to which they always seem to 
 have looked with affection, with the honour of an equal alliance. 
 When Charlemagne marched into Italy to receive at Rome the 
 imperial crown, his courtiers saw with surprise the costly silks of 
 the Venetian merchants. But the little state, undazzled by the 
 almost fabulous glories of his career, and strong in her allegiance 
 to Constantinople, stedfastly refused to admit his title, or that of 
 his successors, to the Empire of the West. And in 809, when 
 at war with Pepin, the islanders assembled their fleets, and fixing 
 upon the island of Rialto, they built that famous city which was 
 destined to play so brilliant a part in mediaeval politics, — to blend 
 within itself the most opposite traditions, — a maritime Sparta, — 
 an oligarchical Athens, — a Rome, not of outcasts, but of nobles ; 
 
 c Cassiodorus, Variar. 1 . xii. Epist. xxiv., quoted bv Gibbon, c. 35. 
 B 2
 
 4 
 
 to be as much loved by her citizens as she was bitterly hated by 
 her contemporaries ; a splendid paradox, a strange medley of con- 
 tradictions, of noble deeds and mysterious crimes; to us the re- 
 pository of priceless art-treasures, and connected inseparably with 
 the most precious fancies of painter and poet. Thirty years 
 afterwards they removed thither from Alexandria the body of 
 St. Mark. It was a characteristic act. The key-note of early 
 Venetian history is to be found in the earnest piety and strong 
 religious feeling of the people. They felt, these poor outcasts, 
 that life was not a frivolous pursuit of pleasure, but a real, end- 
 less struggle against overwhelming dangers. The spirit in which 
 they lived and worked may still be discerned in the ecclesiastical 
 monuments of this period, — pure Gothic, full of noble meaning 
 and deep devotion, — so widely different, in its entire unconscious- 
 ness, from the oppressive egotism of the Renaissance. 
 
 Here, again, there is little to be recorded for nearly two hundred 
 years. The Republic was slowly increasing in power, busy in the 
 pursuit of a commerce which had by this time become very ex- 
 tensive, and which was destined for a still longer period to absorb 
 her entire energies. But in 997, the small towns of Istria and 
 Dalmatia, harassed by Slavonian pirates and forgotten by the 
 Eastern Empire, placed themselves under the protection of Venice : 
 with her help the pirates were vanquished, and the Doge assumed 
 the title of Duke of Venice and Dalmatia. 
 
 A great change came over Europe, after the millenniary epoch 
 of Christianity. There went a stir and trembling over the form 
 of the sleeping giant of progress before he started up finally from 
 his death-like slumber. This was the epoch of great national 
 movements, of the successful migration of the Normans into 
 Southern Italy, and of the commencement of the long collision 
 of the East and the West, provoked by the fanaticism of the 
 Crusades. Before this, the history of Europe is only that of a 
 number of separate organizations, slowly opening into life after 
 the long winter of the dark ages. No settled scheme, no unity 
 or coherence of purpose, is to be discerned in the isolation of 
 the various fragmentary parts. The force which ruled over so- 
 ciety was centrifugal rather than centripetal. Only in the reign 
 of Charlemagne, that marvellous anachronism, are there any traces 
 of a dominant idea. With his death the whole fabric of empire 
 faded away like a glorious vision. Afterwards there was an at- 
 tempt at reconstruction, on principles more in accordance with 
 the crude condition of society. The rise of feudalism was the 
 reduction to fixed rules of the vague but indisputable right of 
 the stronger. Meanwhile, an antagonistic development was going 
 on in Italy. The languid circulation of the empire had abandoned 
 the dead extremities, to gather itself into little knots or centres of 
 
 I
 
 more vigorous life. And thus arose that wondrous reproduc- 
 tion of old forms, the municipal system of mediaeval Italy, so 
 thoroughly repugnant to that of feudalism, that it was impossible 
 for them to exist together. Nor was it long before they were 
 brought into collision. Before the middle of the twelfth century, 
 the Italian cities, which had seen from behind their strong walls 
 and deep fosses the contest of the Investitures, which had listened 
 to the burning words of Arnold of Brescia, telling of political and 
 religious freedom, were brought into direct contact with the im- 
 perial claims of the house of Hohenstaufen. And then began that 
 memorable struggle which forbade the German Csesars of the West 
 to entertain any hope of crushing out the reviving liberty of 
 the towns. And from the day when Frederic Barbarossa and his 
 Germans entered Italy in 1154, to that glorious spring-day of 
 1196, when on the field of Legnano, the Milanese "Company of 
 Death," invoking God and St. Ambrose, drove back the defeated 
 invaders, and so ended the long contest of the Lombard leagqe, 
 Upper Italy hardly rested for a moment from the terrible struggle 
 to which she was committed. And when the power of the Em- 
 perors decreased, that of the Papacy arose, and with pretensions 
 not less dangerous to real liberty. Then came the interminable 
 and envenomed contest of Guelphs and Ghibellines, all the lead- 
 ing states taking part in the conflict, on one side or the other; 
 most of them, too, divided among themselves : then the Empire 
 and the Papacy were arrayed against each other openly, the Lom- 
 bard league revived, and in 1249 the chequered fortunes of the 
 war determined by the defeat of Hensius, and the death of 
 Frederic the Second in the succeeding year. This was a busy 
 century for Italy. Her free cities advanced to a degree of wealth 
 and splendour very far beyond that of the rest of Europe. Many 
 luxuries and social refinements were familiar to the burghers of 
 her great towns, which were long afterwards unknown to those 
 of London or Paris. The independence which they had won at 
 the point of the sword, the atmosphere of danger which they 
 breathed, the constant need of vigilance and decision, forced them 
 into an early adolescence. And this was followed by. an equally 
 early decay. Many of the less famous cities had already passed 
 the acme of fortune : in all, the seeds of incipient decline were 
 set. The indomitably factious spirit attaching to the political 
 watchwords of Guelph and Ghibelline was already kindled. These 
 words had passed through their two preceding phases, which had 
 represented, first, the opposition of the Empire and the free cities, 
 then that of the Empire and the Church, to assume the character 
 of party cries, utterly unmeaning in themselves, but endowed with 
 a strange power over those fierce Italian tempers, and able at any 
 time to lash them into a frenzy of passion. Prom this furious
 
 6, 
 
 energy the transition was easy to a state of exhaustion and apathy, 
 and so to a quiet surrender of their liberties into the hands of 
 tyrants, who proved themselves in every case quite unfit to re- 
 ceive so sacred a trust. 
 
 Now it was to all this fierce disorder, and her own entire ex- 
 emption from it, that Venice owed, at least in part, her own steady 
 rise at this period. They were wasting their strength, — she was 
 constantly adding to hers : commerce may be less glorious, but 
 it is undoubtedly more profitable, than war. Her tranquillity was 
 unbroken through all these troublous times. In the struggle of 
 the Investitures her name never once appears. When Milan and 
 the Lombard cities were covering themselves with glory, she pre- 
 served a cold neutrality. In the campaign which preceded the 
 building of Alessandria she appears to have volunteered her aid, 
 though not, perhaps, to take any very active part in the con- 
 federacy. Before the great day of Legnano she had formally 
 withdrawn from the league. When Alexander III., the true 
 head of the Church, fled to Venice a helpless fugitive, the strong 
 religious feeling of the Venetians led them, in a burst of generous 
 sympathy, to break through their settled maxims of policy, and to 
 range themselves against the whole force of the Empire. The 
 signal defeat sustained by Frederic on this occasion at the hands 
 of the Venetian fleet is interesting as being the first important 
 evidence of their naval power. It was then, too, that they ob- 
 tained from the grateful Pontiff the grant of the sovereignty 
 of the Adriatic; and it was at Venice, as a neutral state, 
 that the Emperor and the Pope met in the spring of 1177, to 
 attempt the reconciliation of their conflicting claims. When, 
 under the second Frederic, the disastrous day of Corte Nuova 
 seemed to be the death-blow of the Guelph party, Gregory IX., 
 as its head, appealed for aid to the patriotism of the maritime 
 states of Venice and Genoa. The latter appears to have afforded 
 very efficient support in the defeat of the Pisans at Meloria, and 
 so in paving the way for that strange reverse of fortune which 
 ended in the excommunication of Frederic. But Venice, though 
 her force was already greater than that of her rival, was by no 
 means prominent in the struggle, and accorded probably a languid 
 co-operation, busied as she was with her fast-increasing conquests 
 and commerce far away in the classic lands of antiquity, or in the 
 more remote and mysterious regions of the East. For while she 
 appeared thus indifferent to the fortunes of Italy, she was not 
 slow to exert the full measure of her growing power in a cause 
 more congenial to the national temper. In the last year of the 
 eleventh century the Venetians were able and willing to send a 
 fleet of 200 vessels as their contribution to the first Crusade. In 
 this they were joined by their rivals of Pisa and Genoa, and in
 
 the dissensions which afterwards dissolved the ill-fated kingdom 
 of Jerusalem, the names of the three maritime republics occupy a 
 prominent place. But it was for the fourth of these great move- 
 ments that she reserved her greatest efforts. The flower of 
 Western chivalry met at Venice. There might be seen the 
 polished Villehardouin, at once general and historian ; the chi- 
 valrous Baldwin of Flanders; the ruthless Simon de Montfort, 
 fresh from the murder of the Albigenses. How greatly the 
 power of Venice had increased at this date may be gathered from 
 the terms of the alliance. She was to undertake the transport of 
 the Crusaders "wherever the service of God and Christendom 
 should require/' — herself joining them with fifty galleys. She 
 was to receive for this service a sum of 85,000 crowns, together 
 with the benefit of the significant proviso, that all conquests were 
 to be equally divided between the republic and her allies. It was 
 not, perhaps, contemplated that this was to give to the city of 
 refuge — the home of the outcasts who had fled from the sabres 
 of the Huns — so large a share in the partition of the Roman Em- 
 pire. It is needless to tell th£ romantic story so familiar to every 
 historical student. That s^l-ewlid armament sailed out upon the 
 Adriatic, as one scarcely.-- less brilliant had sailed out upon the 
 iEgean sixteen centuries before, with a favouring wind and a 
 tranquil sea ; like it, too, in the magnificence of its equipment and 
 the greatness of its aims, but very unlike it in its complete suc- 
 cess. History can never forget how the great city, peaceful and 
 luxurious, occupied by a numerous but degenerate population, 
 and stored with the most precious treasures of art and literature, 
 succumbed before the hardy valour of the Latins. And one 
 picture we catch, amid the din of battle, than which there are 
 few more remarkable in history — that of the Venetian Doge, 
 Henry Dandolo, the brave old man, standing fully armed in 
 his galley, his sightless eyes turned towards the battlements of 
 Constantinople, the sacred banner of St. Mark waving over his 
 head. Nobler still is the disinterested patriotism which, after the 
 taking of the city, led the Doge to reject the dazzling title of 
 Emperor. He was encouraged in his refusal of the offered dignity 
 by the Venetian electors themselves, who felt that its assumption 
 might be fraught with danger to their country's liberty. So 
 strong was their love for her, so far were they from being cor- 
 rupted by their own peaceful policy, that it never seems to have 
 occurred to them that the prize was one for which it would be 
 well to exchange the dignity of a citizen of Venice. The extent 
 of her power at this time may be gathered from the large share 
 which she took in the partition of the empire. When the one- 
 fourth part had been deducted for the Emperor, she divided the 
 remainder equally with the French barons. Thus it was that the
 
 Doge took the singular title, so characteristic in its quaint accu- 
 racy, of " Lord of Three-Eighths of the Roman Empire." Prac- 
 tically, however, her possessions were limited to the Morea, 
 Achaia, the Island of Candia, and a great part of those which 
 compose the Archipelago, Her ambition seems to have been 
 directed to the establishment of a chain of commercial stations 
 along the coast from Ragusa to the Hellespont, an object in which 
 she was partially successful. Subsequently, when the Latin Em- 
 pire collapsed, and the last Baldwin sailed away in Venetian 
 galleys from his lost capital, the republic still retained the fruits 
 of her former conquest. These acquisitions must have greatly 
 added to her prosperity, not more by the extension of her terri- 
 tory than by the increased facilities which they afforded for her 
 commerce. She was no longer an Italian town, one among 
 many of equal rank and power, but an imperial city, the mistress 
 of distant colonies of immense value. She owes her rise, indeed, 
 to this pitch of power to what (if history ever admitted such) 
 might be termed the lucky accident of the diversion of the fourth 
 Crusade from its legitimate object. She had now a surer claim to 
 greatness than that of her traditionary policy of isolation. Iso- 
 lated from the rest of Italy she still continued, and that by virtue 
 of these very conquests. While the Lombard and Tuscan cities 
 were wasting their strength in fruitless contests, city after city 
 dashing out its passionate life in fierce internecine struggles or 
 bloody civil dissensions, breaking out into wild inarticulate out- 
 cries for liberty, sinking finally into a shameful torpor and 
 silence, she went on treading her solitary path with a calm de- 
 termination which could only lead to success. It was not, how- 
 ever, only in extending her territories or her commerce that these 
 conquests wrought a change in the fortunes of the republic. For, 
 first, they brought her into collision with her great rival Genoa, 
 and commenced that long struggle which was to be carried on for 
 so many weary years, and with such relentless fury, wherever the 
 hostile fleets encountered each other — far away, under the walls 
 of Constantinople, in the treacherous Euxine, amid the classic 
 islets of the Levant, or in the land-locked channels of Chiozza. 
 And, in the next place, it rendered necessary a modification of her 
 maxims of polity, which, as it was nearly coincident in point of 
 time, and tended towards the same point, with other graver 
 changes which then occurred, was probably one of the causes by 
 which they were brought about. The possessions of the state 
 were granted out to some of her noble families as fiefs to be held 
 in her name, as was the case with the duchy of Naxos, which was 
 given to the Sanuti, with Candia, and others. And whether, as 
 seems probable, the rise of a powerful territorial aristocracy 
 worked a change in the internal policy of the state, or whether
 
 9 
 
 that change proceeded from other more immediate causes, it is 
 certain that very soon after this period it assumes a more dis- 
 tinctly aristocratic character. It was the good fortune of Venice 
 to be freed, by her singular physical position, from that great bane 
 of other Italian cities, the serpent-brood of tyrants, who, safe in 
 their mountain-fastnesses, were always on the watch to tread out, 
 by fraud or violence, the precious liberties of the towns. She had 
 no Eccelino or Gian Galeazzo; she was happily ignorant of 
 Medici and Visconti. She was always more or less aristocratic in 
 tendency ; and that events had occurred to quicken and stimulate 
 this feeling is shewn by the memorable movement of 1297. 
 Until that date, the Venice of history is not the Venice with 
 which we are all familiar. When the early government by tri- 
 bunes had been replaced by that of the Doge, the change was at 
 first to an elective monarchy, deriving its power from the consent 
 of the people. With the increasing power of the state the ducal 
 prerogative seems to have kept pace, the holders of that high 
 office often associating their sons with themselves, and so render- 
 ing the honour hereditary for some generations. There appear to 
 have been few precautions against the abuse of power on the part 
 of the Doge, — perhaps, indeed, none, except that last remedy, 
 at all times lamentably and horribly familiar to the Italian mind, 
 from the age of Julius Csesar to that of Gian Maria, from that of 
 Gian Maria to the very year in which we live. Six out of ten 
 dukes, in the first century after the creation of the office, were 
 either murdered or deposed. In the year 1030 an effort, and a 
 successful one, was made to impose a limit upon their excesses, 
 by obliging them to consult a council of the chief citizens, termed, 
 from the request made for their attendance, the Council of the 
 Pregadi. In 1173, the misfortune of the Doge Michieli led to 
 the establishment of the Grand Council, a body of 480 members, 
 elected annually from the six districts of the city. The council 
 was chosen by tribunes annually replaced, but as the appoint- 
 ment of these electors was left to the people, the government was 
 at first a popular one. Very early, however — as indeed was natu- 
 ral — encroachments were made by the members of this imperial 
 municipality. They assumed the power of rejecting the names 
 which were presented to them as their successors, as well as that 
 of appointing their own constituents. Thus the annual election 
 became practically nugatory, — the Grand Council being always 
 elected from the same families. And in 1297, a century and a 
 quarter after its first establishment, the people having made an 
 attempt to elect a Doge, which was frustrated by the conduct of 
 their nominee Tiepolo, the Grand Council proceeded to elect one 
 of their own number, who was pledged to the support of their 
 interests. This was followed by the formal adoption, as laws, of
 
 10 
 
 practices which had already prevailed as customs; the right of 
 re-election was transferred from the tribunes to the Council of 
 Forty, and such of the actual members as could, upon a ballot, 
 obtain twelve votes out of forty, were to continue to sit. Vacan- 
 cies, occasioned in whatever way, were filled up by three electors, 
 themselves appointed by the council. By the first year of the 
 fourteenth century an additional step of the last importance had 
 been taken, — the electors were forbidden to insert in their lists 
 the name of any citizen whose ancestors had not sat in the coun- 
 cil ; and in 1319, after the defeat of a dangerous conspiracy, in 
 which the plebeians coalesced with the excluded patricians, all 
 elective forms were entirely abolished. Noble birth became the 
 sole qualification for government, the famous Council of Ten 
 was created, the aristocracy finally established, and Venice en- 
 tered upon that mysterious policy which was never afterwards to 
 be changed or modified in the slightest degree, and only fell with 
 herself. Henceforth the power of the Doge and that of the 
 people are utterly annihilated, — the Great Council itself occupies 
 a subordinate position, — it is in the Council of Ten that the real 
 power of the executive is vested. 
 
 Holding its common appellation by a strange misnomer, for 
 besides the Ten, properly so-called, it comprised the Doge and his 
 signory ; appointed from the council, and entrusted with office for a 
 limited period only, it became, through the necessities of the state, 
 a permanent Dictatorship. Wielding over every citizen of the 
 state an awful and irresponsible authority, its proceedings were 
 wrapped in the most unfathomable mystery. The fearful punish- 
 ments which it inflicted were as secret as the charges upon which 
 it condemned. Such an institution could hardly lay claim to 
 sympathy, — it has not met, perhaps, even with impartial justice. 
 VVhat is the true estimate of this political enigma, may be asked 
 in another place. At present there is another result of the Vene- 
 tian conquests to be noticed; a result, perhaps, which can be 
 more directly referred to them, and which affected her fortunes 
 abroad not less than her great political revolution affected her at 
 home. That result is her struggle with Genoa. Until that began, 
 she had never come into collision with a power so like herself in 
 foreign policy, or so nearly her equal in strength. Both were 
 opulent maritime republics ; both depended almost entirely upon 
 commerce ; both derived that commerce from nearly the same 
 sources, and owed their increasing prosperity to the weakness of 
 Constantinople. In the great revolutions which distracted that 
 empire in the thirteenth century, they took different sides. Under 
 the Latin Emperors, the star of Venice was in the ascendant : 
 that of Genoa rose with the advent of the Palasologi. And though 
 it was the wise policy of the Greeks not to disturb the Italian
 
 11 
 
 factories which they found existing on their return, they naturally 
 looked more kindly upon their Genoese allies : they secured to 
 them the preponderance of interest by the concession of many 
 important privileges; such as the establishment of a suburb at 
 Pera, and the grant of trading stations in the Crimea, which gave 
 them the monopoly of the Euxine. Meanwhile the Venetians 
 were chafing under a sense of inferiority, while the Genoese were 
 growing insolent through success. Such a state of affairs could 
 not possibly continue long without an outbreak. Accordingly, 
 many years had not elapsed before the beginning of that long 
 and bloody duel which was to form the leading incident of Vene- 
 tian history for a hundred and thirty years, fought out, as it 
 was with relentless fury over those very seas which had witnessed 
 the chequered fortunes of Athens and Sparta, or of Carthage 
 and Borne. The first collision was in 1258. Thirty-five years 
 later, the great seven years' war broke out, which for that length 
 of time stained the Mediterranean with blood. Genoa was enabled 
 at this time, by the defeat of her old rival Pisa, to put forth her 
 whole strength; and when, in 1298, the Genoese, under Lamba 
 Doria, met the Venetians, under Andrea Dandolo, at Corcyra, the 
 battle, which ended, as we are told, in the destruction of sixty-six 
 Venetian galleys and the capture of eighteen by the Genoese, 
 together with seven thousand men, seems to have brought about 
 a peace in the succeeding year. But the early part of the next 
 century was occupied by constant hostilities; and by the middle 
 of that period, the insolence of the Genoese — they had captured 
 the whole Greek fleet, and paraded it in triumph before the win- 
 dows of the Emperor's palace — overcame on his part that well- 
 nigh inexhaustible long-suffering which is the result of conscious 
 weakness. Appealing for aid to the Venetians and Catalans, that 
 struggle was entered upon in which, in the expressive words of 
 Gibbon, the weight of the Eoman Empire was scarcely felt in the 
 balance. The great sea-fight of 1352 presents a striking picture. 
 On a wild February evening, the united fleets of Venice and the 
 Catalans, together with the feeble levies of the Empire, encountered 
 the Genoese squadron in the narrow straits of the Bosphorus. 
 One of those sudden storms which have played a mournful part 
 in recent history, swept down from the Euxine at the moment of 
 the onset. As the light of the spring-day faded, the wind rose 
 to a tempest ; but in spite of howling wind and roaring sea, the 
 fleets of the hostile republics settled to their deadly work. Night 
 came down upon the waves, the lights came out in the long streets 
 of the great capital, and faded as it sank to rest, but the struggle 
 for dominion was still raging upon the bloody waters. Many of 
 the hostile galleys, dashed against each other by the violence of 
 the storm, foundered in the darkness, or were driven to utter
 
 12 
 
 wreck. When the morning dawned, the shattered remains of the 
 Venetian fleet were far away on the horizon, bearing away for 
 Candia. The victory and the mastery over Constantinople re- 
 mained with the Genoese, — not, however, for long. The very 
 next year another naval battle, not less bloody than this, was 
 fought off the coast of Sardinia, in which they were signally 
 defeated. So heavy was their loss, that their republic was obliged 
 to surrender herself into the hands of Gian Visconti, the Lord of 
 Milan. She bought efficient aid, indeed, at the ruinous price of 
 the loss of liberty, and under her great captain, Paganino Doria, 
 destroyed the Venetian fleet in the month of November of 1354. 
 In the following year there came a peace, which, after a contest so 
 obstinate and of such weary length, and which bore so heavily on 
 the resources of both states, must have been very welcome. But, 
 despite appearances, Genoa was the chief sufferer. She had al- 
 ready passed the turning-point of her fortunes, and henceforth 
 her history is that of a gradual but sure decadence. She could 
 still, through foreign support, make one vigorous effort, which 
 had well-nigh proved fatal to her rival; but the drain on her 
 resources had been too great to allow her to fight for the future 
 upon equal terms. In Venice, too, the long continuance of 
 maritime warfare was not without its result. The joints of the 
 social fabric were loosened. Among her merchants and seafaring 
 population there had arisen that vague spirit of discontent so 
 dangerous to established institutions. It wanted little to fan this 
 mass of smouldering disaffection into active flame ; and that little 
 was found in the senile jealousy of the Doge, Marino Faliero, who 
 was induced to join the malcontents in an attempt to overthrow 
 the aristocracy. Now this coalition of populace and executive was 
 the one especial danger against which the institutions of Venice 
 were directed. Their working may become intelligible from the 
 result. Twenty-four hours after the detection of his guilt, the 
 sole traitor, the only Doge who betrayed the confidence of the 
 Republic, died an ignominious death in his own palace of St. 
 Mark. — One great effort was still to be made by Genoa, — the 
 memorable campaign of Chiozza. Before the year 1379, the 
 hostile fleets had been meeting, always under their hereditary 
 commanders, a Doria and a Pisani, with varied success. At length, 
 in a decisive action before Pola, Vittor Pisani, who had given 
 battle with hastily levied and undisciplined crews, was utterly 
 defeated. Returning to Venice with the remains of his fleet, he 
 was loaded with chains and thrown into prison. Meanwhile the 
 victorious Genoese were riding at anchor before the islands which 
 form a natural breakwater between the Adriatic and the Lagunes. 
 Some time appears to have elapsed before they seem to have 
 become awai? of the full extent of their good fortune. Two
 
 13 
 
 months had passed from the date of their success before they 
 attacked Chiozza, the town which commanded the canals which 
 led to Venice ; after a siege of ten days it was taken, and Venice 
 lay at the mercy of her old enemy. Her rulers were aware of the 
 danger. They were willing to make concessions which, but for 
 the grave nature of the crisis, might well have appeared humi- 
 liating, and which, fortunately, the Genoese, in the insolence of 
 triumph, rejected. Vittor Pisani was drawn forth from his prison, 
 Carlo Zeno was sent to recall the galleys which were scattered 
 about the Levant, the canals were rendered impassable by stock- 
 ades, the senate in the meanwhile preparing, in case of need, for 
 removal to Candia. And so the winter passed away. With the first 
 day of the new year came Carlo Zeno, bringing with him a powerful 
 fleet. Then, with that almost exact reproduction of some of the 
 most exciting episodes of Athenian history which distinguishes 
 this war, the resolution was taken of blockading the besiegers 
 within the intricacies of the Lagunes. It succeeded to perfection. 
 The whole Genoese fleet was taken as in a trap. At last, when 
 their boats had been burnt, and famine stared them in the face, 
 they surrendered at discretion, — forty-eight galleys and 14,000 
 men. It was the death-blow of Genoa. Venice, too, was greatly 
 exhausted. By the peace of Turin she lost her Dalmatian pos- 
 sessions to the King of Hungary. This, however, was imma- 
 terial, because they were all restored to her on his death in the 
 following year. 
 
 Thus closes the story, which, from its romantic colouring, so 
 unlike the more sober hues of ordinary history, might well be 
 termed the " Lay of the War with Genoa." Henceforth the 
 history of Venice enters upon a new and even more eventful era. 
 The conflict which now ended had engaged all her resources for 
 130 years. Till then she had been scarcely more Italian than 
 the Hanse towns. The petty tyrants of the mainland worked 
 out their schemes of criminal ambition and relentless cruelty 
 down to the borders of the Lagunes. But when her great rival 
 had ceased to be formidable, she had time and opportunity to 
 check the inroads of Carrara of Padua, and to punish him for 
 the part which he had taken in the struggle. This was rendered 
 easy by the state of the peninsula at this time. Milan, under 
 the detestable dynasty of the Visconti, had forgotten her old 
 traditions of freedom. All Lombardy had become subject to her 
 in the successive reigns of Barnabas and Gian Galeazzo. The 
 latter monster, by a combination of subtle intrigue and open 
 violence, had managed to deceive both Carrara and the Venetians, 
 while professing alliance with both. Verona, Vicenza, and Padua 
 fell before him in succession : shortly afterwards he became mas- 
 ter of Treviso, the sole fruit to the Venetians of the Florentine
 
 14 
 
 alliance of 1336. Fortune seemed to smile upon all his efforts. 
 The Germans of Bavaria and the French of D'Armagnac found, 
 to their surprise, that they were no longer a match for the con- 
 summate strategy of his generals and the discipline of his troops. 
 The indolent Wenceslaus gave the formal sanction of the Empire 
 to the usurpations of the Duke of Milan. The plague swept off 
 the leading citizens of Lucca and Bologna, which thus fell an 
 easy prey. Pisa and Perugia were gained by the old weapons of 
 secret assassination. Florence herself was in imminent danger. 
 Then Gian Galeazzo, stricken with a horrible fear, shut himself 
 up in his castle of Marignano, like a tiger in his den ; but the 
 plague reached the miserable, guilty wretch even there, and his 
 death broke up the vast tyranny which had cost him so many 
 crimes. The anarchy which followed upon his death was as 
 great as the stability of his rule during his life ; and it was then 
 that Venice went forth from her Lagunes to acquire a wider 
 territory on the terra frma of Italy. Her first attack was made 
 upon her old enemy, Carrara of Padua, who, in conjunction with 
 Delia Scala, of Verona, had attempted to recover both Verona 
 and Vicenza. Soon after they had taken the former city, Delia 
 Scala died : it was supposed that Carrara had poisoned him, and 
 it is certain that he immediately occupied Verona, and arrested 
 the dead man's sons. Then the Venetians had but one foe to 
 contend with. In one year from the commencement of the war, 
 Carrara had been deprived of his whole territory, and after the 
 surrender of Padua, both the tyrant and his sons were conveyed 
 to Venice. There the dark policy of the Council of Ten con- 
 demned them to die. They were strangled in prison, on the 
 16th of January, 1406, and the Republic became mistress of the 
 dominions of Padua, Verona, and Vicenza. Twenty years after- 
 wards, when, under Filippo Maria, the fortunes of the Visconti 
 were again in the ascendant, the two republics of Venice and 
 Florence, the sole remaining champions of liberty, united against 
 the common enemy. Venice was under the government of Fran- 
 cesco Foscari, her most illustrious Doge, while her armies were 
 commanded by the greatest of the great Italian captains, Car- 
 magnola. Under him, her arms were marked at first by one 
 unbroken career of victory. He took from the Duke of Milan 
 the province and city of Brescia ; he defeated in succession 
 Sforza, Piccinino, and all the most illustrious commanders in 
 Italy. At last, in 1431, came a reverse. The loss of his cavalry, 
 by a surprise, the destruction of the Venetian fleet, the inaction 
 to which he was consequently reduced, were all unpardonable 
 offences in a foreign adventurer. The sequel is painfully illus- 
 trative of the darker side of Venetian character. He entered 
 Venice with all the honours due to the most distinguished sue-
 
 15 
 
 cess ; he was led into the senate, and conducted to a place of 
 honour. When he spoke, he was interrupted by the most tumul- 
 tuous applause. Presently the light of the April evening began 
 to fade. When he could no longer distinguish the surrounding 
 faces, there was a slight stir. It was the sbirri. Hurried away 
 to the prison of the palace, he was put to the torture on the 
 following day. Twenty days afterwards he was led out from his 
 prison, and in the Place of St. Mark, between the two columns, 
 his head was struck from his shoulders in the presence of the 
 awe-stricken people. 
 
 Prom this period until the death of Pilippo Maria there is little 
 to record. The Venetian cause appears to have been progressing 
 steadily, and in 1447 the forces of the allied republics pressed 
 so hard upon those of Milan that the tyrant was forced to con- 
 clude an alliance with his son-in-law, Sforza. On his death, and 
 the establishment of the short-lived republic which followed, 
 Venice, animated by the ambitious policy of Prancesco Poscari, 
 still continued at war with Milan. Upon the accession of the 
 first Sforza to the duchy, her views of conquest were destined to 
 receive a check.: an event hastened by the jealousy of Cosmo de 
 Medici, who had succeeded in trampling out the fiery democracy 
 of Florence. The great soldier was everywhere successful. In 
 May, 1448, he took from Venice her conquests on the right of 
 the Adda. In July he burnt her fleet on the Po. In September 
 he captured almost her whole army at Caravaggio. Subsequently, 
 for private ends of his own, he agreed to cede to the Venetians 
 Bergamo, Brescia, Crema, and the Ghiara d'Adda. Of the two 
 latter provinces they were afterwards deprived. But about this 
 time all these minor schemes of ambition were lost in the presence 
 of a common disaster — Europe heard with fear and trembling the 
 great news of the fall of Constantinople. Then a peace was con- 
 cluded at Lodi, and the third and last part of that great epic 
 " The Greatness of Venice," brought to a close. 
 
 This, then, is the period at which the zenith of Venetian power 
 may be fixed. Her greatness, which had begun with Constan- 
 tinople, was fast declining by the commencement of the sixteenth 
 century. Her resources, with one or two exceptions, — such as the 
 acquisition of Cyprus, by inheritance from the daughter of St. 
 Mark, that of some towns in Apulia, by purchase or intrigue, 
 and the encroachments made upon Romagna, which gave rise 
 to the league of Cambray, — were never afterwards really increased. 
 Another great change was shortly to pass over the face of Europe, 
 and to usher in the modern era ; as that of the eleventh century had 
 the brighter half of the era of the middle ages. The established dis- 
 tribution of power was to undergo a remarkable revolution. The 
 Turks threatened Venice in her colonies : the discoveries of the 
 Portuguese mariners were soon to affect her commerce. For the
 
 16 
 
 future she does not acquire — she retains ; her attitude is not so 
 much of aggression as of defence. It was at this time, or a little 
 later, that she was most brilliant and splendid, that her arms 
 were gilded with the lustre which not unusually beams upon de- 
 clining fortunes — that her great painters were beginning to work 
 and triumph — that her commerce was most widely spread, and 
 her polished society endowed with its greatest charms. 
 
 For her great commercial activity she was peculiarly adapted 
 by her natural position. Venice was the natural entrepot for all 
 the products, natural or industrial, which Italy furnished to the 
 less favoured regions of Hungary or Germany. Lying midway 
 between the East and the West, and in the direct path of com- 
 merce, she became the natural receptacle of much that northern 
 and western Europe took from the provinces of sunny Spain, 
 from the classic Levant, from the rich plains of the Nile and the 
 Ganges, or from the various trading-stations which were the 
 outlets of central Africa. With the rest of Italy she was con- 
 nected, for trading purposes, by the • different means of com- 
 munication which existed in the navigable rivers and canals, 
 the privilege of using which seems to have been enjoyed by her 
 almost constantly from the time of the Lombards to that of 
 Eilippo Maria. 
 
 Historically, her commerce seems to have begun with a few 
 humble manufactures, and then to have received a considerable 
 impetus from a lucrative monopoly of a necessary of life — salt — 
 which she enjoyed. Before the middle of the ninth century she 
 had opened up an important trade with the great commercial city 
 of Alexandria, as indeed is evident from the legend of the removal 
 thence of the body of St. Mark c . In the time of the Crusades 
 the navies of Venice and her two rivals, both of whom she was 
 destined to survive, are said to have exceeded in numbers those 
 of the rest of Europe. After the fall of Acre, it was Venice who 
 maintained friendly relations with the Saracen rulers of that great 
 mart, as well as with those of Egypt and Africa ; and thus, pro- 
 bably, it was that she secured for herself the greater part of the 
 trade of these countries. Through Egypt she maintained a very 
 profitable intercourse with Asia, and in particular with Hin- 
 dostan ; so much so, indeed, that it was at one time actually 
 proposed to the senate to take the bold step of seizing the 
 country which was the key to so valuable a traffic. With the 
 western nations of Europe, the intercourse of the Italian trading 
 towns was not developed so early. Even when it did arise, in 
 the fourteenth century, it was with Genoa, rather than with 
 Venice, that the English merchants dealt. After the fall of the 
 former republic, Venice must, have succeeded to a more consider- 
 
 c Hazlitt, " History of Venice."
 
 17 
 
 able trade with ourselves 11 , and it could not have been entirely 
 insignificant if she concluded a special commercial treaty with 
 London. With Flanders, all the Italian cities, and Venice among 
 the number, maintained a considerable commerce, bringing to her 
 for distribution the most costly Oriental merchandize, and receiv- 
 ing in return the most valuable products of the North. The whole 
 of the European continent was traversed by her merchants ; Ve- 
 netian wares were to be found throughout Germany, and the 
 whole course of the Danube was open to her commerce. With 
 France she was connected by the closest ties, as in the case of the 
 special treaty with Marseilles. Besides her large possessions in 
 the Levant and the Morea, and her stations on the Dardanelles, 
 she held a great part of the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean 15 . 
 She had stations at Tyre and Barytus, Ptolemais and Alexandria. 
 From the commerce of the Saracenic towns of northern Africa, 
 from Tunis, Barca, and Tripoli, the Contarini and other noble 
 families derived an enormous revenue. Her merchants pene- 
 trated with equal energy through the arid wastes of Persia and 
 the wilds of Astrakhan. The Venetian sequin was as well known 
 to Indian Rajah, or Persian Shah, or nomad Tartar prince, or 
 savage African chieftain, as it was in Europe, or as the English 
 sovereign is to-day among the same nations, and in the same 
 countries. Few eastern countries had not seen those keen Vene- 
 tian features, the long caravan — with its motley troop of jesters, 
 ils collection of rare or curious animals, to conciliate and amuse 
 languid Rajah or fierce mountain chief — toiling onward with the 
 same unwearied singleness of purpose, and returning finally with 
 its rich load of priceless gems and costly tissues, of ivory and 
 gold-dust, to be borne in the deeply-laden Venetian galleys to 
 the wonderful city at the head of the Adriatic. That her com- 
 merce was not altogether the result of a carrying-trade is abun- 
 dantly clear. Among the Venetian exports to Alexandria at the 
 beginning of the fourteenth century are mentioned timber, brass, 
 tin, lead, oil, saffron, and even woollen cloths. These may pos- 
 sibly not have been native products ; but it is certain that the 
 Venetians were cunning workers in the precious metals and in 
 glass. The procession of the trades of Venice on the election of 
 anew Duke is characteristic of a manufacturing city. The Vene- 
 tian velvets, silks, and mirrors were long highly prized through- 
 out Europe. The Armenians bought her fine cloths. And even 
 
 d It must have been very considerable. Darn, Livre xix. mentions, among 
 Venetian imports into England, silks, oil, camphor, dried fruits, and thread. 
 They exported from England wool, raw and manufactured. 
 
 • England did nut obtain the privilege of trading under her own Hag with 
 Turkey until 1577; the United Provinces not until 1598. Venice had long 
 enjoyed a monopoly. 
 
 C
 
 .18 
 
 now, as in the case of the Corso clegli Orifici, the names borne by 
 the streets of the city prove that it was once little else than a 
 vast workshop. To foster this commercial spirit was the great 
 aim of Venetian government from the earliest times down to those 
 of her acquisitions on the terra firma. At stated intervals, three 
 squadrons were despatched by the state, to Egypt, to Syria, and 
 to the Black Sea, to further the interests of individual merchants. 
 And where the llepublic was not sovereign, she established a well- 
 developed consular system, to protect the interests of her citizens, 
 surrounding her officers with all the pomp and circumstance which 
 could add to their dignity. At Constantinople, in particular, the 
 Venetian Podcsta boasted of a princely retinue, and a magnificence 
 which made itself felt amid the lavish splendour of that imperial 
 court. 
 
 Younger and more vigorous hands have seized upon the com- 
 merce which supported the splendour of Venice. But the services 
 which she rendered to art and literature can hardly be forgotten. 
 If she can lay no claim to the invention of printing f , at least she 
 was one of the first to adopt it. In 1459 the art was pursued at 
 Venice with great success by Nicholas Jansen, and in 1469 a 
 large selection of the classical authors appeared in type. Early in 
 the next century she gave to the world the far-famed Aldine 
 editions. When George of Trebizond translated the "Laws" of 
 Plato, he found valuable support in the cosmopolitan spirit of the 
 llepublic. It was at Venice, says Valery, that statistical science s 
 was born, — a statement fully borne out by those valuable state- 
 papers, " The lleports of the Venetian Ambassadors to the Senate." 
 She shares with Pisa and Barcelona the claim which they prefer 
 to the first promulgation of a system of maritime law. It was 
 there that the first newspaper was printed, — Gazetta is still a 
 familiar name, — the first bill of exchange issued, and the first 
 bank of deposit founded. Her great library of St. Mark attained 
 a world-wide celebrity ; great writers sent copies of their works to 
 it, and men of letters regarded it as the repository of invaluable 
 treasures. Her art-culture speaks for itself. It came a little 
 later, perhaps, than the period of her rising greatness, when the 
 pulses of her national life were beating less fiercely, and when 
 leisure of mind was more common. But not long after the fall 
 of Constantinople, Giovanni Bellini was adorning the ducal palace 
 with his paintings, and laying the foundation of the great cinque- 
 
 f The following early Venetian editions of classical writers are shewn in the 
 library of the liritish Museum: — Cicero, Epistolce ad Familiares, hy Johannes 
 Spiraj the Ad Brutum of the same author, hy N. Jansen, 1470; a beautiful 
 Aldine Virgil of 1501, and an edition of Tacitus. 
 
 b Venice recognised very soon the great economical principle of the division 
 of labour. Artizans were confined by special ordinance to one trade. Daru, 
 Sistoire, Livre It).
 
 19 
 
 cento school, which, among other great names, was to include 
 those of Giorgione, of Tintoretto, of Sebastiano, of Paolo Veronese, 
 and of Titian. In all were represented the peculiar tendencies of 
 Venetian character — the striving after the sensuous and concrete, 
 rather than after the abstract and theoretical, the perfection of 
 rich and glowing, yet exquisitely tender colouring, rather than 
 the severe and accurate delineation of form. In architecture she 
 had already made considerable progress. Few of us but can 
 recognise the clustering domes, the tall campanile, the gleaming 
 marbles and rich mosaics of that wonderful edifice, so like, in its 
 half-oriental aspect, to the Venetian character — the Church of 
 St. Mark. Fewer still have not looked with admiration upon 
 that marvel of pure Gothic, the Palace of the Doge ; the art of 
 the photographer has brought it home to all of us : the long line 
 of cloisters below, where none but a noble might walk ; higher 
 up, the covered gallery, whose delicate columns break forth into a 
 wondrous efflorescence of beauty ; and above all, the wall of the 
 upper story, somewhat heavy and sombre at first sight, but traced 
 over and relieved with varied arabesque, and lit at intervals with 
 the calm breadth of Gothic windows, and within, the stately 
 chambers where, perhaps, Marino Faliero met the reward of his 
 treason, or where upon the ears of the dying Francesco Foscari, 
 then a disgraced and broken-hearted old man, there fell the 
 measured sound of the bell which was already tolling for his 
 successor. 
 
 It must have been a strange spectacle which was presented at 
 this time to a subject of one of the old feudal monarchies of 
 Europe, who, fresh from the comparative squalor of French, or 
 English, or German cities, saw, for the first time, the queen of 
 the Adriatic rising from the waves, the long line of marble palaces, 
 the sumptuous churches, the noble quays of the city, crowded 
 with busy faces — among which were to be seen the dark, proud 
 features of the Moor, the cunning of the Jew, the eagerness of 
 the Italian, the impassive apathy of the German, — the galleys, 
 laden to the water's edge with the most precious merchandize, — 
 all this must have made the first sight of Venice one which could 
 not easily be forgotten. And the unaffected admiration of Philip 
 de Comines h , himself a courtier of long standing, is the best testi- 
 mony to her magnificence : — " I was extremely surprised,' 7 he 
 says, with his own quaint mixture of utter worldliness and strong- 
 religious feeling, " at the situation of this city ; to see so many 
 
 h The following is his testimony to the splendour of the Ducal Palace: — 
 " It is splendid, and rich in all it contains, heiug built of finely carved marble, 
 ami the whole front and facings are of stone gilt an inch thick. . . . The chapel 
 is the most magnificent piece of building in the universe, being built of mosaic - 
 work in every part. . . ." — History, bk. vii. ch. 18. 
 
 c 2
 
 20 
 
 churches, monasteries, and houses, and all in the water, and for 
 the people no other passage up and down the streets but in boats. 
 . . . About the city, within less than the compass of half a French 
 league, there are seventy religious houses, all situated in little 
 islands, very beautiful and magnificent both in building and fur- 
 niture, with fair gardens belonging to them, without reckoning 
 those in the city, where there are the four orders of mendicant?, 
 about seventy parishes, besides several fraternities ; and, indeed, it 
 is almost incredible to behold so many stately churches in the 
 sea." And in another very instructive passage: — "I was con- 
 ducted through the longest street, which they call the Grand 
 Canal, so wide that the galleys do frequently cross one another, 
 and I have seen vessels of four hundred tons, or more, ride at 
 anchor just by the houses. It is the fairest and best-built street, 
 I think, in the world, and goes quite through the city : the houses 
 are very large and lofty, and built of stone ; the old ones are all 
 painted; those of about a hundred years 5 standing are faced with 
 white marble from Istria, and inlaid with porphyry and serpentine 
 stone. Within, they have most of them two chambers, at least, 
 with gilt ceilings, rich chimney-pieces, bedsteads of gold colour, 
 their portals of the same, and gloriously furnished. In short, it 
 is the most magnificent city that I have seen, the most respectful 
 to all ambassadors and strangers, governs itself with the greatest 
 wisdom, and serves God with the utmost solemnity; so that, 
 though in other things they may be faulty, I believe God blesses 
 them for the reverence they shew in the service of the Church." 
 What manner of men they were who raised the Republic to such a 
 pitch of power, we may gather from the existing works of her 
 great painters. Some of them have left whole galleries of noble 
 portraits; others, in depicting sacred or classical subjects, have 
 derived their inspiration from Venetian models. To the grave 
 signori and dukes of Titian we have no access. But in our own 
 national collection there are, among others, three pictures in par- 
 ticular which seem to bring us nearer to the men who worked out 
 the greatness of Venice. The first, by Bassano, " The Portrait of 
 a Gentleman," brings out the less fascinating side of Venetian 
 character. The expression of the face is very subtle and astute, 
 but marvellously unscrupulous and insincere. Such a man may 
 have sat as one of the Ten or the Three, or concluded treaties with 
 the Saracens in the name of the Prophet. The " Doge Loredano," 
 of Giovanni Bellini, is equally true. The finely cut features, of 
 almost womanly delicacy, the conscious pride of the erect head, 
 tell plainer than words of the purity of aristocratic lineage. It is 
 a picture very peaceful in tone, very ecclesiastical in character; it 
 might well, indeed, be that of a Roman pontiff, and speaks of a 
 dignity which, like the papal tiara, was only to be attained in a -
 
 21 
 
 vanced years. Yet, in the inscrutable eye, the strong lines of the 
 face, the bland mouth, so firmly set, there lies hid a world of 
 subtle policy, to be carried out with unflinching determination. 
 The celebrated " Family of Darius," of Paul Veronese, is not 
 less significant. One forgets that Hephsestion and Alexander, 
 the daughters of Darius, and the spectators, are clad by a happy 
 anachronism in the rich Venetian costume of the day. The fair 
 faces of the kneeling women, the noble heads and tall sinewy 
 figures of the conqueror and his friend, instinct with manly grace 
 and dignity, might satisfy a somewhat fastidious estimate of aris- 
 tocratic beauty. They are portraits of the Pisani — descendants 
 of that proud line of admirals who overcame at length the long 
 resistance and sturdy valour of the Geonese. 
 
 Her administration was still in the hands of the Council of 
 Ten, or rather of the Three Inquisitors of State — the mysterious 
 Vehmgericht *, which has given its own sombre hue to nil the 
 institutions of Venice. When it has been said that, from its first 
 appointment, it resorted to the ignoble weapons of a vague but 
 awful terror and suspicion ; that its charges and punishments were 
 alike secret; that the lions' mouths were always open for the 
 malice of the secret informer — it will be thought that enough has 
 been said to prove it to have been a horrible engine of oppression. 
 But every institution which has been allowed to play its part in 
 history has a right to be judged by its practical effects ; because we 
 can in no other way estimate it at its true value, when we have no 
 longer any sufficient knowledge of the circumstances under which it 
 took its rise, or of the dangers against which it was meant to pro- 
 vide. And by this test the Venetian government might well be con- 
 tent to be tried. For if it should be shewn that it secured to the 
 people all the practical effects of a temperate liberty ; if the ordi- 
 nary administration of justice was unquestionably pure; if the 
 burden of taxation was light, the finances never corruptly appro- 
 priated, but directed for the good of the state with a just 
 economy ; if the quiet streets of Venice never echoed to the furious 
 cries of Guelph and Ghibeline; if the wealthiest of aristocracies 
 and the most dangerous of mobs were kept asunder with success ; 
 if the power of law was acknowledged to be supreme, when all 
 around was lawless; if there was no constant oscillation between 
 tyranny and anarchy, — then we should certainly have to modify 
 our censure. And those who, from the secure height of England 
 and the nineteenth century, cannot consent to try the institutions 
 of mediaeval Venice by any other than a strictly constitutional 
 standard, are bound to shew how far a better form of polity 
 
 1 Daru has a suggestive passage : — "Quand le peuple cle Venisc parlait de ce 
 redoubtable tribunal il disait en baissant la tete et en levant, le doigt vers le 
 ciel ' tuix d' en haut.' "
 
 22 
 
 than hers was consistent with real liberty in that age and country. 
 Is the true home of Italian freedom to be sought for in the Milan 
 of the Visconti, or in the Rome of those terrible mediaeval priests ? 
 Is Florence to be our model? Florence, "the most republican 
 of republics/' in turbulence only; Florence, — blessed with a 
 popular assembly, whose first act was invariably to vote away 
 its own liberties, — for ever plunged in the most furious excesses 
 of faction, proscribing Guelphs and Ghibelines by turns, torn 
 and bleeding from the incessant feuds of patrician and plebeian 
 houses, equally corrupt and selfish, long hesitating between the 
 dompi and tyranny, sinking finally into those lowest depths of 
 art-culture and the Medici, before Venice had assumed her high 
 place as the " bulwark of Europe ?" Aid are defects so grave 
 and numerous to be atoned for by the presence of a few mean- 
 ingless constitutional forms? In fact, paradoxical as it may 
 seem, the ordinary government of Venice, that which alone 
 came under the notice of the great mass of her citizens, was 
 strictly constitutional k . A quiet Venetian citizen might hope 
 to live all his life under the protection of just and equal laws, 
 without once coming into contact with the Inquisitors of State. 
 A Florentine in the same position might reckon with tolerable 
 certainty on suffering during the same period either in person or 
 property. It was only against the ruling classes that the tre- 
 mendous weapons of the Secret Council were directed ; and, how- 
 ever arbitrary and cruel its acts, we may be sure that, from their 
 very mystery, they have been greatly exaggerated. A body of 
 men on whom rested the burden of the foreign and internal 
 administration, could hardly have been always busy with political 
 murders. And the three great charges preferred against it, the 
 deaths of Carrara and Carmagnola, and the treatment of the two 
 Foscari, are very far from being conclusive. Carrara met at Ve- 
 nice with the fate which he would have looked for, as a matter of 
 course, if he had fallen into the hands of any of his brother- 
 tyrants of Lombardy or Tuscany, and which (as he probably did 
 in the case of his ally, Delia Scala, of Verona) he would in turn 
 have inflicted upon them under like circumstances without scruple 
 or remorse. Carmagnola was one of the hireling condoltieri of 
 those times, and might well hope to do at Venice what his bro- 
 ther-soldier Sforza actually did at Milan. The policy of the 
 Foscari 1 , which led to the entanglement of Venice in the affairs 
 of Italy, was a direct cause of her ruin. All the crimes of the 
 
 k It is not a little remarkable that the Doge tells Comines (bk. vii. ch. 19,) 
 not to believe all Hying reports, " for that at Venice all people had liberty of 
 saying what they pleased." The publicity, too, given to the state-papers sent 
 by the ambassadors to the senate, is strange. 
 
 1 There can be no doubt that the son had bee engaged in a questionable 
 correspondence with Sforza of Milan.
 
 23 
 
 Venetian aristocracy would have been enacted, if we may reason 
 from the analogy of the rest of Italy, in a single year after the 
 accession of the first Doge who had succeeded in overthrowing 
 its power. The real signification of the Council of Ten was per- 
 haps this : an organized ostracism operating in a way which may 
 well excite horror and disgust. But it only shared in the general 
 blackness of the age. Por those were bad times. They were bad 
 times of intrigue and violence, of depraved morality and avowed 
 perfidy, which found their expression in the political maxims of 
 Machiavelli. And as time wore on, the consequences of a policy 
 intrinsically vicious made themselves felt. It may be that the 
 nature of the Venetian government hastened her decay; but 
 when it was first adopted it was the only possible safeguard 
 against far worse dangers. The Venetian aristocracy had to 
 make its election between two courses, — that which it actually 
 adopted, and the choice of a short-lived popular government, 
 soon to sink before tyrants as depraved as Nero and as bloody as 
 Robespierre. Posterity may well be grateful for the choice, 
 which gave Europe a bulwark against barbarian invasion. The 
 people tvere grateful. They shed their hearts' blood for St. Mark 
 with the same fervent love, whether it was against King or Pope, 
 Kaiser or Sultan, Italian tyrant or Genoese sea-captain, against the 
 League of Cambray as freely as in Candia or Greece. And the 
 re-appointment of the Council of Ten — for it delivered up its trust 
 every year, and so would have died a natural death — was really 
 the result of a noble self-distrust, and an extraordinary self-sacri- 
 fice, on the part of the Venetian nobles. It was against them- 
 selves that they were erecting this terrible power ; it was to their 
 own ambition that it was destined to be fatal. And, whatever 
 were the faults of the Venetian government, it is impossible to wish 
 that it had never existed. Who can wish that " the few thinly 
 scattered names of illustrious men™ " had been more numerous, or 
 that the Poscari and the Pisani, the Sanuti and Morosini, had ever 
 risen to the bad eminence of the Medici and the Visconti ? 
 
 Venetian history is like some tall conical mountain — the tra- 
 veller who has so long been ascending constantly, finds no level 
 ground or table-land at the summit, but as soon as he has attained 
 the highest point, immediately begins to descend. And so, very 
 soon after the fall of Constantinople, Venice was involved in that 
 long and ruinous struggle with the Ottoman power which forms 
 the most romantic episode of her history. Yielding to over- 
 powering pressure, the Republic in 1454 concluded an alliance 
 with the Sultan, by which her relations to his new empire were 
 
 '" The contemptuous expression is Mr. Hallam's — " Middle Ages," chapter on 
 Italy-
 
 24 
 
 assimilated to those which she had maintained with the Greek 
 emperors. This treaty enabled the Sultan to extend his conquests 
 at pleasure. In successive years he reduced the duchy of Athens, 
 and the little states bordering upon the Euxine, and extended his 
 power over Wallachia and Moldavia. Then, at last, the weary 
 contest began, the vicissitudes of which it were tedious to re- 
 count. It was marked, on the whole, by the steady advance 
 of the younger and more vigorous nationality, though not with- 
 out a resistance from the weaker which is inexpressibly touching. 
 She concludes treaties of alliance with Corvinus and Scanderbeg, 
 the two heroes who broke the first rush of Ottoman invasion ; 
 she strives, though vainly, to resuscitate the dead spirit of the 
 Crusades; her sons penetrate with invincible daring through all 
 the wild intermediate country to solicit the aid of the ruling 
 sovereign of Persia. But all was in vain ; the tide of fortune 
 had set too strongly against her, and she had nothing to hope 
 from the suicidal policy of Europe. She stood alone in her 
 effort for that which was really the common interest, without aid 
 or sympathy from those whose existence might well have de- 
 pended upon her success. It was on the old classic ground that 
 the battle was fought out. In 1-158 the Turks took Athens, and 
 the last duke was strangled by the order of the Sultan. Eight 
 years later, the banner of St. Mark floated again over the sacred 
 ruins of the Acropolis, though soon to give place to the Crescent ; 
 and in 1470 the Turkish fleet put out for the Negropont, and 
 Mahomet II. placed himself on the spot where centuries before 
 another Eastern prince had marshalled his innumerable hosts 
 against the cause of civilization. But liberty had no longer her 
 Leonidas, and the rich province of the Negropont was lost to the 
 republic. Nor is it possible to pass over the heroic defence of the 
 Albanian Scutari: it was worthy of the best times of antiquity. 
 The fierce soldiers of the Crescent shrank back baffled from the 
 walls of the beleaguered city. A similar fate awaited them at Le- 
 panto in the following year. At the same time the Venetians were 
 advancing their interests in Cyprus, as next heirs to the daugh- 
 ter of St. Mark. But in the meantime the danger was pressing 
 nearer home. Italy was destined to experience once more the 
 horrors of barbarian invasion. The Venetian citizens of the 
 peaceful Terra Firma, the inhabitants of Aquileia and Eriuli, saw 
 the gleam of the Ottoman sabres, and fell in thousands by the 
 hands of the ruthless conquerors. Many were sold into slavery. 
 And in the face of this great peril Europe was occupied with 
 fruitless contests and jealousies arising from the ambition of her 
 rulers. Then the Republic, deserted and exhausted, concluded, in 
 1479, a peace with the Sultan, which deprived her of great part 
 of her possessions in lllyria and in the Moiea. But in the last
 
 25 
 
 year of the century, the struggle was renewed, the troops of 
 Bajazet II. descending continually from the Albanian mountains 
 upon the rich plains of Dalmatia. The merciless Turkish cavalry, 
 7,000 sabres strong, crossing the Isonzo, carried murder and 
 rapine to the very borders of the Lagune. And about this time 
 it was that a very significant circumstance occurred, — the invin- 
 cible Venetian fleet was met and worsted by that of the Turks ; and 
 when the war was at last ended, by the good offices of a Venetian 
 captive, it was with the loss of almost all the remaining Venetian 
 possessions in the Morea. It might have been long, perhaps, 
 before the unaided power of the Ottoman race would have borne 
 down the noble resistance of the Republic. But there were other 
 causes which contributed to her decline. The commerce of the 
 East and the West, which had so long pursued the same path, 
 from India to Alexandria, from Alexandria to Venice, from 
 Venice to Flanders and the North, was to take another direction. 
 The discoveries of the Portuguese were to work an extraordinary 
 commercial revolution. One after another they sailed out, those 
 bold mariners, advancing little by little along the coast of that 
 mysterious continent, which has still such unfailing charms for 
 adventurous spirits, until they passed that extreme point which 
 still records their joy and exultation — the Cape of Good Hope. 
 Then brave Vasco de Gama, sailing out into those unknown 
 tropical seas, reached at length the rich Oriental city Calicut, 
 whence the productions of the East passed up the Red Sea into 
 the hands of the Venetian merchants of Alexandria. Then came 
 the long quarrel with the Samorin and the native princes, and the 
 mighty projects of Albuquerque, which culminated in the taking 
 of Ormus and the ruin of Aden, the keys of the Venetian com- 
 merce with Persia and India. From this time the commercial 
 supremacy of Venice was gone : the products of the East might 
 be bought far more cheaply at Lisbon ; and though, from the 
 natural tendency of trade to continue to flow in the old channels, 
 it was long before these discoveries seriously affected her, yet it 
 must always eventually centre in the cheapest market, and the 
 death-blow of Venetian commerce was struck when Vasco de 
 Gama's galleys cast anchor at Calicut. 
 
 Perhaps, again, the Portuguese conquests might never have 
 been made, if an overwhelming danger had not pressed upon 
 the Republic at Rome. But the face of European politics un- 
 derwent at this time a most extraordinary change. France, re- 
 lieved from English wars and insolent feudatories, was ready to 
 indulge in visions of foreign conquest; Germany was steadily 
 growing in power. Only the restless ambition of a headstrong 
 youth was wanting in order to let loose upon Italy the horrors 
 of foreign invasion. And when one power had taken the ini-
 
 26 
 
 liativc, there was room for others to follow. The expedition of 
 Charles VIII. was, indeed, the beginning of a miserable period, 
 from which Italy has never recovered. All the glorious fabric 
 of civilization so laboriously reared was dashed to ruin by the 
 selfish and suicidal policy of the rulers of Europe. For many 
 years Italy was like a fair hind torn limb from limb by succes- 
 sive troops of cruel, ravenous wolves. Here, as is so often the 
 case in mediaeval history, it was to the temporal power of the 
 papacy that the greatest disasters were due. Too weak to main- 
 tain his own cause, — for the arms of the Church were proverbially 
 without edge, — the Pope, alarmed at the advance of Venice upon 
 the province of Romagna, called in to his aid the armies of Maxi- 
 milian and of Louis. The opportunity was too good to be lost. 
 In ]508, the iniquitous League of Cambray, which was to give 
 cause to such a vast sum of human crime and suffering, was 
 signed by a woman and an ecclesiastic. Thenceforth the work 
 was easy : it was only necessary to promise a division of the 
 spoil to secure the adhesion of the petty tyrants of Italy; and 
 on the 15th of April, 1509, the first step was taken by France. 
 The heroic defence of the Venetian army was neutralized by the 
 evils of a divided command. The forces of Louis soon overran 
 that half of the Venetian territory which was to be his share in 
 the partition. Then came the turn of Maximilian, of the Pope, 
 of Ferdinand of Arragon, and the other inferior potentates. The 
 Emperor, with his mixed army of 100,000 men, was gloriously 
 beaten back from the walls of Padua. In the meantime the open 
 country was the scene of the most frightful atrocities. The un- 
 happy peasantry, robbed, and tortured, and murdered, enjoyed the 
 poor privilege of distinguishing between the brutal, ruffianly de- 
 bauchery of the Germans, the cool, malignant, passionless ferocity 
 of the Spaniards, and the union of both qualities in the French 
 ecorcheurs. Every conceivable phase of inhuman atrocity was prac- 
 tised for eight weary years upon the peaceful cities of the Vene- 
 tian Terra Firma. How the spoilers were divided against each 
 other; how the Catholic King and the most Christian Emperor 
 were ranged in deadly conflict; how conquered Venetian cities, 
 generously released from their allegiance when the state was no 
 longer able to protect them, rose instinctively in the midst of 
 enemies to range themselves once more under the old beloved 
 banner; how, after that terrible Easter-day at Ravenna, the fall 
 of Gaston de Foix gave the final blow to the French power ; how 
 the Spaniards, in 1513, committed atrocities which exhaust the 
 whole vocabulary of horror; how they were succeeded by the Ger- 
 mans of the following year; how in 1516 the terrors of the former 
 years were thrown into the shade by new crimes — it is unnecessary 
 to tell. But by the treaty of Noyon the Venetians were once
 
 27 
 
 more put into possession of what they were to have lost by the 
 League of Cambray, but with resources well-nigh exhausted, with 
 territory depopulated by the long continuance of murder and ra- 
 pine, and with the vitality of their institutions vanished for ever. 
 Nor had they time to recruit their drooping energies. Already 
 the colossal power of the House of Hapsburg was rising in the 
 distance. On the death of Maximilian and the accession of 
 Charles V., the contest between that monarch and Francis de- 
 luged Italy with blood, and made the whole history of that un- 
 happy country one monotonous and sickening tale of murder. 
 Milan, Pavia, Naples, Rome herself, all sacked under circum- 
 stances infinitely terrible, the whole country abandoned to the 
 brutality of a villainous soldiery, living at free quarters upon the 
 hapless citizens, troops of ruffianly Free Lances sweeping over 
 the land at brief intervals, everywhere fiendish cruelty and rapine, 
 — such was the condition of Italy at the commencement of that 
 sixteenth century which ushered in the establishment of modern 
 society. And Venice suffered with the rest. True, her terri- 
 tory was not apparently much diminished by the final arrange- 
 ment with Charles V. in 1529. But the era of sovereign cities 
 was past, swallowed up as they were in the larger empires and 
 standing armies of modern Europe. Yet after the final extinc- 
 tion of the whole constellation of contemporary republics, light 
 after light fading away into the black waste of darkness, Venice 
 continued for two centuries and a half an independent city. The 
 brief period of rest which she enjoyed was occupied in an attempt 
 to recover her lost strength, to reduce the enormous debt by 
 which she was oppressed, and to recover, as far as might be, her 
 shattered commerce. But from 1537 to 1540 another war with 
 the Turks broke out, which ended, after three years' incessant 
 strife, in the loss of the islands of the Archipelago, and of the 
 remaining strong places in the Morea. And in 1572 the arms 
 of the second Selirn, turned in vain against Persia, were directed 
 more successfully against the Venetian kingdom of Cyprus, ac- 
 quired a century before, by the death of Catherine Cornaro, the 
 daughter of St. Mark. Venetian story has no incident to record 
 so glorious as the noble defence of Pamagosta, or so painful as 
 the fate of Bragadino and his band of heroes. And of the glories 
 of Lepanto, the dauntless sailors who fought before Constanti- 
 nople, or scattered the squadrons of Genoa, might well have been 
 proud. But it was a dying splendour, a short Indian summer 
 of success — the more beautiful, perhaps, because the long winter 
 of obscurity was at hand. And so the only fruit of Lepanto was 
 to be found in the surrender of Cyprus. Similarly, the seven- 
 teenth century contains two wars. That of 1645, which raged 
 for a quarter of a century, resulted, after a fruitless display of the
 
 old heroic spirit, in the increase of the Turkish power. For two 
 
 years did the Janissaries of Kupruli besiege the last bulwark of 
 Christendom. And, with no other allies than the Pope and the 
 Knights of St. John, Venice bore up against the whole weight 
 of the Ottoman Empire. 13ut in 1009 the inevitable result en- 
 sued. After a war of unprecedented fury, Candia was lost to 
 the Republic, and its Grand Council returned into the bosom of 
 that of Venice. In 1082 came the last expiring effort — the last 
 leap of brilliant flame before the final darkness. In concert with 
 the Emperor and John Sobieski, the Republic once more mea- 
 sured herself against her old enemies. It was a brilliant effort. 
 All the Morea, some of the islands, many of her old Dalmatian 
 fortresses, were restored to her by. the last year of the seventeenth 
 century, and her possession of the first province secured to her 
 by the peace of Carlswitz. But in 1714 Achmet III. recon- 
 quered the Morea without a struggle, and four years later Venice 
 renounced all claim to it under the peace of Passarowitz : after 
 which period the banners of St. Mark, can hardly be said to have 
 been raised in active warfare. 
 
 She had long, indeed, lost the power of truly independent action : 
 she had long existed mainly through the embarrassments of her 
 adversaries, or because to have molested her would have been to 
 disturb the existing distribution of power. The great struggle 
 had long ago changed its scene : the interest of European politics 
 had been transferred by the movement of the Eeformation to an- 
 other people and country. The atrocities of the League of Cam- 
 bray had been renewed on a wider stage, and perhaps with more 
 lasting horrors, in that storm of blood which deluged Germany 
 for so many years. The consequent preoccupation of Europe, 
 together with the decline of the House of Austria, and the fact 
 that as the Ottoman power became more settled it became less 
 actively dangerous, may explain the length of the period which 
 elapsed between her death-blow in the wars of the League of 
 Cambray and her final extinction. Her decay was a very gradual 
 one. In 1009 the Republic had still one hundred and twenty- 
 six millions of ducats to expend on her defence against the 
 Turk. In the w r ar of the Succession she might, perhaps, had 
 she been willing, have turned the scale against Austria. She 
 could still exert the full power of her mysterious executive against 
 conspirators such as Jaffler and Jacques Pierre. She could still, 
 whenever opportunity offered, afford a constant and ready, though 
 perhaps not very efficient, support to the cause of religious liberty 
 abroad, — to Henry VIII. against the Holy See, — to the German 
 Protestants in the Thirty Years' War, — to the Protestant Grisons 
 of the Savoy against the Catholics, — to Henry of Navarre against 
 Rome and the League. Erom the great movements of the first
 
 29 
 
 half of the eighteenth century she studiously kept aloof. With 
 a population still very numerous, and an army and navy of consi- 
 derable strength, she was unable even to make her neutrality re- 
 spected. Her last agonies are hardly yet remote enough for 
 history. She fell before that resistless but salutary force which 
 shook down so many effete institutions. And it is a strange and 
 suggestive thought, that within the memory of living statesmen 
 there existed in the bosom of this modern European society an 
 imperial city which could trace back an unbroken line of descent 
 from the dim traditions of Eome. 
 
 Farther than the natural dislike for the solution of a con- 
 tinuity which had endured so long, the fall of Venice can scarcely 
 be regarded with regret. In this, at any rate, the often over- 
 strained analogy between the state and the individual holds good, 
 that both have a natural term and limit of life, beyond which 
 there is seldom any room for usefulness. And for Venice this 
 period had long ago arrived. What work she was appointed to 
 do had been done ; what high message she was charged to pro- 
 claim had long ago been delivered. Her commerce and manu- 
 factures had long been at their lowest ebb ; her army, which had 
 once borne the banners of St. Mark so proudly, had become in- 
 effective; her navy diminished, her debt always increasing, the 
 beautiful unity of her subject-cities broken by the fierceness of 
 faction, her government a selfish oligarchy, becoming narrower 
 every day, and maintaining a perpetual reign of terror by the 
 fearful weapons of the poisoner and the bravo. Her nobles had 
 exchanged that rigid self-denial which had shone so brightly in 
 the earlier times of the Eepublic, for a shameless rapacity which 
 bore heavily upon her finances. The loss of territory, which re- 
 duced them to poverty, at the same time added to their number. 
 The Grand Council of Candia was received back, on the loss of 
 that dependency, into the parent Council of Venice. More than 
 half the members of that council were beggars, living upon the 
 bounty of the few remaining great families, yet retaining suffrages 
 which they sold to the highest bidder. The administration of 
 justice was not exempt from the general laxity. Those pure and 
 spotless tribunals which had been the just pride of ancient Venice, 
 and for which the aristocracy had provided so early after their 
 acquisition of power, had become notoriously venal and corrupt. 
 Nor could the Eepubiic succeed in retaining the affection of her 
 subjects. The growing necessities of the state were supplied by 
 intolerable exactions. Such Eastern Christians as from time to 
 time came under her power, (how strangely unlike the passionate 
 attachment of the cities of the Terra Eirma !) looked back with 
 longing to the dominion of the Ottoman. The strong religious 
 feeling of earlier times had been replaced by an unbounded license ;
 
 30 
 
 " Venice became the Sybaris of the modern world." Every op- 
 portunity for rejoicing was eagerly sought for; hardly a day passed 
 (how strongly are we reminded of the decline of Athens) without 
 some religious or political festival. Every year brought round 
 the debaucheries of the Carnival, when Venetian society was in- 
 volved in the doubtful pleasures of a protracted masquerade. 
 And all these excesses were the direct work of her rulers. The 
 low cunning peculiar to vicious forms of government had forced 
 them to seek their own safety in the corruption of the people. 
 One turns away instinctively from the Venice of these later times, 
 as from a hideous and revolting picture. 
 
 In truth, it was only the exhaustion of decrepitude, the dis- 
 order which always precedes the impending dissolution of an 
 effete society. Yet it is apparently from this period of Venetian 
 history that the estimate of Venetian character has been some- 
 times formed. From a survey, too, of this same period, has arisen 
 the sweeping censure 11 which has been not unfrequently passed 
 upon the institutions of Venice, and the entire want of sympathy 
 which they have had to encounter. In reality, they are as far 
 removed from the indiscriminate censure of this century, as they 
 are from the indiscriminate admiration of former times. Neither, 
 in fact, is it at all applicable to them. Judged, indeed, on the 
 broad rules of moral right, they are utterly without excuse. But 
 as these principles are of universal application, and command 
 immediate assent when proposed, it was perhaps scarcely neces- 
 sary to insist upon them so strongly as has been done by some. 
 Eew persons, probably, are in danger of falling into the grave 
 error of supposing that a secret and irresponsible government, 
 working through an apparatus of terror and suspicion, is in itself 
 a desirable form of rule. On the other hand, many more are 
 likely to be misled into supposing the government of Venice to 
 have been far more faulty, and far less justified by circumstances, 
 than it really was ; or into asserting the dangerous principle that 
 a vicious form of government may be attended for centuries with 
 the best results to the national welfare and happiness, and may 
 receive, through all vicissitudes of fortune, the enthusiastic attach- 
 ment of its citizens. If Venice, with a confessedly vicious and 
 criminal polity, was the happiest, the most tranquil, and the most 
 prosperous of Italian states, it was because she was purer and 
 better than her neighbours; as much so, indeed, as the times 
 would allow. And this would be readily acknowledged if it 
 were a less general practice to weigh historical institutions with 
 a constant side-glance at our own maxims of polity. If there be 
 one thing which history is not, it is a kiud of political pharma- 
 
 D See Sismondi, Daru, Brougham, (Political Philosophy,) Hallam, and many 
 other writers of liberal tendencies.
 
 31 
 
 coprcia, fruitful in valuable specifics ready for immediate appli- 
 cation. This is a function which it never can possibly perform. 
 Every nge has its own peculiar trials and difficulties, and its own 
 method of dealing with them. No conclusion, therefore, of any 
 real value, can be drawn with respect to institutions of another 
 age and country, from their conformity with, or difference from, 
 those which are best adapted for us. The marvellous success of 
 the Venetian policy is the best proof of its having been necessary, 
 and offers a strong presumption that it has been too severely 
 censured, and not really appreciated or understood. The obvious 
 moral to be drawn from the fate of Venetian institutions is to be 
 gathered from the spectacle of the narrow, cunning, selfish, mur- 
 derous oligarchy into' which the wise aristocracy of earlier times 
 necessarily developed itself, and with which it has been so gene- 
 rally confounded. 
 
 No history, perhaps, can boast of such a continuously romantic 
 colouring as that of Venice. It is one long poem. It is never 
 dull or prosaic. Epos succeeds epos, one lay follows another, 
 from the dim traditions of Attila down to the coming of Napo- 
 leon. Eew stories are so regularly deductive; in none do events 
 follow causes in such a rigid chain of sequence. In none, perhaps, 
 is the progressive action of the historical drama more uninter- 
 rupted : the rise, though gradual, so unbroken, the culminating 
 point so well defined, the fall, when once begun, so hopeless. 
 Two threads are woven into the chequered web of Venetian story, 
 the one bright and shining, the other dark and sombre. Both 
 are always present, and always inseparable ; and it may be that 
 to our conceptions of Venice, the darker shade is as essential as 
 the lighter. But it is better to dwell upon the more pleasing 
 side of the picture ; to look upon the Republic as the meeting- 
 place of princes,. as the not unfrequent refuge of the fugitive and 
 the exile, the one peaceful, inviolate spot in mediaeval Europe, 
 untrodden by the foot of hostile soldiery. It is better to look 
 upon her as the bulwark of Christendom, the first and most 
 stedfast advocate of religious liberty ; appointing her own spiri- 
 tual rulers in the days of Gregory and Innocent, with only the 
 form of confirmation from the Holy See ; defying the terrible 
 weapons of interdict and excommunication, holding out a suc- 
 couring hand to the Protestants of Europe throughout the evil 
 days of their earlier history ; allowing the free exercise of their 
 religion to heretical Greek and persecuted Jew. To all she must 
 be associated with visions of almost romantic patriotism; with 
 the blind Dandolo before the walls of Constantinople ; with Vittor 
 Pisani coming forth from his prison, and bidding the shouting 
 populace reserve their enthusiasm for St. Mark ; with the con- 
 quered cities of the mainland returning to their allegiance in the
 
 32 
 
 wars of the League of Cambray, when beset on all sides by ene- 
 mies ; with the younger Foscari, driven back by an irrepressible 
 longing to lay his tortured limbs once more in Venice. To all 
 she must be associated with an almost fabulous magnificence; 
 with the glories of St. Mark or the Ducal Palace; with the bronze 
 horses of Lvsippus; with the jewel-paved Hall of Ambassadors, 
 which struck with confusion the haughty envoys of Genoa; with 
 the splendid symbolism of the marriage of the Adriatic; with 
 many a vision of pomp and pageant, of high-born dames, and 
 grave, courtly, polished gentlemen, of the charm of modern society 
 amid the rugged feudalism of the middle ages. To all, besides 
 the absolute heroism of her perpetual wars, she must suggest 
 bright reminiscences of individual energy and adventure — Con- 
 tarini forces his dauntless way to the deserts of Persia; the bro- 
 thers Zeno sail out into Arctic seas, amid the icebergs of Green- 
 land ; brave Marco Polo, at once the Herodotus of modern history 
 and the Ulysses of modern adventure, wanders out into unknown 
 countries, to become a Chinese viceroy, and to return, after seven- 
 teen years, laden with priceless treasures, to the old house in the 
 Corte del Millioni. To poetry, Venice has long been a household 
 word, and an unfailing theme. To art she has given the un- 
 rivalled glories of her great colourists, and is beautiful alike when 
 steeped in the luminous atmosphere of our own Turner, or stand- 
 ing out clear and distinct in all the sharply defined photographic 
 minuteness of Canaletto's loving pencil. It may possibly be a 
 valuable mental condition, it is certainly an unhappy one, which 
 can see in history only the darker side of the picture, which is 
 always passing over its own Bridge of Sighs, to dwell upon the 
 horrors of the dungeons which lie beyond. 
 
 Perhaps, indeed, it is only at Venice that the full charm of her 
 story is to be felt. There, gliding noiselessly in the mysterious 
 gondola between the long lines of silent palaces, sombre and 
 desolate, on whose walls, dank with sea-rime and discoloured by 
 the long process of the years, the yellow sea-weed stirs lazily to 
 the plash of the oar; anon, by the stately churches, on whose 
 clustering pinnacles, far above in the clear air, the sculptured 
 saints and angels are bathed in the full light of heaven, or stand 
 out calm and solemn against the darkening sky; and then out to 
 the still busy life of the Grand Canal, echoing with the cries of 
 the gondolieri; while from the classic Piazza di San Marco, 
 crowded still with its motley throng of all nations, and tongues, 
 and costumes, as it was when the European capitals of to-day 
 were little more than collections of unsightly hovels, there comes 
 in the sweet strains of the military band, softer over the surface 
 of the waters, the glorious music of Italy, jubilant with martial 
 ardour or plaintive with hopeless passion — all the scenes of the
 
 83 
 
 old glorious traditions grouped together in their own vivid love- 
 liness, it may not be unnatural to wish that the greatness of 
 ancient Venice may once more return. Such a wish is, however, 
 impossible upon calmer reflection. The course of history must 
 be viewed with the eyes of the optimist, else would it be indeed 
 a cruel mockery. In the great struggle which it records, the 
 victory always remains with the worthier combatant, — the van- 
 quished never goes down before an unmerited fate. Nations, 
 ideas, institutions have their appointed term of power, and die 
 out as irretrievably as the mastodon. Whatever history may 
 teach of the indestructibility of national types, she has nothing 
 to tell us as to the permanence of their dominion, or its recovery 
 when lost. It is not by worn-out and incapable instruments 
 that the great scheme of civilization is to be carried out. The 
 task is one for younger and more vigorous hands. And whenever 
 there is a work to be done, the Great Disposer provides those 
 who shall do it. To wish for the restoration of ancient types is 
 only to desire to interrupt the progress of the great drama of 
 civilization, — awful story, of which the acts are ages, and the 
 players nations, — and thus to will the ruin and stagnation of 
 society. So we may come to be reconciled to the spectacle of 
 an insolent Austrian soldiery installed in the inviolable precincts 
 of St. Mark. Venice had done her work, and had proclaimed 
 her message; she was not cut down until she cumbered the 
 ground. For if theories of progress are not to be disposed of 
 by a sneer; if, as surely they must, if there be any providential 
 government of the world, they have in them something of depth 
 and reality, something of an earnest hope which may be vague, 
 yet which shall not be altogether disappointed, then not only 
 must there have been something of good in all historical institu- 
 tions, but all change must on the whole be for the best: it is 
 truth struggling out like the chrysalis from lower forms of being, 
 it is the great scheme developing itself in its parts, — only thus 
 by rising step by step from old things to new, one nation after 
 another, panting and exhausted, handing on the sacred torch 
 through all the long course of time, shall the one increasing 
 purpose of Omniscience be fulfilled.

 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page, 4, in Analysis, for 1632, read 1682. 
 
 3, line 7, omit they. 
 
 25, line 7 from bottom, for at Rome, read at home.
 
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