CHAPTER VIII. VENICE.

THE beginning of the fifteenth century offers a convenient point whence to survey the growth of the Venetian Republic. Venice had by that time become the Venice of modern European history; a great trading city; a mart for the exchange of goods between East and West; committed to a policy destined to make her one of the five Italian Powers and eventually to raise up against her a coalition of all Italy and Europe. Her constitution was fixed; her colonial system developed; her position towards the Church defined; her aggrandisement on the Italian mainland initiated; her wealth, her splendour, her art were beginning to attract the attention of the civilised world. The various threads of Venetian history are drawn together at this epoch. The Republic was about to move forward upon a larger, more ambitious career than it had hitherto followed; a career for which its various lines of development,-the creation of a maritime empire, expansion on the mainland, efforts for ecclesiastical independence, growth and solidification of the constitution, -had been slowly preparing it. An examination of each of these lines, in turn will enable us to understand the nature of the Venetian Republic as it emerged from the Middle Ages and became, for a time, one of the greatest factors in European history.

The growth of Venetian maritime empire in the Levant and supremacy in the Mediterranean falls into four well-defined periods. The Venetians began by moving slowly down the Dalmatian coast and establishing their power in the Adriatic; they then pushed out eastward and acquired rights in Syrian seaports, such as Sidon, Tyre, Acre; they seized many of the islands in the archipelago as their share of the plunder after the Fourth Crusade; finally they met, fought, and defeated their only serious maritime rivals the Genoese.

With the period of the Crusades Venice achieved a still wider expansion in the Levant. The eyes of Europe had been attracted to the little city in the Lagoons which had attacked and subdued the Narentine pirates, challenged and fought the Normans, and rendered striking services to the Eastern Emperor himself. When the Crusaders began to look about for a port of embarcation and for transport-service to the Holy Land, the three cities of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice offered themselves. Venice was not only the most powerful; she was also the most easterly of the three. Her geographical position naturally led to the choice of Venice as the port of departure. The issue of the Crusades proved that the Republic entered upon those enterprises in a purely commercial spirit. When Sidon fell, the Venetians received from Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, in return for their assistance, a market-place, a district, a church, and the right to use their own weights and measures in that city. This was in fact the nucleus of a colony of merchants living under special treaty capitulations; and the privileges of the Sidon treaty we find repeated and extended when Acre, Tyre, and Ascalon were successively occupied.

The siege and capture of Tyre mark the close of the second period in the history of Venetian maritime expansion. With the erection of factories in Constantinople and in the chief cities of the Syrian sea-board the Republic may be said to have embarked upon the construction of that greater Venice, which was to be completed after the Fourth Crusade.

With the reign of Enrico Dandolo and the Fourth Crusade we approach a memorable period in the history of Venetian maritime empire. When Dandolo came to the throne the affairs of the Republic as regards their maritime power stood thus. In the imperial city their position was precarious, liable to violent changes, exposed to the machinations of their commercial and naval rivals, Pisa and Genoa. Their communications with their Syrian factories were not secure. Zara and the Dalmatian coast were still in revolt. In the year 1201 the Republic discovered that the usurping Emperor, Alexius III, was in treaty with the Genoese and meditated conferring on them ampler trading rights. The immediate objects of the Republic were the recovery of Zara and the suppression of their commercial rivals in Constantinople. The story of the Fourth Crusade is the story of the way in which the Republic accomplished its aims.

Zara was recovered and on the fall of Constantinople, in 1204, the Republic reaped material advantages of a preponderating kind. Her portion of the booty gave her solid riches, with which she bought the rights of Boniface over Crete and Salonika, and obtained leave for Venetian citizens to occupy as fiefs of the Empire any Aegean islands not already owned by the Republic. In this way she became possessed of the Cyclades and Sporades, and held the seaports of Thessaly and the island of Crete. Zara and other Dalmatian towns now became liers both by conquest and by title; and thus the Republic acquired an unbroken line of communication from Venice down the Adriatic to Constantinople and round to the seaports of the Syrian coast.

We have no evidence as to how these feudatories established their title and governed their fiefs; but when we come to deal with the growth of the Venetian constitution we shall find that a great increase in private wealth resulted from this partition of the Levant islands. We do know, however, the system adopted for the colonisation of the large island of Crete, which the Republic kept directly in its own hands. Venetian citizens were tempted to settle in the island by the gift of certain villages with their districts. These they were expected to hold for the Republic in the case of a revolution. The Governor of the island, who bore the title of Duke of Candia, was a Venetian noble elected in the Great Council at Venice; he was assisted by two Councillors. Matters of importance were decided by the Great Council of Crete, which was composed of all noble Venetians resident in the island and all noble Cretans. The remaining magistracies were formed upon the Venetian model; and the higher posts, such as those of Captain-General, Commander of the Cavalry, Governors, and military commanders in the larger towns, were filled by Venetians. The minor offices were open to Cretans. Absolute equality was granted to both> Roman and Orthodox rites. In fact the Republic displayed at once the governing ideas of her colonial policy, namely to interfere as little as possible with local institutions; to develop the resources of the country; to encourage trade with the metropolis; to retain only the very highest military and civil appointments in her own hands as a symbol and guarantee of her supremacy.

For the defence of these widely scattered possessions and for the preservation of communications between Venice and her dependencies the Republic was obliged to organise a service of patrol squadrons. The Captain of " the Gulf," that is the Adriatic, had his head-quarters at the Ionian islands, and was responsible, for the safety of merchantmen from Venice to those islands and in the waters of the Morea as far as Modon and Coron. From the Morea to the Dardanelles the safety of the sea route was entrusted to the Venetian feudatories in the Greek islands; while the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmora, the Bosphorus, and the Black Sea were patrolled by the Black Sea squadron.

The expansion of Venetian maritime empire as the outcome of the Fourth Crusade roused the jealousy of her great rival Genoa. It was inevitable that the Genoese and the Venetians, both occupying neighbouring quarters in the Levantine cities, each competing for a monopoly of Eastern commerce, should come to blows. The Republic was now committed to a struggle with her western rival for supremacy in the Levant-a deplorable conflict fraught with disaster for both parties.

A long period of naval campaigning ensued, the fortune of war leaning now to one side, now to the other. The breathing-space between each campaign and the next was devoted by the Republic to the development of her commerce. Treaties were stipulated with Milan, Bologna, Brescia, Como. Trade with England and Flanders by means of the Flanders galleys was developed. Venetian merchants brought sugar from the Levant, and exchanged it for wool in London. The wool was sold in Flanders and cloth bought, which was placed on the markets of Italy and Dalmatia, as the ships sailed east again to procure fresh cargoes for the London market. Industries also began to take root in the city. Refugees from Lucca introduced the silk trade, and established themselves in a quarter near the Hialto. The glass manufacture of Murano received an impetus. The population of the city numbered 200,000 ; the males fit for arms, that is between the ages of twenty and sixty, were reckoned at 40,000.

There is proof that, in spite of defeats by Genoa at Ayas and at Curzola, Venice had achieved a high position in the eyes of European Princes. Edward III asked for Venetian aid in his wars with Philip of France; he offered extensive privileges, and invited the Doge to send his sons to the English court. Alfonso of Sicily apologised for insults offered to Venetian merchants. The Pope proposed that Venice should undertake the protection of Christians against the Ottoman Turks, who were now beginning to threaten Europe, in return for which the Republic was to enjoy the ecclesiastical tithes for three years.

In the course of that struggle the recuperative power of Venice was amply demonstrated. She lost Negroponte; she was defeated in the Bosphorus ; her whole fleet was annihilated at Sapienza. But the result of her one great victory at Cagliari was sufficient to counterbalance her losses, for by it she forced Genoa to surrender her liberties to Visconti. And so, while Venice after each disaster, after Curzola and Sapienza, was able to devote her whole energies to replacing her fleet and reestablishing her commerce, the case was very different with her rival. The Genoese Republic had accepted the lordship of Visconti at a moment of great peril, and was compelled to devote any interval of peace with Venice, not to the increase of her wealth and the augmentation of her fleet, but to efforts for the recovery of that freedom she had surrendered. Genoa could only stand by and watch with jealous eyes the reconstitution of her antagonist.

The expansion of Venice on the mainland of Italy began somewhat later than the creation of her maritime dominion, and was in a certain way the result of that dominion. The Republic was originally a sea-Power whose merchants brought to her port the various products of Eastern countries, all de transmarinis partlbus orientalium divitias. The geographical position of Venice as the seaport nearest to the centre of Europe indicated her as a great emporium and mart for the distribution and exchange of goods; and, further, her situation in the shallow waters of the Lagoons gave her a monopoly of salt. Cassiodorus, Theodoric's secretary, when describing the growing State, points to salt as the real riches of the young Republic ; " for men may live without gold," he says, " but no one ever heard of their being able to do without salt.11 Venice however required an outlet for her commodities; and this led at first to the establishment of factories in the districts of Belluno and Treviso, along the banks of the Piave and on one of the highroads into the heart of Europe (991), and subsequently at Ferrara (1100),, and again at Fano (1130).

But these factories did not, strictly speaking, constitute territorial possessions. They were merely colonies of Venetian merchants living in foreign cities under special treaty rights which conferred extra-terri-toriality on the Venetian quarter. Indeed, the early policy of the Republic was to keep as far aloof as possible from all the complications of the Italian mainland. Her real interests lay in the East,-in the Levant, in Constantinople, in Syria. Her character was oriental rather than Latin. When Pippin, the son of Charles the Great, attempted to compel the Republic to recognise the Frankish suzerainty he received for answer: " J/yu-et? SoCXot de\ofj,ev elvau rov /JacrtXeoo? ru>v 'PcafJ-aicov Kal ov'xl crow1'; and to the spirit of that answer the Venetians remained faithful throughout their early career.

It is not till the year 1300 that the Republic took a decisive and acquisitive step on the Italian mainland. In Ferrara, as we have seen, Venice had established a commercial colony protected by treaty rights. These were swept away when Salinguerra held the city for the Emperor Frederick II, who was hostile to Venice on account of the part she was playing in the Lombard League, for which she acted as banker. Pope Gregory IX, while endeavouring to recover the city, which he claimed as part of Countess Matilda's legacy to the Church, applied to Venice for help. The Republic was largely instrumental in expelling the Imperial troops and recovered all her privileges and interests in the mainland city. These privileges and interests were destined to entangle her in the complications of mainland politics.

Padua, thanks chiefly to the ability of Jacopo da Carrara, had made herself mistress of Vicenza, and had thus been brought into close proximity with the possessions of the powerful family of della Scala, Lords of Verona. The Paduans in return for Jacopo's services elected him as her Lord. When Jacopo da Carrara died, Can Grande della Scala attacked Marsilio da Carrara, who had succeeded his uncle, and wrung from him Padua and the Padovano; thence the Scala spread to Feltre, Belluno, and the territory at the foot of the Alps, and finally Treviso came to their possession in 1329. The Republic of Venice could not be indifferent to the growth of a Power which threatened to enclose the Lagoons and to block all exits for Venetian merchandise. Moreover her natural position rendered her incapable of supporting herself if food supplies from the mainland were cut off. A contingency of this kind, if it should happen to coincide with such a defeat at sea as Venice had sustained at Curzola or Sapienza, would, in a very short time, have placed the Republic at the discretion of her enemies. It was obvious therefore that Venice was face to face with a rival whom she must either crush or be ruined. War was inevitable.

The crisis was of vital importance to the Republic. It is true that in the War of Perrara she had made an attempt to establish herself on the mainland; but in attacking the Lord of Verona, Vicenza, Brescia, Treviso, Feltre, Belluno, and Padua she was embarking on a far more serious enterprise. Failure meant peril to her very existence; success would compel her to occupy the nearer mainland and therefore to sacrifice one of her great advantages, the absence of a mainland frontier to protect. The party of the Doge, the party opposed to the War, was met and overcome by the argument that war was the only alternative to starvation; the want of corn for feeding the city could not be supplied in any other way. Moreover it was urged that if Venice once attacked the Scala she would be joined by all who were jealous of the growing power of Verona and its Lords. Such proved to be the case. The declaration of war by Venice at once created so strong a combination-Florence, Parma, and Venice-that Mastino della Scala was forced to negotiate for peace. With singular want of judgment he chose as his ambassador to Venice Marsilio da Carrara, the very man whom the Scala had already deprived of the lordship of Padua. That lordship the Doge promised to restore to the Carraresi, if Marsilio would admit the troops of the league into Padua, which he held in the name of Mastino della Scala. Marsilio kept his word, and in August, 1337, Pietro de1 Rossi, general of the confederate forces, entered the city.

Castelfranco, Conegliano and Oderzo,-her first mainland possession; and the family of Carrara held Padua-which had been captured in the name of the Republic-as a quasi-fief of Venice. She was now in command of a corn-growing district and was sure of an abundant meat supply. But on the other hand the mainland frontier which she now acquired exposed her to attack from the Patriarch of Aquileia or the Counts of Gorz; while she was bound to protect her dependent Carrara beyond whom lay the growing power and ambition of the Visconti of Milan. An attack on Carrara was necessarily a threat to Venice, and in fact if not in appearance the Republic had by the fall of the Scala become conterminous with Visconti.

We have seen how the Republic dealt with her maritime colonies, especially in the instance of Crete; we may now observe her method towards her newly acquired mainland possessions. Her mild and provident sway was fruitful of many results favourable to the Republic, and it brought her dependencies back to her of their own accord after the disastrous wars of the League of Cambray. To use the words of the Senate, the Republic of Venice in her relations towards her dependencies set herself to provide taliter quod habeamus cor et amorem civium et sub-diforum nostrorum, and she succeeded. Her rule was just, lenient and wise. Alike in her maritime and in her mainland acquisitions her object was to interfere as little as might be with local institutions, provided her own tenure and the supremacy of the capital were maintained. In each of the more important dependent cities she placed a civil governor, called the Podesta, and a military commandant, called the Captain, whose duty it was to raise levies and look after the defence of the city; these two when acting together were called the Rectors. The local municipal councils, varying in numbers, were left undisturbed and retained the control of such matters as lighting, roads, local taxation. The police and imperial taxation were in the hands of the Rectors, and they were in constant communication either with the Senate, or, in very grave emergencies, with the Council of Ten. The smaller towns were governed by a Podesta, a Capitano, or a Provveditore. Each town possessed its own special code, called the Statute, which the Rectors swore to observe. The Statuto dealt with octroi dues, roads and bridges, wells, lighting, doctors, nurses, fires, guilds, sanitary matters,-in short with all the multifarious details of municipal and even of private life. Peace, encouragement of trade, and comfort of living were the chief objects aimed at. In the Courts of Justice the Podesta or one of his three assessors merely presided; he did not constitute the Court, which was composed of citizens. Provision was made for public instruction in the humanities, in canon and civil law, and in medicine; primary education was supplied by what were called schools of arithmetic. The cost of education was charged on the revenues of the province.

It was obvious that Carrara would not remain quiet if he found an opportunity of attacking Venice with any prospect of success. Such an occasion presented itself in the War of Chioggia (1379). Carrara assisted the Genoese by all the means in his power; he bombarded Mestre and maintained the land blockade of Venice; he sent twenty-four thousand troops to the neighbourhood of Chioggia, and supplied the Genoese forces when they took up their quarters in that town. But the surrender of the Genoese left Carrara single-handed against Venice. lie was still in possession of the Trevisan marches and was pressing Treviso so closely that its fall was momently expected. Rather than allow it to pass into the hands of Carrara, Venice made a formal surrender of the city to Duke Leopold of Austria, who immediately occupied it. All parties, however, were weary of the war. Venice was exhausted by her continual struggles against Hungary, Carrara, Genoa; Carrara disgusted at being baulked of Treviso; Genoa crushed by the loss of her fleet. Amadeo of Savoy found little difficulty in negotiating the Peace of Turin (1381).

Schiavoni, noted the extraordinary movement of the port: the huge vessels "as large as my house, and with masts taller than its towers." They lay like mountains floating on the waters; and their cargoes were wine for England; honey for Scythia; saffron * oil, linen for Assyria, Armenia, Persia, and Arabia; wood went to Egypt and Greece. They brought home again various merchandise to be distributed over all Europe. " Where the sea stops the sailors quit their ships and travel on to trade with India and China. They cross the Caucasus and the Ganges and reach the Eastern Ocean.""

And in the history of Venetian mainland extension there was one task to which all this accumulation of wealth and resources was to be dedicated; the destruction of the Carraresi and the acquisition of Padua. Venice knew that the Lords of Padua were permanently hostile. The action of Francesco Carrara soon proved that the Republic could not, even if it would, leave him alone. In 1384 Carrara bought from the Duke of Austria, Treviso, Ceneda, and Feltre, commanding the great northern road into the Pusterthal by Cortina d'Ampezzo; he was now master of all the mainland between the Alps and the Lagoons; nothing remained for him to seize in that direction. But westward, between him and the Visconti of Milan, lay the territories of Vicenza and Verona, feebly held by Antonio, the last of the Scala family. Visconti and Carrara entered into a league to despoil Antonio. Verona was to be added to Milan, Vicenza to Padua. The attack was delivered simultaneously and Visconti's general entered Verona, but instead of halting there he pushed on to Vicenza, and captured that city in his master's name. When too late Carrara saw what his alliance with Visconti implied. He appealed to Venice for help. But although the Republic had no desire to see the powerful Lord of Milan so near the Lagoons, she had still less intention of supporting Carrara whom she knew to be treacherous. Visconti's emissaries were already in Venice offering to restore Treviso, Ceneda, and Feltre if the Republic would assist him to crush Carrara. The terms were accepted and Padua fell to Visconti.

Such a powerful prince as Gian Galeazzo was not likely to prove a less dangerous neighbour to Venice than Carrara had been. But his rapid advance in power, and his obvious intention to create a North-Italian kingdom, immediately produced a coalition against him of all the threatened Princes. Venice joined the league but she had no intention of challenging Visconti on the mainland herself; she adopted a less costly plan and invited the Carraresi to return to Padua promising to support their enterprise; Sir John Hawkwood, the Florentine General, was pressing Visconti on the Adda; Visconti's forces were scattered; the Paduans weary of his rule rose in revolt and the Carraresi recovered possession of their city (1390).

Feltre, and consequently the passes; she had removed Visconti from the immediate neighbourhood of the Lagoons; and replaced him by a Carrara whom dread of Visconti would certainly keep submissive to his protector. But in 1402 Gian Galeazzo died suddenly, and the whole aspect of the situation underwent a change. The reason for Carrara's loyalty to Venice, his dread of Visconti, disappeared. The value of Carrara to Venice, as a buffer between herself and Visconti, no longer existed. The moment had arrived for Venice to consolidate her landed possessions by the absorption of Padua. The pretext was soon found. The Visconti possessions were now held by his Duchess as regent for Gian Galeazzo's infant children. The Duchess was weak. Gian Galeazzo's generals began to divide their late master's dominions. This dissolution of the Visconti duchy roused the cupidity of Carrara. He claimed Vicenza and had an eye on Verona. He sat down before Vicenza; but the people, weary of the uneasy, shifting rule of these personal Lords, Scala, Visconti, Carrara, declared that if they must yield to some one, they would hand their city over to Venice. Moreover the Duchess had already invited Venice to hold Carrara in check and the Republic had demanded as the price of her interference Bassano, Vicenza, Verona. The Duchess consented. Armed with this double title, Venice requested Carrara to raise the siege of Vicenza. He refused, and mutilated the Venetian herald by cropping his ears and slitting his nose. War was declared. Carrara was gradually beaten back into Padua. A long siege followed. Carrara held out with great courage, hoping that aid might come from Florence, and that his partizans in Venice might succeed in carrying into effect a plot which they had concerted in that city. But the plague and the fury of the populace broke down his pertinacity. The Venetians delivered an assault and with the help of the people they entered the town (November 17, 1404). Francesco and his son were taken to Venice, where they were tried and condemned to be strangled.

As the defeat of Genoa secured Venetian maritime supremacy, so the fall of the Carraresi consolidated her mainland possessions. She now held Treviso, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, and their districts. The boundaries of the Republic were, roughly speaking, the sea from the mouth of the Tagliamento to the mouth of the Adige, the river Tagliamento to the east, the Alps to the north, the Adige to the west and south. This territory she retained with brief exceptions, down to the League of Cambray. She now entered the community of Italian States and enjoyed all the prestige, but also confronted all the dangers, of an Italian principality.

The political independence of the early Venetian State is reflected in her relations towards the Roman Church. The fact that, through the first centuries of her career, she was in closer touch with the Eastern Empire than with the Italian mainland, conduced to that independent attitude towards the Curia which characterises the whole of Venetian history.

Some flavour of an ecclesiastical quality seems to have attached to the office of Doge; we find that on certain great occasions he bestowed his benediction, and the earlier Doges claimed the right to nominate and to invest Bishops. This right was, however, challenged at Rome.

The head of the Church in Venice was the Patriarch of Grado. That See had been called into existence by the same causes which created the city of Venice itself. When Aquileia was destroyed by Attila, the Patriarch of that city and his flock found an asylum in the Lagoons of Grado. After the return to Aquileia a Bishop was left behind in the Lagoon City, and his flock was continually increased-partly by the schism of the Three Chapters which divided the mainland Church, partly by refugees from the repeated barbarian incursions. The Bishop of Grado obtained from Pope Pelagius II a decree which erected his See into the Metropolitan Church of the Lagoons and of Istria, though Aquileia disputed the validity of the act. During the Lombard invasion and under the Lombard protection the mainland Bishoprics became Arian, the Lagoon See remained orthodox. The Metropolitan of Grado then claimed that his See was the real Patriarchal See of the Lagoons in opposition to Arian and heretical Aquileia. A long series of struggles between the two Patriarchates ensued. The Republic of Venice supported the Lagoon Bishopric. Finally the Lateran Council in 732 decreed the separation of the two jurisdictions, assigning to Aquileia all the mainland and to Grado the Lagoons and Istria, and recognised the Patriarchal quality of that See. In 1445 the seat of the Patriarch as well as his title was changed from Grado to Venice and the Beato Lorenzo Giustinian was the first Patriarch of Venice, an office henceforth always filled by a Venetian noble.

The anti-Curial attitude of the Republic is obvious all down her history. In 1309, during the War of Ferrara, when Venice was lying under an interdict, the Doge Gradenigo enunciated the principle that the Papacy had no concern in temporal affairs, and that a misinformed Pope could not claim obedience.

She again asserted her adherence to the Conciliar principle when in 1409 she recognised Alexander V, the Pope elected by the Council of Pisa, against her own citizen Gregory XII (Angelo Correr), who was deposed by that Council; and yet again when she sent three ambassadors to the Council of Constance, who solemnly pledged the Republic to accept its decrees. By these acts she accepted the principle that Councils are superior to Popes, from whom an appeal may lie to a future Council; as well as the doctrine that an appeal may lie from a Pope ill-informed to a Pope better informed. In spite of "Execrabilis" the Republic more than once availed herself of these rights. When Sixtus IV placed the Republic under an interdict during the Ferrarese war in 1483, Diedo* the Venetian Ambassador in Rome, refused to send the bull to Venice. The Patriarch was instructed to present it to the government; he feigned to be ill, and secretly informed the Doge and the Ten that the bull was in Venice. The Ten ordered all clerics to continue their functions, and announced their intention to appeal to a future Council. Five experts in Canon Law were appointed to advise the government, and the formula of appeal was actually fixed on the doors of San Celso in Home.

Again, in 1509, Julius II, preparing for the combined attack of all Europe upon Venice, placed the Republic under an interdict by the bull of April 27. The College and the Council of Ten which undertook to deal with the situation, forbade the publication of the bull, the guards were ordered to tear it down if it were affixed to the walls; doctors in Canon Law were again appointed to advise, and once again an appeal to a future Council was affixed, this time to the doors of St Peter's in Rome.

The position of the Church in Venice as defined by the close of the fourteenth century was as follows. The parish clergy were elected by the clergy and the people, and inducted by the Ordinary. Bishops were elected in the Senate. Candidates were balloted for until one obtained a majority. He was then presented at Rome for confirmation. But in 1484 the Senate decreed that the temporal fruits should not fall to any one who was not approved of by the government. This really made the State master of the situation; and its position was further strengthened by a law of 1488 rendering all foreigners ineligible for the episcopate.

Consiglio; and when ecclesiastical matters were under discussion in the Maggior Consiglio or the Senate all members who were related to any one holding an appointment from the Curia were obliged to retire. The minutes were marked expulsis papalistis.

The excessive accumulation of Church property had been regulated by a law passed as early as 1286, which provided that all legacies to monastic establishments must be registered, and the property taxed like any other.

The question of the jurisdiction of the secular Courts over ecclesiastics was a fruitful source of differences with the Curia. Originally it would seem that clerics were subject to the secular Courts in civil as well as in criminal cases. Jacopo Tiepolo granted jurisdiction to the Bishops but reserved punishment to the secular Courts. This arrangement gave rise to constant disputes, and in 1324 a commission was appointed to draw up regulations on the question. Finally a convention was reached between the Patriarch of Grado and the secular authorities, whereby it was agreed that in the case of injury done by a cleric to a laic the secular Courts should denounce the offender to the ecclesiastical Courts, which should try and sentence him in accordance with existing laws; and vice versa in the case of injury inflicted by a laic on a cleric. By the bull of Paul II in 1468 those clerics who had been tonsured after the committal of a crime with a view to securing benefit of clergy were handed over by the Church to the secular Courts; so too were the clerics caught in flagrante and unfrocked. Sixtus IV, in view of the growing frequency of crime-especially of counterfeit coining and of conspiracy-on the part of clerics, instructed the Patriarch to hand over all such offenders to the secular Courts, but to assist at the trial in the person of his Vicar.

But a large part of this independence in matters ecclesiastical, along with much else, was sacrificed at the disastrous epoch of Cambray. In order to detach Julius from the League, the Venetians agreed to the following conditions. The Republic renounced its appeal to a future Council, acknowledged the justice of the excommunication; abolished the taxes on ecclesiastical property; surrendered its right to nominate Bishops; consigned criminous clerics to ecclesiastical Courts; granted free passage in the Adriatic to papal subjects. But in secret the Council of Ten entered a protest against all these concessions and declared that their assent was invalid, as it had been extorted by violence;-a reservation of which Venice availed herself in her subsequent struggle with Pope Paul V, when, championed and directed by Fra Paolo Sarpi, the Republic undertook to defend the rights of secular princes against the claims of the Curia Romana.

The Venetian constitution, which, on account of its stability and efficiency, compelled the envy and admiration of all Italian and numerous foreign statesmen, was a product of the growth of Venice, slowly evolved to meet the growing needs of the growing State.

The primitive machinery of the Venetian Republic consisted, as we have seen, of the General Assembly and the Doge. Very soon, however, under the pressure of business, two ducal Councillors were added to aid the Doge in the discharge of his ever-growing obligations. Further, it became customary though not necessary, that he should invite (pregare) some of the more prominent citizens to assist him with their advice upon grave occasions, and hence the name of what was eventually known as the Consiglio dei Pregadi, the Venetian Senate.

But constitutional machinery of so simple a nature could not prove adequate to the requirements of a State whose growth was as rapid as that of Venice. In 1172 the disastrous conclusion of the campaign against the Emperor Manuel, into which the Republic had rushed at the bidding of the Condone or General Assembly, called the attention of Venetians to their constitution and its defects. It seemed to them that reforms were required on two grounds: first, because the position of the Doge was too independent, considering his discretionary powers as to whether and as to whom he would ask for advice; secondly, because the people in their General Assembly had become too numerous, unruly and rash to allow of their being safely entrusted with the fortunes of their country. A deliberative assembly of manageable size was required; and its establishment implied a definition of the Doge's authority on the one hand and of the popular rights on the other. The evolution of these two ideas forms the problem of Venetian constitutional history down to the year 1297, when that constitution became stereotyped as a close oligarchy after the famous " Closing of the Great Council."

The reforms of the year 1172 were threefold:

(2) The Doge continued to summon the Pregadi to assist him ; but seeing that the newly created Council undertook election to office and many matters of internal policy, foreign affairs were chiefly reserved for the Senate ; though that body did not become organised and permanent till the Tiepoline reforms of 1229-44.

(3) With a view to restricting the Doge's authority, four Councillors were added to the two already existing. Their duty was to check any attempt at personal aggrandisement on the part of the Doge ; and gradually the ducal authority was withdrawn from the chief of the State and placed as it were, in commission in his Council. The coronation oath or promissione of the Doge was subjected to constant modificH-tion in the direction of restricting his authority, till at last the Doge himself lost much of his original weight. As his supreme power was withdrawn from him, bit by bit, the pomp and ceremony surrounding him were steadily increased.

These reforms of 1172 display the inherent nature of the Venetian constitution. The ducal authority is gradually curtailed ; the Council shows a tendency to become a close oligarchy ; the people are removed from the centre of government, although the complete disfranchisement of the mass of the population was not effected at once. The newly appointed Council did indeed endeavour to elect a chief magistrate without any appeal to the people, and a riot ensued which was only quieted by the electors presenting the new Doge to the General Assembly with the words " This is your Doge, an it please you," - a formula which deluded the people into a belief that they still retained some voice in the election of the Doge.

The tendency displayed in the reforms of 1172 continued to make itself felt during the next hundred years, until we come to the epoch of the Closing of the Great Council, whereby Venice established her constitution as a close oligarchy.

The result of these resolutions was to create a specially favoured class, those who had during the last four years sat in the Great Council. By the third resolution admission to that caste was still left open; but the action of the Committee of three soon completed the Serrata del Maggior Cormgtio, and rendered the oligarchy virtually a close caste ; for they laid down for themselves the rule that no one was eligible to the Great Council unless he could prove that a paternal ancestor had sat in the Council subsequent to its creation in 1172. By this regulation all those-and they were the vast majority-who had neither sat themselves nor could prove that a paternal ancestor had sat in the Great Council, were virtually disfranchised, for that Council was the root of political life in the State, and exclusion from it meant political annihilation. In 1315 a list of all those who were eligible for election was compiled, and only legitimate children of parents belonging to the favoured class were allowed to appear in this register, known as the Golden Book. Thus the Venetian aristocracy was created, and was established as the sole power in the State.

The accumulated difficulties and dangers brought about by the War of Ferrara, the Interdict, and the Tiepoline Conspiracy taught the Republic that the existing machinery of the State was too cumbersome, too slow, too public, to meet and deal successfully with extraordinary crises. A special committee to direct the affairs of Ferrara had been appointed early during that War. When the movements of Tiepolo and his fellow-conspirators, after their defeat, caused grave anxiety to the government, it seemed that some more rapid, secret, and efficient body than the Senate was required to track the operations of the traitors and to watch over the safety of the State. It was accordingly proposed that the Committee on Ferrarese affairs should be entrusted with the task (1310). The proposal was rejected on the ground that the committee was fully occupied. It was then suggested that the Great Council should elect ten of its members, and the Doge, his Council, and the Supreme Court, should elect another ten, and that from this body of twenty the Great Council should afterwards elect ten; not more than one member of the same family might sit on the board, which was at once entrusted with the protection of the public safety and the duty of vigilance against the Tiepoline conspirators. The committee acted so admirably and its services proved so valuable that its term of office, originally only for a few months, was extended and it finally became permanent in 1335.

As eventually modified the Council took the following shape afld was governed by its own code of procedure. The members were elected in the Great Council for one year only, and were not re-eligible till a year had elapsed. Every month the Ten elected three of its members as "Chiefs'" (Capi). The "Chiefs" opened all communications, prepared all business to be submitted to the Council, and acted as its executive arm; they were obliged during their month of office to stay at home, so as to avoid exposure to bribery or other illegitimate influences.

Besides the ten actual members the Council included ex officio the Doge and his six Councillors, to whom were added on very grave occasions a certain number of prominent citizens, called the Zonta. Of the normal seventeen Councillors twelve made up a quorum. One at least of the Law-officers of the State-the Avogadori di comun-was ' always present, though without a vote, to prevent the Council from taking any illegal step.

Such was the Venetian constitution, which, thanks to its efficiency and strength, commanded the admiration and the envy of Europe and enabled Venice to assume that high place among the nations which was hers during the fifteenth century.

Her mainland territory was probably a drain on the financial resources of the Republic, not a fountain of wealth. That territory was only acquired and held by paying for costly troops and more costly captains of adventure. It is doubtful whether the revenue derived from the provinces covered the cost of possession and administration. True, on occasion, the Republic applied to her land territories for a loan, as in 1474, when 516,000 ducats were advanced to the government; but the fact remains that the contentment of her mainland possessions was essential to Venetian supremacy, and that this contentment could not be secured if they were heavily taxed.

Venetian commerce covered the whole civilised world. The city was a great reservoir of merchandise, constantly filled and constantly emptied again, with eastern luxuries flowing westward and western commodities flowing east. Upon export and import alike the government levied taxes (tavola dell1 entrada e tavola deW insidd); these, with the salt monopoly and the taxation of the guilds (tansa delta mttizia, tansa insensibile, etc.), furnished the main source of her ordinary revenue, which in the year 1500 was estimated at 1,145,580 ducats. The importance of the sea in the economy of Venice is obvious; but during the fifteenth century her naval and commercial sea-power both received a fatal blow. Wars with the Turks exhausted her fighting capacity and the discovery of the Cape route to the Indies tended to divert the whole line of the world's traffic from the Mediterranean into the Atlantic, out of the hands of the Venetians into the hands of the Portuguese.

The century opened, however, with a series of triumphs for the Republic. The development and extension of her land empire continued ; her prestige at sea increased. Dalmatia, which the Republic had surrendered by the treaty of Turin, was recovered after a struggle; and by 1420 Venice was in possession of the whole of Friuli. Thanks to the mountainous frontier of the province this acquisition gave the Republic a defensible position towards the east, where she had hitherto been very weak; it largely increased her land empire and whetted her appetite for more.

Nor was her achievement by sea less brilliant. The quarrels among the sons of Sultan Bayazid I ended in the concentration of the Ottoman power in the hands of Mohammad (1413). Venice had no desire to embark on a campaign against the victorious Turk. She hoped to trade with them, not to fight them, and, through her ambassador Francesco Foscari, a treaty was signed whereby she believed herself to have secured her colonies from molestation. But Mohammad was not able, even if he desired, to prevent his followers from regarding all Christians as dogs. Treaty or no treaty, they chased some Venetian merchantmen into Negroponte and menaced the island. The Venetian admiral Loredan came to a parley with the Turkish commander, at Gallipoli (1416). But while the leaders were in consultation, the crews fell to, and a battle became inevitable. The Venetians were brilliantly victorious ; and the Republic secured an advantageous peace, as well as the applause of Europe, only too ready to believe that it need not mind about the Turk as long as Venice was there to fight him.

Visconti's great general, Carmagnola, turned the scale. The Florentine League was concluded and Carmagnola received the command of the Venetian forces.

Thus the Republic embarked upon a struggle for supremacy as a land-Power in northern Italy. But she was soon to prove the truth of Mocenigo's dying words. The first campaign ended in the acquisition of Brescia and the Bresciano by Venetian troops, but not by Carmagnola. He had no sooner brought his forces under Brescia than he asked leave to retire for his health to the Baths of Abano; and his conduct from the very first roused those suspicions which eventually led to his doom. The second campaign gave Bergamo to the victorious Republic. But the suspicions of Venice were increased by finding that the Duke of Milan was in communication with Carmagnola and was prepared to conclude a peace through him as intermediary, suspicions confirmed by the dilatory conduct of their general after the victory at Maclodio, when nothing lay between him and Milan. At the opening of the third campaign against Visconti, the Republic endeavoured to rouse their general to vigorous action by making him large promises if he would only crush the Duke and take his capital. But nothing would stir Carmagnola from his culpable inactivity. The truth was that he cared not a jot for Venetian interests; like all mercenaries he was playing his own game, and that did not counsel him to press Visconti too hard, for it was always possible that he might one day find himself again in the Duke's service.

The patience of the Republic was exhausted at last. Carmagnola was summoned to Venice on the plea that the government wished to consult him. He was received with marked honour. His suite was told that the general stayed to dine with the Doge and that they might go home. The Doge sent to excuse himself from receiving the Count on the score of indisposition. Carmagnola turned to go down to his gondola. In the lower arcade of the palace he was arrested and hurried to prison. He was tried by the Council of Ten on the charge of treason and executed in the Piazzetta of St Mark (1432).

Notwithstanding their difficulties with their mercenary commander, the Venetians had made very solid acquisitions during these wars with Visconti. Brescia and Bergamo were now permanently added to the land empire of the Republic, and the title was confirmed by an imperial investiture at Prague in 1437, in which Venetian dominions are defined as all the land di qua, that is east of the Adda,-very nearly the extreme limit of mainland possession ever touched by the Republic.

Venice had converted her guardianship of Ravenna into actual possession as remainder-heir to the Polentani, Lords of that city; a step which brought into the field against her the Roman Curia, and was not without important bearings on the final combination of the Papacy with her other enemies at the League of Cambray.

The death of Filippo Maria Visconti left Milan and the Visconti possessions without a Lord. Visconti's only child Bianca was married to Sforza, and in right of her he claimed succession; but the city of Milan declared itself a republic. Venice seized Lodi and Piacenza and offered to support the Milanese Republic if it would recognise the capture. Milan declined. But that city was soon forced to open its gates to Sforza; and shortly afterwards Venice and Sforza came to terms in the Peace of Lodi (1454V), by which the Republic was confirmed in possession of Bergamo and Brescia and acquired Crema and Treviglio as well, thereby affording her enemies fresh proofs for that charge of insatiable greed which they were already beginning to move against her.

But Visconti's death produced another result still more momentous not only for Venice but for all Italy as well. Filippo Maria had left no heirs male; and the French claim,-that of the house of Orleans based upon the marriage of Valentina Visconti with the father of Charles of Orleans,-was immediately advanced. -It opened a new epoch in Italian history, preparing the way for the complications inseparable from the advent of foreign princes in Italian politics.

There were two reasons which induced Venice to accept gladly the Treaty of Lodi. The long War with Visconti, though it had brought her a large accession of territory, had also cost her very dear; but it was of even greater significance that all Europe and Venice especially, as the power most nearly concerned, had been startled by the news that the Turks had captured Constantinople and that the Eastern Empire was at an end for ever. This event took place in 1453, the year before the Peace of Lodi.

We have seen already that the real desire of the Republic was to trade with the Turks, and not to fight them; from the very outset when she made a treaty with Sultan Mohammad in 1410 and again after the victory of Gallipoli, her whole energies had been directed to securing her colonies and insuring freedom of traffic. But now, with the Mussulmans established in Constantinople and spreading down the Levant, it was inevitable that Venice should be brought into hostile relations with their growing power.

The epoch was one of great outward splendour. Commines, who came to Venice some years later, describes it as "the most triumphant city I have ever seen; the city that bestows the greatest honour on ambassadors and on strangers ; the city that is most carefully governed; the city wherein the worship of God is most solemnly conducted."

For though the Closing of the Great Council had rendered the governing class a close oligarchy, it had not produced class hatred; Venice showed no trace of the feudal system with its violent divisions of the State into hostile camps; every Venetian was still a Venetian first and foremost, and though excluded from the functions of government was still in all likelihood closely connected with those who exercised them. The palace of the patrician was surrounded by a network of small alleys filled with his people, his clients. The merchant prince in his office was served by a staff of clerks who had their share in the success of his ventures. The arrival of any merchant's galleys was a matter for rejoicing to the whole community and was announced by the great bell of St Mark's. Venice, in short, from the commercial point of view was a great joint-stock company for the exploitation of the East, and the patricians were its directors.

On the other hand, if the people were excluded from the direction of State affairs they found abundant scope for their energies in trade and industries and the guild-life which these created and fostered. Every art and craft and trade in Venice, down to the very sausage-makers, was erected into a guild. They were self-supporting, self-governing bodies, supervised, it is true, by a government office whose approval was necessary for the validity of the bye-laws. They were carefully fostered by the State, which saw in them an outlet for the political activities of the people. At his coronation each new Doge was expected to entertain the guilds, who displayed specimens of their handiwork in the ducal palace; on great State occasions, when Venice entertained distinguished guests, the guilds were called upon to furnish part of the pageant; but they never acquired, as in Florence, or other Italian cities, a voice in the government of the State. The guilds of most Italian towns represented and protected the people against a nobility of arms and of territory. In Venice such a nobility never existed; the patrician was himself a merchant and very probably a member of a trade guild.

And the decorative and cultured side of all this teeming life found expression in the arts. Murano produced the earliest masters of that school of painting which was to adorn the world by the hands of the Vivarini, Carpaccio, the Bellinis, Mantegna, Giorgione, Veronese, Titian, Palma, Cima da Conegliano, Tintoretto, Tiepolo. Dramatic in conception, gorgeous in colour, untrammelled by the effort to express philosophic ideas or religious emotion, the art of Venice was essentially decorative, and was dedicated to the adornment of public and private life in the city. The great colonnade at the Rialto, the very heart of Venetian traffic, was already covered with frescoes and possessed that famous planisphere, or Mapamondo, showing the routes followed by Venetian commerce throughout the world. The study of letters received a vital stimulus, thanks to the asylum which Venice offered to refugees from Constantinople. Cardinal Bessarion made St Mark's Library the legatee of his inestimable treasures. The brilliant history of the Venetian printing press was inaugurated by John of Speyer and Windelin his brother (1469), by Nicolas Jenson, by Waldorfer and Erhardt Radolt, and carried on by Andrea Torresano to the glories of the Aldine Press. Coming third in chronological order, preceded by Subiaco and Rome, the press of Venice surpassed all its Italian contemporaries in splendour and abundance, in range of subjects, in service to scholarship.

But this appearance of prosperity, of splendour, of pomp, during the latter half of the fifteenth century, masked the germs of incipient decline: the corruption of the nobles, the suspicious tyranny of the Ten, the first signs of bank failures, the drop in the value of funds, the rise of the national debt from six to thirteen millions. Land wars continued to drain the treasury ; the Turkish wars, conducted by Venice single-handed, curtailed' her Levant trade and entailed a continual outlay; worst of all, in 1486 came the news that Diaz had discovered the Cape of Good Hope, and in 1497 that Vasco da Gama had rounded it, thereby cutting the tap-root of Venetian wealth, its Mediterranean carrying-trade, and drawing the great trade-lines of the world out of the Mediterranean into the Atlantic. Venice could alter neither her geographical position nor her policy. She endeavoured to come to terms with the Turk, and she continued to expand on the mainland. This course of action brought down upon her the charge of infidelity on the one hand and of insatiable greed on the other, and ended in the disastrous combination of Cambray.

But Venice, exhausted by the drain of the land wars against Visconti, was unwilling to face another and more terrible campaign by sea unless she were forced to do so. She endeavoured to open negotiations at Constantinople on the pretext that she was acting in the name of Hungary. But in 1470 Negroponte fell. The War had already cost considerably over a million ducats, and the government was reduced to suspending either two-thirds or a half of all official salaries which were over twenty-five ducats per annum. In spite of this she rejected, as extravagant, terms of peace offered her in 1476; and faced the struggle once more. Scutari was attacked by the Sultan in person, who, in his determination to enter the town, blew besieged and besiegers alike to atoms before his siege guns. But the Republic could not hold out for ever unaided; Scutari was at the last extremity; a large army was rumoured to be on its way to attack Friuli. Venice was forced to recognise the facts, and in 1479 she proposed terms of peace. Scutari, and all Venetian possessions in the Morea were ceded to the Turk. Venice agreed to pay ten thousand ducats a year for the privileges of trading, and one hundred thousand in two years, as a war indemnity; and received permission to keep an Agent (Bailo) in Constantinople.

The Peace of 1479 marks an epoch in the history of Venetian relations with the East, and indicates a return to her original policy of peaceable dealings, whenever possible, with the Turk.

We have seen that in 1441 Venice had occupied Ravenna-under protest from Rome-as heir of the Polentani, Lords of Ravenna. She now (1481) attacked the Marquis of Ferrara on the ground that he was infringing a Venetian monopoly by the erection of salt-pans at the mouth of the Po. As the territory of Ferrara lay between the Venetian frontier and Ravenna it looked as if Venice desired to unite her possessions in that direction by the acquisition of Ferrara. This policy induced the Duke of Milan, the Pope, and the King of Naples to combine in support of Ferrara against Venice. The War was popular with the Venetians at first, but the strain on both treasury and private purses soon became insupportable, and no success crowned the Venetian arms. The distressed condition of the Republic is described by Malipiero. Payment of the interest on the funds was partially suspended; the shops on the Rialto were mortgaged; private plate, and jewellery compulsorily called in; salaries cut down. The revenue from the mainland was falling off. The arsenal was nearly empty. Famine and plague were at the door. " We shall be forced to sue for peace and restore all we have gained."

Malipiero was partially right. Venice was forced to sue for peace, but not till she had taken the ruinous step (which other Italian princes took before and after her) of suggesting to the French that they should make good their claims on certain Italian provinces,-Charles VIII his claim on Naples, the Duke of Orleans his claims on Milan. Two members of the hostile League, Milan and Naples, were thus threatened in their own possessions, with the result that peace was concluded at Bagnolo in 1484. Venice retained Rovigo and the Polesine, but was forced to surrender the towns she had taken in Apulia during the course of the War.

This invitation to foreigners was fatal to all Italian princes, as events were soon to demonstrate. The five Great Powers of Italy, Venice, Milan, Florence, the Pope and Naples, were able to hold their own against each other, but the moment the more potent ultramontane sovereigns appeared upon the scene, nominally in support of one or other of the Italian States, really in pursuit of their own aggrandisement, the balance was irretrievably upset. The sequence of these events, culminating in the Wars of the League of Cambray, after which Venice never again recovered her commanding place among the political communities of Europe, has been narrated in a previous Chapter.