him that this was Marino Faliero’s last resting-place; a matter concerning which the poet expressed considerable doubt.
The great stone sarcophagus spoken of by Giovanni Casoni was used afterwards during many years as a reservoir by the apothecary of the Civil Hospital, and is to-day in the outer loggia of the Correr Museum, bearing no trace of inscription or arms. The latter were probably shipped off.
With regard to the absence from the archives of the Council of Ten of all documents relating to the trial of Marino Faliero, many historians, among whom are Romanin and Rawdon Brown, are inclined to suppose that it was not entered in the acts of the Council, owing to what they call a certain praiseworthy shame on the part of the judges, which hindered them from inserting the name of the head of the Republic among those of other condemned persons. There are sufficient reasons and sufficient proofs, however, for supposing that the whole account of the trial was set down in a special book, which had no place in the regular series of the archives of the Council; and that this volume was either lost, or was burned in one of the fires which have at different times done damage in the ducal palace. The official report was evidently known to the old chroniclers, who translated long passages from it, from the original Latin into the vulgar tongue. This volume is referred to in a marginal note found in a document of 1355, referring to the conspiracy—‘Ponatur in libro processum.’
The Council of Ten was never subject to such praiseworthy crises of shame; and the secretary of the Council, as Lazzarini observes, would have been very much astonished if he could have had cognisance of the conjectures which our modern sentimentalism would form regarding the facts. A number of other documents are missing from the archives of the Council of Ten, of which the absence does not suggest either a poetical interpretation, or any explanation of a political character; the papers were simply lost.
The unfortunate Dogess, who perhaps quitted the ducal palace with the body of her beheaded husband, was obliged soon afterwards to leave his own house, where she had taken refuge to hide her grief. The municipality took possession of all property which had belonged to Marino Faliero, but restored to his widow the whole amount of her dowry, and two thousand lire left her by the will of the deceased. The wretched widow was obliged to swear that she did not keep any object of value that had belonged to her husband; but the Council restored to her a little brooch of gold, with a silver pendant, which had been improperly confiscated, since it had come to her from her own family. Furthermore, certain objects were returned to her which she and her sister Engoldisia had inherited from Fiordalise Gradenigo, their mother. The poor woman at first retired to the convent of Saint Lawrence, in the district of San Severo; soon afterwards she went to Verona, where she had some lands, but at last she established herself in a house of her own in Venice.
During many years she occupied herself altogether in charities. Little by little her intelligence began to give way, as is amply proved by the great number of wills she made, which are still extant. These all prove that she was not only deeply attached to the relatives of her husband, but that it was her intention to be more generous to them than to her own, especially to Federigo Giustiniani, son of Marino Faliero’s daughter by his first wife. In one of her wills, probably executed at the instigation of some nephew, she says that she may change her mind, and says that the only will of hers which is to be considered valid is the one which begins ‘Libera animam meam, Domine’; which, as Lazzarini says, sounds like a cry from the heart of the unhappy woman, tormented throughout her long and sad old age by relations who gave her no peace, and expected to profit largely by her wealth.
Giovanni Gradenigo, who succeeded Marino Faliero, was fortunate enough to conclude a treaty of peace with the Genoese; and Giovanni Dolfin, the next Doge after him, showed some skill in obtaining from the Emperor the recognition of Venice’s suzerainty over the territory of Treviso. It was on this occasion that the lord of Sench arbitrarily threw into prison two Venetian ambassadors, as I
have told in speaking of the treatment of strangers. The immediate effect of the outrage was to rouse in the highest degree the resentment of Venice against the Duke of Austria and his vassal, and matters were at a critical pitch when the Doge died.
The electors quickly agreed upon a Gradenigo, a Dandolo, a Cornaro, and a Contarini as candidates for the ducal dignity; but before they had come to a choice between these news was brought that Lorenzo Celsi, the ‘Captain of the Gulf,’ had taken a number of Genoese vessels with contraband cargoes. By one of those sudden caprices which have always affected the minds of electors, the hero of the hour at once became the only candidate on whom every one could agree. Celsi was not of the highest nobility and was barely fifty years of age, but these objections were insignificant compared with the prestige he now enjoyed. The choice fell upon him by unanimous consent, and his election was announced to the people almost at the moment when the report of his victories was discovered to be a fabrication. Yet, almost incredible as it must seem, his election to the throne caused no discontent in spite of this chilling disillusionment.
At that time he was cruising in the waters of Candia, and a deputation of twelve nobles departed to inform him of his election, while a special council assumed the management of affairs until his coming.
An incident marked his arrival which, if not important, is memorable as having caused a modification in the adornment of the ducal bonnet. Lorenzo Gelsi landed at the Ponte della Paglia on the twenty-first of August 1361, and proceeded to the palace through the midst of a dense crowd, in which every man uncovered his head as the Doge passed, except one. Celsi’s aged father could not admit that an old man should take off his hat to his own son, and entirely refused to do so. But the Doge, who was a diplomatist, found means to reconcile his father’s prejudice with the rules of Venetian ceremonial. He fastened a small golden cross upon the front of his cap, and explained to his stiff-necked parent that it was no derogation of dignity for an old man to salute the sacred symbol.
Celsi also introduced the custom by which the Doge wore a dress of pure white when he appeared in public at any of the festivals kept by the Church in honour of the Virgin Mary, and this innovation found favour with most of his successors.
His reign, though short, was brilliant. He received the friendly visit of the Duke of Austria, of which mention has been made, and which brought about excellent results. The King of Cyprus also spent a short time in Venice during the reign, when he made his journey through Europe to preach a crusade against the Turks. The most important event which occurred under Lorenzo Celsi, however, was the Cretan war.
The turbulent spirit of the natives of the island, and the excessive love of independence exhibited by the Venetian nobles, to whom the Republic had granted fiefs in Candia, had brought matters to the verge of a revolution. The people flatly declined to pay tribute to the mother city, and strongly resented the remonstrances made by the Venetian government through Donato Dandolo, the governor of Crete.
At last, when he demanded the payment of a tax which had been voted in order to strengthen the fortifications of the harbour, the Cretans replied that they would not pay a farthing until they had sent a deputation of twenty intelligent men to Venice, who should lay before the Senate a statement of the so-called rights of the colony. With more readiness than prudence, one of the governor’s Council answered that there were not twenty intelligent men in the island.
The observation may not have been altogether unjust, judging from the total lack of sense afterwards shown by the Cretans, but it had the immediate and not surprising effect of irritating them, and the standard of revolt was raised within the hour. The flag of Saint Mark was torn down and replaced by one bearing the image of Saint Titus, the protector of the island, and before long the two parties were fighting under the war-cries of ‘Saint Titus!’ and ‘Saint Mark!’ the noble colonists and the natives on the one side, and the governor and his soldiers on the other.
Venice at first attempted to recall the island to its allegiance by pacific embassies, but these were repulsed with indignity and insult, and a fleet of thirty-three galleys, carrying six thousand men, was despatched under Luchino dal Verme, a noble of Verona. The Candiotes had appealed in vain to the Genoese for help, the arch-enemies of their mother-country, and being left to their own resources they exhibited neither courage nor skill. In three days six thousand men reduced the hundred cities of the island to submission, and, after executing the ringleaders and taking due precautions against a fresh revolt, the victor set sail for Venice.
Petrarch was in the city at the time, and in one of his letters he has left a brilliant and poetic account of the triumph that followed.
It chanced that I was leaning at my window towards the hour of sixte, and mine eyes were turned toward the open sea; and I talked with the Archbishop of Patras, whom I did once love as a brother, and whom now I venerate as it were a well-beloved father. Then I saw entering the harbour a great ship, a galley, all decked with green branches, and it came rowed by many rowers. Now when we saw this, we ceased from talking; for the crew of the ship were of joyous mien, and they swung the oars with such right goodwill that we guessed them to be bearers of glad tidings. The sailors all wore crowns of leaves on their heads, and in their hands they waved banners, and they that stood in the bows shouted joyfully. Then the sentinel who watched on the top of the first tower forthwith made signal to give warning that a ship from abroad was in sight, and all the people together, full of curiosity, went over to Lido. As the ship came nearer we saw also trophies of war set up on her forward part; for surely this was the news of a victory which they were bringing in, but in what war it had been won, or in what battle, or at what stormed city, we knew not.
When the messengers had landed they went before the Great Council, and there we learned that which we had not dared to believe nor even to hope; for our enemies were all dead or taken prisoners or put to flight, and the honest citizens were freed out of slavery, the cities also were won back, and all the island of Candia had submitted to the Republic. So the war was over without striking a blow, and peace had been got with glory.
Petrarch’s logic here evidently went to pieces in the storm of his satisfaction, for he speaks of a bloodless victory immediately after telling his correspondent that all the enemies of the Republic were slain or prisoners.
The Doge Lorenzo Celsi [here the poet indulges in a pun connecting ‘Celsi’ with ‘excelsus’], unless my love for him has deceived me altogether, is a man of most noble heart, of purest life, one who follows all the virtues, most wonderfully pious and devoted to his country; and when he learned the good news he openly gave thanks to God, thereby showing the people that in every happy event man must acknowledge the divine hand, and dispose his own happiness under the protecting shield of faith. And prayers were offered throughout the city, but were especially in the basilica dedicated to the Evangelist Saint Mark....
Now the whole feast ended with two pageants; but I confess that I know not by what name to call them, and so I shall describe them in such manner that thou mayest easily understand them. The one was, as it were, a race and the other a combat; and both were on horseback, the first without reins and only with staves and banners, that it seemed to be some military exercise; but in the second game arms were needed, and it was like unto a real battle. Both in the one and in the other we marvelled at the gifts of the Venetians, who are not only wonderful sailers of ships, but are also very skilled in all those exercises which belong to the art of war.
For they showed such experience of riding and such deep knowledge of the handling of arms, and such endurance of fatigue, that one might set them up for examples to other warlike nations. The two games were held in that square of which I deem there is not the like in the world, that is over against the marble and gold front of the temple of Saint Mark.
No stranger had a share in the first of the games, but four and twenty nobles, the goodliest and most richly clad, kept for themselves this part of the pageants....
It was a good sight to see so many young men, in clothes of purple and gold, curbing and spurring their well-shod steeds, all shiningly caparisoned, that seemed hardly to touch earth in their swift course. These young men obeyed the gesture of their chief with such precision that as the first reached the goal and left the field, a second took his place on the track, and then a third, and so on till the first began again, so well that they kept up the racing all day long, and that at evening one might have believed that there had been but one cavalier who rode; and while they ran thou wouldest have seen now the gilded tips of their staves flying through the air, and now thou couldest have heard their red flags stiffening in the breeze with a sound as of wings.
One might scarce believe what multitudes thronged in the square of Saint Mark’s on that day. There were both sexes and all ages and every class. The Doge himself was on the terrace which is built on the front of the church, with many nobles; from its height he saw almost at his feet all that moved in the square below. Thus he was in the midst of those four gilt horses, the work of an ancient and unknown craftsman, that look ready to measure themselves against living coursers, and seem to paw the air. Lest the summer sun should dazzle the eyes, curtains of many colours had been hung here and there. I myself was bidden, as often the Doge deigns that I should be, and he made me sit at his right.... The great square, the church, the towers, the roofs, the porticoes, the windows, were all crowded with lookers-on. At the right a high platform had been raised whereon sat four hundred matrons, of the noblest, and fairest, and most richly-dressed in the city; and they continually ate the sweetmeats which were offered to them; and in the morning, and at noon, and at evening, it was as if they were a company come down from heaven. There were also bidden to the pageant several English noblemen, kinsmen to the king, who had come to Venice by sea, to exercise themselves in the art of navigation; and these gentles very freely shared our joy over the victory.
This racing lasted several days, and there was no prize but the honour, for in this first game there were no victors and no vanquished.
But for the second game prizes were made ready, for there were dangers to be faced, and the result could not be alike for all. There was a crown of gold adorned with precious stones for the first winner, and a richly-chiselled silver belt for the second. An edict had been sent forth, written in the military and vulgar tongue, under the Doge’s seal, to invite the people of the neighbouring provinces to take part in this contest on horseback; and indeed there came a good number of contestants, not Italians only, but also strangers who spoke other languages, hoping to win the prize and to cover themselves with glory.
The jousting lasted four days, and since Venice was, there never was seen a fairer sight. On the last day the Doge, the nobles, and the strangers who had been present, and also he who ordered the combat, to whom, after God, was due all the joy of the tournament, gave the first prize to a gentleman of Venice, and the second to a stranger from Ferrara.
Here ends the feast, but not the rejoicing. Here ends also this letter, by which I have endeavoured to show unto thine eyes and to make heard in thine ears that of which sickness has deprived them, that thou mayest know what is doing amongst us, and understand that even among navigators there are found excellent warriors, and souls of choice, and contempt of gold and thirst for honour.
Unhappily the triumph so vividly described by Petrarch was not final, and two years later, before Lorenzo Celsi had closed his eyes for ever, another revolt broke out in Candia. This time Venice took such radical measures that, in the words of one of the ‘provveditori,’ ‘another rebellion was impossible, terrible examples had swept away the ringleaders, fortresses which gave them asylums, the cities of Lasitha and Anapolis, every building which might afford a stronghold, were razed to the ground; those of the inhabitants who were not put to the sword were transported to other districts, the surrounding neighbourhood was converted into a desert, and thenceforward no one, on pain of death, was permitted to cultivate, or even to approach it.’
This was in 1366, but Celsi had died at the fresh outbreak of the revolution, most opportunely, some historians say, for his reputation and honour. It was even thought that if he had lived a few years longer he would have ended like Marino Faliero. Grave accusations were made against him during the last months of his life, but the Council of Ten declared them to be false, and his successor was instructed to declare, when presiding the first time at the meeting of the Grand Council, that the memory of the deceased Doge was untarnished.
This successor was the aged Marco Corner, whose election was warmly contested. The accounts left us of what happened in the ducal palace during the interregnum which followed the death of Lorenzo Celsi enlighten us as to the objections which might be raised by the electors against a candidate to the throne. Marco Corner was too old; he was too poor; he was on good terms with several foreign princes, whom he had known when he had been abroad as ambassador; but the gravest charge, or objection, was that he had married a burgher’s daughter, whose family would not know how to behave towards the head of the Republic.
Marco Corner, who was present amongst the electors, at first said nothing to the other objections; but when slighting mention was made of his wife, the thin old man with snow-white hair stood up in his place suddenly, and cried out that he honoured and esteemed his aged wife, who was ‘so good and virtuous that she had always been respected by all the women of the Venetian state as much as if she came of one of the greatest families.’
He added bluntly that as for his acquaintance with foreign princes, his friendships had profited the Republic more than himself; since, if he had sought his own advantage, he would not have deserved to be reproached with his poverty, nor would his wife be obliged ‘to turn her dresses again and again, lest they should be seen to be worn out.’
The brave old patrician’s heartfelt words made a deep impression on his hearers; the objections that had been raised fell away in an instant, and he was elected, I believe, unanimously. He took his place on the ducal throne, and his wife Caterina, the companion of his life-long poverty, left their poor little house for the splendours of the palace. The chronicles speak no more of her; we do not even know whether she died during her husband’s three years’ reign, or survived that quiet interval of tranquillity for the Republic.
Marco Corner died in the belief, no doubt, that his country would long enjoy the peace which his prudence and skill had brought about. Yet a day was at hand which came near to being fatal to the Republic. One might almost conclude that when Andrea Contarini had buried himself in the country on the mainland after having twice refused the ducal honours, and very shortly before Corner’s death, he had prescience of the storm that was brewing.
The time had come when he could refuse no longer; for modest though he was, he knew his own strength, and knew also, as men of genius sometimes do, that he alone could save his country from destruction in the greatest crisis of her existence. The memorable war of Chioggia was at hand.
At this period a man appears upon the scene who deserves to be taken as the highest type of a Venetian noble and of a dauntless soldier, in that remarkable age. He played such a part throughout his own time, the effect of his sudden appearance at the most critical moment in all Venetian history was so incalculably great, and the generalship he exhibited was of such a superior order, that it is worth while to give him a place apart in this work. I shall condense the account of his earlier years as far as possible.
His history, written with great detail by his grandson Jacopo Zeno, Bishop of Feltre and Belluna, has been preserved by Muratori in the nineteenth volume of the Scriptores. Other histories confirm most of the facts therein related, and there is no reason to doubt the rest; yet taken altogether, as the life of a possible human being, the story must appear to most readers less probable than the wildest fictions of the elder Dumas or Victor Hugo, and there is certainly no tale in the English language, short of Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, at once so fascinating and so incredible. Fortunately it is supported by the evidence of contemporaries, by the acts of the Venetian government, and, lastly, as to the dangers he survived, by the testimony of those who prepared his body for burial when he died of extreme old age, and who found upon him the scars of five-and-thirty wounds, a great number of which would have been fatal to an ordinary man.
Carlo Zeno was the son of Pietro Zeno and of Agnese Dandolo, and therefore came of the best blood in Venice. Pietro had been for some time governor of Padua under the Carrara, and had subsequently won the favour of Pope Clement VI. by his zeal against the Turks when in command of a Venetian squadron in the East. The Emperor Charles IV. was also well disposed towards him, and Carlo was named after that sovereign, who sent a representative to appear for him at the child’s baptism.
Pietro died seven years later, leaving ten other children and a very exiguous fortune, for he had always sought glory rather than wealth, and his search had been rewarded.
It was decided to make a clerk of Carlo, and to send him at once to the court of the Pope at Avignon. His Venetian schoolmaster wrote out for him a Latin eulogium of his father and taught it to him, and when the small boy was brought before the pontiff and the cardinals he knelt down and recited this production without a fault. His august hearers were moved by his beauty, his spirit, his memory, and his bodily grace, and the performance seemed to them little short of miraculous for a child of seven years. The Pope received him into his household, the future man of war was dressed like a little priest, and before his education was half finished he was designated to be a canon of the cathedral of Patras with a rich benefice. After a time he was sent back to his uncle in Venice, and his relations decided that he should be sent to the University of Padua to make his studies.
Before he was thirteen he had his first taste of wounds and his first narrow escape. When returning to Venice from the country he was robbed by a shabbily dressed individual who imposed on him in order to be allowed to make the trip in his boat. The robber left him for dead, but he revived, and reached Mestre, where his hurts were dressed; and it was characteristic of the future man that although a mere boy he succeeded in tracking his aggressor with blood-hounds and handed him over to the justice of Padua, where the man was executed.
After a considerable time he regained his strength, and returned to his studies at the University, but his taste for excitement and adventure led him into bad company; he gambled away his ready money, and even sold his books in order to play, until at last, being quite penniless and ashamed to go home, he disappeared from Padua, not yet a grown man, and joined one of those many fighting bands of mercenaries which were employed by the Italian princes of the time. During the following five years he was not heard of in Venice, his relatives gave him up for dead, and when he suddenly appeared at last he was greeted with no small delight by his brothers and sisters.
He stayed a while with his family and then went to Greece, thinking that it was high time to take possession of his canonry of Patras. The governor received him with open arms, having no doubt heard that Zeno was fond of fighting, for the Turks were just then very troublesome; and the young man at once rendered good service, and would no doubt have done much more, had he not been severely wounded—‘mortally,’ says the good bishop of Feltre. During the night he fell into a syncope which those who attended him took for death; they accordingly proceeded to prepare him for interment, and only waited for the morning in order to bury him; but he revived, a little before daybreak, and escaped being buried alive. He was in such a condition of weakness that he had to be taken to Venice to recover.
While he was there, Peter, King of Cyprus, came to the city and soon took a strong fancy to Zeno, who seems to have made himself useful to this new patron in various ways; but soon the Emperor Charles IV., who was Carlo’s godfather, appeared in Italy, and finding his godson to his liking carried him off and kept him with him for some time, employed him on business which gave him a chance of seeing France, Germany and England, and at last allowed him to return to Patras and to his somewhat neglected ecclesiastical career.
But he was destined to be a soldier. Scarcely had he reached his destination when Patras was threatened by an army of ten or twelve thousand Cypriotes and Frenchmen, horse and foot; so, at least, says Carlo’s grandson the bishop, in not very good Latin. The bishop of Patras turned at once to Zeno and placed under his command the small force of which he could dispose, being about seven hundred riders. With this handful of men, against odds of fifteen to one, Carlo kept the enemy at bay during no less than six months, without losing one man, and so harassed his adversaries that they abandoned the enterprise, made peace, and retired. Yet, as if whatever he did must lead always to more fighting, his success made him an object of envy to many, and especially to a certain Greek knight, named Simon, who had the audacity to accuse him of treachery. Thereupon Zeno challenged his calumniator to single combat, and the day and place of meeting were named. The duel was to be fought in Naples, under the auspices of Queen Johanna, of evil fame. It was in vain that Carlo’s friends besought him to forgive Simon, and his friend the bishop exhausted his eloquence in trying to reconcile the two. The hot-blooded young Venetian preferred to throw up his ecclesiastical benefice; and seeing himself thus free to marry, since he had not yet actually taken orders, he forthwith espoused a noble and rich lady of Clarentia, who was very much in love with him, and whose fortune at once supplied the place of the large income he had forfeited.
He was obliged to leave his bride almost immediately in order to meet his antagonist in Naples, and as the Neapolitan kingdom was distracted by wars he had some difficulty in reaching the city. To his surprise, and probably not much to his satisfaction, the Queen chose to treat the quarrel as something more like a question of law than a point of honour; a regular inquiry took place, Simon was declared to have been wholly in the wrong, and was ordered to pay all the expenses to which Zeno had been put on his account, and Queen Johanna forbade the duel.
His honour being now cleared beyond all possible calumny, he returned to Greece and was at once named governor of a province, though he was not yet twenty-three years of age, and his subsequent career might have been more peaceful than it turned out but for the sudden death of his wife. Her relations, or the Duke of Achaia, promptly cheated him of her dowry, and he once more turned his face towards Venice, a good deal saddened and nearly penniless.
And now, during the term of his mourning, he seriously thought of bettering his fortunes in some permanent way, by following the example of so many of his countrymen and engaging in trade. As a first step, he made a good marriage with a daughter of the Giustiniani family; soon afterwards he left his native city to establish himself in the East as a merchant, and he spent seven years away from home, partly in the ‘city’ of Tanais, which I take to be the modern Rostov, at the mouth of the Don, and partly in Constantinople.
Now at that time the rightful Emperor Calojohannes, who had been friendly to the Venetians, was kept a close prisoner by his son Andronicus, who had dethroned him, and favoured the Genoese. Calojohannes was shut up in a certain fortress which overhung the sea, and was guarded by a captain who was responsible for him. Andronicus probably did not know, however, that this captain’s wife had in former times yielded to the seductions of Calojohannes, and was still devoted to him. It now occurred to the captive Emperor that she could safely convey letters between him and Zeno, whose father had received many favours at his hands in former years, and who would certainly be willing to help him now.
The ‘little woman,’ as the bishop calls her, succeeded in her dangerous errand, and it is needless to say that the mere suggestion of a perilous enterprise instantly fired Zeno’s imagination. With incredible speed and with absolutely marvellous skill, he won over no less than eight hundred Greek soldiers who promised to obey him implicitly when called upon, and to be secret. The latter obligation was not hard to perform, as they would certainly have lost their heads if they had not observed it.
All being ready for the bold stroke, it only remained to bring the Emperor safely out of prison before attempting a revolution, of the success of which the sanguine Zeno had not the slightest doubt. This was not exactly an easy matter, and Carlo undertook it himself. The Emperor’s bedroom had one window high above the water, from which escape must have been considered impossible since it was not protected by any grating. Beneath this window Zeno came on a dark night by agreement with the captain’s wife, and a rope was let down from the Emperor’s chamber. The rest was child’s play to the athletic young Venetian, and in a few moments he was in the presence of Calojohannes. But he had not counted upon the hesitating character and the soft heart of the man he wished to set free. With many tears the unhappy captive expressed his gratitude to Zeno for risking his life in such an adventure; but two of his sons were in the power of his third son, Andronicus, who would not hesitate to murder them on learning that the Emperor had escaped, and Calojohannes was not willing to sacrifice the children he loved for the sake of a few short years of life on the throne.
Carlo answered that there was no time for weeping and hesitating, and that Calojohannes should have considered these matters sooner; that if he would climb down the rope at once Zeno was ready to do all he had promised, and more also, but if not, Zeno would refuse to have anything to do with the matter again. The Emperor continued to hesitate and to shed tears, and Zeno left him at once.
Nevertheless, no long time passed before the captain’s wife was again the bearer of an entreating letter from the captive, who once more implored his friend’s assistance; and by way of an inducement he added that he had made a will leaving the island of Tenedos to the Venetian Republic. The will itself accompanied the letter, to prove the writer’s good faith. Zeno answered, accepting the proposal on behalf of his country, and the little woman hid the letter in her shoe. Unhappily for her and for the prisoner it dropped out just before she entered the Emperor’s room, and was instantly picked up by a sentinel and sent to Andronicus. The poor messenger was seized, tortured, and made to confess the whole plot, including of course the part played by Zeno.
His life was now in imminent danger; he could neither remain in Constantinople nor leave without great risk of being taken and executed for high treason. Venice at that time sent a Bailo, or military ambassador, to the capital of the East, who had jurisdiction over all Venetians residing there; in due course, and with the proper formalities, Andronicus applied to this high official to have Zeno arrested as having conspired against the throne, and the ambassador’s position would manifestly have been extremely delicate if Zeno had not opportunely made his escape by the aid of a soldier who was grateful to him, and who helped him to get on board one of the Venetian men-of-war which periodically visited the city in order to protect the interests of the Republic.
Zeno now showed the Emperor’s will to the officer
in command, and the latter considered that, in view of a possible attempt on the part of the Genoese, it would be justifiable to try to seize Tenedos. On reaching the island it was found to be in the keeping of a Greek officer, who still held it in the name of the dethroned Emperor. The fortress was ascertained to be fully provisioned and provided with an abundance of arms, and by no means to be taken by assault. But Carlo obtained an interview with the governor, and soon persuaded him that his best course, in the interests of Calojohannes, would be to place the island under the protection of Venice. Thereupon the squadron left a strong garrison in the town and returned to Venice with Zeno.
The Senate did not altogether approve the high-handed annexation; nevertheless, fearing lest the Genoese should help Andronicus to recover the island, they determined to send a fleet of fifteen ships to guard it, under Pietro Mocenigo, and not long afterwards two more vessels were sent to join the squadron, the one commanded by Zeno himself and the other by Michel Steno, who was afterwards Doge. Thereupon the Genoese immediately sent a large fleet to the East, Venice sent more reinforcements, and a conflict became imminent. Vittor Pisani now took charge of the whole Venetian force, with orders to make a naval demonstration before Constantinople; but though Zeno actually landed with some of his men by means of ladders, nothing worth mentioning was accomplished beyond the recovery of a Venetian man-of-war, which the Greeks had seized on hearing of the occupation of Tenedos. Thither the fleet now returned, and three galleys were left under Zeno to protect the island.
Before long the Genoese, having heard of the departure of the main body of the Venetian fleet, sent twenty-two galleys to capture the object of contention. Zeno had only three hundred regular soldiers and a fair body of archers, and the Genoese proceeded to land their troops in great numbers, which was an easy matter, as the sea was absolutely calm and motionless although the month was November. Zeno occupied the suburbs of the town, and the castle was in charge of Antonio Venier.
The fight that followed was perhaps the first of those heroic deeds of arms which shed undying lustre on Carlo Zeno’s name. The enemy had scarcely expected that the little force he had would oppose them; but instead, they encountered the most determined resistance as soon as they approached the outlying buildings of the town; they fought some time, were repulsed, and retired to their ships at dusk.
On the following morning they proceeded to land engines of war with the evident intention of laying regular siege to the town, and their movements soon showed that they meant to attack it on the side farthest from the castle. Zeno hastened to dispose a detachment of his men in ambush in a number of half-ruined and empty houses that stood in that quarter. With his remaining force he retired farther in, waited until the enemy were close to him, and then charged them furiously. They were but half prepared, and at the same instant the soldiers he had placed in hiding attacked them suddenly in the rear, and a large force found itself completely surrounded by a small one of which it naturally exaggerated the numbers.
The Genoese were at first slaughtered like sheep, for while the Venetian regular soldiers hewed down the outer ranks, the bowmen shot their arrows into the central press with deadly effect; but rallying, I suppose, they broke through the thin line of their assailants, and again retired to their ships.
Zeno was badly wounded in the calf of the leg by an infected arrow, no uncommon thing in those days, when arrows were drawn from the bodies of the dead after battle and were used again and again. A ‘poisoned arrow’ in the warfare of the Middle Ages by no means implied that the enemy had dipped the barb in venom. As usual, Zeno paid no attention to such a trifle as a wound, and when the enemy returned on the morrow they were greeted by terrific discharges of artillery from the cannon which he had moved into place during their absence, and they were driven off with such slaughter that they gave up the enterprise, and sailed away on the next day. But in this last affair Zeno had been twice wounded again, in the hand and knee, and was so exhausted that he fell into spasms followed by syncope, like a man dying. His grandson tells us, obscurely enough, that he must have died indeed but for the assistance of a Gallo-Greek surgeon, whose novel mode of treatment consisted in burning the sound knee in order to draw health into the injured one. It is slightly more probable that Zeno’s iron constitution had something to do with the cure. The weather became cold, and winter set in soon afterwards, and he returned to Venice covered with glory.
He deserved the praise that was freely given to him, for he had beaten a fleet and an army by sheer genius and courage with a handful of men and three ships, and had preserved to Venice the valuable island which guards the entrance to the Dardanelles. The hatred and rivalry between the two republics were of too long standing to be much embittered by his victory; but his success certainly helped in some degree to precipitate the final struggle.
I have sometimes thought that the behaviour of Venice to her most distinguished generals and statesmen may be compared with that of sea-captains who have a brave but unruly crew to deal with, and who alternately ‘keep the men busy’ and clap the roughest hands in irons in order to impose respect upon the rest; and at times, it may be said without levity, that the conduct of the government was like that of an unpopular and cowardly schoolmaster, who is a little nervous about his personal safety, and loses his nerve in matters of reward and punishment.
On the whole, Venice would have preferred that her battles should be won for her by paid condottieri; but when one of her own sons insisted on being a hero, something had to be done at once lest he should get into mischief. If there was no reasonable ground for imprisoning him, as Vittor Pisani was imprisoned, and as Carlo Zeno was himself imprisoned at a later date, he must be ‘kept busy.’ On this occasion Carlo had hardly reached Venice when he was appointed to the important post of military governor in Negroponte, being at that time little more than thirty years of age.
The time which intervened between the date of this appointment and the siege of Chioggia was spent by him chiefly in fighting the Genoese at sea, with almost unvarying success, and some of his exploits will be referred to hereafter in their proper places. It would be impossible to narrate them all in any space less than a volume, and I have here told enough, it is to be hoped, to give the reader an idea of what his youth had been before the fortunes of war offered larger opportunities to his genius and patriotism.
The long rivalry of Venice and Genoa has been sufficiently explained, and frequently alluded to in the previous pages. To give a connected account of the almost constant warfare waged between the two republics in Eastern and Mediterranean waters, from the Sea of Azov to Cape Corso, is beyond the scope and limits of the present work; for in order to understand the nature of the last tremendous struggle that took place at Chioggia, almost within sight of Venice, it is only necessary to recapitulate briefly those events which, during the latter half of the fourteenth century, led directly to the crisis—a crisis after which the vanquished aggressor retreated, definitely beaten and for ever humiliated.
At the outset I shall inform my readers that I have preferred the account given by Romanin to that of the more romantic Daru; for the latter evidently followed the older historian Sabellico, even into the regions of the fabulous, whereas Romanin writes largely upon the authority of Caroldo and of Stella, the latter a Genoese whose account of his countrymen’s disaster is above suspicion.
In the year 1345, a powerful Tartar chief named Zani Beg barbarously murdered certain Venetian and Genoese merchants established in the Crimea. For a short time this outrage united the two republics in a common desire for revenge, and they signed a treaty by which they mutually agreed to suspend all commercial relations with the Crimea—to ‘boycott’ the peninsula, as we should say. This was perhaps their only possible means of punishing Zani Beg for his wanton cruelty, since it is idle to suppose that two maritime nations could or would have carried war against a barbarian horde into the interior of such a country as the Crimea.
But the agreement had not been made with any sincere purpose, and before long the merchants of the two countries secretly resumed the trade, each trying to outwit the other. The result could not be doubtful; in 1350 the Genoese seized several Venetian ships with rich cargoes on the coast of Syria, and war broke out between the republics.