Stones of Venice | Page 2

and mighty city: a history which, in spite of the labor of
countless chroniclers, remains in vague and disputable outline,--barred
with brightness and shade, like the far away edge of her own ocean,
where the surf and the sand-bank are mingled with the sky. The
inquiries in which we have to engage will hardly render this outline
clearer, but their results will, in some degree, alter its aspect; and, so far
as they bear upon it at all, they possess an interest of a far higher kind
than that usually belonging to architectural investigations. I may,
perhaps, in the outset, and in few words, enable the general reader to
form a clearer idea of the importance of every existing expression of
Venetian character through Venetian art, and of the breadth of interest
which the true history of Venice embraces, than he is likely to have
gleaned from the current fables of her mystery or magnificence.
SECTION III. Venice is usually conceived as an oligarchy: She was so
during a period less than the half of her existence, and that including

the days of her decline; and it is one of the first questions needing
severe examination, whether that decline was owing in any wise to the
change in the form of her government, or altogether as assuredly in
great part, to changes, in the character of the persons of whom it was
composed.
The state of Venice existed Thirteen Hundred and Seventy-six years,
from the first establishment of a consular government on the island of
the Rialto, [Footnote: Appendix I., "Foundations of Venice."] to the
moment when the General-in-chief of the French army of Italy
pronounced the Venetian republic a thing of the past. Of this period,
Two Hundred and Seventy-six years [Footnote: Appendix II., "Power
of the Doges."] were passed in a nominal subjection to the cities of old
Venetia, especially to Padua, and in an agitated form of democracy, of
which the executive appears to have been entrusted to tribunes,
[Footnote: Sismondi, Hist. des Rép. Ital., vol. i. ch. v.] chosen, one by
the inhabitants of each of the principal islands. For six hundred years,
[Footnote: Appendix III., "Serrar del Consiglio."] during which the
power of Venice was continually on the increase, her government was
an elective monarchy, her King or doge possessing, in early times at
least, as much independent authority as any other European sovereign,
but an authority gradually subjected to limitation, and shortened almost
daily of its prerogatives, while it increased in a spectral and incapable
magnificence. The final government of the nobles, under the image of a
king, lasted for five hundred years, during which Venice reaped the
fruits of her former energies, consumed them,--and expired.
SECTION IV. Let the reader therefore conceive the existence of the
Venetian state as broadly divided into two periods: the first of nine
hundred, the second of five hundred years, the separation being marked
by what was called the "Serrar del Consiglio;" that is to say, the final
and absolute distinction of the nobles from the commonalty, and the
establishment of the government in their hands to the exclusion alike of
the influence of the people on the one side, and the authority of the
doge on the other.
Then the first period, of nine hundred years, presents us with the most
interesting spectacle of a people struggling out of anarchy into order
and power; and then governed, for the most part, by the worthiest and
noblest man whom they could find among them, [Footnote: "Ha saputo

trovar modo che non uno, non pochi, non molti, signoreggiano, ma
molti buoni, pochi migliori, e insiememente, un ottimo solo."
(_Sansovino_,) Ah, well done, Venice! Wisdom this, indeed.] called
their Doge or Leader, with an aristocracy gradually and resolutely
forming itself around him, out of which, and at last by which, he was
chosen; an aristocracy owing its origin to the accidental numbers,
influence, and wealth of some among the families of the fugitives from
the older Venetia, and gradually organizing itself, by its unity and
heroism, into a separate body.
This first period includes the rise of Venice, her noblest achievements,
and the circumstances which determined her character and position
among European powers; and within its range, as might have been
anticipated, we find the names of all her hero princes,--of Pietro
Urseolo, Ordalafo Falier, Domenico Michieli, Sebastiano Ziani, and
Enrico Dandolo.
SECTION V. The second period opens with a hundred and twenty
years, the most eventful in the career of Venice--the central struggle of
her life--stained with her darkest crime, the murder of
Carrara--disturbed by her most dangerous internal sedition, the
conspiracy of Falier--oppressed by her most fatal war, the war of
Chiozza--and distinguished by the glory of her two noblest citizens (for
in this period the heroism of her citizens