Stones of Venice | Page 5

simple. But the stopping short of this
religious faith when it appears likely to influence national action,
correspondent as it is, and that most strikingly, with several
characteristics of the temper of our present English legislature, is a
subject, morally and politically, of the most curious interest and
complicated difficulty; one, however, which the range of my present
inquiry will not permit me to approach, and for the treatment of which I
must be content to furnish materials in the light I may be able to throw
upon the private tendencies of the Venetian character.
SECTION XI. There is, however, another most interesting feature in
the policy of Venice which will be often brought before us; and which a
Romanist would gladly assign as the reason of its irreligion; namely,
the magnificent and successful struggle which she maintained against
the temporal authority of the Church of Rome. It is true that, in a rapid
survey of her career, the eye is at first arrested by the strange drama to
which I have already alluded, closed by that ever memorable scene in
the portico of St. Mark's, [Footnote: "In that temple porch, (The brass is
gone, the porphyry remains,) Did BARBAROSSA fling his mantle off,
And kneeling, on his neck receive the foot Of the proud Pontiff--thus at
last consoled For flight, disguise, and many an aguish shake On his
stony pillow."
I need hardly say whence the lines are taken: Rogers' "Italy" has, I
believe, now a place in the best beloved compartment of all libraries,
and will never be removed from it. There is more true expression of the
spirit of Venice in the passages devoted to her in that poem, than in all

else that has been written of her.] the central expression in most men's
thoughts of the unendurable elevation of the pontifical power; it is true
that the proudest thoughts of Venice, as well as the insignia of her
prince, and the form of her chief festival, recorded the service thus
rendered to the Roman Church. But the enduring sentiment of years
more than balanced the enthusiasm of a moment; and the bull of
Clement V., which excommunicated the Venetians and their doge,
likening them to Dathan, Abiram, Absalom, and Lucifer, is a stronger
evidence of the great tendencies of the Venetian government than the
umbrella of the doge or the ring of the Adriatic. The humiliation of
Francesco Dandolo blotted out the shame of Barbarossa, and the total
exclusion of ecclesiastics from all share in the councils of Venice
became an enduring mark of her knowledge of the spirit of the Church
of Rome, and of her defiance of it.
To this exclusion of Papal influence from her councils, the Romanist
will attribute their irreligion, and the Protestant their success. [Footnote:
At least, such success as they had. Vide Appendix 5, "The Papal Power
in Venice."]
The first may be silenced by a reference to the character of the policy
of the Vatican itself; and the second by his own shame, when he
reflects that the English legislature sacrificed their principles to expose
themselves to the very danger which the Venetian senate sacrificed
theirs to avoid.
SECTION XII. One more circumstance remains to be noted respecting
the Venetian government, the singular unity of the families composing
it,--unity far from sincere or perfect, but still admirable when
contrasted with the fiery feuds, the almost daily revolutions, the restless
successions of families and parties in power, which fill the annals of
the other states of Italy. That rivalship should sometimes be ended by
the dagger, or enmity conducted to its ends under the mask of law,
could not but be anticipated where the fierce Italian spirit was subjected
to so severe a restraint: it is much that jealousy appears usually
unmingled with illegitimate ambition, and that, for every instance in
which private passion sought its gratification through public danger,
there are a thousand in which it was sacrificed to the public advantage.
Venice may well call upon us to note with reverence, that of all the
towers which are still seen rising like a branchless forest from her

islands, there is but one whose office was other than that of summoning
to prayer, and that one was a watch-tower only [Footnote: Thus literally
was fulfilled the promise to St. Mark,--Pax e.] from first to last, while
the palaces of the other cities of Italy were lifted into sullen fortitudes
of rampart, and fringed with forked battlements for the javelin and the
bow, the sands of Venice never sank under the weight of a war tower,
and her roof terraces were wreathed with Arabian imagery, of golden
globes suspended on the leaves of lilies. [Footnote: The inconsiderable
fortifications of the arsenal are no exception to this statement, as far as