The Venetians: A New History: from Marco Polo to Casanova (12 page)

Zeno’s encounters with Venetian justice were not to end there. In 1405 Venice finally turned on Padua and overthrew the ruling Carrara family. During the course of this attack, the seventy-two-year-old Zeno heroically led his men across a river through water up to his neck. But on his return to Venice he was in for a shock. When the Venetian bureaucracy began poring through the Paduan account ledgers, they discovered an entry apparently recording a payment to Zeno. Charged with treason, he was hauled before the Council of Ten, which stripped him of all his offices and sentenced him to a year in prison. Twelve years later, when he died at the age of eighty-five, the authorities hypocritically accorded him a public funeral, which was attended in large numbers by the genuinely distressed and grateful people.

As the ascendancy of the Republic continued, its horror of instability, coupled with its deep fear that a charismatic leader might emerge and one day establish himself as a dictator, remained as strong as ever. Indeed, many of the individual leaders who played such a large role in this growing
ascendancy would find themselves severely curbed. The dubious case of Doge Falier, whose place in the line of doges’ portraits would forever be covered with a black veil; Vettore Pisani’s two arrests, and his imprisonment, which all but cost the republic its existence; and now the humiliation and disgrace of the larger-than-life Carlo Zeno – this was more than a suppression of personality, it was pointed destruction.

*
Many of these codices contained more than one manuscript, such that the entire library probably contained more than a thousand items, some of which are known to have been the sole surviving copies of Ancient Roman works. Petrarch’s collection of his beloved Cicero and Virgil was unsurpassed in his lifetime.

†
The Grand Chancellor was head of Chancery, the all-important public record office. Though selected by the Great Council, this was the highest office in the administration to be occupied by a man who was not a member of a noble family.

*
Now called Arqua Petrarca in his honour.

*
Charles IV of Bohemia had been crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome in April 1355.

*
De’ Fieschi and the other captured Genoese nobles were duly shipped back to Venice, where they appear to have proved something of an attraction. According to the Victorian historian FC. Hodgson, delicately paraphrasing a contemporary source, the Genoese captives ‘were treated with humanity, Venetian ladies of rank being zealous in their care of them’. He added, in case of misinterpretation, ‘Many, no doubt, were wounded.’

*
sic:
possibly a misprint for sparkling

*
Also known by Italian versions of his name, such as Giovanni Aguto, Acko, Acuto, and so forth, while the French called him Haccoude. Born in 1320, the son of an Essex tanner, Hawkwood operated for some thirty years in Italy as the head of a powerful mercenary army, which was variously employed by Florence, Milan, Perugia and other cities, as well as for and against several popes of the period.

Part Two

The Imperial Age

4

Innocents and Empire-Builders

A
LTHOUGH
G
ENOA
’
S THREAT
to the Venetian Empire had been largely overcome, a new threat now arose. As the Byzantine Empire remained riven with internal conflict, the Ottoman Turks continued their expansion through Greece and Anatolia (modern Turkey), posing a threat to Venetian trading outposts. Meanwhile the War of Chioggia had impressed upon Venice its vulnerability from the hinterland beyond the lagoon. Partly owing to these developments, Venice now adopted a new policy of expansion on the mainland: 1405 saw the defeat of Carrara and the absorption of Padua into the Venetian Republic. Three years beforehand, the powerful ruler of Milan, Gian Galeazzo Visconti, had died leaving a power vacuum as his heirs squabbled over their inheritance. Seizing the opportunity, Venice occupied the Milanese-held territories of Vicenza and Verona, establishing its territory as far west as the banks of Lake Garda. Venice had now become a major power, not just on the high seas, but in mainland Italy, ranking alongside Naples, Rome, Florence and Milan.

This would mark the beginning of an imperial age for Venice. Its population had begun to recover from the depredations of plagues and warfare, and had once again exceeded 100,000 (considerably larger than London and Paris at the time). Instead of concentrating so exclusively upon its maritime empire, and the import—export trade, it now encouraged various other indigenous trades to flourish in the city, such as dyeing, silk-working and especially glass-making. The last-named industry had a long history in Venice and the lagoon islands, with finds dating as far back as the Roman era, though more recent Venetian expertise had almost certainly come from Byzantine and Levantine sources. These included
various stained-glass processes, which added luminous radiance to medieval church windows all over Europe, as well as the use of manganese oxide to produce clear and transparent glass, a technique that had been lost to Europe since classical times. As early as 1291 glass furnaces had been moved out of the city for safety reasons and relocated on the island of Murano. During the following century or so Venetian glass-blowing had achieved such renown that an awed visitor declared, ‘in the whole world there are no such craftsmen as here’. In order to protect the skills and secrets of the trade, master glass-workers were forbidden on pain of death from leaving the island, but in compensation were granted considerable social privileges. Murano glass-workers were accorded the singular honour of being allowed to wear swords, and the son of a glass-worker’s daughter who had married into one of the noble families automatically became a noble himself (which was certainly not the case with other ‘outside’ marriages).

The opening up of mainland trade soon saw an influx of German and other foreign merchants, as well as skilled craftsmen. There had long been a transalpine trade, and as early as 1228 foreign merchants had been permitted to lease a building on the Grand Canal beside the Rialto Bridge in which to live, store and exchange their merchandise. This building was called Fondaco dei Tedeschi (literally ‘Warehouse of the Germans’), though it in fact housed many different foreign merchants and their cargoes. In Venice, ‘Tedeschi’ became a blanket term for many ‘foreigners’ from beyond the Alps, including north and south Germans, Bohemians and people from the Low Countries.
*
The residence of all such traders was strictly controlled by the Venetian authorities, and according to regulations later approved by the Senate, which dealt with foreign relations: ‘no German merchant may on any pretext take lodgings in any place outside the exchange house’. At the end of the fourteenth century Murano saw an influx of German looking-glass makers, with a consequent transformation of the Venetian expertise in making mirrors.

An indication of Venice’s new-found importance in mainland Italy came
in 1406 with the election as pope in Rome of the Venetian cardinal Angelo Correr, who took on the name Gregory XII. The first Venetian pope, Gregory XII was already into his eightieth year. During his long period in the priesthood he had gained a reputation for piety and wisdom, living an ascetic life to the point where, according to one commentator, he resembled ‘only a spirit appearing through skin and bone’. Twenty-eight years prior to his election the Church had been riven by the Great Schism, and as a result there were now two popes – one in Rome and one in Avignon. Gregory XII had been elected unanimously by the conclave of fifteen cardinals in the Vatican on the understanding that he would do his utmost to bring an end to this schism, and was even willing to step down in favour of any new pope who would unite the Church. Gregory was as good as his word, and within a week of his election he wrote to his opposite number Benedict XIII suggesting that they meet to resolve the schism – declaring that if Benedict XIII was willing to resign, he would do the same. He assured Benedict XIII that he was willing to travel to meet him by any means possible, even on a humble fishing boat if no galley was available, even on foot if no horse was available. Intermediaries arranged a meeting, to be held on 29 September 1407 at Savona in northern Italy. However, as the Catholic scholar Micheline Soenen points out, there was a side to Gregory XII’s character that is often overlooked: ‘Gregory XII’s moral virtues were darkened by corresponding defects: stubbornness, indecision, dependence on his entourage, and a senile weakness of mental acuity, with a tendency toward vanity and flagrant nepotism.’

Gregory XII became suspicious: Savona was in Genoese territory, and Genoa was now subject to France, which favoured the Avignon pope. On 9 August Gregory XII finally set out from Rome. His progress was slow indeed: by 4 September he had only reached Siena, just over 100 miles to the north. He was said to be ageing fast; others detected the malign influence of his two spendthrift nephews, who were in no mood to relinquish their access to lavish papal funds, now that these had at last fallen within their grasp. They had formed a tactical alliance with Giovanni Dominici, Archbishop of Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik), who over the years had insinuated himself into the affections of the aged ascetic figure who had now become pope. Gregory XII’s flaws evidently included gullibility, for
Giovanni Dominici was a figure of some notoriety who would later become the subject of an infamous satirical letter, purportedly addressed to him by Satan, which was full of ‘ironical illusions to personal peculiarities, to various occurrences, and some revolting practices and manners’.

With such friends concerned about his health, it came as no surprise that Gregory was persuaded to rest in Siena. On 27 September, Benedict XIII arrived early at Savona, but there was still no sign of Gregory leaving Siena. Days passed, weeks passed, then months passed, while Gregory XII continued to rest in Siena. Finally, on 22 January 1408, it was deemed that the pope was well enough to travel, covering the fifty or so miles to Lucca in just six days, where once again it was decided that he needed to rest.

Matters were now complicated by the intervention of King Ladislas of Naples, who had an agenda of his own. In April he marched north with 12,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry and laid siege to Rome, quickly achieving his object by bribing the papal commander and occupying the city. It had long been clear that the dashing thirty-two-year-old Ladislas of Naples had overweening territorial ambitions. He had already claimed the kingdom of Hungary, on disputed hereditary grounds, and had also occupied a number of the papal territories, which at the time controlled the band of central Italy stretching from the Adriatic coast south of Venice to the west coast north of Naples. King Ladislas had no wish for a strong united papacy in Rome with allies capable of evicting him from the papal territories and even threatening his hold on the kingship of Naples, to which there was a strong French claim. In occupying Rome, Ladislas was signalling his determination that, whatever else happened, Gregory XII should remain pope in Rome.

With Gregory supine in Lucca, the patience of the loyal cardinals accompanying the pope on his mission to meet Benedict XIII was now close to breaking point. Many of them had residences in Rome, and it seemed unlikely that King Ladislas would return these to their rightful owners. Sensing that all was not well amongst his delegates, on 9 May Gregory was persuaded to reinforce his delegation by appointing four new cardinals, including his two nephews. When the other cardinals heard this news, nine of them under the leadership of the powerful Cardinal Cossa
departed in high dudgeon to confer with the cardinals accompanying Benedict XIII.

This resulted in another time-consuming hiatus, but after lengthy negotiations the cardinals of the respective papal camps agreed to a general council, which would open at Pisa on 25 March 1409. It now became transparently clear that neither Gregory XII nor Benedict XIII was in fact in favour of surrendering his papacy. Both independently responded to the news about Pisa by pointing out that the cardinals had no right to call such a council, which could only be summoned by the supreme ruler of the Church – namely the pope. Consequently both vowed they would not attend the council, which went ahead without them on 25 June, when the 500 delegates at the Council of Pisa came to their self-justifying conclusion. In the words of the papal historian Ludwig Pastor:

No one seriously believed the assertion by which the council supported its actions. It was declared to be a matter of public notoriety that Benedict XIII and Gregory XII were not merely promoters of the Schism, but actually heretics in the fullest sense of the word, because by their conduct they had attacked and overturned the article of faith regarding the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Having thus invented a basis of operations, the Synod of Pisa proceeded with feverish haste to the most extreme measures … Without further negotiations with the two Popes, neither of whom had appeared at Pisa, their deposition was decreed, and a new election ordered.