The Venetians: A New History: from Marco Polo to Casanova (19 page)

Whereas most sons of the nobility did not marry until they were around thirty, Jacopo was probably little more than twenty at the time of his marriage, and the indications are that his bride was barely a teenager. Jacopo was Foscari’s sole surviving son, and the doge was determined to consolidate his family’s future prospects with the birth of grandsons during the course of his reign. No expense was to be spared on Jacopo’s wedding, and contemporary sources as well as Foscari’s own accounts indicate that he must have spent more than 20,000 ducats on gifts, jewellery and gowns for Lucrezia, which would have graced ‘any great queen’. The celebrations began on the last days of January 1441 and appear to have continued for well over a week of officially declared public holidays, during which widows were even forbidden to wear mourning dress.

The festivities began with a grand procession around the Piazza San Marco, in which Jacopo rode on horseback escorted by a resplendent guard of his fellow members of the Compagna della Calza, followed by 200 men-at-arms and attendants. This proceeded through the streets to the Grand Canal near the church of San Samuele, where a bridge of boats had been built across the water to the San Barnaba district, where Lucrezia resided at the palazzo of her father, Leonardo Contarini.
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This parade was followed by an itinerary of events, morning, noon and night, throughout the following week – the festivities often not coming to an end until three in the morning. On one notable occasion, after a grand midday banquet at the Doge’s Palace, 150 ladies-in-waiting accompanied by a band of musicians embarked upon the doge’s great golden barge, the
Bucintoro
, which was escorted down the Grand Canal by a host of smaller craft to San Barnaba, where Lucrezia made her way on board up the ceremonial gangway, accompanied by a further 200 ladies-in-waiting. Not a day passed without some grand ball, masque or musical serenade. Banquets were conspicuous for their extravagance – some were even held in the Great Council Chamber, lit with 120 torches (double the usual amount), and with ‘tables laden with only such fine delicacies as oyster, capons, partridges and peacocks, all served in such abundance that afterwards much of it was thrown away’.

During the afternoons jousting contests between colourfully clad contestants were held in the Piazza San Marco; on one occasion no fewer than forty contestants competed for a prize of 120 ducats before a crowd of 30,000 spectators. Afterwards, at dusk, the piazza would be lit by hundreds of torches as the noble ladies in their finest gowns were serenaded on their way to yet another masked ball. The bride’s brother, Giacomo Contarini, proudly described Lucrezia’s various ballgowns and dresses, of which one was:

a dress of gold brocade, whose long open sleeves lined with squirrel fur trailed behind her along the ground, as did the dress itself, which cost almost five thousand ducats. She also had a superb collection of jewellery including a particularly fine precious stone which she wore in her hair, a ruby, an emerald, a valuable diamond, as well as a diamond shoulder clasp, a pearl and a Balas-ruby worth 3,500 ducats. Besides this, she had a necklace which had been worn by the Queen of Cyprus, which was worth around 2,000 ducats, and many rings, amongst which were four with large rubies worth another 2,000 ducats.

The insistence upon such items was typically Venetian: a commercial republic had no false modesty with regard to monetary value. On the contrary, Giacomo Contarini considered this a matter of pride, all the more honourable because these valuables were provided by the Contarini family, ‘who had no need to look to Monsignor il Doge for any assistance in that sort of way’. Likewise, he stressed that, as the bride’s family, the Contarini family hosted at least as many banquets as the doge, at which an abundance of nothing but the most fashionable dishes was served.

All this took place in the middle of the long war with Milan – hence the marriage and its celebrations were held in January and early February, during the winter lull in the campaigning season. And despite the city’s near-bankruptcy, all the indications are that these celebrations were popular. They were certainly well attended: 30,000 spectators at a jousting competition represented almost one-third of the city’s entire population, and that on a chilly winter’s afternoon. Indeed, the daytime temperature is unlikely to have risen much above 45°F (7°C), while it may well have fallen below freezing at night; and contemporary sources mention some events being postponed because of heavy rain. Yet the Venetian poor and artisan classes would for the most part have delighted in such a prolonged holiday of free entertainments, with tables of free food and wine customarily laid out in front of the major palazzi (to say nothing of leftovers from the feasts at the Doge’s Palace); and even the merchants and all but a few of the noble families are known to have taken pride in these events, which reflected well upon the Republic. This was a matter of patriotism: no other city in Italy, or even Europe, could have staged such a display at this time. And the doge took much of the credit. Despite his enemies, Francesco Foscari had by this point been doge for eighteen years, achieving a venerable stature approaching that of the nineteen-year reign of his predecessor, Tommaso Mocenigo.

Yet his son was another matter. During the years following his marriage Jacopo’s extravagance plunged him deep into debt. As a result he began trading on his father’s position, covertly accepting bribes in order to use his influence in the awarding of well-paid public appointments. On 17 February 1445, word of this finally reached the Council of Ten, one of whose leaders happened to be a close relative of the late Pietro Loredan.

The Council of Ten moved swiftly, secretly apprehending Jacopo’s manservant Gasparo and taking him into custody for questioning. As a result of evidence gained from Gasparo, a warrant was issued the next day for Jacopo’s arrest. But by now he had got wind of what was happening, quickly gathered up all the loose money he had to hand and fled aboard a fast galley fifty miles up the coast to the port of Trieste, which lay beyond the jurisdiction of Venice.

In view of the seriousness of the matter, the Council of Ten augmented itself with senior nobles to form a
zonta
, from which the doge was excluded, however, on account of his evident family interest. This created a significant precedent limiting the doge’s power and influence, and acted as a crucial counterbalance to the increasing autonomy that Foscari had begun to exercise as doge. Jacopo Foscari was duly tried in his absence, and when his servants were questioned they revealed the existence of a chest that he kept in the Doge’s Palace, in which were gifts that he had been given as bribes, as well as incriminating documents. Jacopo was found guilty of corruption and duly sentenced in his absence to banishment for life to the Venetian colony of Nauplia in the eastern Peloponnese. Whereupon a galley under the command of Marco Trevisano was despatched to Trieste to serve an arrest warrant on Jacopo and escort him to Greece. But Trevisano was obliged to report back to Venice: ‘I went to see my Lord Jacopo, but he rejected the warrant with disrespectful contempt, refusing point blank to allow me to convey him into exile.’ There was little the authorities in Venice could do, other than seize what remained of Jacopo’s possessions and declare him an outlaw.

And so the stand-off continued, with seemingly no prospect of resolution. Then in the autumn of 1446 news reached Venice that Jacopo had fallen seriously ill. Distressed at this turn of events, his mother the dogaressa begged to be allowed to visit him, but this was refused. It soon became clear that the seventy-four-year-old doge had been extremely upset by these developments, to the point where he was having great difficulty in fulfilling his duties. Out of respect for Foscari senior, Jacopo’s sentence was rescinded by the Council of Ten in November 1446 and he was allowed to return to the Republic, on condition that he lived on the mainland at Treviso and returned anything left of the bribes he had taken.

Jacopo duly returned and took up residence at his country home on the outskirts of Treviso. But the enemies of the Foscari family were none too pleased at this leniency, and it is probably no coincidence that some months later further incriminating evidence against Jacopo ‘accidentally’ came to light. A chest containing some 2,040 ducats, along with silver plate and other valuables, was discovered in an obscure closet at the Doge’s Palace. It was soon confirmed that this constituted a bribe given to Jacopo by the Tuscan-born
condottiere
Francesco Sforza, who had been lured by Venice to command its forces on the mainland against his former employer, Milan. This represented a serious development: acceptance of gifts from foreign nationals, even if they were in the employ of the Republic, was a treasonable offence. And it now became clear that the doge himself must have known of the existence of this hidden cache. After prolonged discussions, in April 1447 the Council of Ten narrowly voted that the chest should be impounded by the authorities, but that no further action should be taken against either Jacopo or his ailing father. For the good of the Republic, the venerable doge was to be permitted to serve out his term free from disgrace.

Yet such sentiments did not take into account Jacopo’s bitterness at his fall from grace. On the night of 5 December 1450, Ermolao Donato, a member of the Council of Ten, was waylaid in an alleyway and stabbed by an unknown assailant as he was returning to his home from a meeting of the Senate. Two days later he died from his wounds. Donato had been one of the leaders of the Council of Ten at the time of Jacopo Foscari’s trial; yet it was known that he had also recently made other enemies and these were soon hunted down. Despite persistent interrogation, none of these suspects confessed, and all were released. Consequently a reward was offered for information leading to the apprehension of the true culprit.

On 5 January 1451 the Council of Ten received a denunciation of Jacopo Foscari by one Antonio Vernier, claiming that Jacopo had hired his servant Oliviero to murder Donato. The evidence for Vernier’s claim was flimsy: Oliviero was said to have been seen hanging around the Doge’s Palace the night Donato had been murdered. And, according to hearsay evidence, Oliviero had also been seen arriving by boat early the next morning at Mestre on the mainland, where he had spoken of the murder to a boatman. Jacopo
was taken into custody and interrogated; yet even under torture he refused to confess, and he did not reveal the slightest bit of incriminating evidence. Even so, the Council of Ten decided he was guilty. As contemporary evidence indicates, this could not have been the result of machinations by the Loredan faction, as none of them occupied a position on the Council of Ten at the time. It seems more likely that Jacopo’s behaviour had made him highly unpopular throughout the city, and the authorities wished to be rid of this embarrassment to their long-standing doge. Jacopo was duly sentenced for the second time to banishment for life, this time to the island of Crete, to which he was transported in March 1453, leaving behind his wife and family, as required by the terms of his exile.

Two months later Constantinople had fallen and the political situation in the eastern Mediterranean was transformed; despite Venice’s commercial arrangement with Mehmet II, it was evident that the Ottomans now posed a real threat to their eastern trading empire. So it was understandable that Jacopo’s next move provoked outrage in Venice. In the summer of 1456 a number of coded letters between Jacopo and Mehmet came into the hands of the Cretan authorities. In these, Jacopo asked the sultan to send a ship to help him escape from Crete. Surprisingly, this sensational news divided the Council of Ten: one side proposed that ‘in consideration of his foolishness and the remoteness of his place of banishment’, Jacopo should simply be brought before the governor of Crete and given a severe reprimand, together with a warning of the serious consequences of any further breaches of his terms of exile. Others were less inclined to leniency, and on 21 July Jacopo was brought to Venice to answer the charges against him. This time there was no need for interrogation or torture, as Jacopo confessed at once. By now Jacopo Loredan, a leader of the anti-Foscari faction, had been elected as a leader of the Council of Ten, and he immediately demanded that Jacopo Foscari should be sentenced to death and beheaded between the pillars of the Piazzetta. However, there were strong feelings of sympathy for the eighty-three-year-old doge, who had been deeply conflicted by his son’s behaviour, which had caused him to age considerably. Once more, the pro-Foscari faction won the day, and Jacopo was sentenced to return and serve out his exile in Crete, with the proviso that this time he would serve the first year in gaol at Candia.

Like his father, Jacopo was now in poor health. Although he was only in his early thirties, he had never fully recovered from the illness that had led to his recall from exile in the Peloponnese, and it was this frailty that had prompted his desperate plea to Mehmet II. Indeed, according to the evidence of his relative, the contemporary chronicler Giovanni Dolfin, Jacopo’s sole purpose in writing to Mehmet II was so that he would be charged and brought back to Venice to face trial, because he wished more than anything to see his ‘father, mother, wife and children before he should die’. At any rate, the ailing Jacopo was permitted one final visit to see his father before being sent back into exile. Both sensed this was the last time they would set eyes on each other, and according to Dolfin, who was present at this meeting, the frail Jacopo broke down weeping at the sight of his father and pleaded, ‘I beg you to use your power so that I can be allowed to return home.’ Whereupon Doge Foscari rebuked him, ‘My son, obey the orders of the Republic and do not ask for anything more.’ Yet when Jacopo had been escorted back to his cell, Foscari collapsed back in his chair, sobbing,
‘O pietà grande’
(‘What a terrible pity!’). The end was quicker than either of them could have foreseen: Jacopo was transported back to Crete, where he began his year in gaol; this was never to be completed, for he died on 12 January 1457.