The Venetians: A New History: from Marco Polo to Casanova (27 page)

Yet the reality had a much darker side. The ‘kingdom of Asolo’ was in no way independent of the Venetian territory that encompassed it, and a close eye was kept on its queen by the appointment of former Captain-General Francesco Priuli as ambassador to her court. Moreover, Venice maintained the fiction that Queen Caterina was still the sovereign ruler of Cyprus, getting the Cypriot ambassador to Venice to make regular visits to Asolo in accordance with diplomatic protocol, to pay his respects to his monarch. On these visits he would be accompanied by his aide, a
good-looking twenty-year-old Cypriot called Demetrios, who came from Nicosia. According to two Asolo chroniclers cited by Caterina’s biographer, Leto Severis, Demetrios fell in love with Caterina, who gave some appearance of reciprocating his feelings. One evening he made so bold as to approach Queen Caterina as she was sitting alone in her palace garden. Here he fell to his knees and confessed his love for her. She did nothing to discourage him: on the contrary, she agreed to a tryst in the gardens the following evening. However, as she approached their agreed meeting place, which was bathed in moonlight, she saw two shadowy figures suddenly leap out and attack Demetrios. At the very same moment ambassador Priuli materialised beside her and ‘in a cruel voice’ informed her: ‘The punishment of the [Council of] Ten is inexorable. Tomorrow Demetrios will be found dead in the forest and everyone will think that it is the work of thieves.’ As if to reinforce this message, he then added, And you, Caterina, do not forget that the Council of Ten is keeping watch and exacts punishment.’ Others have suggested that this ‘Demetrios’ may not have had amorous intentions at all, but may in fact have been an undercover agent conveying messages from Caterina’s network of loyal supporters in Cyprus.

Mention is also made of visits from the ousted ruler of Rimini, the twenty-five-year-old Pandolfo IV Malatesta (known as ‘Pandolfaccio’ – that is, the bad Pandolfo), who was living in exile at the heavily fortified and moated castle in Citadella, just ten miles down the road. This had been given to Malatesta by the Venetian authorities (who had long-term territorial ambitions for Rimini that were not utterly dissimilar to those they had entertained for Cyprus). Malatesta was a particularly unsavoury character, who had ruled the small Adriatic coastal city state of Rimini as a tyrant, cowing his subjects and exercising his sexual rapacity at will on his young female subjects. (It was his failed rape attempt on a popular local beauty that had caused his people to revolt, only for him to be reinstated by the Venetians, though three years later he had been chased out of Rimini by the even more notorious Cesare Borgia.) A rumour had been spread that the reasons for Malatesta’s frequent visits to Queen Caterina’s court at Asolo were that he lusted after one of Caterina’s young ladies-in-waiting called Fiameca, yet curiously this appears to have been a cover story for his desire for the older Caterina. However, word of Malatesta’s visits to Asolo (whatever their motive) soon reached the
Council of Ten, and his visits to Asolo abruptly ceased. The Venetians were taking no chances: there was to be no heir to the Lusignan line, which they intended would come to an end with the childless Caterina.

Now isolated at Asolo, Caterina continued to live in some style at her Renaissance court; but none of the other poets, musicians or painters proved to be of the calibre of Bembo, either in ability or personality, and when he departed, the cultural life of
Il Barco
descended into provincial mediocrity, and Caterina soon began to tire of this vapid life. However, there were the occasional exceptions: sometime during the early 1500s the renowned Venetian artist Gentile Bellini visited Asolo and painted Caterina’s portrait, complete with a modest bejewelled crown. This is no flattering depiction, and the transformation in Caterina’s appearance is dramatic. The sensitive, intelligent fourteen-year-old girl painted by Titian was no more; indeed, all trace of the more mature
‘bella donna’
noted by the diarist Sanudo on her return from Cyprus some eleven years previously had vanished for ever. Bellini’s painting depicts a plump, plain middle-aged matron in a distinctly subdued dress, her intelligent subtlety of expression blunted into sullen obduracy by her years of tragedy and mistreatment.

Caterina would continue living at Asolo until 1509, when the Veneto stood under threat from the north by the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I, who had joined the powerful anti-Venetian alliance created by Pope Julius II, known as the League of Cambrai – whose aim was to drive Venice from the mainland. Queen Caterina fled with her court for the safety of Venice, and in February 1509 was permitted by the Council of Ten to take up residence at the palazzo of her favouite brother, Giorgio Cornaro, whose supreme diplomatic skills in the service of the city had led to him being regarded as one of the most distinguished citizens of the Republic.

In June 1509 Maximilian’s army duly invaded the Veneto, occupying Asolo. A month later the Venetian army defended their territory at a site close to
Il Barco
and won a victory that forced the imperial troops to withdraw. The retreating soldiers avenged themselves by setting fire to
Il Barco
, gutting the interior of the building.
*
Now homeless, Caterina was
permitted to remain in Venice, and was even allowed to move freely about the city. So transformed was this plainly clothed, bulky middle-aged woman that few passing citizens on the streets recognised their former favourite, for whom they had turned out in their thousands. The destruction of her palace had been the last straw in her long line of disappointments. Early in July 1510 she took to her bed with stomach pains. Her condition quickly deteriorated, and she died days later at the age of fifty-six.

In keeping with the cruel charade that had been imposed upon Queen Caterina by the Venetian authorities, the Council of Ten decided that their distinguished fellow citizen should be accorded a royal funeral, a uniquely contradictory event in the Republic’s long history of glories and hypocrisies. By now, word had spread through Venice that ‘the Queen of Cyprus is dead’, and vast crowds turned out to watch her funeral, where the leading mourner was Doge Leonardo Loredan (though some sources claim that the doge was not able to attend the funeral, and that his place was taken instead by Caterina’s nemesis, Francesco Priuli). Amongst the long procession of dignitaries following Caterina’s coffin were the Signoria, all other members of the Council of Ten and the heads of the noble families of the city. The procession was accorded the honour of a bridge of boats across the Grand Canal. In a final grotesque touch, the actual crown of Cyprus, which Caterina had been made to surrender in San Marco on her arrival, was placed upon her coffin as it was carried to the church of San Cassiano, the traditional burial place of the Cornaro family. As if to add insult to injury, her simple marble tombstone was formally engraved in Latin with the inscription
Catharinae Corneliae, Cypri, Hierosolymorum ac Armeniae Reginae Cineres [sic]
. The emptiness of these titles was now utterly complete. And so, even in death Caterina came to epitomise the characteristic Venetian parable – the image of the individual manipulated and sacrificed in the interest of the Republic’s political gain.

Coda:
More than three centuries later the story of the Queen of Cyprus would inspire Donizetti’s opera
Caterina Cornaro
. This is set in Venice and Cyprus amidst the atmosphere of passion, intrigue and deception that surrounded Caterina’s early years as queen, though the composer’s highly
imaginative evocation of such atmosphere bears only a passing resemblance to the historical reality. This can be seen from a synopsis of the opera:

The wedding of Caterina, daughter of Andrea Cornaro, to a young Frenchman, Gerardo, is postponed when Mocenigo brings word that Lusignano, King of Cyprus, wishes to marry her. After much intrigue, involving Lusignano being slowly poisoned by Mocenigo, Gerardo joins the Knights of the Cross to help Lusignano defend Cyprus against the Venetians. Lusignano is mortally wounded; as he dies he entrusts his people to Caterina’s care. Gerardo then returns to Rhodes. (In the revised finale for the Parma production, Lusignano informs Caterina that Gerardo has been killed in battle.)

In 1844 Donizetti’s
Caterina, Cornaro
opened at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, at the time regarded as the greatest opera house in Europe. The performance proved a disaster, and it was booed from the stage. Modern revivals, beginning more than two centuries later at the selfsame theatre in Naples in 1972, have proved only a little more successful, the opera being admired chiefly for the ‘menacing quality of the assassins’ chorus’.

*
Over the years variations of this flag developed, but it retained essentially an orange, white and blue motif quartered to represent the territories claimed by the Lusignan family line. In the top left-hand corner was the star of Jerusalem, and each of the other three quarters contained a crowned lion rampant – representing Armenia, Cyprus and Lusignan itself (in western France).

*
Some of the building and its loggia of delicate Renaissance pillars survived the conflagration and remain standing in a rather forlorn state to this day.

10

‘Lost in a day what had taken eight hundred years to gain’

T
HE REPULSED INVASION
of the Veneto by Maximilian I, which had driven Queen Caterina from her court at Asolo, had merely been the first prong of a concerted attack on Venice by the League of Cambrai. In assembling this alliance, Pope Julius II (‘the warrior pope’) had exerted his formidable powers of persuasion, with the result that for varying lengths of time this alliance would include major powers throughout Europe, including Spain, France and the Holy Roman Empire, with even England and Scotland being persuaded to join. The aim of Julius II was nothing less than the conquest of all Venice’s mainland territories. Not only had Venice taken over territory south of the Alps from the Adriatic to the environs of Milan, but it now appeared poised to absorb the small city states of the Adriatic hinterland to the south in the Romagna, which were officially papal territory. Not for nothing had the Venetians allied themselves with the likes of Pandolfo IV Malatesta; indeed, in 1503 they even connived in Malatesta’s unsuccessful attempt to retake Rimini. If the Papal States of the Romagna fell into Venetian hands, this would not only be a personal humiliation for Julius II – a man not given to humility – but it would establish Venice’s commanding role in Italy, and there was no telling where this might end.

The second prong of the League of Cambrai’s attack was launched in Lombardy, when its assembled forces under King Louis XII of France crossed the Adda River into Venetian territory in April 1509. In preparation for this inevitable attack Venice had assembled a large mercenary army
under the joint command of the Orsini cousins – Bartolomeo d’Alviano and Niccolò Pitigliano – two of the most accomplished
condottieri
in Italy. The Orsini were given orders to avoid direct conflict with the invading forces, restricting themselves to picking off detachments in tactical skirmishes. Unfortunately Alviano disagreed with this strategy. On 14 May he was confronted by a large force of French soldiers and crack Swiss mercenaries, which had advanced three miles from the Adda River into Venetian territory as far as the village of Agnadello. Instead of beating a tactical retreat, Alviano decided to attack, sending word to the nearby other half of the Venetian forces led by his cousin, telling them to come to his aid at once.

As battle commenced, Alviano’s forces had the advantage of being on a hillside above a vineyard, and opened fire with all their artillery. The French cavalry at once charged towards the Venetian cannon, but were impeded in their advance by the lines of vines and irrigation ditches in the vineyard. In the midst of this action there was a downpour, and the rain caused the charging French and Swiss soldiers to become bogged down in deep mud. With the support of reinforcements, now would have been the time for the Venetian force to charge down the firmer slope and hack down those few French cavalrymen emerging from the vineyard, while at the same time continuing to subject the main body of the enemy to an overwhelming artillery barrage. But word arrived back from Pitigliano telling Alviano to avoid all contact with the enemy, while his cousin continued to march his army south. Despite this blow, Alviano still held the advantage and refused to withdraw his troops, persisting with his attack. Ironically, it was now that Alviano found himself plunged into the very situation that the Venetians had sought to avoid. Unexpectedly King Louis XII appeared on the scene with the main army; meanwhile a detachment of the original French forces had moved without being detected to the other side of the hill, in preparation for a surprise attack on Alviano’s men from the rear. Alviano now found himself facing attack on three sides. Grimly he watched as his cavalry fled through the closing gap in the encircling enemy forces. All the remaining Venetian forces could do was stand and fight their ground as best they could, which they did heroically for three hours. During the course of this fierce hand-to-hand
combat Alviano was slashed across the face and taken prisoner. Others were not so lucky: more than 4,000 of his men were slaughtered, and another 2,000 wounded.