Читать книгу Venice - Dorothy Menpes - Страница 4

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With her pomp and pageantry, her wealth of art, her learned academies, her schools of painting, and her sumptuous style, Venice at the prime of her life was great, dazzling, splendid. Her navy was supreme. Her nobles were the richest in Europe. This opulence and this pride led to her downfall. She was unable to resist the temptation of building herself an empire on the mainland, thereby causing jealousy among the other Italian States. Rome became fearful of her own safety, and, with the intention of crushing the Republic, formed the League of Cambray. Rome did not achieve her object; but Venice was weakened by the blow, and misfortune after misfortune fell upon her. The passage round the Cape of Good Hope was discovered; which took commercial trade with the East out of her hands, and left her no longer the mart of Europe. Then came the great battles with the Turk, in which both blood and money of Venice flowed in vain. Europe was either powerless or too indifferent to help. Gradually the strength of Venice was broken. She declined and sank. Still, the rigidity and the power of endurance of the Venetian constitution were marvellous. She kept a semblance of life long after the heart had ceased to beat. The constitution of the State was the most elaborate imaginable, and not easily brought to nothing. Nevertheless, although there were occasional flashes of the old brilliancy of Venice, her day was over. The last of her Doges yielded the State to Napoleon without a blow. Laying the ducal biretta on the table, he called to his servants, "Take it away: I shall not use it more."

SAN GIORGIO MAGGIORE

When the first refugees came from the mainland and started life on the islands of the Archipelago, the mud-banks of Torcello and Rivoalto, they little thought that they were founding a city which was to be the admiration of the whole world, that her navy would ride supreme in all known waters, that Venice was to be the pride of the Adriatic. When those early people, the Veneti, from whom the Venetians take their name, drove in their first stakes and built their wattled walls, they could not have foretold that this was to be the greatest of mediæval republics, the centre of the commerce of Europe. Nature helped Venice handsomely. Had the channels been deeper, men-of-war might have entered and conquered the city. Had the waves been stronger, the airy structure that we know as Venice would have been supplanted by the ordinary commercial seaport. Had there been no tide, for sanitary reasons the city would have been uninhabitable. Had the tide risen any higher than it rose, there would have been no water entrances to the palaces, the by-canals would have been filled up, and the character of the place spoiled.

One's imagination is inclined to run riot in Venice. One gilds, and romances, and fills the city with pomp and pageantry, ornamenting the canals with State barges, the piazza with noble men and fair women, and the Ducal Palace with illustrious Doges. But far more interesting is it to see Venice as she really is, in her own simple strength. Think of the more rugged Venice, that city built by strong and patient men against such terrible odds, and in so wild and solitary a spot. In order to gain some idea of Venice as she was in those early days, it is well to go out in a gondola at low tide, when the canal is a plain of seaweed. As your gondola makes its way down a narrow channel, you have some conception of the difficulties with which the founders of Venice had to contend. To the narrow strips of land, long ridges guarding the lagoon from the sea, ill sheltered from the waves, the few hundred stragglers came. Their capital, Padua, had been destroyed by the northern hordes, and they took shelter in the islands of the lagoon. So desolate and wind-swept were these islands that one can scarcely imagine men disputing possession of them with the flocks of sea-birds. They were impelled by no whim, however: they were exiles driven by necessity. Here they looked for a temporary home, lived much as the sea-birds lived, and were quite fearless. The soil, composed chiefly of dust, ashes, and bitumen, with here and there a layer of salt, was rich and fertile. This was in the fifth century of our era, of which period there are but few Venetian records.

OFF THE GIUDECCA

Still, one thing is certain: the Veneti were not a primitive or barbarous people. Fugitives as they were, they were for the most part of high birth and associations. They had character and intelligence. In their mud huts they possessed a social distinction and a political training such as would have graced the most sumptuous of palaces. In quite early days they began to put their heads together and to form a definite system of polity. Year by year the little community was added to. Battle and bloodshed continued on the mainland, and men and women flocked to the islands. It is curious to notice how rank and social distinction assert themselves. Blood will out. Wherever human beings are gathered together, whether on the islands of the Adriatic or on those of the South Seas, and however sorry their plight or great their general misfortune, different grades will become visible. Men and women will place themselves one above the other, the master and the man, the mistress and the maid—such is the law of humanity all the world over. Calamity did not in the long run have much effect upon the higher class of refugees, and the position of the lower classes was not bettered. Sympathy had levelled social distinctions for a time; but that was not for long. Soon, in the natural course of events, when the little colony grew into a city, and the origin of the Veneti had faded almost into a tradition, the various ranks became distinct. True, they lived as sea-birds live, one kind of food common to both, and one kind of house sheltering both; but the poor man and the rich did not live in equality.

As the community grew in importance they began to cultivate their islands and to build unto themselves ships. By force of necessity, they became expert in all matters of navigation, as agile on the water as on land, fearless. They acquired a better means of navigation and a wider knowledge of the lagoons than any other State possessed. Then they began to be attacked. With great courage and determination, Venice resisted all her foes—Gothic, Lombard, Byzantine, and Frank. Her position was peculiar, vague. She acknowledged a certain allegiance to the Court of Byzantium; yet by her acts she recognised the supremacy of the kingdoms on the mainland. Neither Byzantium nor Ravenna, and not Padua, could claim the lagoons. Venice was marvellously diplomatic. She drew from East and West exactly what she wanted to make her a nation by herself. While she pretended allegiance to several empires, she was in reality struggling for independence. In the stillness of the lagoon and the freedom of the sea air, the germs of individuality grew and flourished. They had a congenial soil and fitting nutriment. It is wonderfully interesting to watch the progress of the little State—the diplomatic way she went to work: how when she was weak and unable to stand alone she feigned allegiance to a stronger Power, yet never bound herself by written word; how she played one Power against the other; and how in the end, when sufficiently strong, under the shelter of her various foster-mothers, she struck out for freedom boldly.

There is a letter from Cassiodorus, Prefect of Theodoric the Great, which throws light upon the relations of Venice with the Goths. Theodoric endeavoured to veil his power over Venice under the guise of alliance or of hospitality. At the time of the famine in 520 he came to their rescue with provisions. This gave him a certain hold over the Venetian people. It imposed upon them a debt which was not to be easily discharged. A letter written by Cassiodorus in 523 is neither more nor less than a demand to the Venetians to bring supplies of oil, wine, and honey, which the islands possessed, to the Goths. The letter, which is of florid style, is one long sneer veiled in delicate flattery. Cassiodorus explains that the Venetians own certain ships, that they are well built, that the sea is an easy path to them; and he begs that the vessels will transport the tributes of Istria to the shores of his country. By this letter one realises that the Venetians had already a reputation as pilots and mariners, and knew well how to thread in and out the channels of the lagoons. Theodoric was a generous and powerful neighbour, and the only homage the Venetians could give the Goths in return was their water service; but they felt their weakness and dependence deeply, and were continually waiting for an opportunity to better their position. Consequently, when the war broke out, after Theodoric's death, between his successors and the Greek Emperor, the Venetians struggled to make themselves of value, and took an active share in the operations. They sided with the Lombards, and conveyed a large reinforcement of Lombard mercenaries to their destination. That was the beginning of their intimate connection with Constantinople. Two churches were erected in commemoration of the services of the islanders. These were built of costly materials, probably obtained from buildings on the mainland which were partially destroyed by the invaders. The Venetians were enabled to transport these treasures in their ships.