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In the beginning the river washed sand and mud out through the shallow water at the two mouths of the Brenta; and the tide fought against the streams at flood, so that the silt rose up in bars, but at ebb the salt water rushed out again, mingled with the fresh, and strong turbid currents hollowed channels between the banks, leading out to seaward, until the islands and bars took permanent shape and the currents acquired regular directions, in and out, between and amongst them. In the beginning the spirit of unborn Venice seemed to say, more truly than Archimedes, ‘Give me a place whereon to stand, and I will move the world’; and the rivers and the tides heaped up the sand and made a dry place for her in the midst of the sea.

THE LIGHTS OF THE LIDO

The lagoon is a shallow basin, roughly shaped like a crescent, its convexity making a bay in the mainland, its concave side bounded against the open sea by the curving banks, called ‘Lidi,’ beaches, which are long and narrow islands, to distinguish them from the islets of less regular shape that rise above the surface here and there within the confines of the lagoon, those on which Venice stands, and Torcello and Murano, and others which make a miniature archipelago, ending with Chioggia, at the southern point of the crescent.

CHIOGGIA

This archipelago contains twelve principal islands, some of which were inhabited by families that got a living by trading, by hunting and by fishing, selling both fish and game to the ships that plied between Ravenna and Aquileia.

Very early the people of the latter city had made a harbour for their vessels on the island of Grado, which was nearest to them, and the Paduans made small commercial stations on the islands of Rialto and Olivolo. Now and then some rich man from the mainland built himself a small villa on one of the wooded islets, and came thither for his pleasure and for sport. For some of these islands were covered with pine-trees and cane-brakes, while some were muddy, naturally sterile, and inhospitable; but the early settlers had soon solidified and modified the soil, and reduced it to the cultivation of fodder for cattle, and of vines.

The archipelago was therefore not so much a barren solitude as a quiet corner in very troubled times, and while the small farmers and fishermen knew nothing of Italy’s miserable condition, the rich sportsmen who spent a little time there were glad to forget the terrible state of things in their own great world.

Rom. i. 26.

For since the capital of the Empire had been transferred to Constantinople, Italy had fallen a prey to the greed of barbarians, and the province of Venetia had been left under the very intermittent protection of a few paid troops supposed to be commanded by a Count or ‘Corrector’ appointed by the Emperor.

On the rich mainland stood the cities of Venetia, Aquileia, Altinum, Padua, and many more; and the wealthy citizens built villas by the sea, with groves of noble trees, trim gardens and wide fishponds, and marble steps leading down to the water’s edge; and they hunted the wild boar and the stag in the near forests, all the way to the foot of the Julian hills. The land was rich, and far removed from turbulent Rome and intriguing Constantinople, and many a Roman noble took sanctuary from politics on the enchanting shore, to dream away his last years in a luxurious philosophy that was based on wealth but was fed on every requirement of culture, and was made sweet by the past experience of danger and unrest.

BRIDGE AT CHIOGGIA

About 406 A.D.

Then came the first Goths, with fire and sword—‘more fell than anguish, hunger or the sea’—and then a score of years later fair-haired Alaric, the Achilles of the North, and, like Pelides, untiring, wrathful, inexorable, bold, yet just, according to his lights, and high-souled if not high-minded, destined first to terrible defeat at Pollentia, but next to still more awful victory, and soon to death and a mysterious grave.

Before the Goths men scattered and fled, the rich to what seemed safety, in Rome, the poor to the woods, to the hills, to the wretched islets of the lagoon. Back they came to their villas, their sea-baths and their groves, when it was surely known that great Alaric was dead and laid to his royal rest in the bed of the southern river.

They came back, the poor and the rich, while the world-worn, luxurious, highly-cultivated men of the last days of the Empire enjoyed their hunting and fishing in peace; and over their elaborate dishes and their cups of spiced Greek wine they quoted to each other Martial’s lines:—

‘Ye shores of Altinum, ye that vie with Baiae’s villas—thou grove, that sawest Phaëthon’s fiery end—and Maiden Sola, fairest of wood-nymphs thou, espoused beside the Euganean lakes with Faunus of Antenor’s Paduan land—and thou, Aquileia, that rejoicest in Tamavus, thine own river, sought by Leda’s sons where Castor’s steed drank of the seven waters—Ye shall be unto mine old age a haven and resting-place, if but mine ease may have the right to choose.’

But while they repeated the fluent elegiacs they remembered the Goths uneasily, for the Empire was in its last years and weak, and Venetia was protected against the barbarians north and east by a handful of Sarmatian mercenaries. What had happened once might happen again, and as the years slipped by, each one seemed to bring it nearer; and in half a century after Alaric’s first descent, there came another conqueror more terrible than the first, whom men called Attila, the Scourge of God; but he told the Christians that he was the dreadful Antichrist, and the people cried out, ‘The Huns are upon us,’ and they fled for their lives into the cities. Aquileia, at that time the second city of Italy, and Padua, Altinum and others, defended themselves and fell, and the people who could not escape perished miserably.

D’ Ancona.

This is history, single and clear. But here springs up legend and says that Attila, who never crossed the Po, laid waste all Tuscany, and his name is a byword of terror, for blood and massacre, and destruction and all bestial ferocity. Legend says, too, that while he was besieging Aquileia, the Hun king saw the need of a fort on high ground, where there was none; and that in three days his hordes piled up the hill on which Udine stands, bringing earth in their helmets and shields and stones on their backs. Then the Aquileians attempted to flood the country and drown out their besiegers, and they broke through the dykes that kept out the waters of the Piave; but the Huns cut down the grove of Phaëthon and made a vast dam of the trees.

It is also told by Paul the Deacon how on a certain day Attila came too near the walls, spying for a weak point, and a party of the besieged folk fell upon him unawares; but he escaped, with his bow in his hand and his crooked sword, the sword of a Scythian war-god, between his teeth, ‘dire flame flashing from his eyes,’ and all that his enemies had of him was his crest.

So Aquileia resisted him long, and the Huns were discouraged, until Attila saw a flight of storks flying from the walls and knew thereby that there was famine within.

Then, says the legend, the king of the Aquileians, Menappus, who seems to be quite mythical, took counsel with his brother Antiochus, how the people might escape over the lagoon before the city fell. So they set up wooden images as soldiers with helmet and shield on the ramparts, to represent sentinels, and the Huns were deceived. But one of Attila’s chief warriors flew his hawk at the walls, and it settled upon the head of one of the wooden soldiers. So, when the Huns saw that the sentinel was an image and not a man, they scaled the battlements and sacked the almost deserted city and burned it.

THE CATHEDRAL AT MURANO

It is told also, and the fishermen of those waters still believe the tale, that before they escaped the Aquileians dug a deep well and hid their treasures in it; and deeds of sale of land are extant, dated as late as the year 1800, in which the seller of the property reserved his right to the legendary treasure well, if it should ever be found. The truth is, however, that after the destruction of the great city and the disappearance of the Huns, many of the fugitives went back and recovered what they had hidden.

The tide of legend sweeps down the coast with the wild riders to Altinum, where mythical King Janus fights, like a Roland, on a steed that has human understanding and that bears him out of Attila’s reach, half dead of his wounds. And inland, then, towards Padua, and up to its very walls, the heroes fight; this time Attila is wounded and is saved only by his horse’s marvellous speed, but on the next day the two kings meet again in the presence of their armies to decide the war in single combat.

Janus unhorses Attila, and strikes off his ear, and would cut off his head too, but five hundred Hunnish knights rush to the rescue of their king, and Janus is prisoner. But Attila’s anger is roused against them. They have broken the laws of knightly combat. His honour is tarnished because his life is saved. To clear it, he sets King Janus free and hangs his five hundred knights as a vast sacrifice for atonement. Then Padua is overpowered and sacked and burned.

The myth goes on to the end in a blaze of impossibilities. Before Rimini Attila disguises himself as a French pilgrim, hides a poisoned knife under his robe, and steals into the besieged city to murder Janus. He finds him playing at dice with one of his knights, and armed from head to foot. He interrupts the game, asks questions, forgets himself, shows his wolfish teeth, and Janus recognises him by the absence of the one ear lopped off at Padua. In an instant the king and the knight overpower the great Hun and slay him on the spot; and so ends Attila, and the myth.

. . . . . .

Of all this legend little enough remains, and that is best summed up in the now almost forgotten line quoted by Professor d’Ancona in his Leggende:—

... nata ella sola

Di serve madri libera figluola.

‘The only daughter—among many—of enslaved mothers that was ever born free.’ Truly well said of Venice.

Rom. i. 56-57.

554-564 A.D.

568 A.D.

The chronicles tell the true story of the first beginnings, and how the people of the pillaged cities found a precarious refuge in the little archipelago. They crossed in their light boats and landed safely, and forthwith made huts and tabernacles of branches to shelter the relics of the saints which they had saved as possessions more precious than their household goods or little hoards of gold and silver. But the people themselves beached their boats high and dry and lived in them, sheltered from the weather only by awnings, just as the last of the sailor traders still live wherever they find a market on the Calabrian shore; for they hoped to go back to their homes. And so indeed they did, when the Huns departed at last; they returned to their cities and rebuilt the battered walls of Aquileia and Altinum, trusting to dwell in peace. But the second destruction was not far off: the Ostrogoths came, and the Lombards, and the people fled once more, never to return.

The unknown author of the Chronicle of Altinum carries on the tale in a most amazing compound of history, fiction, poetry and statistics. More than one scholar has indeed been tempted to surmise that this document is the work of several writers.

From them, or from the one, we learn something of the circumstances which drove the inhabitants of Altinum to take to their boats and seek a final refuge in the lagoons; and the story of the second flight, like that of the first, is fantastically illuminated by the writer’s poetic imagination.

Chron. Altin.

‘In the days of the Bishop Paul’ is the only date the Chronicle gives, and doubtless that was very clear to the first monk who took down the manuscript from its place in the convent library and first pored over its contents. In the days, therefore, when Paul was bishop in Altinum, there came out of the west a pestilence of cruel pagans, fierce Lombards, who destroyed cities in their path as the flame licks up dry grass, and who would surely have made an end of the peaceful people of Altinum if Heaven had not sent signs warning them to escape.

For one day Bishop Paul looked up to the towers and turrets of the city and saw that the birds which had their nests therein were flying round and round in agitation, and were chirping and chattering and cawing, each after his kind, as if they were gathered together in consultation. But suddenly, as Paul looked, the birds all took their flight southwards; and those that had young which could not yet fly, carried them in their beaks.

The good Bishop knew at once that this portent was a warning, and he called his flock together and told what he had seen. Then many of the people, never doubting but that he was right, fled at once towards Ravenna, and to Istria, and to the cities of the Pentapolis; but the rest fasted three days and prayed that God, by another sign, would show them the path of safety.

On the third day, therefore, a strong and clear voice was heard, saying, ‘Go up into the great tower and look towards the stars.’ And they went up; and the stars’ reflections made paths upon the water, towards the islands of the lagoons. Then the people who had remained filled their boats with their possessions; and the good Bishop Paul led them, and the two holy priests Geminianus and Maurus, and two noble knights, Arius and Arator; and they came safely to the island of Grado, and landed there, and were saved. But soon afterwards they spread over some of the other islands and gave names to these, which recalled memories of their old home.

Now, as has been pointed out already in speaking of the first flight, the little archipelago was by no means uninhabited. Fishermen lived on the islands, and small farmers and some herdsmen, none of whom, it may be supposed, were inclined to give the newcomers a warm welcome. In plain fact the people of the mainland, well provided and well armed, made an easy conquest of the islands; but in the fiction of the Chronicle it seemed necessary to account for the high-handed deed on grounds of virtue and religion, and the author forthwith launches into legend, showing us how Arius and Arator set at rest the scruples of the conquerors, if peradventure they had any.

God and the saints intervened. One day the holy Maurus looked towards one of the islands, and behold, two bright stars stood together above it, and a great voice was heard saying, ‘I am the Lord, the master and the Saviour of the world. Raise thou here a temple to my glory.’ But from the other star came a soft clear voice which said, ‘I am Mary, the mother of God. Build unto me a church.’

There was no possibility of questioning such a form of investiture, or of disputing the right of invaders who received their orders audibly from heaven.

A little farther on there was a very beautiful island, covered with grass, whereon pastured great flocks of cattle and sheep; and Maurus asked whether perchance these herds belonged to any man, and received answer immediately. For suddenly there appeared in a rosy brightness like the dawn two figures of divine beauty; and one was that of an old man, but the other was young and little more than a lad. Then spake the old man and said, ‘I am Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, who am set over all flocks, and have power to forgive all sins. I give unto thee this island, and thou shalt build a temple in honour of my name.’ Also the youth spake, saying, ‘I am the servant of God. I am called Autolinus, and I gave my life for Christ’s sake. Build me a little church. My name is nowhere spoken in the liturgy with those of the martyrs; I enjoin upon thee to name me in thy prayers, both night and day, and I will pray God to grant all that thou shalt ask, for thee and thine.’ Moreover, the two saints, before they vanished, traced on the ground the plans of the churches they desired for themselves.

Again, a little white cloud appeared to the holy Maurus, and it was the footstool under the feet of a most fair maiden, who spake and said, ‘I am Justina, whom they put to death in Padua because I confessed the name of Christ. I beseech thee, thou priest of the Lord, that thou wilt raise upon this island a little church, to honour me; wherein thou shalt sing praises to me every day and every night, as a Martyr and a Virgin, and I will grant whatsoever thou askest of me.’

Afterwards many other heavenly visions came to comfort the people of Altinum, and, amongst other saints, Saint John the Baptist also received the promise of a fair temple.

By heavenly or earthly means, therefore, the fugitives had now obtained for themselves a home, and they began to consider how they should establish themselves in it conveniently, so that it should not be taken from them. Then, such of the people as had occupied a high position in Altino were charged by the leaders to take each the command of one island—here a Marcello, there a Faliero, and farther on a Calciamiro; all names which appear again and again throughout the history of the maritime state which was then and there founded and began to live, while the Lombards were tearing down the walls of the old homes on the mainland and burning what could not be destroyed in any other way.

THE ISLANDS

THE APPROACH FROM MESTRE