CHAPTER I

I

“To the Lagunes!”—“To the Lagunes!”—“Attila Australis plaga!”—“Attila Flagello di Dio!”—these were the despairing cries of panic-stricken people in dire distress.

Ominous sounds came hustling over ragged peaks, and through dense forests from the lofty snow-fields of the distant Alps; and, like the storm-borne scum of tempestuous seas,—leaping and hissing,—they tore along the hurrying torrents. Sweeping wildly over rippling lake and rolling plain the warning cry re-echoes across the ruffled waters of the salt marshes, and strikes terror in hearts of oak and pales brows of bronze.

The heavy tread of barbarian hordes, their savage oaths, and the clashing of their rude weapons, rush upon the wings of the tramontana, as underfoot they trample the fertile lands of Gallia Togata on their way to Rome.

The dreaded Huns are upon the prosperous Græco-Roman cities of Veneto, with their noble civilisation, their graceful villas and gardens, their well-equipped baths and theatres, their imperial palaces, their arsenals, and their mints. “Splendid Veneto,” as Cassiodorus, the Emperor Maximus’ famous minister of art and literature, in startled admiration, calls the province,—is doomed to destruction.

The walls of Aquileia,—“Aquileia la Bella”—called so from the beauty of her women, are the first to fall. Men and children are butchered relentlessly—stalwart fathers and helpless babes lie side by side, women are stripped and ravished, and the young girls carried along by the intoxicated savages—the fairest spoils of war. A weeping despairing band of fugitives alone escape the fury, and led by Secundus, their Archbishop, with his clergy carrying relics of Saints and sacred vessels, they hurry on till their blistered feet feel the cool sea-wash at Grado.

Fruitful Concordia rooted up, her people fly to Caprule,—a swamp of corncrakes, where, in place of working in the arts and crafts as of yore, they are fain to tend sheep and goats for their livelihood—Caorle they called it later on. Studious, lordly Padua scatters her scholars and her patricians—Greek influence counts for nought face to face with brute force—and makes common cause with busy thriving Oderzo. Malamocco, with its sand-dunes, offers a shelter in the storm to the Paduans; Eraclea and Jesolo, amid their pine-woods, conceal the Oderzani; and Altino, smiling and fertile in times of peace—in war-time a desert and a tomb, sends stragglers to Torcello.

Padua’s King, alone of leaders, withstands the brunt of battle in 421—brave Giano. Flight is not for him, and by his side stands, and stand she will, or with her master fall, his wife, Queen Adriana the Heroine.

Giano challenges Attila to personal conflict, whilst, wild and remorseless as they are, the Huns look on with admiration and encourage each valiant prince in turn. The Paduan skilfully parries the fierce onslaught of the “Scourge of God” and, at last, although nigh bested, he lays his enemy low, and the victims of Veneto are avenged!

The Queen has stood all through the fell encounter close behind her consort, stripped ready for the fray, for, should Giano fall, then she would try conclusions with Attila! Snatching the fallen chieftain’s weapon, all gory with her husband’s blood—it had entered nearly into his vitals—out of the death-grip of his strong right hand, she holds it aloft calling upon Heaven to avenge the blood of her people.

To Rivo-Alto she bears it, in a lordly galley, a ghastly token of deliverance, and, there, upon hallowed ground she sets it up, where she plants her foot, in pledge of the church and convent which she vows she will erect, in memory of a hardly-won victory, to the honour of holy Raphael—the Archangelic healer of human wounds.

Quite a different story with respect to the death of Attila is set forth eloquently in the erotic poem, “La Venezia Edificata,” composed by Giulio Strozzi—a grandson of the great Filippo. Therein Oriana Augusta, daughter of the Empress Galla Placida, titular Queen of Dalmatia, is represented as consort by rape of the Hunnish King. Making her escape from the camp of her captor she fled to Venetia-al-Lido pursued by Attila. To prevent violation she leaped from the ship into the sea and came near perishing, until rescued by kindly hands from Aquileia.

The barbarian chieftain vowed to be avenged upon the Aquileiese, and, they in their turn, vowed to guard the Queen. Attila had recourse to a famous fortune-teller of Aquileia, “La Maga Irene,” who, in consideration of a heavy bribe, consented to aid his vengeance. By woman’s craft, or witch’s wiles, Irene contrived to set the people of Aquileia all agog with their neighbours of the littoral, and at variance with one another,—so that their quarrels might screen an attack by the Huns. The enchantment entirely failed in its object, for Giovanni Anafesto and Sostinio Rinieri,—leaders at Aquileia of rival parties—joined hands to repel the invader. Irene, by the way, had fooled them both by crossing them in love. Whether mesmerised by the black art of the enchantress, or incited by personal jealousy the captains of Attila’s host rose against him and against each other. Intrigue and counterplot divided the councils of the Hunnish chieftains. Nadasto, Attila’s second in command, made court to Fulvia,—a lady of Altino—wife of his rival Aetis, and won over to his cause her beauteous young daughter, Idilia, whom Attila had tried to seduce.

One evening, when the incantatrice Irene had cast her spell upon the Hunnish leader, and Ariana, her mystic-magic singer, had lulled him to slumber in his tent, and when Nadasto had bribed and rendered drunk the soldiers of his guard, Idilia stole silently through the darkness to the couch whereon Attila was heavily sleeping. Like Jael she hesitated not to make use of her opportunity to avenge her wrong and aid her lover. Driving, with all the force of a strong desperate woman, the sword she found by the sleeper’s side, she pierced Attila through the breast, and pinned his body to the bed-board beneath. Thus died the “Scourge of God,”—the ravisher of women—by a woman slain!

Not alone was heroic Adriana of Padua in deeds of woman-prowess,—Martza d’Aquileia, standing astride her husband’s stricken body, his sword in her hand, hurled bold defiance and hardy blows together at her foes, until overborne by numbers she fell fighting to the last!

Degna too, of Aquileia, daughter of the Queen of Dalmatia, dignified and devoted matron that she was, her spouse and sons slaughtered before her eyes, took refuge with her young daughters within the gateway-tower, and thence threw down coping-stones and coals of fire upon the heads of their enemies. Short was that attack on woman’s valour, for brawny arms and hands were soon stretched out to seize the brave defenders. Degna slew her children by dashing them to the ground, and she, fearless of death, followed them to preserve their honour and hers!

The skill and courage of the women of Veneto in the use of bow and arrow, and in the casting of the javelin, came to be the undoing of many a stalwart barbarian. The Huns were amazed at the heroism, no less than at the beauty, of their fair opponents. Those viragoes had in their veins the blood of Greek heroes, and their muscles were of iron like the Romans. Noble and bold in heart were they, vigorous and graceful in form and feature, and well dowered with mental capacity and resource.

Not once, but many a time, when the rope-hawsers, which worked the defenders’ catapults, gave out and the defence seemed doomed to failure, the women and the girls of besieged towns cut off their tresses of strong, fine, lustrous hair, with which to weave new stout cords for the disabled machines!

Those were the women, who either stood shoulder-to-shoulder with their lords and masters to repel the hateful foemen, or, blessed with families of young children, fled for safety to the islets of the lagunes, there to guard them from all ill, and ready to lay down their lives in their defence. Among the fugitives men-folk were rare,—grandsires and men past service and lads just entering on their teens,—but the bones of the strongest and best lay bleaching and unburied upon the desolate plains of Veneto.

This earliest settlement was a woman’s commonwealth, and mothers and daughters nursed patiently a new generation. They inculcated lessons of faith and devotion and inspired their boy-offspring with energy and earnestness. Bereaved and comfortless themselves they looked to Holy Church for consolation and direction. They listened, in their dreams, to the soothing voices of the Saints, and loved to tell sweet stories from tradition. Cells for holy men and women, released from the world, were fixed on every sandy beach; and chapels, simple and primitive enough, called by tinkling bells, holy souls to Mass and vespers. Women prayed and children sang, till phœnix-like out of a cataclysm of tribulations, arose a new Venice—“Venezia Seconda.”

Generation followed generation, and family cohesion banded the scattered groups of islet dwellers together for mutual protection and defence. The terror of invasion by barbarians became old men’s tales, and mothers scared their children to make them good with stories of the “Scourge of God.” Many lads, now grown, went back to terra-firma, and rebuilt the homes of their grandparents, and married and settled there.

One hundred years rolled along almost uneventfully for “Venezia Seconda” and the dwellers upon her shores, but, at length, times of peace and comparative prosperity were rudely disturbed by another fateful cry from the mountains!

Longobards,—Bavarians, Bulgarians, Swabians, and other mixed races,—were said to be pouring over the passes into Italy, and late in the autumn of 567, a mighty horde began to move over the plains marching ever southwards. Terror once more struck home to the hearts of the people of Veneto and of the islands of the lagunes. Were the horrors of the almost forgotten invasions of the Goths and Huns to be re-enacted? What was to become of them, and their children?

The only reply was the old, old cry “To the Lagunes!” Altino led the way: her inhabitants were premonished by a startling apparition. The storks, which made their nests upon the roof-trees of the houses, suddenly began to circle round the city uttering shrill cries, then, darting down with one accord they picked up in their long bills their little fledgelings and made off right out to sea!

The people looked on amazed, but when they noted that the birds stayed their flight over Torcello and her sister islets, they said one to another—“This is a warning of Providence—which we must follow—it is the ‘finger of God’!”

The Longobards, however, were not intent so much on conquest as on settlement. Tales of the fertility of the soil of Italy, and stories of the profitable industries of her cities, had found their way to northern lands, and had excited, in the hearers, vehement desires to share such good things. They came not in serried ranks of warriors but in caravans in peaceful guise, with their household goods and chattels upon their waggons, and their old folk and little children securely mounted on the top. To them Veneto was the Land of Promise.

If the peaceful inhabitants of the province were not slain as in the days of Alaric and Attila, they were scattered, for the Longobards meant to have and to hold what they seized. Dressed in skins of beasts, with linen tunics of many colours, loose breeches girded with leathern belts, and shod in wooden and metal sandals, they presented a marked contrast to the natives of Veneto. They shaved the back of their heads, but wore the hair low upon the foreheads with ringlets, and the men were bearded.

Their conduct towards the people they had come to dispossess of lands and homes was marked by consideration, and they made an excellent impression by not meddling with matters ecclesiastical. Indeed so suave and gentle were they in their bearing that not a few of the less fearful maidens looked kindly upon the invaders, and not one but many brides of Veneto were mated to Longobard grooms! Surely this was a rare exhibition of the old and world-wide sentiment—noblesse oblige! A new and healthy strain was thus intermingled with blue Græco-Roman blood, and, whereas, the citizens of the Eastern Empire, at large, dwindled and deteriorated, the men and women of “Venezia Seconda” grew in numbers, strength, and comeliness.

The Greek protection of Veneto and the lagunes was withdrawn in 641, and then at once it was borne in upon the elders of the families and the leaders in their councils that unbounded liberty was a dangerous expedient. Parliaments representative of every class—work-people, middle class, and patricians,—with the clergy at their head, were called together for deliberation and unity of action.

If it is true—maybe it is—that each hundred years of a nation’s development corresponds to a decade of human growth, then the Commonwealth of the islets of the lagunes attained its maturity in 697 or thereabouts. The infant Venice,—nursed in her Malamocco cradle by her father and motherland of Padua some two hundred years before,—was now a vigorous maiden and of age.

Her sponsors, wisely chosen, one from each of twelve most important settlements, who had exercised their tribuneship to good account, forgathered at Eraclea to elect a worthy guardian of the State, a leader—“Dux,” “Doxe” or “Doge” of the Venetians. Some of them were Veneto-Greeks, like the Partecipazi and the Michieli, and some of them were Veneto-Romans, like the Candiani and the Orseoli, with rivalries, domestic and political to unite and disunite them, but all were fired with the new idea of mutual life and independence.

From every lido and riva came barca and gondola, gaily dressed with flowers and greenery: the helm held stoutly by men—brave as they were wise, whilst at the prow, beauty and youth sang tuneful melodies. Well-stored with food and delicacies were those festal galleys, for their crews were bent on pleasure as well as business. Matron and maid in holiday attire accompanied their lords and sweethearts to the solemn happy ceremonial—it was a domestic celebration in simple homely state.

Where manly strength and wisdom make of life a scene of wear and tear ungarnished and uncharmed by women’s ways, true femininity intervening administers juice of grapes to gladden man’s heart, and oil of olives to make him of a cheerful countenance,—so to paraphrase the holy psalmist. At Eraclea grace and force embraced one another.

The women and the girls of the islands brought with them to Eraclea armfuls of sea-pinks and sprays of jessamine, red poppies and yellow flags, fragrant orange flowers and the sweet bays of myrtle, gathered from their gardens. They wove gay garlands with the tenacious dime rushes and coiled them about with the tendrils of the vine. Every street shrine in Eraclea, every Virgin ikon in her modest homes, was adorned with floral offerings, and the altars of her sanctuaries were covered with pure white fragrant Mary lilies.

The twelve electors held their parliament in the modest basilica and cast their votes in secret, but all were satisfied when Paolo Lucio Anafesto of Aquileia was hailed as the first of Venice Doges—judge, general, and pope combined.

Promptly the Patriarch of Grado blessed the new Head of the State, and the twelve electors joined in crowning him with the “Corno”—the horned Phrygian bonnet of renown and liberty. The day’s solemnities performed all held picnic in the woods; Eraclea kept open house. Night fell all too soon and lines of gaily-lighted gondolas made off to homes across the phosphorescent waves and the summer moon smiled upon a scene of perfect peace and content.

Alas for the stability of mundane matters—two short years were scarcely spent when Doge Anafesto met with his death, lamentably enough, in a conflict between the citizens of Eraclea and Jesolo. This was a calamity, perhaps, rare in Venetian history, for, if Martino Sanudo, the quaint and voluminous chronicler, may be believed:—“The inhabitants of Venezia were a lowly peaceful people, esteeming love and mercy highly, and above all religious—they cared not for honours but were ever ready to help one another, regardless of class and station.”

Three Doges only ruled at Eraclea, and then in 742 the seat of the Government was removed to Malamocco as being less open to attack, and more favourably placed for the development of trade with the east. The Doge was elected for life and his family, if of plebeian origin, ennobled: his wife however had no precedence and was regarded pretty much as one of her spouse’s goods and chattels.

The citizens of the Commonwealth enjoyed a lengthy period of peace and prosperity, during which they were building up a national and self-reliant character. Men, women, and children gained urbanity and repose of manners, and were animated alike by vivacity and gravity of bearing. The women especially were remarkable for their good-breeding and refinement—vulgarity and pretence were non-apparent. As mothers they had a softening yet wholesome influence upon their families and households. Many Latin writers have noted these feminine characteristics.

In matters of dress and personal adornment the gentildonne followed more closely than their humbler sisters the Greek modes. The mosaics at San Marco’s show that velvets and brocades were worn with handsome furs and folds of lace. Blue was the favourite colour with all classes—a cerulean tint, like the reflection of the azure skies in the still waters of the lagunes.

When Charlemagne came to Friuli to hunt big game in 776, he made friends with the heads of noble Venetian families, and adopted their more graceful garments in lieu of his semi-savage state. He had set his heart upon seeing Venice and seizing what he could of her outlying islets. Her romantic story appealed strongly to his imagination and he even made proposals that Frankish brides should find their way to the lagunes. His ideas were actually adapted in the dogado of Obelario Antenorio (804–809), for his consort was a Frank princess.

The Franks shared the sporting instincts of the Venetians and they were emulous of the boasts of the men of Venice:—“One can catch more fish in a month in the lagunes than in a whole year in all the Mediterranean!”, and, “One can entrap more birds at Malamocco than anywhere else in Italy!” Grebe-shooting was a favourite pastime, and ladies entered into the sport quite as enthusiastically as their lords. Cross-bows and clay pellets were the weapons, snaring was barred as unsportsmanlike, and heads were nailed on barn doors as trophies.

Whilst Charlemagne and his courtiers were pleased to meet the Venetians, in sport, or when on marriage bent, he and they never quite concealed their designs upon the lagunes; but the monarch’s chagrin was bitter when he was forced to admit the impossibility of success. “As my brand sinks out of sight, nor ever shall appear to me again, so let all thoughts of seizing Venice vanish from my will,”—he once exclaimed, as, standing upon his royal galley off the coast of Padua, he cast his sword far, far away, out into the sea!

The first actual Dogaressa—not merely the wife of the Doge, but the First Lady in Venice and his official consort, was a Frenchwoman—the Countess Carola,—a lady of honour at the Court of Aix-la-Chapelle. Obelario Antenorio and his brother Beato, who was associated with him in the dogado, were the guests of Charlemagne at Aix, and there the Doge saw and wooed his bride. How they got there nobody knows: it was a stupendous journey in those days. Perhaps fortune favoured Obelario and Beato and brought the maiden in the suite of the Empress into Southern France to Aix in Provence! The Emperor approved the match and promised his friendship and protection for the island Republic.

Carola was a woman of great energy of character, remarkable for the exercise of a strong will, and endowed with the faculty of attracting respect and obedience. She had a difficult rôle, for the ladies of Venice resented the introduction of a Frenchwoman as consort of their Doge.

Beato Antenorio, it appears, played a double part, for whilst acting as best man to his brother and paying court to Countess Carola, he was negotiating with the Emperor at Constantinople for a union with a Byzantine princess with a view to supplant the Doge and Dogaressa.

Carola very soon took the measure of Beato’s perfidy, and when he brought his imperial bride to Venice, she adroitly placed Valentino, her husband’s youngest brother, an attractive youth, in the young girl’s way. There was little love lost between Beato and Cassandra, and the brothers very soon became estranged, and thus the Dogaressa held her own triumphantly. The story goes however that, consistent with woman’s ever changing mood, having set Beato against his wife, the Dogaressa became her rival in the affections of Valentino.

Perhaps the Venetian saying was true of her in a very special way:—“El segreto dele femene no lo sa nessun altro che mi e vu, e tuto il commun!”—“A woman’s secret is known to none save me, and you, and all the town!”

Obelario Antenorio, who had been Tribune of Malamocco, was “an indolent man, irresolute and faithless.” When a Greek fleet approached the lagunes with peaceful intentions, but viewed by the Doge as supporting the pretensions of Beato, he had recourse to the French Court for assistance. This was regarded by the Greeks as an hostile act, and they attacked and destroyed Eraclea, Jesolo, Fossone, Chioggia, and other Venetian ports. The chief men of Venice were slain or taken captive, and Obelario and Beato Antenorio were carried away as hostages to Constantinople, where they and their wives, Carola and Cassandra, died.

II

The first “Grand” Doge and Founder of Venice was Agnello Badoero, better known perhaps to historians by his Greek title “Ipato” or “Protospataro,”—in the Rialto vernacular Partecipazio. The Badoeri, originally from Padua and one of the twelve premier families of the Commonwealth, were descended from Giovanni d’Eraclea, who was among the twelve Tribunes voting at the election of Paolo Lucio Anafesto as first Doge of the Lagunes in 697.

Agnello was Tribune of Malamocco, although a native of Eraclea, a man of many parts, he exhibited remarkable talents in almost every walk of life. A Greek of the Greeks by descent, he was a pronounced humanist in the school of Plato. A born legislator, he was by inclination an engineer and builder, and excelled his peers in mercantile industry and political acumen.

Long before he was called to the supreme office of Doge he had fixed ideas about, and matured plans for, the conservation and development of the conditions of the islands of the Lagunes. Immediately after his election in 810, he broke with the traditions of the dogado, by removing the seat of Government to Rivo-Alto as being far and away a more convenient centre and at the same being much more secure from the attacks of enemies. Already there was a considerable population in the new capital and churches and houses of some importance had been erected—many of them of stone.

All the same the ordinary Rivo-Alto dwellings were of modest dimensions and few rose beyond one storey in height. A marked feature of them all was the outside staircase, which gave access to the living rooms, and also led directly to the altana or look-out tower upon the flat roof. They were furnished with a solario or liago—an open balcony whereupon the inmates could sit and take the air and hold chit-chats with their friends.

Upon the flat roof the women of the household performed their toilet, combing out their hair and exposing it to the sunshine. Various domestic duties also were transacted upon the “sun-traps,” for example newly-washed linen bleached nowhere as effectively as there. Bedrooms occupied the upper part, and the plan of the ground floor provided kitchens and offices with rooms for meals and the reception of guests. These, in the large structures, were arranged upon three sides of a square forming a courtyard or garden patch.

Such a habitation was occupied by Doge Agnello and Dogaressa Elena with their growing family. It was situated upon what was subsequently known as the Campiello della Cason, adjoining the ancient church SS. Apostoli, and facing towards the neighbouring island of Murano, just where a small canal, the Rio Hadran, entered the Lagune. The principal entrance was in Calle della Cason with a postern at the corner for observation and defence. At the back, giving on a narrow back lane, was another doorway which led to a small garden and an orchard.

Donna Elena occupied herself in cultivating “simples” and sweet-smelling flowers, without which no Venetian considered his home complete. Perhaps no people set greater store by fragrant flowers and succulent herbs than did those Venetian children of the sea-mists and salt-sands. The simplest bloom that the saline breeze allowed to grow was as precious as the most luxuriant rambler-rose, or flowering laurel. Vines grew everywhere and throve amazingly, and everybody had a floral or arboreal hobby.

Having established himself in his primitive palace, Doge Agnello set to work to carry out his ideas of utility and expansion. First of all, in view of the many inroads of ruthless invaders into Veneto, he turned his attention to the strengthening of the defences of the islands. Strong cables were slung across the narrower channels, disused hulks of vessels were sunk in the deeper water-ways, and a system of signals by day and of beacons by night was established.

The chief life’s work of the sapient Head of the State was the protection of the low-lying lidi from floods and denudation. Thousands and thousands of great timber balks from the Pineta of Ravenna were secured and driven far down into the yielding mud and sand. From pile to pile was woven a basket-work of unbreakable osiers, and then the pumping out of needless channels and the draining of wet marsh-lands was followed by the sinking of innumerable loads of solid earth and gravel, until the reclaimed areas assumed something of the appearance and consistency of terra-firma.

With such primitive appliances as were at hand, the success achieved was little short of marvellous. To his new-made plots of land Doge Agnello gave the name of “Fondamenti.” To Rivo-Alto as the centre of his plan, he connected all the neighbouring islands by throwing across the water-ways wooden bridges,—thus Venice assumed her present form.

Well may we, in imagination, behold the noble-hearted Doge, habited in simple guise and grey-bearded, yet, vigorous of frame with eagle eyes and firm set brow and mouth, ferried day by day, over the Grand Canal,—the actual channel of the river which Livy calls Præ-altus. To the fondamento of San Giacomo—that earliest holy shrine of the Venetian fugitives he is bound, there to superintend the works he has initiated. With plans in hand, elaborated with Grecian geometrical precision, he watches and directs the work-people, both men and women—at their toil. No master was more solicitous for the welfare of his working people than Doge Agnello Badoero.

Much of her time the Dogaressa spent with her husband on the fondamento, where her presence cheered him. Thickly veiled, as was the custom of good women, and modestly attired she moved among the women workers, pouring out sympathy and affording relief.

The crowning labour of Doge Agnello Badoero, so far as the building of Venice was concerned, was the erection of the Ducal Palace in 820. This was purely Byzantine in design, very large, and built of rare marbles and mosaics: “Il Palazzo” it was called, for there was nothing like it in new Venice, or at Eraclea. Probably it resembled in some respects the Fondaco de’ Turchi built at the same period and by the same master-builder—Doge Agnello. Unhappily nothing now remains of this earliest official residence of the Doges of Rialto.

Francesco Donato has painted in a few words the character of Doge Agnello Badoero:—“He rose,” he says, “easily above all parties, a man very stable and dependable, a true Catholic, upright and devoted to the true interests of the Commonwealth.” This encomium assuredly was deserved by Dogaressa Elena as well.

The times were strenuous and many an one, weary of the toil of the world and yearning for the consolation of religion was irresistibly drawn to assume the habit of the monastery. Men and women of worth became founders of religious houses and, among them, Doge Agnello and Dogaressa Elena, who with their eldest son Giustiniano, built the monasteries of Sant’ Ilario and San Zaccaria. This they did as the Codice Trevisiano records, “revelatione Domini Omnipotentis.”

Following the example of his predecessors in the dogado Doge Agnello Badoero, towards the end of his life, associated his two eldest sons Giustiniano and Giovanni with himself in the direction in the affairs of State. The two young men had been carefully trained for the duties of government by their father, and by their mother, in the observances of religion and the exercise of moralities.

Doge Agnello died in 827, and his two sons were elected to succeed him. No record is preserved concerning the death of the good Dogaressa. Probably they were both buried in the church of San Zaccaria.

The example of Doge Agnello and Dogaressa Elena, with respect to the daily exercise of religion, was followed by their sons, their wives and families. Mass always found them in attendance. Every day at dawn the Marangona or Mass-bell awoke the slumbering citizens, and again at midday, and at dusk were the faithful summoned to devotion. With singular simplicity the pious sons and daughters of Venice served their God and served their city in the best way they could: none were hypocrites.

The brief and quiet reign of Giustiniano Badoero was remarkable for one eminent event—the translation of the body of Saint Mark the Evangelist, from Alexandria to Venice.

The pious Venetians were well aware of the importance of possession of relics of the Saints. At Aquileia, Eraclea, Padua and the other cities, whence their forebears had fled to the islets of the lagunes, the churches were the depositories of such treasures, and the revenues of the ecclesiastical authorities were greatly augmented by the devotion of the religiously minded inhabitants. Besides, such holy shrines drew pilgrims and visitors from other states and so enhanced their reputation. A quotation from the Zancarol Chronicle in the Library of San Marco, exactly expresses the current idea:—“La qual citade e stada hedificada da veri e boni Cristiani.”

Venetian envoys to Constantinople and travellers generally in the Orient were admonished to secure if possible relics for translation to the lagune city. Accordingly in 828 news reached Venice that two sea captains of Venetian merchant galleys, wintering in the port of Alexandria, had entered into relations with the ruler of the city. On their part they were to smuggle arms and provisions for the use of the Egyptian forces against the Eastern Emperor, and in exchange to take whatever they might like from ruined temples near the sea-shore,—one was the traditional burial-place of the second Evangelist.

Treasures of all sorts were unearthed, and, at length, the tomb of the Saint yielded up a corpse undecayed and arrayed in episcopal vestments. Acknowledged and venerated upon the spot the hallowed remains were reverently conveyed to Venice, and received there with tumultuous acclamations and temporarily enshrined within the ancient church of San Pietro di Castello.

Doge Giustiniano and Dogaressa Felicita presided at the religious ceremonies, which brought together and cemented the people of the outlying islands and the inhabitants of the coast towns of terra-firma. Religious fervour overspread all Venice, men and women surrendered themselves, their children, and their goods, in honour of the Saint, who then and there was hailed one of the patrons of Venice, sharing the distinction with St Mary the Virgin, St Teodoro, and St Giustina of Padua.

That must have been a busy time for the Dogaressa and her ladies, and, indeed, for all the well-disposed women-folk of Venice. There were rich hangings to embroider, fine linen to weave and stitch, delicate lace to fret out, flowers to arrange, and sweet odours to confection. For St Mark nothing was spared, and even the poorest of the poor put on the best attire she could obtain and made festival with her richer sisters.

Not content with the splendours of the day of translation, the last day of January was for ever set apart as an annual festival in honour of St Mark; and with it was associated the ancient and beautiful custom of public marriage upon the Eve of the Feast of the Purification.

Giustiniano Badoero very soon wearied of the responsibilities of office and retired, with Donna Felicita his wife into the cloister of San Servilio, which he had enriched by gifts of lands near the coast city of Abondia Vigilia.

To the third Doge of the Badoero family, Giovanni, second son of the “Grand Agnello,” belongs the glory of founding “the most resplendent Christian shrine in Europe,” San Marco di Venezia. He succeeded his brother as sole Doge in 829. What special part he and his Dogaressa took in the actual building and first dedicatory celebration, history has not recorded.

The reign of Giovanni Badoero lasted seven years—a season of consolidation of Venetian power and also of family influence. The house of Partecipazio gave seven Doges to Venice,—men of approved probity, ruling their households and themselves with simple dignity, and the State with firmness and distinction.

They one and all, with their consorts, when public cares and duties became excessive, sought the solace of the cloister. What a very sensible custom was this, and how conducive to efficiency in the service of the State, and withal how indicative of the influence of the Church in human affairs!

Women and girls in the times of the first three Badoeri Doges were treated less harshly than they had been in earlier days, but still they were under restrictions which were almost Oriental in character. Their men-folk professed themselves jealous of the family honour and were eager to uphold their autocratic rights over their own households against all intruders.

In public women were veiled,—matrons in black, maidens in white,—except upon festivals, which happily, for the sake of dear Prince Cupid, were frequent enough, when they were allowed to appear at church, on the Piazza, and in barca or gondola uncovered,—these were lovers’ opportunities!

When a youth had become familiar with the form and carriage of a girl, and was taken therewith, he was wont to haunt the neighbourhood of her father’s house, in order to get a good look at her features and expression when she came out. If the opinion he had formed was confirmed then he was accustomed of a night to stand beneath the iron-barred window of his innamorata, and there breathe out his love ditty, or twang amorously the strings of his guitar.

If the girl responded to the youth’s ecstasy, she was permitted to flash a light through the open shutter. The repetition of this signal was an intimation that the wooer might address himself to her father, requesting acceptance as a “novice in the form and art of love-making.”

The father’s consent was regarded as the first step of the betrothal, and then the happy young couple were required to await the festal day of good San Marco, for the public acknowledgment of the suit. Liberty was meanwhile allowed for interviews, and negotiations were put on foot with respect to equality of family and amount of dowry, etc.

The girl dressed simply in white was permitted to receive visits from her lover and his young companions. Upon the eve of the festival when many friends were assembled, serious and gay, the bridegroom-elect took his bride’s hand in his and slipped upon her finger a ring,—penge they called it,—as a pledge of his honourable intentions. The girl immediately withdrew with her mother, whilst the guests were feasted.

Nobody went to bed that night, for there was much to be done in preparation for the morrow’s nuptials. The bride had to be bathed and her hair plaited in two great coils, her dress and her ornaments had to be arranged, and finishing touches put to the festal decorations of the house.

Attendance at early Mass was de rigueur, and then the bride, covered with a lace or fine net veil knelt to receive her father’s blessing, and at the same time she had placed in her hands by her two sponsors—the most estimable and influential of her father’s acquaintances—a casket or purse, in which was deposited her dowry. These receptacles were called arcella and were objects of considerable value from an artistic point of view. If caskets they were of embossed silver, or carved wood, or painted by hand, and if they took the form of purses they were of the richest material, very beautifully embroidered, and often enough ornamented with pearls and precious stones.

A procession was formed of gaily-decorated gondolas with the wedding guests—the bride’s contained herself, and her father with her sponsors, and bore silken streamers of blue and white with two captive white doves at the prow; and all made for the island cathedral of San Pietro di Castello.

The bride bearing her arcella suspended from her neck by a blue silk ribbon knelt by her father’s side before the Bishop, and then the groom, ushered by his witnesses, took his place at her right hand offering the wedding-ring for the episcopal benediction. Removing the penge,—which he slipped upon his own finger,—he replaced it with the golden hoop of matrimony. Lighted candles were placed in the hands of the couple, whilst the Bishop blessed their union. An offering in their behalf is made by the bridegroom’s next friend, and the religious ceremony ended with the singing of a marriage ode.

A merry, happy party betook themselves one and all to the fleet of gala gondolas, scattering on their way sweetmeats and small current coins, among the bystanders. A banquet with dancing and singing filled the afternoon and, at dark, the minstrel band led the newly-married pair to the bridegroom’s brilliantly lighted house.

The best man held a position of importance, he it was who found the beverages for the guests, toasted the nuptial couple, and gave drink and money all round. Early in the morning following the marriage he repaired to the nuptial chamber, and knocking loudly at the door, offered the happy spouse two fresh-laid eggs,—often enough stained and painted exquisitely,—and a casket of aromatic pastilles—tokens of good wishes for marital felicity. The bride’s girl friends too laid beside the door little wicker-work baskets beautifully trimmed with silk and decorated with fresh flowers, and full of delicious sweetmeats and fresh fruit—emblematic again of what married life should ever be. Such were some of the pretty wedding observances in old Venice.

One of the prettiest of the many charming customs, which illustrate so delightfully the ever-fascinating story of Venice,—“the Venus City of the Adriatic,”—was the annual presentation of the boccola—the rose nosegay of San Marco. For its origin we must hie us back to a very distant century—the ninth.

Doge Orso Badoero, grandson of the “Grand” Doge Agnello Partecipazio, had a lovely only daughter, Maria was her name in baptism, but, by reason of the ardent flashes of her brilliant jet-black eyes she was known as Vulcana—“Vulcana of the black eyes!” Then one day, there came from far Provence a handsome troubadour with his light guitar. He was called Tancred—a child of chance as it appears; and he sang outside the dark-eyed beauty’s iron-barred window the doughty deeds of knightly prowess and the conquering charms of maiden troth.

Prince Cupid set to work, as busy as could be, and began to shoot his love-dipped arrows up and down, till he had transfixed both Vulcana and Tancredo. Alas! the maiden knew full well her father would never listen to the plea of a simple singing youth, and so she wept and sighed, and sighed and wept!

“Go, gentle minstrel,” she cried, “tarry not, seek the Court of the King of France, and clothe thyself with the glory of martial renown, I, thy Maria, will wait for thee!”

With a tender embrace, and the maiden’s thin gauze scarf for guerdon tied round his arm, the troubadour set off to fight the Moors.

Seasons came and seasons went and beauteous Maria Vulcana upon the altana of her father’s palace scanned in vain the wide lagune for signs of the warrior’s return. “Will Tancredo never come back?” she asked herself, and she wept and yearned for him. At last rumours of bold adventure and the names of many goodly knights were banded from tongue to tongue. The dreaded Moors had been vanquished, and the hero of the fights was a youthful soldier of fortune one Tancredo of Provence!

Well-a-day, an embassy presently arrived in Venice from great Charlemagne, its leader was Sir Roland the Invincible. He sought here and there for Maria Badoero the Doge’s weeping daughter, but she never showed herself—her heart was with Tancredo—she cared for none beside. At length they met and Roland bending over her, sighing, said, “Lady fair, I kiss thy hand for brave Tancredo, and bid thee weep no more for him, he died in these arms of mine breathing out thy name,—see he bid me with his last words give thee this red rosebud, which he had plucked for thee, saying, ‘Bid her pray for me always.’”

Maria was silent, she paled, her heart gave no more than one big throb, as she placed the pledge of her Tancredo’s love between her breasts, and then she laid her down and died!

This is the “Legend of the Boccola.”

The day that heart-broken Maria Vulcana breathed her last was the name-day of Saint Mark the Evangelist, 25th April. Thereafter every lovelorn lad in the islets of the lagunes offered to the girl he loved best a freshly gathered red rosebud as a fragrant pledge of his devotions. The innamorate were accustomed to place the sweet tokens in their open bosoms, as did the beauteous but unhappy maiden of old times, and proudly wear it all that livelong day. Sometimes to be sure, the girl rejected her admirer’s tender gift, but she who could show no rosebud in her bosom suffered mighty heart-burns all the same, and her girl companions and the young men of her acquaintance looked askance at her.

At the sounding of the curfew all were safe of course indoors, and then the simple offering, withered as it was, was taken lovingly between both the maiden’s hands, caressed affectionately, and placed in the most secret hiding-place she had. It might be a long, or it might be a little, while before her parents acknowledged the successful suitor; but that frail blossom of early summer never lost its fragrance, and many a dewdrop of a tear fell upon the faded petals, whilst the loved one waited impatiently for the next Festa delle Marie.

III

Perhaps the proudest of all the proud families of old Venice was that of the Candiani—an offshoot of the ruling clan of Sanudi, in ancient times in Padua. Their name they derived from the village whence they sprang, just outside the proud city,—Candiana. In the eighth and ninth centuries, as Counts of the Western Empire, they ruled over Padua and Vicenza and were endowed with lands and titles by Otto I.

The first member of the family to wear the ducal bonnet was Pietro, the descendant of an earlier Pietro, who, in 697 was one of the twelve electors of the first Doge, Paolo Lucio Anafesto. His election in 886 was due, in a considerable measure, to the extreme youth of Doge Giovanni Badoero’s son Orso, but especially in view of the need of a strong man to deal with the incipient feuds of the rival families of the Polani, Giustiniani, and Barozzi, and the Burbolani, Iscoli, and Selvi. Doge Pietro was a man of war, he led twelve armed galleys against his city’s constant foes, the pirates of the coasts of Istria and Dalmatia, and died at sea after one short year of office.

His son and grandson, both Pietro, were sandwiched between Orso Badoero II. and Pietro Badoero,—so keen was the rivalry and so equal the opportunities of the two families. All four, with their consorts, were conspicuous for their devotion to their public duties and for their piety. Daily they attended Mass and evening devotions, and observed frugality in dress and table.

Pietro Candiano III. married Archielda or Richielda, who brought him neither dowry nor social distinction. Who she was nobody has recorded, probably she was the child of one of the Slav women who were brought captive to Venice in 887, by the expedition, which destroyed the nests of Narentian pirates in the Adriatic, under Pietro Candiano I.

All we seem to know about the Dogaressa Archielda is that, when her consort died, she according to Venetian rule, was cloistered. Doubtless she suffered much when her son Pietro raised a party against his father.

One other son of Archielda is named by Dandolo the chronicler, Domenigo, who became Bishop of Torcello. She survived her husband many years, under whose will she inherited a rich vineyard and a dwelling-house in the marches of Veneto, which she seems to have passed over to the nuns of San Zaccaria.

The name of Pietro Candiano III. has come down to us in gracious valiant guise. It was the Feast of the Purification in the year 944, and the “Brides of Venice” were kneeling before the Bishop in the church of San Pietro di Castello. The Doge and Dogaressa, and their household were assisting at the ceremony, when, suddenly wild figures of daring buccaneers from Trieste dashed into the sacred building. Robbery not rape was their primary intention, for the maidens’ arcelle were well worth the risk the robbers ran. The girls held tightly to their dowries, and so they were borne off bodily by their captors, arcelle and all!

Recovering from their consternation the men-folk of the congregation and the hangers-on outside laid hands on weapons, tools and anything, and were swiftly on the heels of the ravishers. Luckily the barcas of the Guild of Marriage-chest makers were moored in the canal, and so available for use.

Doge Pietro, divesting himself of his State mantle, and girding on his sword, headed the pursuers. Calling on Heaven for vengeance he boarded the foremost boat and bade every armed man to follow: it was the barca of Andrea de’ Cappelli of the fondamento of Santa Maria Formosa,—the quarter of the makers of hats. He was one of the bridegrooms-elect, and, mad with rage, he and his companions swore to be avenged and to bring back their brides to Venice.

That was a stern chase to be sure, the robbers rowed their hardest, and the lovers of the “Brides” bent to their sweeps with all their wind and thew. Not till the pirates had crossed the Caorle lagune did Andrea de’ Cappelli’s boat grapple with the quarry. Then it was a fight hand-to-hand, pole-to-pole,—but at last, Andrea, leaping into the batello of the pirate chief struck the villain down, and gathered to his breast his fainting bedraggled bride. Bearing her light form under his left arm he neatly beheaded his enemy and, holding aloft the gory trophy, regained his boat.

Victory,—as by well-bound convention,—crowned virtue, and back to Venice rowed swiftly the proud flotilla—the happy maidens waving aloft their bridal veils in token of their deliverance. Landing at the campo of Santa Maria Formosa all entered the sacred edifice, hard by, where the clergy sang “Te Deum.” The assembly broke up hilariously to spend the evening in universal merriment.

Coming out of the church the Master of the Guild of Hat-Makers requested a favour of the Doge,—by whose side walked the motherly figure of the Dogaressa, her face radiant with smiles,—namely that an annual commemoration of the gallant rescue of the “Brides of Venice” should be instituted whereat the Doge and Dogaressa should preside.

Dandolo gives an amusing account of the interview:—

“But if it rains?” asked Doge Candiano.

“Why, we will give you hats to cover you!”

“And if we come hungry?”

“Well then you shall have the finest catch of fish and the sweetest basket of fruit.”

“But if we are thirsty too?”

“We will refresh you with the best vintage we possess!”

And so it came to pass. Every year the Doge and Dogaressa, with all their households and the members of the Grand Council, paid a ceremonial visit to Santa Maria Formosa. Each dignitary received a brand-new straw hat,—richly gilt and decorated with flowers, a flask of finest Malvaggia,—ruddy and rare, and a silver fish with a golden orange apiece. This is the origin of the Festa delle Marie.

The superb painting which adorns the first altar of the right aisle at Santa Maria Formosa—Palma Vecchio’s chef d’œuvre, and entitled “Santa Barbara,” may well have been inspired by the story of the “Brides.” She is the patroness of the brave—and the old adage—“None but the brave deserve the fair” never had a fuller vindication than on that memorable day of the rape of the Venetian brides.

Candiano III. had a son—his second, the stormy petrel of his race, the vulture of his family. In 959 Pietro Candiano IV. declared his father incapable of reigning, and with the utmost effrontery, he assumed the ducal bonnet and estate, apparently no man saying him nay. Alas! How soon noble deeds are forgotten, how easily the knee is bent to the supplanter!

The good old Doge and Dogaressa were ousted from the ducal palace, and the usurper dared to introduce therein the giddy woman with whom he cohabited. This was such a glaring scandal that he was obliged to bow to public opinion and put away Giovanniccia—a divorcée, whom he had picked up clandestinely, defying her quondam husband.

No woman of high degree, no gentildonna, would cross the threshold of the palace so long as the Doge kept his mistress there, none greeted her upon the Piazza—and she became an object of scorn and derision. At length Pietro yielded to the popular feeling, and fascinating if corrupt, Giovanniccia was compelled to take the vow of chastity and to enter the noble convent of San Zaccaria,—the refuge of widowed and discredited Dogaressas.

In the Museo Civico, in Venice, is an ancient pack of playing-cards with illustrations of some of the earlier Dogaressas. The Four of Hearts has a representation of Giovanniccia Candiano with a ventilino,—a fan, in her hand, and accompanied by the following legend:—“Giovanniccia, wife of Pietro Candiano, divorced, being able to avenge herself did not do it, so, her husband being slain by the people, she would not survive—‘If I am not the spouse of Ulysses I am Death’s’!”

The chronicler, Pietro Diacono, adds that the repudiated Giovanniccia disowned her child, Vitale, and left the little fellow to be fostered by a serving-woman who subsequently placed him in a monastery school. This Vitale Candiano, in 987, was consecrated Bishop of Aquileia, and a few years later was translated to the Patriarchal See of Grado, where he ended his days—the last of his family,—in 1018.

No sooner had Pietro Candiano divorced his adulterous wife than the Emperor Otto III. stepped in and gave him the hand, if not the heart, of Gualdrada—Valdrada in Venetian—the young sister of Ugo il Grande, Marquis of Tuscany, of whom Dante speaks thus in his “Paradiso,” Canto XVI.:—

“The great Baron, he whose name and worth The festival of Thomas still recalls.”

Ugo’s granddaughter was the famous Countess Matilda, the virile ruler of all Tuscany and the beneficent foundress of the liberties of Florence.

Countess Valdrada brought to her ducal husband as rich a dowry as any of the royal brides of Venice had brought. Estates at Trivigiano, Friuli, Ferrara, and Adria, with castles and well-trained retainers; a host of slaves, and money-bags well filled with gold, enriched and ennobled proud Pietro Candiano.

At her betrothal a custom entirely new to the Venetians was introduced, the so-called “Morgencap” or “Mundio” whereby the Doge conferred a fourth part of his private income upon his consort. Never stepped upon the Piazzetta a prouder Dogaressa. Had she been own daughter of the Emperor she could not have borne herself more haughtily, nor have treated both her husband and his suite more disdainfully. The acclamations of the populace she treated with ill-concealed contempt and turned to ridicule the decorations in her honour.

The Venetians were to a man noted for their self-esteem and high bearing and the keynote of their character was a spirit of proud and contemptuous isolation, but they regarded this display of feminine arrogance with annoyance and disgust. To add to the unfavourable impression Valdrada made, the armed Florentine guard, which accompanied her and stood sentry at her beck and call, called forth violent protests. Altogether the Doge’s marriage was not an unmixed blessing to himself or his people. Nevertheless Pietro and Valdrada seemed happy together: he humoured her petulance and she fanned his self-esteem. Two children were the fruits of this union, Pietro and Marina.

Two important questions were exercising men’s minds in Venice what time Dogaressa Valdrada mounted the ducal throne—the treatment of slaves and the expedition against the Saracens. With the first Valdrada was keenly interested, indeed it was the spectacle of her retinue of slaves, and their abject condition, that drew special attention to a very knotty question.

The Doge tried to persuade his wife to dismiss these unfortunate people, or at all events to reduce their number, but her ill-conditioned temper would brook no interference. She threw in his teeth the fact that she was the special protégée of the Emperor, a descendant of a royal race, and the first Italian Dogaressa to share the honours of the dogado.

Valdrada was a virago in more senses than one—clever she was and talented, as well as strong-willed and hard-hearted. To her directly was due the introduction from Tuscany of the Roman bull-fight, and this took the quiet and undemonstrative Venetians by storm, and, incidentally, led to the division of the community into two camps—the Castellani and the Nicolotti.

Rings were formed at the Lido each Monday in September and October when the whole of Venice thronged the beach in gondolas. In November the rendezvous was moved to the gardens of Olivolo, by the church of San Pietro di Castello; and December saw the bull-baiting transferred to the site of the Piazza. The Dogaressa was accustomed to preside at these combats in person, assuming all the attributes of a sovereign. Popular enough were the sports, for very shrewdly, she added prizes for athletic contests of all kinds and for regattas on the canals; but the patricians looked on with anything but kindly eyes.

Doge Pietro IV. was, perhaps, the proudest of all the proud men who ever occupied the highest position in the Commonwealth, and his wife’s assumptions and pretensions added greatly to his self-importance. His name of derision in Rialto was “Superbossimo,” the “Vain-glorious!” His entourage was largely composed of unscrupulous Tuscans, truculent Greeks and self-seeking Germans: he kept royal state and treated the nobles and the officials with coldness and disdain. At the same time he rallied all the different branches of his family, which were established in and about Padua and Vicenza, and formed a family league which threatened to overthrow the constitution of Venice.

Startled at last, by the imminence of the danger to their liberties, nobles and citizens took arms, in the autumn of 976, and marched to the Ducal palace. They were received by a deadly volley from the foreign mercenaries, and, maddened by this treachery, the people acted with a promptitude which admitted of no quarter. Fire was laid to the great portal of the palace, and logs of wood dipped in pitch were flung through the closed windows.

The flames spread rapidly, and eventually enveloped more than three hundred houses, and the splendid churches of San Marco, San Teodoro, and Santa Maria Zobenigo. The lust for vengeance and destruction swept over the calm, but, if once roused, impetuous, populace, and nobody and nothing was spared.

The Doge fled distractedly from room to room, holding in his arms his only boy—the infant Pietro. The Dogaressa with Marina rushed panic-stricken after him. Escape from the crumbling blazing ruins was only possible by a little wicket which gave upon the courtyard of San Marco. Here, progress was stayed by a posse of armed nobles and citizens, among whom the unhappy Doge recognised several of his personal friends. Of the latter he begged his life and the safety of his family.

“You, my friends,” he cried in anguish, “have chosen to join in my destruction. If I have transgressed in any way, either in words or actions, I crave my life, whilst I promise to satisfy every demand. Speak and let me pass.”

Words were of no avail, such justice as the popular will required was swift and drastic. Not one, but many swords clove through ducal bonnet and robe of state, and Doge Pietro Candiano IV. lay quivering, a livid mass upon that blood-dyed floor. Not content with this butchery brutal hands seized the unoffending princeling, and neither his innocence nor Valdrada’s pleas sufficed to save him. She was cast aside as a foul thing too hateful for any man to slay, and her child was impaled upon a spear, stuck into the body of his father!

At eventide a poor man, one who abhorred the foul deed, Giovanni Gradenigo, came with a company of pious friends and took away the mutilated bodies and laid them reverently in the crypt of Sant’ Ilario.

The Dogaressa, with her young daughter Marina, succeeded in escaping,—perhaps she was allowed to do so to avoid difficulties with the Imperial Court and the arrogant Marquis of Tuscany. She fled to Verona and threw herself at the feet of the Empress Adelheid the Emperor’s mother, who resided there.

To be avenged of the Venetians was now her one and only purpose. Her imperious temperament yielded to a violence of hatred almost diabolical in its intensity. She appealed to Otto to set fire to Venice, to take the nobles captive, to cast the citizens into prison, and to make slaves of the women and children! She demanded the repayment of the gold she had carried with her to Venice, the restitution by the Candiani of the estates with which she had dowered her husband, and demanded a huge tribute by way of compensation for her wrongs.

Pietro Orseolo, who had been elected Doge, after the assassination of Pietro Candiano, by the tumultuous voice of the people, despatched Domenigo Grimani to Piacenza where the Emperor was in residence to discuss the claims of the widowed Dogaressa. By a rare display of urbanity and tact Valdrada’s vehemence was soothed, her claims modified, and an agreement was come to agreeable to all parties.

She acknowledged her love for her husband and exclaimed before the full Court:—“A wife is not given by nature to be her husband’s judge but as his companion.” She refused however to enter a convent, as became a widowed Dogaressa, but returned to her brother’s Court in Tuscany, and apparently ended her days at the castle of Pisa at the end of 997. By her will, dated 24th November of that year, she bequeathed a castle and an estate situated in the Adige to her brother, who gave them to the abbey of Vangadizza.

The web of human life, strained at times and knotted, is never long spun out before romance and tragedy cross it in the woof. Each man and woman’s work in the tapestry of fate is run with needles sharp and blunt. None need look to fiction for inspiration whilst fact is so devious and so amazing. Cupid and Mars ever were inveterate enemies; but “Love’s Labour” is never “Lost”—for Love is stronger, after all, than death!

The love-story of Gerardo Guoro and Elena Candiano is as touching as any in the gentle annals of romance. She was the daughter of Doge Pietro Candiano III.,—a girl in whose veins coursed the bluest of noble Venetian blood, whilst her lover was base-born, though of a respectable family. He was probably as the Venetian proverb has it “Erser in Candia,”—“Without a farthing in his pocket!” Such unequal affairs of the heart, as the world has always called them, are just where the romance of love runs riot!

It was so when Gerardo and Elena, the originals of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” plighted their troth secretly, and told nobody but Elena’s doting old nurse Marta, who contrived the interviews, bore the messages, and shielded the secret from the Doge and Dogaressa.

Perhaps matters might have gone differently “had not Cupid,” as the Bard of Avon says, in his “Much Ado About Nothing,” “spent all his arrows in Venice!” With the very first bud of their rosetree of happiness, alas, gallant Gerardo was summoned to join his company and to embark for the Orient. Elena’s mother, noting the girl’s tearful pallor, decided that matrimony was the only remedy.

“A maiden fretting Is cured by wedding.”

A very eligible partner appeared duly on the scene, one Messir Vettor Belegno, a patrician of ripe age and wealthy, whose widowed home looked for a new mistress. Broken-hearted Elena refused her rich paramour, but a daughter of the Doge has no will of her own, and the marriage contract was duly signed, and she, more dead than alive, ever fretting for her absent Gerardo, was led to her nuptials in San Pietro di Castello.

The fatal knot was tied, but it had nearly compassed a fatality, for, no sooner had the ring of the wedded wife been slipped upon her finger, than poor Elena, clad in her bridal garb of purity, swooned in Belegno’s arms. A speechless awe pervaded the brilliant wedding party, for when the beauteous bride came not back again to consciousness, the Bishop pronounced her dead! The joyous notes of the nuptial ceremony were abruptly changed to the dirge of burial, and, there, wrapped in her bridal dress, she lay crowned with fresh spring flowers until a place was prepared for her cold body in the crypt.

As fate would have it the morrow of her funeral, when the fair alabaster-like form of the lovely girl lay alone in that dark place, saw brave Gerardo’s troop of gallant warriors landed at the Lido. News of the tragedy was swiftly conveyed to the fleet, and the disconsolate young husband hastened fearfully to the old church on Olivolo. Slipping aside the heavy marble cover of Elena’s tomb, he kneeled upon his knees imploring Heaven’s pardon and Heaven’s favour.

Then, in a paroxysm of grief he stretched his body along the silent form of his beloved one, and, looking into her eyes, he pressed his breast to hers, and there they lay. Presently he is conscious of a pulse and a movement in the bridal shrouded corpse, and, joy of joys, her eyes open, and she knows that her Gerardo has come home to claim her!

Beside himself with transports of love and sorrow he carries the unresisting girl to his mother, by whose care and Gerardo’s kisses, she is nursed back to life and happiness. But who shall break the news to the Doge and Dogaressa? Gerardo answers the query manfully. He has gained laurels in the East, and his grateful city has honours to bestow. Kneeling before the Doge to receive his guerdon he bravely recounts the story he has to tell. The Doge is incredulous, but confirmation is ready to hand, when his daughter, running to Gerardo, takes his hand in hers, and craves her father’s benediction.

The bridegroom of the tragedy gracefully stepping aside renounces, quite nobly, the marriage dowry, and joins the Doge and Dogaressa in sanctioning Elena’s secret wedding with Gerardo. As story-books relate—they lived ever after in perfect happiness and great content.