The fleets that both sides could put out were still small in the long shadow of the Black Death. What amplified the contest were the terrestrial allies that the maritime rivals could now enlist. Venice was increasingly involved in the complex power politics of the city states of Italy. For the first time, the Republic had not only a stato da mar but also a modest stato da terra – holdings of land on mainland Italy, centred on the city of Treviso sixteen miles to the north. From the surrounding area, the Trevigiano, the city derived vital food supplies, floated down the River Brenta to the Venetian lagoon near the town of Chioggia. Three great rivers, the Po, Brenta and Adige, whose alluvial deposits, drawn out of the distant Alps, had formed the Venetian lagoon, debouched into the sea near this strategic point. These waterways, along with an interconnecting web of cross-canals, were the arterial trade routes into the heart of Italy, and Venice guarded them all at their point of exit. The Republic was able to apply vice-like economic pressure on northern Italy, controlling salt supplies, taxing river traffic, pushing its own goods upstream on the slow waters in flat-bottomed boats under monopoly conditions. To its immediate neighbours – Padua to the west, the king of Hungary to the east, nervous for his control of the Dalmatian coast – Venice was too powerful, too rich, too proud. If the Republic was a source of admiration, it also evoked envy and fear. The letters that passed between Genoa, Padua and Hungary voiced the profound disquiet ‘that if [the Venetians] were allowed to establish a firm foothold on the Italian mainland, as they had on the sea, they would in a short time make themselves lords of all Lombardy, and finally of Italy’. Genoa, Francesco Carrara, lord of Padua, and Louis, king of Hungary, signed a pact to encircle Venice by land and sea ‘for the humiliation of Venice and all her allies’.
For Genoa this alliance promised new strategic options. Not only could a land war snuff out vital river traffic to Venice, but access to Louis’s ports on the Dalmatian coasts, particularly Zara, offered Genoese fleets a base from which to strike Venice at close range. The threat was considerable. Venice lined up her own allies; the king of Cyprus constituted no more than moral support. More significant was his prospective father-in-law, the duke of Milan.
To the expense of a new sea war, the Republic now had to add the cost of defending its land territories. For this, as was traditional, it scoured Italy for a competent condottiere. This was always a tricky matter. As Machiavelli would point out, satisfaction from mercenaries was variable. They were both expensive and unreliable: ‘disunited, ambitious and without discipline, unfaithful, raliant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men … for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy’. Venice would certainly have trouble enough with its hired hands in the months ahead. The city tried to buy the best, the Englishman Sir John Hawkwood – Giovanni Acuto (the Sharp) the Italians called him – a man with a bloody reputation for over-fulfilling his contracts. At Cesena the previous year he had ordered the massacre of five thousand people. Hawkwood however was too expensive for the now cash-strapped Venetians and too closely tied to the lord of Padua; instead they opted for Giacomo de Cavalli of Verona, at seven hundred ducats a month.
The prospect of a land war also introduced the use of new technologies. Two years earlier the Venetians had used gunpowder weapons at a siege for the first time. The cannon was new fangled in Italy: ‘a great instrument of iron,’ one contemporary writer described it, ‘with a hollow bore in its whole length, in which a black powder, made of sulphur, saltpetre, and charcoal, is placed, and above that powder, being ignited through a touchhole, the stone is discharged with enormous force’. Giant bombards, enormous hooped tubes of cast iron, highly unreliable, firing no more than one shot a day, would have their part to play in the contest to come.
In the days before the declaration of war, the city chose as its naval commanders two of the most colourful Venetian history. On 22 April 1378 the seventy-two-year-old doge, Andrea Contarini, conferred the office of captaingeneral of the sea (the overall naval commander in time of war) on Vettor Pisani in an elaborate ceremony in St Mark’s. Handing Pisani the Venetian banner of war, the doge declaimed,
You are destined by God to defend with your valour this republic, and to retaliate upon those who have dared to insult her, and to rob her of that security which she owes to the virtue of our progenitors. Wherefore we confide to you this victorious and dread standard, which it will be your duty to restore to us unsullied and triumphant.
The Pisani family knew well the vicissitudes of fortune in the Republic’s service. Vettor had been at his father’s side during the disastrous defeat at Porto Longo twenty years earlier. Vettor himself divided opinion: outspoken, fearless, patriotic, touchy and short-tempered, he was a naval commander who led from the front. He was an immensely effective leader of men, loved by his crews, disliked by some of his fellow nobles in equal measure. Apart from a charge of attempted murder, he had physically attacked one of his fellow officials whilst he was governor of Crete in 1364, yet his experience at sea was incomparable. He would prove to be a controversial but inspired choice.
At the same time, the Republic gave command to another noble adventurer, Carlo Zeno – Zen in the Venetian dialect. By the age of forty-five Zeno had lived a life of extraordinary risk and adventure across the Stato da Mar. Orphaned as a child after his father was killed in battle, befriended by a pope, Zeno had been by turns a scholar, a musician, a priest, a gambler, a soldier of fortune, a married man. He had been left for dead by robbers when a student at Padua. A few years later he was nearly buried alive in Patras: grievously wounded during a Turkish siege, he was considered a corpse, wrapped in a shroud and placed in a coffin. The lid was about to be nailed shut when signs of life were detected. He was reputed, by unreliable family memoir, to have attempted the release of the Byzantine emperor John V by climbing up into the prison in Constantinople on a rope, only to find the emperor unwilling to abandon his sons, who could not be freed. He had been instrumental in the defence of Tenedos. In the popular imagination he was indestructible. If the ordinary people of Venice referred to Pisani as Father, Zeno was the Unconquered. He was despatched to the eastern Mediterranean as governor of Negroponte with eighteen galleys and orders to inflict maximum damage on Genoese shipping. The maritime safety of Venice was to be entrusted to these semi-legendary noble adventurers.
Venice proceeded without hesitation. While vassals of the duke of Milan were closing in on Genoa by land, Pisani worked his way up the west coast of Italy, sacking ports and spreading terror. In late May he met a Genoese fleet off Anzio and routed it. When the news reached Genoa there was panic: any day now Pisani might be at the unguarded harbour walls; Milanese soldiers were ravaging the back country. The doge was deposed and replaced in one of the periodic upheavals that bedevilled the Genoese state. However Pisani judged his fleet too small to follow up this early success and turned east again to attend to the Adriatic. Over the summer he ranged widely over the seas, blindly hunting small squadrons of Genoese privateers, bombarding Famagusta, escorting grain convoys from Puglia, responding to jumpy and contradictory orders from the war committee in Venice.
And that war was moving closer. By June, five thousand Hungarian troops had marched round the Gulf of Venice and joined up with Francesco, lord of Padua; by early July they were besieging Mestre on the shores of the lagoon just ten miles from Venice. They failed to take it; the Venetian defence held firm against overwhelming odds. According to the chroniclers, the Venetians positioned beehives on their ramparts, which discouraged the invaders from the final assault. It was a heartening victory against large odds and the people of the city knew that as long as their enemy was confined to land the lagoon would protect them. When news reached the city that Genoa had launched a new fleet under Luciano Doria, they thought again.
Pisani meanwhile had been tracking restlessly up and down the Dalmatian coast. He bombarded Zara but the city was too well defended to attack; he moved south
to reduce other Hungarian bases. The port of Cattaro was stormed and put to the sword with Pisani fighting in the front line ‘like a simple captain’. The booty was shared amongst the whole crew – it was gestures such as this that won the utter loyalty of his men. At this point the orders to Pisani became increasingly insistent: stop Doria entering the Adriatic and above all prevent him from reaching Zara, which would give him both direct contact with the Hungarians and a base just 150 miles from the lagoon. The apparently inexhaustible Pisani positioned his ships in the Sicilian channel to catch Doria’s fleet off the toe of Italy. He was outwitted; the Genoese slipped round the south of the island. Pisani doubled back, trying to second-guess what Doria would do next, trawling for news across the mouth of the Adriatic. Doria was glimpsed repeatedly but could not be caught. The autumn was employed in a game of cat and mouse, Pisani keeping his fleet between the Genoese and Zara, returning to bombard the city again, sacking the port of Sebenico and finally running Doria to ground in the heavily fortified harbour at Trau, from which he could not be winkled out. An attack there was beaten back with great loss of life. Doria was determined to bide his time. Pisani turned north to bombard Zara once more.
It was now the end of a punishing year of naval manoeuvres. The ships had been at sea for nine months. Despite his inspirational leadership, the fleet was frustrated at being unable to get to grips with their elusive foe and exhausted by the attempt; morale was at a low ebb. Pisani requested permission to return to the lagoon. It was refused. The war committee was desperate for Doria to be dislodged, fearful that he might still slip past towards the lagoon and enclose the city in a pincer movement, menaced by land and sea. Pisani was ordered to overwinter at Pola to protect the inner Gulf of Venice.
Trau
Sebenico
It was a disastrous decision. The winter of 1378–9 was exceptionally cold. Snow fell heavily; frosts were sharp and the incessant winter wind off the Hungarian steppes made conditions wretched. Hunger, disease, cold and fatigue thinned the crews; men lost hands and feet to frostbite; soldiers and crossbowmen deserted; oarsmen languished in the cold. The men begged to be allowed to raise anchor rather than idle and die. Only loyalty to Pisani kept the fleet reasonably intact. The admiral returned the sick to Venice with yet another request for release. It was again refused; well-founded fear of the enemy fleet was compounded by the spite of Pisani’s noble rivals, keen to inflict continuous hardship on the long-suffering commander. The supply of grain to the city was becoming critical; in the dead days of January Pisani was ordered across the Adriatic to Puglia to escort food supplies to Venice. All the weight of expectation lay with him now. The doge wrote personally to beg him to endure. Step by step Genoa’s land allies were snuffing out the arterial supply routes into the city. Treviso itself lay under siege. Pisani careened his galleys and set out from Pola again. Disease, death and desertion continued apace. By the start of February his serviceable galleys had been whittled down from thirty-six to twelve.
That month, despite energetic opposition, Pisani was reelected captain-general of the sea; two new commissioners, Carlo Zeno and Michele Steno, were appointed to assist him. With them came much-needed food supplies and twelve more galleys, some of them built and paid for privately by personal supporters. Throughout the spring the reinvigorated fleet responded to a flurry of conflicting orders: to attack Doria in Trau again, to convoy grain, to damage the Dalmatian coast. The game of hide and seek went on; the Genoese only engaged in skirmishes. Their aim was to throttle Venice’s food supplies. In one incident Pisani took an arrow in the stomach but Doria slipped away. The news from the terra firma worsened. Treviso was hardly holding out; the forces of Padua tightened their grip on the river traffic. In an attempt to loosen the enemy’s hold, Zeno was detached with a squadron of galleys to ravage the coast around Genoa itself. The hope was that a threat close to home would shift the theatre of war and force Doria to withdraw his fleet.
In the short run it made no difference. Doria refused to fight until the moment of his choosing; Pisani, hamstrung by the ongoing deficiencies in his fleet and the plethora of commands, was powerless to act. And then, on 7 May 1379, Doria’s fleet suddenly showed up in the sea road off Pola, where the Venetian fleet was enduring yet another outbreak of disease. The Venetians were completely unprepared. Doria’s fleet advanced in line of battle, taunting the enemy to come out and fight. After months of fruitless search in which the fleet had wasted its strength it was an irresistible provocation; ‘The soldiers and sailors, like chained mastiffs panting to bite the passers by, began to clamour to be led out to fight, and the captains and commissioners added their vote of confidence.’
Moral pressure was applied to the captain-general: not to fight would be a contempt of the Venetian flag. Pisani was cautious – and suspicious. He almost certainly had fewer ships; they were in bad shape; they were tucked into a safe haven and Zeno was away. He soberly remembered the defeat at Porto Longo – the result of taking ill-considered advice – and argued that they bide their time until Zeno’s return. Preservation of the fleet was tantamount. There was a furious debate. Raised voices. Insults. Shouts. Finally Michele Steno taunted Pisani beyond the point of forbearance, ‘that it was not mere opinion, but cowardice and terror that he wanted to avoid battle’. Pisani’s hand flew to his sword hilt. Riled over personal honour, he gave way: they would sail out. Commands were given; ships set in order; hawsers released. With the ringing Venetian battle cry, ‘He who loves Saint Mark, follow me!’ he ordered the attack.
Luciano Doria had prepared his ambush well. He had ten more galleys concealed behind an outer point. His visible fleet fell back little by little before the spirited Venetian advance, drawing his opponent out to sea, then spinning smartly about as the hidden ships caught the Venetians on the flank and from behind – ‘and our men, surprised and terrified, went in a flash from bravery to abject terror’, ran the sober Venetian report. Panic led to a rout. One of the commissioners, Bragadino, formerly eager for battle, now terrified and trying to shelter from bombardment by the entrapping ships, fell overboard. Twelve experienced sea captains were killed or drowned; five were taken prisoner. With the tattered remnants of the Venetian fleet still engaged but close to flight, Luciano Doria over-confidently flipped up his visor and shouted, ‘The enemy are already beaten; we’re only a step away from complete victory!’ A Venetian captain hurtled forward in the blur of battle and pinioned him through the throat. Doria dropped dead on the spot. It was small consolation. Pisani tried to rally the remaining galleys but it was far too late. Seeing them slip away, including Steno, he gave up the unequal struggle and followed. Five ships made it to Parenzo thirty miles up the coast.
On 9 May, the new Genoese commander wrote to Padua totalling the extent of the victory:
… we won [it] in a very short space of time – just an hour and a half … of their twenty-one galleys we took fifteen with noble captains on board, three transport ships laden with grain and salted meat; we have 2,400 prisoners … over and beyond these prisoners we believe that seven to eight hundred died, either in battle or drowned in the sea.
On the 11th Francesco, lord of Padua, and all the people made a procession to the mother church ‘singing and thanking God for the victory over the Venetians … and there was great joy and revelry, many great feasts in the city, the ringing of church bells, and in the evening fires and illuminations in the open spaces and throughout the whole district’.
*
To Pisani fell the heavy obligation to report the defeat. There was no time to waste. A ship was despatched to Venice, another to the colonies in the Levant. The news struck the city dumb. There was amazement, consternation, fear. People wept for the loss of their relatives – and for the imminent danger to the city itself. There was now no fleet to protect it. Many of its most highly skilled captains and trained crews were either captives of Genoa or dead; Pisani’s fleet had been all but annihilated; Zeno’s was far out of reach somewhere on the high se
as. There was sharp awareness of public calamity, linked to deep-held aristocratic grudges against the Pisani family. A universal chill descended on the lagoon. The order was sent out to Parenzo to arrest him ‘for having lost the Republic not only the backbone of its navy, the freedom of the sea, navigation, commerce, public taxes and the confidence of its citizens … in a single day, even in a single hour’.
On 7 July Pisani clanked down the gangplank on the quay by St Mark’s Square, bound in chains hand and foot. The reception was mixed – from the common people consolation, from the nobility nothing but malevolence. Still chained, he laboriously climbed the steps of the palace, to give his explanation before the doge and senate. There was no opportunity. He was hustled away into the darkness of the state prison. The prosecutors began the case against him. They demanded death – the mandatory sentence for a commander fleeing in battle: he should be led between the two columns and decapitated ‘as an object lesson for the citizens’. The senate rejected the sentence – Pisani had lacked firmness, not courage: it was Steno who had originally incited the attack and then cut and run. The sentence was commuted to six months in prison and five years’ exclusion from public office. If this pleased the wounded nobility, it stirred a sullen discontent within the sailors and ordinary people of the city which would soon burst into open defiance.
While Pisani languished in the dungeons, the Genoese were moving closer. Another Doria, Pietro, succeeded the dead Luciano. With forty-eight galleys, he retook all the Dalmatian cities taken by Pisani; moving north into the Gulf of Venice, he recaptured Rovigno, Grado and Caorle, within seventy-five miles of the city. At the start of August Doria appeared off the Lido of St Nicholas and snatched a merchant ship with a cargo of Egyptian cotton, watched impotently by the population. Working his way down the lidi he attacked other settlements along the sandbanks that protected the lagoon, then departed trailing the banners of St Mark behind him in the water. It was a very potent demonstration of public humiliation; not only had Doria shown that Venice was unable to protect even its home waters, it underlined the certainty that as long as Genoa controlled the sea, Venice might be starved into defeat. On 25 June, Doria captured two grain ships from Puglia, while the Hungarians and Paduans were throttling the river traffic to Venice. Even the lagoon no longer seemed a secure refuge. The Genoese had also taken their time to reconnoitre the channels and take soundings.
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