City of Fortune

by Crowley, Roger

  The city was gripped by a sense of national emergency. Pisani’s rival, Taddeo Giustinian, was made captain-general of the sea; troops and commanders were apportioned to sectors of the defence. Two of the entrances to the lagoon were blocked with chains. Stout sailing ships were anchored as floating forts. Fortifications, wooden towers, palisades and earthworks were thrown up along the shores of the lidi. Giacomo de Cavalli’s expensively bought mercenaries, who included a quarrelsome troop of Englishmen, were stationed there to man the defences. A war committee was on twenty-four-hour call in the doge’s palace and a system of alarm calls, radiating out from the bells of St Nicholas on the Lido, was put in place, so that at the first sight of a Genoese fleet, peals of church bells rippling across all the parishes of the city would summon the armed militia to St Mark’s Square, the nerve centre of whatever last stand the patriotic citizens of the Republic might be compelled to make. For good measure, the Venetians did what they had done in a similar emergency six hundred years earlier. They removed all the briccole – the stakes which marked the navigable channels of the lagoon – wiping its surface back to a primeval labyrinth in which nothing snagged the eye.

  At the same time as military defence, the Republic had already resorted to diplomacy. Was it possible to split the triple alliance of Padua, Genoa and Hungary? Padua was too bitter a recent foe but Hungary, with troubles of its own elsewhere, might be detached. Ambassadors were hurried to Buda. The response was demoralising: the Hungarians had sensed a unique moment to strike down the Republic. They demanded a huge indemnity – half a million ducats – on top of an annual tribute of a cool hundred thousand and the surrender of Trieste, plus the acceptance of the doge and all his successors as vassals of the Hungarian crown. To add insult to injury, they helpfully suggested that if ready cash were in short supply they would accept the keys of half a dozen towns as a down payment, including Treviso and Mestre on the shores of the lagoon, plus the doge’s jewelled cap – the ultimate symbol of a free republic. ‘These demands are completely unworthy,’ reported back the ambassadors, ‘impossible to accept.’ If it were to be a choice between humiliation and death, the Republic would go down fighting. A ship had already been despatched with orders to find Zeno’s fleet and bring it back. The problem was that no one had any idea where he was.

  On 6 August, the bells of St Nicholas started to clang ominously. A small fleet of six ships flying the red and white of Genoa had been sighted on the horizon. Taddeo Giustinian decided to sally forth with an equal number to confront the intruders. As the ships closed, the Venetians spotted a man swimming towards them. He was Hieronimo Sabadia, a Venetian sailor captured at Pola, who had jumped overboard from one of the approaching ships to warn his compatriots not to advance; the six Genoese galleys were a decoy for the main fleet of forty-seven vessels lying over the horizon. It was on such patriotic actions that Venice’s hopes now rested. Giustinian turned smartly about; the chain was raised; he sailed back into the lagoon.

  There were three principal entrances through the lidi into the lagoon; two had been blocked with chains and anchored hulks; the third, at the southern end of the lagoon, the entrance and exit to Chioggia, had been left open. It was here that Pietro Doria proposed to make his strike. The island of Chioggia was a miniature replica of Venice, protected from the open sea by its own lido, to which it was connected by a wooden bridge. There was another settlement on this lido, known as Little Chioggia, and further south the more substantial village of Brondolo. Chioggia’s strategic importance to Venice was immense; it commanded the mouths of the Brenta and the Adige, which linked Venice by water with central Italy, but which, with every passing day, were passing more firmly into the hands of the advancing Hungarian and Paduan troops. The Paduans had prepared a hundred well-armed barges to float supplies downstream to their naval allies.

  By taking Chioggia, Doria hoped both to link up with the advancing land forces and to establish a base from which finally to destroy the rival republic. Set in the fringes of the lagoon, within marshes, saltpans, reed beds, sandbanks, narrow excavated channels, secret waterways, Chioggia was the place where a century of maritime warfare was destined to reach its resolution. Venice’s imaginative world, habitually vast, had now shrunk to the defence of a few square miles of floundering marsh.

  At Chioggia, the Venetians determined to make a resolute stand. They armed a series of isolated outlying forts, water mills and towers along the Brenta and on the shores of the lagoon. The podesta (mayor) of Chioggia, Pietro Emo, blocked the river approaches with rocks. Implacably the Paduans overcame all obstacles. With large resources of manpower, they hauled their barges overland, cutting diversionary channels round the obstructions, snuffing out isolated forts. By early August they had secured the strategic Bebbe tower at the mouth of the Brenta, just four miles from Chioggia itself. They established bastions controlling the approach canals and waterways and fought off counterattacks by convoys of small armed boats. Only one fortress held out, that of the Salt Beds, standing on the very edge of the lagoon. Chioggia was effectively cut off, though the Venetian knowledge of the shallow backwaters stood it in good stead: ‘Secretly by night many small boats came and went between Venice and Chioggia by tiny channels towards the castle of the Salt Beds, carrying letters and advice.’

  On 8 August, the Paduan soldiers and their armed supply boats joined up with Doria’s fleet standing in the roadstead of Brondolo, bringing thousands of men, large supplies of food, and the promise of much more downstream from Padua. The allies now had twenty-four thousand men. Within Chioggia there were perhaps 3,500 in total, out of a population of twelve thousand, many of whom guarded the bridgehead which linked the island to its lido at Little Chioggia. The Genoese landed on the lido and unloaded their siege equipment – mangonels and bombards. In a short time Little Chioggia was taken; the armed hulk guarding the Chioggia channel was fired and destroyed. On 12 August they started to attack the bridgehead, which was defended by a stout bastion. For four days the fighting continued with the Genoese suffering great losses. On the 16th, desperate for a breakthrough, a reward of 150 ducats was offered to any man who could fire the bridge. According to the Genoese chroniclers, there was one enthusiastic volunteer:

  … a Genoese soldier at once stripped off his armour, got into a small boat with straw and gunpowder and started rowing towards the bridge. When he was close to it, he set fire to the straw, jumped into the water and started pushing the boat towards the bridge … so that it was enveloped in flames. The Venetians were unable to defend the bridge any longer and so abandoned it.

  In their haste they failed to raise the drawbridge behind them. ‘We pursued [the Venetians] with fire and with great losses on their side as far as the piazza of Chioggia. There was great destruction … the piazza was stained red with Christian blood and the grievous and cruel massacre of the Venetians.’

  Eight hundred and sixty Venetians were killed; four thousand were taken prisoner; the women and children cowered in the churches. Doria brought his galleys into safe anchorage inside the lagoon. The Genoese now had a secure foothold within reach of Venice, to which it was directly connected by the Lombardy Channel, a deep-water arterial route through the lagoon down which even the deeper-draughted Genoese galleys could access the city. Doria was just twelve miles from St Mark’s Square. The flag of St George fluttered in the piazza of Chioggia; the lord of Padua’s from its ducal palace; Hungary’s from an adjacent tower. Francesco Carrara of Padua entered the city and was carried shoulder-high into the main square by Genoese soldiers, shouting, ‘Carro! Carro!’ They eyed the larger prize with the anticipation of a sack to equal that of Constantinople.

  The news reached Venice at midnight. The bells of the campanile started to clang loudly; soon all the parishes were repeating the alarm. People came armed, running to St Mark’s Square to learn of the collapse at Chioggia. There was terror and panic, weeping and chaotic shouting, expectations that a Genoese war fleet would come nosing up the Lombardy C
hannel at any minute. The citizens began to bury their goods in anticipation of inevitable sack. Others were more resolute, declaring that ‘the state would never be lost so long as those who remain can man a galley or handle a weapon’. Gradually the old doge quietened the crowd with calm words and a steadfast face. The following day he sent three ambassadors to Chioggia under safe conduct to sue for peace. After a lengthy oration they handed Doria a piece of paper setting out their conditions for peace. It was blank. The Genoese could write their own terms so long as Venice remained free. But Doria had come to destroy the hated rival. His reply was haughty: ‘There will be no peace until first we have put a bridle on those horses of yours on the portico of St Mark’s … then we shall be at peace. This is our intention and that of our Commune.’ Then, referring to the Genoese prisoners, he casually went on, ‘I don’t want them. Keep them locked up, because I intend to come and rescue all your prisoners in a few days.’ Venice would have to fight to the last gasp.

  Within the city the bell was rung to call the popular assembly to hear the response. The gathered crowd was now given an unvarnished account of their plight. A year earlier, Genoa’s defeat at the sea battle of Anzio had nearly torn that city apart. This was to be a similar test of Venice’s character, its patriotism and class coherence. The mood was initially resolute. They would go down fighting rather than die of starvation: ‘Let us arm ourselves; let us equip and mount what galleys are in the arsenal; let us go forth; it is better to perish in the defence of our country than to perish here through want.’ Everyone prepared for sacrifices. There was to be universal conscription. Salaries of magistrates and state officials were suspended; new patriotic state loans were demanded; business and commerce were abandoned; property prices fell to a quarter of their previous value. The whole city was mobilised in a desperate bid for survival, so that its bronze horses, looted in their turn from Constantinople, could continue to paw the humid Venetian air unfettered. Emergency earthworks were hastily thrown up on the Lido of St Nicholas; a ring of palisades erected in the shallow water around the city; armed boats ordered to patrol the canals night and day; signal arrangements redefined. The arsenal set to unceasing work, refitting mothballed galleys.

  Yet this show of patriotic unity under the banner of St Mark concealed dangerous fault lines. At the point of sacrifice the unbearable haughtiness of the noble class stuck in the popular gullet. The people wanted to be led by commanders who shared the same conditions and dangers. The crews declared they would not now man the new trenches on the Lido of St Nicholas unless the nobles went too, and the appointment of Taddeo Giustinian as commander of the city’s defences brought the city to the edge of revolt. He was evidently detested; there was only one man they would accept. ‘You want us to go in the galleys,’ went up the cry in St Mark’s Square, ‘give us our Captain Pisani! We want Pisani out of prison!’ The crowd grew in strength and became increasingly vocal in their disapproval. According to popular hagiography, Pisani could hear the cries from the ducal prison. Putting his head to the bars, he called out ‘Long live St Mark!’ The crowd responded with a throaty roar. Upstairs in the senatorial chamber a panicky debate was underway. The crowd put ladders to the windows. They hammered the chamber door with a rhythmic refrain: ‘Vettor Pisani! Vettor Pisani!’ Thoroughly alarmed, the senate caved in: the people would be given Pisani. It was now the end of a nerve-racking day, but when Pisani was told of his release he placidly replied that he would prefer to pass the night where he was, in prayer and contemplation. Release could wait for the morrow.

  At dawn on 19 August, in one of the great popular scenes from Venetian history, the unshackled Pisani stepped free from prison to the roar of the crowd. Hoisted onto the shoulders of the galley crews with people climbing up onto ledges and parapets to get a glimpse of the hero, raising their hands to the sky, shouting and cheering, he was carried up the steps of the palace and delivered to the doge. There was an immediate reconciliation; a solemn mass. Pisani played his part carefully, pledging himself humbly to the Republic. Then he was again raised aloft on the shoulders of the crowd and carried away to his house.

  It was an exhilarating moment, but also a dangerous one. It was only twenty-four years since a doge had been beheaded for an attempted coup and Pisani was wary of personal adulation. On his way home, he was stopped by an old sailor who stepped forward and called out in a loud voice, ‘Now is the time to avenge yourself by seizing the dictatorship of the city. Behold, all are at your service; all are willing at this very moment to proclaim you prince, if you choose!’ Pisani turned and dealt the man a stinging blow. Raising his voice, he called, ‘Let none who wish me well say “Long live Pisani!” – rather, “Long live St Mark!”’

  In fact, the senate, piqued by this popular revolt, had been more grudging with their favours than the crowd at first understood. Pisani was not appointed captain-general, only commander of the lido defences. The crews were still ordered to report to the detested Taddeo Giustinian. When this fact sank in there was a further wave of popular dissent. They threw down their banners and declared they would rather be cut to pieces than serve under Taddeo. On the 20th the senate caved in again. Pisani was declared overall commander of the city’s defence. At an emotional service in St Mark’s he vowed to die for the Republic.

  The waterfront at St Mark’s. Recruiting benches were set up on the Molo – the quayside in front of the two columns

  The confirmed appointment had a galvanic effect on morale. The following day the customary recruiting benches were set up near the two columns; the scribes could not enter the names of volunteers fast enough. Everyone enrolled: artists and cutlers, tailors and apothecaries. The unskilled were given rowing lessons in the Giudecca Canal; stone fortifications were erected by masons on the Lido of St Nicholas at lightning speed; thirty mothballed galleys were re-equipped; palisades and chains encircled the city and closed the canals; every sector of the city’s defences was detailed to particular officers. They were to be manned night and day. Many gave their savings to the cause; women plucked the jewellery from their dresses to pay for food and soldiers.

  None of this was a moment too soon. In darkness on 24 August Doria mounted a two-pronged attack. One force attempted a galley landing on the Lido of St Nicholas. A second pushed in a swarm of light boats to attack the palisades that protected the city’s southern shore. Both were beaten back, but the defenders were compelled to abandon other towns along the lidi. Doria established himself at Malamocco, from where he could bombard the islands of the southern lagoon. The red-and-white flag could be seen from the campanile of St Mark’s.

  Venice was almost completely cut off; there was now just one land route by which it could receive supplies. The sea was sealed. Yet the balance had shifted slightly. Doria had missed a moment. If he had struck out for Venice as soon as Chioggia fell, the city must have capitulated. The brief hesitation had allowed Pisani to regroup and the failure on the 24th gave Venice brief hope. The lord of Padua, disgusted by the failure to force home the advantage, politely took his troops off to the siege of Treviso. Doria decided on attrition. He would starve Venice to death. With winter coming on he withdrew his men from the lidi back to Chioggia. Within Venice, supplies started to run low; desperate schemes were proposed to abandon the city and emigrate to Crete or Negroponte. They were instantly rejected. Patriotic Venetians declared that ‘sooner than abandon their city, they would bury themselves under her ruins’.

  Fight to the Finish

  AUTUMN 1379–JUNE 1380

  Slowly, relentlessly, Venice was being squeezed dry because ‘the Genoese held [the city] locked tight, both by sea, and by land from Lombardy’. As autumn wore on the price of wheat, wine, meat and cheese rose to unprecedented levels. Attempts at replenishment proved disastrous; eleven light galleys loading grain further down the coast were caught and destroyed. The strain of guarding the palisades by night and day, waiting for the ringing of church bells, serving in the trenches on the Lido as the weather wor
sened, all started to take their toll. The Genoese meanwhile continued to receive plentiful provisions down the river routes from Padua. But after the eruption of popular anger at the fall of Chioggia, the patricians realised that it was in their better interest to take regard for the suffering of the poor. ‘Go,’ the people were told, ‘all who are pressed by hunger, to the dwellings of the patricians; there you will find friends and brethren, who will divide with you their last crust!’ A fragile solidarity persisted.

  The only hope of relief was the return of Zeno, still far over the horizon. In November it was learned he was off Crete, after months of plundering Genoese shipping on a wide track between the coast of Italy and the Golden Horn. Yet another ship was despatched with all haste to call him back. Knowledge of his whereabouts raised a small hope.