BOOKS.
Mn. W. CREW HA.ZLITT'S HISTORY OF VENICE.* IT was the boast of Venice during her palmy days that hers was the proud preeminence of a direct and unbroken descent from ancient Rome, and that she had preserved her liberty untarnished as well as her descent. In this claim there is much truth and some exaggeration if not falsehood. If by liberty is meant inde- pendent sovereignty, such was not the fact. For centuries Venice was a nominal vassal of the Eastern Roman Empire, and some- times proud to be so. The boast in the sense of freedom from foreign conquest or domination was undoubtedly true, and in this point she stands alone among the nations of modern Europe. From about the middle of the fifth century, (452 A.D.) when the inhabit- ants of the mainland adjacent to the lagoons at the head of the Adriatic fled before the invasion of Attila, till the 17th October 1797, when she was basely abandoned to Austria by the French under Bonaparte, Venice, however pressed by open enemies or submissive to treacherous friends, never submitted to a conqueror or was completely occupied by an invader. Her claims to internal liberty are more questionable. For upwards of six hundred years, if not for nearly eight hundred, she possessed the same kind of liberty which many of the Italian cities exercised, we cannot say enjoyed, for a shorter period. In theory the power of electing their rulers and changing their form of government was vested in the people, and this theoretical power was continually exerted. The name of King was never known in Venice, or any right of hereditary succession admitted in the ruling power ; though des- potism as complete over the property, life, and honour of the citi- zens was exercised by some of the Doges as by any other tyrant of anti■juity or of the middle ages ; occasionally the supreme power continued in the same family. Like all other Italian cities during their so-called freedom, the most violent family factions dis- turbed the peace of Venice, inflicted grievous oppression on oppo- nents, and often shook the government of the state till the overthrow of the last remains of popular power state, that aristocratical policy so widely celebrated, and so long successful, under which all private interests and personal feelings gave way to the wellbeing of the state. That for the three or four cen- turies during which this aristocracy possessed its full powers, and the opinions of the world allowed them to be wielded at pleasure, they exercised a despotism more unchecked than any sovereign in Europe except the Grand Turk, is true. It was, however, a despotism exercised by rule and not at the caprice or passion of a monarch or a mistress, a minister or a clique. That under the power of the Council of Ten, or still more of the Inquisition of Three, political freedom was impossible, is obvious enough; any interference with civil freedom appears to have been the ex- ception, or Venice would never have been the commercial and fashionable resort she was. That by diverting attention from pub- lic affairs, and directing it to trade or pleasure, the character of the Venetians especially of the higher classes, was finally de- moralized and degraded, is a lamentable fact ; whether Venice was very much worse in this respect than other Italian cities may be doubted. The Venetians were proud of their State, and re- garded with some disdain the other Italians as men who had lost their freedom. Keener observers than romaneists and rhetoricians have looked closely at the Venetian constitution and deemed it s. necessity, ?the state was to be preserved from the factions, con- spiracies, and treasons that destroyed the other Italian republics. The claim of theVenetians to direct descent from Rome is more questionable than their national or their so-called internal free- dom. The very name Veneti indicates a foreign if not a barbarian extraction; and antiquarians gravely discuss whether the Veneti are identical with the lrenedi of the Baltic, or originally came from Anatolia, (on the Southern borders of the Black Sea,) or from Vannes, a town in Armoriean Gaul. Their claim to an un- broken connexion with the ideas and municipalities of the Em- pire, probably with some theoretical notions of ancient Roman freedom, is better grounded. The emigrants, who are tradition- ally said to have fled when Attila marched on the district of Venetia, and to have founded the future republic among the fenny islands at the mouth of the Brenta, carried with them the name of Tribune' the municipal independence of each little island, or as we should call it parish, and an assembly of the whole people for general purposes. Practically, they exhibited the old Roman patriotism when threatened with a foreign enemy; sacri- ficing individual interests as readily as in Republican Rome, while individual munificence and energy sometimes replaced those losses without calling upon the community. ' Something of
the old Roman class divisions lingered in their minds : the great, (Maggiori,) the midAling, (Methocri,) and the lesser, (Minori,) orders of the people had recognized powers, till the first encroach- ment on popular rights, in 1172. Unhappily, but unavoidably, they carried with them a notion, Which their geographical posi- tion as much as their narrow territorial limits for more than five centuries tended to increase. To a Venetian, the city was as much the state as to a Republican Roman or Athenian ; and the citizen held himself as entitled to domineer over subject provineeB as a Roman proconsul, or the demos of Athens over allied cities. This narrowing of the base of government was, we say, unavoid- able, but fatal. The Vanetian monopoly of poiter and
as against its provincials, conduced more than ank other in/Wu The History of the Origin an& Rik b -'i HeptsZe.riice. 157 WOWS Carew Hailitt. In two vOISAusre PADEN bidlamielL .
cause to the decay and final destruction of the republic. We say inward; for the progress of discovery, of commerce, and in short of the world, must have brought about the decadence of Venice.
It is not improbable that something of romance is spread over the origin of the city. No records remain of the emigration of the fugitives from Attila, though there may be no doubt of the general truth of the tradition, if not of the precise report which conducts the citizens of Padua to the Rivus Altus, or Rialto, and those of Aquileia to the Isle of Gradus. If there be truth in the assertion that a church was founded on the Rialto in 421 A. D., the settle- ment of these lagoons would be carried back to an earlier period than the foundation of Venice ; for a church would hardly be built on a marshy island unfrequented even by fishermen or coasting mariners ; and if it were, there must be a resident priest, and some population would doubtless be attracted to it. In fact, the emigration of ." citizens" to desert marsh islands seems much less likely than their flight to places already occupied by settlers, however few and humble those settlers might be. Of the progress of Venice nothing very definite or satisfac- tory is known for centuries after its foundation. That it was slower than romance or rhetoric would wish to believe, may be inferred from several circumstances. After upwards of seven centuries, to 1170, the population only amounted to 64,000; and with every allowance for errors, and for Mr. Hazlitt's suggestion that many were absent in vessels or on mercantile adventures, (who, however, might be counterbalanced by temporary sojourn- ers,) such numbers do not argue much people. For it must be re- membered that Venice was not, like many cities, the capital of a country, but the country itself as well as the capital ; all Vene- tians were of Venice. The two previous centuries [998-1170] had also witnessed the acquisition of Dalmatia' Croatia, and the great accession of wealth and trade through the Crusades ; so that there is every reason to consider the 64,000 a late increase. In Britain under the Saxons some military and ecclesiastical edifices were built of stone ; with the first Normans stone was universal for public buildings. For several centuries after the origin of Venice, the churches, and of course all other buildings, were built of wood. Yet in spite of the destructive fires such a mode of building produced in a crowded place like Venice, it was not till 1106 that, says our author, "a general resolution was formed to restore the buildings which had fallen a prey to the flames [of a great fire] in marble or stone, and for the future to adopt those materials." In 906, the churches adjoining St. Mark were burned down, and the palace itself was irretrievably injured, in a popular insurrection which ended in the murder of the Doge. Some re- liance as to wealth and its concomitants is placed upon the will of the Patriarch Fortunatus [825 A.D.], which shows he possessed a variety of articles of vertO and jewellery. In a dignified church- man of those days, who was mostly if not always a cosmopolitan, such riches do not prove anything as to the general condition. For- ttmatns, moreover, was a traitor in correspondence with France, and was also employed by the Emperor of Constantinople, whence he brought some of his choicest articles. The drift of the foregoing remarks only applies to the first four or five centuries of the republic. By the tenth century, there is no doubt that Venice had attained to wealth and maritime im- portance, which was greatly increased at the end of the eleventh century, by the Crusades and their consequences. It may be doubted, however, whether the riches and strength of Venice ex- ceeded those of Genoa and Pisa.: we fancy so, 'because the later glory and long duration of Venice throws a mysterious halo over her early- days. The admirers of Venice claim for her the origin of banking : but banks of deposit7-a place where wealth may be deposited and got back on demand—are perhaps as old as wealth itself. Temples, sacred places, to plunder which was sacrilege, were the banks of antiquity and of the dark ages. Banks and discount, or at least interest, it is well known existed at Athens. Venice only revived the business. Her claim to the discovery of the gloat mark of civilization, a national debt, is better established. The date is 1173; for the contribution of 1160, though doubtless a debt, bore no interest.
"Yet one object, which by general acknowledgment was of vital and momentous importance to the community at large, still remained unaccom- plished. While the organs of the aristocracy were occupied with retrench- ing the ducal prerogative, and imposing limitations on the freedom of the people the financial prospects of the republic had gradually assumed the gloordest and most discouraging character ; and at the present juncture the funds in St. Mark's treasury were at the lowest ebb. One of the leading evils attendant on the late war [with Constantinople] was the heavy call which it made on the public purse : had not private munificence come for- ward in aid of the deficiencies of the fise, it is no exaggeration to say that that war could never have been undertaken; and even under the actual circumstances, it had reduced the state to the brink of insolvency. It was true that the Government might count. every year on a constant and not inconsiderable return from the customs and other regular imposts, such as the duty laid on vessels which entered or left Venetian ports, and the bail- lage levied on all goods exported by aliens from the republic. But the in- come arising from these various 'sources, though it might be sufficient to meet the current and ordinary expenditure, was wholly inadequate to the liquidation of the debts contracted, or the reparation of the losses sustained, in the course of the Greek campaign. "It was evident, then, that unless the Government at once took some prompt and vigorous step, it would soon be impossible to avoid the declara- tion of a national bankruptcy; and surely that was a consummation to which no good citizen could look forward without extreme regret and alarm. The course which Ziani pursued in this emergency, though not altogether without precedent, was sufficiently novel and remarkable. By the advice, it is to be presumed, and with the consent of the Privy Council, his Serenity detennined to mace an ditaeoment amounting ta one par cent on the aggre- gate property of every household; -and, is order that-the fullest effect might be given to the measure, a new office was instituted, under the title of the Chamber of Loans (Camera degli Imprestidi), composed of three members, who were designated the Camerlenghi del Commune' and whose special duty it was to draw up a report and keep a register of the means of every person in the commune liable to such assessment. The sum realized by this process was allowed to bear an interest of four per cent, payable half- yearly at March and September, until a more prosperous aspect of affairs should admit the restitution of the principal. We 'oelieve that we do not err in supposing that the foregoing measure was the earliest recourse to the great and important system of funding—a system which became at a later period a recognized branch of the political economy of nations ; and men point to the Bank of Venice as the oldest institution of the kind in Europe. "As we have already intimated, however, the loan of 1173 was not the first occasion on which the Venetian Government carried into practice the theory of public credit. About ten years before the unfortunate rupture with the court of Constantinople, the Doge Michieli, embarrassed by the pecuniary difficulties in which the State was involved, borrowed from seve- ral opulent merchants in the name of the commune a sum of one hundred and fifty thousand marks of silver : the subscribers to the loan were the present Doge, Orio Malipiero, Orb o Orb, ietro Acotanto, Cratone Dandolo and a few others ; and the bond or guarantee by which the Rialto and all the dues arising from it were mortgaged to them for a term of eleven years, (within which period repayment of the money was promised,) bore the date 4th June 1160. This advance, it is to be observed, was purely voluntary ; it bore no interest ; and we may, perhaps, regard it as the first debt of the sort which was ever contracted by the republic.'
The historians of the last age chiefly directed their attention to general narrative; what is called political philosophy being dropped in under the guise of passing reflections or relegated, to notes and appendices. Such was the case with Hume and Vol- taire, the first of philosophical historians. In modern history, greater art or a more distinct object is required. Among the histories with a single aim may be instanced Hallam's Consti- tutional History, where events are not only subordinate to a par- ticular purpose, but are altogether disregarded save for their bearing upon the theme. Another method is to discover or fancy a leading principle permeating the story, and to treat events as illustrating that principle. The artistic mode is substantially all the others combined. There must be an interesting narrative of facts and an exposition of the rise and progress of society. The institutions of the country and its laws, the public professions of the church, the law, and medicine, so far as they influence the public wellbeing, must be considered, with literature, as ex- hibiting manners and opinions, and the useful arts, as they af- fect the habits, customs, and comforts of the people. Such a work has sometimes been promised, but not yet produced; nor do we believe its production possible. Macaulay approaches the nearest to it in parts ; but he is more of the artist than the philosopher by a great deal, and a great deal more of both than of the truth-teller.
Mr. Carew Hazlitt belongs to the first class, with some indica- tions of the third. He appears to have independently considered the works of modern historians and to have carefully and cri- tically examined what may be termed original authorities, whether mere chroniclers or the collectors and editors of docu- ments. His statements are generally- clear, and his narrative as a whole very readable : where he fails, as he occasionally does in clearness, it is from too close an imitation of Gibbon, and from a variable use of the proper name and the title of a man, which is startling, and to popular readers puzzling. His judgment, though in the main impartial, inclines to a more enthusiastic view of Venice than his statements and the actual verity will, we think, support. A want of reference not to his authority but to the means of testing the value of lab authorities is the leading deficiency of the work. We do not blame Mr. *mat for not consulting the manuscript collections of Venice ; because for a large portion of his period-452 to 1289—there were probably very few to consult, and for some centuries none. It is, however, desirable in this paucity of authorities, that the reader should know what is their age and nature : for in most cases, to most persons refer- ence is a mockery. Is the statement from a chronicler ?Lif so, what is his relation to the time of which he writes, and his means of knowing the facts which he represents ? Is it a docu- ment ?—what is its probable value, or the value of the collection in which it is contained ? In a national history, the authorities are mostly so well known, or so easily ascertained, that this ful- ness of explanation is scarcely needed, though historians often drop a passing comment on the value of their author. The sub- jects of Mr. Prescott are so limited in point of time that some opinion, could be hazarded as to the nature of his sources of information; yet the American's notices of his leading authorities are felt to be a valuable addition. Gibbon En- tertained the idea of writing a critical account of the prin- cipal works that he had used in the Decline and Falq,—a book which would have been more curious than the history. it- self. In a continuation or a new edition, Mr. Hazlitt should:giye, in some form a full account of the principal authorities, el
to be original, (not late historians,) on which he builds his
Such would undoubtedly improve the best popular history of Venice which we have from. its origin to its velminatbig point of freedom and power.
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