The Doge of Venice by Hugh Trevor-Roper

Author:Hugh Trevor-Roper [Trevor-Roper, Hugh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History/Renaissance
ISBN: 9781612307961
Publisher: New Word City, Inc.
Published: 2014-08-17T00:00:00+00:00

Now the old man turned on them the argument they had used against him in the past: By the law, he said, he could not abdicate unless the councilors proposed and the Greater Council agreed. Baffled, the Ten consulted again, reinterpreted the law to suit their convenience and told the doge of their reinterpretation. Still the doge held firm. Then they sent him an order to resign and vacate the ducal palace within eight days. If he did so, he would receive an adequate salary and a doge’s burial. If not, he would be driven out and all his goods confiscated.

It was an illegal demand, but the Doge was powerless to resist. The ducal ring was taken from his finger and the ducal cap from his head. He promised to leave the palace. Then, seeing pity in the eye of one of his visitors, he called to him and taking his hand said, “Whose son are you?” “I am the son of Messer Marin Memmo,” was the reply. The doge said, “He is my old friend. Ask him to come and visit me so that we may go in a boat for solace; we will visit the monasteries.” The next day, he left the palace. Wearing his old scarlet robe of state, he stepped forth, bent but unaided except by his staff. As he went to the stone steps leading to the water, his brother Marco urged him to go to his gondola by the covered stair. “No,” replied the doge, “I will go down by the same stair by which I came up to my dukedom.” A week later, he died - of rage, it was said, on hearing the bells announcing the election of his successor.

The people of Venice were indignant at the indecent deposition of the doge who had reigned so long, whose figure and personality were so striking, whom the emperors of East and West had visited, and who had given them such wonderful shows. There was much murmuring against the Council of Ten, and even the doge’s enemies were ashamed that they had not waited another week for a natural death. They gave Foscari a grand funeral in spite of the protests of the former dogaressa. He was buried in the church of the Frari, and a majestic Gothic-Renaissance monument that commemorated his conquest of the terraferma. Meanwhile, the Ten withdrew from the limelight until the furor over their treatment of the Doge had abated. But there was no denying that they had won a substantial victory. From now on, the constitution was not only clearly oligarchical, it was also clear that the center of oligarchical power lay with the Council of Ten.

The long reign of Francesco Foscari ended as it had begun, in bitter personal controversy, and even today, historians dispute its significance. It has been said that it was Foscari who diverted the attention of Venice from East to West, sacrificing Salonika and Constantinople to Bergamo and Brescia. This diversion led to disastrous

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