264 APPENDIX, 9

presented their maidens for marriage on one day in each year; and, with the price paid for those who were beautiful, gave dowries to those who had no personal attractions.

It is very curious to find the traces of this custom existing, though in a softened form, in Christian times. Still, I admit that there is little confidence to be placed in the mere concurrence of the Venetian Chroniclers, who, for the most part, copied from each other: but the best and most complete account I have read is that quoted by Galliciolli from the “Matricola de’ Casseleri,” written in 1449; and, in that account, the words are quite unmistakable. “It was anciently the custom of Venice, that all the brides (novizze) of Venice, when they married, should be married by the bishop, in the Church of S. Pietro di Castello, on St. Mark’s Day, which is the 31st of January.” Rogers¹ quotes Navagiero to the same effect; and Sansovino is more explicit still. “It was the custom to contract marriages openly; and when the deliberations were completed, the damsels assembled themselves in S. Pietro di Castello, for the feast of St. Mary, in February.”

9. [pp. 141, 193.] CHARACTER OF THE VENETIAN ARISTOCRACY

The following noble answer of a Venetian ambassador, Giustiniani, on the occasion of an insult offered him at the court of Henry the Eighth, is as illustrative of the dignity which there yet remained in the character and thoughts of the Venetian noble, as descriptive, in few words, of the early faith and deeds of his nation. He writes thus to the Doge, from London, on the 15th of April, 1516:

“By my last, in date of the 30th ult., I informed you that the countenances of some of these lords evinced neither friendship nor good-will, and that much language had been used to me of a nature bordering not merely on arrogance, but even on outrage; and not having specified this in the foregoing letters, I think fit now to mention it in detail. Finding myself at the court, and talking familiarly about other matters, two lay lords, great personages in this kingdom, inquired of me ‘whence it came that your Excellency was of such slippery faith, now favouring one party and then the other?’ Although these words ought to have irritated me, I answered them with all discretion, ‘that you did keep, and ever had kept, your faith; the maintenance of which has placed you in great trouble, and subjected you to wars of longer duration than you would otherwise have experienced; descending to particulars in justification of your Sublimity.’ Whereupon one of them replied, ‘Isti Veneti sunt piscatores.’¹* Marvellous was the command I then had over myself in not giving vent to expressions which might have proved injurious to your Signory; and with extreme moderation I rejoined, ‘that had he been at Venice, and seen our Senate, and the Venetian nobility, he perhaps would not speak thus; and moreover, were he well read in our history, both concerning the origin of our city, and the grandeur of your

* “Those Venetians are fishermen.”

¹ [In a note to his verses on “The Brides of Venice” in Italy.]

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