I. THE BURDEN OF TYRE 209

Another of Mr. Murray’s publications for your general assistance (Sketches from Venetian History¹) informs you that, at this time, the ambassadors of the King of Jerusalem (the second Baldwin) were “awakening the pious zeal, and stimulating the commercial appetite, of the Venetians.”

This elegantly balanced sentence is meant to suggest to you that the Venetians had as little piety as we have ourselves, and were as fond of money;-that article being the only one which an Englishman could now think of, as an object of “commercial appetite.”

The facts which take this aspect to the lively Cockney, are, in reality, that Venice was sincerely pious, and intensely covetous. But not covetous merely of money. She was

as evidence or illustration, more or less out of its current, they may be more prudently arranged in subsequent order, though not in any smaller type, for if it be more difficult or dull reading, it would only be made worse by small letters.

“The book quoted at § 3 is Muratori’s edition in folio of the chronicle of Venetian history, arranged under the lives of the Doges, by Marin Sanuto, son of Leonard, Patrician of Venice, about the close of the fifteenth century; precious in care and dignity of style, and full of wisely gathered documents.

“’Unless I am deceived (says his editor in Latin, here, I hope, without grave error rendered), next to the noblest chronicle of Dandolo you will scarcely show me another history of the Venetians comparable with this, whether you look to its fulness of matter and document, or to its sincerity and love of truth. Certainly Sanuto spared no diligence in collecting whatever could be known of Venetian deeds, especially after the year of Christ 1100, for what precedes that date does not want for fables.’ (The reader will please at once note that date of 1100. I am going to lean much on it, soon.)

“There is another Marin Sanuto-cognomened Torsellus, of whom much hereafter-whose chronicle, written about the close of the thirteenth century, is published in another collection of legends by a good bishop-a French bishop.”

The full title of the history by Marino Sanuto, the younger, is Vitæ Ducum Venetorum Italice scriptæ ab origine nubis, sive ab anno 421, usque ad annum 1493. It is contained in vol. xxii. of Muratori’s Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (Milan, 1733). The latest edition is in Italian, edited by Giovanni Monticolo (Le Vite dei Dogi di Marin Sanudo), forming part of Giosue Carducci’s Raccolta degli Storici Italiani ordinata da L.A. Muratori (Citta di Castello, 1900). For the importance of the date 1100, see §§ 59, 60 (below, p. 254).

The work by Marino Sanuto (Torsellus), the elder, is Liber Secretorum fidelium crucis super Terræ Sanctæ recuperatione et conversatione, quo et Terræ Sanctæ Historia ab origine continetur. It is contained in vol. ii. of a collection of histories, by various authors, entitled Gesta Dei per Francos (Hanau, 1611), brought together by Jacques Bongars (1554-1612), French diplomat and scholar (not bishop).]

¹ [Vol. i. p. 35 (1831 edition): for another reference to this book, see Vol. XI. p. 99 n.]

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