I

THE FIRST EPOCH OF VENETIAN

HISTORY

1. WE must now subdivide our first epoch of seven hundred years¹ into three minor periods:-

1st. The time of the Tribunes, 421-697-two hundred and seventy-six years.

2nd. The time of the Dukes of Malamocco, 697-809-a hundred and twelve years.

3rd. The time of the Dukes of Rialto, 809-1100-two hundred and ninety years.

Now it is of extreme importance that you do not lose hold of your main masses when we begin to subdivide.

Remember that this total first epoch of 680 years is to be thought of always as the foundation of the Venetian Monarchy; the time in which the character of the nation and of the persons who ruled it was every hour becoming more orderly and more noble, every internal discussion securing its greater peace, and every distress of fate its greater strength. Then came the second great epoch of two hundred years, in which the Venetian Noblesse is formed.² Then the third great epoch of two hundred years, in which the Venetian Noblesse becomes the governing power.³ Then the fourth great period of eighty years, in which Noblesse and people are ruined together.⁴

2. Remember, also, that from this broad massing in statement you are to draw no conclusion yet respecting the good or evil of aristocratic government. Without wealth, without printing, and without what Protestants call the Reformation, the Nobles of Venice might have ruled as beneficently as her Dukes; nay, possibly, even under the calamities of printing, of wealth, and of the Reformation, much might yet have been possible, if but one Father-law of old Venice had been held sacred-that which she had set her lips so scornfully hard in pronouncing-against the gamester.⁵ But our time is not yet come to reason concerning these things. Only keep the four periods massed clearly in your mind, and then, understanding the perfect nature of the first, as the establishment of the power of the Dukes, in firm Christian faith, over a race of warrior-merchants, let us learn next the order of its three minor epochs-the first, I have said,

¹ [See § 59, p. 254.]

² [1100-1301: see § 60, p. 254.]

³ [1301-1520: see ibid.]

⁴ [1520-1600: see ibid.]

⁵ [See above, § 16, p. 221.]

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[Version 0.04: March 2008]