keep the sea in rough weather, and in winter they never willingly kept the sea at night, however fair the weather might be. Yet Sanudo mentions that he had been with armed galleys to Sluys in Flanders. I will mention two more particulars before concluding this digression. When captured galleys were towed into port it' was stern foremost, and with their colours dragging on the surface of the sea.* And the custom of saluting at sunset (probably by music) was in vogue on board the galleys of the 13th century.t We shall now sketch the circumstances that led to the appearance of our Traveller in the command of a war-galley. VI. THE JEALOUSIES AND NAVAL WARS OF VENICE AND GENOA. LAMBA DORIA'S EXPEDITION TO THE ADRIATIC; BATTLE OF CURZOLA; AND IMPRISONMENT OF MARCO POLO BY THE GENOESE. 31. Jealousies, too characteristic of the Italian communities, were, in the case of the three great trading republics of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, aggravated by com- Growing mercial rivalries, whilst, between the two first of jealousies those states, and also between the two last, the bitterness of such feelings had been augmenting Republics. during the whole course of the 13th century.‡ and out breaks be tween the The brilliant part played by Venice in the conquest of Constantinople (1204), and the preponderance she thus acquired on the Greek shores, stimulated her arrogance and the resentment of her rivals. The three states no longer stood on a level as bidders for the shifting favour of the Emperor of the East. By treaty, not only was Venice' established as the most important ally of the empire and as mistress of a large fraction of its territory, but all members of nations at war with her were prohibited from entering its limits. Though the Genoese colonies continued to exist, they stood at a great disadvantage, where their rivals were so predominant and p. 9. * See Muntaner, passim, e.g. 271, 286, 315, 349. + Ibid. 346. In this part of these notices I am repeatedly indebted to Heyd; see supra, enjoyed exemption from duties, to which the Genoese remained subject. Hence jealousies and resentments reached a climax in the Levantine settlements, and this colonial exacerbation re-acted on the mother States. A dispute which broke out at Acre in 1255 came to a head in a war which lasted for years, and was felt all over Syria. It began in a quarrel about a very old church called St. Sabba's, which stood on the common boundary of the Venetian and Genoese estates in Acre,* and this flame was blown by other unlucky occurrences. Acre suffered grievously.† Venice at this time generally kept the upper hand, beating Genoa by land and sea, and driving her from Acre altogether. Two ancient pillars from St. Sabba's were sent in triumph to Venice, and with their strange devices still stand at the door of St. Mark's towards the Ducal Palace. But no number of defeats could extinguish the spirit of Genoa, and the tables were turned when in her wrath she allied herself with Michael Palaeologus to upset the feeble and tottering Latin Dynasty, and with it the preponderance of Venice on the Bosphorus. The new emperor handed over to his allies the castle of their foes, which they tore down with jubilations, and now it was their turn to send its stones as trophies to Genoa. Mutual hate waxed fiercer than ever; no merchant fleet of either state could go to sea without convoy, and wherever their ships met they fought.§ It was something like the state of things between Spain and England in the days of Drake. The energy and capacity of the Genoese seemed to rise with their success, and both in seamanship and in splendour they * On or close to the Hill called Monjoie; see the plan from Marino Sanudo at p. 18. "Throughout that year there were not less than 40 machines all at work upon the city of Acre, battering its houses and its towers, and smashing and overthrowing everything within their range. There were at least ten of those engines that shot stones so big and heavy that they weighed a good 1500 lbs. by the weight of Champagne; insomuch that nearly all the towers and forts of Acre were destroyed, and only the religious houses were left. And there were slain in this same war good 20,000 men on the two sides, but chiefly of Genoese and Spaniards." (Lettre de Jean Pierre Sarrasin, in Mi:hel's Joinville, p. 308.) The origin of these columns is however somewhat uncertain. § In 1262, when a Venetian squadron was taken by the Greek fleet in alliance with the Genoese, the whole of the survivors of the captive crews were blinded by order of Palaeologus (Roman. ii. 272.) began almost to surpass their old rivals. The fall of Acre (1291), and the total expulsion of the Franks from Syria, in great measure barred the southern routes of Indian trade, whilst the predominance of Genoa in the Euxine more or less obstructed the free access of her rival to the northern routes by Trebizond and Tana. Battle in in 1294. 32. Truces were made and renewed, but the old fire still smouldered. In the spring of 1294 it broke into flame, in consequence of the seizure in the Grecian seas of three Genoese vessels by a Venetian fleet. This Bay of Ayas led to an action with a Genoese convoy which sought redress. The fight took place off Ayas in the Gulf of Scanderoon,* and though the Genoese were inferior in strength by one-third they gained a signal victory, capturing all but three of the Venetian galleys, with rich cargoes, including that of Marco Basilio (or Basegio), the commodore. This victory over their haughty foe was in its completeness evidently a surprise to the Genoese, as well as a source of immense exultation, which is vigorously expressed in a ballad of the day, written in a stirring salt-water rhythm. It represents the Venetians, as they enter the bay, in arrogant mirth reviling the Genoese with very unsavoury epithets as having deserted their ships to skulk on shore. They are described as saying :— "Off they've slunk! and left us nothing; So they advance carelessly "On they come! But lo their blunder! Breaking out like unchained lions, With a roar, 'Fall on! Fall on!'"‡ * See pp. 16, 43, and Plan of Ayas at beginning of Book I. + See Archivio Storico Italiano, Appendice, tom. iv. This Alor! Alor! ("Up, Boys, and at 'em "), or something similar, appears to have been the usual war-cry of both parties. So a trumpet-like poem of the Troubadour warrior Bertram de Born, whom Dante found in such evil plight After relating the battle and the thoroughness of the victory, ending in the conflagration of five-and-twenty captured galleys, the poet concludes by an admonition to the enemy to moderate his pride and curb his arrogant tongue, harping on the obnoxious epithet porci leproxi, which seems to have galled the Genoese.* He concludes: "Nor can I at all remember Ever to have heard the story Of a fight wherein the Victors Reaped so rich a meed of glory! "† The community of Genoa decreed that the victory should be commemorated by the annual presentation of a golden pall to the monastery of St. German's, the saint on whose feast (28th May) it had been won.‡ The startling news was received at Venice with wrath and grief, for the flower of their navy had perished, and all energies were bent at once to raise an overwhelming force.§ The Pope (Boniface VIII.) interfered as arbiter, calling for plenipo below (xxviii. 118 seqq.), in which he sings with extraordinary spirit the joys of war : "Le us dic que tan no m'a sabor Manjars, ni beure, ni dormir, "I tell you a zest far before Aught of slumber, or drink, or of food, I snatch when the shouts of ALOR Ring from both sides: and out of the wood Comes the neighing of steeds dimly seen. In a galley fight at Tyre in 1258, according to a Latin narrative, the Genoese shout "Ad arma, ad arma! ad ipsos, ad ipsos!" The cry of the Venetians before engaging the Greeks is represented by Martino da Canale, in his old French, as "or à yaus! or à yaus!" that of the Genoese on another occasion as Aur! Aur! and this last is the shout of the Catalans also in Ramon de Muntaner. (Villemain, Litt. du Moyen Age, i. 99; Archiv. Stor. Ital. viii. 364, 506; Pertz Script. xviii. 239; Muntaner, 269, 287.) Recently in a Sicilian newspaper, narrating an act of gallant and successful reprisal (only too rare) by country folk on a body of the brigands who are such a scourge to parts of the island, I read that the honest men in charging the villains raised a shout of “Ad iddi! Ad iddi!” A phrase curiously identical, with a similar sequence, is attributed to an Austrian General at the battle of Skalitz in 1866 (Stoffel's Letters). tentiaries from both sides. But spirits were too much inflamed, and this mediation came to nought. The Further outrages on both sides occurred in 1296. Genoese residences at Pera were fired, their great alum works on the coast of Anatolia were devastated, and Caffa was stormed and sacked; whilst on the other hand a number of the Venetians at Constantinople were massacred by the Genoese, and Marco Bembo their Bailo was flung from a house-top, Amid such events the fire of enmity between the cities waxed hotter and hotter. 33. In 1298 the Genoese made elaborate preparations for a great blow at the enemy, and fitted out a powerful fleet which they placed under the command of LAMBA Lamba DoDORIA, a younger brother of Uberto of that illus- dition to the trious house, under whom he had served fourteen Adriatic. years before in the great rout of the Pisans at Meloria. ria's Expe The rendezvous of the fleet was in the Gulf of Spezia, as we learn from the same pithy Genoese poet who celebrated Ayas. This time the Genoese were bent on bearding St. Mark's Lion in his own den; and after touching at Messina they steered straight for the Adriatic: "Now, as astern Otranto bears, Pull with a will! and, please the Lord, Let them who bragged, with fire and sword, On their entering the gulf a great storm dispersed the fleet. The admiral with twenty of his galleys got into port at Antivari on the Albanian coast, and next day was rejoined by fifty-eight more, with which he scoured the Dalmatian shore, plundering all Venetian property. Some sixteen of his galleys were still missing when he reached the island of Curzola, or Scurzola as the more popular name seems to have been, the Black Corcyra of the Ancients-the chief town of which, a rich Or entram con gran vigor, En De sperando aver triumpho, And in the next verse note the pure Scotch use of the word bra: Sichè da Otranto se partim Quella bra compagnia, |