The Travels of Marco Polo Volume I Part 26

[29] Ibid. 346.

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.

[Sidenote: Growing jealousies and outbreaks between the Republics.]

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 commercial rivalries, whilst, between the two first of those states, and also between the two last, the bitterness of such feelings had been augmenting during the whole course of the 13th century.[1]

The brilliant part played by Venice in the conquest of Constantinople (1204), and the preponderance she thus acquired on the Greek sh.o.r.es, stimulated her arrogance and the resentment of her rivals. The three states no longer stood on a level as bidders for the s.h.i.+fting 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 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 reacted 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,[2] and this flame was blown by other unlucky occurrences. Acre suffered grievously.[3] Venice at this time generally kept the upper hand, beating Genoa by land and sea, and driving her from Acre altogether. + Four ancient porphyry figures from St.

Sabba's were sent in triumph to Venice, and with their strange devices still stand at the exterior corner of St. Mark's, towards the Ducal Palace.[4]

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 s.h.i.+ps met they fought.[5] It was something like the state of things between Spain and England in the days of Drake.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figures from St. Sabba's, sent to Venice.]

The energy and capacity of the Genoese seemed to rise with their success, and both in seamans.h.i.+p and in splendour they began almost to surpa.s.s 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.

[Sidenote: Battle in Bay of Ayas 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 led to an action with a Genoese convoy which sought redress. The fight took place off Ayas in the Gulf of Scanderoon,[6] 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.[7] It represents the Venetians, as they enter the bay, in arrogant mirth reviling the Genoese with very unsavoury epithets as having deserted their s.h.i.+ps to skulk on sh.o.r.e. They are described as saying:--

"'Off they've slunk! and left us nothing; We shall get nor prize nor praise; Nothing save those crazy timbers Only fit to make a blaze.'"

So they advance carelessly--

"On they come! But lo their blunder!

When our lads start up anon, Breaking out like unchained lions, With a roar, 'Fall on! Fall on!'"[8]

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.[9] 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!"[10]

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.[11]

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.[12] The Pope (Boniface VIII.) interfered as arbiter, calling for plenipotentiaries from both sides. But spirits were too much inflamed, and this mediation came to nought.

Further outrages on both sides occurred in 1296. The 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 ma.s.sacred 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.

[Sidenote: Lamba Doria's Expedition to the Adriatic.]

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 DORIA, a younger brother of Uberto of that ill.u.s.trious house, under whom he had served fourteen years before in the great rout of the Pisans at Meloria.

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, To waste our homesteads, look to theirs!"[13]

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 sh.o.r.e, 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 and flouris.h.i.+ng place, the Genoese took and burned.[14] Thus they were engaged when word came that the Venetian fleet was in sight.

Venice, on first hearing of the Genoese armament, sent Andrea Dandolo with a large force to join and supersede Maffeo Quirini, who was already cruising with a squadron in the Ionian sea; and, on receiving further information of the strength of the hostile expedition, the Signory hastily equipped thirty-two more galleys in Chioggia and the ports of Dalmatia, and despatched them to join Dandolo, making the whole number under his command up to something like ninety-five. Recent drafts had apparently told heavily upon the Venetian sources of enlistment, and it is stated that many of the complements were made up of rustics swept in haste from the Euganean hills. To this the Genoese poet seems to allude, alleging that the Venetians, in spite of their haughty language, had to go begging for men and money up and down Lombardy. "Did _we_ do like that, think you?" he adds:--

"Beat up for aliens? _We_ indeed?

When lacked we homeborn Genoese?

Search all the seas, no salts like these, For Courage, Seacraft, Wit at need."[15]

Of one of the Venetian galleys, probably in the fleet which sailed under Dandolo's immediate command, went Marco Polo as _Sopracomito_ or Gentleman-Commander.[16]

[Sidenote: The Fleets come in sight of each other at Curzola.]

34. It was on the afternoon of Sat.u.r.day the 6th September that the Genoese saw the Venetian fleet approaching, but, as sunset was not far off, both sides tacitly agreed to defer the engagement.[17]

The Genoese would appear to have occupied a position near the eastern end of the Island of Curzola, with the Peninsula of Sabbioncello behind them, and Meleda on their left, whilst the Venetians advanced along the south side of Curzola. (See map on p. 50).

According to Venetian accounts the Genoese were staggered at the sight of the Venetian armaments, and sent more than once to seek terms, offering finally to surrender galleys and munitions of war, if the crews were allowed to depart. This is an improbable story, and that of the Genoese ballad seems more like truth. Doria, it says, held a council of his captains in the evening at which they all voted for attack, whilst the Venetians, with that overweening sense of superiority which at this time is reflected in their own annals as distinctly as in those of their enemies, kept scout-vessels out to watch that the Genoese fleet, which they looked on as already their own, did not steal away in the darkness. A vain imagination, says the poet:--

"Blind error of vainglorious men To dream that we should seek to flee After those weary leagues of sea Crossed, but to hunt them in their den!"[18]

[Sidenote: The Venetians defeated, and Marco Polo a prisoner.]

35. The battle began early on Sunday and lasted till the afternoon. The Venetians had the wind in their favour, but the morning sun in their eyes.

They made the attack, and with great impetuosity, capturing ten Genoese galleys; but they pressed on too wildly, and some of their vessels ran aground. One of their galleys too, being taken, was cleared of her crew and turned against the Venetians. These incidents caused confusion among the a.s.sailants; the Genoese, who had begun to give way, took fresh heart, formed a close column, and advanced boldly through the Venetian line, already in disorder. The sun had begun to decline when there appeared on the Venetian flank the fifteen or sixteen missing galleys of Doria's fleet, and fell upon it with fresh force. This decided the action. The Genoese gained a complete victory, capturing all but a few of the Venetian galleys, and including the flags.h.i.+p with Dandolo. The Genoese themselves lost heavily, especially in the early part of the action, and Lamba Doria's eldest son Octavian is said to have fallen on board his father's vessel.[19] The number of prisoners taken was over 7000, and among these was Marco Polo.[20]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Marco Polo's Galley going into action at Curzola.

"il sembloit que la galie volast, par les nageurs qui la contreingnoient aux avirons, et sembloit que foudre cheist des ciex, au bruit que les pennoncians menoient, et que les nacaues les tabours et les cors sarrazinnois menoient, qui estoient en sa galie"

(_Joinville_, vide _ante_, p. 40)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Scene of the Battle of Curzola.]

The prisoners, even of the highest rank, appear to have been chained.

Dandolo, in despair at his defeat, and at the prospect of being carried captive into Genoa, refused food, and ended by das.h.i.+ng his head against a bench.[21] A Genoese account a.s.serts that a n.o.ble funeral was given him after the arrival of the fleet at Genoa, which took place on the evening of the 16th October.[22] It was received with great rejoicing, and the City voted the annual presentation of a pallium of gold brocade to the altar of the Virgin in the Church of St. Matthew, on every 8th of September, the Madonna's day, on the eve of which the Battle had been won.

To the admiral himself a Palace was decreed. It still stands, opposite the Church of St. Matthew, though it has pa.s.sed from the possession of the Family. On the striped marble facades, both of the Church and of the Palace, inscriptions of that age, in excellent preservation, still commemorate Lamba's achievement.[23] Malik al Mansur, the Mameluke Sultan of Egypt, as an enemy of Venice, sent a complimentary letter to Doria accompanied by costly presents.[24]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Church of San Matteo, Genoa]

The latter died at Savona 17th October, 1323, a few months before the most ill.u.s.trious of his prisoners, and his bones were laid in a sarcophagus which may still be seen forming the sill of one of the windows of S.

Matteo (on the right as you enter). Over this sarcophagus stood the Bust of Lamba till 1797, when the mob of Genoa, in idiotic imitation of the French proceedings of that age, threw it down. All of Lamba's six sons had fought with him at Meloria. In 1291 one of them, Tedisio, went forth into the Atlantic in company with Ugolino Vivaldi on a voyage of discovery, and never returned. Through Caesar, the youngest, this branch of the Family still survives, bearing the distinctive surname of _Lamba-Doria_.[25]

As to the treatment of the prisoners, accounts differ; a thing usual in such cases. The Genoese Poet a.s.serts that the hearts of his countrymen were touched, and that the captives were treated with compa.s.sionate courtesy. Navagiero the Venetian, on the other hand, declares that most of them died of hunger.[26]