A short episode this week, to fill the hole caused when two episodes went live last week. This is a weaker section of Staley, but a necessary one for a few reasons. It covers the game period for Ars Magica. It lists the industries which the magical skills hide behind. It contains a terrible sin that cracks the Dominion in Venice, and leaves it damaged during the game period.
Away back in the ninth century, in the days of the ”Grand” Doge Agnello Partecipazio, the Emperor Lothair issued his ” Constitutiones Olonenses,” wherein eight cities and towns of Northern Italy are named as suitable centres for the establishment of the revived Roman “Collegia” or ” Scholce” — Bologna, Cremona, Firenze, Ivrea, Milano, Padua, Torino and Rivoalto (Venice). In each place the designation of the Scholce varied : in Venice they were called “Fragilia” —from ” Flagelli,” —whips,— the exact meaning of which it is difficult to state, perhaps “training schools ” wherein learners were whipped into shape !
Each ” Fragilia” had its teachers, its pupils, its officers, its constitution, its duties, and its bylaws. The earliest distinct mention of a ” Trade ” is in 826, when a maker of lead pipes for organs was working away near San Giacomo di Rialto : doubtless the artificer in question was a Greek, his name has not been preserved. Orso Partecipazio employed clock-makers in 864 and silversmiths and carvers of ivory : these craftsmen were Greeks however. The ”Cassellari” —makers of arcelle and cassoni — formed already a vigorous Corporation in the time of the rape of the “Venetian Brides.”
The first notice of ” Fabbri’—blacksmiths, was in 1184 as forming a ‘”Fragilia,” but the Calle de Fabbri was a well-known lane in the tenth century. The Altino Chronicle names Fishermen, Smiths, Saddlers, Carriers by water. Shepherds, Butchers, Masons, Carpenters, Cabinetmakers, Shoemakers and Furriers as the earliest incorporated craftsmen in the islands of the lagunes. ”Marzeri” or silk-mercers were established in Rivoalto in 942.
Doge Pietro Polani, in 1143 drafted a “Table of Precedence,” which established as the premier “Fragilia” or Trade-Guild, the Corporation of Fishermen. Thirty years later Doge Sebastiano Ziani set up the first ‘* Corte delta Giutizia ” in the interest of traders and operatives. Thereafter numerous other Crafts are named in Venetian history ; but Venice never attained to the eminence of Florence in the development of her Guilds — she was sui generis a great sea-port rather than a metropolis of industry. The thirteenth century first saw the cradle of the Crafts rocking effectively, — just as the fourteenth furnished the nursery of the Fine Arts,—and Venice felt the impulse of the new industries, along with the rest of Italy.
Doge Arrigo Dandolo had annexed one-fourth of the old Roman Empire to the tutelage of Venice, and ten great Turkish galleons brought home, with the remnant of her forces, vast treasures,—the loot of Constantinople and the islands of the Greek Archipelago. Upon the Piazzetta was outpoured the wealth of the Levant. Never before had Venetian eyes and hands beheld or handled such creations of art and craft. Every church and monastery, every palace and mansion, and every poor man’s home, were enriched by things of joy and beauty. Mothers and maidens laid up in honoured hiding – places tokens of their heroes resting in Paradise, and all the sons of Venice gathered objects of interest which engrossed their intelligences and set their minds and hands at work to imitate—the fall of Constantinople was the rise of craftsmanship in the Lagunes.
The Conquest of Constantinople—a notable turning-point in the history of Venice—was the initial mark of a new era throughout Europe. By common consent every class of the Venetians welcomed the promise of new conditions,— social and political,—and set to work to exchange Oriental ideas and sympathies for the pushful methods and modes of Northern and Western Europe. The first step was the election of a Doge, who should be, not only a desirable figurehead for the State, but who, by his force of character and personal experience, should lead the Commonwealth along progressive ways.
The qualifications for the Dogado were : (i) Ripe age ; (2) Urbane temperament ; (3) Good birth ; and (4) Ample private means. One man, and one man alone, stood out head-and-shoulders above his peers, as possessed of these four qualities, a man whose thirty years of distinguished public service placed him in the unique position of first citizen of Venice. By universal acclamation Pietro Ziani was chosen to wear the laurel-wreathed berretta of the great Dandolo. The son of one of the most distinguished of the Doges—Sebastiano Ziani—he had borne himself nobly as a successful naval commander, a tactful ambassador, and an upright magistrate. Handsome above the ordinary, pious without hypocrisy, talented in linguistic and forensic aptitude, and passionately loyal to the Constitution, he was calmly awaiting his destiny at his country residence at Arbe in Dalmatia.
A deputation of the Lords of the Council The Dogaressas of Venice boarded the magnificent ” Bucintoro” and accompanied by thirty galleys, all splendidly decorated with rare brocades and tapestries, set off to meet and escort the new Doge. Pietro Ziani’s progress was a triumphal procession, calling to mind the unanimous and felicitous election of Domenigo Selvo one hundred and fifty years before. Almost the first act of the new regime was the affirmation of the cordial relations which his father, Sebastiano, had entered into with Guglielmo II.—”The Good,” King of Sicily.
In confirmation of the new treaty the new Doge, in 1213, sought and gained the hand of the Princess Costanza, daughter of King Tancredo, Guglielmo’s son and successor. She was the first Norman Dogaressa of Venice, daughter of a brave and ardent race, a woman of conspicuous ability and ambition, and an ideal consort for the Head of a rejuvenated Venice. Pietro Ziani had but lately buried his first wife, the modest and beautiful Countess Maria Baseggio —whose father held the high office of Procurator of San Marco — nobilis et decora nimis Maria Dukessa — as she is called in the Altino Chronicle. The sole offspring of this union was a son, Giorgio, but, alas, when yet a child, he was torn to pieces by the savage mastiff watch-dogs of the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore. It was said that the Doge was so infuriated by this misfortune that he ordered the church and monastery with all the animals, — the poor monks as welly—to be consumed with fire : one may hope the innocent Religious escaped the fury. Anyhow the rest were all burnt, and then the remorse of Ziani was pitiable. By way of reparation he set to work at once to rebuild and re-endow what he had so petulantly sacrificed.
Dogaressa Costanza was handsome and gracious, and wore her Royal honours with distinction. Palazzi wrote thus of her—” A Queen by birth, Dogaressa of Venice by marriage, she exhibited all the attributes of her royal station,—she was also Duchess of Calabria,—and her high breeding, no less than her beauty, raised her above all petty jealousies.” In the ancient pack of playing-cards, at the Venetian Museo Civico, we find her represented upon the “Ten of Spades,” with the following legend :—” Costanza, daughter of Tancredo King of Naples, wife of Doge Pietro Ziani, was accustomed to meet all the malcontents against the Doge and herself with the saying :—’ I have nothing to do with you !”
The State being involved in tremendous financial difficulties on account of the cost of the Crusades, and also in behalf of the purchase of the island of Crete, in view of the Doge’s great private wealth, — ‘Ziani”was quite as true of Pietro as of Sebastiano—reduced his official salary to 2800 lire, with 100 thrown in as a free gift. It was further decreed that all tributes to the Doge should henceforth be shared between him and the treasury of San Marco. Moreover he was required to make an offering of three silver trumpets for ceremonial processions, and to undertake the repairs of the Ducal Palace, —rather a one-sided bargain!
Fifteen years of marital happiness fell to the lot of the Doge and Dogaressa. Three children were borne by imperious Costanza—Marco, Marchesina, and Maria. Some authorities say that the Dogaressa died suddenly in 1228 and that the Doge, brokenhearted, followed her within a month. The Altino Chronicle however records the abdication of Pietro Ziani, and adds that he and his Consort, with their family, retired into private life and went to reside in their palace upon the fondamento of Santa Giustina, where he died, and then received sepulchre in the church of San Giorgio Maggiore, in the tomb of his father Sebastiano.
There is still a third version of the deaths of Doge Pietro and Dogaressa Costanza. In the terrible earthquake of 1220, when the church and monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore were destroyed, and the islands of Amiano and Costanzina swallowed up, it was said that many people died of fright, and among them the Dogaressa. The Doge, sharing the universal sense of insecurity in Venice, proposed to move the seat of Government to Constantinople, but, upon the cessation of the seismic disturbances, wiser counsels prevailed, and he set to work to rebuild the shattered edifices. In 1229 Pietro Ziani exchanged the silk-brocaded robe of State for the worsted habit of a Benedictine, and ended his days in the new monastery of San Giorgia
which he had built.
Next time, Venice’s stupidest war.
Games From Folktales 