And here we see Venice’s absolutely stupidest causus beli. Literally ever.
It starts six years before the game period, and ends four years before, so a new group of magi might meet at a gathering held to watch the festivities.
During his dogado a year of Jubilee was appointed by the Pope—1214—in thankfulness for the general peace ; and every Italian State held festivals and fetes. Treviso led the way, for nothing could exceed the beauty and the human interest of the ” Marca Amorosa” The centre of the most fruitful and delightful region of all Northern Italy, Treviso, with her borders, was renowned for the richness of her vegetation, the salubrity of her climate, the beauty of her women, and chivalry of her cavaliers. The rallying-point too of knights and champions from the vigorous Teutonic north and the vivacious Prankish west Treviso was the fascinating rendezvous of all that was romantic, brave and fair.
The Crusades had been the making of the soldiery of all Europe,—not indeed in the elements of warfare but in the courtesies of the battle-field. Men went forth to fight the Saracen and the Turk to vindicate the nobility of the Cross and the gentleness of the Son of Mary. For the weak and the oppressed they gave and took sword-thrust and arrow-tip, and not as men fighting men alone. Heroes returned to Venetian, Trevisan and Paduan homes famous for their valour and their virtue : the Crusades were schools of Christian chivalry. To fight for women and for children in Palestine meant to honour and exalt those of their own dear land, but this was quite a new idea. Saint Mary and the Saints of God held the hands of their own babes and youths, the hands of their own girls and women, and men worshipped at human shrines as well as in saintly sanctuaries.
Trexiso put forth her best efforts in the way of pageant, spectacle, and mask—albeit she did not forget to dress her altars, light her candles, and burn her incense, in honour of the Jubilee. In the centre of the Piazza della Spineda, the Guild of Carpenters erected a grandiose palace—”Castle of Love” it was named, overlaid with gilding and painting, and decorated with rich silk velvets, costly furs, and precious tapestries. Trophies from Palestine and spoils from Constantinople were raised aloft, with rose-trees full of roses, myrtles in white flower, and jessamine, the marriage bloom, and many another decorative feature. All this bravery was the mise-en-scene for such a castle garrison as no knight’s eyes had beheld nor indeed his heart imagined.
Two hundred of the fairest damsels of Treviso and Padua, and with them not a few noble matrons of attractive personality, manned or shall we say “womaned” the lofty battlements. Dressed in most becoming garbs and covered with jewels, with faces painted and hair coiffured in exquisite taste, the fascinating amazons have at hand no weapons or grenades of lethal warfare, but baskets of sweet flowers, cornucopias of ripe fruit, and crystal vases filled with delicious scents, ready for the besiegers. Three Companies in turn assault the ”Castle of Beauty”—gallant knights and esquires of Venice, Padua, and Treviso. Strange are their battle-cries. Lately singing Litanies to the Saints, their lips have learned compelling dulcet tones, as they have prayed at or for the Holy Sepulchre, and now they again give forth the refrain ” Ora pro Nobis”—addressed not to St Giustina, St Catherine, or St Barbara, but to Donna Beatrice, Donna Fioretta, Donna Felicita, and to all the beauteous two hundred!
Amid the plaudits of thousands of spectators on pavement, in window, on balcony, on roof, drawn from all the plains of Lombardy the Company of Treviso—as gallant goodly lads as ever donned tight hose and well-shaped tunic,—deliver the first attack, making trial of their knighthood. Appealing to the tender unsullied hearts of the fair defenders of the Castle, with gentle words, they shower such things as affect most the eye of woman—lovely flowers, amorous billets-doux, and delicate scentsachets.
Not so can they obtain the battlements, and falling back, the second line of attack is opened out by the Company from Padua. Clever pleasant youths are they and full of artistic fancies, well groomed too, they rally to the charge with such things as may please their ladies” palates.— boxes of expensive sweetmeats, baskets of delicious fruits, and fresh rissoles of fish and chicken. The fair ones catch all they can. but yield not their portcullis. Now comes the turn of the fresh-complexioned, well-figured. fair-haired, silent, haughty young Venetians. They step boldly forward, in silken ti2:hts. each lad a lord in self-esteem : they have special ammunition for their service, attractive to all the senses of woman-kind, — scented walnuts,, Oriental sweeties, and sugared roseleaves, but, in their scarlet satchels they have a wealth of good gold ducats, and with them the day is won. for the maidens toss the glittering spoil from hand to hand and laugh and sing- right merrily I
But before the conquerors can carry- off their bewitching prisoners, the defeated warriors rally to the call of “Down with Venice.”‘ and rush the standard-bearers. In a trice the red banner of San Marco is trailing- on the ground and the Venetians have whipped out their swords! Messer Paolo da Sermedole. the Master of the Pageant, and his assistants intervene, and the tears of the captured maidens arrest the flow of blood, but the Venetians leave the “Marca Amorosa” vowing vengeance for the insult. War was declared forthwith against the sister cities and the end of it came not till two years had passed, when at Bebe near Chioggia, the Paduans accepted the Venetian terms. Doge Pietro Ziani stipulated, as a condition of peace, that twenty-five Paduan Knights, who had participated in the ”Marca Amorosa” at Treviso, should present themselves at the Ducal Palace, submissive to the orders of his Serenity.
In Venice the gallant Company was welcomed right nobly, as became magnanimous foes, feasted for ten days, and well laden with costly presents, and so were speeded home again. History has not exactly told us whether any, or all of that gallant band, took away things more precious still than the splendid offerings,—the hearts of Venetian maidens ! The revenge of the conquered, in true chivalry, is the spoiling of the conqueror. Anyhow at least one Venetian bride was led away to Padua, and with her went a goodly trousseau :
Games From Folktales 