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will sink to that of vassals and servants to men of arms." The prophecy was fulfilled. "If we look," writes Mr. H. F. Brown Venice, etc., 1893, p. 306), "at the sum-total of Foscari's reign we find that the Republic had increased her land territory by the addition of two great provinces, Bergamo and Brescia... But the price had been enormous her debt rose from 6,000,000 to 13,000,000 ducats. Venetian funds fell to 18. . . . Externally there was much pomp and splendour.... But underneath this bravery there lurked the official corruption of the nobles, the suspicion of the Ten, the first signs of bank failures, the increase in the national debt, the fall in the value of the funds. Land wars and landed possessions drew the Venetians from the sea to terra ferma. . . The beginning of the end had arrived." (See Two Doges of Venice, by Alethea Wiel, 1891; I due Foscari, Memorie Storicho Critiche, di Francesco Berlan, 1852; Storia Documentata di Venezia, di S. Romanin, 1855, vol. iv.; Die beiden Foscari, von Richard Senger, 1878. For reviews, etc., of The Two Foscari, vide ante, "Introduction to Sardanapalus," p. 5.)

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...

Both Jeffrey in the Edinburgh, and Heber in the Quarterly Review, took exception to the character of Jacopo Foscari, in accordance with the Horatian maxim, "Incredulus odi." "If," said Jeffrey, "he had been presented to the audience wearing out his heart in exile, . we might have caught some glimpse of the nature of his motives." As it is (in obedience to the "unities ") "we first meet with him led from the 'Question,' and afterwards. . . clinging to the dungeon walls of his native city, and expiring from his dread of leaving them." The situation lacks conviction.

"If," argued Heber, "there ever existed in nature a case so extraordinary as that of a man who gravely preferred tortures and a dungeon at home, to a temporary residence in a beautiful island and a fine climate; it is what few can be made to believe, and still fewer to sympathize with."

...

It was, no doubt, with reference to these criticisms that Byron told Medwin (Conversations, 1824, p. 173) that it was no invention of his that the "young Foscari should have a sickly affection for his native city. I painted the men as I found them, as they were not as the critics would have them... But no painting, however highly coloured, can give an idea of the intensity of a Venetian's affection for his native city."

Goethe, on the other hand, was "not careful" to note these inconsistencies and perplexities. He thought that the dramatic handling of The Two Foscari was "worthy of great praise," was admirable!" (Conversations with Goethe,

1874, p. 265).

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

MEN.

FRANCIS FOSCARI, Doge of Venice.

JACOPO FOSCARI, Son of the Doge.

JAMES LOREDANO, a Patrician.

MARCO MEMMO, a Chief of the Forty.

BARBARIGO, a Senator.

Other Senators, The Council of Ten, Guards, Attendants,

etc., etc.

WOMAN.

MARINA, Wife of young FOSCARI.

SCENE-The Ducal Palace, Venice.

THE TWO FOSCARI.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-A Hall in the Ducal Palace.

Enter LOREDANO and BARBARIGO, meeting.

Lor. WHERE is the prisoner?

Bar.

Reposing from

The Question.

Lor.

The hour's past-fixed yesterday

For the resumption of his trial.-Let us

Rejoin our colleagues in the council, and

Urge his recall.

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A few brief minutes for his tortured limbs ;
He was o'erwrought by the Question yesterday,
And may die under it if now repeated.

1

i. too soon repeated.-[MS. erased.]

1. [It is a moot point whether Jacopo Foscari was placed on the rack on the occasion of his third trial. The original document of the X. (July 23, 1456) runs thus: "Si videtur vobis per ea quæ dicta et lecta sunt, quod procedatur contra Ser Jacobum Foscari;" and it is argued (see F. Berlan, I due Foscari, etc., 1852, p. 57), (1) that the word procedatur is not a euphemism for "tortured," but should be rendered "judgment be given against;" (2) that if the X. had decreed torture, torture would have been expressly enjoined; and (3) that as the decrees of the Council were not divulged, there was no motive for ambiguity. S. Romanin (Storia Documentata, etc., 1853, iv. 284) and R. Senger (Die beiden Foscari, 1878, p. 116) take the same view. On the other hand, Miss A. Wiel (Two Doges of Venice, 1891, p. 107) points out that, according to the Dolfin Cronaca, which Berlan did not consult, Jacopo was in a "mutilated" condition when the trial was over, and he was permitted to take a last farewell of his wife and

Lor. Well?
Bar.

I yield not to you in love of justice,

Or hate of the ambitious Foscari,

Father and son, and all their noxious race;

But the poor wretch has suffered beyond Nature's
Most stoical endurance.

Lor.

His crime?

Bar.

Without owning

Perhaps without committing any.

But he avowed the letter to the Duke

Of Milan, and his sufferings half atone for

Such weakness.

ΙΟ

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When they are

Extinct, you may say this.-Let 's in to council.

20

Bar. Yet pause-the number of our colleagues is not Complete yet; two are wanting ere we can

Proceed.

Lor. And the chief judge, the Doge?
Bar.

With more than Roman fortitude, is ever
First at the board in this unhappy process
Against his last and only son.1

Lor. His last.

True-true

No-he,

children in Torricella. Goethe (Conversations, 1874, pp. 264, 265) did not share Eckermann's astonishment that Byron "could dwell so long on this torturing subject." "He was always a self-tormentor, and hence such subjects were his darling theme."]

1. [It is extremely improbable that Francesco Foscari was present in person at the third or two preceding trials of his son: As may be gathered from the parte of the Council of Ten relating to the first trial, there was a law which prescribed the contrary: "In ipsius Domini Ducis præsentiâ de rebus ad ipsum, vel ad filios suos tangentibus non tractetur, loquatur vel consulatur, sicut non potest fieri) quando tractatur de rebus tangentibus ad attinentes Domini Ducis." The fact that "Nos Franciscus Foscari," etc., stood at the commencement of the decree of exile may have given rise to the tradition that the Doge, like a Roman father, tried and condemned his son. (See Berlan's I due Foscari, p. 13.)]

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Lor.

Feels he, think you?

I have marked that-the wretch !

Bar. But yesterday, I hear, on his return

To the ducal chambers, as he passed the threshold 30

The old man fainted.

Lor.

It begins to work, then.

And should be all mine

Bar. The work is half your own.
Lor.

My father and my uncle are no more.

Bar. I have read their epitaph, which says they died By poison.1

Lor.

When the Doge declared that he

Should never deem himself a sovereign till

The death of Peter Loredano, both

The brothers sickened shortly :-he is Sovereign.

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To work in secret, proofs and process are

1. [Pietro Loredano, admiral of the Venetian fleet, died November 11, 1438. His death was sudden and suspicious, for he was taken with violent pains and spasms after presiding at a banquet in honour of his victories over the Milanese; and, when his illness ended fatally, it was remembered that the Doge had publicly declared that so long as the admiral lived he would never be de facto Prince of the Republic. Jacopo Loredano chose to put his own interpretation on this outburst of impatience, and inscribed on his father's monument in the Church of the Monastery of Sant' Elena, in the Isola della Santa Lena, the words, "Per insidias hostium veneno sublatus.' (See Ecclesia Veneta, by Flaminio Cornaro, 1749, ix. 193, 194; see, too, Cicogna's Inscrizioni Veneziane, 1830, iii. 381.)

"

Not long afterwards Marco Loredano, the admiral's brother, met with a somewhat similar fate. He had been despatched by the X. to Legnano, to investigate the conduct of Andrea Donato, the Doge's brother-in-law, who was suspected of having embezzled the public moneys. His report was unfavourable to Donato, and, shortly after, he too fell sick and died. It is most improbable that the Doge was directly or indirectly responsible for the death of either brother; but there was an hereditary feud, and the libellous epitaph was a move in the game.]

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