under the direction of Pope Hadrian, an organized attack upon the Venetian merchants took place, and the pope was able to write to his ally informing him that his will had been done, and that Venice no longer held a single garrison or factory in the Ravennate.*

This action of the pope awakened the greatest alarm in Venice; an alarm which resulted in the accentuation of Byzantine sympathies, and in strengthening the hands of the doges, to whom the state looked for protection from the imminent danger. How close the peril had come the Venetians learned when they discovered that the pope, not content with his attack upon them in the Pentapolis, had actually negotiated with Giovanni, patriarch of Grado, for the creation of a Papal and Frankish party inside Venice itself.† The materials ready to the patriarch's hand were, naturally, the democratic faction, who still eyed Heraclea and the Heraclean doges with bitter jealousy. A crisis could not be long delayed. The questions which now agitated the whole of Italy were faithfully reflected in the lagoons. Like a sensitive flame, Venice responded to the least movement on the mainland. She was not yet strong enough to declare her independence between two such powers as the Franks and the Eastern Empire; therefore, for the moment, her perception of her own aims, her intuition of the political problem, became confused. The question appeared to be submission to East or West; the parties of Frank and anti-Frank seemed to express * "Codex Carolinus" (Romæ : 1761), Epist. 84, ad. ann. 785. Ibid., Epist. 52.

her central difficulty. But in reality the desire for individual freedom remained in the background, as the vital and motive force inside the state. How long a crisis could be delayed depended largely upon the character of the doge. Maurice Galbaio had succeeded in guiding Venice clear of embroglios on the mainland, though he could not fence her round from infection by the general turbulence of the political atmosphere.* His son Giovanni succeeded him; a man of very different temperament, violent and headstrong, and moreover placed in a position of greater difficulty, for the crisis was ripening to the acuter phase of its progress. The pact, the donation, the crowning of Charles, were all notorious now; hung out like a danger signal for those communities who felt the impulse towards self-government, leaving no doubt as to the intentions of the emperor and the pope. Venice had to look to herself. By a violent deed of blood she wrote her refusal to be included in the donation. She repelled the assumption that she belonged to Charles and was his chattel to gift away. She denied her allegiance to a pope who could presume to claim the imperial title, and then to sell it; to that head of the Church who dared to prove a traitor to the passions of his country.

In this fervour of opposition to the Church events centred round two ecclesiastics. The bishopric of Olivolo, in Venice, fell vacant, and, at the request of the Emperor Nicephorus, the doge appointed to that

Dandolo, op. cit., cap. xii. p. 1; cap. xiii. p. 1; Filiasi, "Veneti Primi e Secondi" (Padova: 1822), tom. v. cap. xxi. p. 265.

See a young Greek, named Christopher, a mere boy, sixteen years old at most.* Giovanni, patriarch of Grado, seized the opportunity to test the strength of himself and his party against the doge and the Byzantine element. He believed that he was powerful enough to show a mastery which would determine the waverers, and hasten the subjection of Venice to Charles and to the pope. Giovanni refused to consecrate Christopher. The doge remained firm in the support of his appointment. Giovanni replied by excommunicating not only the young Greek, but all his adherents, including the doge. The heat of party fury and his own violent nature determined Galbaio's action. He sent his son Maurice with a fleet to Grado. The patriarch was besieged in his palace, pressed closer and closer, and finally thrown from the highest tower. Giovanni had shown himself a traitor to the instincts of Venice, as his master, the pope, had proved a traitor to the desires of Italy. Yet the vengeance which overtook the patriarch savoured too strongly of tyranny. It came as a culminating point to a long series of masterful deeds on the part of the Galbaij.

But Venice was no sooner relieved from a danger threatened by her bishop and the Church than she found herself face to face with the opposite danger from her doge relying on Byzantium, whose triumph seemed secured by the murder of Giovanni. True, Venice would not allow her patriarchs to act as agents and procurers for the Church and for the Franks, but neither did she desire her doges to become tyrants

* Sagornino, op. cit., p. 18; Dandolo, op. cit., cap. xiii. p. 23 ; Filiasi, op. cit., cap. xxii.

of the state. The murder of Giovanni was an act of excessive violence, and warned her of that everpresent menace. The sympathy of the people swerved from the Galbaij and claimed the elevation of Fortunatus, nephew of the murdered patriarch and a man of the same political complexion, to the See of Grado, as a check to the tyrannical tendency of the doge, and as an expiation for the sacrilege he had committed.*

A crisis such as that which was agitating Venice could not fail to produce men of strong personality. Of all who appear upon the scene at this moment, none is more remarkable than Fortunatus, the new patriarch of Grado. In page after page of that populous chronicle bequeathed to us by Andrew Dandolo, we meet him again and again-here borne high upon some wave of reaction, there sunk deep in that troublous sea of politics, but always present, active, restless, intriguing; now at Venice, leading his party, the party of Charles and of the Church; now in exile, flying from his country, hurriedly crossing "the white Alps alone." In Germany, in France, in Istria, at Constantinople, we find him; anywhere but at Grado and his episcopal seat. He is courtier, merchant, virtuoso, engineer, and architect; anything but pastor of that quiet church among the still lagoons. Restlessness, movement, diplomacy, were passions with the man. It is almost impossible to follow him. closely through his journeys or his intrigues; yet around him are grouped the chief actors and the principal events that contributed to the emergence of Rialto. The intimate friend of Charles the Great,

*

Dandolo, op. cit., cap. xv. p. 24; Sagornino, loc. cit.

known only too well to the popes, dreaded by Nicephorus, and counsellor of Pipin, Fortunatus moves about among these great personages, the outward and visible sign of the spirit which was troubling them.

The appointment of Fortunatus to the See of Grado was made in obedience to a reaction against ducal tyranny. His politics were known to be decidedly in favour of the Church and the Franks. Pope Leo at once sent him the pallium and his blessing on the work he should do for the Holy See. That work was to carry on his uncle's course of action; to establish and strengthen the party that sympathized with Charles; to pave the way for the reduction of Venice as a province of the West. But Leo knew the shifty nature of the man, and thought it necessary to urge upon him the duty of strenuous action. "Remember," he writes to Fortunatus, "that the place you have now undertaken is not a place of rest, but of labour." * So it proved to the patriarch— a place of labour, indeed, from the beginning to the end. The pope, however, need have felt no such fears. Fortunatus had not occupied his See more than three months when a conspiracy against the doges was discovered and stamped out. The author of the conspiracy proved to be the patriarch, who, relying on the enthusiasm which had raised him to his dignity, concerted the measures of the plot with Obelerio, tribune of Malamocco and chief of the democratic party. But the treason took wind. Obelerio and

* See Ughello, "Italia Sacra" (Venetiis: 1720), tom. v. pp. 1075 et seq., for the history of the See of Grado.

† Dandolo, op. cit., cap. xv. p. 26; Sagornino, op. cit., p. 19.