untilled that there is just sufficient herbage to pasture some flocks of thin and meagre sheep. The land is scarred with white ghiarre, the rubbish of stony desolation swept down from the mountains every spring by the Tagliamento and the Isonzo. Here, then, Fortunatus busied himself with the masons whom he called from France;* pouring out the treasures he had amassed in Istria, importing precious marbles for his church's façade, for the colonnades and porticoes; filling his cathedral with altars of gold, altars of silver, pictures, purple hangings, tapestries, carpets, panni d'oro, jewels, crowns, "the like of which are not to be found in all Italy," chandeliers of rare workmanship with branching lights. And the bishop in the midst of all this growing magnificence, superintending the builders, laying the beams, designing the patterns for the inlaid stones. The care of his church was not enough to occupy him. Agriculture, too, claimed. a share of his inordinate activity, and at San Pelegrino he established a stud farm for the breeding of horses.† It would have been well for him if he had rested there. But he could not keep his mind from political intrigue; a demon of restlessness pursued him to the end. He thought that the Frankish party might still be revived in Venice; he, at least, never despaired of final success. The Venetians more than suspected his influence in the "Feci venire magistros di Francia" (Fortunatus's will, ap. Hazlitt, op. cit., Doc. II., and Marin, "Storia Civile e Politica del Commercio d. Venez " (Venezia: 1798), tom. i. cap. vii.). † See Filiasi, op. cit., tom. vi. cap. I. family feuds which tore the household of the doge in two, and drove his younger son, Giovanni, into exile.* The presence of Fortunatus was a never-failing source of disquiet to the whole of Venice. At length a plot against the life of Angelo Participazio himself roused the extreme wrath of the people. The plot clearly had its origin among the broken fragments of the Frankish party, and as surely Fortunatus was its prime instigator. The Venetians deposed, and for the last time expelled the patriarch from his See.† His own passion for intrigue, his own inability to perceive that Venice had taken a new direction when Rialto rose to be the capital, that the old formulæ of Frank or Byzantine had little import now, were the causes of Fortunatus's ruin. He passed from the sphere of Venetian politics, where he had played so active and so perilous a part, into a region of obscurity whither we can hardly follow him. Henceforth he ceased to exercise any considerable influence on Venetian affairs. His name appears less and less frequently in the chronicles; yet we may be sure he was not quiet nor at rest. Whenever he does appear, it is always in connection with some plot or some intrigue, each scheme wilder and more hopeless than its predecessor, as the patriarch's authority dwindled, as his strength failed, as he sank surely down the decline of a life that had been so full and yet so fruitless. On his expulsion from the lagoons, Fortunatus crossed to Dalmatia, where he had already secured connections, and applied himself to estab * Dandolo, op. cit., lib. viii. cap. i. p. 17; Sagornino, loc. cit. † Dandolo, loc. cit., p. 35. lishing these upon a firmer basis. His friend Charles had died in the year 813, and the patriarch could look for little help from the Frankish court, torn to pieces by the feuds of the great emperor's successors. He turned to seek for aid from Constantinople, from that court whose persistent enemy he had always shown himself. His personal policy wavered ominously; the power had gone out of the man. He sought to gain the favour of Byzantium, under whose influence he hoped to be restored to Grado. With that object in view, he applied himself to harass the Emperor Lewis, as far as in him lay. He sent into the service of the rebel duke of Pannónia that band of military engineers which he had raised in Istria,* and thus materially assisted the duke in fortifying his country. For this conduct Lewis cited the patriarch to the Frankish court. Fortunatus feigned obedience and set out; but on the way he turned aside and fled to Zara, whence he took ship for Constantinople.† There he remained three years, labouring, we may believe, to secure support; but in vain, as the sequel proved. In the year 824 he left the capital in the train of an embassy sent to treat with the Emperor of the West. He trusted that his case would be mentioned among other points, and that so, at peace with East and West, he might return to Grado, for which he never ceased to long. But Lewis refused to pardon or to listen to him. The ambassadors declined to jeopardize the success of their mission by any un Einhard, op. cit., p. 208, ap. ann. 821, "artifices et muriarios mittendo." † Mabillon, op. cit., tom. ii. p. 458; Einhard, loc. cit. welcome proviso in favour of Fortunatus; they repudiated and ignored him. Lewis ordered him to Rome, under a kind of arrest, there to answer before the pope for his share in the Pannonian revolt.* Fortunatus commenced his journey, but never accomplished it. He died upon the way, a broken and a failing man; a restless end to a restless life. His last thoughts were turned, with that indomitable hope of his, to the quiet church among the lagoons, whose bishop he had been for so many unquiet years. The closing words of his will, bequeathing his vast fortune to his See, have an almost pathetic ring when we remember all the failure of his career, the hope against hope deferred: "I will pay my debts before God," he writes; "and so it shall be when I am come back to my own Holy Church, in peace and tranquillity I will rejoice with you all the days of my life." * Einhard, op. cit., p. 212, ad. ann. 824; Dandolo, loc. cit., p. 36. BAJAMONTE TIEPOLO GREAT COUNCIL. AMONG the many memorial stones of Venice, there is one likely enough to escape notice. It is a little square of white marble, let into the pavement of the Campo Sant' Agostino; and on it are these letters: "LOC. COL. BAI. TIE. MCCCX." Right in the heart of Venice, between the Frari and Campo San Polo, the feet of strangers rarely bring them by it. Yet the events, the closing act of which this stone commemorates, are among the most important in the constitutional growth of the city. This slab marks the place of the colonna infame raised on the site of Bajamonte Tiepolo's house to perpetuate the recollection of his conspiracy and failure by this inscription "De Bajamonte fo questo tereno E mò per suo iniquo tradimento Time has come to cover this among other sore places; the column is gone; it rests now, far away, cracked and riven, in a quiet garden by the Lake of Como; the little marble slab is found only by eyes |