Venice 265 



to the most useful purposes; in such a period, therefore (he 

 added), any people who are stationary, and more particularly 

 any government that is so, will be outstripped in the great 

 course by their competitors, and perhaps trampled on, like the 

 monarchy of France, by those in whom light hath taken the 

 place of ignorance^ Pity that the richest blood in European 

 veins should at present experience such an education ! 



Here are about forty families unquestionably the most ancient 

 in Europe. All other countries, except Venice, have been 

 conquered, or overrun, or so destroyed that the oldest families 

 may be dated comparatively from only modern periods; he 

 who looks back to a well-defined ancestry from the tenth and 

 eleventh centuries, and who can thus trace his lineage seven or 

 eight hundred years, is in every country respected for antiquity; 

 of this standing are the families of Bourbon, d'Este, Mont- 

 morency, Courtenaye, etc., which are commonly esteemed the 

 first in Europe ; but they are not esteemed so at Venice. Some 

 of the Roman families, which from the ravages of the Huns took 

 shelter in the isles of Venice, and which were then considerable 

 enough to be entrusted with the government of their country, 

 yet remain, and are unquestionably the most ancient in Europe. 

 De la Lande, from Fresdrotti, confines the electors of the first 

 Doge to twelve — Badoer, Contarini, Morosini, Tiepolo, Michiel, 

 Sanudo, Gradenigo, Memo, Falier, Dandolo, Barozzi, and Polano, 

 which is of late extinct. In the next class he places Znstiniani, 

 Cornarro, Bragadin. and Benibo ; then come the families il 

 serrare del consiglio,^ Querini, Dolfini, Soranzo. Zorai, Marcello, 

 Sagredo, Zane, and Salomon. But since Monsieur de la Lande 

 wrote they have published at Venice a Dizionario siorico dt Tutte 

 le Venete Patrizie Famiglie, 1780; compiled from a MS. in St. 

 Mark's library; this work does not accord with the preceding 

 table ; I have extracted from it the following list : 



Badoer ; suo origine con la republica. — Bollani ; antichi 

 tribuni. — Bragadin ; nei piu rimoti fecoli della republica. — 

 Celsi : dagli antichi Mari di Roma, antichi tribuni. — Cioran ; 

 negli elettori del primo Doge. — Contarini; uno negli elettori 

 del primo Doge.— Cor7iaro ; dagli antichi Cornell di Roma, 

 da' primissimi temp itenuta in Venezia. — Enio ; nacque colla 

 medesina republica. — Foscarini ; Vennero 867 : antichi tribuni. 

 — Gradenigo ; delle prime venute in Venezia. — Magna ; dalla 

 prima fondazion di Venezia; tribuni. — Marcello ; pare, che non 



' The S errata or closing up of the Great Council in 1297 when the 

 Venetian aristocracy excluded the common people from membership. 



