PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 561 
Venetian traders promptly appeared in the camp of the Franks at Pavia and sold 
to the Frankish chiefs all the riches of the East—Tyrian purples, the plumage of 
gay birds, silks, and other ornaments, pranked in which the purchasers stalked 
about in their pride, feeling, no doubt, that now at last they had conquered a 
land whose wealth would reward all their labours and hardships.' Charlemagne, 
it is true, was inclined to look with little favour on the Venetians, whom he 
regarded as supporters of the Greeks, but an attack by his son Pepin in 809 on 
the islands of the lagoon only served to establish the strength and security of 
their position, at least on the inner islands of the lagoon. By closing the 
passages of the canals, removing the navigation beacons, and fortifying and 
barring the chief entrances to the land they succeeded in holding out 
during a siege of six months, till the heats of summer began to decimate 
the troops of Pepin, who, on hearing also of the approach of a Greek fleet, 
came to terms with the Venetians on conditions similar to those which had 
been maintained with the Lombards. The Venetians agreed to a tribute, but 
solely for the narrow strip of territory held on the mainland and in return for 
commercial privileges in the Frankish dominion, not for any recognition of the 
existence of the State. The tribute was afterwards paid or withheld according 
to the power which the Emperors showed of enforcing it; but one permanent 
result of this incident was that the Venetians, perceiving the smaller security 
belonging to the islands nearer the mainland, of their own choice made the 
Rialto the capital of their little State ? (810). 
As a last illustration of the nature of the relations of Venice to the North 
Italian plains we may refer to some of the points mentioned in a celebrated and 
often quoted address delivered to the principal senators of Venice by the Doge 
Mocenigo just before his death (1423), at the time at which Venetian trade was 
at the very height of its prosperity. At that time Venice was in pos- 
session of a considerable tract of adjacent territory on the mainland, and 
there was a party favourable to further action on the part of Venice against the 
growing power of Milan. The aged and sagacious Doge feared that this party 
was going to gain the upper hand and elect as his successor Francesco Foscari, 
who, he thoguht, would involve them in dangerous and disastrous as well as 
useless enterprises. The immediate occasion of the conflict of views in the 
Venetian Senate was a request of the Florentines for support against alleged 
designs of the Duke of Milan. Mocenigo, however, not only warned the senators 
in the most earnest and urgent language against Foscari personally, but also 
advised them against the particular enterprise, maintaining that it was of no 
consequence even if the Duke of Milan made himself master of Florence, since 
the artisans of Milan would continue to send their manufactures to Venice, and 
the Venetians would be enriched to the loss of the Florentines. He then went 
on to give particulars of the trade of Venice at that time, dwelling specially on 
the value of that with Lombardy. To Lombardy alone, it appears, Venice sold 
every year cloths to the value of 400,000 ducats, te/e (? linens) to the value of 
10,000 ducats : wools of France and Spain to the value of 240,000 ducats, cotton 
to the value of 250,000 ducats, wine to the value of 80,000 ducats, cloth of gold 
and silk to the value of 250,000 ducats, soap to the same value, spices and sugar 
to the value of 539,000 ducats, dye-woods to the value of 120,000 ducats, other 
articles 110,000 ducats: in all, goods to the value of more than 2,500,000 ducats, 
the profit amounting to quite half a million ducats. With the exaggeration 
that comes natural to a lover of his country Mocenigo goes on to say rather 
graudiloquently that to the Venetians alone land and sea were equally open; to 
them only belonged the carriage of all riches; they were the providers of the 
entire world. 
All this trade, as well as that of Genoa and other Italian ports which shared 
with others in the spice trade, must have had a remarkably tructifying effect in 
North Italy generally. Agriculture and manufactures would be alike promoted, 
‘ De rebus bellicis Caroli Magni, L. iii., quoted by Romanin, as above, vol. i. p. 130, 
? Romanin, as above, vol. i. pp. 144-9, 
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