Mark’s Square. He was fed on diminishing amounts of bread and water, conveyed to him by a cord, until he expired from thirst or hunger or exposure in full view of the crowds that thronged the area.
The Venetians were also well known for their methods of secret assassination. In 1421 the council of ten decided to poison the duke of Milan, and agreed to test the liquid on two pigs; the results are not recorded. In 1649 a Venetian doctor concocted the “quintessence” of plague to use against the Turkish enemy; it is the first instance in recorded history of an attempt at biological warfare. It was in fact popularly supposed, in the capitals of Europe, that Venice employed a trained band of assassins ready to strike at their enemies wherever they could. The story was not true, but it represented the deep suspicion that Venice aroused in other states. As the power and wealth of the city began to disappear, the hostility also abated. It was said, in the eighteenth century, that the poison used by the officials of Venice had congealed and that the recipe for its manufacture had been mislaid.
If the reports of state violence were ever true, do they reflect a state of violence also? The nature of the violence is in itself important. It was identified by the authorities as that which abrogated the peace and honour of the society. The rights of the victims, to use a contemporary expression, were seldom invoked. Crimes against the state, such as treason, were treated with swift and brutal punishment. Lesser crimes against the state were treated with no less severity. Some of the most telling punishments, for example, were reserved for those who insulted the city. A Genoese sailor, on arrival, was heard declaring that he would like nothing better than to wash his hands in Venetian blood. He was immediately seized and hanged, the soles of his feet cut off so that his own blood might be sacrificed to the stones of Venice. When in 1329 a Venetian, Marco Rizo, declared that he wished to throw the nobles or “dogs” into prison, he was arrested and his tongue was cut out before he was banished from the city for ever.
Crimes against property were considered more important than crimes of passion. Torture was regularly used in cases of theft, for example, but not in cases of murder. Anyone convicted of robbery more than once was automatically hanged. It seems likely that rape was relatively common, particularly the rape of working-class women by patrician men. But the crime merited only the mild punishment of eight days’ imprisonment, the rapist being freed when he had forfeited a sum equivalent to the woman’s dowry. It was not considered to be important. The court records show that women under attack would often call “Fire!” rather than “Rape!” because the threat provoked more interest.
The patricians were often the most violent class of Venetian society, although their peers were inclined to moderate any punishment against them if their crimes did not threaten the status quo. The young patricians, in particular, could be ferocious. Casanova always carried a knife with him that, as he said, “all honest men in Venice carry to defend their lives.” The citizens, and the people, were more docile. There was a large police force, and the
Is it surprising, therefore, that many people go mad in Venice? This author has heard howling, as if from the damned, coming from the tiny tenement houses of the district of Castello. Madness afflicts islanders more insidiously than others. There has never been a madhouse in the city itself; that might be considered to be too provocative. The insane were instead incarcerated on the various islands of the lagoon. The female mad, for example, were from the eighteenth century locked up on the island of S. Clemente where for various transgressions they could be suspended in cages above the water. The male asylum on the island of S. Servolo was immortalised by Shelley:
“What we beholdShall be the madhouse and its belfry tower,”Said Maddalo, “and even at this hourThose who may cross the water hear that bellWhich calls the maniacs, each one from his cellTo vespers.”
From the grated windows of their cells the mad used to call out to the passing gondolas.
The city itself can be said to exhibit certain psychopathic tendencies. It has always been a city in a state of high anxiety. Ever since its difficult and dangerous origin in the waters it has felt itself to be besieged by all the forces of the world. It was once literally isolated, and it has always suffered from great ontological uncertainty. It is not difficult to understand the reasons for this; if you can imagine New York, or Paris, suspended upon water you may be able to understand the deep fear engendered by the position. Water is unstable. Water is unpredictable. That is why Venice has always emphasised its stability and permanence.
Throughout its history it has considered itself to be under threat. It conveys images of fragility and vulnerability, and thus insistently elicits responses of caring and nurturing. In the twelfth century a number of earth tremors sent the citizens into a panic. In 1105 the island of Malamocco was overwhelmed by water, and it was believed that the city of Venice would suffer the same fate. In the thirteenth century the danger of fire was almost hysterically emphasised; it was considered to be the enemy within, smouldering in concealment, ready to break out in the shadows of the night. In the fifteenth century the city was considered to be in great danger from the silting of the lagoon and the drying of the canals. It was said that it became more fragile with every passing year. In the latter half of the century it was believed that Venice was in imminent peril because of its sinfulness; the judgement of God would not be long delayed. There was a terror of total submersion as a sign of divine anger.
There has never been a time when Venice was not in peril. In every century it was concluded that the city could not survive. Deep and endemic anxiety is perhaps the key to all of the city’s actions—its absorption of the mainland and its acquisition of an empire were attempts to reduce uncertainty. The slow grave government of the patricians was in effect a defence mechanism. The Venetians hated unpredictability. There was a genuine fear of the future. The acquisitiveness of the city, the lust after gold and other riches, can perhaps be explained as the miser Scrooge of
It has always been a self-conscious, indeed a self-obsessed, city. It has also been a self-deluded city. It has lied about itself. It has woven myths of itself. It has fabricated a history utterly at odds with the true one. It was at the mercy of conflicting impulses; it preached civic liberty, for example, at the same time as it demanded total control over its population. It could give all the appearance of festive gaiety, but at the centre of its polity was commercial calculation. There was self-hatred, too, in the numerous calls for the people of Venice to eschew the temptations of luxury and sensuality and prodigality. The message was that “we must be pure.” We must ourselves be inviolate like the city. We must be above reproach. That is why any threat of disorder or danger was expelled to the margins. The fluctuations in the public mood were severe. Any sudden reversal or unexpected defeat threw the people into despair. The sixteenth-century diarist, Marino Sanudo, often used the refrain that “the whole city was mightily downcast.” There was always the fear of conspiracy. In a human being, this would be considered a dangerous symptom of psychic disorder.
Yet Venice can be said to represent all cities. It embodied the anxieties that afflict cities—the fear of disease, the fear of contamination, the fear of being for ever cut off from the natural world. It represents, too, the anxieties concerning cities—their luxury, their power, their aggression. It is a fearful place.
XI City of Myth
34
The Map Unrolls
There are many maps of Venice, not all of them very reliable. It must be one of the most mapped cities in the world, and yet in a sense it is unmappable. The
