Execution of Marin Faliero — The Fall of Genoa

“Ill-fated chief—
Him, only him, the shield of Jove defends
Whose means are fair and spotless as his ends.”

— William Wordsworth

Venice After Soranza (1328)

When the Great Council met in 1328 after Soranza’s death, the oldest member rose and, after uttering praises of the late Doge and lamentations at his passing, exhorted all present to be of good heart and to pray God for the election of a wise prince to succeed him.

Never had Venice greater need of wisdom in her rulers.

Italy, unhappy and divided, “reeling like a pilotless vessel in a mighty tempest,” had witnessed the final vain effort of the Emperors to fulfil their ideal mission. The heroic spirit of Henry VII of Luxemburg (l’alto Arrigo) had already ascended to the vacant throne Dante envisioned for him among the blessed, and with his death the poet’s hope of a strong Caesar curbing faction in Italy was shattered.

From this political chaos emerged three great dynasties of despots in northern Italy:

• The Scalas of Verona
• The Viscontis of Milan
• The Carraras of Padua

Venice Faces the Mainland Powers

By 1329, Mastino della Scala, lord of Verona, ruled Vicenza, Padua, and Treviso. Urged on by the deposed Marsilio da Carrara, he sought to tap Venetian wealth by levying duties on all goods passing through his territories.

Venice retaliated by cutting off the supply of salt. A tariff war began.

Food shortages followed, and soon war loomed. It was a grave decision: Venice’s strength lay at sea, not on land. A mainland war meant mercenaries, unreliable condottieri, and the abandonment of her natural defence — the sea — in favour of costly continental entanglements.

Doge Francesco Dandolo weighed these dangers carefully. Yet the age of ducal authority had passed. The oligarchy saw clearly that inaction meant ruin. If Venetian trade routes to northern and western Europe were blocked, the Republic would perish.

War was declared.

War with Verona and the Venetian Advance

In accordance with chivalric custom, Venetian envoys were sent to the borders of Padua. There they delivered a formal protest and, as a token of defiance, cast stones three times into enemy territory.

A levy was imposed on all men aged twenty to sixty. Alliances were forged with Florence, Milan, Ferrara, and Mantua.

Alarmed by this coalition, Mastino sent Marsilio da Carrara to Venice. According to tradition, Marsilio sat beside the Doge at dinner. Dropping his knife deliberately, the Doge bent down as Marsilio whispered:

“What would you give him who gave you Padua?”

“We would make him lord of Padua,” replied the Doge.

The outcome was decisive. Padua fell by collusion to Venetian arms. Mastino’s brother, Alberto della Scala, was led captive to Venice. Treviso and Bassano were ceded to the Republic.

Venice now possessed a strategic Alpine pass and a fertile northern plain — the first fruits of her continental empire.

Venetian Rule on the Mainland

The success of this new policy was celebrated with great rejoicing in Venice. The prophets of disaster were silenced.

The Republic proved herself a wise and tolerant mistress. Her new subjects were governed with paternal care, local customs respected, and civic pride preserved. The Venetian motto:

Pro summa fide, summus amor
For the highest loyalty, the greatest love

still visible on the town hall of Verona, perfectly expressed this relationship.

Cities long scourged by Italian tyrants welcomed Venetian rule. Chronicler Marin Sanudo describes the Venetian entry into Faenza in 1495: houses draped in cloth, doors painted with San Marco, and crowds crying “Marco! Marco!”

Wherever the Lion of St Mark stood upon his column, it symbolised firm, just, and enlightened governance.

The Legend of the Storm (1340)

During the reign of Doge Bartolomeo Gradenigo, Venice was struck by a terrible storm. For three days the waves battered the city. On the night of February 25, 1340, legend tells of a poor fisherman accosted by a stranger at the Molo.

The man begged passage to San Giorgio Maggiore. Despite the storm, the fisherman agreed. Two more mysterious passengers joined them — one at San Nicolò del Lido, the last an aged man demanding passage into the open Adriatic.

There, they beheld a ship filled with devils racing toward Venice.

The three strangers made the sign of the cross. Instantly, ship and demons vanished. The sea grew calm.

Venice was saved.

The strangers revealed themselves as St Mark, St George, and St Nicholas. St Mark gave the fisherman a ring, bidding him show it to the Doge as proof. The relic was preserved, and the fisherman richly rewarded.

Andrea Dandolo and the Age of Calamities

In 1343, Andrea Dandolo was elected Doge at just thirty-six. A scholar and jurist, educated at Padua, he governed during years marked by plague, earthquakes, and war.

Zara again rebelled, encouraged by Hungary. Marin Faliero, an experienced commander, led Venetian forces on land while forty galleys attacked by sea. Faliero defeated a Hungarian army of forty thousand; Zara surrendered once more, its walls dismantled and a permanent garrison installed.

Venice and Genoa: The Final Rivalry

For over a century, Venice and Genoa had contested supremacy in the Crimea and the Black Sea trade. In 1349, tensions erupted into open war.

The Black Death ravaged Venice in 1348, killing two-fifths of the population and extinguishing fifty noble families. Yet the conflict resumed.

Naval battles raged for years. In 1353, Venetian forces were defeated at Pera, but soon after, Niccolò Pisani annihilated the Genoese fleet off Lojera. Panic seized Genoa.

In despair, the Genoese surrendered their independence to Giovanni Visconti, Lord Bishop of Milan. Petrarch, sent as envoy, pleaded in vain for peace between the rival republics.

A year later, Genoa struck back, devastating Adriatic towns and anchoring dangerously close to Venice itself.

The Death of a Doge

The shock proved fatal to Andrea Dandolo. Stricken by grief, he died on September 7, 1354.

He lies in the Baptistery of St Mark, beneath a monument bearing a Latin epitaph composed by his friend Petrarch.

Andrea Dandolo is remembered as:

• A Venetian historian
• An accomplished jurist
• A patron of the arts
• One of the great humanists of his age

His reign marked both the suffering and the resilience of the Venetian Republic at the height of medieval power.