"Calcina, con lancioni, Pece, pietre, e ronconi" (p. 259.)
And Christine de Pisan, in her Faiz du Sage Roy Charles (V. of
France), explains also the use of the soap: "Item, on doit avoir
pluseurs vaisseaulx legiers a rompre, comme poz plains de chauls ou
pouldre, et gecter dedens; et, par ce, seront comme avuglez, au
brisier des poz. Item, on doit avoir autres poz de mol savon et
gecter es nefzs des adversaires, et quant les vaisseaulx brisent, le
savon est glissant, si ne se peuent en piez soustenir et chieent en
l'eaue" (pt. ii. ch. 38).
[17] Balislariae, whence no doubt Balistrada and our Balustrade.
Wedgwood's etymology is far-fetched. And in his new edition (1872),
though he has shifted his ground, he has not got nearer the truth.
[18] Sanutius, p. 53; Joinville, p. 40; Muntaner, 316, 403.
[19] See pp. 270, 288, 324, and especially 346.
[20] See the Protestant, cited above, p. 441, et seqq.
[21] Venezia e le sue Lagune, ii. 52.
[22] Mar. Sanut. p. 75.
[23] Mar. Sanut., p. 30.
[24] The Catalan Admiral Roger de Loria, advancing at daybreak to attack
the Provencal Fleet of Charles of Naples (1283) in the harbour of
Malta, "did a thing which should be reckoned to him rather as an act
of madness," says Muntaner, "than of reason. He said, 'God forbid that
I should attack them, all asleep as they are! Let the trumpets and
nacaires sound to awaken them, and I will tarry till they be ready for
action. No man shall have it to say, if I beat them, that it was by
catching them asleep.'" (Munt. p. 287.) It is what Nelson might have
done!
The Turkish admiral Sidi 'Ali, about to engage a Portuguese squadron
in the Straits of Hormuz, in 1553, describes the Franks as "dressing
their vessels with flags and coming on." (J. As. ix. 70.)
[25] A cross patee, is one with the extremities broadened out into
feet as it were.
[26] Page 50.
[27] The galley at p. 49 is somewhat too high; and I believe it should
have had no shrouds.
[28] See Muntaner, passim, e.g. 271, 286, 315, 349.
[29] Ibid. 346.
VI. THE JEALOUSIES AND NAVAL WARS OF VENICE AND GENOA. LAMBA DORIA'S
EXPEDITION TO THE ADRIATIC; BATTLE OF CURZOLA; AND IMPRISONMENT OF MARCO
POLO BY THE GENOESE.
[Sidenote: Growing jealousies and outbreaks between the Republics.]
31. Jealousies, too characteristic of the Italian communities, were, in
the case of the three great trading republics of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa,
aggravated by commercial rivalries, whilst, between the two first of those
states, and also between the two last, the bitterness of such feelings had
been augmenting during the whole course of the 13th century.[1]
The brilliant part played by Venice in the conquest of Constantinople
(1204), and the preponderance she thus acquired on the Greek shores,
stimulated her arrogance and the resentment of her rivals. The three
states no longer stood on a level as bidders for the shifting favour of
the Emperor of the East. By treaty, not only was Venice established as the
most important ally of the empire and as mistress of a large fraction of
its territory, but all members of nations at war with her were prohibited
from entering its limits. Though the Genoese colonies continued to exist,
they stood at a great disadvantage, where their rivals were so predominant
and enjoyed exemption from duties, to which the Genoese remained subject.
Hence jealousies and resentments reached a climax in the Levantine
settlements, and this colonial exacerbation reacted on the mother States.
A dispute which broke out at Acre in 1255 came to a head in a war which
lasted for years, and was felt all over Syria. It began in a quarrel about
a very old church called St. Sabba's, which stood on the common boundary
of the Venetian and Genoese estates in Acre,[2] and this flame was blown
by other unlucky occurrences. Acre suffered grievously.[3] Venice at this
time generally kept the upper hand, beating Genoa by land and sea, and
driving her from Acre altogether. + Four ancient porphyry figures from St.
Sabba's were sent in triumph to Venice, and with their strange devices
still stand at the exterior corner of St. Mark's, towards the Ducal
Palace.[4]
But no number of defeats could extinguish the spirit of Genoa, and the
tables were turned when in her wrath she allied herself with Michael
Palaeologus to upset the feeble and tottering Latin Dynasty, and with it
the preponderance of Venice on the Bosphorus. The new emperor handed over
to his allies the castle of their foes, which they tore down with
jubilations, and now it was their turn to send its stones as trophies to
Genoa. Mutual hate waxed fiercer than ever; no merchant fleet of either
state could go to sea without convoy, and wherever their ships met they
fought.[5] It was something like the state of things between Spain and
England in the days of Drake.
[Illustration: Figures from St. Sabba's, sent to Venice.]
The energy and capacity of the Genoese seemed to rise with their success,
and both in seamanship and in splendour they began almost to surpass their
old rivals. The fall of Acre (1291), and the total expulsion of the Franks
from Syria, in great measure barred the southern routes of Indian trade,
whilst the predominance of Genoa in the Euxine more or less obstructed the
free access of her rival to the northern routes by Trebizond and Tana.
[Sidenote: Battle in Bay of Ayas in 1294.]
32. Truces were made and renewed, but the old fire still smouldered. In
the spring of 1294 it broke into flame, in consequence of the seizure in
the Grecian seas of three Genoese vessels by a Venetian fleet.
