This victory over their haughty foe was in its completeness evidently a
surprise to the Genoese, as well as a source of immense exultation, which
is vigorously expressed in a ballad of the day, written in a stirring
salt-water rhythm.[7] It represents the Venetians, as they enter the bay,
in arrogant mirth reviling the Genoese with very unsavoury epithets as
having deserted their ships to skulk on shore. They are described as
saying: -
"'Off they've slunk! and left us nothing;
We shall get nor prize nor praise;
Nothing save those crazy timbers
Only fit to make a blaze.'"
So they advance carelessly -
"On they come! But lo their blunder!
When our lads start up anon,
Breaking out like unchained lions,
With a roar, 'Fall on! Fall on!'"[8]
After relating the battle and the thoroughness of the victory, ending in
the conflagration of five-and-twenty captured galleys, the poet concludes
by an admonition to the enemy to moderate his pride and curb his arrogant
tongue, harping on the obnoxious epithet porci leproxi, which seems to
have galled the Genoese.[9] He concludes: -
"Nor can I at all remember
Ever to have heard the story
Of a fight wherein the Victors
Reaped so rich a meed of glory!"[10]
The community of Genoa decreed that the victory should be commemorated by
the annual presentation of a golden pall to the monastery of St. German's,
the saint on whose feast (28th May) it had been won.[11]
The startling news was received at Venice with wrath and grief, for the
flower of their navy had perished, and all energies were bent at once to
raise an overwhelming force.[12] The Pope (Boniface VIII.) interfered as
arbiter, calling for plenipotentiaries from both sides. But spirits were
too much inflamed, and this mediation came to nought.
Further outrages on both sides occurred in 1296. The Genoese residences at
Pera were fired, their great alum works on the coast of Anatolia were
devastated, and Caffa was stormed and sacked; whilst on the other hand a
number of the Venetians at Constantinople were massacred by the Genoese,
and Marco Bembo, their Bailo, was flung from a house-top. Amid such events
the fire of enmity between the cities waxed hotter and hotter.
[Sidenote: Lamba Doria's Expedition to the Adriatic.]
33. In 1298 the Genoese made elaborate preparations for a great blow at
the enemy, and fitted out a powerful fleet which they placed under the
command of LAMBA DORIA, a younger brother of Uberto of that illustrious
house, under whom he had served fourteen years before in the great rout of
the Pisans at Meloria.
The rendezvous of the fleet was in the Gulf of Spezia, as we learn from
the same pithy Genoese poet who celebrated Ayas. This time the Genoese
were bent on bearding St. Mark's Lion in his own den; and after touching
at Messina they steered straight for the Adriatic: -
"Now, as astern Otranto bears,
Pull with a will! and, please the Lord,
Let them who bragged, with fire and sword,
To waste our homesteads, look to theirs!"[13]
On their entering the gulf a great storm dispersed the fleet The admiral
with twenty of his galleys got into port at Antivari on the Albanian
coast, and next day was rejoined by fifty-eight more, with which he
scoured the Dalmatian shore, plundering all Venetian property. Some
sixteen of his galleys were still missing when he reached the island of
Curzola, or Scurzola as the more popular name seems to have been, the
Black Corcyra of the Ancients - the chief town of which, a rich and
flourishing place, the Genoese took and burned.[14] Thus they were engaged
when word came that the Venetian fleet was in sight.
Venice, on first hearing of the Genoese armament, sent Andrea Dandolo with
a large force to join and supersede Maffeo Quirini, who was already
cruising with a squadron in the Ionian sea; and, on receiving further
information of the strength of the hostile expedition, the Signory hastily
equipped thirty-two more galleys in Chioggia and the ports of Dalmatia,
and despatched them to join Dandolo, making the whole number under his
command up to something like ninety-five. Recent drafts had apparently
told heavily upon the Venetian sources of enlistment, and it is stated
that many of the complements were made up of rustics swept in haste from
the Euganean hills. To this the Genoese poet seems to allude, alleging
that the Venetians, in spite of their haughty language, had to go begging
for men and money up and down Lombardy. "Did we do like that, think
you?" he adds: -
"Beat up for aliens? We indeed?
When lacked we homeborn Genoese?
Search all the seas, no salts like these,
For Courage, Seacraft, Wit at need."[15]
Of one of the Venetian galleys, probably in the fleet which sailed under
Dandolo's immediate command, went Marco Polo as Sopracomito or
Gentleman-Commander.[16]
[Sidenote: The Fleets come in sight of each other at Curzola.]
34. It was on the afternoon of Saturday the 6th September that the Genoese
saw the Venetian fleet approaching, but, as sunset was not far off, both
sides tacitly agreed to defer the engagement.[17]
The Genoese would appear to have occupied a position near the eastern end
of the Island of Curzola, with the Peninsula of Sabbioncello behind them,
and Meleda on their left, whilst the Venetians advanced along the south
side of Curzola. (See map on p. 50).
According to Venetian accounts the Genoese were staggered at the sight of
the Venetian armaments, and sent more than once to seek terms, offering
finally to surrender galleys and munitions of war, if the crews were
allowed to depart.
