The origin of the ceremony known as the wedding of the sea dates from the reign of Pietro Orseolo, the son of that Pietro who left the world for the cloister, after two years of, to him, extremely unsympathetic labour. The old gentleman had prophesied the boy’s rise to his father’s plane, during one of the former’s very few visits to him, in these words: “I know that they will make you Doge, and I know that you will prosper.” The prophecy was more than fulfilled, for young Pietro proved to be a good man and a strong ruler, and he raised Venice from the position of a small state, torn to pieces by internal warfare, and constantly at the mercy of her stronger neighbours, to an eminence from which, looking back at her immediate past, and down upon the development of those same neighbours, she could call herself the “Queen of the Seas,” and that without fear that any would attempt to challenge her self-assumed title. He began his work by trying to lay that fruitful cause of so many quarrels, the question of allegiance to the Empire of the East or to that of the West, by making treaties with both, and that done—his decks, so to speak, cleared for action—he turned his attention to the freebooters, who for a long time past had been exacting a heavy annual tribute from the weakness of the distracted State. In the first combat that followed he defeated them handsomely, and they, in revenge, not daring to jeopardise themselves in the lagoons and canals, turned upon the coast towns of Dalmatia, sacking and looting them one after another. These latter, in despair, appealed to Venice for help, and Pietro jumped at the chance, and gathered together a fleet as quickly as he could arm it. From the ecclesiastical authorities he received St. Mark’s banner, and set sail, as we are told, in the early spring. Contrary winds, or rather fortunate ones, drove them over to Grado, whose Patriarch was the son of the murdered Candiano, the predecessor of Pietro’s father, and Pietro was somewhat nervous of approaching the former in the midst of his own people. But the Patriarch had buried the old feud, perhaps with the aid of the thought that Pietro’s cause, at the moment, was his own, and sailed out to meet them, and brought with him the Standard of St. Heonagora, which he left with them. Sailing away, Pietro received the submission of all the defenceless ports and islands from Grado clear to the pirates’ stronghold, the rock-enclosed city of Lagorta, the sight of which might have given pause to a much stronger force than that which he had brought with him; but, as Napier so truly says, moral force is the greatest thing in war, from wherever or whatever it may be derived, and, strong in the righteousness of his cause, his belief in himself, and, it may be, fortified by the homage of the ports and islands, he attacked, seized, and destroyed it utterly.