In the church of Saint Mark’s he was presented to the people, and received the usual threefold laudation and salutation. It is worth noticing that Faliero was the last doge who was saluted by the pompous title of ‘Lord of a quarter and an eighth of the Roman Empire.’ Then, according to the regular ceremonial, he was carried round the square amid the acclamations of the multitude, to whom he threw money, and at last he was crowned upon the landing of the staircase that descended into the courtyard of the palace. This staircase was of stone, and led down from the hall of the Great Council to the story where was the covered loggia, and thence continued downwards in the open air, entering the courtyard, and following the same direction as the modern ‘Giants’ Staircase,’ but at the opposite extremity. It was demolished in the fifteenth century. Upon the same landing of the staircase the Doge took the oath of allegiance, with the amendments of which we have already spoken, and we may well believe that the new restrictions contained in the ‘Ducal Promise’ were unwelcome to his despotic nature. During the reign of Marino Faliero, Venice continued the struggle with Genoa, and remained on the side of the Lombard League against the Visconti. The defeat of the Venetian fleet at Porto Longo, November 4, 1354, almost caused a panic in Venice, where it was expected that at any moment the Genoese would appear again before the Lido. The Doge and the government, however, met the danger with energetic measures, obtained help from the neighbouring principalities, and vigilantly watched the more exposed outlying districts, such as Cape d’Istria and Zara; but the agitation in Venice was not wholly allayed, and the need of peace was felt more than ever. Charles IV., king of Bohemia and king of the Romans, who had recently descended into Italy in order to assume the imperial title, found it no easy matter to make terms between the parties. From Avignon also Pope Innocent VI. was using every means to pacify the divers Italian states; but neither the Emperor nor the Pope were [Illustration: CAMPO S. MARIA NOVA] wholly successful, and in the winter of 1355 the condition of affairs in Venice was such as to favour a conspiracy. It was not long, in fact, before the plot of Marino Faliero was discovered, and it turned out to be the most important of those which darken the history of the fourteenth century. Almost every one is acquainted with the legend of this conspiracy, and may compare it with the truth so far as a recent examination of the facts has made it known.