The aged Doge Contarini survived exactly two years after his triumph, and went down to his grave in the full blaze of his final success, and of the country’s growing glory. Amongst those proposed as candidates to succeed him, Carlo Zeno was mentioned; but such a choice would have been contrary to all precedent and tradition, for it was thought that the election of the bravest captain of his day might be dangerous to the Republic; and, moreover, most of the patricians, whose advice during the war he had consistently declined to follow, were jealous of him, and predisposed against him. But the war with the Carrara was not yet really at an end, in spite of the treaty of peace, and there was still much for Zeno to do. The electors chose Michele Morosini to fill the ducal throne. [Illustration: THE CARMINE] XV VENICE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY As an epoch, if not precisely as a period of a hundred years, the fourteenth century in Venetian history closes with the war of Chioggia, as it began also before the year 1300 with the Closure of the Great Council. For the final defeat and ruin of the Genoese, Venice made the supreme heroic effort necessary to establish her greatness; thenceforth none questioned it, and with the attainment of her highest national aim ended the noblest page in her history. The Venetians of the first period were at once brave and prudent; they were at times needlessly harsh in judging those whom they believed dangerous to the Republic, but they were sincere, and they found means to make other nations respect their country as they respected it and loved it themselves. After Chioggia, Venice was both feared and admired, but it is not possible to feel much sympathy with her sumptuous social life, nor with a government that seems to have been for ever preoccupied with its search for secret enemies; nor, indeed, with its too docile working people, or its soldiers who so willingly obeyed the commands of the foreign condottieri under whom they were too often led to battle.