This is no place to discuss a legal code, but no one who glances at Tiepolo’s body of laws can fail to be struck by the many provisions it contains for the protection of women and their property. I do not know whether we ought to think that this speaks well or ill for the condition of Venetian ethics at a time when the slave trade was already thriving, and when there were a great number of Eastern female slaves in the capital. On the whole, the laws may have been made with a view to protecting honest matrons from being plundered, directly or indirectly, by their handsome and perfectly unscrupulous rivals, whose influence was already becoming great, and was destined to be portentous. At any rate, the honour and the lives of honourable women were not more carefully protected than their material interests. Every husband was obliged to render an account to his wife of the dowry she had brought him, and she could dispose of it by will as she pleased. A widow enjoyed the whole income left by her husband during a year and a day from his death, and during that time no one could by any means drive her from his house. If she declared her intention of not marrying again she preserved her right of residence all her life. Nevertheless, an unfaithful wife, if proved guilty, forfeited her dowry to her husband, and he could turn her out of his home. Tiepolo’s civil code provided also for a case which seems to have been not uncommon--namely, that in which a married couple, like the Doge Pietro Orseolo and his wife, agreed to take vows and part, each entering a religious order. The law here introduced the form of a separation of goods, leaving each party free thereafter to administer his or her fortune at will. In addition to the immense labour connected with his body of laws, Tiepolo also occupied himself with the nautical regulations which had obtained authority by long use. I have no doubt that in so doing he used the Amalfi marine code, as in his laws he made use of the Pandects of Justinian, discovered in Amalfi about a hundred years earlier. Some of the clauses are curious. Captains and owners of ships are forbidden, for instance, to delegate their authority ‘to a pilgrim, a soldier, or a servant.’ In case of shipwreck, the whole crew was bound to work fifteen full days, but no more, at saving the cargo, of which they could then claim three per cent. Every ordinary vessel was to carry two trumpets, presumably as foghorns. Very large ships were to carry a sort of orchestra, consisting of two bass drums, one drum and one trumpet. The marine code has some interest also, as indicating the general nature of the merchandise carried by Venetian vessels: woven stuffs, pepper, incense, indigo, sugar in the loaf, myrrh, gum arabic, aloes, camphor, rice, almonds, apples, wine and oil are to be found mentioned, with many more articles of commerce.