My perspicuous reader, having recovered from his astonishment at the unexpected liberality of the Council of Ten, has already divined that such a fit could not last long, and that Badoer and his noble academy were doomed to failure. Badoer was not rich enough to bear the expense of such an undertaking alone, and the Ten had no intention of helping him. Moreover, he and the scholars of his academy kept up a continual correspondence with doctors of law in other countries. It would have seemed narrow-minded, however, to suppress the academy by a decree; it was more in accordance with the methods of the Council to accuse Badoer of some imaginary misdeed for which he could be brought to trial. Accordingly, though he had sacrificed his own fortune in the attempt, he was accused of having embezzled the academy’s funds, and in three years from the time of his setting to work the [Illustration: FONDAMENTA SANUDO] academy was crushed out of existence, and he was a ruined man. Another shortlived but celebrated literary society was that of the ‘Pellegrini,’ the ‘Pilgrims,’ whose pilgrimage led them only from their solemn palaces in Venice to the pleasant groves of Murano, and was performed by moonlight when possible. The pilgrims were Titian, Sansovino, Navagero, Gaspara Stampa, the old Trifone, Collaltino di Collalto, and some others, and it is very unlikely that their evening meetings had any object except pleasant converse and intellectual relaxation. We know something about the lovely Gaspara and Collalto, at all events, and it can be safely said that they were more pleasantly occupied than in conspiracy, and that what they said to each other concerned neither the Doge nor the Council of Ten. Though there was no university in Venice, the Republic possessed one of the most renowned in Europe by right of having conquered and annexed Padua; and it is interesting to note that because that great institution of learning was not situated in Venice itself, it was allowed a degree of liberty altogether beyond Venetian traditions.