Then some one else may ask about the schools. One must confess that
the Venetians built no schools. But, nay dear sir, contemplate the
curious carving round the windows of that palace, and then there is
that perfect example of a Venetian court of justice. Was it not
unreasonable for some of the Dalmatians to be discontented it they and
their countrymen were allowed no schools, seeing that one did not need
a school in order to be eligible for the army or commercial navy,
which were the professions open to the natives of Dalmatia? With
regard to those natives who really wanted to have a University
diploma--well, the University of Padua was prepared to grant one
without an examination; the "overseas subjects" could become doctors
of medicine or of law on the simple production of a certificate from
two doctors or two lawyers of their country, stating that the
candidate was a capable person. Thereupon he was allowed to
practise--in Dalmatia. And Venice herself was disposed to grant
privileges, such as an exemption from all taxes, to those noblemen and
burgesses and highly placed clergy who were well disposed to her. But
as for schools, she could not ignore an anonymous work of the end of
the sixteenth century, which was attributed to Fra Paolo Sarpi, the
learned councillor of the Republic; he warned them in this book that
"if you wish the Dalmatians to remain faithful to you, then keep them
in ignorance," and again: "In proportion as Dalmatia is poor and a
wilderness, so will her neighbours be less anxious to seize her."
With regard to roads--how could Venice be expected to build roads?
They might have been of service to the population of the interior, but
they would have caused a certain number of those people to devote
themselves to trade, and thus would have prevented them from guarding
the land against the Turk, which was the unquestioned duty of a man
who lived in the interior.
When the Venetians retired from Dalmatia in 1797, after holding it for
three to four hundred years, the country as a country was not
flourishing. The total of exports and imports was such as would now
satisfy a single large trader. But, of course, the land possessed
those buildings with the Lion of St. Mark upon them--which were
possibly put up with the idea of enhancing the prestige of the
Republic--and it possessed the loggia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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