“Siamo noi calcolatori” was the confession of a modern Venetian, quoted lately as expressive of the spirit that governs Venice to-day and has lain at the root of her policy in the past. The confession is striking; for most men, however calculating in practice, acknowledge an ideal of spontaneous generosity which causes them to shun the admission of self-interested motives. The charge, if charge it can be termed, is an old one. Again and again it has been brought against Venice by those to whom her greatness has been a stumbling-block--“sono calcolatori.” But perhaps if the indictment be rightly understood it will be found to need, not so much a denial as an extension, a fuller statement of meaning. And this Professor Molmenti has supplied in his _Venice in the Middle Ages_.[1] “The Venetians,” he says, in commenting on the support they lent to the Crusades, “never forgot their commercial and political interests in their zeal for the faith; they intended to secure for themselves a market in every corner of the globe. But their so-called egoism displayed itself in a profound attachment to their country and their race; and these greedy hucksters, these selfish adventurers, as they are sometimes unjustly called, had at bottom a genuine belief in objects high and serious; the merchant not seldom became a hero. These lords of the sea knew how to wed the passion of Christianity to commercial enterprise, and welded the aspirations of the faith with the interests of their country, proving by their action not only how vain and sterile is an idealism which consumes itself in morbid dreams, but also that the mere production of riches will lead to ruin unless it be tempered, legalised, almost, we would say, sanctified, by the serene and lifegiving breath of the ideal.” But because she was supremely successful in her undertakings, Venice won for herself much perplexed and hostile comment from those who were jealous of a mastery sustained with such apparently effortless self-possession--of an organisation so complete, so silent, so pervasive. She has been accused of perfidy, of cruelty, in short, of shameless egoism. A nation, a state, is pledged to the preservation of its identity, its conceptions must be bounded and constantly measured by the power of other states. The neighbours of Venice in the days of her glory were selfish and calculating also; her prominence was due not so much to special weapons as to her skill in wielding weapons everywhere in use. [1] Translated by Mr. Horatio Browne.