Tomaso Mocenigo, “one of the noblest and wisest of her children,” came to the throne at a critical epoch of Venetian history. Visconti’s son, Filippo, inherited the fierce passions and regal ambition of his father. Having assassinated his elder brother, Giovanni, he secured the services of the greatest _condottiero_ of the time, Francesco Bussone da Carmagnola. Brescia and Genoa were quickly recovered, and assuring himself of Venetian neutrality, he seized Forlì and became a menace to Florence, who prayed for a Venetian alliance in the face of a common danger. The procurator, Francesco Foscari, his sails filled with successful acquisitions in Friuli, beckoned to a forward policy and favoured the Florentine alliance: Visconti was a danger to the State: when Florence had been bludgeoned he would turn on Venice and rend her. Foscari was answered in the Senate by Tomaso Mocenigo, in whose mouth Sanudo places a long oration. The venerable Doge after reviewing the story of the Milanese troubles, ranged through the whole of sacred and profane history to enforce his plea for peace. He prayed the fathers to be content with defending their present frontiers if attacked: “Let the young procurator beware of the fate of Pisa that waxed rich and great by peace and good government but fell by war.” He summarised the national balance-sheet and the incidence of her trade. “Let the _procurator giovane_ remember that commerce was the basis of Venetian prosperity, peace her greatest interest. Let them trade with Milan, not fight her. They were everywhere welcomed as the purveyors of the world; their islands were a city of refuge from oppression.” He then lifted his hearers to the higher spheres of religion and ethics, and warned them that God would wreak vengeance on an aggressive and unrighteous nation. Foscari was intriguing for the reversion of the Dogeship. He had been chief of the Quarantia; three times a _capo_ of the Ten. His influence was great among the patricians, by reason of his lavish distribution of money, when procurator, to decayed gentlemen whose daughters he dowered from the public charities. A few days after his speech in the Senate, Mocenigo lay on his sick bed; some senators stood around him, and the Doge feeling his end draw nigh again took up his parable and solemnly entreated them as they loved their fatherland not to elect Foscari as his successor; to preserve the priceless inheritance he was about to leave them; and to keep their hands from their neighbours, for God would destroy Venice if she waged an unjust war. Let them live in peace, fear nought and mistrust the Florentines. But in truth Mocenigo’s warning came a century too late. The Nemesis of Empire was already upon Venice. She was impelled to grasp more and more in order to retain what she had already won. The time had passed when so great was the fame of the incorruptible justice[47] of the Fathers that sixty envoys of princes