Art -- Italy -- Venice; Venice (Italy) -- Description and travel; Venice (Italy) -- History
We hear nothing more of the case until April 1447, when a chest
containing 2040 ducats and some silver plate was discovered, and proven
to have been received by Jacopo from the Duke of Milan. The contents of
the chest were confiscated, but no further action was taken. In
September, the Doge presented a piteous petition for his son’s pardon.
The Ten resolved that, since the present critical state of public
affairs demanded a prince with a clear and untroubled mind, Jacopo
should be restored to his family, as an act of piety to our lord the
Doge. Three years elapsed. On a November evening, as Ermolao Donato, one
of the _Capi_ who had tried Jacopo, was leaving the palace after
attending a meeting of the Senate, he was fatally stabbed. The Ten and a
_Zonta_ met to investigate, but failed to penetrate the mystery. On
January 2nd, 1451, a signed denunciation was found in the _Bocca del
leone_. Jacopo Foscari was arrested, and put to the question. Incoherent
muttering, which the Ten thought to be an incantation, was all that
could be forced from his lips. The trial dragged on until March 26th,
when Jacopo was declared, on purely circumstantial evidence, guilty of
the murder, and banished to Canea, in Crete, where he was to report
himself daily to the Podestà. The Doge was exhorted to patience, and on
the 29th the condemned Jacopo was put on a galley that was sailing for
Crete. In the June of 1456 important despatches in cypher from Canea
came before the Ten. The home-sick and intolerant Foscari had written a
letter to the Duke of Milan, asking him to intercede with the Signory,
and another to the Turkish Sultan, begging that a vessel might be sent
to Crete to abduct him from the island. Jacopo and all his household
were cited to Venice. Before the Ten he frankly confessed all, and the
sentence was then debated. A _Capo,_ Jacopo Loredano, proposed the death
penalty. The motion was lost, and his relegation to Canea and a year’s
imprisonment were voted. His family were permitted to see him and
Jacopo, bearing marks of the torture, was led into the room, where his
father awaited him. The poor old Doge fell upon his son’s neck, while
Jacopo cried, “Father, father, I beseech you procure for me
permission to return to my home.” “Jacopo,” answered the Doge, “thou[48]
must obey the will of the land, and strive no more.” As the door closed
on his son for ever, the miserable father flung himself upon a chair,
uttering lamentations and moaning, “O! the great pity of it!” In six
months came news from Canea: Jacopo Foscari was dead. The Doge never
recovered from the blow. He secluded himself in his room, and sank into
hopeless, sullen grief. The most urgent affairs of State could not
divert him from his sorrow. The very Government was paralysed, and the
Ten were called to devise a way out of the dead-lock. Having excluded
the Doge’s relations, after long debate they decided to invite the Doge
in his great charity to take pity on the land and freely resign. They
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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