chief magistrates and the ambassadors. A great fair was held and the city gave itself up to a week’s festivities. Such with some modifications in detail was the famous wedding of the Adriatic, which ended only with the Republic herself in 1797. Among the spoil from Syria were three huge granite columns, one of which had fallen into the canal during unloading: the other two lay on the shore, and no one could be found to raise them. A proclamation was made that any _onesta grazia_ would be granted to the master who should erect them on the piazzetta. Many had tried and failed when Nicolo Barattieri, a Lombard engineer, offered his services. He is said to have stretched stout ropes, soaked them in water and fixed them to the pillars.[16] As the ropes dried and contracted the columns “with great art and some little assistance” were slowly elevated and were surmounted with the familiar bronze and marble statues of the Lion of St Mark and St Theodore. The former was cast and erected in 1178, the latter carved and erected in 1329. When asked to name his reward, Nicolo begged permission to set up gaming-tables between the columns. His request was granted, but orders were given that all public executions should henceforth take place there, and the “two red columns”[17] have a gruesome interest in subsequent Venetian history. Two attempts, one in 1559, another in 1809, were made to recover the third pillar. The same ingenious master is said to have erected the first wooden Rialto bridge in 1173. On Ziani’s retirement the method of electing the Doge was again modified. Instead of the eleven, four members of the Great Council were chosen who nominated an electoral college of forty. Only a single member might be taken from any one family, and the forty elected the Doge by an absolute majority of votes. When the papal summons came to Venice in the reign of Ziani’s successor, Mastropiero, for a naval contingent in the service of the third Crusade, she held too great a stake in Syria to remain wholly indifferent. Manuel promised satisfaction for the spoliation of the Venetians in 1177 by the payment of a large indemnity, and the long struggle with the Hungarians for the recovery of Zara and the Dalmatian protectorate was intermitted. A fleet was sent to the east which bore a brave part in the relief of Tyre and the famous two years’ siege of Acre. But Venice fought in conjunction with her rivals of Pisa and Genoa, and it was not until the barons of France, during the organisation of the fourth Crusade gave her the opportunity of demonstrating her naval supremacy and controlling the movement for her own ends that she put forth all her strength.