"And yet, while the Republic was really hurling headlong to its ruin, the outward pomp, the glory, the splendor of Venice were just beginning to attract the eyes of Europe, blinding many Venetians and all foreigners to the real aspect of the situation. Venice was acquiring her reputation as the city of {277} magnificent private life, the city of 'masks and balls begun at midnight, burning ever to midday;' the city, too, of _sfrenata lasciva_, the 'Gehenna of the Waters.' This is the period when her great palaces arose, in all their pomp of balcony and pillared windows and frescoed façades, along the Grand Canal; when Vivarini, Carpaccio, and Bellini were preluding to Titian, Giorgione, Tintoret; when Bessarion presented his priceless codices to the Marician Library; when the colony of Greek Scribes was endeavoring to hold its own against the new invention of printing, against John of Speyer's 'Epistolæ Familiares' and Jenson's 'Ad Atticum;' when Aldus, by his brilliant, earnest, passionate scholarship, and his practical acumen in the conduct of his press, began to render the Greek classics the common property of mankind. "It would seem that just as the rapid extension of Venice on the mainland under Francesco Foscari was the blossom of all her long centuries of physical and constitutional growth, so the sudden artistic expansion of the later fifteenth century was the flowering of Venice in the intellectual and emotional region. The bloom presaged decay. Death was already at the roots before the flower had opened to its fullest splendor." Before the end of this century another event--unfortunate for Venice, but a blessing to all the world besides--was added to the misfortunes which had followed her in the Levant and on the mainland. In 1486 Diaz rounded the Cape of Good Hope; and two years later, when the news of Vasco di Gama's voyage was received, all intelligent Venetians knew that a fatal blow had fallen on their commerce. Its death might be a lingering one, but it was sure. Of this Brown says:-- "A new commercial route was opened to the world. Instead of passing up the Red Sea and across the Isthmus of Suez, or up the Persian Gulf and through Asia Minor, breaking bulk at Ormuz or at Suez, and being shipped again for European destinations at Alexandria or Aleppo, all the wealth of the Indies could now be carried in unbroken cargoes round the Cape of {278} Good Hope, to be discharged in the harbors of Holland, of the Hanseatic towns, of England. The Mediterranean instantly ceased to be the sole highway of communication between the East and West; the great commercial thoroughfare was now thrown outside the Straits of Gibraltar; and Venice, in whose hands Mediterranean traffic had become almost a monopoly, suffered a blow such as all her struggles with Genoa and all the victories of the Turks had hitherto failed to inflict."