Mrs. Hugh Fraser

Fascination of Venice’s Criminal Administration—Lords of the Night—Secret Detectives—Degeneration of Republic—Hired Ruffians—Their Murderous Activities—An Escapade of Pesaro, Paragon of Bravi—Gambara, Last of the Despots—Open War Against Law and Order—Final Pardon.

Of all subjects connected with old Venice, in the popular mind, that of her criminal administration is one of the most fascinating by reason of the endless traditions of mystery and terror with which it is fraught, and, of all historical executives, the Venetian “Signori di Notte”—the Lords of the Night—appeal the most irresistibly to the normal curiosity inherent in most people.

The very notion of the nocturnal jurisdiction implied by the title of that famous Board carries with it a suggestion of secrecy and of an unseen process of justice more or less summary, but invariably sharp and decisive. The members composing the Board were frequently of noble birth, and their official position was not unlike that of the Triumvirs of ancient Rome. Their functions, at the time when the Board first came into being, in the Twelfth Century, were those of police-chiefs and commissioners of sewers. They were responsible thus for keeping watch over the streets by night, and for seeing to the repairing of bridges and highways. In this manner they soon came to acquire an expert knowledge of those parts of the city that needed watching, either on account of the questionable condition of their buildings or else by reason of their being the favourite haunts of the criminal part of the population.

Under them, less in the character of ordinary police than of a secret detective force, were the “sbirri,” over whom they assumed special control after the unhappy affair of the conspiracy of the Marquis of Bedmar, the Spanish Ambassador, in 1618, when he plotted the overthrow of the Republic; a design frustrated only on the very eve of its accomplishment. The method employed by the “sbirro” in arresting his man was to throw his cloak over the victim’s head and to lead him, thus muffled and blindfolded, to prison. Occasionally, also, the “sbirro” was the owner of a sponging-house, to which he would conduct his prisoner and there detain him until certain demands were satisfied—much as happened to Captain Rawdon Crawley in “Vanity Fair.” It was in this manner—by muffling with a cloak—that the unfortunate Cavaliere Antonio Foscarini was arrested in 1622, on a charge of conspiring against Venice with the Spanish representatives at the Villa Dolo, the house of Lady Arundel and Surrey, where, together with her husband, she was living for the benefit of their children’s education. The charge was a false one, but Foscarini was strangled for it and his body was afterwards hung up between the Red Columns in the Piazza of St. Mark—the usual place of executions—for the public to gaze upon.

But the chief quarry of the “sbirro” was that most romantic of figures, the “bravo”! The “bravi,” originally merely the retainers of noble houses, became, with the increasing degeneracy of the Republic in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries, more and more mere murderers and ruffians, who plied their trade quite frankly for hire. The system ordinarily in favour among such members of Venetian society as had a grudge against any one of their neighbours was to send out for a “bravo”—they were always to be found at certain places and hours—and to bargain with him for a price that depended upon the extent of the hurt to be inflicted. I have seen one of the daggers used by such professional “bravi” and very curious they were, being crucifixes, of which the upper part of the cross and the transverse formed the hilt and quillons of a murderous-looking knife, its long double-edged blade having three lines engraved across it. The purpose of these lines was to mark the exact depth of the wound, whether slight, or severe, or mortal; if it were only desired that the lowest of the lines—that nearest the point—should be the depth of the stab, then the price was a small one; if the second line, then a larger sum of money would be necessary; and for the third, the uppermost line, a proportionate amount was demanded.

The alliance of the “bravi” with the upper class of Venice was from the first a natural one; for the common people has never any need of the services of hired men to settle its quarrels for pay. As a result of the wars of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth centuries there had sprung up a large class of impoverished or ruined adventurers, who were willing to lend their services to any cause, public or private, for hire; some such, it is said, were generally to be found in the number of the patricians privileged to sit on the benches of the Great Council as the supreme national body was called. By degrees these impoverished patricians, who were designated under the name of “Barnabotti,” drew to themselves the lawless element of the population and yoked it, through custom and mutual necessities, to their service, until the thing came to such a point that no wealthy or noble family of Venice but counted its dozen or its score of such retainers, thus establishing a return to the feudal principle of a State—or, rather, States innumerable—within the State; each of which was a law unto itself. The only modern institution comparable to the “Bravi” is that of the so-called “gunmen” of New York, with their system of hire and their deadly feuds between gang and gang. For the records of the “bravi” show many such public floutings of law in Venice. In the year 1539 a certain individual, who would certainly seem to have been attached in some way to the establishment of the French Ambassador, having committed some crime or other, was chased by the “sbirri” to the French Embassy in the Calle San MoisÉ, where he found refuge from his pursuers, all Embassies being removed by international usage beyond the sphere of police activities. The situation, then, was an extremely sensitive one; so much so, indeed, that it was thought advisable by the “Capo della Sbiraglia,” or chief of police, to send for an Advocate of the Commune, one Zorzi, that he might request the delivery of the criminal with all possible courtesy. Zorzi, on reaching the Embassy, met three of the members of its staff in the courtyard, and begged that they would make known his coming to the Ambassador. Instead of complying, however, they only ran back into the house, shouting to those within to make ready to bar the way; and Zorzi, on following them with some of the “sbirri,” found the staircase held against his further advance by a crowd of ruffians, while others were beginning to hurl down furniture and household utensils out of the windows on to the heads of the “sbirri” below. So that the prudent Advocate withdrew with his police and reported the matter to the Council of Ten, which promptly sent a force of soldiers to the Embassy to seize the original criminal, who had taken refuge there and, with him, all the other resisters of Messer Zorzi and the police. The Council had acted thus in spite of its all but certainty that the King of France would declare war on Venice for her violation of his Embassy; but, to its relief, no notice was taken of their action. It was quite certain, though, that the French Ambassador was in the habit of employing “bravi” about his person; and his colleague of Spain appears to have been guilty of the same delinquency. In 1556 Edward Courtenay, Lord Devon, died at Padua, of low fever, as was supposed, but in reality he was murdered by a “bravo” of Dalmatia, Marco Risano, in the pay of Ruy Gomez, the Spanish Minister. Courtenay’s papers were placed for safekeeping in the hands of the Paduan authorities until the pleasure of Queen Mary should be known concerning them. The Council of Ten, however, was enabled to obtain a knowledge of their contents by means of its officer, the “PodestÀ” of Padua; and certain documents which proved that Courtenay had been an agent and spy of France were found among the papers and purloined by the Council.

A typical “bravo” of a certain kind was a hardened blackguard of noble family called Leonardo Pesaro. He is said to have combined in his own person all the vices of the age in which he lived, the end of the Sixteenth Century and the beginning of the Seventeenth. Again and again this scoundrel was arrested and expelled from Venetian territory as an undesirable citizen; and, as often, he would return either to the capital or to one of the provincial cities, Padua or Vicenza or Verona. At last, though, in 1601, Pesaro crowned all his other achievements by one of the most shameless outrages ever perpetrated upon the laws of any country.

The way of it was this: On the last day of February of that year, Pesaro, happening to pass beneath the window of a woman called Lucrezia Baglioni, who was leading a bad life under the protection of a nobleman named Paoli Lioni, called out some indecent jest to her and asked her to repeat it from him to Lioni. That same evening Pesaro returned to Lucrezia Baglioni’s house, where she was giving a banquet to a newly wedded pair, Lioni being of the company as a matter of course. It seems that Pesaro must have seen them both together at the window, for he repeated his jest of the afternoon loud enough to be overheard by Lioni, to whom, I fancy, he was unknown.

“What are you saying there, fool?” asked Lioni, with a pleasant condescension, smiling down at him from the iron balcony.

“What I please,” Pesaro retorted, “and if any one wishes to cross swords with me, I am at his service!”

From this it seems evident that Pesaro was in the pay of some enemy to Lioni and that he had thus sought an occasion of affronting him, and so of drawing him into a duel; which motive of Pesaro’s is confirmed beyond all doubt by what happened next.

On hearing this challenge, Lioni mildly withdrew from the balcony into the room, drawing Lucrezia with him, unwilling to expose her or his own dignity to the insolence of the unknown roysterer in the street: whereupon, Pesaro, seeing himself baulked of his prey, went off to his lodgings, put on his breastplate, mask, and morion, and then collecting a few of his fellow-bravi went with them to find Camillo Trevisano, who was his partner and the junior member of their firm of “bravi.” Having found Camillo, he clapped him on the shoulder, saying, “Come! there is a job waiting for us!”

And Camillo, nothing loath, put on his own armour and his mask and went with Pesaro to the house where Paoli Lioni and Lucrezia Baglioni, all unsuspecting of what was on its way to them, were feasting and making merry with their friends. The “bravi,” on reaching the house, had no difficulty in effecting an entrance, and, rushing up the stairs, burst into the chamber where Lioni and Lucrezia were seated at table with their guests. There followed a prolonged scuffle, in which Lioni was slain and Lucrezia received a murderous beating from the small shields carried by some of the bravi—from the effects of which she was eventually so fortunate as to recover—whilst others fell upon the assembled company, wounding several members of it, and extinguishing all the lights save one, a torch held in one hand of the bridegroom the while he defended his wife from her assailants with a chair.

This was the last of Messer Pesaro’s exploits, however, for the “sbirri” were sent out to take him; and, although he contrived to slip through their fingers, yet a decree of banishment was issued against him, together with Camillo Trevisano and another of their gang, Gabriele Morosini, and a price was set upon their heads. After which we hear no more of him.

Mr. Hazlitt tells us[28] how the Sieur de la Haye, in writing of the Venetian aristocracy in the year 1670, mentions that, “whether they were in their coaches or on horseback, they were accompanied by a rabble of Hectors they call Bravi, many times only in ostentation, but too often for a worse end.”

In the greater number of crimes perpetrated by the “bravi” of the city of Venice itself during the worst period, that of the Seventeenth Century, they appear to have done less with sword and pistol than with the arquebus and the stiletto; the employment of the latter is comprehensible enough on grounds of stealth and convenience, that of the arquebus I find less easy to understand, for it was an exceedingly clumsy weapon and possessed, as were all firearms of those days, of a tremendous “kick.” The only reason imaginable for its use is that it had the advantage of killing at a longer and, consequently, a safer distance for the murderer than a pistol, which could only be counted upon at a very short range.

It was not, however, until the comparatively recent epoch of the last half of the Eighteenth Century that the “bravo” as an institution acquired his widest celebrity by the commission of what were practically acts of open warfare against the then moribund Republic of Venice. These acts were committed under the leadership of a man the like of whom Italy had not known since the days of the Despots, one Count Alamanno Gambara, a native of the parts about Brescia.

Gambara may well and reasonably be called the Last of the Despots, for he was assuredly the last private person to terrorise a large district of Upper Italy, with both comparative impunity and a certain measure of hereditary authority. As one of Thackeray’s characters says of Lord Mohun in “Esmond,” he could handle a foil—and a bloody one, too—before ever he learned to use a razor. At an age when most boys are in the Fourth Form of an English public school, Gambara was the terror of the countryside in which his paternal castle of Pralboino was situated; so that, when he was only about fifteen years old, the Venetian Government found itself compelled to place him under restraint, his father being dead and his mother unable to control him. Finally, he was confined as a prisoner, first in Verona and then in the fortress of Palma, from the latter of which he escaped; for a while he wandered about the country, pursued by the police, who were unable to lay hands on him, until at last he decided to surrender himself to the authorities, of his own accord, which he did, and was exiled to Zara, the Governor of Dalmatia being requested by the Venetian Government to treat him with all possible consideration and to provide him with good company for the benefit of his moral welfare!

Gambara, however, was soon allowed to return to his estates, and once there lost no time in gathering about him a bodyguard of “bravi,” with whose assistance he soon signalised himself in various encounters with the representatives of law and order in the province. Having engaged upon a kind of warfare with the Customs officials at Calvisano—a village near Porella, some distance south and east from Brescia—a detachment of Gambara’s bandits raided the Custom-house there and killed one of them, beating the others and all but murdering their captain as well. On being summoned to appear before the Council of Ten at Venice, to render an account for his misdeeds, Gambara retorted by fortifying his two castles and adding to his little army of “bravi,” thus openly setting the law at defiance. And now a reign of terror was inaugurated by him and by his henchman, Carlo Molinari, the head of his band of assassins.

This period of Gambara’s career terminated with a peculiarly atrocious episode. His protection having been sought by a smuggler, Gambara took the man in as an additional member of his band. Shortly afterwards, a party of police happening to enter his territory in search of the smuggler, Gambara invited them to pass the night with him as his guests. This invitation they foolishly accepted, and the next day their dead bodies, hidden under a covering of green boughs, were brought into Brescia in a cart, which was left opposite the house of the Venetian PodestÀ or Governor of the city.

The result of this diabolical exploit was that Gambara was forced to seek refuge in flight—what other consequences he could have expected one cannot imagine—and he retreated into the neighbouring Duchy of Parma. Before long, though, he petitioned the Venetian Government to pardon him, which it was weak enough to do, and so he returned to his estates, where he continued to live—spending a good part of his time in Venice itself—much as he had done before. I do not know when he died, but I fancy he must have attained to a ripe old age, dying somewhere about the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. One can only hope that the grace of a final repentance may have been granted to him!