ther.

Then the first period, of nine hundred years, presents us with the most
interesting spectacle of a people struggling out of anarchy into order
and power; and then governed, for the most part, by the worthiest and
noblest man whom they could find among them,[5] called their Doge or
Leader, with an aristocracy gradually and resolutely forming itself
around him, out of which, and at last by which, he was chosen; an
aristocracy owing its origin to the accidental numbers, influence, and
wealth of some among the families of the fugitives from the older
Venetia, and gradually organizing itself, by its unity and heroism, into
a separate body.

This first period includes the rise of Venice, her noblest achievements,
and the circumstances which determined her character and position among
European powers; and within its range, as might have been anticipated,
we find the names of all her hero princes,--of Pietro Urseolo, Ordalafo
Falier, Domenico Michieli, Sebastiano Ziani, and Enrico Dandolo.

Sec. V. The second period opens with a hundred and twenty years, the
most eventful in the career of Venice--the central struggle of her
life--stained with her darkest crime, the murder of Carrara--disturbed
by her most dangerous internal sedition, the conspiracy of
Falier--oppressed by her most fatal war, the war of Chiozza--and
distinguished by the glory of her two noblest citizens (for in this
period the heroism of her citizens replaces that of her monarchs),
Vittor Pisani and Carlo Zeno.

I date the commencement of the Fall of Venice from the death of Carlo
Zeno, 8th May, 1418;[6] the _visible_ commencement from that of another
of her noblest and wisest children, the Doge Tomaso Mocenigo, who
expired five years later. The reign of Foscari followed, gloomy with
pestilence and war; a war in which large acquisitions of territory were
made by subtle or fortunate policy in Lombardy, and disgrace,
significant as irreparable, sustained in the battles on the Po at
Cremona, and in the marshes of Caravaggio. In 1454, Venice, the first of
the states of Christendom, humiliated herself to the Turk: in the same
year was established the Inquisition of State,[7] and from this period
her government takes the perfidious and mysterious form under which it
is usually conceived. In 1477, the great Turkish invasion spread terror
to the shores of the lagoons; and in 1508 the league of Cambrai marks
the period usually assigned as the commencement of t