rring
sometimes once, sometimes oftener in the year; usually in the autumn
or spring. "In order that," says an old chronicler of the time, "the
heat being less great at those seasons, the blood of the combatants
should not become too heated and the fight too dangerous." "Also on
cloudy days," says the same authority, "that the spectators might not
be molested by the sun; and on Sundays or Saints' days, that the
people thereby might not be hindered from their occupations." On these
occasions one of the numerous bridges was selected as the scene of the
mock combat that constituted the chief amusement of the day. The quays
afforded good standing-room to the spectators; and here, under the
inspection of aediles appointed by the people, the two parties met, and
disputed for supremacy in a battle, in which, however, no more
dangerous weapons than fists were allowed to be brought into play.

It was not the populace alone that divided itself into these two
factions. Accordingly as the palaces of the nobles stood on the one or
the other side of the canal, were their owners Castellani or
Nicolotti, although their partizanship existed but in jest, and only
showed itself in the form of encouragement to their respective
parties; whereas with the lower orders the strife, begun in
good-humour, not unfrequently turned to bitter earnest, and had
dangerous and even fatal results. In the wish, however, to keep up a
warlike spirit in the people, and perhaps still more with a view to
make them forget, in a temporary and boundless license, the strict
subjection in which they were habitually held, the senate was induced
to permit the continuance of a diversion, which from the local
arrangements of Venice, the narrowness of the streets and bridges, and
the depth of the larger canals, was unavoidably dangerous, and almost
invariably attended with loss of life.

Hastily dressing himself, Antonio hurried into his gondola in order to
proceed to the bridge of San Barnaba, opposite to the church of the
same name and to the Foscarini palace, that being the spot appointed
for the combat. The canal of the Giudecca was one black mass of
gondolas, which rendered even a casual glimpse of the water scarcely
obtainable; and it was amidst the cries of the gondoliers and the
noise of boats knocking against each other, that the young painter
passed the Dogana and reached the grand canal. There the crowd became
so dense, that Jacopo, seeing the impossibility