Sketches from the Subject and Neighbour Lands of Venice. Edward A. Freeman

of the cloister at Badia1477Otranto taken by the Turks1480Otranto recovered by Alfonso1481Veglia annexed by Venice1481Monopoli stormed by the Venetians1495Trani, Otranto, and other cities pledged to Venice by Ferdinand of Naples1496Durazzo and Butrinto lost by Venice1500Gorizia annexed to Austria by Maximilian1500Treviso besieged by Maximilian1508Trani, etc., recovered by Ferdinand of Aragon1509Building of the Dogana at Ragusa1520Trani, etc., recovered by Venice1528Trani, etc., restored to Charles the Fifth1530Aquileia annexed to Austria1544Mark Anthony de Dominis Archbishop of Spalato1622Building of the gate at Curzola1643The great earthquake at Ragusa1667Prevesa won and Butrinto recovered by Venice1685–1699The Emperor Leopold repairs the castle of Gorizia1660Athens taken by Morosini1687Abolition of the patriarchate of Aquileia; Udine and Gorizia become metropolitan sees1751Peace of Campo Formio; fall of Venice: Venetia, Istria, and Dalmatia, except Ragusa, occupied by Austria1797–8The Ionian Islands and the Venetian outposts ceded to France1797Septinsular Republic under Ottoman overlordship1798Prevesa stormed by Ali of Jôannina1798Venetia, Istria, Trieste, and Dalmatia ceded to the French kingdom of Italy; Dalmatia partly occupied1805The Republic of Ragusa suppressed by Buonaparte1808Various points occupied by England1810–1814 Cattaro delivered from France by England and Montenegro; Cattaro, capital of Montenegro1813Dalmatia recovered by Austria, Ragusa also occupied by Austria for the first time1814Venetia, Istria, and Trieste recovered by Austria1814English occupation of Curzola1813–1815The Ionian Islands under British protection1815Surrender of Parga to the Turk1819Liberation of Venice and recovery by Austria1848–9The Ionian Islands added to free Greece1864Final liberation of Venetia1866Austrian attempt to infringe the liberties of the Bocchesi; defeat of the Austrians1869Beginning of the war in Herzegovina1875Servian and Montenegrin war; recovery of Antivari, Dulcigno, and Spizza by Montenegro1876–7Congress of Berlin; Dulcigno restored to the Turk; Spizza taken by Austria; Antivari left to Montenegro; the Turk "invited" to cede Epeiros to free Greece1878The liberation of Epeiros decreed the second time1880Dulcigno recovered for Montenegro1880Liberation of Thessaly, but not of Epeiros1881

THE LOMBARD AUSTRIA.

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TREVISO.

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      1881.

      The north-eastern corner of Italy is one of those parts of the world which have gone through the most remarkable changes. That it has often changed its political masters is only common to it with the rest of Italy, and with many other lands as well. The physical changes too which the soil and its waters have gone through are remarkable, but they are not unparalleled. The Po may perhaps be reckoned as the frontier stream of the region towards the south, and the many paths by which the Po has found its way into the Hadriatic need not be dwelled on. We are more concerned with rivers further to the north-east. The Isonzo no longer represents the course of the ancient Sontius; the Natisone no longer flows by fallen Aquileia. The changes of the coast-line which have made what is left of Aquileia inland have their counterparts at Pisa and at Ravenna. In the range of historical geography, the most curious feature is the way in which certain political names have kept on an abiding life in this region, though with singular changes of meaning. The land has constantly been either Venetian or Austrian; sometimes it has been Venetian and Austrian at once. But it has been Venetian and Austrian in various meanings. It was Venetian long before the name of Venice was heard of in its present sense; it was Austrian long before the name of Austria was heard of in its present sense. The land of the old Veneti bore the Venetian name ages before the city of Venice was in being, and it keeps it now that Venice has ceased to be a political power. Venetian then the land has ever been in one sense, while a large part of it was for some centuries Venetian in another sense, in the days when so many of its cities bowed to Saint Mark and his commonwealth as its rulers. Austrian the land was in the old geographical sense, when it formed the Lombard Austria—the eastern half, the Eastrice—that form would, we suspect, come nearer to Lombard speech than Oesterreich—of the Lombard realm. But if the Lombard realm had its Austria and its Neustria, so also had the Frankish realm. Wherever a land could be easily divided into east and west, there was an Austria, and its negative a Neustria. Lombardy then had its Austria, and its Austria was found in the old and the new Venetian land. No one perhaps ever spoke of the Karlings as the House of Austria, or of their Empire as the dominions of the House of Austria. And yet the name would not have been out of place. Their dominion marked the predominance of the eastern part of the Frankish realm—its Oesterreich, its Austrasia, its Austria—over the Neustrian power of the earlier dynasty. The Lombard Austria became part of the dominions of those who were before all things lords of the Frankish Austria. And in later times, when the Lombard and the Frankish Austria were both forgotten, when the name clave only to a third Austria, the more modern Austria of Germany—the Eastern mark called into being to guard Germany from the Magyar—the Venetian land has more than once become Austrian in another sense; some of it in that sense remains Austrian still. Dukes of the most modern Austria—plain dukes who were satisfied with being dukes—archdukes who were Emperors by lawful election—archdukes who have had a strange fancy for calling themselves Emperors of their archduchy—have all of them at various times borne rule over the whole or part of the older Austria of Lombardy. To-day the north-eastern corner of Italy, land of Venetia, the once Lombard Austria, is parted asunder by an artificial boundary between the dominions of the Italian King and the lord of the later Austria. And, what a passing traveller might not easily find out, in this old Venetian land, in both parts of it, alike under modern Italian and under modern Austrian rule, besides the Latin speech which everywhere meets the eye and the ear, the speech of Slavonic settlers still lingers. Settlers they are in the Venetian land, no less than its Roman or its German masters. It is hard to say who the old Veneti were, perhaps nearer akin to the Albanians than to any other European people. At all events there is no reason for thinking that they were Slaves. The presence of a Slavonic speech in this region is a fruit of the same migration which made the land beyond Hadria Slavonic. But to hear the Slavonic and the Italian tongues side by side is so familiar a phænomenon under modern Austrian rule, that its appearance at Aquileia or Gorizia may with some minds seem to give the land a specially Austrian character, and may help to shut out the remembrance that at Aquileia and Gorizia we are within the ancient kingdom of Italy. Nay it may be a new and strange thing to many to hear that, even within the bounds of the modern kingdom of Italy, there are districts where, though Italian is the cultivated tongue, yet Slave is the common peasant speech.

      But besides physical changes, changes of name, changes of inhabitants, we are perhaps yet more deeply struck with the fluctuations in the history of the cities of this region. In this matter, throughout the Venetian land, the first do indeed become last and the last first. No city in this region has kept on that enduring life through all changes which has belonged to many cities in other parts of Europe. We do not here find the Roman walls, or the walls yet earlier than Roman days, fencing in dwelling-places of man which have been continuously inhabited, which have sometimes been continuously flourishing, through all times of which