The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4

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[db] {352}_Who threw his sting into a poisonous rhyme_.--[Alternative
reading. MS. M.]

[387] [For the story of Caesar, Pompeia, and Clodius, see Plutarch's
_Lives_, "Caesar," Langhorne's translation, 1838, p. 498.]

[dc]----_Enrico_.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[388] [According to Sanudo (_Vitae Ducum Venetorum, apud_ Muratori,
_Rerum Ital. Script_., 1733, xxii. 529), it was Ser Pantaleone Barbo who
intervened, when (A.D. 1204) the election to the Empire of
Constantinople lay between the Doge "Arrigo Dandolo" and "Conte
Baldovino di Fiandra."]

[dd] {354} ----_in olden days._--[MS. M.]

[389] {356}[According to the much earlier, and, presumably, more
historical narrative of Lorenzo de Monaci, Bertuccio Isarello was not
chief of the _Arsenalotti_, but simply the patron, that is the owner, of
a vessel (_paron di nave_), and consequently a person of importance
amongst sailors and naval artisans; and the noble who strikes the fatal
blow is not Barbaro, but a certain Giovanni Dandolo, who is known, at
that time, to have been "_sopracomito and consigliere del capitano da
mar_." If the Admiral of the Arsenal had been engaged in the conspiracy,
the fact could hardly have escaped the notice of contemporary
chroniclers. Signor Lazzarino suggests that the name Gisello, or
Girello, which has been substituted for that of Israel Bertuccio, is a
corruption of Isarello.--_La Congiura_, p. 74.]

[390] [The island of Sapienza lies about nine miles to the north-west of
Capo Gallo, in the Morea. The battle in which the Venetians under Nicolo
Pisani were defeated by the Genoese under Paganino Doria was fought
November 4, 1354. (See _Venice, an Historical Sketch_, by Horatio F.
Brown, 1893, p. 201.)]

[391] An historical fact. See Marin Sanuto's _Lives of the Doges_.
["Sanuto says that Heaven took away his senses for this buffet, and
induced him to conspire:--'Pero fu permesso che il Faliero perdesse
l'intelletto.'"--_B. Letters_ (_Works, etc._, 1832, xii. 82. note 1).

[392] {358}["The number of their constant Workmen is 1200; and all these
Artificers have a Superior Officer called _Amiraglio_, who commands the
_Bucentaure_ on Ascension Day, when the Duke goes in state to marry the
sea. And here we cannot but notice, that by a ridiculous custom this
Admiral makes himself Responsible to the _Senat_ for the inconstancy of
the Sea, and engages his Life there shall be no Tempest that day. 'Tis
this Admiral who has the Guard of the Palais, St. Mark, with his
_Arsenalotti_, during the _interregnum_. He carries the Red Standard
before the Prince when he makes his Entry, by virtue of which office he
has his Cloak, and the two Basons (out of which the Duke throws the
money to the People) for his fee."--_The History of the Government of
Venice_, written in the year 1675, by the Sieur Amelott de la Houssaie,
London, 1677, p. 63.]

[393] [_Vide ante_, p. 356, note 1.]

[394] {360}[The famous measure known as the closing of the Great Council
was carried into force during the Dogeship (1289-1311) of Pietro
Gradenigo. On the last day of February, 1297, a law was proposed and
passed, "That the Council of Forty are to ballot, one by one, the names
of all those who during the last four years have had a seat in the Great
Council.... Three electors shall be chosen to submit names of fresh
candidates for the Great Council, on the ... approval of the Doge." But
strict as these provisions were, they did not suffice to restrict the
government to the aristocracy. It was soon decreed "that only those who
could prove that a paternal ancestor had sat on the Great Council, after
its creation in 1176, should now be eligible as members.... It is in
this provision that we find the essence of the _Serrata del Maggior
Consiglio_.... The work was not completed at one stroke.... In 1315 a
list of all those who were eligible ... was compiled. The scrutiny ...
was entrusted to the _Avogadori di Comun_, and became ... more and more
severe. To ensure the purity of blood, they opened a register of
marriages and births.... Thus the aristocracy proceeded to construct
itself more and more upon a purely oligarchical basis."--_Venice, an
Historical Sketch_, by Horatio F. Brown, 1893, pp. 162-164.]

[395] {362}[To "partake" this or that is an obsolete construction, but
rests on the authority of Dryden and other writers of the period.
Byron's "have partook" cannot come under the head of "good, sterling,
genuine English"! (See letter to Murray, October 8, 1820, _Letters_,
1901, v. 89.)]

[396] {363}[The bells of San Marco were never rung but by order of the
Doge. One of the pretexts for ringing this alarm was to have been an
announcement of the appearance of a Genoese fleet off the Lagune.
According to Sanudo, "on the appointed day they [the followers of the
sixteen leaders of the conspiracy] were to make affrays amongst
themselves, here and there, in order that the Duke might have a pretence
for tolling the bells of San Marco." (See, too, _Sketches from Venetian
History, 1831, i. 266, note._)]

[397] ["Le Conseil des Dix avail ses prisons speciales dites
_camerotti_; celles non officiellement appelees les _pozzi_ et les
_piombi_, les puits et les plombs, etaient de son redoubtable domaine.
Les _Camerotti di sotto_ (les puits) etaient obscurs mais non
accessibles a l'eau du canal, comme on l'a fait croire en des recits
dignes d'Anne Radcliffe; les _camerotti di sopra_ (les plombs) etaient
des cellules fortement doublees de bois mais non privees de
lumiere."--_Les Archives de Venise_, par Armand Baschet, 1870, p. 535.
For the _pozzi_ and the "Bridge of Sighs" see note by Hobhouse,
_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 465; and compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV.
stanza i. line 1 (and _The Two Foscari_, act iv. sc. 1), _Poetical
Works_, 1899, ii. 327, note 2.]

[398] {365}[For "Sapienza," _vide ante_, p. 356. According to the
genealogies, Marin Falier, by his first wife, had a daughter Lucia, who
was married to Franceschino Giustiniani; but there is no record of a
son. (See _La Congiura_, p. 21.)]

[399] {366}["The Doges were all _buried_ in _St. Mark's before_ Faliero:
it is singular that when his predecessor, _Andrea Dandolo_, died, the
Ten made a law that _all_ the _future Doges_ should be _buried with
their families in their own churches,--one would think by a kind of
presentiment_. So that all that is said of his _Ancestral Doges_, as
buried at St. John's and Paul's, is altered from the fact, _they being
in St. Mark's_. _Make a note_ of this, and put _Editor_ as the
subscription to it. As I make such pretensions to accuracy, I should not
like to be _twitted_ even with such trifles on that score. Of the play
they may say what they please, but not so of my costume and _dram.
pers_.--they having been real existences."--Letter to Murray, October
12, 1820, _Letters_, 1901, v. 95. Byron's injunction was not carried out
till 1832.]

[400] A gondola is not like a common boat, but is as easily rowed with
one oar as with two (though, of course, not so swiftly), and often is so
from motives of privacy; and, since the decay of Venice, of economy.

[401] {367}["What Gifford says (of the first act) is very consolatory.
'English, sterling _genuine English_,' is a desideratum amongst you, and
I am glad that I have got so much left; though Heaven knows how I retain
it: I _hear_ none but from my Valet, and his is _Nottinghamshire_; and I
_see_ none but in your new publications, and theirs is _no_ language at
all, but jargon.... Gifford says that it is 'good, sterling, genuine
English,' and Foscolo says that the characters are right
Venetian."--Letters to Murray, Sept. 11, Oct. 8, 1820, _Letters_, 1901,
v. 75-89.]

[402] [Byron admits (_vide ante_, p. 340) that the character of the
"Dogaressa" is more or less his own creation. It may be remarked that in
Casimir Delavigne's version of the story, the Duchess (Elena) cherishes
a secret and criminal attachment for Bertuccio Faliero, and that in Mr.
Swinburne's tragedy, while innocent in act, she is smitten with remorse
for a passion which overmasters her loyalty to her husband. Byron's
Angiolina is "faultily faultless, ... splendidly null."

In a letter to Murray, dated January 4, 1821 (_Letters_, 1901, v. 218),
he says, "As I think that _love_ is not the principal passion for
tragedy, you will not find me a popular writer. Unless it is Love,
_furious_, _criminal_, and _hapless_ [as in _The Mysterious Mother_, or
in Alfieri's _Mirra_, or Shelley's _Cenci_], it ought not to make a
tragic subject. When it is melting and maudlin, it _does_, but it ought
not to do; it is then for the gallery and second-price boxes." It is
probable that he owed these sentiments to the theory and practice of
Vittorio Alfieri. "It is extraordinary," writes M. de Fallette Barrol
(_Monthly Magazine_, April, 1805, reprinted in Preface to _Tragedie di
Alfieri_, A. Montucci, Edinburgh, 1805, i. xvi. _sq._), "that a man
whose soul possessed an uncommon share of ardour and sensibility, and
had experienced all the violence of the passions, should scarcely have
condescended to introduce love into his tragedies; or, when he does,
that he should only employ it with a kind of reserve and severity.... He
probably regarded it as a hackneyed agent; for in ... _Myrrha_ it
appears in such a strange character, that all the art of the writer is
not capable of divesting it of an air at once ludicrous and disgusting."

But apart from the example of Alfieri, there was another motive at
work--a determination to prove to the world that he was the master of
his own temperament, and that, if he chose, he could cast away frivolity
and cynicism, and clothe himself with austerity "as with a garment." He
had been taken to task for "treating well-nigh with equal derision the
most pure of virtues, and the most odious of vices" (_Blackwood's Edin.
Mag._, August, 1819), and here was an "answer to his accusers!"]

[403] {368}[The exact date of Marin Falier's birth is a matter of
conjecture, but there is reason to believe that he Was under
seventy-five years of age at the time of the conspiracy. The date
assigned is 1280-1285 A.D.]

[de] {369} ----_has he been doomed?_--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[404] {370}[According to Dio Cassius, the last words of Brutus were,
[Greek: O~) tle~mon a)rete/, lo/gos a)/r e~)sth a)/llos],
[Greek: e)go\ de\ o(s e(/rgon e(/skoun' sy\ d'a)r' e)dou/leues ty/che|]--
_Hist. Rom._, lib. xlvii. c. 49, ed. v., P. Boissevain, 1898, ii. 246.]

[df] {375}

_Doth Heaven forgive her own? is Satan saved?_
_But be it so?_--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[405] [There is no MS. authority for "From wrath eternal."]

[dg] _Oh do not speak thus rashly_.-[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[406] {377}

["Beg Heaven to cleanse the leprosy of lust."

_'Tis Pity she's a Whore_, by John Ford.
Lamb's _Dramatic Poets_, 1835, i. 265.]

[407] {378}[The Dogaressa Aluica was the daughter of Nicolo Gradenigo.
It was the Doge who inherited the "blood of Loredano" through his mother
Beriola.]

[408] {381}[The lines "and the hour hastens" to "whate'er may urge" are
not in the MS.]

[dh] {382}_Where Death sits throned_----.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[409] [Filippo Calendario, who is known to have been one of the
principal conspirators, was a master stone-cutter, who worked as a
sculptor, and ranked as such. The tradition, to which Byron does not
allude, that he was an architect, and designed the new palace begun in
1354, may probably be traced to a document of the fifteenth century, in
which Calendario is described as _commissario_, i.e. executor, of Piero
Basejo, who worked as a master stone-cutter for the Republic. The
_Maggior Consiglio_ was its own architect, and would not have empowered
a _tagliapietra_, however eminent, to act on his own
responsibility.--_La Congiura_, pp. 76, 77.]

[410] {383}[The _sbirri_ were constables, officers of the police
magistrates, the _signori di notte_. The Italians have a saying, _Dir le
sue ragioni agli sbirri_, that is, to argue with a policeman.]

[411] {384}["It was concerted that sixteen or seventeen leaders should
be stationed in various parts of the city, each being at the head of
forty men, armed and prepared; but the followers were not to know their
destination."--See translation of Sanudo's _Narrative_, _post_, p. 464.]

[412] [In the earlier chronicles Beltramo is named Vendrame. He was,
according to some authorities, _compare_ with Lioni, _i.e._ a co-sponsor
of the same godchild. Signor Lazzarino (_La Congiura_, p. 90 (2))
maintains that in all probability Beltramo betrayed his companions from
selfish motives, in order to save himself, and not from any
"compunctious visitings," or because he was "too full o' the milk of
human kindness." According to Sanudo (_vide post_, p. 465), "Beltramo
Bergamasco" was not one of the principal conspirators, but "had heard a
word or two of what was to take place." Ser Marco Soranzano (p. 466) was
one of the "Zonta" of twenty who were elected as assessors to the Ten,
to try the Doge of high treason against the Republic.]

[413] {386}[Compare--

"If we should fail,----We fail.
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we'll not fail."

_Macbeth_, act i. sc. 7, lines 59-61.]

[di] _In a great cause the block may soak their gore_.--[Alternative
reading. MS. M.]

[dj] _If Brutus had not lived? He failed in giving_.--[MS. M.]

[414] [At the battle of Philippi, B.C. 42, Brutus lamented over the body
of Cassius, and called him the "last of the Romans."--Plutarch's
_Lives_, "Marcus Brutus," Langhorne's translation, 1838, p. 686.]

[415] [The citizens of Aquileia and Padua fled before the invasion of
Attila, and retired to the Isle of Gradus, and Rivus Altus, or Rialto.
Theodoric's minister, Cassiodorus, who describes the condition of the
fugitives some seventy years after they had settled on the "hundred
isles," compares them to "waterfowl who had fixed their nests on the
bosom of the waves." (See Gibbon's _Decline and Fall, etc._, 1825, ii.
375, note 6, and 376, notes 1, 2.)]

[416] [_Mal bigatto_, "vile silkworm," is a term of contempt and
reproach = "uomo de maligna intenzione," a knave.]

[417] {388}[Compare--

"I'll make assurance double sure,
And take a bond of fate."

_Macbeth_, act iv. sc. I, lines 83, 84.]

[418] {390}[For Byron's correction of this statement, _vide ante_, p.
366. The monument of the Doge Vitale Falier (d. 1096) "was at the right
side of the principal entrance into the Vestibule." According to G.
Meschinello (La Chiesa Ducale, 1753), Ordelafo Falier was buried in the
Atrio of St. Mark's. See, too, _Venetia citta nobilissima ... descritta
da F. Sansovino_, 1663, pp. 96, 556.]

[dk] _We thought to make our peers and not our masters_.--[Alternative
reading. MS. M.]

[dl] ----_merit such requital_.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[419] {391}[Compare--

"I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die."

_Richard III_., act v. sc. 4, lines 9, 10.]

[420] {392}["The equestrian statue of which I have made mention in the
third act as before the church, is not ... of a Faliero, but of some
other now obsolete warrior, although of a later date."--_Vide ante_,
Preface, p. 336. "In the Campo in front of the church [facing the Rio
dei Mendicanti] stands the equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni, the
second equestrian statue raised in Italy after the revival of the
arts....The handsome marble pedestal is lofty, supported and flanked by
composite columns."--_Handbook: Northern Italy_, p. 374.]

[dm] {393}_Nor dwindle to a cut-throat without shuddering_.--[MS. M.
erased.]

[dn] _A scourged mechanic_----.--[MS. M.] _A roused mechanic_----.--[MS.
M. erased.]

[421] {394}An historical fact. [See Appendix A, p. 464.]

[do]

/ _in_ \
_So let them die_ < > _one_.--[MS. M.]
\ _as_ /

[dp] {397}_We are all lost in wonder_--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[dq] ----_of our splendid City_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[422] [Compare--

"Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles."

_Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza i. line 9, and _var_. i.]

[dr] {398}_But all the worst sins of the Spartan state_.--[Alternative
reading. MS. M.]

[ds] _The Lords of old Laconia_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[423] {399}[Compare--

"A king of shreds and patches."

_Hamlet_, act iii. sc. 4, line 102.]

[424] ["The members of the Ten (_Il Cousiglio de' Dieci_) were elected
in the Great Council for one year only, and were not re-eligible for the
year after they had held office. Every month the Ten elected three of
their own number as chiefs, or _Capi_ of the Council.... The court
consisted, besides the Ten, of the Doge and his six councillors,
seventeen members in all, of whom twelve were necessary to make a
_quorum_. One of the _Avogadori di Comun_, or State advocates, was
always present, without the power to vote, but to act as clerk to the
court, informing it of the law, and correcting it where its procedure
seemed informal. Subsequently it became customary to add twenty members
to the Council, elected in the Maggior Consiglio, for each important
case as it arose."--_Venice, an Historical Sketch_, by Horatio F. Brown,
1893, pp. 177, 178. (See, too, _Les Archives de Venise_, par Armand
Baschet, 1870, p. 525.)]

[425] {400}[The chronicles are silent as to any embassy or commission
from the Republic to Rhodes or Cyprus in which Marin Falier held office
or took any part whatever. Cyprus did not pass into the hands of Venice
till 1489, and Rhodes was held by the Knights of St. John till 1522.]

[426] {401}[Compare--

"We have scotched the snake, not killed it."

Macbeth, act iii. sc. II, line 13.]

[dt] {402}_Fought by my side, and John Grimani shared._--[MS. M.
erased.]

[427] [Marc Cornaro did not "share" his Genoese, but his Hungarian
embassy.--_M. Faliero Avanti il Dogado: Archivio Veneto_, 1893, vol. v.
pt. i. p. 144.]

[du] {403}_My mission to the Pope; I saved the life._--[MS. M. erased.]

[dv]

_Bear witness with me! ye who hear and know,_
_And feel our mutual mass of many wrongs._--[MS. M. erased.]

[428] {404}[The Italian Oime recalls the Latin _Hei mihi_ and the Greek
[Greek: Oi~moi] ]

[429] [Compare--

"Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven,
Hope sapped, name blighted, Life's life lied away?"

_Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza cxxxv. lines 5, 6.

And--

"The beings which surrounded him were gone.
Or were at war with him."

_The Dream_, sect. viii. lines 3, 4, _vide ante_, p. 40]

[dw] _Sate grinning Mockery_----.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[dx] {405}_The feelings they abused_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[dy] ----_and then perish_.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[dz] {406}

/ _carrion_ \
_Nor turn aside to strike at such a_ < >--[MS. M.]
\ _wretch_ /

[ea] {407}_You are a patriot, plebeian Gracchus_.--[Ed. 1832.] (MS., and
First Edition, 1821, insert "a.")

[430] [Compare "Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation, Hal; 'tis no sin for a man
to labour in his vocation."--I _Henry IV_., act i. sc. 2, lines 101,
102.]

[eb] {409}_To this now shackled_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[431] {410}[Byron told Medwin that he wrote "Lioni's soliloquy one
moonlight night, after coming from the Benzoni's."--_Conversations_,
1824, p. 177.]

[ec] _High o'er the music_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[432] {411}["At present, I am on the invalid regimen myself. The
Carnival--that is, the latter part of it, and sitting up late o' nights,
had knocked me up a little.... The mumming closed with a masked ball at
the Fenice, where I went, as also to most of the ridottos, etc., etc.;
and, though I did not dissipate much upon the whole, yet I find 'the
sword wearing out the scabbard,' though I have but just turned the
corner of twenty-nine.

"So we'll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.

"For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And Love itself have rest.

"Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon."

Letter to Moore, February 28, 1817, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 59.]

[ed] {412}_Suggesting dreams or unseen Symmetry_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[ee] _Which give their glitter lack, and the vast AEther_.--[MS. M.
erased.]

[ef] ----_seaborn palaces_.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[433] {413}[Compare "What, ma'amselle, don't you remember Ludovico, who
rowed the Cavaliero's gondola at the last regatta, and won the prize?
and who used to sing such sweet verses about Orlando's ... all under my
lattice ... on the moonlight nights at Venice?"--_Mysteries of Udolpho_,
by Anne Radcliffe, 1882, p. 195. Compare, too, _Beppo_, stanza xv. lines
1-6, _vide ante_, p. 164.]

[434] [Compare "The gondolas gliding down the canals are like coffins or
cradles ... At night the darkness reveals the tiny lanterns which guide
these boats, and they look like shadows passing by, lit by stars.
Everything in this region is mystery--government, custom,
love."--_Corinne or Italy_, by Madame de Stael, 1888, pp. 279, 280.
Compare, too--

"In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless Gondolier."

_Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza iii. lines 1, 2,
_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. note 3.]

[eg] ----_or towering spire_.--[MS. M.]

[eh] ----_at this moment_.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ei] {414} ----_Has he no name?_--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ej] _His voice and carriage_----.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ek] {415}_If so withdraw and fly and tell me not_.--[Alternative
reading. MS. M.]

[el] {416}_Good I would now requite_----.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[em] _Remain at home_----.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[en] {417}_Why what hast thou to gainsay of the Senate?_--[Alternative
reading. MS. M.]

[eo] _On the accursed tyranny which taints._--[Alternative reading. MS.
M.]

[ep] {418}_I would not draw my breath_----.--[Alternative reading. MS.
M.]

[435] {419}[If Gifford had been at the pains to _read_ Byron's
manuscripts, or revise the proofs, he would surely have pointed out, if
he had not ventured to amend, his bad grammar.]

[436] {421}The Doge's family palace.

[eq] {422}_A Loredano_----.--[MS. erased.]

[437] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza xiv. line 3, _Poetical
Works_, 1898, ii. 339, note i.]

[438] {423}[Compare "Themistocles was sacrificing on the deck of the
admiral-galley."--_Plutarch's Lives_, Langhorne, 1838, p. 89.]

[439] [For Timoleon, who first saved, and afterwards slew his brother
Timophanes, for aiming at sovereignty, see _The Siege of Corinth_, line
59, note 1, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 452.]

[er] {424}_The night is clearing from the sky_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[440] [For the use of "dapple" as an intransitive verb, compare
_Mazeppa_, xvi. line 646, _vide ante_, p. 227.]

[es] ----_Now--now to business_.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[et] {425}_The signal_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

_The storm-clock_----.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[441] ["'Tis done ... unerring beak" (six lines), not in MS.]

[442] [Byron had forgotten the dictum of the artist Reinagle, that
"eagles and all birds of prey attack with their talons and not with
their beaks" (see _Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza xviii. line 6,
_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 226, note 1); or, possibly, had discovered
that eagles attack with their beaks as well as their talons.]

[443] [_Vide ante_, p. 368, note 1.]

[eu]

----_ten thousand caps were flung_
_Into the air and thrice ten_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[444] {426}[Compare--

"Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo!"

_Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza xii. line 8,
_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 337.]

[ev]

/ _iron oracle_. \
_Where swings the sullen_ < >
\ _huge oracular bell_. /
[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[445] {427} "I Signori di Notte" held an important charge in the old
republic. [The surveillance of the "sestieri" was assigned to the
"Collegio dei Signori di notte al criminal." Six in all, they were at
once police magistrates and superintendents of police. (See Cappelletti,
_Storia, etc._, 1856, ii. 293.)]

[446] [The Doge overstates his authority. He could not preside without
his Council "in the _Maggior Consiglio_, or in the Senate, or in the
College; but four ducal councillors had the power to preside without the
Doge. The Doge might not open despatches except in the presence of his
Council, but his Council might open despatches in the absence of the
Doge."--_Venetian Studies_, by H. F. Brown, 1887, p. 189.]