Bembo Shows Venice Considered Protecting Pisa: early 1496

Pisa knew, fresh from the promised and eventual retreat of French King Charles VIII over the Alps, there would be a power vacuum. Small as she was, Pisa knew as a consequence she had become a ripe target for attack early in 1496. The city had asked a number of the powers in Italy to defend it from the various Florentine players and extended requests for an audience to other partisans who prized her assets. Ambassadors to Venice, Rome and Milan were sent. Discussions and plans were being hatched.

Many years later and with much hindsight, Pietro Bembo and Francesco Guicciardini would write the chapter on this history from only slightly different perspectives. Bembo, charged to write a history of Venice by the Venetian Senate, and made librarian to St Mark's Basilica in the process, he had unparalelled access to the affairs of state there.

Though the French had said in October of 1494 that they were liberating Pisa from recent rule by Florence (ii,19*), what happened after they left was more of a free for all. A year's worth of attacks by partisans and factions was wearing the city out. By the end of 1495 they were ready for relief from any strong character in the neighborhood of Italy. Florence, with its old ties of Medici supporters and antagonists, was found unfit. It could not be depended on to allow for Pisan independence. The conflicts were too large and too many. The same was seen for the crucial, League to oust the French.

For Pisa on the other hand, the pope in Rome could be painted as a Spanish interloper in Italian affairs, or, if that weren't enough, old Ghibelline notions could be stirred up against the papacy. The Duke, il Moro in Milan, had shown his loyalties for and then against the French, and could not even be trusted to send soldiers or supplies on time.[p. 103]

Some of these same criticisms could be levelled at Venice as well. Pietro Bembo spends some time (iii,11) relating the reception of the plea from Pisa for protection in the Venetian Senate at this crucial juncture. The notion of Venice holding sway in Pisa seemed 'at first unprecedented to the senators' but not something 'to flatly reject or accept without much thought'. The very idea seemed quite an honor to merely be asked of them. [p. 177]

At first, Bembo tells us, the plea for protection sprang quite like a gift from God rewarding the city leaders. At least the singularly wise reasoning and prudent character of those wielding the many affairs of state, in this Most Serene City of Venice. The Senate at large, Bembo wrote, was poised to grant such a request to such a city as Pisa, but the matter was then transferred for further consideration to the much smaller Council of Ten.

There, Bembo in a form used since the beginning of the western tradition of history, gives us a speech (iii,12-15) of one Marco Bollani, a 'ducal councillor'. It was better, he opined, 'to propose whatever was good for the Republic', rather than just what they might personally want. That it would be inevitable to regret decisions that came from merely following their desires. He reassures them, he wants the same things and in the same ways as the rest of them. Bembo has him start with a negative, 'don't you think' to prove his point.

"Do you not think that I not only want Pisa under our sway, the present subject of debate, but all the other states and towns and peoples of Italy as well, and for the Venetian empire to embrace the Adriatic and the Tyrrhenian? I want those things very much indeed, and I would stake my life with Fortune if she would look with such favor on the Republic." [p. 179]

The Adriatic was the sea upon which Venice lay, sitting atop, to the north. And the sea to the south was considered for centuries to be very much the property of Venice. The Tyrrhenian Sea lay on the other side of Italy, between Pisa, Rome, Naples and Genoa, and the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. Pisa was an object of desire for the many centuries that Venice had warred with Genoa for control. But in the next moment, Balloni cautions his audience that if they were to begin as protectors of this coveted object they would soon lose it. And with it, the honor of holding it.

The route overland between Venice and Pisa, Bollani explained, would have to be secured. All the neighbors, historically friendly to Florence, would have to be persuaded as well that this action was in their best interest, and then, not just for this first time. For ever therafter as well. Then troops and hardware would be moved. The Florentines would take the war to the sea. The neighbors being more comfortable with each other would very much see an action like this by Venice as frightful and to be avoided. They would band together to ward us off.  Bembo has him state positively, the Pisans must realize, "... they should be more afraid of us than of them." [p. 181]

But he didn't stop there.

________________________________________
* this refers to the book and paragraph number in Bembo's original: book ii, para 19;
Quotes and pagination from Bembo, Pietro: History of Venice; edited and translated by Robert W Ulery, Jr.; in english and latin, The I Tatti Renaissance Library; The President and Fellows of Harvard College, USA 2007