Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Manky listener discretion advised. Last year,
Speaker 1: I was lucky enough to go on my honeymoon to Italy.
Speaker 1: We began our trip in Venice, and after shaking off
Speaker 1: the jet lag and enjoying our first Italian espresso, we
Speaker 1: set off to the iconic Piazza San Marco or Saint
Speaker 1: Mark's Square for a tour of the Doge's Palace. First
Speaker 1: built in thirteen forty, it was the seat of the
Speaker 1: government of the Venetian Republic and the residence of the
Speaker 1: Doge himself for hundreds of years. But it's far from
Speaker 1: your typical medieval palace. Its relatively simple, rectangular structure is
Speaker 1: balanced by a delicate pattern of pink and white bricks,
Speaker 1: with intricate stonework elements and plenty of arches along the
Speaker 1: balcony and arcade below. Along with the basilica attached to it,
Speaker 1: The palace dominates the eastern end of Piazza San Marco,
Speaker 1: Venice's largest and most iconic square that for centuries was
Speaker 1: the center of civic and religious life in the city.
Speaker 1: The palace became a museum in nineteen twenty three. Each
Speaker 1: room in the palace, from those making up the Doge's
Speaker 1: apartments to the institutional chambers for the Republic's many governing bodies,
Speaker 1: is adorned to an almost absurd extent. There are hand
Speaker 1: carved furnishings, gilded accents, and on nearly every wall and
Speaker 1: ceiling a mural painted by someone famous, though our tour
Speaker 1: guide did note a few murals that were recreatedations Napoleon
Speaker 1: having stolen the originals. Even the bridge from the main
Speaker 1: palace to the now defunct prison has a breath taking
Speaker 1: view of the lagoon. That bridge is aptly called the
Speaker 1: Bridge of Size, because famously that was the sound reportedly
Speaker 1: heard over the centuries from prisoners taking one last look
Speaker 1: at the outside world before they were locked up. But
Speaker 1: perhaps the most splendid room in the palace is the
Speaker 1: Chamber of the Great Council. It's one of the largest
Speaker 1: rooms in Europe, a fun fact that you might not
Speaker 1: think much of until you're actually inside of it. It
Speaker 1: is massive and imposing, almost one hundred and seventy five
Speaker 1: feet long and over eighty feet wide, with fifteen foot ceilings,
Speaker 1: and nearly every surface is covered either inornate gold, dramatic
Speaker 1: dark wood, or an intricate, gigantic painted mural. It's easy
Speaker 1: to get overwhelmed by the dizzying amount of art in
Speaker 1: the chamber. You could strain your neck trying to take
Speaker 1: in the twenty one murals that grace the walls alone,
Speaker 1: featuring work by the likes of Tintoretto, Palma the Younger,
Speaker 1: and Varones. But if you can tear your eyes away
Speaker 1: from the big ticket art, right along the top of
Speaker 1: the walls, going all the way around the room are
Speaker 1: a series of smaller portrait freezes, all quite similar and
Speaker 1: easy to miss if you aren't careful. The portraits, all
Speaker 1: painted in the sixteenth century, immortalize the likenesses of seventy
Speaker 1: six Doges who reigned in Venice from eight hundred and
Speaker 1: four to fifteen fifty six portraits depict each Doge in
Speaker 1: his regalia, each holding an obnoxiously long and wavy piece
Speaker 1: of parchment bearing his greatest achievements during his reign. That is,
Speaker 1: except for one there's a break in the parade of Doges.
Speaker 1: Instead of a portrait, there's just a painting of a
Speaker 1: black drape, as if to protect viewers from laying their
Speaker 1: eyes upon some great shame, and to deny the fallen
Speaker 1: doge the honor of being remembered. In thirteen fifty five,
Speaker 1: the Doze in power decided that just being the head
Speaker 1: of a republic wasn't enough, and he attempted to stage
Speaker 1: a coup that would prove a disastrous and tragic failure.
Speaker 1: In a room otherwise filled with color and detail and
Speaker 1: glittering odes to the serene republic. The black out portrait
Speaker 1: certainly makes it clear that this doge had made some
Speaker 1: fatal error, but as if a big old black box
Speaker 1: weren't signal enough that he screwed up. The drape also
Speaker 1: has an inscription painted in bold gold letters that leaves
Speaker 1: no doubt as to the Doge's fate. It reads, in Latin,
Speaker 1: he asked locus Marini filetro decapititi po creminibus. This is
Speaker 1: the place of Marino Faliero beheaded for his crimes. I'm
Speaker 1: Dana Schwartz, and this is noble blood. The early history
Speaker 1: of Venice is a blend of myth and reality, bolstered
Speaker 1: by a lack of historical records and an abundance of
Speaker 1: dramatic flare tradition has it that Venice was founded on
Speaker 1: March twenty fifth, in the year four hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: one CE, at exactly the stroke of noon. Three consuls
Speaker 1: from nearby Padua were said to have founded the city
Speaker 1: that would become an empire, with the establishment of a
Speaker 1: trading post on the islands of the Rialto and the
Speaker 1: consecration of a church dedicated to Saint James. The mainland
Speaker 1: making up the coast of the Venetian Lagoon, which the
Speaker 1: Venetians would come to call the Terra Firma, was likely
Speaker 1: settled in the second century by Roman refugees from what
Speaker 1: is now northern Italy, who ran to the coast as
Speaker 1: they were fleeing Germanic and hun invaders. Successive invasions over
Speaker 1: the course of several hundred years continue to push them further. Finally,
Speaker 1: after the invasion of the Lombards in five hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty eight, we begin to see references in documents to
Speaker 1: the in Kalai Lacouni, or the Lagoon dwellers, those who
Speaker 1: had not only begun to take refuge on the islands
Speaker 1: in the Lagoon, but had fashioned them to their benefit
Speaker 1: by building embankments, allowing them to thrive in what had
Speaker 1: previously been an uninhabitable environment. According to legend, the lagoon
Speaker 1: dwellers elected their first doge in six hundred ninety seven,
Speaker 1: But the first doze for whom we have historical evidence
Speaker 1: was elected by the twelve major families of Venice a
Speaker 1: few decades later, in seven hundred twenty six or seven
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty seven. But unlike most of the dukes
Speaker 1: that you know, who tended to either answer to a
Speaker 1: king or rule an area as sovereign, the Venetian Doge
Speaker 1: from the very beginning, was intended as the head of
Speaker 1: a republic. The doge was the head of state, but
Speaker 1: a great deal of political power rested in the hands
Speaker 1: of the Concho, the People's Assembly, which consisted originally of
Speaker 1: all male citizens and patricians, that is, nobles of Venice.
Speaker 1: The Concho initially had the responsibility of appointing the Doge.
Speaker 1: The doge wasn't a hereditary position, but an elected one.
Speaker 1: The same went for the members of the Great Council,
Speaker 1: a group of so called wise men appointed by the
Speaker 1: Concho to assist the Doge in governance. All this to say,
Speaker 1: the history of Venice, and more importantly Venetian's idea of
Speaker 1: the history of Venice was ever present as the Republic
Speaker 1: continued to grow and change into the Middle Ages and
Speaker 1: far beyond. Central to the Venetian civic identity was this
Speaker 1: traditional story of a group of people coming together to
Speaker 1: collectively defend themselves against a common enemy and to build
Speaker 1: their city literally from the ground up together. It was
Speaker 1: this steadfast commitment to the idea of the republic and
Speaker 1: what it stood for that earned Venice its nickname La Serenissima,
Speaker 1: meaning the most serene. However, contrary to this self given moniker,
Speaker 1: medieval Venice was not without its rumblings. Marino Faliera was
Speaker 1: born in twelve seventy four, and by that time Venice
Speaker 1: had seen a number of significant political shifts as the
Speaker 1: city wrestled between its republican ideals and the hunger of
Speaker 1: a growing elite class who wanted more power. We know
Speaker 1: very little, if anything, about Marino Falierro's early life. He
Speaker 1: was the son of Yaho Capo Falieriro and Bariola Lurdon,
Speaker 1: and was one of three sons. He had an uncle
Speaker 1: who shared his name, which has led to some confusion
Speaker 1: over the years. In the historical record, we know the
Speaker 1: Faliero family was patrician, which was particularly important given that
Speaker 1: in twelve ninety seven, when Faliero was twenty three, the
Speaker 1: nobles of Venice orchestrated what came to be known as
Speaker 1: the Great Lockout. The Great Council moved to make membership
Speaker 1: in its ranks hereditary rather than elected, essentially stripping the
Speaker 1: Concho of its power, including the power to elect the Doge,
Speaker 1: and creating a closed noble class in the city. Venice
Speaker 1: continued to call itself a republic, but it was now
Speaker 1: very much an oligarchy. Despite our sparse history of his
Speaker 1: early life, we do know that Falierro's early polite medical
Speaker 1: career was defined by dealing with the aftermath of that lockout.
Speaker 1: His first documented appearance in the historical record finds him
Speaker 1: rising in these now closed ranks. On October tenth, thirteen fifteen,
Speaker 1: at forty one years old, he was on the newly
Speaker 1: formed Council of ten, an inquisitorial arm of the Venetian government,
Speaker 1: when it decided to reward the man who had killed
Speaker 1: Niccolo Quarini, who had played an instrumental role in an
Speaker 1: attempted coup that had taken place a few years prior
Speaker 1: that conspiracy had happened in thirteen ten, when Niccolo Quarini,
Speaker 1: Baiamonte Tiepolo and other conspirators had attempted to overthrow the
Speaker 1: Venetian government in order to restore the power of the concho.
Speaker 1: For a number of reasons, including poor planning and bad weather,
Speaker 1: their plan failed. The Council of Ten, which Falierra was on,
Speaker 1: was originally formed to deal with the aftermath of that conspiracy,
Speaker 1: instituting the election of you guessed it, ten noblemen who
Speaker 1: were tasked with prosecuting crimes against the state. When Tiepolo surrendered,
Speaker 1: the ten exiled him and sentenced him to be quote
Speaker 1: condemned in memory. This was a legal punishment at the
Speaker 1: time that could be pretty wide ranging in what it
Speaker 1: actually looked like, but the intended effect was to remove
Speaker 1: a person from official accounts or public memory. The punishment
Speaker 1: of being condemned in memory was not really about complete erasure,
Speaker 1: though it was more symbolic than anything else, meant mostly
Speaker 1: as a social punishment to a person's descendants and associates,
Speaker 1: and a cautionary tale to anyone who would dare challenge
Speaker 1: the nobility's power. So think less nineteen eighty four and
Speaker 1: more burn from the musical Hamilton. Eliza knows that her
Speaker 1: burning her letters won't mean that no one will ever
Speaker 1: know who her husband was in the future. But without
Speaker 1: those letters, the story that we tell about him will
Speaker 1: be different. Forgive the musical theater reference, but it seemed
Speaker 1: fitting for Tiapolo being condemned in memory meant that his
Speaker 1: house was demolished, and in its place a so called
Speaker 1: column of infamy was erected, the column which a henchman
Speaker 1: of Tiapolo's would later lose his eyes and a hand
Speaker 1: for attempting to destroy. Read roughly translated, this land belonged
Speaker 1: to Baiamante, and now for his inquisitous betrayal, this has
Speaker 1: been placed to frighten others and to show these words
Speaker 1: to everyone forever. If all this sounds a little, I
Speaker 1: don't know familiar, hold that thought. Marino Follieri remained on
Speaker 1: the Council of Ten for another five years after his
Speaker 1: first appearance in its records. Over the following decades, Falierro
Speaker 1: continued to be appointed to various government positions that saw
Speaker 1: him accumulate a good deal of power and a great
Speaker 1: deal of respect. He would actually go on to serve
Speaker 1: on the Council of Ten several more times, occasionally at
Speaker 1: its head, interspersed with stints engaging in mercantile trade, serving
Speaker 1: on a tribunal, mediating disputes between commoners, captaining a galley ship,
Speaker 1: and representing Venice abroad as a diplomat. In thirteen forty three,
Speaker 1: he was in the running for Doge, but in a
Speaker 1: shocking upset, thirty seven year old Andrea Dandolo was elected instead.
Speaker 1: The position of Doge, although elected, was traditionally given to
Speaker 1: the eldest and most experienced member of the patriciate, and
Speaker 1: Faliero outr ranked Dandolo in both regards. It must have
Speaker 1: been a real blow to the older man's ego, but
Speaker 1: if it was, he never let on. Valiero continued to
Speaker 1: serve Venice faithfully. By September seventh, thirteen fifty four, when
Speaker 1: Dandolo died at only forty eight years old, Marino Falieriro
Speaker 1: was in Avignon, serving as the ambassador of Venice to
Speaker 1: Pope Innocent the sixth. Meanwhile, Venice buried the Doge, and
Speaker 1: then the Great Council began the comically complicated process of
Speaker 1: selecting his successor put in place to attempt to prevent
Speaker 1: any one noble from making a power grab. The process
Speaker 1: began with the convening of the council and now bear
Speaker 1: with me for a system that seems almost insanely baroque
Speaker 1: and complex. So once the Great Council had convened, the
Speaker 1: youngest councilor present would be sent outside palace to choose
Speaker 1: a random eight to ten year old child off the
Speaker 1: street who would serve essentially as the Vana White of
Speaker 1: the Dojal election. This random child was responsible for drawing
Speaker 1: smooth metal balls called belote where the word ballot comes from,
Speaker 1: with the names of councilors written on them. Thirty council
Speaker 1: members would be chosen this way, and then from those thirties,
Speaker 1: the child would choose nine names. Those nine councilors would
Speaker 1: choose of their own volition forty councilors, and then out
Speaker 1: of those forty, the random street child would choose twelve.
Speaker 1: The twelve would then choose twenty five councilors, and then
Speaker 1: from those the child would draw nine. Those nine would
Speaker 1: choose forty five, and the child of those forty five
Speaker 1: would randomly draw eleven, and then those eleven would choose
Speaker 1: forty one, and then the those forty one people would
Speaker 1: elect the doge, and of those forty one electors, thirty
Speaker 1: five this time around voted for Marino Faliero, one of
Speaker 1: the oldest and most honorable members of the Venetian nobility
Speaker 1: who had given decades of service to the Republic. A
Speaker 1: messenger was soon sent to Avignon to retrieve him, and
Speaker 1: a group of twelve ambassadors met him in Verona to
Speaker 1: formally give him the good news. He was eighty years old,
Speaker 1: but Marino Faliero was finally, finally the Doge of Venice.
Speaker 1: He had reached the pinnacle, the ultimate goal of any
Speaker 1: noble Venetian. How victorious he must have felt on that
Speaker 1: boat coming into his city, watching Venice emerge slowly over
Speaker 1: the water as if to welcome him home. But perhaps
Speaker 1: his serenity, like the Republic whose honorific he now shared,
Speaker 1: also had the sense that something else was bubbling under
Speaker 1: the surface. Marino Faliero returned to Venice in October thirteen
Speaker 1: fifty four as the ruler of a city in turmoil.
Speaker 1: The Republic had been at war with Genoa again, and
Speaker 1: barely two months into Faliero's tenure as Doge, Venice faced
Speaker 1: an embarrassing naval defeat against Genoa in the Battle of
Speaker 1: Porto Lungo, the result of poor strategy on the part
Speaker 1: of the Venetian naval forces. While Genoa gathered power in
Speaker 1: the wake of its victory, the Venetian people grew restless.
Speaker 1: Resentment against the nobility had been brewing since the Great Lockout,
Speaker 1: but it seemed now to be reaching a boiling point.
Speaker 1: It was in this environment of tension, with the threat
Speaker 1: of the Genoese on the horizon, that things began to
Speaker 1: take a turn toward the treasonous for Marino Faliero almost
Speaker 1: immediately after his reign as Doge began. There is much
Speaker 1: we do not know for sure about the lead up
Speaker 1: to what has been termed the Faliero Coup. There is
Speaker 1: uncertainty even about why he did it at all. At
Speaker 1: first glance, it seems at odds with Falierro's character and history.
Speaker 1: How could this man who had seemingly spent decades in
Speaker 1: service of Venice without causing any trouble turn on his
Speaker 1: beloved republic so suddenly In classic Venetian fashion. There is
Speaker 1: a traditional story on one hand, and a less interesting,
Speaker 1: more complicated, but ultimately more likely theory. On the other
Speaker 1: we'll start with the juicy story. Obviously not long into
Speaker 1: Falierro's reign, it seems early thirteen fifty five Faliero married
Speaker 1: a woman named Alquina Grattenigo, the daughter of a former doge,
Speaker 1: Pietro Grottenigo. This was not Faliero's first marriage, but we
Speaker 1: don't know much about his first wife. She may have
Speaker 1: been named Thomasina Contarini, and it seems that they had
Speaker 1: two daughters, Lucia and Pinola. In any case, Alquina, at
Speaker 1: forty five years old, was much younger than her husband,
Speaker 1: only slightly more than half of Faliero's age. The truth
Speaker 1: is we know pretty little about her too, but the
Speaker 1: story tends to paint her as a fourteenth century gold digger, beautiful, vivacious,
Speaker 1: and most of all licentious. According to the story, she
Speaker 1: was rumored to have been engaging in affairs with numerous
Speaker 1: members of the patrician class. During a carnival celebration at
Speaker 1: the Doge's palace in thirteen fifty five, it is said
Speaker 1: that Doge Faliero observed one of these nobles, the twenty
Speaker 1: four year old Michel Steno flirting with the Dogaressa, or
Speaker 1: possibly flirting with one of her ladies in waiting. Either way.
Speaker 1: Incensed at the disrespectful actions of the young noble, Faliero
Speaker 1: kicked Steno out of the festivities. The incident would have
Speaker 1: certainly rankled the aging doge to see his beautiful, younger
Speaker 1: wife receiving attention from a much younger man, But the
Speaker 1: real kicker came reportedly hours later, when Steno snuck back
Speaker 1: into the palace under cover of night and carved an
Speaker 1: insult into Faliero's chair in the chamber of the Great Council.
Speaker 1: It got right to the heart of the matter. Quote
Speaker 1: Marino Falliero with the beautiful wife, he maintains her and
Speaker 1: others enjoy her. For this act, the story goes, Steno
Speaker 1: was a rested, but still Falierro wasn't satisfied. He wasn't
Speaker 1: just angry at Steno, but at the entire Patricia. After
Speaker 1: his decades of service, this was how they were paid
Speaker 1: him by sleeping with his wife and defacing the symbols
Speaker 1: of his office. He thought of the other city states
Speaker 1: of Italy, whose dukes commanded almost absolute power in comparison
Speaker 1: to his they would never have been humiliated in that way,
Speaker 1: and if they were, the punishment would have surely been
Speaker 1: more severe. Well maybe it could be. Of course, there
Speaker 1: isn't really much actual historical evidence to support this salacious
Speaker 1: revenge story, and it seems to have begun spreading much later,
Speaker 1: which is generally a good historical indicator that the story
Speaker 1: didn't really happen. It's more likely that Falierro's quarrels with
Speaker 1: the nobility were political in nature and bolstered by the
Speaker 1: class tensions brought on by the lockout and stoked by
Speaker 1: the war with Genoa. If indeed he looked to the
Speaker 1: other city states and to the absolute power wielded by
Speaker 1: their dukes, Faliero was probably thinking less about punishing his
Speaker 1: personal enemies and more about how a singular, powerful doge
Speaker 1: might benefit Venice. We also can't discount simple greed or
Speaker 1: hunger for power. At his trial, Falierro seemed to regret
Speaker 1: the coup and framed it more as a crime of
Speaker 1: passion than a calculated political scheme, never mentioning any belief
Speaker 1: that absolute rulership would benefit Venice. It's possible he simply
Speaker 1: saw an opportunity to have it all and tried to
Speaker 1: take it. Whatever the reason, it seems that the conspiracy
Speaker 1: began to take shape in in the early spring of
Speaker 1: thirteen fifty five. It was then that Faliero connected with
Speaker 1: Bertuccio Isirello and Filippo Calendario, two men who were among
Speaker 1: the class of Venetians who were respected and wealthy, but
Speaker 1: still excluded from the closed noble class. We don't know
Speaker 1: much about Isorello, but Calendario was an architect and was
Speaker 1: in fact among the designers of the DOJ's Palace that
Speaker 1: you can still see today. The plot had less the
Speaker 1: air of a popular revolution and more the air of
Speaker 1: a pyramid scheme. The idea was that Faliero and Isorello
Speaker 1: would each recruit twenty men to their cause, and each
Speaker 1: of those men were going to recruit another forty after that,
Speaker 1: though the plot becomes very very simple in a manner
Speaker 1: of speaking, kill all the nobles and their families. The
Speaker 1: plan was to wait until in April fifteenth at dawn,
Speaker 1: attacking at the stroke of the bells from San Marco.
Speaker 1: Without the nobility, power in Venice would shift back to
Speaker 1: where it belonged to the people, or perhaps more accurately,
Speaker 1: to the one noble who wouldn't be killed, the Doge
Speaker 1: leading the people. Things started off well enough. The conspirators
Speaker 1: found sympathy, especially with those working in maritime trade, who
Speaker 1: were particularly resentful of the nobility in the wake of
Speaker 1: the Battle of Porto Lungo. The best part was that,
Speaker 1: given the recruitment structure of the coup, the Doge's involvement
Speaker 1: was really only known to the inner circle of a
Speaker 1: few trusted men. It was that lack of transparency, though,
Speaker 1: that would ultimately prove to be Faliero's downfall. On the
Speaker 1: night before the coup was set to take place, one
Speaker 1: conspirator who had been roped into the pyramid scheme, a
Speaker 1: man named beltrom attempted to warn the Procurator of San Marco,
Speaker 1: Niccolo Leone of the impending danger. Beltrommee had no knowledge
Speaker 1: of Falierro's involvement, and so Leon of course went straight
Speaker 1: to the Doze with his concerns. When Falierro dismissed them, however,
Speaker 1: suspicion began to set in. Beltrommee seemed to have his
Speaker 1: information on good authority. Why did the Doze just brush
Speaker 1: them off? Leon brought his concerns to a few trusted
Speaker 1: members of the Great Council. It turned out that Beltroma
Speaker 1: was not the only conspirator who had squealed, and several
Speaker 1: other nobles had also been warned of the plot. It
Speaker 1: was becoming clear that something was very, very wrong, and
Speaker 1: that Faliero may have had something to do with it.
Speaker 1: Within hours, the Council of Ten was convened, along with
Speaker 1: every major magistracy in the Republic except the Doge. As
Speaker 1: nobles filed into the Piazza San Marco, armed to the
Speaker 1: teeth and awaiting reinforcements, Philippo Callandario and Bertucci Isirello were arrested.
Speaker 1: Under interrogation and likely torture, they revealed the names of
Speaker 1: many of their fellow conspirators, including that of Marino Faliero,
Speaker 1: the Doge of Venice. On April fifteenth, the day that
Speaker 1: would have changed Venetian history forever, nine of the conspirators,
Speaker 1: including Calendario and Isarello, were hanged from the arches of
Speaker 1: the Doge's palace. Legend has it that they were hanged
Speaker 1: with bits in their mouths so that they couldn't use
Speaker 1: their last words to shout to the crowd watching from
Speaker 1: the square. Below and stir up even more anti patrician.
Speaker 1: Several other conspirators were sentenced to life imprisonment. With that done,
Speaker 1: the nobles had to turn their attention to their greatest betrayal,
Speaker 1: the Doge himself. The Council of Ten, the very council
Speaker 1: from which Falierro himself had prosecuted a similar conspiracy just
Speaker 1: forty years earlier, presided over the trial, along with the
Speaker 1: Minor Council and the Zonta, which were all tasked with
Speaker 1: mitigating the Doja's authority. The trial was quick and somber,
Speaker 1: and by the next day a verdict had been reached.
Speaker 1: The Doge's fate was sealed on April seventeenth, thirteen fifty five,
Speaker 1: after fewer than seven months in office, and just two
Speaker 1: days after he thought he would be the Lord of Venice,
Speaker 1: Marino Faliero was sentenced to death. This would not be
Speaker 1: a public execution. If Venetians knew anything was how to
Speaker 1: spin a story, and they knew the difference between a
Speaker 1: trader and a martyr is often a matter of optics.
Speaker 1: They had made a display of the commoners they executed.
Speaker 1: It was also important to show the might of the
Speaker 1: republic against those who would destroy it. But a doze
Speaker 1: who had turned on his own government was another matter entirely.
Speaker 1: There would be no opportunity for Marino Faliero to become
Speaker 1: a popular hero in death. Instead, the sentence would be
Speaker 1: carried out in Falieriro's own home, in the courtyard of
Speaker 1: the Doge's palace. Despite its privacy, however, the execution was
Speaker 1: very much a performance in the presence of the entire nobility,
Speaker 1: the men with whom Falierro had worked with for decades
Speaker 1: and then betrayed. The fallen Doze was led by procession
Speaker 1: into the courtyard. Members of the Council of Ten stripped
Speaker 1: him of his royal regale before he was beheaded with
Speaker 1: a sword to complete the story and likely also to
Speaker 1: satisfy curious commoners. Once the deed was done, one of
Speaker 1: the ten leaned out of a balcony with a bloody
Speaker 1: sword in one hand and Faliero's head in the other.
Speaker 1: He announced their victory. Look justice has been done to
Speaker 1: the trader. On that day in thirteen fifty five, Marino
Speaker 1: Faliero's new legacy was cemented, but his punishment was far
Speaker 1: from over. Like Baiamante Tiapolo before him, Falieriro was sentenced
Speaker 1: to dominetio memorie, being condemned in memory. In addition to
Speaker 1: his removal from official records, the day of his conviction,
Speaker 1: April sixteenth, would be marked every year, and subsequent dojes
Speaker 1: would hold a precession and ceremony in Piazza San Marco
Speaker 1: to remember Falierro's tragic betrayal and inevitable defeat. Legend has
Speaker 1: it that all of the coinage from Faliero's reign, which
Speaker 1: would have borne his likeness, was melted down, although it's
Speaker 1: more likely that, given how short his reign was, it
Speaker 1: simply hadn't been minted yet. But Marino Faliero's sentence wouldn't
Speaker 1: really be complete until eleven years later, in thirteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: when the Council of Ten decreed that his portrait in
Speaker 1: the Chamber of the Great Council should be painted over
Speaker 1: and an inscription placed in its stead hic fuits locus
Speaker 1: ser Marina Feletri decapitated pro crimine pro di tiones. This
Speaker 1: was the place of Sir Marino Fallieri beheaded for the
Speaker 1: crime of treason. You may have noticed that that's not
Speaker 1: quite the inscription I read at the beginning of this episode.
Speaker 1: That's because in fifteen seven twenty seven, over two hundred
Speaker 1: years after Marina Fellieri's execution, a fire destroyed significant portions
Speaker 1: of the DOJ's Palace, including the chamber of the Great Council.
Speaker 1: When it was rebuilt, new paintings had to be commissioned
Speaker 1: to replace the old, including the set of portraits and
Speaker 1: the portrait that had been painted over that had been
Speaker 1: present in the previous iteration of the chamber. Instead of
Speaker 1: simply omitting his portrait, the Venetian government chose to keep
Speaker 1: the spirit of Falierro's condemnation, commissioning the black drape with
Speaker 1: the inscription. As you can still see today, there's no
Speaker 1: portrait under the new painting. However, with the fire, the
Speaker 1: last vestiges of the memory of who Marino Faliero had
Speaker 1: been before the coup, devoted politician, defender of Venice, long
Speaker 1: and faithful servant to the republic, had finally been erased,
Speaker 1: leaving only Marino Fallieri, the trader and his punishment in
Speaker 1: his place. That's the story of Marino Faliero's ill fated conspiracy.
Speaker 1: But stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear
Speaker 1: about how an unexpected historical figure helped to resurrect his memory.
Speaker 1: A few months after spending a couple of rainy days
Speaker 1: writing scary stories with his fellow romantics at Villa Diadatti,
Speaker 1: the famed poet and noble blood favorite Lord Byron found
Speaker 1: himself in Venice for the first time. It was the
Speaker 1: winter of eighteen sixteen. The abdication of the last Doge
Speaker 1: of Venice, who had capitulated to Napoleon, had happened not
Speaker 1: quite ten years prior. Although the city's millennium or so
Speaker 1: long tenure as a serene republic was well and truly over,
Speaker 1: the memory of its glittering, powerful past was still very
Speaker 1: much alive. Byron didn't intend to stay in Venice for
Speaker 1: too long, but on brand as ever, he met a girl,
Speaker 1: several girls, actually, all of them married, and that's a
Speaker 1: story for another episode maybe, But because of his illicit
Speaker 1: romantic pursuits, Byron ended up staying in Venice longer than planned,
Speaker 1: three years in fact, and it ended up having a
Speaker 1: significant impact on his work. Between swimming at the beach
Speaker 1: on Ledo, learning Armenian from a community of monks, and
Speaker 1: of course, arming married women in their fancy Venetian palazzos.
Speaker 1: Byron had the opportunity to spend some time in the
Speaker 1: Doge's Palace, which at the time still housed some administrative
Speaker 1: and cultural offices. It's clear that the palace stuck with him.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was Byron who gave the bridge of size,
Speaker 1: translated from the Italian Pontide Soupire its famed English moniker,
Speaker 1: when he wrote about it in his verse poem Child
Speaker 1: Harold's Pilgrimage. I stood in Venice on a bridge of size,
Speaker 1: a palace and a prison on each hand. But something
Speaker 1: else in the Doje's Palace struck our dear Byron, the
Speaker 1: black veil painted in the chamber of the Great Council.
Speaker 1: He would later write that seeing Marino Faliero's absent portrait,
Speaker 1: along with the great staircase leading into the courtyard where
Speaker 1: the Doge had been executed, had quote struck forcibly upon
Speaker 1: his imagination, so much so that in fact, in eighteen
Speaker 1: twenty he published a tragic play dramatizing Marino Faliero's strange
Speaker 1: and tragic story. To Byron, who had spent time reading
Speaker 1: Venetian chronicles, hunting for the Doge's grave and learning everything
Speaker 1: he could about Venetian history. Marino Faliero was quote a
Speaker 1: man of talent and courage, but also a quote fiery
Speaker 1: character plagued by an ungovernable temper. A failure as a ruler, perhaps,
Speaker 1: but as a compelling dramatic figure. Byron could think of
Speaker 1: no one better suited to the position. Byron's play, Marino Faliero,
Speaker 1: Doge of Venice was meant mostly to be read, and
Speaker 1: it was, but it was also performed in in London
Speaker 1: shortly after its publication in eighteen twenty one. Two middling reviews.
Speaker 1: Byron maintained that critics who disliked the play were just
Speaker 1: disappointed there wasn't a romance plot in it. Nevertheless, the
Speaker 1: play was influential. The painter Eugene Delacroix's gruesome depiction of
Speaker 1: Falierro's beheading on the Giant Staircase, completed in eighteen twenty
Speaker 1: five or twenty six, was drawn from Byron's writing. A
Speaker 1: later performance of Byron's play in eighteen twenty nine would
Speaker 1: also inspire the playwright Casimir Delvin to offer his own
Speaker 1: spin on the Faliero story, which would in turn inspire
Speaker 1: Gaetano Donizetti's opera Marino Faliero, which premiered in Paris in
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty five. Byron's curiosity and the play that came
Speaker 1: of it restored some piece of Marino Faliero's life and legacy.
Speaker 1: Though certainly not the paragon of historical accuracy, it allowed
Speaker 1: generations of people to think beyond the blacked out portrait
Speaker 1: and the boogeyman story of the evil doge who almost
Speaker 1: destroyed Venice. What we've been left with, funnily enough, is
Speaker 1: a figure who is elusive and dramatic, part fiction and
Speaker 1: part fact, in other words, unmistakably Venetian. Noble Blood is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankee.
Speaker 1: Noble Blood is created and hosted by me Dana Schwartz,
Speaker 1: with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick,
Speaker 1: Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman. The show is
Speaker 1: edited and produced by Noemi Griffin and rima Il Kahali,
Speaker 1: with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Manke,
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.