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position. Some additional refinement might probably be imparted to it, by its close vicinity to Salerno, which was only seven miles distant, where learning was cultivated, and a school of medicine established-the first of the kind in Europe.

But the lustre of Amalfi is eclipsed by that of Venice, which, if at an earlier period she were inferior, at a later period vastly surpassed her rival in commercial greatness. Formed by bands of refugees who fled from the sword of Alaric and Attila to the lagoons, which spread at the extremity of the Adriatic gulf, this city of the waters rose till she became the ocean queen. For a hundred years, Venice consisted only of some scattered fishers' huts, like the nests of aquatic fowls, on the shifting sands, protected by slender fences of twisted osiers.* The population was supported by fishing, the making of salt, and some other humble manufactures; and probably the insignificance of the infant republic preserved her from the attacks of enemies, and from the oppression of the eastern emperors, to whom she owed subjection. Her earliest form of government was essentially democratic, for tribunes elected by the people ruled her affairs; but owing to the factions and jealousies which arose among them it was resolved, at the close of the seventh century, that one chief magistrate, called a doge, should be elected by the people, who should be invested with sovereign authority,

*Cassiodorus.

and should choose inferior officers. Many were the civil commotions of Venice under this form of government; and out of about forty of her citizens who successively wore the ducal bonnet, nearly half were killed, deprived of sight, or banished. Yet, withal, Venice went on growing in importance, wealth, and power, and as we look upon her history, a sort of magical effect is produced, somewhat like a dissolving view. The huts on her lagoon became palaces; her humble boats, splendid argosies; her fishermen, princes; and her traffickers the honourable of the earth.

"And whence the talisman whereby she rose
Towering? It was found there in the barren sea.
Want led to enterprise; and far or near

Who met not the Venetian ?"

In the tenth and eleventh centuries, Venice presented the picture of a rich and prosperous commercial city, though still far inferior to what she afterwards became. She could boast, even a century earlier, of the commencement of the famous church of St. Mark, with its five hundred columns of marble,- -an edifice, built on the Byzantine model of architecture, and showing the influence of eastern example upon the opening taste of the Venetian people. Saracenic luxuries and arts also began to flow into Venice, and before the close of the period under review, she sent forth her fleets, which returned to the lagoons, after anchoring in the port of the Egyptian Caliph; and the Arabian maiden wove the rich sandal of silk and gold

which arrayed her priests, when they prayed before the altar.* There might then be scen the brides of Venice with ostrich plumes, and "veils transparent as the gossamer, and jewelled chains in many a winding wreath, wreathing a gold brocade;" and her youthful sons walking with modest dignity, folding their scarlet mantle," and her doge, gliding in a stately barge of gold, through the canals, while

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"Old and young

Throng'd her three hundred bridges the grave Turk
Turban'd, long vested; and the cozening Jew,

In yellow hat and threadbare gaberdine,

Hurrying along."+

Arms, silks, furs, fine linen, and other luxuries from the east, formed the staple commodities of the Venetian markets, and were supplied by her merchants to other parts of Italy. Indeed, almost all the commerce of Europe was carried on through the medium of Venice and Amalfi. But it should not be forgotten, that the amount of traffic there, at that period, compared with the commerce of modern times, must have been very limited, as neither these cities, nor any others in Europe, had any manufactures which they could exchange for the commodities of the east; and they were, therefore, limited to the export of their gold and silver in payment for their purchases. There was, indeed, another kind of traffic which these

Quarterly Review, vol. xxv. p. 144.

+ Rogers' Italy. The poet thus describes the costumes and luxury of the Venetians, in his beautiful tale of "The Brides of Venice," which belongs to the tenth century: perhaps the description more correctly applies to a somewhat later period.

Venetians pursued, and it is, observes Hallam, "a humiliating proof of the degradation of Christendom, that they were reduced to purchase the luxuries of Asia, by supplying the slave-market of the Saracens. Their apology would, perhaps, have been that these were purchased of their heathen neighbours; but a slavedealer was, probably, not very inquisitive as to the faith or origin of his victim." This abo

minable trade in human flesh and blood, must then, as ever, have brought a number of vices in its train, tending greatly to demoralize the Venetian merchants, so that, at an early period, the language of Scripture, in reference to Tyre, was applicable to Venice: "By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned.”

SECTION III.

CITIES OF GERMANY AND THE NETHERLANDS.

BUT we must leave the Italian towns to look at the cities which sprang up in the northern parts of Europe. The Lombardic cities were Roman municipalities, keeping up a struggle for existence after the fall of the empire, and Venice and Amalfi were communities, which sprung up immediately upon that fall, imbibing some elements of Roman civilisation, intermingled with others of an oriental cast, derived from their dependence on the eastern emperors and their subsequent intercourse with the Saracens ; but the cities to which attention is now to be directed,

had their origin in feudal times; they arose amidst that state of disorder into which society was plunged by the inroads of the northern barbarians; they exhibited new developments of social life and manners; they derived their spirit of independence from the Gothic races who founded them; their progress was a struggle with their feudal lords, and their final establishment and prosperity secured the overthrow of the feudal system. The former were in a great measure but the reflection of ancient civilisation, the latter were the infant, but vigorous forms of modern civilisation. There we see the Roman city, here the German borough.

The ancient Germans, according to Tacitus, had no cities. The people lived a wandering life, and when they settled anywhere for a time, they erected for themselves rude, detached, and scattered dwellings.* Long after the invasion of the south of Europe the Gothic tribes retained their uncitizenlike habits. "Till the reign of Charlemagne," observes Hallam, "there were no towns in Germany, except a few that had been erected on the Rhine and Danube by the Romans. A house with its stables and farm buildings, surrounded by a hedge, or inclosure, was called a court, or, as we find it in our law books, a curtilage--the toft, or homestead, of a more genuine English dialect. One of these, with the adjacent domain of arable fields and woods, had the name of a villa, or manse. Several manses composed a

• Germania, xvi.

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