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During the negotiations the Pope had remained for the most part in Venice, while Frederick had not been allowed to enter the city, but had remained in the neighborhood in order that the envoys might pass more quickly to and fro. The terms of the treaty were finally assented to by the Emperor at Chioggia, July 21, 1177.
Of an impatient man: "He feeds the hen with one hand and with the other he looks for her eggs." I have not printed these exactly as they appear in the little pamphlet, because one has only to turn one page to realize that what the S. Lazzaro press most needs is a proof-reader. I said at the beginning of this book that the perfect way to approach Venice for the first time is from Chioggia.
And this land-making action is ceaseless and continuous. About Venice, Chioggia, Maestra, Comacchio, the delta of the Po is still spreading seaward.
He said he had been to Ancona, Gubbio, Rimini, Ravenna, Chioggia, Venice, Udine, Trieste. He demanded money fifty guineas; but this time I gave him nothing. I was preparing to go to Florence, and had other agents than him in view. I dismissed him from my service, and told him to go to the devil.
But that is not too easy. What, however, is quite easy is to visit Chioggia from Venice and then, returning, catch some of the beauty without, however, all the surprise and wonder of that approach. Steamers leave the Riva, opposite Danieli's, every two hours.
Now M. Nicolo, the knight being a man of great courage, after this aforesaid Genouan warre of Chioggia, that troubled so our predecessours, entred into a great desire and fansie to see the fashions of the worlde and to trauell and acquaint himselfe with the maners of sundry nations, and learne their languages, whereby afterwards vpon occasions he might be the better able to doe seruice to his countrey, and purchase to himselfe credite and honour.
At the end of that time he destroyed all his works and fell back upon Chioggia, and determined to wait there until Venice was starved into surrender. The suffering in the city was intense. It was cut off from all access to the mainland behind, but occasionally a ship, laden with provisions from Egypt or Syria, managed to evade the Genoese galleys.
Even Signor Girolamo, although he had been very frugal, felt rather uncomfortable; but no one in my gondola was really ill, excepting Madonna Elisabetta and Cavaliere Ursino, at the port of Chioggia. Most of the others, especially the women, were very ill. The weather now improved so much, that we arrived at Malamocco in quite good time.
The boat quickly passes the mouth of the Chioggia harbour, the third spot at which the long thread of land which divides the lagoon from the Adriatic is pierced, and then makes for Palestrina, surely the narrowest town on earth, with a narrower walled cemetery just outside, old boats decaying on the shore, and the skin of naked boys who frolic at the water's edge glowing in the declining sun.
Behind a Turk's turban appeared a red Greek fez, the picturesque cap of a mariner from Chioggia, a triangular hat, or a powdered wig, and likewise the various tongues could be heard chattering all together, while the monotonous calls of the gondoliers, echoing from the waterside, told even the blind that the Great Canal of Venice flowed at their feet.
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