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 C
“This lively and richly-documented study goes D’ANDREA
beyond social and religious themes and directly
addresses some of the key political questions of ivic Christianity in Renaissance Italy: The
the Renaissance: the relations of center and Hospital of Treviso, 1400–1530 explores
periphery in the early modern state, the infor- the often subtle and sometimes harsh
mal exercise of power in subject cities, the con-

Civic Christianity
realities of life on the Venetian mainland. Focusing
struction of social order through charity, medical

Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy

care, and popular religion, and the relation of on the confraternity of Santa Maria dei Battuti and
its Ospedale, the book addresses a number of well-

in Renaissance Italy
lay and clerical elements in civic religion. Neces-
sary reading for those wanting to know what established and newly articulated historiographical
made the Renaissance city tick.”
questions: the governance of territorial states, the
Nicholas Terpstra, University of Toronto,
--8-- civic and religious role of confraternities, the status
author of Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion
in Renaissance Bologna and Abandoned Chil- The Hospital of Treviso, 1400-1530 of women and marginalized groups, and popular reli-
dren of the Italian Renaissance: Orphan Care in gious devotion. Adapting the objectives and methods
Florence and Bologna of microhistory, D’Andrea has written neither a tradi-

“As lucid an account of confraternity life as one

David M. D’Andrea tional history of political subjugation nor a straight-
forward survey of poor relief. Instead, thematic
could hope to find, this study lays bare the myr-
iad ways in which religion permeated the social chapters survey the activities of a powerful religious
fabric at the dawn of the modern age, and the brotherhood (Santa Maria dei Battuti) and document
role it played in the creation of a new civic con- the interconnected local, regional, and international
sciousness. Based on meticulous archival research,
factors that fashioned the social world of Venetian
Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy enhances
our understanding of several topics at once, as subjects. The book covers one of the most dynamic
all great books do: the history of Venice and periods in early modern history and culminates in
Treviso, and also the history of medicine, popu- the first decades of the sixteenth century, when war,
lar piety, confraternities, urban poor relief, and
famine, and disease strained the resources of Venice
religious reform. A remarkable achievement.”
and shook the allegiance of subject cities.
Carlos M. N. Eire, Riggs Professor of History and
Religious Studies, Yale University, and author of Grounded in previously unexplored archival mate-
From Madrid to Purgatory: The Art and Craft of
rial, the book is an innovative study of the nexus
Dying in Sixteenth Century Spain
between local religion and Venetian territorial
power, providing scholars with this first scholarly
monograph of the city that served as the keystone
of Venice’s mainland empire. This original approach
to the critical relationship between provincial pow-
ers and the central government also contributes to
other important areas of historical inquiry, including
the history of popular religion, poor relief, medicine,
and education.

David M. D’Andrea is associate professor

Jacket image: Bartolomeo Orioli, Procession UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER PRESS of history at Oklahoma State University.
with the Relic of the Holy Cross (1625). 668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620-2731
Courtesy of Casa Editrice Canova, Treviso. P.O. Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP12 3DF, UK
Jacket design: Michel Godts eDesign www.urpress.com
 CIVIC CHRISTIANITY IN RENAISSANCE ITALY

D'Andrea.indd i 1/5/2007 5:40:06 PM

 Changing Perspectives on
Early Modern Europe
James B. Collins, Professor of History, Georgetown University
Mack P. Holt, Professor of History, George Mason University

(ISSN 1542–3905)

Changing Perspectives on Early Modern Europe brings forward the latest

research on Europe during the transformation from the medieval to the modern
world. The series publishes innovative scholarship on the full range of topical
and geographic fields and includes works on cultural, economic, intellectual,
political, religious, and social history.

Private Ambition and Political Alliances:

The Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain Family
and Louis XIV’s Government, 1650–1715
Sara E. Chapman

The Politics of Piety: Franciscan Preachers

During the Wars of Religion, 1560–1600
Megan C. Armstrong

“By My Absolute Royal Authority”:

Justice and the Castilian Commonwealth
at the Beginning of the First Global Age
J. B. Owens

Meat Matters:
Butchers, Politics, and Market Culture
in Eighteenth-Century Paris
Sydney Watts

Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy:

The Hospital of Treviso, 1400–1530
David M. D’Andrea

D'Andrea.indd ii 1/5/2007 5:40:31 PM

 CIVIC CHRISTIANITY IN
RENAISSANCE ITALY
The Hospital of Treviso, 1400–1530

David M. D’Andrea

UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER PRESS

D'Andrea.indd iii 1/5/2007 5:40:31 PM

 Copyright © 2007 David M. D’Andrea

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation,

no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,
published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted,
recorded, or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission of the copyright owner.

First published 2007

University of Rochester Press

668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA
www.urpress.com
and Boydell & Brewer Limited
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
www.boydellandbrewer.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-58046-239-6
ISBN-10: 1-58046-239-1
ISSN: 1542–3905

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

D’Andrea, David Michael.

Civic Christianity in renaissance Italy : the Hospital of Treviso, 1400–1530 /
David Michael D’Andrea.
p. cm. — (Changing perspectives on early modern Europe, ISSN 1542–3905)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-58046-239-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-58046-239-1
1. Santa Maria dei battuti (Confraternity : Treviso, Italy)—History.
2. Ospedale di Santa Maria dei Battuti (Treviso, Italy)—History. 3. Treviso
(Italy)—Church history. I. Title.
BX814.S26D36 2007
267 '.2424536—dc22
2006031002

A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

This publication is printed on acid-free paper.

Printed in the United States of America.

D'Andrea.indd iv 1/5/2007 5:40:32 PM

 CONTENTS

List of Illustrations vii

Acknowledgments ix

List of Abbreviations xi

Notes to the Reader xiii

Introduction 1

Chapter 1
The City of God 13

Chapter 2
The Confraternal Family 39

Chapter 3
The Bonds and Bounds of Charity 58

Chapter 4
Medical Care and Public Health 85

Chapter 5
Instruction for This Life and the Next 109

Chapter 6
Crisis and Reform 133

Notes 149

Bibliography 193

Index 209

D'Andrea.indd v 1/5/2007 5:40:32 PM

D'Andrea.indd vi 1/5/2007 5:40:32 PM
 ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures
1 Map of northern Italy in the sixteenth century 8
2 Map of Trevigiano in the sixteenth century 9
3 Ground plan of hospital (Venetian map, 1791) 18
4 Nineteenth-century view of hospital clock tower 19
5 Nineteenth-century view of hospital and wharf 20
6 Orioli, Procession with the Relic of the Holy Cross 22
7 Treviso city center, principal religious and civic spaces 28
8 Santa Maria dei Battuti House in San Marziale, Venice 36

Tables
2.1 Santa Maria dei Battuti membership by
occupation (1400–1560) 45
4.1 Payments to Pietro the Apothecary by the Hospital of the
Battuti, 1446–47 92

vii

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D'Andrea.indd viii 1/5/2007 5:40:32 PM
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study of a community’s effort to care for others was itself a product
of sacrifice, collaboration, and discussion. I must first thank my disserta-
tion advisors, Duane Osheim and Anne Jacobson Schutte, who have spent
nearly a decade giving me sound advice and encouragement. The world of
Venetian scholarship is vibrant and accommodating, and among those who
have provided expert advice in the archives and caffès of Venice are Fran-
cesco Bianchi, Julia DeLancey, Eric Dursteler, James Grubb, Holly Hurl-
burt, Michael Knapton, Benjamin Kohl, Reinhold Mueller, Dennis Romano,
Helena Szepe, and Gian Maria Varanini. Other scholars offered valuable
suggestions as I defined and reworked my study, especially Mauro Carboni,
Nicholas Terpstra, and Konrad Eisenbichler. My struggle to understand the
largely unexplored archives in Treviso was made easier with the generosity
of Angela Möschter, Matthieu Schermer, and Christian Zürcher, European
graduate students who shared their research with me.
Civic pride still runs strong in Treviso, and a number of local scholars
shared their research and enthusiasm with me, including Giovanni Battista
Tozzato, Ermanno Orlando, Francesca Pastro, and Ivano Sartor. I owe a spe-
cial thanks to Giampaolo Cagnin and Danilo Gasparini, dedicated scholars
whose knowledge of the Trevisan archives and generosity to foreign scholars
is unsurpassed. My visits to Treviso were always more enjoyable because of
the warm hospitality provided by the Viscuso family. In Venice, Antonella
Mallus and Paolo Rosa Salva shared with me their unique perspectives on
Venice, past and present.
Long hours in Italian reading rooms were made more productive because
of helpful and professional assistance. The Archivio di Stato di Treviso was
especially important to this study, and I must thank Francesca Cavazzana
Romanelli, who first introduced me to the hospital’s archive, and her suc-
cessors as director, Alessandra Schiavon and Franco Rossi. The Biblioteca
Capitolare, under the guidance of the learned Monsignor Luigi Pesce and
staffed by Nino Mulas and Signora Fia Cocchetto, was an engaging place
to work. Emilio Lippi, director of the Biblioteca Comunale, and Gianluigi
Perino, head of the manuscript room, offered kind assistance. I would also
like to thank the staff of the archives and libraries in Venice, namely the
Archivio di Stato, the Marciana Library, and the Museo Correr.
Research for the book and its publication has been supported by a num-
ber of organizations and institutions. A Fulbright grant allowed me to spend

ix

D'Andrea.indd ix 1/5/2007 5:40:32 PM

 x Acknowledgments

a year in Italy while researching my dissertation. The Gladys Krieble Del-

mas Foundation supported subsequent trips to Treviso and Venice and gen-
erously supplied a subsidy for this book. This research was also supported
in part by a grant from the Oklahoma Humanities Council and the National
Endowment for the Humanities. Grants from Oklahoma State University
and the History Department at Oklahoma State University provided travel
and research support. Michael Thompson of the Department of Geography
at Oklahoma State University prepared the maps and digital images. The
Foto Archivio Storico Trevigiano (F.A.S.T.) waived the royalties for many
of the images used in the book. I would particularly like to thank its direc-
tor, Roberto Ros, and his staff for their assistance. I would also like to thank
Mack Holt, the general editor of this series, and Suzanne Guiod, the editor
of the University of Rochester Press. They provided keen insights and con-
tacted two outside readers who provided invaluable suggestions on how to
improve the manuscript.
Finally, I would like to thank my friends and family, who have supported
me with their time and treasure while I researched and wrote this book. I
dedicate this work to my parents, who taught me the importance of faith,
love, and community.

D'Andrea.indd x 1/5/2007 5:40:32 PM

 ABBREVIATIONS

AOT AST, Ospedale di Santa Maria dei Battuti

AST Archivio di Stato di Treviso
ASV Archivio di Stato di Venezia
BCaT Biblioteca Capitolare del Duomo di Treviso
BCT Biblioteca Comunale di Treviso
CX ASV, Council of Ten
PO AST, Ospedale di Santa Maria dei Battuti, Pergamene
POT AST, Ospedale di Santa Maria dei Battuti, Testamenti
PB Luigi Pesce, Ludovico Barbo, Vescovo di Treviso (1437–1443), 2 vols.
(Padua: Editrice Antenore, 1969)
PV Luigi Pesce, Vita socio-culturale in diocesi di Treviso nel primo
Quattrocento (Venice: Deputazione Editrice, 1983)
PC Luigi Pesce, La Chiesa di Treviso nel primo Quattrocento, 3 vols.
(Rome: Herder, 1987)

xi

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D'Andrea.indd xii 1/5/2007 5:40:32 PM
 NOTES TO THE READER

Money and Measurements

Treviso used the same bimetallic monetary system as Venice: the gold ducat
(zecchino) and the silver lira di piccoli (1 lira = 20 soldi = 240 denari). Over
the course of the fifteenth century, the devaluation of the lira in relation to
the ducat finally stabilized at an exchange rate of 6 lire, 4 soldi per ducat.
Comparative wages:
Day wage, master builder (1470): 32 soldi (320 lire annually, 200-day year)
Day wage, master stonemason (1458): 26 soldi (260 lire annually)
Day wage, assistant stonemason (1458): 18 soldi (180 lire annually)
Comparative prices:
Pair of chickens (c. 1460): 9 soldi
A fat goose (c. 1460): 12 soldi
Haircut by barber (c. 1493): 4 soldi1
Dry weight:
Trevisan staio = 4 quarte = 86.81 liters (2.47 bushels)
Trevisan quarta = 4 quartieri = 21.7 liters (0.62 bushels)2

Population

The population of Treviso in the beginning of the 1400s was approximately ten
thousand. In the sixteenth century the population rose to between twelve and
thirteen thousand, with approximately sixty thousand in the whole district.3

Citations

Most of the information in this study came from the confraternity’s large
account books. The volumes are contained in buste (boxes) in the AST. In
the notes, I have cited the busta number followed by a colon and the folio
number(s). For example, AOT, busta 1: 1 means Archivio di Stato di Trev-
iso, Ospedale di Santa Maria dei Battuti, busta 1, folio 1.

xiii

D'Andrea.indd xiii 1/5/2007 5:40:32 PM

D'Andrea.indd xiv 1/5/2007 5:40:33 PM
 INTRODUCTION

First we state and order that the confraternity and school of Blessed Mary
of the Battuti of Treviso that now is and will be, is and must be to the
praise of God our Creator and to the Glorious Virgin Mary his mother,
in whose honor the said fraternity and school is named and is to be called
. . . and that the brothers are and are known to be subjects of the
jurisdiction and protection of the commune of Treviso.
—Statutes of Santa Maria dei Battuti (1400)

The statutes of Santa Maria dei Battuti of Treviso were typical of seemingly
countless brotherhoods in Renaissance Italy, where the devout gathered in vol-
untary association and dedicated their prayers and works to the honor of God,
the Virgin Mary, and the saints. Scholars have increasingly studied confrater-
nal associations, at the intersection of personal devotion and public service,
as a key element of Italian Renaissance society. Their organization, activities,
wealth, and involvement in the community offer various ways to investigate
the nature of Renaissance political and religious life. Confraternities and their
hospitals offer a view of broad Christian values refracted through the expe-
rience of each local community. Despite their common organizational prin-
ciples and ubiquity in Renaissance society, confraternities remained intensely
local. The important geographic location of Treviso and the unique historical
development of Santa Maria dei Battuti place this confraternity at the conflu-
ence of three major historiographical currents: Renaissance religion, public
charity and relief, and the territorial state. How a powerful provincial confra-
ternity responded to the spiritual and material needs of the local community
and mediated the regional objectives of the capital city will provide valuable
insights into the role of religion in Renaissance states.

Renaissance Religion and Confraternities

Italian Renaissance studies have long labored under the influence of nine-
teenth-century constructs that depicted the Renaissance as the birth of
the modern secular age. In the last few decades myriad studies of Renais-
sance religion have challenged this basic assumption.1 As one survey of the

D'Andrea.indd Sec1:1 1/5/2007 5:40:33 PM

 2 Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy

Renaissance in Italy explains, “Until recently, scholars have almost com-

pletely neglected the history of religious spirituality in Renaissance Italy. . . .
Now that historians have begun inquiry about the urban poor and work-
ing class in Renaissance Italy, religious rituals and institutions are providing
valuable insights into the historical experience of ordinary people.”2 The
quest to study the religious experience of ordinary people has indeed been
the subject of much recent scholarship. Augustine Thompson’s monograph
is clear evidence of the revisionist attempt to reestablish a historical equilib-
rium between secular and sacred. Thompson cites the surprising scholarly
neglect of orthodox religious life in medieval Italian cities and endeavors to
recapture “the lost holiness of the Italian republics.”3
Other scholars have made important contributions to the complex rela-
tionship between local religion, the universal Catholic church, and the gov-
ernance of Renaissance states. William Christian’s book investigates the
interaction between high and low, popular and elite culture in sixteenth-
century Spain. Local shrines attracted both poor pilgrims and royal visitors,
whose patronage of local shrines linked their kingdoms together.4 Jodi Bil-
inkoff studied the Spanish city of Ávila to reconstruct the social, political,
and religious milieus that produced one of the best-known saints of the six-
teenth century, demonstrating the political and economic realities that affect
religious devotion.5 Two recent studies focus on the cult of the Virgin Mary
to reconstruct the social, cultural, and political history of Siena.6 Even reli-
gious feast days often corresponded to significant events in a city’s history.
Governing the symbols and rituals of religion was essential to the claim to
legitimate political power and the maintenance of the social order.7 All of
these studies demonstrate the inseparable relationship between political and
spiritual power.
The ongoing reassessment of Renaissance religion has resurrected con-
fraternities. Once considered corrupt vestiges of medieval religious zeal,
confraternities have emerged as thriving expressions of religious devotion
and vehicles for social kinship.8 As a recent survey explains, “This Renais-
sance period is no longer seen as thoroughly irreligious or pagan. Evidence
is increasingly produced to show confraternity activity through the fifteenth
century, though it should be stressed that much of this evidence is in fact
from sixteenth-century sources, particularly revised statutes which give some
historical information—or myths.”9
Confraternities were varied and ubiquitous in medieval and early modern
Europe: they organized processions, administered hospitals, patronized the
arts, provided dowries, and had an impact on almost every man and woman
in a community. Confraternal objectives and structures varied greatly, from
penitential flagellant confraternities whipping themselves through the streets
to Laudesi companies, who processed singing religious songs in praise of
God. Membership also varied widely; some organizations admitted an elite

D'Andrea.indd Sec1:2 1/5/2007 5:40:33 PM

 Introduction 3

few, whereas others were open to men and women, lay people and clerics.
Notwithstanding their organizational differences, they all served a critically
important role in the articulation of religious and civic life.

Civic Christianity

Confraternities had their origins in private religious devotion, but their

activities often pulled them into the public sphere. One historian notes that
“beyond being a place to pray, and an institution providing charitable distri-
butions and other services to the community, the confraternity, like the fam-
ily and guild, was one of the principal forms of sociability available to males
in premodern European society.”10 As a primary form of social interaction,
confraternities have been identified as a critical factor in the formation of the
modern Italian democratic state.11
Scholars may agree on the important nexus of confraternities, civil gov-
ernment, and charity, but they have struggled to find a term to describe the
phenomenon. Brian Pullan has recently described a “civic Catholicism” in
which the state engaged and harnessed “fraternities more effectively than
did the rulers of the Florentine commune.”12 Richard Mackenney notes the
inseparable nature of piety and civic life and employs the term “Devotional
Philanthropy” to describe the activities of Venetian brotherhoods.13 “Civic
religion” is commonly used, but scholars have raised a number of caveats
regarding the term’s application to confraternal hospitals: there were many
other forms of urban charity, it seems to preclude rural charity, and religious
experience could be intensely personal.14 The variety of terms reflects the
difficulty in quantifying piety and the change in religious sentiments from
the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.15
One of the first terms used to connect charitable institutions with a new
religious spirit was coined in David Herlihy’s study of Renaissance Pistoia.
Herlihy argued that fifteenth-century piety “had its own characteristic tone,
much different from that of the preceding Middle Ages.”16 Recognizing the
difficulty in measuring religious sensibilities, Herlihy turned to the social
manifestations of piety: religious donations and charitable institutions. He
observed a shift in wealth from ecclesiastical institutions to hospitals and reli-
gious brotherhoods and suggested that a new moral and social consciousness
of the troubles of this world reflected similar changes taking place in litera-
ture and art. As a result, he argued that “the spirit which built and enriched
these hospitals, reflecting an active involvement with human society and a
greater compassion for its ills, we may justly call ‘civic Christianity.’”17
More recent studies of piety and charity have apparently not used Her-
lihy’s term because of a desire to break from the traditional cultural and
political paradigm. John Henderson observes the same growth in hospitals

D'Andrea.indd Sec1:3 1/5/2007 5:40:33 PM

 4 Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy

in Renaissance Florence, but he downplays the influence of the humanists,

tracing the charitable impulse to earlier medieval notions of charity and the
common good.18 A weakness of Herlihy’s conception of “civic Christian-
ity” as an interpretive tool, therefore, stems from its emphasis on innovation
linked to cultural developments of the Renaissance. Nicholas Terpstra iden-
tifies another problematic aspect of this interpretive model: “Hans Baron
noted the effect of Visconti’s empire in shaping Florentine republicanism,
but there has been less attention paid to those communes whose resistance
failed.”19 The association of civic humanism with changes in charity has
presumably led to a focus on those cities which remained politically inde-
pendent. Although these scholars raise important caveats, both studies agree
with Herlihy on two fundamental points: the civic importance of religious
brotherhoods and a change in charity, most notably manifested in the
enhanced size, administration, and status of hospitals.
There may be no direct link between political chronology and changes
in piety, but the relationship between lay Christianity and political organi-
zation remains central to the historical narrative. In particular, the fall of
the Italian communal republics acts a convenient watershed in religious his-
tory and frames historical inquiry. For example, Thompson investigated the
urban religious life of northern Italian communes because “the rise of the
communes presupposed the formation of voluntary associations, in particu-
lar the religious associations that grew up in the penance culture populated
by the conversi—lay penitents, often married—who spontaneously took up
a life of moderate asceticism while remaining in the world.” As part of his
explanation for his concentration on the age of the republican city-states of
Italy, Thompson states that
the ritual world of late medieval Florence, so provocatively described by
Richard Trexler, with its aristocratic flavor evocative of the Medici princes,
feels quite different from that of high medieval communes. I suspect that
the rise of princes and oligarchies lies behind this change, although this is
still a conjecture waiting for another book to confirm it.20
Thompson suggests that the nature of the lay religious community changed
after 1300 and the rise of signori and oligarchs, implying that religious life
was different in dependent communities, but he leaves this to further studies.
Informed by the most recent scholarship, I have chosen to return to
Herlihy’s concept but further qualify the term. First, my study will place
less emphasis on the innovations of Renaissance humanism and more
stress on the continuity in medieval theological concepts of charity. This
approach will, I hope, demonstrate the similarities with the piety identi-
fied in Thompson’s work but also show the changes in religious practice
that did occur. Second, liberated from its association with Baron’s thesis
and dependence on the political developments of the Renaissance, “civic

D'Andrea.indd Sec1:4 1/5/2007 5:40:33 PM

 Introduction 5

Christianity” can certainly describe the dynamics of lay religiosity in a

dependent community. The story of Treviso’s Battuti will demonstrate the
civic Christianity exercised by an urban confraternity that participated in
public religious rituals, administered a large multipurpose hospital com-
plex, and was closely tied to the local government. The local nexus among
charity, confraternity, and civil government in Treviso will address how
organizations attempted to maintain their local identity when integrated
into larger political entities.

Venice, Treviso, and the Regional State

The relationship between religious brotherhoods and civil society has been
intensely studied in Venice, where a “republic of processions” had its politi-
cal machinery greased by processions and its social relations facilitated by
the social gatherings of confraternities.21 One of the pioneering studies in
the history of early modern charity, Brian Pullan’s Rich and Poor in Renais-
sance Venice, examines the charitable activities of the Catholic state’s Scuole
Grandi, the largest and most important religious brotherhoods.22 Pullan
found that the Venetian Scuole Grandi, with their hundreds of wealthier
members distributing alms to their poorer brethren, were critical to the
Venetian government’s mythical stability. Popular participation in religious
brotherhoods helps explain how 1 percent of the population of Venice, the
male patriciate eligible to participate in government, could rule a republic of
a hundred thousand people almost without popular opposition. The Scuole
Grandi provided both efficient poor relief and surrogates for political power.
Pullan’s work is especially significant as one of the first studies of any Euro-
pean state’s governmental policies toward the poor and the institutions that
provided charity and poor relief.
The idea of studying religion, charity, and political subjugation in the
Veneto came from one of Pullan’s observations that the efficient and suc-
cessful system of charity in Venice was not exported beyond the lagoon.
Subject cities were left to make their own provision—which he leaves to
others to explore:
In such matters as poor relief, the subject cities were to a large extent left
to make their own arrangements, provided these were submitted to Venice
for ratification. This book does not pretend to offer an exhaustive survey
of social institutions in the cities of the Venetian Terra Ferma [mainland]: it
will discuss them only in outline, and the discussion will be based almost
entirely on Venetian sources. . . . At the most, we can only hope to prepare
the way for further monographs founded on local as well as on Venetian
archives, and to sketch some kind of general perspective in which these
may be set.23

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 6 Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy

Pullan also notes that the wealthy Santa Maria dei Battuti in Treviso was
“evidently founded or administered by fraternities corresponding to the
Venetian Scuole Grandi. But how these concentrations arose, and on whose
initiative, is not known.”24 A history of Treviso’s largest confraternity and its
hospital will make a significant contribution to our understanding of charity
on the Venetian Terraferma and the development of territorial states.
Pullan’s call for further research demonstrates that the study of state
formation, traditionally the realm of political theorists, 25 has been supple-
mented by new methods of social history and increasingly focused on the
relationships between the ruling and subject cities.26 The same phonemenon
that Pullan observed in Venice also functioned in the relationship between a
ruling and subject city, where local elites turned to confraternities and chari-
table organizations as surrogates for direct political power. Once communes
were subsumed in territorial states, they searched for an institution to call
their own, and local confraternities became rallying places for civic pride.
In Cremona, the local populace founded the Consortium of Saint Omo-
bono in 1357 to honor the city’s patron saint: a response to charity, heresy,
and incorporation into the duchy of Milan in 1334.27 Terpstra has clearly
demonstrated this process in Bologna, where in the sixteenth century local
elites, working with the communal government, came to manage most of
the hospitals and social services in the city. Confraternities assumed greater
importance as foci of identity once the papacy assumed control over the
city.28 Cavallo has discerned similar trends in Turin, where confraternities
and charitable activities provided similar outlets for local pride and expres-
sions of elite patronage.29
The Venetian Republic’s legendary political stability and Pullan’s ground-
breaking analysis of confraternities as mediators of political competition and
critical providers of poor relief make the Veneto an ideal region to investi-
gate confraternities, political power, and charity. Furthermore, scholars of
Venice and Venetian mainland cities, including Verona, Padua, Brescia, and
Vicenza, have been among the first to employ these new methodological
approaches.30 Their findings reveal not only the differences among the ter-
ritories but also the variety of experiences of communes under the same
sovereign. The myth of Venice as a harmonious republic free of internal dis-
sension and revolt has been attacked by historians, who have painted a very
different picture of an aggressive and controlling dominant city. The most
recent investigators modify this position, arguing that the Venetian govern-
ment was in fact too corrupt and inefficient to dominate local politics.31
Much work remains to be done as historians piece together the mosaic of
Venetian subject territories.
Over a century ago, the English historian Horatio F. Brown wrote: “It
is important for us to examine the way in which Venice dealt with her new
possession, Treviso; for the method then adopted is typical of the attitude

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 Introduction 7

of the ruling city towards the many land dependencies which she subse-
quently acquired; and the wisdom of that method bore abundant fruit for
the Republic after the disastrous wars of the League of Cambray.”32 Most
recently, Michael Knapton has noted the importance of Venetian domina-
tion of Treviso for later territorial expansion and stressed the need for an
expansion of Venetian historiography beyond the city. Treviso’s position was
crucial for Venetian international trade, and the attempt to secure the trade
routes running through the city was a turning point in the evolution of Ven-
ice from maritime republic to land-based empire. Knapton summarizes the
importance of Treviso to our understanding of Venetian expansion by argu-
ing, “Already this first attempt seems to confirm that the history of the first
Venetian domination of Treviso belongs firmly to the history of the whole
Venetian terraferma state, and anticipates many of its essential aspects.”33
Although historians have long recognized the political importance of Trev-
iso (as Venice’s first mainland possession), we still lack a monograph that
examines this crucial piece of Venice’s mainland state (see figure 1).34
Venice had an intense economic interest in ensuring that a stable and ami-
cable power governed Treviso, for the city commanded a strategic position
along the international trade routes between Venice and northern Europe.
Located on the Sile River, Treviso was a staging point for German and Aus-
trian merchants; once through the Brenner Pass, they proceeded to Treviso
and placed their goods on barges for the trip to the Venetian lagoon. The
control of crucial trade routes through the Trevigiano was always a concern
of the Venetian government, and as the Carrarese lords of Padua and the
Scaligeri of Verona grew more aggressive and expansionist, Venice fought to
secure the Trevigiano as a safe avenue for merchants. The Peace of Venice
of 24 January 1339 removed Treviso (or liberated it, as the Venetian gov-
ernment considered it) from the dominion of the Scaligeri and welcomed
the city into the Venetian Republic as the first component of its mainland
empire. The official transfer of power from the Trevisan communal govern-
ment to Venetian authority occurred five years later. In February 1344 the
city government placed its lands in Venetian hands and the doge agreed
to rule the city according to the statutes of the city of Treviso.35 For the
next four centuries, except for a brief period in the 1380s, Treviso remained
under Venetian control.36
Once established as the supreme political power, Venice soon began to
impose taxes and loans on the whole Trevigiano.37 Venice established Trev-
iso as a regional administrative center, and Treviso’s treasury, its camera
fiscale, was staffed with two camerlenghi, treasurers. The camerlenghi were
Venetian patricians elected by the Maggior Consiglio who were responsible
for collecting customs, taxes, and forced loans for the Trevigiano. Once
Venice had assigned the tax burden to each podestaria, the camera of Trev-
iso was responsible for collecting the money and transferring it to Venice.

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 8 Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy

1. Map of northern Italy in the sixteenth century.

The motivating factors for establishing political hegemony over Treviso

had been strategic and economic, and the first piece of Venice’s mainland
empire would indeed prove critical to the survival of the Venetian state in
the sixteenth century (see figure 2).
In theory, subject cities had voluntarily declared their fidelity to the
Venetian state. The paternalistic language of Venetian governance provides
a key to Venetian oversight and perception of subject cities. For example,
when Francesco Barbaro returned to Verona in 1441 for his second term,
the Veronese welcomed him as “Pater Patriae,” and he called himself their
“father, guardian and perpetual defender.”38 As James Grubb explains, meta-
phors of state were not aggressive; rather, the terminology used emphasized
consensus and accommodation instead of conflict. For example, the Venetian
doge addressed his faithful children, and subject cities referred to each other
as children of the same parents. “Filiation conveniently acknowledged, yet
also limited, the aspirations of center and periphery. It established subordina-
tion, certainly cut off local claims to independence, and reminded subjects of
the obedience due to parents, but it left the subject as a distinct person with at
least a limited freedom of action.”39 It is this limited freedom of action that I
wish to explore in this book. How did Venice incorporate its most loyal chil-
dren while simultaneously permitting them some degree of independence?
The language of empire may have been one of familial affection, but
the realities of governance necessitated a Venetian political and military

D'Andrea.indd Sec1:8 1/5/2007 5:40:34 PM

 Introduction 9

2. Map of Trevigiano in the sixteenth century.

presence. Venetians governed their land and sea empires through a system
of resident governors, podestà. Each was empowered to be the executive
officer over a city and its countryside for a set term ranging from twelve to
eighteen months.40 Although tolerant of local customs and traditions, Ven-
ice curtailed any direct political rivals within the subject cities. Soon after
Venice assumed control of Treviso, the local political bodies were reduced
in size and lost all real political power.41 Deliberative assemblies, dimin-
ished in number and in status to advisory bodies, were eventually forbidden
to meet without permission from the podestà. Communal statutes, which
Venice swore to follow and uphold, became conditional on the approval of
the doge, who ordered redactions of the statutes that practically eliminated
any form of local governance. By the close of the fifteenth century, Trevisan
deliberative bodies were advising the podestà about the customs and oper-
ations of the local judicial and legal machinery, but local self-governance
was eliminated. Trevisan communal organs would continue to exist, advise
Venetian officials, and control the daily operations of government, but the
interests of the local population became secondary to the needs of the Vene-
tian empire, and those who had dominated the assemblies now looked else-
where for a way to influence the community.

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 10 Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy

Venetian domination of the political organs of the city was soon followed by
manipulation of ecclesiastical offices. Since bishops, abbots, and other ecclesias-
tical leaders remained in the subject city much longer than the rotating podestà,
they had better opportunities to build bases of power and influence. Venice rou-
tinely placed loyal Venetian clergymen in the vacant seats of Terraferma bishop-
rics. This unofficial form of political dominion became official with a decree of
31 August 1413. Nominees to the bishoprics of Padua, Verona, Vicenza, Treviso,
and Ceneda, and the abbeys of Santa Giustina in Padua and San Zeno in Verona
were vetted by a process called probae. From the second half of the 1300s, the
probae consisted of submitting the names of candidates to the Venetian Senate
for a vote. The pope would then be informed who had received the majority of
votes and be asked to confer the benefice on the winner.42 Over the course of
the fifteenth century, the Trevisan church became part of the larger Venetian ter-
ritorial church in which the operations of the ecclesiastical structures and actions
of church leaders were made to conform to the political interests of Venice. The
Venetian Republic did not interfere in the daily administration of the sacra-
ments, but it did control the ecclesiastical structure in order to guard against any
dissension, religious or secular, that might threaten the stability of the state.43
With the highest political and ecclesiastical offices firmly in the hands of Vene-
tian delegates, the local Trevisan elite turned to its preeminent civic institution,
the confraternity of Santa Maria dei Battuti. And it is the study of this hospital
that offers a new perspective on Christianity and the Renaissance state.

Toward a New Paradigm

Renaissance studies are in a great deal of turmoil. A new appreciation of

religion’s impact on the Renaissance has led to “the fundamental reevalu-
ation of the importance of religion and the church in Renaissance Italy’s
culture and politics.”44 A recent volume of collected essays has called for
a reconsideration of the very assumptions that underlie early modern char-
ity and the separation between sacred and secular.45 Finally, the territorial
or regional state is receiving renewed scholarly interest. In particular, the
study of the relationship between Venice and its subject cities has become
the basis for a new Venetian historiographical paradigm. “With the myth of
the good republic exploded as authoritarian, research in local and regional
history must provide the building blocks for new paradigms hopefully free
of the mythical and anti-mythical polemics of an insular historiography.”46
Confraternities constitute one of the most active subjects of research because
their malleable identities and functions could involve them in almost every
aspect of early modern life. The story of Santa Maria dei Battuti of Treviso
can shed light on three areas of scholarly inquiry—religion, charity, and ter-
ritorial states—that are currently undergoing significant historical revision.

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 Introduction 11

The chronological span of this study, 1400–1530, coincides with the

growth of confraternities, the development and consolidation of hospitals,
and the expansion of the Venetian empire to the Italian mainland. The
scope of the book, however, was not chosen through a desire to comment
on historiographical themes but to correspond to key events in the history
of the brotherhood: in 1400 new confraternal statutes were written, and
in the early 1530s the hospital’s administration was reformed. Research
for the book is based on the wealth of archival material that has survived
largely intact since the medieval period, an unfortunately rare example of a
confraternity’s records.47 The archival material, particularly the confrater-
nity’s account books, reflects the priorities and aspirations of the confrater-
nity, and I have tried to remain faithful to the language and categories used
in the documents. As a result, this is not a quantitative analysis of wealth
and poverty based on statistical data, nor have I combed the documents in
search of well-known people and events of the Renaissance. Rather, it is a
history of one community’s effort to put its religious beliefs into practice
during ordinary and sometimes extraordinary times. The story enfolds in
six chapters that examine the confraternity’s foundation and endowment,
membership, charitable activities, public health policies, education, and
sixteenth-century reforms.
Chapter 1 discusses the foundation of Santa Maria dei Battuti following
the Flagellant movement of 1260 and the way in which the confraternity’s
processions and civic ritual placed it in the center of Trevisan life. The con-
fraternity’s reputation for good works encouraged donations that enabled it
to develop its hospital complex. By the middle of the fifteenth century, the
hospital had emerged as a minicommune within the city. While expanding
its physical structure and involvement in the community, the confraternity
also protected its interests against the expanding Venetian state. This exami-
nation of the religious nature of civic life also contributes to debates on the
political and economic integration of the Terraferma.
Chapter 2 explores the composition and obligations of confraternal mem-
bership and leadership. Men and women, lay people and clerics joined the
Battuti and performed services for their brothers and sisters, forming an arti-
ficial extended family. Although the Battuti were a mixed-gender confra-
ternity that cut across all class, economic, and parochial lines, a leadership
group of elite laymen emerged. In the confraternity these elites rediscovered
the influence and power that in a narrow political sense had been stripped
from them by Venetian domination of local governmental bodies.
Chapter 3 is the first of three investigating the services that the confrater-
nity performed for the city. Difficult choices had to be made about how to
define “poor”; this chapter explores categories of those deserving charity,
who included the “poor of Christ”—widows, foundlings, and the elderly—
but also struggling artisans, nobles, and pilgrims. This chapter is not a study

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 12 Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy

of poor relief, nor of the spiritual life of the confraternity; rather, it focuses
on the confraternity’s interpretation and articulation of religious values.
Chapter 4 addresses the confraternity’s effort to ease physical suffering
with medical care and the treatment of epidemic diseases. In a century of
hospital consolidations and the establishment of public health commissions,
the Battuti developed a hospital complex that ministered to a variety of ill-
nesses. The confraternity provided medicine, medical practitioners, and
care for patients in the hospital. The Battuti’s efforts had limits, however, for
even the highly organized and well-trained hospital staff could not respond
adequately to the plague. This chapter will explore the confraternity’s early
efforts to treat the plague and will show how recurring epidemics became a
public health issue requiring efforts beyond the charitable objectives of the
brothers. As public health boards with wide-ranging powers developed, the
confraternity left the care of plague victims to communal authorities.
Chapter 5 surveys the confraternity’s dedication to the religious training
and education of its wards and the community at large. The Battuti sought to
benefit Treviso through the support of grammar schools, vocational training,
and university scholarships. In addition, the confraternity sought to inspire the
entire community by hiring theologians and paying for itinerant preachers.
The administration and services that the Battuti developed would be chal-
lenged in the early sixteenth century, when the Venetian empire itself was
threatened with extinction. The sixth chapter examines how crises shook
the foundations of Venetian power and challenged Venice’s centuries-old
modus vivendi with Treviso. During the crisis of the War of Cambrai, military
needs strained the finances of the empire, forcing the Venetian government
in Treviso to scrutinize severely the finances of the confraternity, the largest
creditor of the local Venetian treasury. Rumors of corruption led one of the
most powerful doges in Venetian history, Andrea Gritti, to order an inves-
tigation of the Battuti’s finances at a time when Venetian institutions under-
went similar scrutiny. The loyalty of Treviso saved the Venetian territorial
state, and Venetian supervision protected the integrity of local institutions.
Out of war, famine, and corruption, a new status quo emerged, one that
would last until the fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797.
The final chapter is an epilogue to this story of civic charity and summa-
rizes the role of the confraternity in the Renaissance territorial state, with an
emphasis on its role as a surrogate for direct political sovereignty. During the
course of the Renaissance the confraternity of Treviso performed important
services for the community that were essential to civic prosperity and har-
mony, which were also two of the goals of its Venetian overlord. Concerned
with maintaining stability in its realm, Venice respected the independence of
the confraternity and supported its good works. The unusually rich history
of the confraternity of the Battuti and its hospital reveals the complexity of
the relationships between ruler and ruled in the Renaissance state.

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 Chapter 1

THE CITY OF GOD

The tyrant . . . prohibits congregations and assemblies,

so that men will not form friendships among themselves,
out of fear that they will conspire against them.
—Girolamo Savonarola

Having seen in the growth of the Great Hospital, the creation of a

new city built on religious mercy, which one could call the City of
God, the universal Council of the City of Treviso resolved with
a generous spirit to leave it free; thus having an independent
Government, the hospital enjoyed in civil liberty the
prerogatives equal to its noble purpose.
—Domenico Vettorrazzi

The Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola, preaching in the 1490s, and

the Trevisan chronicler Domenico Vettorrazzi, writing in 1681, recognized
the ennobling character of free association and self-governance. Congre-
gations and assemblies fostered independent action and political control,
which tyrannical governments perceived as a threat to their power. Just
rulers, however, rewarded citizens for their good works by granting them
civic liberty. When the self-governing bodies and organizations of Trev-
iso fell under the control of Venetian rulership, the independent activity
of the communal deliberative bodies, the official expressions of public
power, were stifled. The confraternity of Santa Maria dei Battuti and its
hospital, however, continued to assert their statutory independence and
were left remarkably free to govern themselves. Through the control of
its financial endowment, physical infrastructure, and organization of pro-
cessions, the Battuti acted as a surrogate for local political power in the
city. As Venetian domination restricted political participation and limited
the independence of communal bodies, a default commune, Vettorrazzi’s
city within a city, rose in the form of the confraternity of Santa Maria dei
Battuti and its hospital.

13

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 14 Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy

The Battuti: Foundation and Finance

The Great Devotion of 1260, an offshoot of the Franciscan penitential

preaching begun by Raniero Fasani in Perugia, spread throughout the Ital-
ian peninsula. Preaching penance, social harmony, and brotherhood, the
movement gained a large following. Many flagellant confraternities, includ-
ing the Scuole Grandi of Venice and the Battuti of Treviso, were founded in
its wake.1 The confraternal statutes of 1329 credit Bishop Alberto de’ Ricchi
with the foundation of the Battuti in Treviso. In the midst of political strug-
gles between imperial and papal powers, Bishop Ricchi welcomed the Fla-
gellants into the city as a movement of peace and concord. The popularity
of the Battuti soon swelled its numbers and endowment. By the early 1300s
the confraternity had a membership of two hundred and won official recog-
nition from the commune and ecclesiastical authorities. The confraternity’s
statutes clearly stated that the confraternity was subject to the jurisdiction
and protection of the commune of Treviso.2
The Battuti rose to prominence in Treviso in the midst of many other
confraternities. Like most Italian cities, Treviso hosted a variety of broth-
erhoods. Confraternities supported almost every local parish, assisting
parishioners with their spiritual and physical needs. Devotional associations
formed around certain altars to venerate particular saints. Monasteries and
convents supported other organizations that assisted the devotion of the laity.
The German community in Treviso formed a confraternity in the church of
San Francesco.3 Many of the twenty-six guilds in the city also had a religious
component dedicated to the patronage of a particular saint and altar.4
Amid this competition for donations and membership, the Battuti
emerged as the wealthiest and most populous lay confraternity in Treviso.5
Donations spurred by its charitable work and the reputation of the brothers
helped the confraternity to establish a hospital in the city. The foundation of
the Battuti and their hospital in Treviso was a phenomenon seen in almost
every part of Italy, attesting to the new religious awareness described by
David Herlihy:
The medieval, Christian stress on contemplation, asceticism and penance
seems to have lost ground in the fourteenth century before a new, chari-
table and social emphasis in religious practice. To the hundreds of people
who showered their wealth upon these hospitals rather than upon mon-
asteries or even churches, Christian piety seemed primarily to impose a
pressing responsibility for the socially disadvantaged, and made necessary
an active effort to alleviate at least some of their sufferings.6

Although religious institutions were no longer the primary recipient of

generous donations, ecclesiastical sanctions often encouraged donations to
charitable institutions. Indulgences are perhaps the least studied and most

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 The City of God 15

maligned aspect of medieval Catholicism. Historians quickly place indul-

gences on the long list of “abuses” of the Catholic church that contributed to
popular superstitions, along with the veneration of relics and pilgrimages.7
One of the reasons for the popular misconception and abuse of indulgences
stemmed from an inadequate articulation, or understanding, of the doctrine.
For the average person in the fifteenth century, this doctrine meant that
good works performed or money donated to an approved cause reduced
time in Purgatory. As a result of this popular understanding, indulgences
provided a fundamental support for many charitable activities, including
those of the Battuti.8 The church’s official sanction of an institution or cause,
promulgated in the form of an indulgence, encouraged many to give and
reassured them that they were donating to a deserving charity. Not only did
the confraternity actively and directly solicit ecclesiastical approval; it also
enthusiastically advertised and publicized these official sanctions both in its
own church in Treviso and in Venice.
Over the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the hospital
received twenty indulgences issued by bishops, patriarchs, cardinal legates,
and popes. These documents, which remitted the temporal punishment due
to forgiven sins, spurred donations, especially important during the early
decades of the hospital when the confraternity was establishing itself. The
first indulgence dates to 6 May 1305, when Alessandro Novello, the bishop
of Feltre and Belluno, conceded indulgences to those who participated in
the Battuti’s processions. This indulgence was typical of those that followed:
forty days’ indulgence for those who left goods to the institution or visited
the hospital on certain feast days.9
Indulgences from the fifteenth century resemble the previous proclama-
tions.10 A few, however, address particular concerns, reflecting the increased
jurisdictional exactness of the fifteenth century and the special needs of the
Battuti in ministering to the poor and needy of Treviso. In 1433 a series of
papal proclamations by Pope Eugenius IV, a Venetian, outlined the preroga-
tives and benefits attributed to the Battuti. The hospital gained the privilege
of choosing confessors to minister to the poor and granting absolution to
anyone who served in the hospital. In 1464 Pope Paul II, also a Venetian,
issued a bull supporting the effort of the Battuti to care for foundlings, a sub-
ject to be examined in chapter 3.
To obtain a grant of indulgences was not easy; the Battuti had to lobby
aggressively with the ecclesiastical officials. The Battuti actively solicited
the indulgences because they knew the benefits that the indulgences would
bring in prestige, official sanction, and revenue. For example, in October
1461 the hospital procured an indulgence from Cardinal Bessarion in Ven-
ice. The indulgence granted a reduction of one hundred days in Purgatory
to anyone who visited the chapel of the Battuti and gave alms to the hos-
pital and chapel.11 The Battuti also sent emissaries to Rome or wherever

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 16 Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy

else the papal court might be. In June 1462 the hospital reimbursed the
expenses of Father Dona Biancho, who had traveled to Mantua in 1459
with a supplication requesting that Pope Pius II confirm the indulgences of
the hospital.12
Once the indulgences were secured, the Battuti did everything in their
power to publicize the spiritual benefits that those who acquired them could
gain.13 In April 1465, a year after the latest papal indulgence had been
granted, for example, the Battuti sent the syndic Iacomo da Novello to the
chancellor of the patriarch of Venice to get permission to proclaim the new
privileges.14 Apparently the competition from local Venetian charities and
religious houses necessitated obtaining official permission to solicit funds for
a worthy cause on the mainland.
In Treviso the Battuti created a billboard of ecclesiastical approval in its
own church. In the winter of 1493–94, the Battuti purchased a large parch-
ment on which to inscribe the indulgences of the hospital; it was mounted
on a canvas and placed in the hospital’s church.15 Those who could read the
long list of indulgences granted to the Battuti over the centuries would be
reminded of the worthiness of the confraternity’s works and encouraged to
donate. It is important to emphasize that the Battuti sought the indulgences
directly from the papacy and other ecclesiastical offices, not through an
intermediary in the Venetian government. The confraternity’s pursuit and
publication of indulgences provides one indication of the independence of
the confraternity. At least in regard to papal indulgences, it operated without
consulting Venetian political authorities.
Secular proclamations also affected the flow of donations. A ducal decree
of 1390, for example, was favorable to the confraternities: it prohibited cler-
ics from becoming executors for benefactors. As a result, lay people and
clerics who wished to establish a charitable foundation were forced to leave
their patrimonies to lay associations, with the Battuti becoming the largest
beneficiary of this decree. Another decreee, however, reduced the number
of bequests. In 1403 Doge Michele Steno issued a proclamation forbidding
the ecclesiastical authorities to judge in matters of usury; secular authorities
were now in charge. The recipients of the redemptive bequests of usurers
were mostly religious confraternities and monasteries, and the weakening
of ecclesiastical censure of usury led to a subsequent decline in gifts from
usurers to these organizations.16 The first decree benefited the confrater-
nity more than the latter hurt donations, for the number of usurers who left
money to the hospital was small, albeit important.
The result of the indulgences and the Venetian decree regarding bequests
was a large number of wills in favor of the hospital. The growth in giving to
the hospital does not, however, appear to have been facilitated by any gov-
ernmental decree or requirement asking that notaries recommend the hospi-
tal to a testator. On the contrary, the wide variety in wording of bequests for

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 The City of God 17

the poor, hospitals, and monasteries suggests that no set formula existed.17
Over the centuries more than one thousand wills contained bequests—small
sums of money, pieces of land, or substantial endowments—in favor of the
confraternity.18 The large endowments were administered by trusts called
commissarie, and the Battuti administered more than a dozen trusts providing
a steady income of rents, grain, and wine for the hospital.19 An overview of
one of the bequests will provide an idea of the operation of trusts and the
income generated from them.
Oliviero Forzetta, a third-generation usurer, inherited one of the largest
fortunes in Trevisan territory and became even richer through continuing to
lend money at interest, conducting other sorts of business, and investing in
the Camera del Frumento (Grain Office) in Venice. Married five times, he
had no children when he made his will. After a number of small bequests to
local monasteries, he made the Battuti, of which he had been a member for
years, his universal heir.20 On his death in 1373, the Battuti were to adminis-
ter his bequest for the good of the poor.
Forzetta’s bequest became a cornerstone of the confraternity’s income.
His deposits in the Camera del Frumento were second only to that of Can-
grande II della Scala. Forzetta’s deposit of 37,150 ducats, 17 grossi, 6 pic-
coli returned an annual income of 1,114.5 ducats, which by the early 1500s
came in monthly installments of 575 lire, 17 soldi, 4 piccoli, or almost
7,000 lire annually.21 Therefore, the income from the Forzetta endow-
ment equaled approximately one-third of the confraternity’s monetary
income.22 Although crucial for the operation of the hospital, endowment
payments due from the Camera del Frumento were not always made on
time, especially during times of war. A constant flow of appeals and ducal
letters ordered the payments of arrears, which often were several months
if not a year late.23
The Forzetta and other commissarie secured the confraternity’s power-
ful political and economic position within the community. The Battuti had
a large amount of money under their management, with an independent
administration and financial security, but the confraternity was not exempt
from tax assessments and forced loans. For example, in 1442 the confrater-
nity’s tax burden amounted to 692 lire, 12 soldi, 8 denari.24 In addition to
regular taxation, the subject cities were also assessed special forced loans to
pay for wars and various building projects, such as the irrigation work on the
Brentella canal.25 Since the balance sheet of the hospital was usually strong,
Venetian authorities readily imposed forced loans and sequestered the hos-
pital’s excess grain. For example, in 1419 Venice borrowed 5,000 ducats
from the Battuti.26 Notwithstanding the late payments and forced loans, the
wealth of Santa Maria dei Battuti far surpassed that of the other institutions
in the city and formed the basis for the confraternity’s impressive activities
and hospital complex (see figures 3, 4, and 5).

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 18 Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy

3. Ground plan of hospital (Venetian map, 1791). Courtesy of Foto Archivo

Storico di Treviso.

D'Andrea.indd Sec1:18 1/5/2007 5:41:03 PM

 The City of God 19

4. Nineteenth-century view of hospital clock tower. Courtesy of Foto Archivo

Storico di Treviso.

The Hospital Complex

The location and development of the hospital’s site is tied to the city’s
political history. When the Scaligeri took control of Treviso in 1329, they
decided to build a new fortress in the center of the city, and the Battu-
ti’s old hospital had to be demolished to make way for the construction.
Three years later, on 21 August 1332, the Battuti met to discuss the Scalig-
eri podestà’s proposal for a new hospital complex. The podestà suggested
that the confraternity purchase the vacant lands of the da Coderta family,
which after a failed attempt to betray Treviso to the invading Scaligeri in
1317 had their estate forfeited to the commune of Treviso. The confraterni-
ty’s purchase of the land would both compensate the Battuti and reward a
faithful Scaligeri ally. The Battuti voted 105 to 4 to accept the deal, which
provided space for a new home in an abandoned and infamous location in
the city.27 The Battuti gradually transformed the site into a thriving hospi-
tal complex that took on the structure and appearance of a minicommune.

D'Andrea.indd Sec1:19 1/5/2007 5:41:17 PM

 20 Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy

5. Nineteenth-century view of hospital and wharf. Courtesy of Foto Archivo

Storico di Treviso.

The former da Coderta property, including several buildings, formed a

sort of island on the bank of the Sile, bordered on the north and east by
two public roads and on the west by the Cagnan, a small river. The expense
books document continual renovation of the existing buildings and con-
struction of new ones. Eventually the hospital complex included sick wards
for men and women, a ward for the elderly, a children’s wing, a library, a
nurse’s room, a chancellery, and a prior’s room, along with a kitchen, laun-
dry rooms, cobbler and blacksmith shops, gardens, animal stalls, mills, and
fountains.28 This infrastructure supported a growing number of staff and
inmates. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, 96 people lived in the
hospital complex.29 By 1425 the hospital housed 130 people; thirty years
later 210 people, including the sick and staff, lived in the hospital.30 In 1537,
permanent residents of the hospital numbered about 200, not including the
foundlings and the transient sick and poor.31
On this hospital island, not only rivers and streets but also walls and a
central gate formed a barrier between the residents and the outside world.
Above the entrance gate the confraternity’s bell in the clock tower rang to
summon brothers to meetings of the confraternity and to announce deaths.32
Clock towers were often symbols of a commune’s wealth and importance,
establishing the municipal center as the arbiter of time.33 The clock tower

D'Andrea.indd Sec1:20 1/5/2007 5:41:18 PM

 The City of God 21

above the gates of Treviso’s hospital complex was a powerful statement of

the hospital’s autonomy.
A church within the hospital complex contributed to its appearance as an
independent enclave and demonstrated the hospital’s permanence. An impor-
tant part of the hospital complex and the center of the confraternity’s reli-
gious practice, the Battuti’s church served the needs of the inmates and also, as
we have seen, proudly displayed the confraternity’s indulgences, which pro-
claimed its special status and role in the community. The church’s status was
enhanced in 1425, when Pope Martin V granted the Battuti the right to build
altars, celebrate mass, administer other sacraments, and bury the dead, subject
to parochial regulations.34 Manifesting pride in its church, the confraternity
kept candles burning before the altar dedicated to the Virgin Mary.35
The good works of the confraternity so inspired the dying pilgrim Paolo
da Sassoferrato that he decided to make the Battuti his heir and give his
relic, a piece of the Holy Cross, to the confraternity. In return for a house
and its property in Padua, the Battuti promised to provide food and lodging
for Paolo and his wife.36 On 8 September 1450, a day after Sassoferrato’s
death, the confraternity accompanied the body to its final resting place in
the cemetery in San Pancrazio. The piece of the Cross would serve as a per-
manent reminder of Sassoferrato’s esteem for the confraternity.37 The pres-
tige of the Battuti increased as they became the caretakers of one of the most
venerated relics in Christianity.
As a result of Sassoferrato’s donation, the most venerated, and the most dec-
orated, area of the church became the reliquary above the main altar, where
the relic was housed.38 During 1450 work took place on the tabernacle of
the hospital’s altar where the cross would be kept: marble was imported from
Venice for the altar, a wood door was purchased for the tabernacle, and gold
was supplied to the painter commissioned to decorate the panel.39 To keep the
relic secure in the tabernacle, in June 1451 the confraternity paid for two sets
of iron grates with six locks.40 The confraternity kept a lamp burning before
the altar; whenever the relic was carried in procession, it was protected by
an umbrella decorated with white lilies.41 In 1464 more gold and silver were
purchased to adorn the tabernacle.42 Processions with the relic of the Cross,
the feast of the finding of the Holy Cross, Good Friday, and Corpus Christi
were special events, accompanied by the Venetian bishop and the podestà.
As Nicholas Terpstra has demonstrated for Bologna, confraternities serving as
custodians of such holy objects held great prestige in the community.43 The
Battuti’s possession of this important relic elavated the confraternity to a spe-
cial status and placed it in the center of Trevisan public life (see figure 6).
The growing importance and power of the confraternity was also demon-
strated by its physical expansion and investment in capital projects. In the
middle of the fifteenth century the confraternity sought to improve its minia-
ture commune by undertaking three projects: the purchase of land adjacent

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 22 Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy

6. Bartolomeo Orioli, Procession with the Relic of the Holy Cross (1625). Courtesy
of Casa Editrice Canova, Treviso.

to the hospital, the construction of a mill, and improvement of its wharf. As

we have seen, the river Sile and the smaller river Cagnan provided natural
boundaries for the property, but over the decades the many bequests to and
demands on the services of the hospital necessitated expansion to provide
additional space for conducting its operations. The confraternity also wished
to eliminate an affront to its moral standards and a common nuisance: the
public brothel, located adjacent to the hospital.
In November 1445 the Battuti met to discuss the problem of public
prostitutes living next door to the hospital. In the following February, they
began formal proceedings to buy the site of the brothel and have the prostitutes

D'Andrea.indd Sec1:22 1/5/2007 5:41:19 PM

 The City of God 23

removed. The appeals to Venice were costly but produced no results satisfac-
tory to either party.44 In January 1447 the Battuti and Nascinguerra di Rovero,
the owner of the property, agreed to have the bishop, Ermolao Barbaro, arbi-
trate to end the dispute over the price of the land and buildings by setting the
purchase price.45 Purchase of the brothel was an important acquisition for the
confraternity. In the future this site would become home to a quite different sort
of transient: pilgrims, as opposed to prostitutes’ clients. Treviso was not the only
city in which regulation of the central brothel was an issue. In fifteenth-century
Vicenza, the bishop purchased the building and the land on which it stood and
expelled the prostitutes to the suburbs, to the dismay of the commune.46

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 24 Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy

Land was the cornerstone of the confraternity’s wealth, but the Battuti
did not rely only on the income generated from their numerous possessions.
They also sought ways to maximize their income in order to meet their
growing responsibilities. Through bequests, the Battuti owned a number of
mills, which they rented to millers for a yearly fee.47 They not only used and
rented the inherited mills; they built a mill on a piece of land ideally located
along the Sile. The land, in the zone of Cafancello, was purchased sometime
in the early 1400s as part of the bequest of Donna Amante di Monteverde,
who left her estate to the Battuti in order to secure permanent sources of
income for the poor of the hospital.48 Building on the Sile or diverting water
from it was strictly controlled by Venetian authorities, who realized that
the rivers were the lifeblood of their trading empire; therefore, the Battuti
had to seek authorization from authorities in the dominant city. Beginning
in August 1442, the Battuti began to send letters to Venice informing the
authorities of their intentions and asking permission to build.49 On 15 July
1444 the Battuti received permission to build the mill and divert water from
the Sile to power it for the benefit of the poor of the hospital.50 Construction
began promptly in the summer of 1444 and was finished a year later.51
The central lifeline of the city, the river Sile, supplied the city with water,
powered mills, and provided a navigable route into the Venetian lagoon. Tak-
ing full advantage of its strategic location, the confraternity operated a wharf
for its own use, made available to the merchants of the city for a fee charged
per each item unloaded. The podestà in 1434 set the amounts that porters
could charge for each item unloaded from the barge and forbade them to
work on Sundays and feast days.52 The fees were another steady source of
income for the confraternity. For example, the innkeeper Gian Grande, a pri-
mary importer at the wharf, brought in 8,000 bales of goods between April
1444 and September 1448, paying 347 lire, 18 soldi, 8 denari to the Battuti.53
As with other property, the confraternity made improvements on the
wharf, replacing its wood walkway with a stone bridge. Like the mill, this
project required permission from Venetian officials, who had to approve any
modifications or construction on the waterways so vital to Venetian com-
merce. On 20 April 1444 the podestà granted permission for the confra-
ternity to rebuild its wharf in stone.54 Expense books for the next several
years record the various phases of the building project, including draining
the water, driving pylons, and building the stone foundations and walkway.
Outlay also included a gold ducat to the communal chancellor, Gianandrea
da Orsenigo, who handled all of the paperwork for the project.55

Hospital Administration
Management of a considerable patrimony and a large hospital complex
required considerable administrative effort. Evidence of the administration

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 The City of God 25

may be found in confraternal statutes, decisions, and precedents. The election

of officials, hiring of employees, and independent decision making provided
the brothers of the Battuti with training and experience that was almost iden-
tical to that gained in communal service. As Ronald Weissman has shown,
the same was the case elsewhere: “The confraternities of Florence (similar to
the guilds) provided members with an education in republican civic proce-
dure and culture. In organized structure the typical late medieval Florentine
confraternity was a miniature commune.”56 The election of its own officials,
the administration of bequests, and the keeping of an archive of privileges
and ledgers demonstrates the independent nature of the confraternity. With
an election process immune from political interference and the ability to hire
and fire its own staff, the Battuti administered an institution that rivaled the
communal bureaucracies.
The administration and organization of the confraternity was based on the
confraternal statutes, the oldest extant dating back to 1329. Other redactions
occurred in 1352 and 1400; the latter provided the basis for the confraternity
for several centuries. Deliberations and confraternal decrees were recorded in a
book of rules. The statutes and rule book outlined the structure of the confrater-
nity and its members’ obligations: the governmental structure of the body, the
recording of bequests in permanent volumes, the behavior of the members, the
care of the sick and burial of the dead, and the obligatory processions.57
The most important aspect for our present concern, self-governance, is
the leadership of the confraternity and the election of its officials. An advi-
sory board of Twelve Wise Men, chosen from the most distinguished broth-
ers, set policy for the confraternity and supervised all elections. The syndic,
chief officer of the confraternity, was responsible for the supervision of oper-
ations and the enforcement of confraternal regulations. He was to be at least
twenty-five years old and a citizen of Treviso, either by birth or a ten-year
residence. The syndic served a one-year term that could be renewed pend-
ing review of his service. Two of four gastalds, custodians who supervised
the daily expenses and operation of the confraternity, were elected every
six months for one-year terms. The staggered elections allowed a smooth
transition of power and a period for the new gastalds to learn the system and
processes. Gastalds had to be at least thirty years old and citizens of Treviso,
whether by birth or long residence in the city. Each year the gastalds were
responsible for electing four deacons, who had the responsibility of prepar-
ing for masses, organizing the burial of brothers, and organizing the pro-
cessions. At the end of their terms, officials were subject to syndication: an
accounting of the money they spent. The Wise Men and the four gastalds
formed a committee of sixteen that guided the confraternity.
Early in the fifteenth century, the confraternity added two important non-
elective posts, inspectors of lands and a prior, to assist in the administration.
In 1403 the confraternity authorized the gastalds to elect an external syndic

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 26 Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy

at a salary of 270 lire to oversee the confraternity’s possessions. During the

next four decades, the holdings of the confraternity grew to such an extent
that in 1440 the Battuti decided that two men, with salaries of 200 lire each
for four-year appointments, were needed to manage the properties.58 In the
1460s a prior was hired to care for the poor and make sure that any poor
person who entered the hospital had confessed and lived respectably within
the hospital. The prior was also responsible for taking and depositing with
the syndic any money or belongings the poor person wished to entrust. In
addition, he hired a priest to administer the sacraments to inmates on the
point of death and maintained a list of all the foundlings brought to the hos-
pital and put out to nurse.59 These additional officers, like the syndic and the
gastalds, were appointed without any reference to the commune of Treviso
or its Venetian overlords.
The central administrative organ of the confraternity was the chancellery,
kept secure with a special door lock made in Venice. The chancellery housed
all of the hospital’s legal and administrative records. We can get an idea of the
size of the confraternity’s library from an entry from March 1485, when the
confraternity paid 16 lire for 108 small chains to secure the hospital’s books.60
The men in charge of the chancellery were all notaries hired by the Battuti,
usually for extended periods of time because the complexity of the hospital’s
administration required experience with its accounting system. From 1437 to
the early 1500s, it appears only four men held the position. Francesco Crespig-
naga held the job from July 1437 to 30 September 1467, when his shaky hand
was replaced by the vibrant writing of Matteo da Conegliano, who kept the
books from 1467 to 1486. Fiorvante da Biadene succeeded him to 1497, and
Vendramin da Noale continued the books into the next century.61

The Politics of Processions

The confraternity’s administration mirrored the appearance of the hospital

complex: just as the hospital complex resembled a minicomune, a self-suf-
ficient and self-supporting structure within the city, the administration of the
confraternity was similar to the workings of a commune. As the most “Trev-
isan” structure left in local hands, the hospital of Santa Maria dei Battuti
became a material expression of civic spirit and pride. Civic ritual also pro-
vided a forum for political discourse and display, with the streets of the city as
a stage and processions and relics as the scripts and props. The Battuti came
to play a dominant role in the public cult through control of public ritual and
relics, becoming the chief actor in a drama of Trevisan self-assertion. Although
the Venetian government did everything it could to keep the confraternity
from challenging the Serenissima’s political dominance, in the end, the Battuti
and Venice supported one another in their mutual goals of civic harmony and

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 The City of God 27

religious worship. The integration of Treviso into the Venetian state can be
witnessed in the manipulation of the processions and rituals.
Processions, a central part of confraternal activities, were meant to con-
tribute to the popular religious devotion of the community.62 This public
accessibility and visibility of their religious works inevitably led the Trev-
isans to view the Battuti confraternity as a privileged representative of their
community. The statutes required at least two of the gastalds, the syndic, the
deacons, and the brothers to dress in their capes and process through the
streets of Treviso flagellating themselves, every Sunday and on numerous
feast days. The statutes were very specific about the feasts, notably but not
exclusively those of the Virgin Mary, on which and to which church they
should process. The gastalds were required to honor all of the chapels of the
city and perform any other procession deemed necessary for the honor of
God, the Blessed Virgin, and all the saints. On each feast day that did not
have a designated church or altar in the city, the procession would start from
and return to the hospital in order to strengthen the poor and sick.
The account books of the Battuti record the care with which they fulfilled their
obligations and provide a unique opportunity to view the daily acts of devotion
that they performed for themselves and the entire community. The brothers
took several measures to keep track of the processions. So there would be no
mistakes in or misunderstandings of the procession schedule, in October 1450
the Battuti paid the painter Angelo to design a calendar of the processions.63 In
October 1458 the Battuti paid for another monthly list of processions.64 In 1487,
so that the men knew who was in the brotherhood and when they would be
called to process, the confraternity placed in the hospital a placard listing all the
brothers and specified fines for those who did not process.65
The schedule was a demanding one. In 1467, for example, the brothers
processed 112 times through the streets of the city, making at least one pro-
cession to every church in the community on the feast day of the church’s
namesake or to a chapel in that church. In all, the Battuti visited thirty-six
churches, including their own (see figure 7).66 Ordinary processions included
the brothers and a priest; on special feast days and vigils they were accom-
panied by singers and players of instruments. The presence of the musicians
necessitated certain preparations: on 6 June 1444, the Battuti paid the skin-
ner Iacomo da Bologna 25 lire for skins on which to write the songs the
brothers sang during processions.67 Oxen were used to transport the organ-
ist, musicians, and singers for the Corpus Christi celebrations.68
The statutes allowed special processions as deemed appropriate by the
gastalds, and such occasions frequently presented themselves. The need to
seek relief from drought and disease prompted processions to placate or
thank God, the Virgin Mary, and the saints. In the summer of 1442, for
instance, the Battuti offered prayers and held three processions “in order that
Lord God grant good weather.”69 The main problem was drought: the dry

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 28

D'Andrea.indd Sec1:28
Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy

7. Treviso city center: principal religious and civic spaces. Base image of early seventeenth-cen-
tury map courtesy of Foto Archivo Storico di Treviso.

1/5/2007 5:41:21 PM
 The City of God 29

summers of 1444, 1473, 1478, and 1487 brought the Battuti into the streets
praying for rain.70 Too much rain could also be a concern, as in the summer
of 1459, when the Battuti processed to help stop the ceaseless rains.71
The periodic return of plague, too, evoked a penitential response: pro-
cessions, in which confraternal brothers flagellated themselves, in these
instances as a sign of repentance before God. Preachers often suggested
processions to ward off the plague, as on 9 August 1448, when the Battuti
purchased a large amount of wax for two large candles carried in a pro-
cession inspired by Fra Giovanni da Volterra.72 The 1486 plague statutes
for the lazzaretto (plague hospital) of Treviso stipulated general solemn pro-
cessions on the feast days of San Sebastiano and San Rocco, 20 January
and 16 August respectively. The regulations required the attendance of the
podestà, overseers of the lazzaretto, guilds, clergy, and brotherhoods. Pro-
cessions seeking relief from the plague wound their way from the cathe-
dral to the altar of San Sebastiano in the Servite church of Santa Caterina
and to the altar of San Rocco in the Dominican church of San Nicolò.73
Both the routine processions on feast days and special intercessory ones
for plague and climatic changes brought the Battuti into the center of Trev-
isan life, as the brothers made their way through the streets of the city.
Processions acted as a forum of debate concerning the legitimacy and
power of government and served an important role in the definition and regu-
lation of society. As Richard Trexler has demonstrated, staging public pro-
cessions amounted to staking a claim on both political and sacred space. In
Florence, the developing commune had to compete with the relics and pro-
cessions organized by leading families.74 In Bologna, on the other hand, con-
fraternities gained tremendous prestige for their custodianship of shrines and
organization of religious processions.75 As Edward Muir has demonstrated for
Venice, ritual and processions were important props of the Venetian state and
constituted a discourse on the constitutional order.76 The Venetian govern-
ment lacked a formal written constitution, so centuries of tradition, custom,
legal precedent, and ritual defined and reaffirmed the established political and
social system. Controversy about the reasons for processions, the participation
of certain groups, and the organization of these sacred rituals evoked some-
times violent responses from rival political interests. Ritual and the power of
processions extended beyond Venice to its dominions, and Venice vied for
control or manipulation of subject cities’ civic ritual. The Battuti’s processions
in Treviso had secured them a place in the local custom and tradition of the
city. Since the confraternity had won what Trexler would define as the battle
for prominence in the commune of Treviso, Venetian authorities paid careful
attention to the public religious rituals of the Battuti.
In Treviso we find two examples of how Venice’s regulation of proces-
sions simultaneously confirmed the Battuti as the semi-official representa-
tives of local power and self-expression and confirmed Treviso’s status as a

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 30 Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy

subject city. The first example concerns the Bianchi (Whites) of 1399, a reli-
gious revival and outpouring similar to the Flagellant movement of 1260.77
The Bianchi spread through Italy, but they stalled as they reached Venetian
territories. Successful in Padua, which was not yet under Venetian control,
the movement met with hostility from Venetian officials, who banished the
leader of the movement, Fra Giovanni Dominici, from Venetian territory
for five years. On 7 October the Bianchi stood before the walls of Treviso,
ready to process into the city encouraging penance, peace, and conversion.
The doge would not allow this and sent a letter to the podestà to disperse the
group, which did not have permission to process.78
Not long after the dispersion of the Bianchi, the podestà of Treviso
received another ducal mandate concerning a confraternity. The ducal letter
of 9 November 1412 ordered the suppression of the newly formed confra-
ternity of the Santissima Trinità, whose activities had begun to rival that of
the Battuti. Acknowledging the Battuti’s long history of devotion and pious
works, known not only in Treviso but throughout Italy, the doge stated that
the new confraternity was a disturbing influence in the city. Brothers of San-
tissima Trinità had donned capes and processed on feast days with a cross
and banner, encouraging donors to give to the confraternity. Bequests to
this new confraternity divided the resources of Treviso, and the potential
challenge to the Battuti was unacceptable. As a result, Venetian authorities
ordered the confraternity of Santissima Trinità to be disbanded. Its cross,
banner, and robes were to be turned over to the Battuti; the chest used to
house its articles was to be destroyed; and all the money the confraternity
had raised to purchase a bell was turned over to the Battuti. In the future,
any confraternity that wanted to form and process on feast days or funerals
would have to seek permission from the podestà. The syndic of the Battuti
took possession of thirty-three white robes (which would be dyed black), a
cross, a banner, and the other possessions of the suppressed confraternity.79
The ducal decree highlights the essential features of what constituted a con-
fraternity and the role that the Battuti had in the community. The new confra-
ternity offered a challenge to the Battuti when its members began to process
through the city in white robes with a cross and banner. Entering the public
sphere, Santissima Trinità came under the surveillance of Venice, responsible
for the peace and stability of its subject cities. The raising of funds by Santis-
sima Trinità for its own charitable work and the purchase of a banner, a com-
munal chest, and a bell to gather members threatened the Battuti’s monopoly.
Well aware of the good works performed by the Battuti and probably not wish-
ing to anger the Trevisan elite who controlled the confraternity, the Serenis-
sima would not permit a new, competing entity to disturb the status quo.
The Venetian reaction to the Bianchi and the new confraternity under-
lines the importance Venetian officials gave to processions and ritual, not
only in Venice itself but also in the subject cities, a topic that has received

D'Andrea.indd Sec1:30 1/5/2007 5:41:34 PM

Other documents randomly have
different content
 CHAPTER VIII
Martin left the typographical plant. He thought he was a funny
one. Being fired made him feel a little childish. It might be hurt or
anger, or it might be something more esoteric. He didn’t know. But
his face was colorless and his eyes gleamed unnaturally.
“I guess it isn’t anything to sigh and fret about, ‘dear boy,’” he
said. “It was Roberts, of course; and I can’t buck him. This city’s
even more of a machine than I had thought.” He walked until he was
thirsty, went into a restaurant and had two cups of coffee. Then he
walked some more. He stopped in at another restaurant and tried to
eat. He couldn’t. So he had a third cup of coffee and decided to call
up Roberts. The conversation was pertinent.
“It’s Martin Devaud. Is Mr. Roberts there?”
“Hello, Martin. It’s myself.”
“I’m fired. May I see you this evening?”
“Come at six.”
“Right.” And they hung up.
Martin continued to walk. His throat was dry and he yawned
frequently. As evening approached he grew more and more nervous.
Several times he lost his bearings and with some difficulty he found
Roberts’ street. In the elevator, which was warm and a little close, he
tried to keep himself from shivering.
Roberts was dressed in black trousers and a white shirt, starched,
but open at the collar. He greeted Martin extravagantly, then seeing
his pallor, so unnatural, he brought out whisky and soda.
Martin held up his hand.
“No soda,” he said.
 Roberts’ eloquent features absorbed at once the harshness of
Martin’s despair. He understood. Nevertheless, propriety made him
ask, “Straight? That’s dangerous.”
“Straight, please. And it’s not half so dangerous just now for me
as being sober.”
Roberts shrugged his shoulders.
“You may take the bottle, if you care to, and lie down with it,” he
answered petulantly.
Martin looked him straight in the eyes.
“A drink will suffice,” he said.
Roberts flamed and quieted and the color came again.
Martin smiled a little maliciously as he watched him.
“What a story, or picture!—if you wept in all that brilliance!” he
said calmly.
Roberts poured his own glass to the brim with whisky and drank it
before he answered. His eyes were hot—completely without
modulation.
“Drink yours!” he commanded, pouring another.
Martin took the glass to the window and threw it, whisky and all,
into the street.
“May it kill!” he said, whiter-faced than ever.
“You talked to me once of melodrama,” said Roberts acidly. “I’ve
never seen it so rampant, so unorthodox, so uncontrolled. I’ve had
enough! Tell me—tell me—or by God!——”
“I want to know if you had me fired,” said Martin, simply.
Roberts became placid at once. He waved his slender hands and,
half-closing his eyes, smiled patronizingly.
“Surely you do not—” he began, when Martin cut him off.
 “Surely, hell. I wondered. I thought it was probable.”
Roberts still watched him from under his lids.
“I don’t understand.”
“I said I’m fired.”
“Well?”
“I want to know why.”
Roberts folded his hands. It was almost a gesture of dismissal.
“I talked with your employer, Mr. Jackson,” he said. “The
conversation, I must say, was disappointing. He told me frankly that
your work of late had been lax.” Roberts cleared his throat. “I’ve
been somewhat afraid of that. You can’t burn the candle at both
ends, Martin. The social and the economic won’t mix.”
“Roberts—save your platitudes for a darker night!” Martin was
glaring at him. “So that was really it! You intimated as much at one
time.”
Roberts went over to him, touching the back of Martin’s hand with
indescribable tenderness.
“Are you tired enough now, my friend, to have a drink with the
one man in the world who sees you in your entirety?” he asked.
“Yes. I’ll drink,” said Martin wearily, leaning back in a chair and
closing his eyes. He took the glass from Roberts, holding it loosely,
and drank from it without thinking.
Roberts now put his hand on Martin’s head.
“I have given my time to place you,” he said gently. “You would
not rebuke me for that.”
Martin felt the lassitude of the whisky, of the words; yet some
fundamental stroke of his own blood kept him from acceptance. He
seemed to hear a bold, ancestral cry, and sat straighter.
“You’re modern, Roberts. You have a modern sword.”
 “I’ve never hurt you, Martin. I’ve tried to help.”
“Of course. But your body is too demanding.”
“Meaning?——”
“I won’t fence. I’ve seen an ugly mind—an inexpensive one.”
“Devaud,” said Roberts, in a sharp, clear voice, “you don’t belong
among civilized people. One can’t talk to you decently without your
making an unpleasant issue. You’re a confounded savage and worse,
because you have the instruments of this superficial world, too. And
all of your cruelty—yes, you’re cruel!—and I suppose all of your vices
are tucked under your fine exterior. No wonder Deane is intrigued!
But if she could see you just as I see you now, with that brutish look
in your eyes, then——”
Martin interrupted him.
“Don’t mention her name,” he said, in a low, moody voice.
Roberts moved away from him quickly.
“Martin—did you make this appointment to build, or to destroy?”
“Neither. I just wanted you to know that my understanding
belongs to you.”
“Then it’s the only thing that belongs to me.” Roberts spoke
bitterly. “Martin! For the last time I ask you to forget a cycle that has
brought you only unhappiness.”
Martin got out of his chair.
“You should never try to be clever with me, Roberts. I respect the
frank demands of the body. Petty intrigues disgust me. Your intricate
desires have overruled your intelligence. As an invert I respected
you. As a subverter I find you intolerable.”
Roberts walked toward him, motioning, his head shaking. His
shining black hair fell across his face which had turned from red to a
lurid purple. The white part of his eyes took on the same color. His
appearance was that of some monster in a fable.
 “I’ll—” he said, “I’ll not—I’ll not—” his head bobbed up and down.
“I will never let you——”
“You’re prodding yourself sick,” said Martin in disgust. “You’re
jarring the very devil out of yourself,” he flung at him and left the
room, his shoulders swaying.
Martin went to a liquor store and bought a gallon of wine. In his
room, he sat down on the edge of the bed, kicked off his shoes and
began to drink. Half-drunken, he lay back and soon fell asleep.
He awoke in the late morning. He knew his position. The contact
had been broken. Sick from the evening’s drinking he got out of bed
and looked at his face in the mirror. His cheeks were pale and there
was an unhealthy expression in his eyes. He felt his heart. Its
methodical, heavy beat disturbed him. He poured a glass of wine
and drank it swiftly. The nerves deadened. His apprehension died
and he stood again before the mirror, regarding himself calmly. He
shaved and dressed, took another glass of wine and went out, going
directly to the typographical plant.
His former employer was writing. Martin looked at him vaguely,
hesitating before his desk.
“What is it, young man?” asked Jackson, glancing up with
impatience.
“No one told me why I was fired,” said Martin indistinctly. “Will
there be anything later?”
His condition seemed a little pitiable to Jackson, although, the
employer told himself, such individualities really belonged outside
the mathematical régime of commerce. One had to dispose of them
accordingly.
“There will be nothing later,” he stated firmly. “You were
inefficient. I can see no reason for returning you to this Company.”
“I want to work,” said Martin. “That’s the reason.” His fingers
rubbed the top of the desk and he looked unsteadily at the man
behind it.
 Jackson arose.
“You’re drunk, Devaud,” he said. “It is not a question of
personalities. Good-day.”
Martin gave him a perplexed look. The impeccable tailoring of his
employer’s suit had suddenly become offensive to him. Completely
bewildered by this strange revulsion, Martin turned and walked out
of the room.
“Good-day,” he said, and went down the steps and out into the
street. “Good-day,” he kept repeating into the ears of astonished
passers-by. He stopped, after he had wandered awhile, before a
restaurant; for he smelled the aroma of coffee. Then he shook his
fist at the window.
“That won’t split this illness!” he said, and walked on, mumbling.
In his room he sat down once more on the edge of the bed. His
mind, levitated by wine and discouragement, projected itself. Images
rose before him. Secretive, luxurious women were in his fantasy. He
drank again and went to bed. He slept, awakened, washed his face
and slept once more, reality and the dream becoming as one. Day
and night passed.
The sun rose, slanted, fell over the windowsill and crept up the
bed into Martin’s eyes. He awakened, his heart pounding. He stood
up and finished the last of the wine.
“Internal application only!” he observed. Repeatedly the mirror
drew him. “Poison if taken externally,” he continued amiably; then
seeing the foolish expression on his face, turned away in disgust.
He looked at himself again.
“Emancipation!” he shouted. “To business! To weaving,
undecipherable sex and even my own hot mouth!” In amazement he
looked into the crypt of his eyes. That soft sound of weeping....
“From the ceiling,” he cried. “Not from these French fried lips!” He
went back to bed.
 In a dream he placed his hand on his hard body.
“The unborn,” he whispered, breaking his hand on himself.
“Modest child of onanism.... One daughter who will not ride the
world on her ruby-jeweled bird’s nest!... One lad who will not ride
the world on a bird’s nest!”
He awoke and looked at the ceiling. The room was death. Outside,
snow was falling, flakes padding the window. He stared into the
darkness. To escape without struggle—his body falling—and then,
rest—infinitely deep and sweet.... His imagination stretched steeply
into awareness. Not into chaos or unreality. The wind pressed snow
on the window, through the window and into his arms. He felt the
cold. Holding his hands into the air, he prayed....
“God!”
No bright arm of light; no sound of wings. It was four in the
morning and his terror had grown to a deadening satisfaction. The
rose shadows of steepled city buildings at night rang dimly in his
court, their inner warmth full of promise and engaging noise. He
looked out of the window, and shook his head.
“Too young and stupid, my infantile prince,” he said, and touched
the gooseflesh on his arm, kissing with faint disdain its embarrassed
nubs. “Back to bed again to sleep and jump like a poisoned cat.” And
another day waved her dreaming, blue hands, regretfully——
Martin knew an alternative in that purple morning. A gun—the
shot—the quick flutter of his hand.
“No,” he whispered. “Too demure. Fruitful, but demure.”
Outside, the sun blended into trucks and the yapping noise of
turning wheels. He dressed and went into the street, stopping at the
nearest bar. And strangely, in all his tiredness and fear, arose the
man as he had been—straight from the ocean, with clear eyes that
had watched the sea so often, and with hand half-raised as though
holding the helm of his ship. It was momentary; but the bartender
stood looking at him quietly and with respect.
 “A Guinness’s Stout,” said Martin.
“A nip or a pint, sir?” asked the man.
“A nip and a pint.”
The black liquid hung to Martin’s glass as he raised it to his lips.
The stout ran through his dry throat and into his stomach, washing
away the starved slime. It spanged against his knotted intestines,
loosening their disgusted quiver. It broke the cordy fold of nervous
tissue.
Martin bent over the bar, touched by its rustic intimacy. Out of its
shining, wooden face arose the image of Deane, slim-throated, filling
the mist. She moved closer. Martin mused over the bar and drank,
and drank again. The liquor sank to his nerves and he awoke.
Deane forgotten?... Her bell-like gown drifting over his teeth—
sprung from the fog—outlined in the smoke of his thoughts....
The subway was crowded. Meaty faces lined in pink, pale array
before him. A woman, mother of too many, rubbed a glove over her
nose, worry misting her eyes, a dustpan supporting her neck. Across
from her perched a she-gazelle on meatless haunches, hair and
breasts correctly arranged. The train stopped and Martin went up
the stairs into the cold wind. He entered a building and walked down
the hall to Deane’s apartment.
She opened the door and stood before him, a bright, tremulous
blur. He swayed a little and she caught him by the shoulder, assisting
him into the room. He tried to stand straight, smiling gently through
his brackish eyes.
“It’s all right, Deane, but I can’t stop my mind,” he said. “I can’t
stop it from turning.” He licked the dry scale of his lips. “I can’t do
it.” He closed his eyes tightly to keep in the moisture and talked on
rapidly, glibly.
From the window came the city lights. Deane sat in a chair,
brooding, a frightened look on her face; for Martin’s hysteria grew in
the strength of evening. His motions became more selfish. Every
idea turned upon itself.
“Somewhere,” he said, “there is a worm. A relentless worm
canting my words, embarrassing me—deep, vicious and blinding.”
“What do you want me to do, Martin?” All of Deane’s tolerance—
her understanding and affection were contained in this question; but
he was deafened with pain and apprehension and all the seeds of
disaster which fall, germinate and grow so swiftly in certain
poisonous gardens. He put his hand across his face.
“Let’s get a doctor,” he said. “A magical doctor ... a sorcerer ... a
doctor for a sorcerer.”
Deane nodded her head. And if he could have seen her then, in
the gown he loved and with all the concern in her eyes, it might
have taken him from this evil spell. But he was blind and sick and
walked like a dead man; while in his agony he cried, “No! Nothing!
Get nothing!” Tormented, he went across the room to her, and as he
faltered, Deane caught him in her arms.
 CHAPTER IX
Martin felt the hum of an elevator, fresh air in his face and the
movement of an automobile. He knew that he was talking too much
to an individual he’d never seen before, and suddenly found himself
in a long bright corridor that smelled of medicine. He was helped
into a semi-darkened room and felt a glass between his lips. He
thought of Roberts, swallowed and choked.
“It’s ether,” he said.
“No, it isn’t,” said the nurse, standing by him and trying to get him
into bed. “It will be good for you.”
Martin saw her for the first time. Then he felt himself falling. The
nurse steadied him, and suddenly everything was clear. He felt well,
stimulated. He wanted to talk some more.
“So! Martin finally reaches Hell! Our pathological bundle of yeast
becomes animate in Bedlam!”
“Won’t you get into bed?” asked the nurse. “You will be sleepy in a
minute.”
“All right.” He stood up, swaying. “Martin in Hell. Being tucked in
bed by an angel with wide hips. Coasting to sleep with a bellyful of
ether. A true Nirvana for a true aesthete.” He stopped talking. Again
hysteria struck him. But this time it was soft and languorous and he
held it tightly as it moved in his groin. His breathing was quiet.
The nurse sat beside him in the darkened room. He breathed
slowly now, beginning to jerk and posture. He held his hand in the
air as though emphasizing a dream.
In the early morning he awakened. His hand moved over the side
of the bed, reaching for a bottle of wine. His fingers went back and
forth over the rug. Then he opened his eyes and saw the woman
sitting beside him.
“Are you my nurse?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m your nurse. Won’t you go back to sleep?”
“I hurt,” said Martin. “I hurt all over, but my back is the worst. And
I need a drink.”
“What would you like?”
“Whisky. A big one.”
“I’ll get your medication,” said the girl, and left the room.
Martin looked around him. A hospital—neurotherapy; adjacent to a
madhouse! Weakened your resistance in one and shipped you into
the other! His body ached and his mind still turned. On with the
medication!—and then what? From dipsomania to dope in twelve
treatments. Bring on the bed-straps. Damned efficient nurse, that
one—watching him jump around. Patient. If only his back wouldn’t
hurt so terribly. Must be the kidneys. Need flushing. Why not use a
plunger? Imagine that immaculate nurse astride him, pounding his
gizzard with a plunger!
The nurse returned with two glasses. One was full of orange juice.
The other she held away from her nose.
“More ether?” asked Martin.
“It isn’t.”
“Well, ether or not—down the hatch!” And taking a deep breath he
swallowed.
The nurse steadied him once more and he pressed his head into
her breast, breathing sharply, like a man struck in the throat. He
allowed himself to tremble. His feelings changed from sick horror to
quietude and a faint elation. He let his head drop on the pillow. This
time the paraldehyde brought relief, but no immediate sleep. Words
kept ringing in his mind and he talked on, without cessation. The
nurse listened to him, laughing occasionally. In the morning’s light,
Martin slept.
When he awoke, the nurse was gone. He was alone on a bridge
with madmen. He was afraid. Afraid of what? Afraid of fear. A word
sounded in his mind—phobiaphobia, fear of fear. Nothing tangible to
fight. The deep-seated root of the worm in his imagination. His
feeling of isolation became complete, unbearable. He got out of bed
and walked into the hall. A student nurse looked warily at him as he
approached—unshaven, with bloodshot eyes, his unfastened robe
trailing.
“Where’s the head nurse?” he asked. “Where is she?”
“Here I am.”
Martin turned on her, white faced and trembling.
“For God’s sake, nurse. Is this a hospital? Get me a drink. Get me
something. And don’t leave me alone.”
She helped him into bed and brought the same medication. Sober,
terror-stricken, Martin could not face the shock of the incredible
drug. The nurse held him, and again Martin drank, feeling the same
shudder and movement of the deep-seated tissue. He reached out
and felt the woman’s arms. A sharp, sweet odor in his nose
prolonged his trembling. The nurse wrapped a blanket around him,
leaned over and kissed his damp forehead. Martin rested, watching
her move quietly around the room. Was her kiss a gesture of
sympathy? He met her gentle brown eyes and knew she understood.
The greater part of the next two days and nights he slept, only
awakening to drink the bright, relieving poison. The third day he
remembered Deane—her laugh, the surge of her skirts; and each
thought was a torment.
That evening two psychiatrists came to talk with him. One, his
own doctor, young and solemn; the other, the consulting physician,
mature, shrewd, Olympian. Martin explained his fears, bringing up
the residue of his experiences. During his story he caught fragments
of remarks from the older man. Suggestive words such as
masochism and sadism set fire to his imagination. When they left
him without comment he was more lonely and fearful than before.
In desperation he entered deeper into his mind, finding new horror
with each analysis. By night the momentum had grown to such an
active fear that the nurse did not dare leave the room. Martin
followed her with his eyes.
The special night nurse came on duty, fresh, buxom and cheerful.
Martin drew new hope out of her vitality. As he watched her
straightening his bed he felt resentment at his own weakness. What
was he?—to be fussed over and coddled like an old dog. He watched
the strong shanks of the girl move steadily around the room. A
curious thought entered his mind and he laughed. The nurse turned
and looked at him, fearing new hallucinations.
“No,” said Martin, “I’m not hysterical. Come here and sit on the
bed.”
“I can’t,” said the girl.
“Well, then,” said Martin, “pull that chair closer and sit here.”
She did as he requested, and Martin reached out for her hand. It
was soft and warm. He pressed it tightly, looking into her eyes. The
girl’s cheeks flushed but she did not pull away. Martin looked up at
the ceiling, each fresh thought bringing anger—the keen, strong
happiness of anger. This young animal beside him had given him a
new perspective. He turned again to the nurse and held her hand
more tightly, stroking it, and explaining his movements with his eyes.
He reached out for her waist and smiled to see her pull away. She
was afraid. Not he. What did he have to be afraid of? Phobiaphobia?
How foolish! This complex, that complex——
“Listen, nurse,” he said. “I’m cured.”
“Yes. You seem to be much better.”
“Better nothing!” cried Martin. “I’m well. There isn’t anything
wrong with me. I was drunk.”
 The girl stared at him for a moment, then put her hand on his
shoulder.
“I’ve never believed the things you’ve told me,” she said. “At first,
I thought there was something a little bit—” Her cheeks turned red
and she laughed. “But now, I know you’re just a normal man.”
Martin thought of the woman he loved. Deane! He could go to
Deane now. There was nothing wrong. He thought of his doctors.
Surely they had known. They had left him with that fear—its
implication of neuroses and reference to disgusting complexities.
How many lay that night, fed with bromides and sedatives; crucified
on theories!
In the morning when the psychiatrists returned, Martin raised his
head from the pillow.
“Good morning.”
The young doctor nodded his head briefly, blinked his eyes and
faced the light from the window, his face expressionless.
“Good morning. Did you sleep?” asked the older physician, in a
perfunctory tone.
“Very well indeed,” Martin said. Then sitting up a little straighter,
he added, “Doctor! I don’t want to anticipate a diagnosis, but I’m
not sick. You understand that I merely gave a history of the
fantasies and sublimated desires that are in all our minds, but which
we are rarely dyspeptic enough to publicize.”
The older doctor watched him furtively. Martin saw that he
resembled a spider, and grinning to himself, thought that there were
probably a few cobwebs about him. But in the younger doctor’s eyes
he saw concern and liking, and even the faint touch of friendship.
“What do you mean?” asked the older man at last.
Martin climbed out of bed, put on his robe and stood before the
consulting psychiatrist.
“You understand.”
 “You have been a child,” said the physician sternly.
“You understand,” repeated Martin.
The psychiatrist took firm hold of his shoulders. There were
furious lights about the man—not understanding; merely curiosity
and hatred for something unintelligible. He tightened his grasp on
Martin’s shoulders, shook his head angrily and stormed out of the
room. But the younger doctor, with all the suns between his eyes,
observed in formula Martin’s pulse and all the rest of it, dismissing
his patient with a friendly, sympathetic nod as soon as he could.
When Martin left the hospital it was snowing. The medication had
destroyed his orientation. He leaned against the wall of the building
for a moment, then tried to walk straight while he looked for a taxi.
Inside the cab he wrapped his coat about him and held his ankles
from the cold air. Sick from the drugs and weak from lack of food, he
thought once more of Deane and smiled. He was tired, but he had
won.
When he arrived at the apartment he stopped just inside the door.
There was a woman sitting in a chair. Who was she? Where was
Deane? Was this woman alive? For her face was pale, and her eyes,
too large, too dark, seemed to have lost all comprehension.
“What is wrong?” he asked excitedly. “What is it?”
Deane did not answer but sank down in her chair, covering her
face with hands that trembled.
Martin felt sick. The air in the room suffocated him.
“Deane! It’s Martin!” he cried.
Her hands dropped to her lap.
“I talked with your doctors,” she answered simply. “I talked with
them for two hours. I was ashamed—humiliated.”
“Ashamed of what? Ashamed of me? Why! I’m all right now!”
 “I spoke with your doctors,” Deane repeated, as though in fatal
acceptance. “It was horrible.”
Martin took off his coat. He had on no shirt. He looked past Deane
for a moment, leaning heavily against the wall.
“They have taken my girl.” He spoke bitterly. Then in a louder,
more distracted voice, he repeated—“They have taken my girl.”
He continued to look about him as though in a daze.
“What have they done to you?” he kept asking. “Damn them!
Collaborators with madhouses—sucking my giddy ideas, engendering
the malingerer. They’ve doped you with psychological jargon,
hypnotized you with fine phrases.... Breeders of hypochondriacs! I’m
not afraid of them any longer, I have nothing but contempt for them.
I wanted the clear advice of mature, impersonal intellects, and I
meet with personal vindictiveness.”
“They said you have a persecution complex,” replied Deane. “They
tried to help you.” Her throat was dry and the room was spinning
round.
“‘Persecution complex!’” repeated Martin with a contemptuous
gesture. “It’s contagious. It’s a disease—an indiscriminate application
of words typing an individual, placing him in a box, granting him the
elasticity of brick. They are dealing with humanity—not with bricks.
What do these rigid intellectualists know definitely, after all?
Stumbling about in the most infantile science of the lot. A befuddled
group of astrologers of the mind. The more competent admit they
know little—admit that while they do the best they can, that often
they must strike out blindly, hoping that nature will effect a cure.”
Deane’s eyes did not change; but the delicate lids, with their
heavy lashes, gave a sudden, nervous flicker. What was this
perspiring man talking about? She still felt sick. He didn’t have on a
shirt. If she could only rest. She knew that her mind was bleeding.
Each of Martin’s words opened a new point in her brain.
 “They are dangerous because they are clever,” he went on. “And
some of them are diabolical. Theirs is a subtle lechery. They love this
parade of erotics. Orgasms by proxy! Intelligent, perverted and
ruthless!”
Deane now looked steadily at him. The ice locking her mind
moved restlessly.
“They do good, Martin. Not everyone plays with love and pain the
way you do.”
“Let me rest, Deane. I want to rest.” He leaned for a moment
against the divan and then got up. “You’re the only one I care
about,” he said wearily. “Can these ponderous technicians, with their
burden of world-pain give you happiness? Can you let their hard
lines of conduct, which apply to the diseased, disturb our concept of
life? Top-heavy and non-elastic—surely they cannot appeal to your
ideas!”
Deane knew that he was splendid in his agony. She wanted to kiss
his cheeks. She wanted to forget his tiredness, his indictment of
psychiatry. She felt that his imaginings were unfair; untrue; those of
a sick man. She knew that he had talked bravely and fought
desperately for her. She felt all these things. But she stood up and
turned away.
Martin knew. He put on his coat and smiled at her. He wanted to
tell her that he loved her. Instead, he left the apartment.
 CHAPTER X
Rio went down to the Seaman’s Institute for breakfast. He had
come to a conclusion about Martin. He felt that it was useless to look
for him. And Rio needed the sea. It would be easy to get a ship.
The Mediterranean?—Algiers on a hot night, a skiff rubbing its
brown keel on a plaque of sand. Turpentine.... South America?—
Through the deep night wind one single light on Tierra del Fuego, an
invalid blonde on the cruise ship, port of Rio.... Intercoastal?—The
French “Babee” Quarter in Cristobal, water changing under the heat.
Rio scuffed his shoes on the concrete floor and looked up moodily.
Then he saw him. Martin was sitting alone at one of the small tables.
Rio pushed back his chair and walked over to him.
“Well,” he said, looking at Martin’s white face. “Well.”
“Hello, Rio.” Martin raised his cup, but the coffee spilled before it
reached his lips, and without drinking, he replaced the cup on the
table.
“You’re a fine guy,” Rio was frowning.
“Yes.”
“Try again.”
“No.”
Rio took his arm and they went into the street. In Rio’s hotel,
Martin lay down on the bed. The other sat beside him.
“You ain’t quite so funny now,” said Rio.
Martin nodded.
“Where you been?”
Martin raised himself on his elbow.
 “I’ve been playing bats with a visitor from Saturn. You know it has
many moons. The visitor told me all about them.”
“Yeah,” said Rio dryly. “You only got one. But it ought to be
kicked.”
“It has been,” said Martin.
“You son-of-a-bitch.”
Martin couldn’t manage sympathy and started to cry. He didn’t
make any noise and there were no tears. There was just a choking,
helpless movement as he looked steadily at his friend.
Rio got up, lit a cigarette, then sat down once more on the bed
and put the cigarette between Martin’s lips.
“I know all about it, buddy,” he said. “Once in Dairen I piled off a
ship....” He looked away as dreamily as a big ape.
Martin laughed inside to see this fellow trying to be tender, but he
listened to the story and it made him feel better. Finally he sat up.
“One night in the tropics, Rio, you told me I wasn’t a sailor. I knew
you were right, so when we came into New York I got off. I went on
Relief and met a man named Roberts at the Employment Station. He
was intelligent and interesting, but he was like this—” Martin held
out his arms.
Rio nodded.
“However, that didn’t make any difference,” Martin continued, lying
down again. “And later, he got me a job.”
“Now ain’t that pretty,” said Rio.
“He got me a job,” Martin went on, “and asked me up to his place.
Anyway, to make this a good yarn, along came the girl. I liked her.
Roberts’ vanity was hurt. Perhaps he even liked me. But I thought I
loved the girl.”
“You do.”
“All right, then. I do.”
 “So?”
“So Roberts had me fired.”
“So?”
“I got drunk and the girl told me I was through.”
“You weak punk,” said Rio.
Martin hit him in the face. It was a glancing blow off Rio’s nose
and there wasn’t any drive behind it. He tried to get in another one,
but Rio shoved him back on the bed and held his shoulders down.
Martin saw that the big sailor was grinning.
“It’s all right, buddy,” said Rio. “How about some food?”
Martin looked at his friend’s nose. There was a trickle of blood
coming from it.
“All right,” he said, still watching the blood which was dripping
over Rio’s lip.
“Here’s a couple of nickels,” said Rio, laying a bill on the bed. “Get
some sleep and some food.”
Martin sat up again.
“Where are you going?”
“Down to the docks.”
“What ship?”
“The Steeldeer.”
“Where’s she going?”
“Around the Loop.”
“Any chance to make her?”
“The crew’s signed on.”
“I’m sorry to see you go.” Martin couldn’t stop the hurt in his
voice.
 “I ain’t goin’,” said Rio, not looking at him. He left the room
without further explanation and Martin went to sleep.

It was Saturday afternoon and the office force at the Employment

Station had gone home. Roberts alone remained. He was writing
when he heard someone come in. He did not look up.
“My name’s Rio.”
The adviser threw down his pencil.
“I remember you,” he said, regarding the man in front of him with
intense annoyance, “I might add—unfortunately. I have no desire to
see you. I have not seen your friend.”
“But Mr. Roberts. I got some news. I seen him. I seen Martin, the
cripple.” The big sailor laughed. “He was thin, at that.”
Roberts went around the desk and faced Rio.
“Get out,” he said.
“But Mr. Roberts!” Rio was still smiling. “I like you.” He rubbed his
face gently against Roberts’, who moved back in astonishment and
disgust.
“I said, get out!” The adviser spoke between his teeth.
“But I like you, Mister.” Rio put one hand back of Roberts’ neck
and the other across his cheekbones. The adviser tried to move but
the pressure stopped him. He stood quietly, his eyes looking
frantically back and forth, the color in his cheeks flickering. Rio
squeezed harder. Above the hand on his face Roberts could see his
torturer dimly. The pain changed to lassitude and Roberts wasn’t
afraid anymore. He remembered that he had dropped his Derby on
the street a night or two ago. He had intended to send it to the
cleaner’s, but had forgotten it. He could not condone such
negligence. Then he went to sleep.
 Rio looked at the man he was holding. Roberts reminded him of
an old sailing vessel on which he’d once made a trip. She’d struck a
reef off Cocos Island. Rio had watched the ship from the beach. Her
stern was up and her sails dead. A red anchor light flickered like this
man’s eyes before she sank in shoal water.
He carried Roberts to a chair behind the desk. Then he left the
Employment Station, went to a phone booth and looked up Deane
Idara’s address.

At the Employment Station Roberts heard someone in the hall. He

tried to open his eyes, although it didn’t make any difference. It was
probably that fellow returning to make sure that he had killed him....
Again came the strange fancies. It seemed to Roberts that he was
chasing his Derby which was now being driven violently down the
dusty street by the wind. Thump—thump—thump it went along the
sidewalk, and at each corner, when he thought he had caught up
with it, the wind would rise, and he would have to dash after the
hat, trying desperately to retrieve it before the wind got hold of it
again. “The cleaner can never make it right now,” he kept thinking
dismally. “The dirt will be ground into it.” And once more, the hat
made funny, hollow-sounding noises as it turned over and over on
the pavement. Suddenly the Derby changed shape—growing
enormous, building out misshapen shoulders, becoming a terrifying
bulk which turned on him. Stricken with horror, Roberts fled before
the onslaught of the monster. Thump—thump—thump— A janitor
walked into the room.
“Mr. Roberts!” he cried. “Mr. Roberts!” He ran to the telephone and
tried to dial the operator, but his hands were shaking too much.
The adviser knew how he looked. He knew that his mouth was
open. Perspiration was pouring from his face and hands. He fought
off the darkness. He got his mouth closed. With consciousness came
pain—a sharpness at the base of his neck that made him sick.
 “Leave the phone,” he commanded sternly.
The janitor hesitated.
“Leave the phone,” Roberts repeated. He could move his arms
now and was able to sit straighter in his chair.
The janitor picked up his broom, looked at the adviser again and
started sweeping. Roberts was writing when the janitor left.

Rio got out of the elevator and was approaching Deane’s

apartment when an elegantly dressed young man stepped from her
door, closing it behind him. The sailor’s anger rose at the thought
that this woman should betray his friend, as so it seemed. And when
the two men neared each other in the hall they both hesitated as if
by mutual agreement—Rio, still in his murderous rage, Drew in
curiosity. They were barely moving as they started to pass each
other. Rio scowled, then stopped a moment to stare at the other,
who merely lifted his eyebrows and looked at the small bouquet in
his own lapel, smiling as if he had a notion. Rio’s face became red.
Thoroughly embarrassed at his mistake, he could not help but smile
back. His healthy, undisciplined grin allayed any possible
apprehension on the part of Drew who continued down the hall.
Rio found Deane alone. He thought he had never seen a woman
so foreign to him—so sweetly unattainable that for one slow instant
his deep native blood rebelled, reached out in mind, then caught
itself. He held his cap when he sat down.
“I won’t be long, Mrs. Idara,” he said. “My name’s Rio.”
“Martin has mentioned you, Rio,” answered Deane. “I thought it
was you.”
The big sailor glared at her.
“I just left Martin. He’s sick.”
“I know.” Deane looked away.
 “I’d help him, Mrs. Idara. But he don’t need me.”
“He doesn’t need anyone but himself, Rio.”
“He needs a good woman,” answered Rio coldly.
Deane looked straight at him.
“That is—a stupid one?” she asked.
For a moment Rio stared at her helplessly.
“You’re right,” he said at last. “I can’t talk. But Mrs. Idara, Martin
ain’t the first to break his neck over a woman—only mine died, and
her skin wasn’t your color.”
“I’m sorry, Rio. I’m sorry it had to happen to you.” Deane made a
little gesture of sympathy.
Rio thrust his head forward.
“That’d work better on a live man,” he said bluntly.
“Is Martin alive?” Deane spoke as if to herself.
“He’s crazy,” answered Rio, “but he ain’t dead. And he never lost
all his bearings till he met you. He even handled Roberts.”
Deane was astonished.
“You know Mr. Roberts?”
Rio twirled his cap in his hand.
“Yes, ma’am. He’s a friend of mine.”
“You’re a friend of both Martin and Roberts?” Deane asked
incredulously.
“I can get along with anybody.” Rio looked at her and some of his
hatred appeared in his eyes.
“You love Martin very much, don’t you, Rio?”
“Maybe. He said so one night. The way you and him throw that
word around, though, it means anything.”
 “I intended it to be a good word, Rio—a brave word.”
Rio grinned. Deane thought it was the strongest, most vicious
expression she had ever seen. She wasn’t afraid, but such clear
hatred made her hesitate.
“Rio,” she said finally, “I love Martin. But I won’t let him escape
the world. It isn’t fear that makes him try it, but he has a quality of
evasiveness that clears him from all reality. It has been convenient
for him at times, but some day it will destroy him. I love him too
much to let this happen.” Deane was tired. She felt older. She didn’t
even know that her eyes were full of tears.
Rio stopped smiling and stared at the floor. Suddenly he got up
and went over to her.
“I made a mistake,” he said.
He put on his cap and Deane walked to the door with him.
“Rio,” she touched his arm, “tell Martin I need to see him. Will
you?”
“I’ll tell him, Mrs. Idara.” Deane’s hand against his arm upset him.
He wanted to kiss her. That moment he hated Martin. “I’ll tell him,”
he repeated, and walked down the hall, looking surprised.

Martin was sleeping when Rio returned. He awakened and saw the
big sailor looking down at him.
“What’s the news?” he asked.
“I seen Mrs. Idara. She wants to talk to you.”
“You saw Deane?” Martin sat up.
“She wants to talk to you,” Rio repeated.
“You’re high-handed.” Martin shook his head. “What about the
Steeldeer, now that you’ve seen me over the bumps?”
 “You ain’t over the bumps, and I don’t want the Steeldeer. There’s
a boomer in next week, and no goo-goos in the messroom. I’ll see
then.”
Martin tried to hide his embarrassment.
“Unaccustomed as I am—” he began.
“Stow it,” interrupted Rio, jamming his cap on his head. “You got a
job. I’ll see you later.”
“That’s right,” said Martin. He got out of bed and put on his coat.
Then he stood looking solemnly at his friend. “I’ll probably be back
next week—or sooner——”
“You better go.”
Martin kept looking at him. Then, without speaking further, he
turned suddenly, went to the door and walked out.
When Rio could no longer hear his footsteps he sat down on the
bed and lit a cigarette, but put it out immediately and carefully laid it
on the washstand. For awhile he paced back and forth in his room.
Then he went down to the desk and called out to the woman behind
it.
“Where’s the Brat, Rosie?” he asked.

Rio left the Brat and went to the waterfront. The salt air, the
breeze and the innocuous drainage of people took away some of his
disgust. The Comber, bound for Buenos Aires, was tied up at Pier V
9. A watchman stopped Rio at the gate.
“Hold off,” he said roughly. “What’s it from you?”
“Flowers for the shore gang,” said Rio, in a high voice.
The watchman laughed.
“Oh. It’s you, eh?” He passed his hand over the gray stubble on
his chin. “I figured you’d be headin’ south about this time.”
 “Who’s the mate, Watch?” asked Rio, who was now grinning.
“The same baby they had last trip,” answered the watchman,
spitting abeam of the wind.
“Thanks, Cap,” said Rio. He went through the warehouse to the
pier and started up the gangplank. A mess-boy, flour covering his
shoulders, cried “Gangway!” Rio twisted past him, indifferently
brushing his sleeve where the boy had bumped into him. At the top
of the plank Rio called to the quartermaster. “Where’s the mate?”
“Up at No. 2.”
Rio started forward, then turned and went aft to the last house
’midships. He opened the door of the sailors’ messroom and walked
in. A few men were sitting around the table which was covered with
dirty oilcloth. They were drinking coffee. One of them got up.
“Hello, Rio. I ain’t seen you since you broke your wrist over the
Old Man’s head in the Channel.” The sailor laughed. “From bridge to
brig in one trip.” He rubbed his head with tattooed fingers while the
crimson lady, dotted on his heavy forearm, danced. The printed line,
rotterdam gertie, under the figure, stretched as wide as the lady’s
hips.
“It wasn’t a bad trip, Joe,” answered Rio. “The brig’s better’n the
chainlocker.” He looked suddenly interested. “How’d the Old Man
make out?”
“I dunno. The last I seen him was when we tied up at Rotterdam.
They was packin’ him off down the Lekhaven.”
“Down the Lekhaven, eh?” Rio looked grim. “His bones’d set of
themselves on the Schiedamsche Dyk.”
Joe waved the remark aside.
“What happened to you, Rio?”
“They broke me, and let it go at that.”
“No more brass on your shoulders then.”
 “I’d rather polish it than wear it.”
“Are you goin’ to ship on this?”
“Don’t know. Who’s the bos’n?”
“I am. Seventy-five dollars, my own boy and radio.”
“Company man, Joe?”
“Yeah. I never pass up this chicory.” The bos’n poured more
coffee. “Have some,” he said.
Rio looked around the messroom. He saw the college boys staring
at him, the flies on the wall and a cockroach settled under the
percolator.
“Take it, Joe,” he said. “And my compliments to B.A.”
The bos’n followed him out of the messroom and walked beside
him on the pier.
“They’re all the same, Rio,” he said, a little sadly. “The ships, the
turnips and the crew. By God!—I won’t rot on shore, though.”
“I won’t neither,” said Rio. “I’ll go back sometime.”
They were passing a waterfront cafe. Its sign read: beer parlour.
Joe pulled Rio inside and they sat down at a table.
“We shipped together for a long time,” said the bos’n. “There’s
somethin’ eatin’ you. Drink up and get it off your chest.”
Rio raised his glass and set it down empty. Joe followed and
waved his red hand at the waitress.
“A head on two,” he said.
Rio watched the girl pour the beer.
“I don’t figure it myself, Joe.”
“Drink up. Drink up and get it off your chest.”
“Well, my shipmate, last trip, was a queer one. I don’t mean there
was funny business. I never knew nobody like him. He wasn’t no
sailor, and sometimes I thought he was a little off. I never felt like
that before, and it was all jam. He didn’t know how to take care of
himself; so when he piled off in New York I knew he was in for it. I
followed him and he was all over the town. He met a fag who got
him a job. Then he met a girl and fell in love with her. The fag had
him fired, and he went off the deep end. He got drunk and the girl
threw him over. I found him at the Doghouse. I got hold of the fag
and fixed him up a little and went to the girl’s place. And then—” Rio
stopped and looked at the beer.
“Get it off your chest,” said Joe, and the tattooed ring on his
forefinger turned an evil blue in the dim light.
Rio took a deep draught before he spoke.
“You know I ain’t cared for a woman since——”
“I know.” Joe nodded.
“She’s a swell girl,” said Rio, leaning heavily on the table.
“Who?” Joe looked bewildered.
“Martin’s girl. She’s too good for him. I’d hate to see her hurt.”
Joe thought a moment.
“What about you?” he asked.
“None of that,” said Rio shortly.
Joe shoved his glass aside.
“Is that all of it?”
“No.” Rio looked glum. “This Roberts—he’s the fag—don’t like the
set-up. I think Martin and the girl’d make it but for him.” Rio glanced
up at Joe earnestly. “I got him bluffed, though, and as long as I
hang around, he won’t bother no one.”
Joe made a disgusted sound.
“You can’t wet nurse ’em the rest of your life.”
 “No, but I could make a short trip and look Roberts up
afterwards.”
Joe shook his head.
“And get thrown in jail? Listen!” Joe leaned closer to his friend.
“Why don’t you ship out, Rio? There ain’t no use—” But something
about Rio’s appearance made him stop. “All right,” Joe left the table.
“If you change your mind, I’ll be in No. 5.”
“Good enough,” said Rio, not looking up.
Joe walked back slowly to his ship and Rio drank coffee. When he
left the restaurant he went straight down the waterfront to the
South American Line. A small ship was sailing for Santa de Marina
that evening, for bananas. Rio saw the first officer.
“I want to get out, Mister.”
“We don’t like pierhead jumps on the Nancy II” said the blunt little
officer. Then he looked Rio over. “Have you seen the delegate? Is
your gear handy?”
“Yeah.”
“Bring it aboard. See the bos’n—Good Jesus, lad!” the mate yelled
to an ordinary seaman who was scrubbing the whitework. “Soo-gee
that bulkhead! Don’t kiss it!”
Rio was forward when they cast off the lines. After the ship was
made ready for sea he sat down on a bitt and watched the higher
lights of Manhattan fade in the twilight.
 CHAPTER XI
Martin left Rio’s hotel and walked slowly along Fourteenth Street.
His mind was blended with the darkness about him, for the street
seemed to rest after the petty trading and rush of the day. He
passed the cheap little shops and solitary stragglers, unconsciously
accepting them in their place; nor did he turn his head to glance at
the thin blue lights of a tiny cinema across the way. But a girl, in
passing, brushed his shoulder lightly and asked him for a cigarette.
He stopped, felt in his pockets and pulled out a package which he
offered her.
“Mentholated, ain’t they?” she said, pleased at her good luck.
“Gee, I like mentholated.” She took one of the cigarettes and handed
back the package.
Martin looked at her and saw the rakish, ill-fitting dress, the tired
expression in her eyes and the affected smile.
“Won’t you keep them?” he asked.
“Thanks, Mister. That’s swell,” she said, stuffing them in her bag.
“But d’you have any?” Here she hesitated. “You better have one,”
she said at last, carefully selecting a cigarette and handing it to him.
He accepted it and put it in his trousers pocket.
“Not there,” she cautioned. “You’ll smash it. Put it there.” She
pointed to the pocket of his coat.
Unthinkingly, he obeyed her.
“Say,” she said, peering at him. “You look hungry.”
“I’m not hungry,” Martin smiled at her. “But now, I have to hurry.”
He smiled at her again, then walked on rapidly.
The girl kept at his side, looking at him, her mouth slightly open.
 “You’re a nice man,” she said finally.
Martin stopped and looked directly at her.
“If you knew what I am, you’d run like a frightened cat. You’d run
anywhere, and afterwards thank God for it.” Then, seeing her eyes
widen and her fingers clutch her bag, he continued more gently, “For
you are a little cat, aren’t you, Cat?” and he hastened on with long
strides.
The girl stared after him, then turned, and with her head hanging
down, walked slowly the other way.
As Martin approached Seventh Avenue he noticed a bright-eyed
old woman on the corner. On the pavement in front of her was a
basket of French marigolds. Martin hesitated and stared at the
flowers for a second, then at the old woman.
“What do they mean?” he asked. “They look like wax.”
“Oh, sir, they ain’t. I grew ’em myself.” The old woman watched
him, her hands in her apron.
“Give me a bunch of the prettiest!” Martin pointed. “There!—in the
center. They are for someone I love.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll give ye the bunch that’s prettiest.” She chose the
freshest ones and carefully wrapped the stems in a piece of damp
brown paper.
“Thanks, old lady,” said Martin, dropping a coin in her hand. “And
I’ll give you a wish.” For a moment she smiled, Martin thought rather
shyly, regarding him with a strange, toothless understanding. He
held the marigolds before him, sniffing occasionally as he hurried on.

When Deane saw him she wanted to cry; and taking the flowers,
she fingered the little bouquet lovingly before laying it aside for a
moment.
Martin sat down heavily on the divan.
 “My God, I’m tired,” he said. “Tired and hungry. Why, I’m just as
tired as when I left here. That seems like a long time ago.”
“Don’t let’s talk about it,” said Deane, sitting down beside him.
Martin could feel each pulse beating from her wrist in time with his
own blood. He put his head against her arm, letting the faint sound
ring into his temples. He rested against her naturally, faithfully, as
though returning from a voyage of centuries or death.
Deane added to this dream-like state, this swift advance of years
to year. She felt the soft wash of logic crumbling within her, loved
him without exception, and remained quiescent. She heard Martin’s
breathing, felt an awakening, a weary happiness. A clear stream of
words, unintelligible, fell through her hair....
Martin sat up.
“Did you sleep, too?” he asked.
“No,” answered Deane, smiling. “But I was very happy. You slept
like a baby. Don’t you ever talk in your dreams?”
“I did have a dream,” declared Martin, now thoroughly awake. “I
dreamt that I met you at the point where the world meets itself. We
decided instantly that we loved each other and——”
“What a lie!” interrupted Deane, laughing.
“I swear it!” said Martin, elaborately crossing his heart. “And I
dreamt also that I was very hungry. Wasn’t that strange?”
“Yes. A coincidence,” said Deane, kissing him on the lips and
starting to rise.
Martin caught the back of her hair and strained her to him.
“Deane!” he cried. But she pushed against his shoulders until he
let her go.
“I’m going to cook some bacon and eggs, Martin,” she said,
panting. “Don’t act that way now. You said you were hungry.”
 “For you,” Martin argued, stretching out his body and holding out
his arms.
Deane shook her head and went into the kitchen where she could
hear Martin laughing.
“He is really a terrible person,” she said to herself. But her lips
trembled, and as she brushed the damp hair off her forehead the
implication in her dark eyes was delightful.
When she brought in the feast Martin jumped up to help her with
the tray. He could scarcely wait to taste the coffee.
“It’s perfect,” he said. “And how did you fix the eggs?”
“I beat them up with a little milk before putting them in the pan.”
“They’re wonderful,” he repeated. “Let’s make it a real feast. What
do you say we wait up until dawn. There will be many colors and
shapes in the clouds from this window.” He pointed to where the late
moon, a dull, inverted sickle, was shining in the east. “I can put my
hand outside the window and almost touch Europe, Deane,” he said.
“I don’t want Europe,” Deane said huskily. Her face seemed a little
drawn as she watched him, her eyes half closing and unclosing.
Martin, noting the expression on her face, felt a kind of loving in
his heart which he had never known before.
“Sweet little maniac,” he said gently, and petted and caressed her.
The sedative movement of his hands, which he worked most
carefully, so as not to excite the blood or open the tiny nerves about
her spine soon quieted Deane and she lay in his arms. “I’m going to
tell you some stories,” he said, rubbing his cool cheek against hers.
“And later, we’ll watch the dawn come up over Europe.”
It was midnight. The last light had been extinguished in the giant
buildings and only the raw sky and the face of the radio brought
shadow into the room. Deane rested on the divan, her eyes on
Martin who sat crosslegged on the floor in front of her. Suddenly, he
leaned forward.
 “This is a magical room, Deane, and this is a magical night. In
older times, in an ancient time, there was a beautiful Princess—the
loveliest in all the world. Arrogant Princes with long gleaming swords
and many dragons to their credit wooed her. But she was
unresponsive.
“Her father, the King, said, ‘She is sick.’
“Her mother, the Queen, said, ‘We shall see.’
“And so, one night, when the moon burned like a silver flame over
the Kingdom, they stood at the wall of her room and peered through
the chinks at their daughter. The Princess, a look of ecstasy upon
her face, was in a chair, resting. In front of her was a little, old man
—perched like a bird before her....
“‘What does she see in the little man?’ whispered the King.
“‘What does she see?’ demanded the Queen. Affection? A
reflection of herself? Or some quality in the creature?’”
Martin stopped. Deane’s hands braided and became sexed again.
Once more, Martin leaned forward.
“Would you like to hear the sequel?... It happened in Paris, Deane.
There was a gargoyle struck on the cornice of a gigantic cathedral.
His stone eyes had been forced shut by the ages and his only tears
were rain. His thick shoulders were bent by the centuries, and moss
covered his throat.
“A beautiful woman, desired by all men, surfeited by leisure and
adoration, saw this figure. And so, in secret, she took lodging across
from the cathedral that she might watch the shadows move in the
gargoyle’s face by moonlight, by lightning-flash and in sun. Day by
day she contemplated his patient, agonized expression; and day by
day she became more contemptuous of the gracefulness and vanity
of her suitors.
“One night, moonlit and vagaried with cloud, she was gazing at
the asymmetrical face. Suddenly the head seemed to move. The
woman’s heart beat quickly and she grasped the sides of her chair.
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