The capture by the Venetians and Franks of Tyre, mother of Carthage, "the mart of nations made very glorious in the heart of the seas," is one of the epics of history. The besiegers attacked with desperate courage. The flower of Saracen chivalry garrisoned the city. The warriors of Damascus and fleets from Egypt fought in vain to raise the siege. In the alternations of the struggle murmurs were heard among the Franks of impending desertion by the Venetian fleet. The Doge, when the report came to his ears, had a plank knocked out of the side of each ship and borne before him to the Frankish camp. With grave words he rebuked the slanderers and offered to leave those material pledges of Venetian loyalty. Towards the end of the siege money failed: the Doge cut coins of leather, promising to exchange them for good ducats when the fleet returned to Venice. After five months' resistance, famine wore down the courage of the Saracens. Honourable terms of surrender were granted and the banners of the King of Jerusalem and the standard of St Mark floated over the captured city. Venice had planted her foot in Syria. The fleet turned westward, but its work was not yet done. Johannes had expelled the Venetian traders from the ports of the Empire, and the Greeks were to be taught another lesson. The course of the avengers through the eastern seas was marked by the ravaged cities of the Greek islands spoiled of their wealth and bewailing their captive sons and daughters. The Doge paused in his work to recover the Dalmatian fiefs from the King of Hungary, and cities reduced to heaps of smouldering ruins bore witness to the power of Venice to vindicate her sovereignty. Reinforced from Dalmatia the victorious fleet turned again on the Greeks, who hastened to make peace and agreed to the Doge's terms. Great was the rejoicing in Venice when the triumphant Doge returned bringing the bodies of St Isidore from Chios and of S. Donato from Cephalonia, and such spoil of Eastern magnificence as had never yet been seen there since she rose from the sea. But before we follow him to his retreat and death in the Monastery of S. Giorgio Maggiore, where to this day may be seen a partially obliterated epitaph to the "Terror of the Greeks and the Glory of Venice," we may record one domestic innovation worthy of grateful remembrance. Few things are more charming to the wayfarer in Venice than the little shrines of the Virgin and Child decked with flowers and lighted by night with an oil lamp in the nooks and corners of the city. Though no longer needed for their original purpose of illuminating the ways, they are still tended by the piety of the people. It was to Michieli that this provision was due. To aid the watchmen in ridding the dark and tortuous lanes of the thieves that infested them, and to light the city, the clergy were ordered to provide for the public safety by erecting and maintaining the shrines, and were empowered to levy a rate to meet the cost.