It is worth noting that in the fourteenth century the Doge’s vessel was no longer called the principal barge, but the Bucentaur, the name being probably, as some say, derived from ‘Buzeus aureus,’ and so called in some documents. It was a rich vessel, adorned with carvings, stuffs, carpets, and paintings. Up to 1311 it was not rowed, but was towed by another boat, which was draped and rowed by men of Murano; but after that year it had its own rowers.
It is easy to understand that such a festival as Martin da Canal describes might be the ruin of more than one great house, and it cost even the State enormous sums, which is one reason why it was not always celebrated with equal magnificence. In 1350, when the plague had greatly reduced the budget, it was decided to substitute painted wooden statues for the twelve young girls, but the public strongly opposed this innovation. The recollection of these wooden dolls has never been wholly effaced; it is still common in Venice to call a woman who is thin, cold, stupid, and pretentious, ‘a wooden Mary.’
The feast was given up at the end of the fourteenth century, at the time of the final struggle with Genoa. The treasury was empty, and excessive anxiety kept the public spirits in a state of nervous tension; moreover, the age of the ideal Venetian woman was past, and she no longer inspired profound and chivalrous devotion as in the old days when she had been more modest, more retiring, and more gentle.
Of all that splendid show and pageant nothing remained but the Doge’s visit to the church of Santa Maria Formosa, and his largess of small coins to the street boys at the moment of loosing the line with which the rector of the church pretended to bar the way to the bridge.
THE DOGES IN THE EARLY PART OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
Pietro Gradenigo reigned twenty-two years, during a very eventful period. In 1298 he had placed the aristocratic supremacy on a permanent basis, and a few months later he crushed the sedition of Marin Bocconio; eight years afterwards he put down the much more dangerous insurrection of Tiepolo and the Quirini; but he was less fortunate abroad than at home, and his foreign policy resulted in the wholesale excommunication of the Venetian people and government, as the direct consequence of the attempt to annex Ferrara, a step which had also led to the organisation of the Tiepolo conspiracy. When Gradenigo died the papal interdict was still in full force.