Furthermore, the government supported all persons not able to work for themselves. Men and women who had reached an age at which heavy manual labour was no longer possible, but who were not helpless enough to do nothing, were licensed to sell vegetables and fruit in the public squares; but the State and the guilds supported regular asylums for the aged and infirm, for cripples, for widows, and for old sailors. Every one felt that the State could be relied upon, and no one feared to die of hunger.
The closing of the Great Council might affect the ambitious designs of a few men who had recently grown
rich, and whose fathers had never sat there, but it could not possibly have any immediate effect on the lives of fishermen, seamen, salt-refiners, shipbuilders, and artisans to none of whom it had ever occurred that the Council was meant for them. When a conspirator made a pretext of vindicating the rights of the people, the people laughed at him, and the motive which in all other countries has been the mainstay of revolutionaries was found not to exist. The people of Venice were, on the whole, honest, contented, and happy, and both laws and traditions combined to preserve them in that enviable state; and the government itself provided wise alternations of work and rest, which greatly contributed to the same end. For every Venetian, whatever his condition might be, was expected to be a good sailor and a good soldier, and the regattas, public archery matches, and gymnastic exercises, which I shall presently describe, helped to make men both. In 1332 these competitions were made obligatory for all youths who had reached their eighteenth birthday. But another matter must be briefly explained before proceeding further.
In the story of the Venetian conspiracies no mention is ever found of the two famous factions, the Castellani and the Niccolotti, although the most bitter hatred was alive between them at the very time when Tiepolo was conspiring against Gradenigo. It is interesting to follow the rough and strong threads of those famous popular factions through the woof and web of Venetian history; and it is curious to find oneself convinced that they never did the slightest harm to the government of the Republic, for the reason that both of them loved their country sincerely.