This first attempt of Venice to establish herself in possession of mainland territory proved a failure. But the rise of the great Lords of Verona, Padua, Milan, the Scala, Carraresi, and Visconti, and the struggles which took place between them, could not fail to disturb the quiet of the Lagoons and to draw Venice once more into the mesh of Italian politics. It was impossible for Venice to be indifferent to events which were affecting cities so close to herself and so necessary for her commerce as Padua and Treviso.
Padua, thanks chiefly to the ability of Jacopo da Carrara, had made herself mistress of Vicenza, and had thus been brought into close proximity with the possessions of the powerful family of della Scala, Lords of Verona. The Paduans in return for Jacopo’s services elected him as her Lord. When Jacopo da Carrara died, Can Grande della Scala attacked Marsilio da Carrara, who had succeeded his uncle, and wrung from him Padua and the Padovano; thence the Scala spread to Feltre, Belluno, and the territory at the foot of the Alps, and finally Treviso came to their possession in 1329. The Republic of Venice could not be indifferent to the growth of a Power which threatened to enclose the Lagoons and to block all exits for Venetian merchandise. Moreover her natural position rendered her incapable of supporting herself if food supplies from the mainland were cut off. A contingency of this kind, if it should happen to coincide with such a defeat at sea as Venice had sustained at Curzola or Sapienza, would, in a very short time, have placed the Republic at the discretion of her enemies. It was obvious therefore that Venice was face to face with a rival whom she must either crush or be ruined. War was inevitable.
The crisis was of vital importance to the Republic. It is true that in the War of Perrara she had made an attempt to establish herself on the mainland; but in attacking the Lord of Verona, Vicenza, Brescia, Treviso, Feltre, Belluno, and Padua she was embarking on a far more serious enterprise. Failure meant peril to her very existence; success would compel her to occupy the nearer mainland and therefore to sacrifice one of her great advantages, the absence of a mainland frontier to protect. The party of the Doge, the party opposed to the War, was met and overcome by the argument that war was the only alternative to starvation; the want of corn for feeding the city could not be supplied in any other way. Moreover it was urged that if Venice once attacked the Scala she would be joined by all who were jealous of the growing power of Verona and its Lords. Such proved to be the case. The declaration of war by Venice at once created so strong a combination-Florence, Parma, and Venice-that Mastino della Scala was forced to negotiate for peace. With singular want of judgment he chose as his ambassador to Venice Marsilio da Carrara, the very man whom the Scala had already deprived of the lordship of Padua. That lordship the Doge promised to restore to the Carraresi, if Marsilio would admit the troops of the league into Padua, which he held in the name of Mastino della Scala. Marsilio kept his word, and in August, 1337, Pietro de1 Rossi, general of the confederate forces, entered the city.
For her own part, the Republic by the peace of 1338, thus gained possession of the marches of Treviso, with the districts of Bassano, Castelfranco, Conegliano and Oderzo,—her first mainland possession; and the family of Carrara held Padua-which had been captured in the name of the Republic-as a quasi-fief of Venice. She was now in command of a corn-growing district and was sure of an abundant meat supply. But on the other hand the mainland frontier which she now acquired exposed her to attack from the Patriarch of Aquileia or the Counts of Gorz; while she was bound to protect her dependent Carrara beyond whom lay the growing power and ambition of the Visconti of Milan. An attack on Carrara was necessarily a threat to Venice, and in fact if not in appearance the Republic had by the fall of the Scala become conterminous with Visconti.
We have seen how the Republic dealt with her maritime colonies, especially in the instance of Crete; we may now observe her method towards her newly acquired mainland possessions. Her mild and provident sway was fruitful of many results favourable to the Republic, and it brought her dependencies back to her of their own accord after the disastrous wars of the League of Cambray. To use the words of the Senate, the Republic of Venice in her relations towards her dependencies set herself to provide taliter quod habeamus cor et amorem civium et sub-diforum nostrorum, and she succeeded. Her rule was just, lenient and wise. Alike in her maritime and in her mainland acquisitions her object was to interfere as little as might be with local institutions, provided her own tenure and the supremacy of the capital were maintained. In each of the more important dependent cities she placed a civil governor, called the Podesta, and a military commandant, called the Captain, whose duty it was to raise levies and look after the defence of the city; these two when acting together were called the Rectors. The local municipal councils, varying in numbers, were left undisturbed and retained the control of such matters as lighting, roads, local taxation. The police and imperial taxation were in the hands of the Rectors, and they were in constant communication either with the Senate, or, in very grave emergencies, with the Council of Ten. The smaller towns were governed by a Podesta, a Capitano, or a Provveditore. Each town possessed its own special code, called the Statute, which the Rectors swore to observe. The Statuto dealt with octroi dues, roads and bridges, wells, lighting, doctors, nurses, fires, guilds, sanitary matters,—in short with all the multifarious details of municipal and even of private life. Peace, encouragement of trade, and comfort of living were the chief objects aimed at. In the Courts of Justice the Podesta or one of his three assessors merely presided; he did not constitute the Court, which was composed of citizens. Provision was made for public instruction in the humanities, in canon and civil law, and in medicine; primary education was supplied by what were called schools of arithmetic. The cost of education was charged on the revenues of the province.
The expansion of Venice on the mainland, while it increased the prestige of the Republic, likewise augmented her dangers. Hitherto she had been engaged in a duel with Genoa for supremacy at sea. No other Italian Power had any motive for interfering in the combat. But now that Venice had acquired a mainland territory she became possessed of something that her mainland neighbours coveted, and of which they were ready to despoil her if occasion offered. Thus during the final phases of her war with Genoa we find the Republic called upon to face Carrara and Hungary, banded together with Genoa to destroy the mighty city of the Lagoons (1369). Louis I, King of Hungary, was ready to attack Venetian mainland territory with a view to wringing from the Republic a renunciation of Dalmatia. The Counts of Gorz viewed with alarm Venetian expansion eastward and were