No More Learning

i. -xxxviii. ]

[366] {333}[Michele Steno was not, as Sanudo and others state, one of
the Capi of the Quarantia in 1355, but twenty years later, in 1375. When
Faliero was elected to the Dogeship, Steno was a youth of twenty, and a
man under thirty years of age was not eligible for the Quarantia. --_La
Congiura,_ etc. , p. 64. ]

[367] [History does not bear out the tradition of her youth. Aluica
Gradenigo was born in the first decade of the fourteenth century, and
became Dogaressa when she was more than forty-five years of age. --_La
Congiura,_ p. 69. ]

[368] [See _A View of the Society and Manners in Italy,_ by John Moore,
M. D. , 1781, i. 144-152.
The "stale jest" is thus worded: "This lady
imagined she had been affronted by a young Venetian nobleman at a public
ball, and she complained bitterly . . . to her husband. The old Doge, who
had all the desire imaginable to please his wife, determined, in this
matter, at least, to give her ample satisfaction. "]

[369] {334}[For Frederick's verse, "Evitez de Bernis la sterile
abondance," see _La Bibliographie Universelle_, art. "Bernis"; and for
his jest, "Je ne la connais pas," see _History of Frederick the Great_,
by Thomas Carlyle, 1898, vi. 14. ]

[370] [For the story of the abduction of Dervorgilla, wife of Tiernan
O'Ruarc, by Dermot Mac-Murchad, King of Leinster, in 1153, see Moore's
_History of Ireland_, 1837, ii. 200. ]

[371] {335}[_Istoria della Repubblica di Venezia_, del Sig. Abate
Laugier, Tradotta del Francese. Venice, 1778, iv. 30. ]

[372] {336}[The marble staircase on which Faliero took the ducal oath,
and on which he was afterwards beheaded, led into the courtyard of the
palace. It was erected by a decree of the Senate in 1340, and was pulled
down to make room for Rizzo's facade, which was erected in 1484.