Shakespeare's play of the Merchant of Venice · William Shakespeare
HISTORICAL NOTES TO ACT FOURTH.
(A) This scene represents the Sala dei Pregádi, or Hall of the Senators. In Venice the tribunal for criminal cases was composed of forty judges, ordinarily presided over by one of three selected from the Council of the Doge, and draughted for the most part, if not wholly, from the members of the Senate. The Doge, who on all occasions was attended by his particular officers, had the right of sitting in the councils, or on the tribunal. The authority for the six senators in red (in this scene) is taken from the picture at Hampton Court Palace, where the Doge of Venice, in state, is receiving Sir Henry Wootton, ambassador from James the First. The picture is by Odoardo Fialletti, better known as an engraver than as a painter, and who was living at Venice when Sir Henry Wootton was ambassador there. (B) The first Doge, or Duke of Venice, was Paolo Luca Anafesto, elected A.D. 697, and the last was Luigi Manini, who yielded the city, which had just completed the eleventh century of its sway, to the victorious arms of Buonaparte, in 1797.
(C) We are not to imagine the word _royal_ to be only a ranting, sounding epithet. It is used with great propriety, and shows the poet well acquainted with the history of the people whom he here brings upon the stage. For when the French and Venetians, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, had won Constantinople, the French, under the Emperor Henry, endeavoured to extend their conquests into the provinces of the Grecian Empire on the _Terra firma_; while the Venetians, who were masters of the sea, gave liberty to any subjects of the republic, who would fit out vessels, to make themselves masters of the isles of the Archipelago, and other maritime places; and to enjoy their conquests in sovereignty: only doing homage to the republic for their several principalities. By virtue of this licence, the Sanudi, the Justinianii, the Grimaldi, the Summaripi, and others, all Venetian _merchants_, erected principalities in several places of the Archipelago (which their descendants enjoyed for many generations), and thereby became truly and properly _royal merchants_, which, indeed was the title generally given them all over Europe. Hence, the most eminent of our own merchants (while publick spirit resided amongst them, and before it was aped by faction), were called _royal merchants_.--_Warburton_. This epithet was in our poet's time more striking and better understood, because Gresham was then commonly dignified with the title of the _royal merchant.--Johnson_.
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