INTRODUCTION TO _THE TWO FOSCARI_

The _Two Foscari_ was begun on June 12, and finished, within the month,
on July 9, 1821. Byron was still in the vein of the historic drama,
though less concerned with "ancient chroniclers" and original
"authorities" (_vide ante_, Preface to _Marino Faliero_, vol. iv. p. 332)
than heretofore. "The Venetian play," he tells Murray, July 14, 1821, is
"rigidly historical;" but he seems to have depended for his facts, not
on Sanudo or Navagero, but on Daru's _Histoire de la Republique de
Venise_ (1821, ii. 520-537), and on Sismondi's _Histoire des Republiques
... du Moyen Age_ (1815, x. 36-46). The story of the Two Doges, so far
as it concerns the characters and action of Byron's play, may be briefly
re-told. It will be found to differ in some important particulars from
the extracts from Daru and Sismondi which Byron printed in his "Appendix
to the _Two Foscari_" (_Sardanapalus, etc._, 1821, pp. 305-324), and no
less from a passage in Smedley's _Sketches from Venetian History_ (1832,
ii. 93-105), which was substituted for the French "Pieces
justificatives," in the collected edition of 1832-1835, xiii. 198-202,
and the octavo edition of 1837, etc., pp. 790, 791.

Francesco, son of Nicolo Foscari, was born in 1373. He was nominated a
member of the Council of Ten in 1399, and, after holding various offices
of state, elected Doge in 1423. His dukedom, the longest on record,
lasted till 1457. He was married, in 1395, to Maria, daughter of Andrea
Priuli, and, _en secondes noces_, to Maria, or Marina, daughter of
Bartolommeo Nani. By his two wives he was the father of ten
children--five sons and five daughters. Of the five sons, four died of
the plague, and the fifth, Jacopo, lived to be the cause, if not the
hero, of a tragedy.

The younger of the "Two Foscari" was a man of some cultivation, a
collector and student of Greek manuscripts, well-mannered, and of ready
wit, a child and lover of Venice, but indifferent to her ideals and
regardless of her prejudices and restrictions. He seems to have begun
life in a blaze of popularity, the admired of all admirers. His wedding
with Lucrezia Contarini (January, 1441) was celebrated with a novel and
peculiar splendour. Gorgeous youths, Companions of the Hose (_della
calza_), in jackets of crimson velvet, with slashed sleeves lined with
squirrel fur, preceded and followed the bridegroom's train. A hundred
bridesmaids accompanied the b