e, in
passing, that most of the old chroniclers appear to consider the
recovery of the _caskets_ rather more a subject of congratulation than
that of the brides), and that, for their reward, they asked the Doge and
Signory to visit Sta. M. Formosa; but _this is false_. The going to Sta.
M. Formosa was because the thing had succeeded on that day, and because
this was then the only church in Venice in honor of the Virgin." But
here is again the mistake about the day itself; and besides if we get
rid altogether of the trunkmakers, how are we to account for the
ceremony of the oranges and hats, of which the accounts seem authentic?
If, however, the reader likes to substitute "carpenters" or
"house-builders" for casket-makers, he may do so with great reason (vide
Galliciolli, lib. ii. Sec. 1758); but I fear that one or the other body of
tradesmen must be allowed to have had no small share in the honor of the
victory.

Sec. XIII. But whatever doubt attaches to the particular circumstances
of its origin, there is none respecting the splendor of the festival
itself, as it was celebrated for four centuries afterwards. We find that
each contrada spent from 800 to 1000 zecchins in the dress of the
"Maries" entrusted to it; but I cannot find among how many contrade the
twelve Maries were divided; it is also to be supposed that most of the
accounts given refer to the later periods of the celebration of the
festival. In the beginning of the eleventh century, the good Doge Pietro
Orseolo II. left in his will the third of his entire fortune "per la
Festa della Marie;" and, in the fourteenth century, so many people came
from the rest of Italy to see it, that special police regulations were
made for it, and the Council of Ten were twice summoned before it took
place.[35] The expense lavished upon it seems to have increased till the
year 1379, when all the resources of the republic were required for the
terrible war of Chiozza, and all festivity was for that time put an end
to. The issue of the war left the Venetians with neither the power nor
the disposition to restore the festival on its ancient scale, and they
seem to have been ashamed to exhibit it in reduced splendor. It was
entirely abolished.

Sec. XIV. As if to do away even with its memory, every feature of the
surrounding scene which was associated with that festival has been in
succeeding ages destroyed. With one solitary exception,[36] there is not
a house left in the whole P