Read Online The Secret Lives of Buildings: From the Ruins of the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in Thirteen Stories by Edward Hollis - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Edward Hollis
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provide the fleet that would carry the crusading army to the Holy Land. “Give us 85,000 silver marks,” they declared, “and we will take the crusaders from Venice to certain glory.” The pope agreed, the Venetians started building their ships, and the knights of Europe left their northern manors behind and began making their way to Venice. By 1202 the ships were nearly built, but only a third of the thirty-three thousand promised knights had turned up. A savage rabble they were, and theVenetians did not permit them to enter the city but kept them encamped by the surf of the Lido until their group might reach the promised number.
It never did, and the few knights who had come did not have enough money to pay the full 85,000 marks that the Venetians required. Things began to turn nasty, and it was at this point that Enrico Dandolo saw his chance. He made a proposal to the barbarians gathered on the beach. “You can purchase your fare to the Holy Land,” he suggested, “by acting as our agents along the way. You can fight our wars for us, providing us with the booty we require, until the 85,000 marks we need has been collected. Then we will take you to Jerusalem.” The crusaders readily agreed, and then they asked which infidel they would be sent to fight against. Dandolo licked his lips and told them: “the emperor of Constantinople.” Their faces fell. They had not come all this way to murder other Christians.
The emperor of Constantinople at the time was named Alexius III, and he had risen to the purple by imprisoning and blinding the emperor before him, Isaac II. Dandolo, who knew what it was like to be blinded and cast down by the Byzantines, told the crusaders that they could attain merit in heaven by restoring Isaac to his rightful throne. They would gain additional merit, he said, if they were also able to place Isaac’s son on the throne with him, a different Alexius. This other Alexius, he said, would bring Constantinople into the fold of the Catholic Church, from which it had long been separated by doctrinal schism. And by this specious argument, Dandolo refashioned a crusade against the Muslim unbelievers in the Holy Land into a war of vengeance against his old enemy. The reluctant crusaders, stuck as they were on the windy sands of the Lido, unacquainted with the intrigues of the Levant, had no choice. They set forth in their ships, not for Palestine but for Constantinople.
The people of that city heard of the Venetian plan, and they were terrified. Though their city was surrounded by gigantic walls and filled with priceless bronze statues, gorgeous sanctuaries, and gigantic palaces, their empire was not what it once had been, and their legions were small compared to the barbarian horde that was on its way to meet them. Riots and commotions disturbed the city, and it is said that a mob fell upon a statue of Athene and tore it to pieces becauseher arm and her gaze were outstretched to the west—the direction from which, any day now, the Constantinopolitans expected their nemesis to arrive.
Then arrive it did. After nine months of byzantine politicking, awful cannonade, siege, parley, ecclesiastical council, and the deposition and murder of three emperors, including the very Isaac and Alexius they had come to restore, the crusaders took possession of the city in April 1204. The first to the walls was Dandolo himself. He and his soldiers fanned out through the city, spreading terror wherever they went. Nuns were dragged from their abbeys and raped, children taken into slavery, monks and bishops alike executed. The crusaders ran to the Heröon, the model for San Marco itself, and they tore it to pieces, despoiling the bodies of the emperors within. They broke into the church of Holy Wisdom, stripped its interior of its astonishing ornaments and relics, and set a whore on the throne of the emperor. They went to the church of Saint Polyeuktos and ripped pilasters, architraves, and sheets of marble from
It never did, and the few knights who had come did not have enough money to pay the full 85,000 marks that the Venetians required. Things began to turn nasty, and it was at this point that Enrico Dandolo saw his chance. He made a proposal to the barbarians gathered on the beach. “You can purchase your fare to the Holy Land,” he suggested, “by acting as our agents along the way. You can fight our wars for us, providing us with the booty we require, until the 85,000 marks we need has been collected. Then we will take you to Jerusalem.” The crusaders readily agreed, and then they asked which infidel they would be sent to fight against. Dandolo licked his lips and told them: “the emperor of Constantinople.” Their faces fell. They had not come all this way to murder other Christians.
The emperor of Constantinople at the time was named Alexius III, and he had risen to the purple by imprisoning and blinding the emperor before him, Isaac II. Dandolo, who knew what it was like to be blinded and cast down by the Byzantines, told the crusaders that they could attain merit in heaven by restoring Isaac to his rightful throne. They would gain additional merit, he said, if they were also able to place Isaac’s son on the throne with him, a different Alexius. This other Alexius, he said, would bring Constantinople into the fold of the Catholic Church, from which it had long been separated by doctrinal schism. And by this specious argument, Dandolo refashioned a crusade against the Muslim unbelievers in the Holy Land into a war of vengeance against his old enemy. The reluctant crusaders, stuck as they were on the windy sands of the Lido, unacquainted with the intrigues of the Levant, had no choice. They set forth in their ships, not for Palestine but for Constantinople.
The people of that city heard of the Venetian plan, and they were terrified. Though their city was surrounded by gigantic walls and filled with priceless bronze statues, gorgeous sanctuaries, and gigantic palaces, their empire was not what it once had been, and their legions were small compared to the barbarian horde that was on its way to meet them. Riots and commotions disturbed the city, and it is said that a mob fell upon a statue of Athene and tore it to pieces becauseher arm and her gaze were outstretched to the west—the direction from which, any day now, the Constantinopolitans expected their nemesis to arrive.
Then arrive it did. After nine months of byzantine politicking, awful cannonade, siege, parley, ecclesiastical council, and the deposition and murder of three emperors, including the very Isaac and Alexius they had come to restore, the crusaders took possession of the city in April 1204. The first to the walls was Dandolo himself. He and his soldiers fanned out through the city, spreading terror wherever they went. Nuns were dragged from their abbeys and raped, children taken into slavery, monks and bishops alike executed. The crusaders ran to the Heröon, the model for San Marco itself, and they tore it to pieces, despoiling the bodies of the emperors within. They broke into the church of Holy Wisdom, stripped its interior of its astonishing ornaments and relics, and set a whore on the throne of the emperor. They went to the church of Saint Polyeuktos and ripped pilasters, architraves, and sheets of marble from
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