Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/877

 Mohuenti : J'enice 867 indicating that we have here a study of the private hfe of the Venetians is incomprehensible, unless it be that he felt obliged to make formal acknovvledginent ' of his very occasional treatment of public affairs. That it is desirable in a book devoted to the private life of a people to present a parallel sketch of the development of the state, goes without saying, but the subsidiary feature ought not to enjoy the place of honor on the title-page, and further, once incorporated with the text, should be treated with understanding and respect. 'hat is Mr. Molmenti's procedure in this regard ? He has seen fit to give to the constitution of Venice one chapter (chapter iii.), which in matter and manner does not rise above the ordinary school-book presentation, and which in the single point, the question of Venetian independence, where it undertakes to penetrate to the sources, remains hopelessly entangled in the time-honored and discredited traditions. All that he says of tribuni, dux and inagister militwfi shows that he has profited nothing from Hegel, whom, nevertheless, he cites in his foot-notes. From these same foot-notes we gather that he is acquainted with the scant sources — mostly relatively late chronicles — of the beginnings of Venice, but owing to his inability to subject these sources to a critical analysis, and, further, because of his failure to take advantage of the scholarly reconstruction of others, his exposition never gets fairly out of the realm of fable. In this connection it is enough to say that he has an unshaken, rock-like faith in the sovereign doge elected by popular action in 697. The faulty historical method and infirm grasp exhibited by the author in dealing with the constitutional problem do not dispose the reader to approach the main theme of the book, the private life of the 'enetians, with great confidence. And unfortunately the augury is borne out by the event. Mr. Molmenti is certainly a learned man in the limited sense of the word, that is, he is a collector pure and simple, whose primitive notion of a book is a succession of scrap-heaps, labelled chapters, which his readers are set to pick over for bright and valuable matter appearing here and there like raisins in a cake. If we hold the old-fashioned view that the work of organization and artistic shaping of the raw material of scholarship should not be left to the reader, but ought to be done by the author himself, we are not likely to be greatly edified by this production. Take for illustration chapters i. and 11. Here we have an abundance of valuable notes on the physical growth of the city, but the vast ac- cumulations of detail fail utterly to fit themselves into a picture which does justice to the noble creation of refugees of the lagoons and with which the reader will feel rewarded for his pains. The chapter on the laws is of the same loosely woven texture ; that in the Venetian statutes are to be found elements of Roman, Greek, and Germanic origin the author has not failed to perceive, but whoever looks for a clear and incisive statement of the evolution of Venetian justice will be disap- pointed. Even the section on maritime law, a field where the special