Whatever the true facts were in the Steno-Faliero trials, it is certain that the Doge entertained feelings of the strongest resentment against the aristocracy, against the judges, and, on the whole, against all the decrees of the government. There is no doubt but that the young nobles of that day deserved the indignation they excited in the minds of sensible people, for during several years past their insolence had become boundless, and they went to all lengths of violence, and worse, sometimes even making use of false keys to get into houses that were closed against them, and sparing neither matron nor maid. The lower classes especially suffered by their outrageous conduct in word and deed, and when the Doge conceived the idea of breaking down the power of the aristocrats, he fully believed he might count upon the sympathy and help of the people.
Now when the war with the Genoese was still raging, a certain Bertuccio Isarello, a sea-captain, and Giovanni Dandolo, a patrician, who was one of the superintendents charged with getting war-vessels ready for sea, got into a violent discussion. To be a sea-captain in those days not only indicated great energy and personal courage, but also implied a certain amount of consideration. Isarello had reached his present position after a life of many labours and adventures. He had been a merchant in the Rialto for a year; he had then been the navigating officer of a vessel trading to the East, belonging to a certain Jacopello Lombardo, and after that he had been promoted to be captain, or ‘patrono,’ of a galley, the property of Marin Michiel, with a salary of five lire of grossi monthly (about twenty-five shillings), and permission to take with him on his voyages three families as passengers. Like most other sea-captains of whom we have any account in the archives, Isarello owned several houses in Venice, and possessed considerable prestige among the seafaring class. The account of the incident here given is taken from the contemporary chronicle of de’ Monaci. It happened that in the course of manning a number of ships of war Dandolo had business with this Captain Isarello, and, finding him unexpectedly obstinate upon some point of which we have no account, proceeded to enforce his arguments with a box on the ear. The offended captain left the office where this took place, and told his friends what had happened. They promised at once to support him if he wished to be avenged. Accompanied by them, Isarello thereupon went at once to the square before the ducal palace, and walked up and down nursing his wrath until Dandolo himself should pass. The Doge and his counsellors, being apprised of the matter, sent for the captain and had from his own lips an account of the injury he had