Venetian isles to Rialto from Malamocco, after King Pepin had burnt the
latter city, and when, advancing on Venice, he was met in the lagoons and
beaten by the islanders and the tides: these by their recession stranding
his boats in the mud, and those falling upon his helpless host with the
fury of an insulted and imperiled people. The Doge annually assisted at
mass in St. Mark's in honor of the victory, but not long afterward the
celebration of it ceased, as did that of a precisely similar defeat of the
Hungarians, who had just descended from Asia into Europe. In 1339 there
were great rejoicings in the Piazza for the peace with Mastino della
Scala, who, beaten by the Republic, ceded his city of Treviso to her.

Doubtless the most splendid of all the occasional festivals was that held
for the Venetian share of the great Christian victory at Lepanto over the
Turks. All orders of the State took part in it; but the most remarkable
feature of the celebration was the roofing of the Merceria, all the way
from St. Mark's to Rialto, with fine blue cloth, studded with golden stars
to represent the firmament, as the shopkeepers imagined it. The pictures
of the famous painters of that day, Titian, Tintoretto, Palma, and the
rest, were exposed under this canopy, at the end near Rialto. Later, the
Venetian victories over the Turks at the Dardanelles were celebrated by a
regatta, in 1658; and Morosini's brilliant reconquest of the Morea, in
1688, was the occasion of other magnificent shows.

The whole world has now adopted, with various modifications, the
picturesque and exciting pastime of the regatta, which, according to
Mutinelli, [Footnote: _Annali Urbani di Venezia_.] originated among
the lagoons at a very early period, from a peculiar feature in the
military discipline of the Republic. A target for practice with the bow
and cross-bow was set up every week on the beach at the Lido, and nobles
and plebeians rowed thither in barges of thirty oars, vying with each