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the Venice in 1509, they absconded with a large gilded statue of the doge
kneeling before the lion of St Mark. While the carters were crossing the
river Adda on the way to Milan, the wagon tipped over, spilling the statue,
which landed on its feet, an event Sanudo interpreted as an ill omen for
the french.18 An earthquake in Venice in 1511, which tumbled walls, rang
bells in the swaying towers, and created a lagoon tsunami, tested Sanudo’s
reporting and interpretive skills. he and others understood the damage
as a prognostication for the outcome of the war. A piece of marble with
carvings of lilies fell into the courtyard of the Ducal palace, which “many
took... as a good omen indicating that the lily, which is the emblem of
france, will fall and be ruined. May god so will it for the good of italy,
scourged by these barbarians!” Sanudo explained the fall of a marble
statue of prudence in the church of San Basso as a warning: “ ‘Take care,
take, care, Venice; mind you be prudent in these times, for these are evil
days.’ ” in contrast, when an iron cross fell from the roof of San giacomo
di rialto and landed upright, Sanudo wrote that “this is a sign that this
city will be the savior of italy and of the christian faith and will chase
the barbarians out of italy, provided that it is supported in true faith by
italians.”19 The barbarians in this case were the french led by their Most
christian Majesty.
Sanudo’s accounts of omens and other uncanny events disclosed a
hermeneutic trait Anthony pagden has called the “principle of attachment,”
characteristic of europeans confronted with the disorienting strangeness
of the Amerindian cultures of the new World. “The principle of attach-
ment served to make the incommensurable seem commensurable, if only
for as long as it took the observer’s vision to adjust... Attachment allowed
for the creation of an initial (if also sometimes troubling) familiarity. it
also allowed... some measure of classification.”20 conservative patriot
that he was, Sanudo agreed with many of his patrician contemporaries
in attaching accidents and natural disasters to the interpretive trope of
omens, which expressed contemporary anxieties about Venice’s prospects
in the ongoing wars.
Sanudo, however, often found clerical interpretations of omens tenden-
tious and self serving. After more tremors frightened the city, the patriarch
18 Sanuto, I diarii, 8:448, 478.
19 Sanuto, I diarii, 12:79–80. Translations of quotes from Sanudo, Cità Excelentissima,
pp. 374–75.
20 Anthony pagden, European Encounters with the New World (new haven, 1993),
p. 36.