An Introduction to the History of Western Europe

by James Harvey Robinson

St Mark's, Venice

Venice extends her sway on the Italian mainland.

The aristocratic government of Venice.

It was not until early in the fifteenth century that Venice found it to her interest to extend her sway upon the Italian mainland. She doubtless believed it dangerous to permit her rival, Milan, to get possession of the Alpine passes through which her goods found their way north. It may be, too, that she preferred to draw her food supplies from the neighborhood instead of transporting them across the Adriatic from her eastern possessions. Moreover, all the Italian cities except Venice already controlled a larger or smaller area of country about them. Although Venice was called a republic, there was a strong tendency toward a government of the few. About the year 1300 all the townsmen except the members of certain noble families were excluded from the Grand Council, which was supposed to represent the people at large.

In 1311 the famous Council of Ten was created, whose members were elected by the Grand Council for one year. The whole government, domestic and foreign, was placed in the hands of this smaller council, in conjunction with the doge (i.e., duke), the nominal head of the republic; but they were both held strictly accountable to the Grand Council for all that they did. The government was thus concentrated in the hands of a very few. Its proceedings were carried on with great secrecy, so that public discussion, such as prevailed in Florence and led to innumerable revolutions there, was unheard of in Venice. The Venetian merchant was a busy person who was quite willing that the state should exercise its functions without his interference. In spite of the aristocratic measures of the council, there was little tendency to rebellion, so common in the other Italian towns. The republic of Venice maintained pretty much the same form of government from 1300 until its destruction by Napoleon in 1797.

Milan and the despotically governed towns of northern Italy.

118. Milan was the most conspicuous example of the large class of Italian cities which were governed by an absolute and despotic ruler, who secured control of a town either by force or guile, and then managed its affairs for his own personal advantage. At the opening of the fourteenth century a great part of the towns which had leagued themselves against Frederick Barbarossa[216] had become little despotisms. Their rulers were constantly fighting among themselves, conquering, or being conquered by, their neighbors. The practices of the Visconti, the family who seized the government of Milan, offer a fair example of the policy of the Italian tyrants.

The power of the Visconti was first established by the archbishop of Milan. He imprisoned (1277) in three iron cages the leading members of the family who were in control of the city government at the moment, and had his nephew, Matteo Visconti, appointed by the emperor as the imperial representative. Before long Matteo was generally recognized as the ruler of Milan, and was followed by his son. For over a century and a half some one of the family always showed himself skillful enough to hold his precarious position.