These usurpations rendered the annual election almost nugatory; the same members were usually renewed, and though the dignity of councillor was not yet hereditary, it remained, upon the whole, in the same families. In this transitional state the Venetian government continued during the thirteenth century; the people actually debarred of power, but a hereditary aristocracy not completely or legally confirmed. The right of electing, or rather of re-electing, the great council was transferred, in 1297, from the tribunes, whose office was abolished, to the council of Forty; they ballotted upon the names of the members who already sat, and whoever obtained twelve favouring balls out of forty retained his place. The vacancies occasioned by rejection or death were filled up by a supplemental list formed by three electors, nominated in the great council. But they were expressly prohibited, by laws of 1298 and 1300, from inserting the name of anyone whose paternal ancestors had not enjoyed the same honour. Thus an exclusive hereditary aristocracy was finally established. And the personal rights of noble descent were rendered complete in 1319, by the abolition of all elective forms. By the constitution of Venice as it was then settled, every descendant of a member of the great council, on attaining twenty-five years of age, entered as of right into that body, which of course became unlimited in its numbers.
[1297-1319 A.D.]
These gradual changes between 1297 and 1319 were first made known by Sandi.[i] All former writers, both ancient and modern, fix the complete and final establishment of the Venetian aristocracy in 1297.
But an assembly so numerous as the great council, even before it was thus thrown open to all the nobility, could never have conducted the public affairs with that secrecy and steadiness which were characteristic of Venice; and without an intermediary power between the doge and the patrician multitude the constitution would have gained nothing in stability to compensate for the loss of popular freedom. The great council had proceeded, very soon after its institution, to limit the ducal prerogatives. That of exercising criminal justice, a trust of vast importance, was transferred in 1179, to a council of forty members annually chosen. The executive government itself was thought too considerable for the doge without some material limitations. Instead of naming his own assistants or pregadi, he was only to preside in a council of sixty members, to whom the care of the state in all domestic and foreign relations, and the previous deliberation upon proposals submitted to the great council was confided.
A Venetian Senator
This council of pregadi, generally called in later times the senate, was enlarged, in the fourteenth century, by sixty additional members; and as a great part of the magistrates had also seats in it, the whole number amounted to between two and three hundred. Though the legislative power, properly speaking, remained with the great council, the senate used to impose taxes, and had the exclusive right of making peace and war. It was annually renewed, like almost all other councils at Venice, by the great council. But since even this body was too numerous for the preliminary discussion of business, six councillors, forming, along with the doge, the seigniory, or visible representative of the republic, were empowered to despatch orders, to correspond with ambassadors, to treat with foreign states, to convoke and preside in the councils, and perform other duties of an administration. In part of these they were obliged to act with the concurrence of what was termed the college, comprising, besides themselves, certain select councillors, from different constituted authorities.
It might be imagined, that a dignity so shorn of its lustre as that of doge, would not excite an overweening ambition. But the Venetians were still jealous of extinguished power; and while their constitution was yet immature, the great council planned new methods of restricting their chief magistrate. An oath was taken by the doge on his election, so comprehensive as to embrace every possible check upon undue influence. He was bound not to correspond with foreign states, or to open their letters, except in the presence of the seigniory; to acquire no property beyond the Venetian dominions, and to resign what he might already possess; to interpose, directly or indirectly, in no judicial process, and not to permit any citizen to use tokens of subjection in saluting him.
As a further security, they devised a remarkably complicated mode of supplying the vacancy of his office. Election by open suffrage is always liable to tumult or corruption, nor does the method of secret ballot, while it prevents the one, afford in practice any adequate security against the other. Election by lot incurs the risk of placing incapable persons in situations of arduous trust. The Venetian scheme was intended to combine the two modes without their evils, by leaving the absolute choice of their doge to electors taken by lot.