[1296-1310 A.D.]
It was presumed that, among a competent number of persons, though taken promiscuously, good sense and right principles would gain such an ascendency, as to prevent any flagrantly improper nomination, if undue influence could be excluded. For this purpose, the ballot was rendered exceedingly complicated, that no possible ingenuity or stratagem might ascertain the electoral body before the last moment. A single lottery, if fairly conducted, is certainly sufficient for this end. At Venice, as many balls as there were members of the great council present were placed in an urn. Thirty of these were gilt. The holders of gilt balls were reduced by a second ballot to nine. The nine elected forty, whom lot reduced to twelve. The twelve chose twenty-five by separate nomination. The twenty-five were reduced by lot to nine; and each of the nine chose five. These forty-five were reduced to eleven, as before; the eleven elected forty-one, who were the ultimate voters for a doge.
A hereditary prince could never have remained quiet in such trammels as were imposed upon the doge of Venice. But early prejudice accustoms men to consider restraint, even upon themselves, as advantageous; and the limitations of ducal power appeared to every Venetian as fundamental as the great laws of the English constitution do to ourselves. Many doges of Venice, especially in the Middle Ages, were considerable men; but they were content with the functions assigned to them, which, if they could avoid the tantalising comparison of sovereign princes, were enough for the ambition of republicans. For life the chief magistrates of their country, her noble citizens forever, they might thank her in their own name for what she gave, and in that of their posterity for what she withheld.
For some years after what was called the closing of the great council by the law of 1296, which excluded all but the families actually in possession, a good deal of discontent showed itself among the commonalty. Several commotions took place about the beginning of the fourteenth century, with the object of restoring a more popular regimen. Upon the suppression of the last, in 1310, the aristocracy sacrificed their own individual freedom along with that of the people, to the preservation of an imaginary privilege. They established the famous Council of Ten, that most remarkable part of the Venetian constitution. This council, it should be observed, consisted in fact of seventeen, comprising the seigniory, or the doge and his six councillors, as well as the ten properly so called. The Council of Ten had by usage, if not by right, a controlling and dictatorial power over the senate and other magistrates; rescinding their decisions, and treating separately with foreign princes. Their vast influence strengthened the executive government, of which they formed a part, and gave a vigour to its movements, which the jealousy of the councils would possibly have impeded. But they are chiefly known as an arbitrary and inquisitorial tribunal, the standing tyranny of Venice. Excluding the old council of Forty, a regular court of criminal judicature, not only from the investigation of treasonable charges but of several other crimes of magnitude, they inquired, they judged, they punished, according to what they called reason of state.
The public eye never penetrated the mystery of their proceedings; the accused was sometimes not heard, never confronted with witnesses; the condemnation was secret as the inquiry, the punishment undivulged like both. The terrible and odious machinery of a police, the insidious spy, the stipendiary informer, unknown to the carelessness of feudal governments, found their natural soil in the republic of Venice. Tumultuous assemblies were scarcely possible in so peculiar a city, and private conspiracies never failed to be detected by the vigilance of the Council of Ten. Compared with the Tuscan republics, the tranquillity of Venice is truly striking. The names of Guelf and Ghibelline hardly raised any emotion in her streets, though the government was considered in the first part of the fourteenth century as rather inclined towards the latter party. But the wildest excesses of faction are less dishonouring than the stillness and moral degradation of servitude.[j]
[1289-1325 A.D.]
On the death of Giovanni Dandolo in 1289, the long delay of the electors to name a successor furnished an excuse to the populace to resume their ancient privilege; and they tumultuously hailed Jacopo Tiepolo as their doge. But Tiepolo, wisely declining an honour thus irregularly conferred, withdrew for a time from Venice, and the Forty-one at length fixed on Pietro Gradenigo, a nobleman extremely obnoxious to the people. With him originated a measure which forever shut out the commonalty; and the Forty, who were entrusted with the annual election of the council, were enjoined to re-elect all such members of the old council as were not declared unfit by twenty-nine voices. Not to render the people desperate, three commissioners were appointed to make supplemental lists of such other citizens as might be fit to fill vacancies caused by the rejection of the former, or the death of existing members of the council; which lists were in like manner subject to the approval of the Forty. But as three commissioners were appointed by the council itself, it was easy to foresee that this body would be careful to name such persons only as favoured their own order; and lest the electors should err on the popular side, a decree was soon afterwards made, by which they were forbidden to insert any person in their lists, who himself or whose ancestor had not formerly belonged to the great council. In course of time the commissioners were wholly suppressed; the council was declared permanent; and all who could prove themselves descended from one of this body were entitled to inscribe their names in the Golden Book, and to enter this noble assembly at the age of twenty-five.
The Tiepolo Conspiracy, and the Council of Ten
[1325-1355 A.D.]
These changes were not effected without some movement on the part of the people; and the suppression of a feeble conspiracy, and the punishment of its leaders, did not deter others from plotting against the power of the aristocracy. A numerous band of citizens, headed by Baiamonte Tiepolo (son of Jacopo), was formed, and extensive preparations were made for the subversion of the government. But detection having prematurely driven the conspirators into open revolt, they were easily overwhelmed and destroyed in the narrow streets of Venice; and this new conspiracy furnished an excuse for erecting that fearful tribunal—the Council of Ten. This formidable assembly, though originally only a temporary measure, was afterwards, in 1325, declared permanent. It was invested with arbitrary and almost unlimited powers; under pretence of watching over the safety of the republic, the Ten gradually assumed the government of the state, made peace and war, disposed of the finances, and even abrogated the proceedings of the great council. Their spies and emissaries pervaded every quarter of the city; they seized, imprisoned, or put to secret death, without responsibility to any higher authority; whilst no rank was secure from their machinations. Even the doge himself might tremble at their vigilance and severity; and the fate of Marino Falieri, thirty years after the permanent institution of this council, forms a striking event in the annals of this extraordinary oligarchy.[g]