It is something of a mystery that this age of thralldom and decline for the rest of Italy was for Venice a golden age. – Will Durant The Renaissance (opening of chapter XXII on Venice 1534-1576 AD). Her unique system of government... was stern, occasionally even harsh... but [overall it had a] better record of fairness and justice than any other [European government]. – Julius Norwich (introduction to A history of Venice) THE republic of Venice has existed longer than those of Rome or Sparta, or any other that is known in history. It was at first democratical; and their magistrates, under the name of tribunes, were chosen by the people in a general assembly of them... [but later it became more "aristocratical"]... Each of the grand counsellors... are reduced... to eleven fourth electors, and they have the appointment of forty-one, who are the direct electors of the doge. The choice generally turns upon two or three candidates, whose names are put into another box, and drawn out: the first whose name is drawn retires, and proclamation is made for objections against him; if any are made, he comes in, and is heard in his defence: then the electors proceed to determine by ayes and noes; if there are twenty-five ayes, he is chosen, if not, another name is read, and the same decision repeated, until there are twenty five in the affirmative. |
Renaissance Venice was a city-state quite in the ancient Greek mold. The city ruled over a large swath of non-urban territory, whose borders varied over the centuries. At its peak, Venice's annual trading exceeded that of any other city in the world and it was probably the greatest naval and merchant sea-trading power in the Mediterranean. Its shipyards could build one warship per day. Its trade-ships sailed as far as Iceland. It controlled the whole of Cyprus for 82 years starting in 1489, and it ruled Crete for 465 years. Its dominion also included big chunks of what now is Italy, Greece, and Turkey, including most of the Greek Adriatic coast and at one point Constantinople itself (sacked by crusaders led by Venice in 1204 and held for 56 years).
Venice was an improvement versus the old Greek city-states in that it did not have slaves (although its sailors risked being enslaved by foreign powers). Sorry: turns out Venice did have at least 10000 (but probably less than 50000) slaves, mainly Slavic, at one point. Lane says "at the beginning of the 14th century, most of the [Venetian] slaves were Greeks... but later a feeling against enslaving Greek Christians developed... in Venice Slave Auctions at the Rialto were forbidden in 1366. For about a century thereafter, many slaves were imported to Venice from the Black Sea, especially Tatars and Russians, but sales were by private contracts." Slave-hood was not hereditary thus slaves had to be continually imported. Both slaves, convicts, and free men served in the Galleys; there also were slaves (mostly female) serving in domestic tasks. Supposedly slaves were traded until nearly 1600 in Venice despite it being officially forbidden. Still, Venice certainly was a lot less into slavery than their rivals the Ottoman empire. Venice was an excellent democracy if you were one of the top few thousand richest males – otherwise, not so much. (There was, however, a large middle class, and some power for the other members of society – e.g. there were mechanisms for the people, even the non-rich ones, to make complaints/suggestions to the government– but it diminished quickly as you dropped in socio-economic rank. After 1300 the lower citizens gradually lost power compared to the richest. Women were not allowed to vote or hold elected office, but did own property and make wills independent of their husbands.)
Venice was remarkable in two ways:
The Venetian oligarcho-democracy survived many feuds, coup attempts, threats of civil war, the Black Plague, foreign wars, assassinations, duels, internal plots to gain eternal power, and ultra-dangerous schemes by foreign powers. In particular it outlasted every other Italian state despite what would seem to be the worst geographic situation. It was continually surrounded by dangerous enemies plotting to destroy it. It was located in what was regarded as a poor and waterlogged location on a bunch of small islands in a marshy lagoon, whose soil was unfarmable – and where even the task of acquiring potable water was and remains very difficult – and the whole city was (and continues to be) slowly sinking into the sea!
Somehow, despite all that, the Venetians turned their circumstances to their advantage, became rich and successful, and out-shrewded and out-lasted all their enemies, for an amazing 529 years (1268-1796) under their range-voting-based government. The Venetian Marco Polo famously explored China and many other far lands, and many Venetian industries (glass making, silks, enamels), which led Europe, were inspired by technology transfer from China and other far places. Plus, if you count the additional years of their democracy under the non-range-voting previous rules (the first democratically elected Doge apparently was Orso Ipato in 726 AD) that would add about 300 more years to the total.
This makes Venice, after Sparta, the second-longest-lasting substantially democratic government, in all the world.
I do not believe all that was due to luck. The Venetians made good decisions and kept making them. Over time, that added up. And, quite plausibly, their government setup, involving range voting, was a reason they made good decisions.
Venice had no single written constitution, but it had an Oath Of Office for the Doge; and it codified laws in five books of statuti plus extra volumes on maritime law.
Quote [Lane p.95]:
The series of exceptionally able men who were elected [as Doge] during the century after 1172 are notable for having loyally accepted the restrictions on the office as well as for the vigor and wisdom with which they exercised the very considerable power which in that century was still retained by the Doge...The central organs of government formed a pyramid
Doge
Ducal Council [Collegio]
The Forty and Senate [Pragedi]
Great Council [Maggior Consiglio]
----------- General Assembly ------------
[Each body is successively larger than the last (in terms of membership) as we go down the pyramid. The Great Council had 1000-2500 active members depending on the date and which author is claiming it. This picture is an oversimplification. Lane gives a much larger and more detailed organizational chart.] Each committee or council was checked by some other... so as to assure the rule of law, even at the cost of losing some executive efficiency.For example, the Doge was subject to prosecution (and in at least one case was executed), and the State Attorneys indeed could prosecute any official, and anyone in the Forty could sue anyone for Dereliction of Duty with the case being heard, ultimately, by the Great Council. Campaigning for office was forbidden, and indeed you could be elected without running for office, at which point it was your patriotic duty to serve – like it or not. Although this may sound crazy, it seems to have had a purpose – to prevent ambitious politicians from existing. (Also, imagine if, in, say, the contemporary United States, we could elect anybody, picking from the entire populace the person most-suited to be president, regardless of whether that person had any intention of running. Might that result in, on average, better presidents? I think it would.) I somehow doubt that those elected were entirely unwilling, though. Surely that would not have been workable?
Nominees were often chosen by committees, who in turn were selected by a hopefully-incorruptible random process (involving selecting balls from urns) then the election for that position was among those who had been nominated. By having multiple stages of both random and election processes the Venetians tried to make the system incorruptible (thanks to the randomness) but also striving for maximum quality (due to the democratic electing-the-best processes).
Thus the process for electing the Doge, as of 1268 (when it was employed for the election of Lorenzo Tiepolo), had reached this amazing almost-final form [Lane p.111; also described by Lines p.156]:
In this process, only the penultimate step – the election – "really mattered" – the rest was mainly intended to make the identity of the 41 unpredictable hence making the process (hopefully) uncorruptible. The 41, during their deliberations, were sequestered rather like the juries in modern-day big-time criminal cases. This again was presumably intended to insulate them from corruption.
The voters employed "range3" voting to elect the Doge. That is, each voter gave a score from the 3-element set {-1, 0, +1} to each candidate (this was accomplished via a scheme involving balls you could put into boxes, where there was one box for each candidate). The candidate with the greatest score won. However, there was also a supermajority requirement: in order to win, you had to get at least 25 "approval" (i.e. +1) votes. This, note, exceeds a bare majority (which would be 21). If the winner did not achieve this 25-approval threshold, then deliberations by the 41 would continue with re-votes as necessary until somebody achieved the threshold. Incidentally, by a coincidence (?) or brilliant design (?) the 25 threshold is exactly the greatest integer below 63.2% of 41, and a paper by A.Caplin & B.Nalebuff: On 64% majority rule, Econometrica 56,4 (1998) 787-814 claims that 63.2% has theoretical advantages as a threshold. (Specifically, "preference cycles" of 63.2%-supermajority preferences are impossible under certain assumptions about voter distributions. This theorem seems unlikely to me to have much practical importance.)
In at least one case (1229 AD: Giacomo Tiepolo vs Marino Dandolo), a deadlock (perfect tie) occurred, which had to be resolved by a coin flip. The number 41, being odd, was designed to make such ties less likely.
The Great Council also elected people to hundreds of other more minor positions (ambassadors,
etc). It appears that in all or some of those elections, the
Although there were some minor adjustments to the procedures during the 529 years after 1268, according to Lines they were minor and the system remained essentially unchanged thereafter, suggesting the Venetians were satisfied with its performance. On the other hand, the democratic procedures the Venetians used before 1268 were evidently felt unsatisfactory – too vulnerable to corruption and/or electing not-good-enough Doges, who in some cases replaced democracy with autocracy.
Rowson is of the apparent opinion that Venice gradually became corrupt. The problem was that their democracy was intended to be for the benefit of the rich male "nobles," which was not the same as for "everyone." That may have been good at first because those were the smartest most successful people in Venice and their interests coincided well with "everyone's." But toward the end, they weren't the smartest who got rich due to their shrewdness and merchant success; they were just the ones who happened to be born into the right family lines, and they stayed rich by corrupting government power (e.g. customs duties) for their own purposes. According to Rowson, "Venice was being bled dry so that the aristocrats could keep gambling at the tables." And, we might add, cavorting with prostitutes. By the time Napoleon the juggernaut came, the once-huge Venetian navy was down to only a few ships and there was nothing they could do to defend themselves.
Rowson doesn't complain so much about the election results being bad decisions – he thinks they were still adequate – so much as the entirety of government becoming corrupted. Further, with time the power of the Doge gradually diminished relative to the other branches of government (he was hemmed in by more and more restrictions and counterbalances) to the point where he was a tool of the Noble Families. That, in the end, was bad.
(Of course, it might be that even without all those problems, Venice would still have been unable to stop Napoleon. If so, then these problems did not ultimately matter.)
As evidence for his corrupt-aristocracy theory, Rowson offers the following table concerning the last 8 Doge-elections. The right-hand column shows the bill, submitted by the sequestered committee that elected the Doge, for all the conspicuous consumption (gluttony of immense amounts of luxury foods, footmen, rose water, tobacco, etc) during their deliberations. The numbers keep growing. The cost of electing Manin was over five times that of electing Ruzzini, and the total bill of 378000 Lire was a fortune, exceeding a lifetime income. [Note: Venetian money was gold coins each specified to contain a certain amount – unchanged since the 1200s – of gold. This is not inflationary paper-money era here.]
| Election Year | Elected | Lira (in 1000s) |
|---|---|---|
| 1732 | Carlo Ruzzini | 69 |
| 1734 | Alvise Pisani | 71 |
| 1741 | Pietro Grimani | 134 |
| 1752 | Francesco Loredan | 121 |
| 1762 | Marco Foscarini | 225 |
| 1763 | Alvise Giovanni Mocenigo | 222 |
| 1779 | Paolo Renier | 222 |
| 1789 | Ludovico Manin | 378 |
Rowson thinks any Committee of Venice's Finest that could submit such bills with a straight face had lost its honesty and was purely about reaming what was left of Venice for their personal benefit.
There is no shortage of knowledge about the history of Venice. My local university library's book collection on this topic is at least 5 meters thick. Every Doge is known (see list below). Among the weightier tomes I noticed (but hardly examined) were:
Pierre A.N.B. Daru: Histoire de la Republique de Venise, F. Didot, Paris 1821 (8 volumes totaling about 5200 pages)and William Carew Hazlitt: The Venetian Republic, A.&C. Black, London 1900 (2 volumes totaling about 1620 pages).
You can also read this wonderful online history of Venice. I found the Encyclopedia Brittanica (1896 edition) article helpful and found these more modern and shorter books useful:
Frederic Chapin Lane: Venice, A Maritime Republic, JHU Press 1973.
Maurice Rowden: The silver age of Venice, Praeger London 1970.
D.S.Chambers, D.Chambers, B.Pullan, J.Fletcher: Venice: A Documentary History, 1450-1630, University of Toronto Press. This book includes the actual text of some of the election rules the Venetians employed.
The first article I saw describing Venice's voting protocol (by Lines, who was at the time on the Faculty of the University of Venice) was
Marji Lines: Approval voting and strategic analysis, a Venetian example, Theory & Decision 20,2 (1986) 155-172.
Lines leans heavily on this book:
Andrea da Mosto: I dogi di Venezia; nella vita pubblica e privata, A. Martello, Milano 1966 (2nd ed) and 1977 reprint.
Another article was
Miranda Mowbray, Dieter Gollman: Electing the Doge of Venice: analysis of a 13th Century protocol(pdf) , IEEE Computer Security Symposium (July 2007) Venice Italy
which leans heavily on this book:
John Julius Norwich: A history of Venice, New York: Vintage Books, 1989. (Based in part on notes left by Norwich's father.)
All Doges are known, and we list them below. (They usually served for the remainder of their lives, but sometimes quit or were forcibly removed.) However I do not know the non-winners of Doge elections, nor the stories of how the elections proceeded (except in just a few cases described in the sources above).
Norwich p.300 describes one alleged example of strategic voting leading
to the 1423 election of the underdog candidate F.Foscari. (Foscari wanted Venice
to go on offense militarily and expand by force – a highly controversial policy
which later turned out to be very successful for Venice, but made both Foscari
and Venice a lot of powerful enemies.)
He got 17 approvals out of 41 in the 9th ballot,
then was elected in the 10th ballot by 26.
Supposedly his supporters had engineered that by voting in earlier ballots for
a candidate nobody wanted, thus enticing others to vote for Foscari –
then suddenly unexpectedly switching their votes to Foscari. This is, essentially,
a manipulation of "pre-election polls" to affect future strategic voting decisions
in the "real election." DYN is a modification of approval
voting, invented by Forest Simmons, intended to prevent that sort
of manipulation.
In a different interesting election recounted by either Lane or Norwich (I lost my notes), one
candidate was viewed as almost certain to win. However, a raucous demonstration against
him (which the book claimed was probably organized and paid for by one of his rivals)
was held outside the area in the Doge's palace in which the 41 were deliberating.
The 41 took this into account – they did not want to risk that this candidate would lead
to discord – and therefore elected another. So while theoretically the 41 were
supposed to be sequestered and totally immune from outside influences, this evidently
was not perfect.
It would not surprise me if a great amount of that information still exists (Venice was never destroyed and never suffered serious damage – e.g. they yielded to Napoleon essentially without a fight – and there is a tremendous literature on Venetian history) but if so, I do not presently have it. But even if I did know all that, it would be difficult to use it to "prove" to you that range3 voting "worked well" for Venice. What we need is to condense all that info into some kind of time-average measure of how well it worked. What could that measure be? Well... how about the remarkable prosperity and longetivity of Venice despite its circumstances...?