For about a thousand years, the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice was styled the Doge (in ven. Doxe), a rare but not unique Italian title derived from the Latin Dux, as the major Italian parallels Duce and Duca and the English Duke. Chief Magistrate is a generic designation for a public official whose office -- individual or collegial -- is the highest in his or her class in either of the fundamental meanings of The Most Serene Republic of Venice ((Serenìsima Repùblica Vèneta or Repùblica de Venesia Serenissima Repubblica Doge (plural dogi or doges) is a dialectal Italian word that descends from the Latin Dux (as does the English Venetian or Venetan is a Romance language spoken by over two million people mostly in the Veneto region of Italy. Dux (plural duces) is Latin for leader (from the verb ducere, 'to lead' and could refer to anyone who commanded troops such Duce is an Italian word meaning Leader or the second derived from Latin word dux of the same meaning of which Duke is a derivation A duke is a member of the Nobility, historically of highest rank below the Sovereign, and historically controlled a Duchy or a Dukedom A duke is a member of the Nobility, historically of highest rank below the Sovereign, and historically controlled a Duchy or a Dukedom Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-state's aristocracy. Commonly the person selected as Doge was the shrewdest elder in the city. The Venetian combination of elaborate monarchic pomp and a republican (though "aristocrati") constitution with intricate checks and balances makes La serenissima Venice a textbook example of a crowned republic. In Political science, a crowned republic is an informal term with two distinct meanings
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Origins
According to the chronicler John the Deacon, author of the Chronircon Venetum ("Chronicle of Venice"), written about AD 1000, the office of doge was first instituted in Venice about 700, replacing tribunes that had led the cluster of early settlements in the lagoon. John deacon of Venice (d after 1008 was a Venetian Deacon and religious chronicler Venice ( Italian: Venezia, Venetian: Venesia or Venexia) is a city in Northern Italy, the capital of the Events By Place North America The Mount Edziza volcanic complex erupts in northern British Columbia, Canada. Tribune (from the Latin: tribunus; Byzantine Greek form τριβούνος) was a title shared by 2–3 elected magistracies in the Whether or not the first doges were technically local representatives of the Emperor at Constantinople, the doge, like the emperor, held office for life and was similarly regarded as the ecclesiastical, the civil and the military leader, in a power structure termed caesaropapism. Caesaropapism is the idea of combining the power of secular government with or making it superior to the spiritual authority of the Christian Church; especially This proved that the military was true to high power.
Selection of the Doge
The doge's prerogatives were not defined with precision, and though the position was entrusted to members of the inner circle of powerful Venetian families, after several doges had associated a son with themselves in the ducal office, this tendency towards a hereditary monarchy was checked by a law which decreed that no doge had the right to associate any member of his family with himself in his office, or to name his successor. After 1172 the election of the doge was finally entrusted to a committee of forty, who were chosen by four men selected from the Great Council, which was itself nominated annually by twelve persons. After a deadlocked tie at the election of 1229, the number of electors was increased from forty to forty-one. A deadlock is a situation wherein two or more competing actions are waiting for the other to finish and thus neither ever does To tie or draw is to finish a Competition with identical or inconclusive results
New regulations for the elections of the doge introduced in 1268 remained in force until the end of the republic in 1797. A voting system allows voters to choose between options often in an Election where candidates are selected for public office. Year 1797 ( MDCCXCVII) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Their object was to minimize as far as possible the influence of individual great families, and this was effected by a complex elective machinery. Thirty members of the Great Council, chosen by lot, were reduced by lot to nine; the nine chose forty and the forty were reduced by lot to twelve, who chose twenty-five. Sortition, also known as allotment, is an equal-chance method of selection by some form of lottery such as drawing coloured pebbles from a bag The twenty-five were reduced by lot to nine and the nine elected forty-five. Then the forty-five were once more reduced by lot to eleven, and the eleven finally chose the forty-one who actually elected the doge. [1]
When a new doge was chosen, before he took the oath of investiture he was presented to the people with the formula "This is your doge, if it please you," preserving the fiction that the people of Venice ratified the selection, yet in a real sense the doge was the highest servant of the greater community.
Regulations
While doges had great temporal power at first, after 1268, the doge was constantly under strict surveillance: he must wait for other officials to be present before opening dispatches from foreign powers; he was not allowed to possess any property in a foreign land.
The doges normally ruled for life (although a few were forcibly removed from office). After a doge's death, a commission of inquisitori passed judgment upon his acts, and his estate was liable to be fined for any discovered malfeasance. The official income of the doge was never large, and from early times holders of the office remained engaged in trading ventures. These ventures kept them in touch with the requirements of the grandi.
From July 7, 1268, during a vacancy in the office of doge, the state was headed ex officio, with the style vicedoge, by the senior consigliere ducale (ducal counsellor). Events 1456 - A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death
Ceremony
One of the ceremonial duties of the doge was to celebrate the symbolic marriage of Venice with the sea. This was done by casting a ring from the state barge, the Bucentaur, into the Adriatic. The bucentaur (bjuːˈsɛntɔː) ( bucintoro in Venetian) was the state Galley of the doges of Venice. In its earlier form this ceremony was instituted to commemorate the conquest of Dalmatia by Doge Pietro II Orseolo in 1000, and was celebrated on Ascension Day. Dalmatia ( Croatian: Dalmacija, see names in other languages) is a region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, situated mostly in modern Pietro II Orseolo was the Doge of Venice from 991 to 1009He began the period of eastern expansion of Venice that lasted for the better part of 500 years The general and most common understanding of the Christian Doctrine of Ascension holds that Jesus bodily ascended to Heaven in the presence It took its later and more magnificent form after the visit of Pope Alexander III and the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I to Venice in 1177. Pope Alexander III (c 1100/1105 &ndash August 30, 1181) born Rolando (or Orlando) Bandinelli, was Pope from 1159 The Holy Roman Emperor (Römischer Kaiser or Römisch-Deutscher Kaiser Romanorum Imperator was the elected monarch ruling over the many varying numbers of states Frederick I Barbarossa (1122 &ndash 10 June 1190) was elected King of Germany at Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 and crowned On state occasions the Doge was surrounded by an increasing amount of ceremony, and in international relations he had the status of a sovereign prince. Prince, from the Latin root Princeps, is a general term for a Monarch, for a member of a monarch's or former monarch's family and is a
The doge took part in ducal processions, which started in the Piazza San Marco. Piazza San Marco, often known in English as St Mark's Square, is the principal square of Venice, Italy. The doge would appear in the center of the procession, preceded by civil servants ranked in ascending order of prestige and followed by noble magistrates ranked in descending order of status. Francesco Sansovino described such a procession in minute detail in 1581, and his verbal description is confirmed and complemented by Cesare Vecellio's 1586 painting of a ducal procession in the Piazza San Marco. Francesco Tatti da Sansovino (1521-1586 was a versatile Italian scholar and Man of letters, also known as a publisher Cesare Vecellio (c 1530- c 1601 was an Italian painter and engraver of the Renaissance, active in Venice.
From the 14th century onwards the ceremonial crown and well-known symbol of the doge of Venice was called corno ducale, a unique kind of a ducal hat. The ducal hat ( De: Herzogshut) of the Duchy of Styria is a jagged crown made out of Gilded Silver. It was a stiff horn-like bonnet, which was made of gemmed brocade and worn over the camauro, a fine linen cap. A camauro (from the Latin camelaucum, from Greek kamelauchion, meaning " Camel skin hat" is a cap traditionally worn by Every Easter Monday the doge headed a procession from San Marco to the convent of San Zaccaria where the abbess presented him a new camauro crafted by the nuns. Easter Monday is the day after Easter Sunday and is celebrated as a Holiday in some largely Christian cultures especially Roman Catholic A procession (via Middle English processioun, French procession, derived from Latin processio, itself from procedere, to go forth advance Saint Mark's Basilica ( Italian: Basilica di San Marco a Venezia) the Cathedral of Venice, is the most famous of A convent is a community of Priests religious brothers religious sisters or Nuns or the building used by the community particularly in the Roman Catholic Church The Chiesa di San Zaccaria ( St Zacharias) is a church in Venice, dedicated to the father of John the Baptist, whose body it supposedly contains An abbess ( Latin abbatissa fem form of abbas Abbot) is the female superior, or Mother Superior, of an Abbey
The last Doge
As the oligarchical element in the constitution developed, the more important functions of the ducal office were assigned to other officials, or to administrative boards, and he who had once been the pilot of the ship became little more than a figurehead. The last doge was Ludovico Manin, who abdicated on May 12, 1797, when Venice passed under the power of Napoleon's France following his conquest of the city. Ludovico Manin ( May 14, 1725 &mdash October 24, 1802) was the last Doge of Venice. Events 1191 - Richard I of England marries Berengaria of Navarre. Year 1797 ( MDCCXCVII) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common
While Venice would again shortly declare itself a republic, attempting to resist annexation by Austria, it would never revive the dogal style, but various titles including dictator and collective heads of state, including a triumvirate. A dictator is an Authoritarian ruler (eg Absolutist or autocratic) who assumes sole and absolute power without hereditary ascension such as an Absolute
See also
Sources and references
- Apostolo Zeno, Compendio della storia Veneta, self-published, Venezia, 1847. The following is a list of all 120 of the Doges of Venice ordered by the dates of their reigns which are put in parentheses The Republic of Genoa ( Italy) was technically a Communal Republic in the early Middle Ages, but in actuality it was an Oligarchy ruled Senarica is a village in the Abruzzo region of central Italy. The Signoria of Venice ( Serenissima Signoria) was the supreme body of government of the Republic of Venice. Year 1847 ( MDCCCXLVII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common
- WorldStatesmen-Italy
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911 is a 29-volume reference work that marked the beginning of the Encyclopædia Britannica The public domain is a range of abstract materials &ndash commonly referred to as Intellectual property &ndash which are not owned or controlled by anyone
Citations
- ^ Miranda Mowbray and Dieter Gollmann. Electing the Doge of Venice: Analysis of a 13th Century Protocol. Retrieved on July 12, 2007.
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