Skip to main content

Full text of "Political Science Of The State"

See other formats


THE  CONSTITUTION OF VENICE.                     47

the connection with Egypt is shown in the next century (827)
by the transportation of the reliques of St. Mark from Alex-
andria. This was under the duke Agnellus Participatius, the
same who made Rivoaltum the ducal residence. The sedi-
tions and violence against the dukes continued through the
ninth and tenth centuries. Peter Candianus, who entered on
his office in 942 — the third duke of this family, one of the
richest and most magnificent men of his time — is said to have
endeavored to make the dukedom hereditary in his family.
For this a faction attacked him in the palace, and when they
could not get possession, set it on fire ; it was consumed with
other buildings, and the duke in attempting to escape was
murdered. A document of this time mentions the loss of
state-records, and thus throws suspicion on the exactness of
Venetian history prior to this date.

____        i

Three dukes of the Urseoli family had reigned in succes-
sion from 991 to 102$, when the jealousy of the Venetians
caused the banishment of Otto Urseolus and his brother,
the archbishop of Grado. The family, however, was still
powerful, and another member of it, Dominicus, tried to
continue the family in the office. But an opposite party suc-
ceeded in choosing their candidate, many of the Urseoli were
obliged to leave the state, and a law was passed that no duke
should associate with himself another person as condux, i. e.,
co-duke.* This had been the means bv which it had been

^

possible to transmit the office to another member of the same
family. Henceforth the duke's power was to be limited by
means of_two annually elected counsellors associated with
•him. From this time for more than four hundred years, in
no instance, we believe, did the same family furnish two
dukes to the republic in succession.

We may stop at this point where the doge begins to appear
in his more modern form and the constitution is passing over,
from one in which the people have a direct share, to one in

* Dandolo (Mur. u. s.) says, his diebus reperitur statutum nt ^
creandus consortem vel successorem non faciat, nee fieri permittat
eo vivente.