As eventually modified the Council took the following shape afld was governed by its own code of procedure. The members were elected in the Great Council for one year only, and were not re-eligible till a year had elapsed. Every month the Ten elected three of its members as “Chiefs” (Capi). The “Chiefs” opened all communications, prepared all business to be submitted to the Council, and acted as its executive arm; they were obliged during their month of office to stay at home, so as to avoid exposure to bribery or other illegitimate influences.
Besides the ten actual members the Council included ex officio the Doge and his six Councillors, to whom were added on very grave occasions a certain number of prominent citizens, called the Zonta. Of the normal seventeen Councillors twelve made up a quorum. One at least of the Law-officers of the State-the Avogadori di comun-was ‘ always present, though without a vote, to prevent the Council from taking any illegal step.
The sittings opened with the reading of letters addressed to the Ten. Then followed the list of denunciations which were either public, that is signed, or secret, that is anonymous. If public, the Council voted whether they should take the accusation into consideration; if four-fifths voted “Aye” the case was entered on the agenda. If the denunciation was secret the Doge and his Council and the “Chiefs” were bound, before the question of taking it up came forward, to declare unanimously that the matter of the accusation was of public concern; and such a declaration required confirmation by a vote of five-sixths of the whole Council. This being obtained, the question of taking the matter into consideration next arose, and was decided as in the case of public denunciations. The denunciation list having been discharged, the first case on the trial list then came on for hearing. The Law-officers of the State (Avogadori) read a report on the case and submitted the form of warrant for arrest. The Council voted “to proceed” or not. If the vote was affirmative the warrant was issued and the “Chiefs” gave it execution. When the accused was in the hands of the Ten, a sub-committee or Collegia, as it was called, was appointed to draw up the case; they were empowered to use torture only by a special vote. The presumption was against the prisoner; he was called on to disprove the charge-intimare le difese. He was confronted neither with his accuser nor with witnesses. If he pleaded incapacity he was allowed to consult one of the official advocates established in 1443. The report of the subcommittee was read to the Council, and a vote was taken as to whether sentence should be pronounced. If the vote was affirmative sentence was proposed, any member being free to move a sentence or an amendment to one. On the result of the voting the fate of the prisoner depended. In cases of crime committed outside Venice but within the competence of the Ten, that Council could delegate its powers and procedure (its rito) to the local magistrates who sent in the minutes of the trial to the “Chiefs.”
With the Closing of the Great Council and the establishment of the Council of Ten, the Venetian constitution reached its maturity. Some slight developments, such as the evolution of the Three Inquisitori di Stato, of the Esecutori contro alia Bestemmia, and the Camerlenghi, took place it is true; but on the whole the form was fixed, and it stood thus: (1) The Great Council contained the whole body politic. Out of it were elected almost all the chief officers of State. At first it possessed legislative and even some judicial powers, but these were gradually delegated to the Senate, or the Ten, as the Council became unmanageable in size, until at last it was left with hardly any attributes save its original chief function, that of the electorate of the State. (2) Above the Great Council came the Senate, consisting nominally of one hundred and twenty members, not including the Doge, his Council, the Judges of the ‘Supreme Court, and many other officials, who sat ex officio and raised its numbers higher. The Senate was the great legislative body in the State; it also had the chief direction of ordinary foreign affairs and of finance; it declared war, made peace, received despatches from ambassadors, and sent instructions. It possessed a certain judicial authority which, however, was seldom exercised. (3) Parallel with the Senate, but outside the main lines of the constitution, came the Council of Ten. It had been established as a committee of public safety to meet a crisis, and to supply a defect in the constitution, the want of a rapid, secret, executive arm. Its efficiency and rapidity led to a gradual substitution of the Ten for the Senate upon many important occasions. An order of the Ten was as binding as a law of the Senate. Ambassadors reported secretly to the Ten; and the instructions of the Ten would carry more weight than those of the Senate. The judicial functions of the Ten were far higher than those of the Senate; and indeed in its capacity as a permanent committee of public safety and guardian of public morals there were few departments of government or of private life where its authority would have been disallowed. (4) Above both Senate and Ten came the cabinet or Collegia, It was composed of the Savii or Ministers. The six Savii grandi, the three Savii di terraferma, the three Savii agii ordini, the Secretaries, of finance, of war, and of marine. The Savii grandi took their functions in turn week and week about. All business of State passed through the hands of the Collegia and was prepared by them to be submitted to the Great Council, the Senate or the Ten according to the nature and importance of the matter. The Collegia was the initiatory body in the State and also the executive arm of the Maggior Consiglio and the Senate. The Ten, as we have stated, possessed an executive of its own in its three “Chiefs.” (5) Above the Collegio came the lesser Council composed of the six ducal Councillors; immediately connected with the Doge; both* supervising him and representing him in all his attributes. The Doge could do nothing without his Council; a majority of the Council could perform all the ducal functions, without the presence of the Doge. (6) At the head of all came the Doge himself; the point of greatest splendour though not of greatest weight, the apex of the constitutional pyramid. He embodied and represented the majesty of the State; his presence was necessary everywhere, in the Great Council, in the Senate, in the Ten, in the College. He was the voice of Venice and in her name he replied to all ambassadors. As a statesman long practised in affairs and intimately acquainted with the political machinery of the Republic he could not fail to carry weight by his personality; and at a crisis the election of a Doge, as in the case of Francesco Foscari or, later still, as in the case of Leonardo Donato, might determine the course of events. But theoretically he was a symbol, not a factor in the constitution; the outward and visible sign of all that the oligarchy meant.
Such was the Venetian constitution, which, thanks to its efficiency and strength, commanded the admiration and the envy of Europe and enabled Venice to assume that high place among the nations which was hers during the fifteenth century.
The fifteenth century is the period of greatest splendour in the history of the Republic. Mature in her constitution, and with a dominion firmly established by sea and land, Venice presented a brilliant spectacle to the eyes of Europe. Yet this period contains the germs of her decadence. Supreme in the Mediterranean by the defeat of Genoa, Venice was almost immediately called upon to face the Turks and to wear herself out in a long and single-handed contest with their growing power; firmly planted on the mainland, the Republic discovered that, with jealous neighbours around her and frontiers to be attacked, she could not stand still; she was compelled to advance, and found herself exposed to all the dangers implied in the use of mercenary arms, and committed to that policy of aggression which summoned up against her the League of Cambray.
Her mainland territory was probably a drain on the financial resources of the Republic, not a fountain of wealth. That territory was only acquired and held by paying for costly troops