146 benjamin arbel
this regard should be decided in Venetian courts, where Venice’s political
interests could also be safeguarded.45
Other Aegean territories, such as Negroponte as from 1390, Tinos and
Mykonos after 1430, Aegina from 1451 onwards, and the Northern Sporades
between 1453 and the late 1530s, were under direct Venetian rule. There
were also hybrid arrangements. Tinos and Mykonos recognized Venetian
sovereignty already in 1390, but Venice preferred for a few decades to send
an official from Negroponte to rule these islands (together with Delos);
then, in 1407 they were offered to Venetian noblemen who would be ready
to rule these islands for a term of four years, still under the authority of
the Bailo of Negroponte, paying a certain sum out of the local revenues
to Venice. Only in 1430 did Venice integrate Tinos and Mykonos into the
Reggimento system, which will be described presently.46
The Reggimento System
Most territories of the stato da mar were under direct Venetian
domination and were ruled by patrician governors who were elected in
Venice’s Great Council and sent overseas for a pre-established term of
office—for most of them, two years. On their departure they received a
written commission (commissione) that included all laws and decisions
relevant to the magistracy they were going to exercise. All of them were
required to be entirely devoted to the public interest and were forbidden
from engaging in commerce, from marrying while in office, from receiving
gifts or loans from their subjects, from using their official residence for
personal purposes, and from exposing their coat of arms on the government
palace. Other prohibitions concerned service of close relatives in the same
Reggimento (college of governors), using family members to engage in
trade, and nominating relatives to local offices. They were also forbidden
from wearing mourning cloths and were not allowed to spend large sums
of money on public festivals and charities.47
The Venetian governors, or Rettori, as they were called, were expected to
defend the interests and well-being of the Republic,48 to care for its honor
45 Jacoby, La féodalité, p. 308; see, for example, the Senate’s decision of 1520 concerning
the lordship of the island of Paros, ibid., pp. 306–308, 330–33.
46 Miller, Essays on the Latin Orient, pp. 265–66.
47 O’Connell, Men of Empire, pp. 60–61.
48 E.g. Igor Sevcenko, “Dogale pour Paul Contarini, Capitaine de Candie,” Κρητικά
Χρονικά 4 (1950), 271 (1575): “per la conservation et buon stato del Dominio nostro.”