154 benjamin arbel
of food supply, each Istrian district continued to act independently.86 In
the following century, however, the provveditore was also empowered to
control the accounts of local governorships.87
While in office, Venetian governors were required to inform the cen-
tral organs of government about developments in the territories that were
entrusted to their care. They usually did so quite frequently, sending dis-
pacci to the Senate (actually to the Signory) and to the Heads of the Coun-
cil of Ten on a regular basis. Since they were forbidden from taking any
significant decision without prior approval from Venice, the correspon-
dence had also an operative aspect. In colonies situated at a great distance
from Venice, governors were occasionally constrained to take decisions
without being able to wait for instructions from Venice, or even to take
decisions that contradicted explicit instruction received from the center.88
When making a decision related to a specific territory, the Senate or the
Council of Ten normally did it on the basis of written opinions presented
by current officials in the colony, experts in the field, or former governors
of the same territory.
From about 1480, the Council of Ten assumed a growing influence on
the administration of the stato da mar (as part of its general growing
control over Venetian affairs), a trend that is reflected in the intensive
correspondence between the heads of this council and the governors of
Venice’s maritime possessions. Another symptom of this development is
the requirement, as from 1518, that returning governors and ambassadors
should hand over to the heads of the Council of Ten the correspondence
kept by them during their term of office.89
Like any other governor in the Venetian state, on their return from
their two to three years of service in the overseas empire, the rettori were
required, as from 1524, to present to the Collegio a written report (relazi-
one) about their activities. Alongside the weekly, and sometimes daily,
dispatches they had sent during their term of office, these final reports
are precious sources for the study of our subject, but they were also use-
ful in early modern Venice, particularly for future governors who wished
86 Ibid., pp. 41, 82–3.
87 Ibid., pp. 27–29.
88 E.g., the decision of the governors of Cyprus in 1509 to refrain from exporting grains
to Venice, despite orders from the Council of Ten in this regard; see Benjamin Arbel,
“Sauterelles et mentalités. Le cas de la Chypre vénitienne,” Annales ESC 44.5 (1989), 1057,
repr. in Arbel, Cyprus, article no. XI.
89 Raimondo Morozzo della Rocca and Maria Francesca Tiepolo “Cronologia veneziana
del ’500,” in La civiltà veneziana del Rinascimento (Florence, 1958), p. 211.