160 benjamin arbel
Venice to show liberality towards its new subjects, as happened in Santa
Maura in 1684, where the Captain General of the Venetian fleet, Francesco
Morosini, allowed the local inhabitants to propose the form of govern-
ment most suitable to them. The document presented by the Republic’s
new subjects, which contained 16 chapters, was endorsed by Morosini and
later confirmed by the Venetian Senate. Consequently it served as a basic
constitutional document regulating Venice’s relations with this colony.118
Similar procedures can be observed in the towns conquered by Venice in
Morea, where, however, Venetian presence lasted hardly 30 years.119
The highest Republican councils, such as the Senate, the Council of
Ten, or the Signory, could intervene in criminal cases and had the pre-
rogative to transfer trials to them, a procedure known as intromissione.
Magistrates who were accused of misgovernment by colonial inspectors
(sindici) were brought to Venice for trial before the Senate or the Coun-
cil of Forty (Quarantia Criminal).120 Yet more frequently, Venice’s central
organs of government delegated their power to magistrates in the stato
da mar (or the terraferma) and consequently, governors had extraordi-
nary power to deal with the case concerned with an authority similar to
that of the delegating council, including the very severe procedures of the
Council of Ten (the rito inquisitorio).121 The Council of Ten could also del-
egate the authority to use the rito inquisitorio to an elected magistrate,
who could use it at his discretion (in which case he normally also bore
the title Inquisitore), or to a certain court, to be used only in handling a
specific case.122 The Captain General of the Sea, who was often present in
Venice’s overseas colonies, seems to have had the inquisitorial authority
by force of his election to this office.
118 Lunzi, Della condizione, p. 341; Anastasia Papadia-Lala, Ο θεσμός τών αστικών κοινοτήτων
στόν ελληνικό χώρο κατά τήν περίοδο τής βενετοκρατίας (13ος–18ος αι.). Μία sυνθετική προσέγγιση
(Venice, 2004), pp. 428–54.
119 Gaetano Cozzi, “La Repubblica di Venezia in Morea: un diritto per il nuovo Regno
(1687–1715),” in L’età dei lumi. Studi storici sul Settecento europeo in onore di Franco Venturi,
2 vols (Naples, 1985), 2:749–50; Anastasia Papadia-Lala, Ο θεσμός, pp. 465–500.
120 E.g., the case of Troilo Malipiero, Captain of Famagusta in 1502, Sanudo, I diarii,
4:456–57, 825.
121 Ferro, Dizionario del diritto comune e veneto, 9:280–84.
122 Claudio Povolo, “Aspetti e Problemi dell’amministrazione della giustizia penale nella
Repubblica di Venezia, secoli XVI–XVII,” in Gaetano Cozzi, ed., Stato, società e giustizia
nella Repubblica Veneta (sec. XV–XVIII) (Rome, 1980), pp. 162–67 (what is described in
this article with regard to the Terraferma also applies to the stato da mar); Viggiano, Lo
specchio, pp. 116–19.