venice’s maritime empire in the early modern period 185
and Famagusta to set up urban councils that would be involved in the
administration of the island.225
Like in Corfu, the urban council of Nicosia included both members of
the feudal nobility and burghers, and, as in Corfu, the feudal noblemen
were the most prominent group in this body (although in Corfu they were
much fewer).226 However, Venice also allowed the popolo, or common-
ers, of Nicosia to set up a separate council in Cyprus. Unlike the popolo
in Dalmatian towns, which was predominantly composed of members of
the middle class, the popolo of Nicosia included members of artisan guilds.
Membership in the council of Famagusta, a town whose social composi-
tion had a more plebeian character compared to Nicosia, was also based
on the local guilds. Thus in Cyprus, Venice was ready to take decisions
that it was either unable or unwilling to take in other territories, namely,
to let leaders of the more popular strata to organize into councils of their
own. Although the powers given to these councils were relatively mod-
est, the uniqueness of this case requires explanation. Cyprus was Venice’s
biggest and richest colony; Nicosia eventually became the biggest town in
the stato da mar (about 25,000 inhabitants in the 1560s); and Cyprus was
the Dominante’s farthest colony. There was also the idiosyncratic political
character of the island kingdom, in which Venice inherited a constitu-
tional tradition that gave the ruler ample powers to intervene in every
field. Thus, being in need of a wider consensual base for its rule in the
biggest, richest, most populated, and most remote colony, and not being
limited in its options by obligations taken at the moment of the island’s
occupation, Venice could allow itself to take measures that it could not or
would not take in other parts of its composite empire.
In Dalmatia and Albania there were urban councils that predated the
Venetian occupation. Membership in the Council of Zara was an exclu-
sive domain of the aristocracy, comprising 70 men in the mid-16th cen-
tury. The latter elected counselors who assisted the Venetian governor
in administering justice.227 A similar institution, the Maggior Consiglio,
operated at Budua, where the council members, also considered noble-
men, annually elected three judges who assisted the Venetian podestà in
civil cases (in which local laws and customs predominated), and the elder
of whom even served as temporary podestà in case of the absence of the
225 Arbel, “Urban Assemblies.”
226 Cf. Karapidakis, Civis fidelis, pp. 116–17, 119.
227 Sander, Urban Elites, pp. 75–76.