venice’s maritime empire in the early modern period 205
In all important towns, which were normally defended by strong walls
and canons, there were also artillerymen, who usually served for longer
periods than the regular soldiers and, unlike the latter, were sometimes
regarded as a sort of urban militia, organized in the so-called scuole di
bombardieri.304
Since professional soldiers were rather expensive to maintain, Venice
embarked from the 1520s onward on a systematic organization of civil
militias (cernide, ordinanze), mostly peasant militias, in its overseas terri-
tories, on the model of a similar organization that had already been estab-
lished in the Venetian terraferma.305 The militiamen were allowed to keep
arms and enjoyed privileges that included exemption from personal dues
and from forced labor in public works.306 They were organized in compa-
nies of 300 to 600 men, each company commanded by a salaried captain
sent from Venice, and the men were required to participate in periodi-
cal training camps.307 What John Hale describes as Venice’s “new, post-
colonial mood of co-operation with its maritime subjects”308 seems indeed
to be a manifestation of trust in the inhabitants of the Republic’s overseas
territories. Luciano Pezzolo calls these militiamen “privileged subjects,”
suggesting that this system contributed to the creation of a consensus
between them and the central government. However, at the same time it
also created tensions among the Dominante’s subjects, since the exemp-
tions enjoyed by the militiamen, as well as the payments which they
received when under arms, had to be covered by the other members of
their communities.309 In any case, in view of the huge imbalance between
its own human resources and those of the Ottoman Empire, Venice had
no other possibility but to opt for trusting its overseas subjects.
The Venetian organization of defense also included a system of coast
guards, manned, day and night, by peasants as one of their routine obli-
gations. Watch towers were built along the coasts for this purpose. The
304 Mallett, “Part I: c.1400 to 1508,” pp. 85–86; Hale, “Part II: 1509–1617,” pp. 404–08;
Pederin, “Die venezianische Verwaltung... (XVI–XVIII Jh.),” pp. 181 (Cattaro, 1594), 183
(Zara 1602, Spalato 1605–06, Sebenico 1620); Pezzolo, “Stato, guerra e finanza,” p. 99.
305 Hale, “Part II: 1509–1617,” pp. 350–66, 456–59; Pezzolo, “Stato, guerra e finanza,” pp.
93–94; Ivetic, L’Istria moderna, p. 39; Hale, “Part II: 1509–1617,” pp. 456–59; Despina Vlassi,
“Cefalonia alla fine del Settecento. L’ultima anagrafi veneziana,” in Maltezou, Tzavara,
and Vlassi, eds., I Greci durante La venetocrazia, p. 458; Pederin, “Die venezianische
Verwaltung... (XVI–XVIII Jh.),” pp. 185, 194, 196.
306 Pezzolo, “Stato, guerra e finanza,” p. 82.
307 Hale, “Part II: 1509–1617,” p. 458; Slot, Archipelagus, p. 56.
308 Hale, “Part II: 1509–1617,” p. 458.
309 Hale, “Part II: 1509–1617,” p. 458; Pezzolo, “Stato, guerra e finanza,” pp. 93–94.