238 benjamin arbel
strikingly, one encounters also similar techniques, such as the use of the
judicial mechanism of appeal to reverse decisions of Venetian governors
in the colonies, direct petitions to Venice to gain bureaucratic benefices
after failing to obtain them from the local governor, etc. Even the local
clan organization in the Cretan area of Sfakia in the early 16th century
comes to mind as something similar to the patti di famiglia of 18th-century
Cephalonia. Ventura’s thesis regarding the crisis of Venetian administra-
tion of justice in the 16th century also bears relevance to this case.
Apart from the fact that we are dealing with periods separated by 200 to
300 years, we are hampered in our ability to tackle this question because
we are rarely able to quantify our impressions. An attempt in this direc-
tion was made by Marco Folin, who noted that the number of Greeks
appointed as chancellors in the Ionian Islands during the years of the Cre-
tan War was considerably lower than about a century later, which could
indicate that the norm reserving the office of chancellor in the colonies
for Venetian citizens was still largely observed in the mid-17th century.
Moreover, only a handful of the 17th-century chancellors took the oath
of fidelity in front of the Provveditore Generale da Mar, and not in Venice
as required, whereas a century later (a period of peace), the great major-
ity of chancellors did not bother to do it in Venice. No less interesting is
Folin’s analysis of the social extraction of the 18th-century chancellors,
most of whom were of modest social background, such as descendents of
former Venetian ministri who served on these islands and married local
women, or of refugees from the Morea, who used the office as a means for
social ascent (i.e., to become members of the local urban councils). Folin
has suggested that the increasing number of local Greek chancellors in
the Ionian Islands was a response to the growing Venetian need to find
mediators with the foci of power in local society.458
Other indications of disintegration, in addition to the widening phe-
nomenon of direct economic contacts between the overseas dominions
and foreign countries, were the presence of foreign consulates in Venice’s
colonies and the use of foreign citizenship by the Republic’s subjects to
avoid certain obligations, as witnessed in the Ionian Islands.459 The Vene-
tian authorities were preoccupied by the development of a quasi-extra-
territorial jurisdiction at the expense of its own territorial sovereignty.
458 Folin, “Spunti,” pp. 338–342, 346.
459 Victor Mallia-Milanes, “Il consolato maltese a Zante e i rapporti tra Venezia e
l’Ordine di San Giovanni,” in Massimo Costantini, ed., Il Mediterraeo centro-orientale tra
vecchie e nuove egemonie (Rome, 1998); For the other consulates, see above, pp. 234–235.