580 margaret l. king
the family in a way that best supports the purposes of the Venetian state.21
lauro Quirini’s On Nobility, finally, written as part of an ongoing discus-
sion whether the assignment of nobility should be based on virtue rather
than on birth, firmly supports the notion of an innate nobility inherited
across generations—the assumption necessary to justify the existence of
Venice’s patrician caste.22 all these three works, among others, enunciate
social and cultural themes supportive of the prevailing Venetian ideology.
other works directly address the mechanisms of Venetian rule and the
objects of Venetian policy. lauro Quirni’s De republica [On the Republic],
written 1449–50, builds on aristotle’s reasoning in the Politics a defense
of the natural right to rule of an aristocracy of birth, and it identifies the
aristocratic republic as the ideal form of the state.23 Where Quirini had
offered abstract arguments, Paolo Morosini vigorously defended Ven-
ice in two works—the Defensio venetorum ad Europae principles contra
obtrectatores [Defense of the Venetians to the Princes of Europe against her
Detractors] and the Lettera a Ciccho Simonetta [Letter to Cicco Simonetta
(secretary to the dukes of Milan)]—against a storm of verbal attacks and
insinuations aroused during the 1450s and 1460s, when the city was in
the forefront of discussions about responses to the ottoman capture of
constantinople. in a third work, the De rebus ac forma reipublicae venetae
[On the Substance and Form of the Venetian Republic], addressed to the
German humanist Gregor heimburg who had invited Morosini to do so,
he described the structures and functions of the Venetian government.24
like Quirini, Morosini identified the Venetian nobility as the key factor
in the city’s success, basing his argument not on references to aristotle
but on the centuries-long dedication to liberty of that class whose ances-
tors had first sought refuge from tyrants on the islands of the lagoon.
a generation later, Paolo’s namesake domenico Morosini presented the
pattern of an ideal republic patently modeled on Venice in his De bene
instituta re publica [On the Well-Managed Republic, 1497/1509].25 The secret
to political success for Morosini is the harmonious interaction of the three
social classes—the great, the middling, and the small—and the control of
21 King, Venetian Humanism, pp. 98–112; King, “caldiera and the Barbaros”; King,
“Personal, domestic, and republican Values.”
22 King, Venetian Humanism, pp. 118–24.
23 King, Venetian Humanism, pp. 124–32.
24 King, Venetian Humanism, pp. 132–40.
25 King, Venetian Humanism, pp. 140– 150. The work was begun in 1497 and remained
unfinished at Morosini’s death in 1509.