politics and constitution 51
unease in Venice and its territories which could even find violent forms
of expression. The Interdict dispute would offer a part of the nobility the
opportunity to imagine new forms of adherence to the republican consti-
tution by means of an interesting reinvention of tradition.
In my third and conclusive point, dealing with the 18th-century reforms,
I shall pose several questions pertaining to the relationship between mod-
ernization of the state and conservation of traditional modes of political
organization, the role of new technicians and functionaries gifted with
particular forms of expertise, and the last forms assumed by the repub-
lican myth.
I. The 15th Century and the “Mixed” State: Mediations and ConflictsIt was during the 15th century that Venice solidified and extended its con-
trol over the so-called stato da mar—Candia (Crete), the Ionian islands,
Cyprus—and definitively cast its shadow over the Po Valley and the Ital-
ian peninsula in general, occupying Padua, Verona, Vicenza, Treviso, the
Friuli, and finally Brescia and Bergamo. In the first half of the century,
for the Venetian political class, the question of whether to opt for main-
land or maritime expansion was still undecided; would they conserve
and strengthen the power of the merchants, or allow the members of the
ruling class to become great landowners? This was a debate, exemplified
by the contrast between the doges Tommaso and Francesco Mocenigo,
which would deeply mark Venetian history.7
It is interesting to note in this context the role played by the magistracy
of the Avogaria di Comun. Since it is indicative of the functioning mechan-
ics of the Venetian constitution, we must briefly pause to discuss it. Marin
Sanudo, who along with Girolamo Priuli was the most important diarist of
early 16th-century Venice, composed the De origine situ et magistratibus
urbis Venetae [On the origin, site and magistrates of the city of Venice],8
which constitutes the first complete description of the different compo-
nents of the republican constitutional system. The principal responsibil-
ity of the Avogaria, it is affirmed, is that of “observing (defending and
enforcing) the leze.” From distant, undefined, and mythical origins to the
7 See Gaetano Cozzi and Michael Knapton, La Repubblica di Venezia nell’età moderna,
vol. 1: Dalla guerra di Chioggia al 1517, Storia d’Italia, 12/1 (Turin, 1997).
8 Marin Sanudo, Ambrosini e origine situ et magistratibus urbis venetae, ovvero La città
di Venezia (1493–1500), ed. Angela Caracciolo Aricò (Milan, 1980), pp. 113–14.