66 alfredo viggiano
library, epistolary relations with humanists during the 15th and 16th cen-
turies, with the Studio in Padua, and with news agents in later periods)40
constituted the principal aspects of the first phase of development of a
great state bureaucracy.
It has been argued how, in a little less than a century, between the 1470s
and 1569, there was enacted a sort of serrata cittadinesca, a definitive limi-
tation of access to the class of cives following the model of the better-
known serrata of the Maggior Consiglio, thanks to which the distribution
of “superior” offices would thereafter be consigned to a limited number of
families.41 Writing in the mid-18th century, the historian Vettor Sandi tells
us how an illuminated governing class intended “to separate a body of civil
persons from the rest of the Venetian subjects with the title of cittadini
originari,” keeping them “ever-purged and as a reserve of resources to be
called upon in the hour of public need.”42 Analyzing legislation and the
duties conferred over time upon members of the ducal chancellery, Sandi
underlined a sociologically relevant and functional aspect, namely, that
those great “officials” played a fundamental role in the construction and
conservation of the republican state; but he attributed less importance to
the political tensions and constitutional crises in which the cives-chancel-
lors had been decisive.
Two elements ought to be studied with particular attention. The first
regards the politico-constitutional aspect we have already discussed. The
ducal chancellors in fact contributed to widening the gap that divided
parts of the nobility. The chancellors were called to preserve the cultural
memory of the Republic’s power. Charged with defending the “secret of
state” and sacred body of laws conserved in the archives of the Ten and
the Senate (to which they alone had access), the chancellors utilized
this prerogative to reinforce their links with some families of the “great”
nobility. Members of the lesser nobility were instead excluded from this
form of political knowledge and communication that was at once a prac-
tical, daily necessity and a metaphorical projection of power relations.
The legitimacy and fortunes of the chancellors were defined in a com-
plex relationship of dependence/independence towards the patriciate.
40 Mary E. Neff, Chancellery Secretaries in Venetian Politics and Society, 1480–1533 (Ann
Arbor, Mich., 1985); Giuseppe Trebbi, “La cancelleria veneta nei secoli XVI–XVII,” Annali
della fondazione Luigi Einaudi 14 (1980), 65–125; Andrea Zannini, Burocrazia e burocrati a
Venezia in età moderna: i cittadini originari (sec. XVI–XVIII) (Venice, 1993).
41 Zannini, Burocrazia e burocrati, pp. 65–68.
42 Vettor Sandi, Principi di storia civile della Repubblica di Venezia dalla sua fondazione
sino all’anno di n.s 1700, vol. 1, part 3 (Venice, 1755–73), pp. 345–46.