70 alfredo viggiano
But the internal consequences of such long-winded discussions never
amounted to much.
Where there were real debates, and bitter ones at that, was on the sub-
ject of the Council of Ten. So much so that one could say that the variety
of forms that constitutional debate had assumed during the 15th century
would be reduced, in what became a sort of constitutional obsession, to a
definition of the responsibilities and jurisdiction of the “terrible tribunal.”
The series of so-called “corrections”—in 1458 and 1582–83, 1627–28, 1667,
1671, 1761, 1774–75, and 1780 being the most important54—serve to dem-
onstrate that the tension between “governo largo” and “governo stretto,”
between an oligarchy of the ottimati and a control over offices exercised
by members of the lesser nobility, had now become structural.
Let us try to understand if and by what means in the city of St Mark
there developed a new punitive approach on the part of the of the Vene-
tian ruling class with regard to typologies of crime previously unknown:
the dispositions of several penal sentences determined by the Council of
Ten beginning in the late 16th century clearly indicate this moment as
a decisive turning point. As an example, one could cite the uncommon
emphasis that accompanied the judgment passed in 1598 against Zuanne
Memmo di Michele. Despite his having already received penal convic-
tions on other occasions, he maintained “the closest relations with men
of bad life, sinners, killers, and the bloodthirsty (sanguinari).”55 This band
of scoundrels roamed the city day and night, terrorizing inhabitants, tak-
ing every opportunity “offered to it to offend.” But what appeared most
serious to the Ten was the fact that Memmo, with the aid of his band of
hoodlums, had come to create a sort of parody of the Venetian justice
system; these episodes of violence and private interests were protected
through an irreverent imitation of the primary principle of the republican
order: equality. Zuanne Memmo had “constituted himself a formidable
determiner of the disputes of various persons, both Christian and not,
who by means of the money it behooved them to contribute to him and
his satellites, they were induced to come to him, who arrogantly inter-
vened in various affairs from which he aimed to make abominable profit.”
54 On the “corrections,” see Marco Bellabarba, “Le pratiche del diritto civile: gli avvo-
cati, le ‘Correzioni’ e i ‘Conservatori delle leggi,’ in Storia di Venezia, vol. 6, ed. Cozzi and
Prodi, pp. 825–63; Cozzi, Repubblica di Venezia, pp. 173, 176–77, 194–212; and Franco Ven-
turi, Settecento riformatore, 5 vols (Turin, 1969–90), vol. 5 (1990): L’Italia dei Lumi, part 2:
La Repubblica di Venezia (1761–1797), pp. 12–31, 174–90, 198–220.
55 ASV, Consiglio dei X, Criminali, reg. 18, cc. 50r–57v. All quotations regarding the judg-
ment against Zuanne Memmo di Michele are taken from this source.