Talk:Great Council of Venice

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Size[edit]

The article states:

"Thirty years later (1172) the Consilium was transformed into sovereign assembly known as the Great Council. The council initially consisted of 35 councilors, but gradually expanded to over 100."

This is unreferenced, and contradicted by all references I've seen. In the accounts I've read, the Great Council at the start in 1172 consisted of 480 members. By the new formula, 12 electors (or "tribunes") were appointed, two from each of the six new sestieri (established the previous year, 1171, for the raising of the forced loan), and each elector named 40 prominent Venetian citizens (noble or plebian), thus producing 480 councillors to the Maggior Consiglio. The two electors (or "tribunes") from each sestiero were initially elected locally by the population of their sestiero. This number (480) remained the upper limit of the Great Council until the Serrata of 1297 abolished the committees of tribunes, and transferred elections of members to the Council of Forty. The Forty would elect members to the Great Council of 1298 from a list limited to those who had served in the past four years, with 12 votes (out of 40) sufficient to elect a member. If insufficient members were elected by these means to fill the vacancies, there was a special three-man committee who could propose candidates that did not fulfill the four-year criteria, although their nominations were subject to dogal veto (and, after 1300, still subject to having a paternal ancestor who served at some point). The Great Council only begins expanding in size thereafter, as families rush to secure eligibility and the three-man committee recommends their inclusion beyond the size limits. It only became permanent and hereditary in 1319, when the annual elections are abolished, and Great Council seats held for life, with sons and grandsons automatically admitted upon reaching 25 years of age. It is only now that the Great Council becomes unlimited in number (peaking at 1,600 or so in the 16th C.) Walrasiad (talk) 19:58, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Update for the republic governmental structure[edit]

The previous diagram was very inaccurate. The current one is better I think. I tried to take into account the remarks from Hans-Jürgen Hübner on the Signoria of Venice article when he removed the diagram because there were too many mistakes. I am not the one who created the previous diagram, so I had to recreate it completely. Hervegirod Hervegirod (talk) 14:26, 14 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note I think there is a misspelling in the diagram. "found" should be "fount" Nicholas Gruen (talk) 01:32, 6 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]