Order in the State
Contarini's literary fame in the sixteenth century rested not so much on his philosophical or theological writings as on his book dealing with the government of Venice, which remains even today the best-known treatise on the subject. Begun between 1523 and 1525 and finished in the early 1530s,[144]De magistratibus et republica Vene-
[144] Gilbert, "Date of Composition," 175-77.
torum was first published in Paris in 1543, with French and Italian translations appearing in the following year and an English translation in 1599.[145] The only modern monograph devoted to the book[146] needs to be updated by recent contributions that have deepened our understanding of what has been called "the great source that fed republican thought in monarchical centuries"[147] and underlined the significance of the work for European political thought. Although one of the treatise's principal purposes was to reinforce the so-called myth of Venice as the perfect state,[148] a close examination of the text reveals a number of other purposes as well. But no consensus has emerged concerning its ultimate intent or the readers for whom it was intended.
One intriguing suggestion is that the book may have originated in a dinner-table conversation between Contarini and Thomas More in Bruges in 1521.[149] More's Utopia had appeared five years earlier, and Contarini could easily have read it. Yet Contarini makes no mention of the book and remarks merely that More was a very learned gentleman. A more likely candidate than More as a stimulus to reflection on the nature of republics is Giovanni Corsi, the Florentine ambassador to Spain from 1522 to 1525. Corsi had belonged to the group that met in the Orti Oricellari, with which Contarini became briefly acquainted in 1515, and the two ambassadors were friends at the Spanish court.[150] Inevitably they discussed the governments of their own states, in
[145] The first Latin edition was published by M. Vascosani, the French translation of 1544 by Galiot du Pré in Paris, and the Italian translation of the same year by Girolamo Scotto in Venice. The English translation by Lewis Lewkenor was published in London in 1599 (facsimile reprint, Amsterdam and New York, 1969); see David McPherson, "Lewkenor's Venice and Its Sources," Renaissance Quarterly 41 (1988): 459-66. Numerous editions of the Italian and French versions attest to the continuing interest in Contarini's book well into the seventeenth century. The manuscript is in Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, Cod. Magliab., cl. XXX, N. 146, fols. lr-78r.
[146] Hermann Hackert, Die Staatsschrift Gasparo Contarinis und die politischen Verhältnisse Venedigs im sechzehnten Jahrhundert (Heidelberg: Winter, 1940).
[147] Gilbert, "Date of Composition," 184. For a comprehensive view of the work, see the observations of William J. Bouwsma, Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968), 145-53; and the more debatable treatment of J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), 320-30. See also Elisabeth G. Gleason, "Reading Between the Lines of Contarini's Treatise on the Venetian State," Historical Reflections/Réflexions historiques 15 (1988): 251-70.
[148] James S. Grubb, "When Myths Lose Power: Four Decades of Venetian Historiography," Journal of Modern History 58 (1986): 46.
[149] Gilbert, "Religion and Politics," 115.
[150] Fragnito, "Cultura umanistica," 114n.165. On Corsi, see P. Malanima, "Corsi, Giovanni," in DBI 29:567-70.
contrast both to each other and to the Habsburg Empire, which they were observing at its administrative center. During his stay in Spain Contarini had the leisure to put his thoughts on paper, an occupation that may have assuaged the yearning for Venice he occasionally expressed in his dispatches.
The years following the Spanish embassy were crucial for the final shape of the book. The sack of Rome, the mission to Clement VII, participation in the negotiations leading to the Peace of Bologna, and finally immersion in Venetian government affairs all gave Contarini an insider's understanding of Venetian, Italian, and European politics. De magistratibus is written without illusions about the new realities of political power after Charles V's triumph in 1530. Contarini knew that Venice had descended to the rank of one of the lesser European states. His book thus does more than merely reflect views held by Venetian patricians after the War of the League of Cambrai[151] or the "interpretation of history and politics formulated by Venetian humanists of the post-Cambrai generation."[152] It is marked first of all by Contarini's realization of what the Peace of Bologna meant for Venice, and only secondarily is it his response to the Cambrai crisis.
The work is divided into five books. The first deals with the location and origins of the city, of Venice and its basic political institution, the Great Council. Book II treats the office of the doge, followed in the next by a discussion of the Senate, the Council of Ten, and the main judicial tribunals. Book IV continues the description of the various magistracies, while the last discusses the government of the Venetian terraferma . Along the way the author offers numerous reflections about the past, pointed and at times poignant obiter dicta , and glimpses of his own views, all of which contribute to infuse life into the book as well as to make its texture more intricate than it at first appears.
On the surface, De magistratibus is written for strangers coming to Venice, predictably full of admiration for the beautiful and splendid city in its improbable setting. Contarini sets out to help his readers see a less obvious aspect of the city's remarkable nature: its excellent government, which surpasses even the dreams of philosophers who created imaginary commonwealths.[153] His intention thus seems clear. Yet even
[151] Myron Gilmore, "Myth and Reality in Venetian Political Theory," in Hale (ed.), Renaissance Venice , 434.
[152] Lester J. Libby, Jr., "Venetian History and Political Thought After 1509," Studies in the Renaissance 20 (1973): 8.
[153] Opera , 264. If Contarini is including More's Utopia here, the reference remains very general.
a cursory reading reveals that he went far beyond his announced intention by writing a treatise that at crucial points speaks to members of his own patrician class much more forcefully than to even the most admiring foreigner, who after all had little personal concern with many of the issues Contarini raised. The book in fact has several levels of meaning: first, the description of institutions and magistracies; then, well-chosen and pedagogically effective examples from the Venetian past meant to illustrate the philosophical basis of the Republic's form of government; and finally, subtle but pointed references to aspects of the Venetian state which Contarini regarded as needing reform so that Venice could take her due place in a greatly changed Europe. The new international order had left her diminished in military, political, and economic significance, but Contarini believed that the Venetian state could still contribute much to contemporary European culture and political understanding.[154]
Contarini's treatise is neither a faithful portrait nor a utopian tract, but a combination of the actual and the ideal, the descriptive and the prescriptive, which blend to form the portrait of good and just government.[155] Enlarging on his statement that he is addressing his work to foreigners, he adds that he hopes to enable "anyone to determine easily whether [the Venetian Republic] is ordered well or wrongly."[156] For this purpose an exposition of the principles on which the government is based is as important as a discussion of its various organs and
[154] William A. Bouwsma, "Venice and the Political Education of Europe," in Hale (ed.), Renaissance Venice , 451, discusses the "particular advantages" of Venice "for bringing into focus the political conceptions of modern Europeans" and remarks that the Venetian achievement "corresponded to the emerging needs of the European nations."
[155] Zera S. Fink, The Classical Republicans , 2d ed. (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1962), 39, briefly but correctly notes that Contarini "performed the extraordinary feat of bringing the real and the ideal together." But I have reservations about the notion that Contarini thought he was describing a "miracle." Gilbert, "Religion and Politics," 110n.70, points to Hackert's misunderstanding of Contarini's idealizing of Venice. Unless one reads the work as both descriptive and idealizing, it is possible to accuse Contarini of hypocrisy and "the smugness of Venetians" (Hackert, Staatsschrift , 113) and to miss what he was really doing. Dittrich, GC , 238, in my opinion overstates the importance of philosophical elements in Contarini's book, thereby missing some of its most significant dimensions. While stating that it describes "the actual circumstances of the Venetian constitution at the beginning of the sixteenth century," he nevertheless decides that it should properly be reckoned among Contarini's philosophical works.
[156] "Quamobrem dum de hac nostra Republica scribere instituerim, ut quilibet facile dignoscere queat, rectene an perperam se habeat, hinc mihi potissimum exordium sumendum reor" (Opera , 264).
magistracies. The state, according to Contarini, exists to ensure that through its institutions its citizens can lead happy lives in the exercise of virtue. He thinks that Venice has been more successful in this than any of the states of antiquity, including Athens, Sparta, and Rome, and the whole of his book supports this central thesis.
Interestingly, Contarini makes no flat assertion that republics are inherently superior to monarchies. His comparison of the two forms of government is more cautious and more subtle than that. Not only would many of his presumed readers come from states governed by princes or kings, but even his fellow nobles in Venice, who in general were convinced of the incompatibility of principalities and republics, included open admirers of Charles V and his empire.[157] If not outright advocates of a pax Habsburgica , these men at least contemplated with equanimity Venice's close cooperation with the emperor and his brother Ferdinand. To this group belonged Alvise Mocenigo, Contarini's inveterate enemy, whose pro-imperial stand was notorious.[158] Thus Contarini did not challenge the proponents of monarchical government, acknowledging that all things being equal the rule of one man exercised in accordance with reason might be best. Yet he thought that this possibility remained open only in the realm of philosophy, for in actuality human nature is inclined to baseness, and the brevity of human life makes government by a larger number of men preferable for civil society, as "experience, the mistress of all, so excellently teaches us."[159] Venice is the paradigm of a state in which experience has tempered theory to produce a perfect government. In this pronouncement we catch an autobiographical note: for Contarini, experience was a critical contributor to the development of living organisms, whether individual or collective.
Contarini's reconstruction of the Venetian past reveals first of all that he fully accepted the ethos of his patrician class. The establishment of perfect political order was due to noble ancestors, "maiores nostri," who are repeatedly spoken of as having possessed all but superhuman virtue—wisdom and goodness together with complete selflessness—
[157] Ambrosini, "Immagini dell'impero," 67-68. I do not think that the prospect of Charles V's universal monarchy seemed to Contarini a good thing for independent Italian states, as the author does (69).
[158] For his deportment during the negotiations at Bologna in 1529-30, see Sanuto, Diarii 53:51, 65, 68, 132. He consistently supported Habsburg political objectives; see, for example, Aldo Stella, "Die Staatsräson und der Mord an Michael Gaismair," Der Schlern 58 (1984): 309-10.
[159] Opera , 266-67.
which made them willing to subordinate their private good to the public good.[160] From the beginning of the city's existence aristocrats had been the shapers of her destiny, since the first inhabitants, refugees from Attila who had settled with their families in the lagoon after being forced to abandon their mainland homes, "excelled others in nobility and wealth." Although the makers of Venice were God's instruments, their superior social status did not derive from that fact. They brought nobility with them when they first reached the site of the future city: "The noblest people of the province of Venetia, fleeing the violence of the barbarian and the destruction of all Italy, withdrew to our estuaries and founded this most splendid city. They gave it the name of Venetia so that posterity should know that the flower of the nobility of all towns in the region of Venetia were assembled together there."[161]
Nobles had shaped the city, and only they possessed the fullness of citizenship. The founders in their wisdom had decreed that the common people could not share in this privilege, since "a citizen is a free man," unlike those who perform servile work.[162] Nobility of birth alone enabled men to participate in government; the mere amassing of wealth was no argument in favor of admission to noble status. Contarini is aware that new names had been inscribed in the rolls of Venetian nobility, most notably after the War of Chioggia in the fourteenth century, but he touches on this fact only briefly in mentioning foreigners whose high rank or exceptional service to the Republic had made them eligible for admission to its patriciate.[163] These cases were so rare as not to mar Contarini's general picture of the hereditary nobles as "the eyes of the city." Using the analogy of the human body, Contarini points out that members who lacked eyes necessarily obeyed those who did have eyes and saw what needed to be done. This is the order that harmonizes with nature. Contarini concludes that "if in any state—as happens in many—the citizens should get to the point of folly, and the people should want to exercise the power of sight and claim for themselves the function of the eyes, that entire state will necessarily be in continuous turmoil."[164] To prevent that from happening Venice had guardians of order, the nobles, whom God used to preserve
[160] E.g., ibid., 264: "Certissimum hoc reor argumentum esse, non ambitionis ventosaeque famae maiores nostros studiosos fuisse, sed patriae tantum bono, communique utilitati consuluisse. Hac ergo incredibili virtute animi, maiores nostri hanc Rempublicam instituere, qualem post hominum memoriam nullam extitisse." Similarly, p. 263.
[161] Ibid., 307.
[162] Ibid., 268. Here Contarini echoes Aristotle, Politics , 3.5.
[163] Ibid., 269.
[164] Ibid., 326.
justice and minister to the general good.[165] Contarini believed that the nobles were a superior class even when they were impoverished, and argued elsewhere that they had a special claim on assistance should they need it.[166] As Venice's preeminent element, the nobles had created an orderly society that in turn reflected hierarchical cosmic order;[167] they were the mind and soul of the Venetian state, which originated from the political genius of their class.[168] Thus Contarini's book, while it continues the long tradition of exalting aristocracy that is found in Venetian humanist literature,[169] is also the supreme literary monument to what he considered the political achievement of the Venetian nobility: a just state and a just society. Although governed by nobles, the state existed by the consent of the governed and their love of those who guided them.[170] Ultimately, the system worked because of the moderation of the nobility,[171] on whose virtue Venetian greatness rested and who wisely provided safeguards against disturbances by the people.
The most famous part of Contarini's book is his presentation of the Venetian state as a perfect balance of democracy, oligarchy, and monarchy. Elaborating the myth that Venice possessed a mixed constitution, Contarini sees the democratic principle operating in the Great Council; the aristocratic in the Senate, the Council of Ten, and the savi ; and the monarchical in the doge.[172] At the conclusion of Book I
[165] Contarini expressed similar thoughts in "Cardinali Polo de poenitentia," Reg ., 355-56: "Il medesimo ordine si vede nel governo delle famiglie fra li homeni et nel regimento delle cita, che dio usa per instrumento suo alcuni homeni, li quali sono causa di conservare la iustitia et il bene commune."
[166] "De officio episcopi," in Opera , 430.
[167] See the observations of Cervelli, Machiavelli , 315.
[168] This point is stressed in Franco Gaeta, "L'idea di Venezia," in Arnaldi and Stocchi (eds.), Storia della cultura veneta 3(3):635.
[169] For this tradition, see Margaret L. King, Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician Dominance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), esp. 92-150.
[170] Opera , 321: the people of the Venetian mainland showed themselves always as loving and obedient to the Venetian nobility ("populus . . . semper amantissimum atque obsequentissimum nobilitatis se praestitisse").
[171] Ibid., 326. Contarini closes his book with these reflections.
[172] Ibid., 269. A vast literature exists on the myth of Venice as the perfect state in the sixteenth century. Among the most important studies are Gina Fasoli, "Nascita di un mito," in Studi storici in onore di Gioacchino Volpe per il suo 80 compleanno (Florence: Sansoni, 1958), 1:447-79; Felix Gilbert, "The Venetian Constitution in Florentine Political Thought," in Florentine Studies , ed. Nicolai Rubinstein (London: Faber & Faber, 1968), 463-500 (reprinted in History: Choice and Commitment , 179-214); Franco Gaeta, "Alcune considerazioni sul mito di Venezia," Bibliothèque d'humanisme et renaissance 23 (1961): 58-75; idem, "L'idea di Venezia," 565-641; Brian Pullan, "The Significance of Venice," Bulletin of t he John Rylands University Library of Manchester 56 (1973-74): 443-62; August Buck, "Laus Venetiae," Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 57 (1975): 185-94. For further bibliography, see Grubb, "When Myths Lose Power."
and the beginning of Book III, Contarini repeats this idea, each time comparing the well-tempered constitution to the harmony of beautiful music, which comes to serve as a metaphor for the well-ordered state.[173] This analysis of the Venetian constitution depends primarily on Aristotle and Polybius, but it also carries on the Venetian tradition, reaching back into the Middle Ages, of stylized encomia of the excellence and balance of the Republic's government. It has been rightly suggested that Contarini's should be compared with earlier treatises in order to be bring out all its nuances.[174] His treatment of the mixed constitution is much more than "a masterpiece of intellectual play, full of elegance and taste."[175] Contarini believed that this constitution existed in reality as the basis of civil concord, since it assured that no single element could assume the dominant role in government. He did not, however, think that a mixed constitution in and of itself guaranteed good order and civic peace. The key to the latter was the political wisdom of the noble class. Because the government was the exclusive preserve of that class, Contarini actually was analyzing democratic, oligarchic, and monarchical elements within the ruling class alone. Jean Bodin's later observation that Contarini denied the aristocratic character of Venice is beside the point because Contarini made a basic distinction between mere inhabitants of the city and the nobles as its true citizens, to whom he confined his discussion.[176]
Although in Contarini's writings the identification of the ruling class and its ratio is complete, his personal solidarity with the actual nobility of his time is a more complex matter. De magistratibus reveals him as both the encomiast and critic of his class, conscious that some of its members have turned their back on the patterns of behavior laid down by the founders. He addresses himself to them in outlining the high ideals they must live up to in order to perpetuate the excellence of the state into which they were born. Choosing a few key instances from the past, Contarini uses them as mirrors for nobles whose departure from established practices has brought harm to the state.
[173] See Ellen Rosand, "Music in the Myth of Venice," Renaissance Quarterly 30 (1977): 512-13; and Libby, "Venetian History and Political Thought," 19. For the wider implications of Contarini's analogy, see Leo Spitzer, Classical and Christian Ideas of World Harmon ), (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1963).
[174] Daniel Robey and John Law, "The Venetian Myth and the 'De Republica Veneta' of Pier Paolo Vergerio," Rinascimento , 2d ser., 15 (1975): 13. Vergerio's work of the early fifteenth century already includes the idea of the Venetian political system as a mixture of aristocratic, democratic, and monarchical elements (ibid., 17).
[175] Hackert's formulation of "ein meisterhaftes Spiel, voll Eleganz und Geschmack" (Staatsschrift , 99) is quite inept, for it touches only the surface.
[176] Ibid., 98-99.
Foremost in his critique is the nature of their participation in maritime affairs. He recalls that in former times Venetians achieved many victories at sea because they were familiar with it and, owing to extensive training, inured to the hardships it posed,[177] whereas now young patricians no longer regularly went to sea.[178] In the past the Arsenal was more important than it now was, and its supervising magistrate held in higher esteem.[179] Similarly, the magistrates in charge of naval affairs, the savi agli ordeni , formerly were of great account, whereas now young and inexperienced men were often elected to those positions.[180] Contarini points regretfully to the decline of Venice as a maritime power, in the hope of seeing that decline reversed by the same class that originally had carved out a seaborne empire. Still, he knows that the reorientation of the ruling class away from the sea and toward the terraferma is an accomplished fact.
It has been argued recently, and I believe incorrectly, that "Contarini's traditionalist view of the sources of Venetian strength and greatness made him deeply hostile to the republic's policy of landward expansion, which he regarded as a dangerous innovation of recent times."[181] On the contrary, he paints an idealized picture of Venetian expansion that reconciles it with his theme of Venice as the perfect commonwealth. Venice manifested her greatness by coming to the aid of her neighbors when they appealed for help, even though the Republic was reluctant to become embroiled in the affairs of the terraferma :
Nevertheless after a long period the policy of the Senate yielded to the pleas of the neighboring peoples, all of whom suffered under the rule of petty kings whom they could endure no longer. The Senate turned its attention to the mainland. When it had driven out the tyrants, and the citizens everywhere gave it their adherence, it restored the whole region of Venetia to essentially its original state. Venetia now reverted gratefully to its native inhabitants after the foreign tyrants were ejected, those offscourings of the barbarians who had settled throughout the region and oppressed the conquered peoples with a harsh servitude.[182]
Contarini here employs a humanist historiographical scheme, portraying Venice as the restorer of order on the mainland as it had existed in
[177] Opera , 317, 319.
[178] Ibid., 320.
[179] Ibid., 314.
[180] Ibid., 293.
[181] Libby, "Venetian History and Political Thought," 29. Cervelli, Macchiavelli , 324-26, gives a better assessment of Contarini's ideas regarding Venetian expansion.
[182] Opera , 317.
classical times before the onset of the destructive barbarians. By acting as it did, the Senate in a sense built a bridge between the Republic and ancient Rome that spanned the valley of darkness and bondage into which the neighbors of Venice had been plunged for centuries.
In olden times there was a link between the sea, commerce, and the virtù of the nobility. That virtù , far from being lost, now maintained itself in a different setting. Venetian wisdom in modern times was revealed in the government of mainland cities. Each had an appointed podestà or governor who now functioned as judge, a capitano in charge of military affairs, a treasurer, and a castellan where there was a castle or fortress.[183] Despite the appointment of Venetians to the more important posts, the subject cities had been left undisturbed in the possession of their ancient laws and statutes. When dealing with legal issues the governors sat together with local experts in the law, deciding nothing without consulting them. Venetian nobles were not permitted to function as iurisperiti , or legal advisors,[184] in deference to local customs and traditions. Thus the uniquely high standards of Venetian justice forged an additional tie between city and terraferma , the solidity of which was shown in the mainland's loyalty to Venice during the dark days of the War of the League of Cambrai. Contarini sees the expanded Venetian state as benefiting the subject cities greatly, since they were assured of good order while still retaining a certain amount of autonomy and having their defence organized and paid for by Venice.[185] The city, then, was not only the center of the terrafetma in every sense, but also the bringer and guardian of peace.
On this last point Contarini is eloquent, attributing to the founders of Venice a deep concern for harmony and peace. Unlike the Romans, who educated their young so completely in warfare that when Carthage was destroyed they turned upon one another, the Venetians did not gear their men for war but for defense. Venice never forgot the intention of the founders, who in their wisdom knew that warfare should be subordinated to peace and that wise government would ensure continued peace.[186] For Contarini peace is not the mere absence of conflict but a transcendent good. It benefits the entire state and society and must be pursued actively, even aggressively. His views
[183] Ibid., 316.
[184] Ibid., 325.
[185] On this topic see also Gaeta, "L'idea di Venezia," 637-38, who regards Contarini's treatment of the harmony between the city and the mainland as "the most subtly seductive" part of the entire work.
[186] Opera , 267.
cannot be explained simply as the product of a contemplative bent that made him dislike armed conflict, or by supposing that he and his contemporaries consciously rejected the turbulence of martial undertakings for the security of an ordered cursus honorum where one office led smoothly to the next with no risks entailed.[187] Contarini's exaltation of peace has more complex roots. His consistent preference for resolving conflicts by patient diplomacy reflects his own temperament, his reasoned conviction, and his experience as ambassador. He knew how dangerous further war would be for his homeland. By herself Venice could not hope to achieve military victories in Italy, but joining leagues was an alternative also fraught with problems, as recent experience had shown. Contarini is speaking to his fellow nobles when he praises peacekeeping as a specifically Venetian virtue. In this instance he ignores the fact of Venice's many previous wars in order to drive home to his readers the bitter lesson he himself had drawn from the involvement of his homeland in the League of Cambrai.
For Machiavelli, too, that lesson was clear. He saw in the defeat at Agnadello a proof of the deficiency of the Venetian state: "In one day they [the Venetians] lost the state which they had acquired during many years with infinite expense; although they recently have gained some of it back, they have regained neither their reputation nor their strength, and thus live at the mercy of others, like all the other Italian rulers."[188] That Machiavelli was no admirer of Venice is well known. He thought Venetians arrogant in prosperity but weak and cowardly in adversity, and he judged their state to have been a threat to the political stability of Italy before 1494 because of its expansionism and aspirations to the "monarchia d'Italia."[189] Agnadello only confirmed that underneath the blustering facade which Venetians presented to the world there lay the serious weakness of a state that relied on mercenary soldiers. To their chagrin they had to learn what St. Mark himself had
[187] Hackert, Staatsschrift , 75, 96. He believes Contarini's encomium of peace masks his passive, contemplative side that makes him shrink from war, and compares Contarini's generation unfavorably with that of the great warrior Andrea Contarini, even seeing in the outlook of the former a sign of Venetian decadence.
[188] Istorie fiorentine , Book I, 29. For an excellent description of the battle of Agnadello, see Piero Pieri, Il Rinascimento e la crisi militare italiana , 2d ed. (Turin: Einaudi, 1971), 455-69.
[189] Machiavelli "represented Venice as an ungrateful friend, an unreliable ally, and a major threat to the peace of Italy before the coming of the French. Her populace he depicted as morally deficient, insolent in prosperity and abject in adversity" (Bouswsma, Venice , 69). See Discorsi , Book III, chap. 31; Istorie fiorentine , Book V, chaps. 19-21; Il Principe , chap. 2. For Agnadello, see Discorsi , Book I, chap. 6.
had to learn in order to be the symbol of effective Venetian domination of the mainland: "At his own cost, and perhaps to no avail, St. Mark realized too late that he needs to hold in his hand the sword and not the book."[190]
Contarini interprets the consequences of Agnadello quite differently. Though almost all the European rulers had conspired against Venice, she had withstood their assault with God's help, "and our state, which almost fell into ruin, is [now] restored undiminished."[191] While duly acknowledging that God had preserved the Venetian state from its enemies, Contarini leaves no doubt that it deserved to endure because of its fundamental justice. The period immediately following the defeat in the War of the League of Cambrai showed once and for all that the nobility and the state were one[192] and that the political virtue of the rulers had bound the entire dominion to its center not by force or fear, but by the love and devotion of the governed for their governors. No other state had ever achieved what Venice had:
From the first beginnings until our own time [the Republic] has remained safe for one thousand two hundred years not only from the domination of strangers but also from civil sedition of any consequence. This was accomplished not by violence, armed might, or fortified strongholds, but by a just and temperate manner of ruling so that the people obeyed the nobility very willingly. They desire no change of government, but on the contrary are more strongly attached to the nobles.[193]
The recent war furnished proof that the Venetian state survived because of the reciprocity of right disposition and action on the part of the nobles and the other inhabitants. After the terrible defeat at Agnadello, when Venice was hard pressed on all sides, the people not only made no attempt to overthrow the nobility, but even, "weeping, offered their lives for the defense of the Republic, thereby preserving it." Their love for Venice was further demonstrated at the siege of Padua, when many plebeians voluntarily joined the nobles against the troops
[190] Machiavelli, "Dell'ambizione," as quoted by Gaeta, "L'idea di Venezia," 607: "San Marco ale sue spese, e forse invano, / tardi conosce come li bisogna / tener la spada e non il libro in mano." For a fine discussion of Machiavelli's anti-Venetian attitude, see pp. 604-14.
[191] Opera , 309.
[192] Another Venetian patrician, Andrea Mocenigo, stressed the absolute solidarity of the state with the nobility in his history of the War of the League of Cambrai, written between 1515 and 1518; on this see Libby, "Venetian History and Political Thought," 33.
[193] Opera , 325.
of Emperor Maximilian.[194] A most important argument barely surfaces here: that the Venetian state has continued to exist because of the consent of the governed. This idea, however, is not elaborated. Having given their actions his approval, Contarini has little more to say about the commoners, who as a class held no theoretical interest for him.
The most important lesson of Agnadello for Contarini was that Venetian nobles had built a state so solidly based that it survived a calamitous war, proof of the nobles' political and moral virtue. Yet Contarini is not complacent in his admiration of this supreme achievement of his class; rather, he voices his apprehension that the war may have strained the cohesion of the nobility. His book does not present the nobility as a monolithic unit, but as a complex class in which the interests of the young and the old or the rich and the poor members are at odds.[195] The best arguments against reading De magistratibus as a picture of static Venetian perfection is contained in certain significant passages, which, although their author does not stress them, illuminate his remarkable understanding of Venice's actual historical position.
In the first such passage he comments on an old law providing for relief of poor nobles. Each Venetian galley used to have eight young nobles assigned to it who were not only salaried but also allowed to carry a certain amount of trading merchandise exempt from tolls and taxes. The latter privilege could be transferred for a payment; thus nobles could profit from it even if they did not themselves engage in trade. By this means the state gave financial support to the nobles, who in turn learned the art of seafaring.[196] Contarini continues: "These ancient laws and customs endure even to our time, although certain young men, corrupted by ambition or luxury since the expansion of the empire, have neglected their country's institutions. In addition the number of citizens has so increased that through the inroads of war in our time and expenses at home, many more have become poor than can be provided for by this law."[197] Here is explicit admission that
[194] Ibid.
[195] Gilbert, "Venice in the Crisis of the League of Cambrai," 290, writes: "Of course the struggle of the young against the old, of the poor nobles against the rich, of the old families against the new has been a constant feature in Venetian history. Nevertheless it might be suggested that the formation of a firm bloc consisting of the traditional ruling families and of the newer families of great wealth distinctly separate from the rest of the nobility, achieved its completion and perfection in the times of the war of the League of Cambrai."
[196] Opera , 319.
[197] Ibid., 320 (translation from Bouwsma, Venice , 152-53).
change had occurred in both the values and the economic position of members of the noble class. Old laws were falling into desuetude not because of their inadequacy but because recent events had produced a new type of noble who no longer subordinated his own interests to those of his class or the state as a whole. Contarini's brief mention of two additional instances of the neglect into which old regulations had fallen acquires added poignancy: no longer observed is either the law forbidding a Venetian noble to command more than twenty-five men[198] or the law providing that no captain of an armed galley can return to the city without first paying and dismissing most of his crew in Istria.[199] These are but surface symptoms of a much deeper problem, the decline from the high standards to which the noble class formerly adhered.
Contarini touches this problem only briefly, as if reluctant to face the implication of his reflections on order and disorder in the state. A crack has opened in the harmonious structure he has been describing, and he is too honest to ignore it but too much the Venetian to face it squarely. A few pages from the end of the book we read:
For nature so works that nothing can be permanent among men, but all things, no matter how perfectly they seem to have been established at the beginning, require restoration after some years, since nature inclines toward the worse; just as the body, though sated with its midday meal, cannot long remain sound unless dinner follows some hours later. Thus in everything it is necessary to assist and renew declining nature. May God help us to follow reason in this too, and devise such a remedy that everything needful may be provided in our Republic.[200]
William Bouwsma has called attention to "the curious ambiguity in Contarini's appeal to nature" here, and his awareness "of some sense in which nature is far from stable."[201] But this passage also reflects Contarini's mainstream cosmological views dating from his Paduan years. In contrast to the supralunary sphere, where everything was in harmony and order, the sublunary sphere was thought to undergo continuous change. The Venetian state, for all its perfection, belonged to the sphere of generation and corruption; mutable nature made no exception for it. Contarini is not denying that Venice, too, is subject to change, but he is calling on the nobles to stem and deflect the course of "natural" events by summoning up those qualities that made the
[198] Ibid., 318.
[199] Ibid., 321.
[200] Ibid., 320 (translation from Bouwsma, Venice , 153).
[201] Bouwsma, Venice , 152. For ideas of nature as both disorderly and orderly, see George Boas, "Nature," in Wiener (ed.), Dictionary of the History of Ideas 3:346-51.
state extraordinary in the first place: the employment of reason, the exercise of political virtue, and total identification with the Republic. Remedy was possible only if the ruling class grasped the danger in which Venice found itself and the nobility looked once more to the ideal vision of Venice as inspiration for its political, social, and ethical actions. Just as the mind is nobler and more perfect than the body, so, Contarini asserts, right understanding can triumph over the obstacles posed by the material world. Agnadello and its aftermath, for all the humiliation it brought upon Venice, might prove the impetus for a vigorous renovation of the state, which in turn would depend on rekindling the once ardent virtù of the nobility and restoring consensus among its members.
Contarini might have been worried about the power of the papalisti , the families within the nobility that were closely linked with the papal curia through the holding of ecclesiastical preferments and whose clerical members were barred from state offices. The pursuit of their own interests at the expense of those of the state made families like the Grimani, Cornaro, and Pisani disruptive of harmony and concord. The danger that such divided allegiances posed for the Republic was an important reason for Contarini's call to respect the ideals of the past.[202] Certainly Contarini, who was in Venice from 1525 to 1528, between his two embassies, at a particularly difficult period of social tensions and economic problems, had no illusions about these matters. He knew at first hand of other disruptive potentialities of the nobility as well: the dangers of the so-called svizzeri , or poor nobles, willing to cast their votes wherever financial compensation was offered, and of the broglio , the maneuvers and deals that preceded elections.[203] He entered public life during the war period, when the government's need of money was so desperate that it broke with time-honored tradition and consented to the sale of offices.[204] There was no denying that the laws were not applied impartially to rich and poor nobles, rich transgressors often being able to escape punishment entirely. It would nev-
[202] Gaetano Cozzi, "Lo stato veneziano nell'opera politico-religiosa di Gasparo Contarini a cavallo degli anni '30," paper read at the meeting commemorating the five-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Gasparo Contarini, Venice, 2 March 1986. On the papalisti , see also Grendler, Roman Inquisition , 30-31; and Pullan, "Occupations and Investments," 397-400.
[203] See the masterly discussion of Venetian social, legal, and economic tensions during the 1520s by Gaetano Cozzi, "Authority and the Law," 293-345, esp. 321-35.
[204] Ibid., 313-14; and Gilbert, "Venice in the Crisis of the League of Cambrai," 284-85.
ertheless be a mistake to regard De magistratibus as glossing over the lack of harmony among those who were "the eyes of the Republic." His strong practical sense, coupled with his expert understanding of how the government actually functioned, is attested by the careful description of offices and procedures throughout his treatise. Although with his insider's knowledge he could have expatiated on the realities of Venetian politics, he deliberately chose to dwell on the perfection of its ideal rather than the realities of corruption and degeneration that he knew disfigured it.
I suggest that he had two audiences in mind, and that he was addressing them on different levels. The first was the audience of educated foreigners for whose benefit he described the workings of the Venetian constitution. The second was his own class, which did not need description so much as reflection on Venice's tradition and values in a time of turmoil and uncertainty. Contarini, like his contemporaries, had passed through the crisis of Cambrai, and he belonged to a generation that had been deeply affected by then-recent events. He was therefore addressing himself primarily to the nobility in his muted admission of the need for reform in the state; he held before their eyes the vision of what Venice had been and ideally might be again, though he knew that a literal return to the past was impossible. The former position of Venice among European states could not be restored, but Venice's political virtue could once more flourish.
How he envisioned a restored Venice is not made explicit save perhaps in a few hints comprehensible only to insiders. One especially significant passage of this kind can be found at the beginning of the discussion of the Council often. According to Contarini, "The Council of Ten has supreme authority among Venetians; it can be rightly asserted that it bears the responsibility for the safety of the state."[205] We have seen that in practice Contarini, as one of its members, supported the growing power of the Ten. His treatise shows his conviction that reform of the state would entail the tightening of the government by placing supreme authority firmly in the hands of a small elite. This inner circle was for Contarini the nerve center of the state, around which were arranged all the other parts of the governmental and administrative apparatus down to the most minor magistracies.
That Contarini favored an oligarchy of powerful men in control of the government can be seen further in his relations with Andrea Gritti,
[205] "Decemvirum hoc collegium apud Venetos summae est autoritatis, et a quo non immerito quis asserat Reipub. incolumitatem praestari" (Opera , 295).
doge from 1523 to 1538. He judges Gritti to have been a senator of "outstanding wisdom and integrity,"[206] who brought these qualities to his ducal position. He does not, however, tell the reader that this doge, though admired for the strength and courage he had shown at Padua in 1509, was by and large not popular,[207] and that his election was due to a remarkable network of alliances among powerful Venetian families that formed an inside group within the nobility.[208] As doge, Gritti favored the grandi , a narrow oligarchy among the nobles.[209] During his two embassies, significantly, Contarini was in agreement with Gritti's political objectives. He shared the doge's pro-French sympathies, especially at the court of Clement VII, where he was the spokesman for Gritti's ideas. The thirty surviving letters from Gritti to Contarini between 1528 and 1530 reveal the close contact the two men maintained during this mission to Rome, the often minute instructions the doge personally sent to the ambassador, and the trust he had in Contarini's diplomatic abilities.[210] Between 1530 and 1535, while occupying ever higher offices, Contarini remained one of Gritti's close collaborators and supporters.
Recently, the period during which Gritti was doge has been the subject of several studies that have opened new perspectives on the man and his times.[211] It has become clear that membership in the Gritti circle meant espousing, or at the very least sympathizing with, a definite political and cultural program. Gritti championed the reform of the entire Venetian legal system in order to streamline laws and eliminate contradictory and confusing legislation. His schemes had far-
[206] Ibid., 311.
[207] Manfredo Tafuri, "'Renovatio urbis Venetiarum': il problema storiografico," in "Renovatio urbis": Venezia nell'età di Andrea Gritti (1523-1538 ), ed. Manfredo Tafuri (Rome: Officina Edizioni, 1984), 11.
[208] Finlay, "Politics and Family;" 107ff.
[209] Tafuri, "'Renovatio,'" passim; and idem, Venezia e il Rinascimento: religione, scienza, architettura (Turin: Einaudi, 1985), esp. 162-71.
[210] VBC, Cod. Cicogna 3477; and Urbani, "Lettere ducali," disp. 1, 19-34; and disp. 3, 7-25. For an expression of Gritti's anti-imperial and pro-French views, see especially his letter of 23 July 1529 (Urbani, "Lettere ducali," disp. 3, 14-15).
[211] Besides the two works of Manfredo Tafuri cited above (notes 207 and 209), see Antonio Foscari and Manfredo Tafuri, L'armonia e i conflitti: la chiesa di San Francesco della Vigna nella Venezia del '500 (Turin: Einaudi, 1983); Leonardo Puppi, ed., Architettura e utopia nella Venezia del Cinquecento: catalogo della mostra (Milan: Electa, 1980). Gaetano Cozzi, "La politica del diritto nella Repubblica di Venezia" (1980), reprinted in his Repubblica di Venezia , 293-313, deals with Gritti's proposed reforms in masterly fashion.
reaching implications for the nobility, for their intent was that magistrates would become experts in the law and part of an efficient, specialized bureaucracy. In the end, opposition from nobles who closed-mindedly defended the status quo proved too strong for Gritti's designs to be realized. But Contarini's association with the doge demonstrates that his endorsement of the oligarchic tendencies within the Venetian ruling class was as much a matter of principle with him as it was personal preference. The Gritti circle prized order in the state even if that meant restructuring traditional relations among the Senate, the doge, and the Council of Ten in favor of the last-named. Contarini, too, believed that a vital, extremely powerful Council of Ten composed of experts who belonged to the most important families of the Republic and had the greatest stake in its welfare was needed for the revival of the state. Such a council, together with its zonta or advisory group, a doge who wielded wider discretionary powers than tradition assigned him, and the doge's six councillors were to be the thirty-two men who in reality governed Venice.
If the Gritti circle in fact had a distinct cultural program, as Manfredo Tafuri has argued convincingly, we can place Contarini's timeless-sounding views of Venice in their immediate cultural context. Tafuri thinks that the men around Gritti shared his vision of the state as a machine, the efficiency of which depended on speed in decision making and a reliable fund of specialized technical knowledge. He further believes that the ruling elite wanted to stimulate a reorientation of thought patterns among Venetians and launch a new image of Venice that would downplay the importance of military power. Venice was to become the cultural and intellectual center of Europe, the seat of philosophic wisdom, artistic excellence, and religious renewal.[212] For this program to succeed, Venice needed concord at home and peace abroad. In moving to achieve these goals the doge was also concerned with the less lofty but at least equally important task of assuring the grain supply that would keep Venice's own population content while the Republic's new image was diffused abroad.
The Venice of De magistratibus is a city of peace and concord. Time after time Contarini stresses the commitment to peace, a peace that is a positive moral excellence promoting good in the state and its people. While the treatise says nothing of art and touches on the city's archi-
[212] Tafuri, "'Renovatio,'" esp. 23-42.
tecture only in the most general terms, it contributes to Venice's cultural revival in the Gritti period by constructing the ideal Venice as the model for present and future generations. Its constitution, as Contarini describes it, challenges its own ruling class to rise to heights of political wisdom, and invites those dwelling beyond its borders to emulate Venice's singular greatness. The Republic could truly be the education of Europe.