In the partition of the spoils Venice claimed and received, in her own phrase, "a half and a quarter of the Roman empire." To her fell the Cyclades, the Sporades, the islands and the eastern shores of the Adriatic, the shores of the Propontis and the Euxine, and the littoral of Thessaly, and she bought Crete from the marquis of Monferrat. The accession of territory was not only vast, it was of the highest importance to Venetian commerce. She now commanded the Adriatic, the Ionian islands, the archipelago, the Sea of Marmora and the Black Sea, the trade route between Constantinople and western Europe, and she had already established herself in the seaports of Syria, and thus held the trade route between Asia Minor and Europe. She was raised at once to the position of a European power. In order to hold these possessions, she borrowed from the Franks the feudal system, and granted fiefs in the Greek islands to her more powerful families, on condition that they held the trade route open for her. The expansion of commerce which resulted from the Fourth Crusade soon made itself evident in the city by a rapid development in its architecture and by a decided strengthening of the commercial aristocracy, which eventually led to the great constitutional reform—the closing of the Maggior Consiglio in 1296, whereby Venice became a rigid oligarchy. Externally this rapid success awoke the implacable hatred of Genoa, and led to the long and exhausting series of Genoese wars which ended at Chioggia in 1380.
The closing of the great council was, no doubt, mainly due to the slowly formed resolution on the part of the great commercial families to secure a monopoly in the Levant trade which the Fourth Crusade had placed definitely in their hands. The theory of the government, a theory expressed throughout the whole commercial career of the republic, the theory which made Venice a rigidly protective state, was that the Levant trade belonged solely to Venice and her citizens. No one but a Venetian citizen was permitted to share in the profits of that trade. But the population of Venice was growing rapidly, and citizenship was as yet undefined. To secure for themselves the command of trade the leading commercial families resolved to erect themselves into a close gild, which should have in its hands the sole direction of the business concern, the exploitation of the East. This policy took definite shape in 1297, when the Doge Pietro Gradenigo proposed and carried the following measure: the supreme court, the Quarantia, was called upon to ballot, one by one, the names of all who for the last four years had held a seat in the great council created in 1171. Those who received twelve favourable votes became members of the great council. A commission of three was appointed to submit further names for ballot. The three commissioners at once laid down a rule—which contains the essence of the act—that only those who could prove that a paternal ancestor had sat in the great council should be eligible for election. This measure divided the community into three great categories: (1) those who had never sat in the council themselves and whose ancestors had never sat; these were of course the vast majority of the population, and they were excluded for ever from the great council: (2) those whose paternal ancestors had sat in the council; these were eligible and were gradually admitted to a seat, their sons becoming eligible on majority: (3) those who were of the council at the passing of this act or had sat during the four preceding years; their sons likewise became eligible on attaining majority. As all offices were filled by the great council, exclusion meant political disfranchisement. A close caste was created which very seldom and very reluctantly admitted new members to its body. The Heralds' College, the avvogadori di comun, in order to ensure purity of blood, were ordered to open a register of all marriages and births among members of the newly created caste, and these registers formed the basis of the famous Libro d'oro.
The closing of the great council and the creation of the patrician caste brought about a revolution among those who suffered disfranchisement. In the year 1300 the people, led by Marin Bocconio, attempted to force their way into the great council and to reclaim their rights. The doors were opened, the ringleaders were admitted and immediately seized and hanged. Ten years later a more serious revolution, the only revolution that seriously shook the state, broke out and was also crushed. This conspiracy was championed by Bajamonte Tiepolo, and seems to have been an expression of patrician protest against the serrata, just as Bocconio's revolt had represented popular indignation. Tiepolo, followed by members of the Quirini family and many nobles with their followers, attempted to seize the Piazza on the 15th of June 1310. They were met by the Doge Pietro Gradenigo and crushed. Quirini was killed, and Tiepolo and his followers fled.
The chief importance of the Tiepoline conspiracy lies in the fact that it resulted in the establishment of the Council of Ten. Erected first as a temporary committee of public safety to hunt down the remnant of the conspirators and to keep a vigilant watch on Tiepolo's movements, it was finally made permanent in 1335. The secrecy of its deliberations and the rapidity with which it could act made it a useful adjunct to the constitution, and it gradually absorbed many of the more important functions of the state.
With the creation of the Council of Ten the main lines of the Venetian constitution were completed. At the basis of the pyramid we get the great council, the elective body composed of all who enjoyed the suffrage, i.e. of the patrician caste. Above the great council came the senate, the deliberative and legislative body par excellence. To the senate belonged all questions relating to. foreign affairs, finance, commerce, peace and war. Parallel with the senate, but extraneous to the main lines of the constitution, came the Council of Ten. As a committee of public safety it dealt with all cases of conspiracy; for example, it tried the Doge Marino Falier and the General Carmagnola; on the same ground all cases affecting public morals came within its extensive criminal jurisdiction. In the region of foreign affairs it was in communication with envoys abroad, and its orders would override those of the senate. It also had its own departments of finance and war. Above the senate and the Ten came the Collegio or cabinet, the administrative branch of the constitution. All affairs of state passed through its hands. It was the initiatory body; and it lay with the Collegio to send matters for deliberation either before the senate or before the Ten. At the apex of the pyramid came the doge and his council, the point of highest honour and least weight in the constitution.
To turn now to the external events which followed on the Fourth Crusade. These events are chiefly concerned with the long struggle with Genoa over the possession of the Levant and Black Sea trade. By the establishment of the Latin empire Venice had gained a preponderance. But it was impossible that the rival Venetian and Genoese merchants, dwelling at close quarters in the Levant cities, should not come to blows. They fell out at Acre in 1253. The first Genoese war began and ended in 1258 by the complete defeat of Genoa. But in 1261 the Greeks, supported by the Genoese, took advantage of the absence of the Venetian fleet from Constantinople to seize the city and to restore the Greek empire in the person of Michael VIII. Palaeologus. The balance turned against Venice again. The Genoese were established in the spacious quarter of Galata and threatened to absorb the trade of the Levant. To recover her position Venice went to war again, and in 1264 destroyed the Genoese fleet off Trepani, in Sicilian waters. This victory was decisive at Constantinople, where the emperor abandoned the defeated Genoese and restored Venice to her former position. The appearance of the Ottoman Turk and the final collapse of the Latin empire in Syria brought about the next campaign between the rival maritime powers. Tripoli (1289) and Acre (1291) fell to the Mussulman, and the Venetian title to her trading privileges, her diplomas from the Latin empire, disappeared. To the scandal of Christendom, Venice at once entered into treaty with the new masters of Syria and obtained a confirmation of her ancient trading rights. Genoa replied by attempting to close the Dardanelles. Venice
