A maritime republic governed from the Middle Ages to 1797 by an elective doge, a patrician Great Council and other councils, and known for an elaborate procedure combining lot and supermajority votes to elect the doge.
Tradition dates the first doge to 697, though some scholars doubt it; Orso Ipato (726) is possibly the first doge elected locally rather than appointed from Byzantium. Over time power passed to councils: the Senate, the Great Council, whose membership was closed to families outside the established aristocracy from 1297 (the Serrata), and from 1310 the Council of Ten. The doge held office for life. From 1268 a ten-round procedure alternating lot and qualified-majority votes chose him. The republic ended on 12 May 1797, when the Great Council voted to dissolve itself under French pressure.
Lasted about eleven centuries by traditional dating as an oligarchic republic, and developed an unusually elaborate lot-and-vote protocol for choosing its head of state, which has been analysed in the social-choice and security literature.
Under French military pressure the Great Council voted on 12 May 1797 to dissolve the republic in favour of a provisional government, and the last doge, Ludovico Manin, abdicated the same day.
From 1268 the doge was chosen by a ten-round procedure in which electoral colleges were alternately reduced by lot and enlarged by supermajority votes, ending with 41 electors who needed 25 votes to elect; no family could have more than one member in a college.[1]
Mowbray and Gollmann's analysis found that the doge-election protocol offers some resistance to corruption of voters and some opportunities for minorities, at the cost of considerable complexity.[1]
From 1297 the Serrata closed Great Council membership to the established aristocratic families, and in 1310 a Council of Ten was created after the Tiepolo conspiracy, initially as a temporary body.[1]
The republic ended on 12 May 1797, when the Great Council voted to dissolve itself and the last doge, Ludovico Manin, abdicated.[1]