Editing Doge of Venice (section)

==Selection of the doge==
[[file:Pinacoteca Querini Stampalia - Elezione del doge per opera dei Quarantuno - Gabriele Bella.jpg|thumb|''Election of the Doge by the Forty-One'' – [[Gabriele Bella]]|227x227px]]
The doge's prerogatives were not defined with precision. While the position was entrusted to members of the inner circle of powerful Venetian families, after several doges had associated a son with themselves in the ducal office, this tendency toward a hereditary monarchy was checked by a law that decreed that no doge had the right to associate any member of his family with himself in his office, nor to name his successor.<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=1|wstitle=Doge|volume=8|pages=379-380}}</ref>

After 1172 the election of the doge was entrusted to a committee of forty, who were chosen by four men selected from the [[Great Council of Venice]], which was itself nominated annually by twelve persons. After a [[Split vote|deadlocked tie]] at the election of 1229, the number of electors was increased from forty to forty-one.<ref name="EB1911"/>

New regulations for the [[Voting system#Early democracy|elections]] of the doge introduced in 1268 remained in force until the end of the republic in 1797. Their intention was to minimize the influence of individual great families, and this was effected by a complex electoral machinery. Thirty members of the Great Council, [[sortition|chosen by lot]], were reduced by lot to nine; the nine chose forty and the forty were reduced by lot to twelve, who chose twenty-five. The twenty-five were reduced by lot to nine, and the nine elected forty-five. These forty-five were once more reduced by lot to eleven, and the eleven finally chose the forty-one who elected the doge.<ref name="EB1911"/>

Election required at least twenty-five votes out of forty-one, nine votes out of eleven or twelve, or seven votes out of nine electors.<ref name="dogeelection">{{cite web | author=Miranda Mowbray and Dieter Gollmann | title=Electing the Doge of Venice: Analysis of a 13th Century Protocol | url=http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2007/HPL-2007-28R1.html | access-date=12 July 2007 | archive-date=4 February 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210204161907/https://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2007/HPL-2007-28R1.html | url-status=live }}</ref>{{efn|A detailed description of this process, and the ceremonial procession that followed, is preserved in [[Martin da Canal]]'s work ''Les Estoires de Venise'' (English translation by Laura K. Morreale, Padua 2009, pp.&nbsp;103–116)}}

Before taking the oath of investiture, the doge-elect was presented to the [[Concio (Venice)|concio]] with the words: "This is your doge, if it please you."<ref name="EB1911"/> This ceremonial gesture signified the assent of the Venetian people. This practice came to an end with the abolition of the concio in 1423; after the election of [[Francesco Foscari]], he was presented with the unconditional pronouncement – "Your doge".<ref>[[Horatio Brown|Horatio Forbes Brown]], ''Venice: an historical sketch of the republic'' (1893), p. 273</ref>