ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the Venetian system of justice as a tool for social and political control. Given that the main juridical procedures, trials, and enquiries in the Serenissima were concerned with the question of consensus, I aim to show how the endurance of Venetian institutions was not the result of a conscious patrician attempt to control social tensions, but rather a consequence of the fact that both the practical tools of law and the moral rhetoric pertaining to the constitution were widely shared among Venetians. After a brief outline of the main features and dynamics of the Venetian juridical system, I analyze the use of itinerant justice, when Venetian judges and magistracies were sent to the overseas dominions. Itinerant justice, I argue, was a political tool that helped contain and solve the contradictions that were generated by a theory of an expanding superior state and a practical reality where a personal view of jurisdiction was still dominant. Finally, I examine the relationship between private and public spheres of justice by testing the juridical reaction of the patrician body when republican symbols were questioned.
