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In Venice the office of doge was first instituted about 700, replacing tribunes that had led the cluster of early settlements in the lagoon, according to the chronicler John the Deacon, author of the Chronicon Venetum ("Chronicle of Venice"), written about 1000 CE. Whether or not the first doges were technically local representatives of the Emperor at Constantinople, the doge like the Emperor held office for life and was similarly regarded as the ecclesiastical, the civil and the military leader, in the power structure termed caesaropapism. The doge's prerogatives were not defined with precision, and though 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 towards a hereditary monarchy was checked by a law which decreed that no doge had the right to associate any member of his family with himself in his office, or to name his successor. After 1172 the election of the doge was finally entrusted to a committee of forty, who were chosen by four men selected from the Great Council, which was itself nominated annually by twelve persons. After a deadlocked tie at the election of 1229, the number of electors was increased from forty to forty-one.

After a popular revolutions on 22 March 1848 (The Five Days of Milan), the Austrians fleed from Milan, which become the capital city of the Governo Provvisorio della Lombardia (Lombardy Temporary Government). The next day, also Venice arose against the Austrians, forming the Governo Provvisorio di Venezia (Venice Temporary Government). The Austrians, after defeating the Sardininan troops in Custoza (24-25 July 1848), entered in Milan (6 August) and Venice (24 August 1849), restoring Austrian rule.

One of the ceremonial duties of the doge was to celebrate the symbolic marriage of Venice with the sea. This was done by casting a ring from the state barge, the Bucentaur, into the Adriatic. In its earlier form this ceremony was instituted to commemorate the conquest of Dalmatia by Doge Pietro II Orseolo in 1000, and was celebrated on Ascension Day. It took its later and more magnificent form after the visit of pope Alexander II and the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I to Venice in 1177. On state occasions the Doge was surrounded by an increasing amount of ceremonial, and in international relations he had the status of a sovereign prince.

The chief executive was the Doge (duke), who, theoretically, held his elective office for life. In practice, a number of Doges were forced by pressure from their oligarchical peers to resign the office and retire into monastic seclusion when they were felt to have been discredited by perceived political failure.

In the early years of the republic, the political system can be classified as an autocracy, with the Doge as the almost absolute ruler. In 1223, the aristocratic families of Rialto drastically diminished the powers of the Doge by the establishment of an advisory body that would later be called the Quarantia and a supreme tribunal which would later be called the Signoria. They also created two bodies called sapientes which later grew into six bodies. The combination of sapientes and certain other groups was called a collegio, a kind of ministry to carry out the functions of government. A senate, called the Consiglio dei Pregadi was organized in 1229 with sixty members elected by the Major Council1. During this period the Doge had little real power left, and actual authority was exercised by the Great Council, an extremely limited parliament-like body in which only members of the great aristocratic families of the republic were allowed to participate. Venice claimed that its government was a 'classical republic' because it was a fusion of the three basic forms present in a mixed government: with the regal power in the Doge, the aristocratic in the senate, and the democratic in the Great Council2.

Though the people of Venice generally remained orthodox Roman Catholics, the state of Venice was notable for its freedom from religious fanaticism and it enacted not a single execution for religious heresy during the Counter-Reformation. This apparent lack of zeal contributed to its frequently coming into conflict with the Papacy. Venice was threatened with the interdict on a number of occasions and twice suffered its imposition. The second, more famous, occasion was on April 27, 1509, by order of Pope Julius II

Venice is famous for its canals. It is built on an archipelago of more than 100 islands in a shallow lagoon. In the old center, the canals serve the function of roads, and every form of transport is on water or on foot. In the 19th century a causeway to the mainland brought a railroad station to Venice, and an automobile causeway and parking lot was added in the 20th century. Beyond these land entrances at the northern edge of the city, transportation within the city remains, as it was in centuries past, entirely on water or on foot. Venice is Europe's largest carfree area, unique in Europe in remaining a sizable functioning city in the 21st century entirely without motorcars or trucks.

In the early fifteenth century, the Venetians also began to expand in Italy, as a response to the threatening expansion of Giangaleazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan. By 1410, Venice had taken over most of Venetia, including such important cities as Verona and Padua. The Venetians also came into conflict with the Popes over control of the Romagna. This led in 1508 to the League of Cambrai against Venice, in which the Pope, the King of France, the Holy Roman Emperor, and the King of Aragon came together to despoil the republic. Although the French were victorious at Agnadello in 1509, the coalition soon fell out among themselves, and Venice found itself without serious territorial loss.

Its banks are lined with some of the most beautiful buildings of the city, amongst the many palazzos and churches are the Ca' Rezzonico, Ca d'Oro, Ca' Foscari, Palazzo Barbarigo and the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, housing the Peggy Guggenheim Collection