"With their usual circumspection, they (the Council of Ten, the "chairs" Casanova refers to) did nothing rashly or openly, but invited Carmagnola (a disappointing Condottieri, hired gun) to Venice to meet the Doge and discuss future strategy. He never saw the Doge. instead, he was whisked from the palace to prison, tortured, tried, condemned.....and beheaded. That was in 1432."
"It
was the essential character of the Venetian republic that all
personality was ruthlessly suppressed to the state."
300 years later Venice
"...was to be praised as the most perfect model of
government for any mercantile state that aspired to be
free." H.R.Trevor-Roper in The Italian Renaissance, op. cit.
Backarrow to your place or
Voliamo andare! To Venice's Website. E squisito!
Info on history, hotels, art museums, photographic exhibits with lots of wonderful pictures. To the Dormer Window on the roof of the Doge's Palace through which Casanova made his Great Escape.