od a ballot-box and an urn. The secretaries gave to
every elector a slip of paper, upon which each one wrote the name of the
man whom he proposed as Doge. The forty-one slips of paper were then
placed in the urn, and one was drawn out at hazard. If the noble, whose
name was written upon the slip, chanced to be an elector, he was
required to withdraw. Then each of the electors was at liberty to attack
the candidate, to point out defects and recal misdeeds. These hostile
criticisms, which covered the whole of a candidate's private life, his
physical qualities and his public conduct, were written down by the
secretaries, and the candidate was recalled. The objections urged
against him were read over to the aspirant, without the names of the
urgers appearing, and he was invited to defend himself. Attack and
defence continued till no further criticisms were offered, and then the
name of the candidate was balloted before the priors. If it received
twenty-five favourable votes, its owner was declared Doge; if less than
twenty-five, a fresh name was drawn from the urn, and the whole process
was repeated until some candidate secured the necessary five-and-twenty
votes. As soon as this issue was reached, the Signoria was informed of
the result, and the new Doge, attended by the electors, descended to
Saint Mark's, where, from the pulpit on the left side of the choir, the
Prince was shown to the people, and where, before the high altar, he
took the coronation oath and received the standard of Saint Mark. The
great doors of the Basilica were then thrown open, and the Doge passed
in procession round the Piazza and returned to the Porta della Carta. At
the top of the Giants' Stair the eldest Ducal Councillor placed the
beretta on his head, and he was brought to the Sala dei Pioveghi, where
the late Doge had lain in state, and where he too would one day come.
Then the Doge retired to his private apartments, and the ceremony of
election closed.

As we have already observed, the position of the Doge in the Republic of
Venice was almost purely ornamental. The Doge presided, either in person
or by commission through his councillors, at every Council of State; he
presided, however, not as a guiding and deliberating chief, but as a
symbol of the Majesty of Venice. He is there not as an individual, a
personality, but as the outward and visible sign of an idea, the idea of
the Venetian oligarchy. The history of the personal authority of the
D