lege. To establish connection between these two branches of
the administration was a process that required some time; it could not
be done swiftly and secretly. In all crises of political importance,
whether home or foreign, some instrument, more expeditious than the
Senate, was required to sanction the propositions of the College. That
instrument, acting swiftly and secretly, with a speed and secrecy
impossible in so large a body as the Senate, was created with the
Council of Ten. The Ten were an extraordinary magistracy, devised to
meet unexpected pressure upon the ordinary machine of government. The
emergence of the Ten proves this view. Without determining whether the
Council existed previous to the year 1310, we may take that year as the
date of its first appearance as a potent element in the State. The
rebellion of Tiepolo and Querini, an aristocratic revolt against the
growing power of the new commercial nobility, paralysed the ordinary
machinery of State, and revealed the danger inherent in a large and
slow-moving body of rulers. The Ten were called to power, just as the
Romans created the Dictatorship, in order to save the State in a
dangerous crisis.

The place of the Ten in the constitutional structure is below the
College and parallel with the Senate. Below the College the
administration bifurcates, the ordinary course of business flows through
the Senate, the extraordinary through the Ten. The Ten possessed an
authority equal to that of the Senate; the choice of which instrument
should be used, rested with the College. The Ten appear to be of more
importance than the Senate, solely because they were used upon more
critical and dramatic occasions. Wherever the machinery of the College
and Senate moves too slowly, we find the swifter machinery of the
College and the Ten in motion. And so not only in political affairs,
home and foreign, but also in affairs financial and judicial, the
Council of Ten takes its part. The Ten, as being the readier instrument
to the hands of the College, gradually absorbed more and more of the
functions which originally belonged to the Senate. This process of
absorption, and the extension of the province of the Ten, is marked by
the establishment of its sub-commissions, that took their place in every
department side by side with the delegations of the Senate and the
ordinary magistrates. In politics and foreign affairs there is the
famous office of the Three Inquisitors of State. I