Venice, an extraordinary place, is a city built on marshes and water and had a republic that lasted for more than 1,000 years. For a long time, it was the dominant power—an empire—in the Mediterranean. The Republic was destroyed in 1797 by Napoleon when he sacked the city and brought to an end the rule of the final doge—the 120th in succession.
At the time of its fall, its power and influence had long been on the wane, but it’s hardly a disgrace to say that a city fell to Napoleon, since most of Europe did.
Venice’s model for its republic influenced the American Founding Fathers in a number of ways: the aspiration for its longevity for one thing (a republic that was built to last), the separation of powers for another, and the concept, too, of its federalism must have resonated.
The Counterintuitive Secrets of Venice
The strange anomaly of the doge included the complex and labyrinthine mechanisms for selecting him—a process almost impossible to describe briefly. Its purpose was to prevent any one individual or family from achieving dominance over the city; it was a mechanism that certainly worked.
How likely, given human history, was it that one dominant family wouldn’t emerge? Remember what happened to the Roman Republic within a much shorter time span. And not that far away from Venice was Rome with its 2,000-year-old history of the papacy, where dominant families (for example, the Borgias) or worse, royalty (for example, Philip the Fair of France who uprooted the papacy to Avignon), captured control. Not so in Venice.
Indeed, in Venice, while the doge was in charge, in reality, it was difficult to determine who was in charge, for the second remarkable fact about doges is that their power was curtailed by so many checks that they could never act with impunity.
In our modern democratic era, perhaps we take it for granted that no one person should have control, and we see the value of checks and balances. But will it last? In America currently, the system of checks and balances is under severe strain, as both an ex-president and the current president are under investigation. Yet Venice maintained 1,000 years of successful checks and balances. Extraordinary.
Third, we come to something even stranger to modern times—a time when we’re obsessed with personal achievement, as many of our heroes and villains of the past were. It seems that being personally distinguished was the last thing on the minds of the leaders and politicians of ancient Venice; in fact, being distinguished was a matter for concern and alarm. All were bound to their traditions, and what was important was Venice itself; the citizens lived and died for Venice: the traditions of Venice, the business of Venice (which was like America is now, the greatest commercial center in the world), and the glory of Venice.
A Paradox
And here, we reach the strange paradox of Venice: On the one hand, it was the most commercial and capitalist city on earth, and on the other, seemingly, the most communist, for everyone was subordinate to the interests of the state, though this wouldn’t be the totalitarian communism of today—far from it.
The metaphor I would use to describe it would be as an amazingly powerful ant colony, with every ant working (and generally they seemed happy in fulfilling their purpose), every ant serving the greater good, and no one ant was allowed to get too high and mighty. In Greek myth, Achilles was singled out as the supreme warrior, but his troops were called the Myrmidons, or ants. They punched well above their weight (if I may be permitted to mix metaphors). Venice was the Myrmidons but without an Achilles.
What do we learn from this? Clearly, in our modern Western world, we wouldn’t accept such repression of individuality, since we’re so used to it; for us, individuality is like the water that a fish breathes without noticing. Some regimes do repress individuality, but how stable are they in the long run? Will North Korea last 1,000 years? Will China?
And can the United States? I’m not a political expert (and I’m not even American), but the Founding Fathers learned from Venice. It’s interesting that the Republic of the United States started just when Venice reached its demise, as if the torch of republicanism had passed to it.
Fanciful? Perhaps, but if the United States is to endure 1,000 years, it’s probably true to say that the people must ensure that they continue to embrace those two pillars of Venetian longevity: separation of powers and federalism, in which power is split up.
Its opposite, the centralization of power now occurring in all countries in the West is like the gravitational pull of a black hole. Centralization is a vice to be resisted at all costs, for it ends in the overreach of the state.
