d at the Scuola di S. Teodoro; the judicial,
at the convent of S. Giovanni Laterano; the financial, at S. Procolo. In
the year 1815, the Austrian Government resolved to collect and arrange
all State papers in one place. The building chosen was the convent of
the Frari; and the work was entrusted to Jacopo Chiodo, the first
director of the archives. The scheme suggested by Chiodo has served as a
basis for the arrangement that has been already carried out, or is still
in hand.

Under the Republic it was natural that access to important diplomatic
papers and to secrets of State should be granted with reserve, and only
to persons especially authorized to make research. The directors
appointed by the Austrian Government showed a disposition to maintain
that precedent; and M. Baschet relates that it was only by a personal
appeal to the Emperor that he obtained access to the archives of the
Ten. The Italian Government allow nearly absolute liberty; and nothing
can exceed the courtesy of the officials under their distinguished
director, the Commendatore Cecchetti.

Any attempt to explain the archives of Venice and to display their
contents, must be preceded by a statement of the main features of the
constitution of the Republic upon which the order and the arrangement of
the archives is based. The constitution of Venice has frequently been
likened to a pyramid, with the Great Council for its base and the Doge
for apex. The figure is more or less correct; but it is a pyramid that
has been broken at its edges by time and by necessity. The legislative
and political body was originally constructed in four groups, or
tiers--if we are to preserve the pyramidal simile--one rising above the
other. These four tiers were the Maggior Consiglio or Great Council, the
Lower House; the Pregadi or Senate, the Upper House; the Collegio, or
the Cabinet; and the Doge. The famous Council of Ten and its equally
famous Commission, the Three Inquisitors of State, did not enter into
the original scheme; they are an appendix to the State, an intrusion, a
break in the symmetry of the pyramid. Later on we shall explain their
construction and relation to the main body of government. For the
present we leave them aside, and confine our attention to the four
departments of the Venetian constitution above mentioned.

The Great Council, as is well known, did not assume its permanent form
and place in the Venetian constitution till the year 1296. At that dat