al Chancellery was exposed. The regulation of the Secret
Chancellery was undertaken by the Council of Ten, and the rigorous
orders which they issued from time to time abundantly prove the
difficulty they experienced in securing the secrecy which they desired.
The Secret Chancellery became the depository of all State papers of
great moment; and if we take the chief members of the constitution in
order, and note the documents issuing from them which fell to the
custody of the Secreta, we shall see how the great flow of Venetian
history is to be followed here rather than in any other department of
the archives.

To begin with the Maggior Consiglio, we have the long series of
registers containing the deliberations of the Council from the year 1232
down to the fall of the Republic in 1797, occupying forty-two volumes,
and distinguished, at first, by such capricious names as Capricornus,
Philosus, Presbiter, and Fronesis; and later on by the names of the
secretaries who prepared them, Ottobonus primus, Ottobonus filius,
Busenellus, and Vianolus. In the special archive of the Avogadori di
Commun a contemporary series of registers is to be found; it covers from
1232 to 1547, and should be consulted together with the first series,
for it is more voluminous and minute. The first reference to England
that occurs in the Venetian archives is in the volume Fronesis
(1318-1385). This, and all other documents relating to Great Britain,
have been collected and rendered accessible in the splendid and
monumental series of the 'Calendar of State Papers,' edited with such
diligence and care by the late Mr. Rawdon Brown. Mr. Brown's published
work goes down to the year 1552; and it is only after that date that any
work relating to England remains to be done. That work, however, is
voluminous, for the regular and unbroken series of dispatches from
England does not begin till the reign of James I. Little more respecting
England is to be expected from the papers of the Great Council, however;
for at the date where Mr. Brown's work ends, the Maggior Consiglio had
ceased to occupy a high position in the direction of Venetian foreign
policy; its functions were chiefly confined to the election of
magistrates.

The Senate supplied a far larger number of papers to the Secret
Chancellery than that yielded by the Great Council. This was to be
expected, owing to the central position of the Senate in the
constitution, and its prominent place in the man