f magistrate. Five years later this committee of
eleven gave way to a committee of forty who were chosen by four persons
selected by the great council. After the abdication of Doge Pietro Ziani
in 1229 two commissions were appointed which obtained a permanent place
in the constitution and which gave emphatic testimony to the fact that
the doge was merely the highest servant of the community. The first of
these commissions consisted of five _Correttori della promissione
ducale_, whose duty was to consider if any change ought to be made in
the terms of the oath of investiture (_promissione_) administered to
each incoming doge, this oath, which was prepared by three officials,
being a potent factor in limiting the powers of the doge. The second
commission consisted of three _inquisitori sopra il doge defunto_, their
business being to examine and pass judgment upon the acts of a deceased
doge, whose estate was liable to be mulcted in accordance with their
decision. In consequence of a tie at the election of 1229 the number of
electors was increased from forty to forty-one. The official income of
the doge was never large, and from early times many holders of the
office were engaged in trading ventures. One of the principal duties of
the doge was to celebrate the symbolic marriage of Venice with the sea.
This was done by casting a precious ring from the state ship, the
"Bucentaur," into the Adriatic. In its earlier form this ceremony was
instituted to commemorate the conquest of Dalmatia by Doge Pietro
Orseole II. in 1000, and was celebrated on Ascension day. It took its
later and more magnificent form after the visit of Pope Alexander III.
and the emperor Frederick I. to Venice in 1177.

New regulations for the elections of the doge were introduced in 1268,
and, with some modifications, these remained in force until the end of
the republic. Their object was to minimize as far as possible the
influence of the individual families, and this was effected by a very
complex machinery. Thirty members of the great council, chosen by lot,
were reduced, again by lot, to nine; the nine chose forty and the forty
were reduced by lot to twelve, who chose twenty-five. The twenty-five
were reduced by lot to nine and the nine elected forty-five. Then the
forty-five were reduced by lot to eleven, and the eleven chose the
forty-one, who actually elected the doge. As the oligarchical element in
the constitution developed, the more important func