The Great Council, as representing the whole Republic, possessed certain judicial functions, which were used on rare occasions only, when the State believed itself placed in grave danger through the fault of its commanders. The famous case of Vettor Pisani, after his defeat at Pola, in 1379, and the case of Antonio Grimani, in the year 1499, were both sent to the Grand Council, who passed sentence on those generals. But, broadly speaking, the judicial functions of the Maggior Consiglio hardly existed, its legislative functions dwindled away, and were absorbed by the Senate, and its chief duty and prerogative lay in the election of almost every State official.
Coming now to the second tier in the pyramid of the constitution, the Senate, or Pregadi,--the invited, we find that the Senate proper was composed of sixty members, elected in the Great Council, six at a time. The elections took place once a week, and were so arranged that they should be complete by the first of October in each year. In addition to the Senate proper, another body of sixty, called the _Zonta_ or addition, was elected by the outgoing Senate at the close of its year of office; but it was necessary that the names of the _Zonta_ should be approved by the Great Council before their election was valid. The Senate and the Zonta together formed one hundred and twenty members; and besides these, the Doge, his six councillors, the Council of Ten, the Supreme Court of Appeal, and many special magistrates, who presided over departments of Finance, Customs, and Justice, belonged _ex officio_ to the Senate, and brought the number of votes up to two hundred and forty-six. Further, fifty-one magistrates of minor departments also sat, with the right to debate, but without the right to vote.
The Senate was the real core of the Administration. The presence, _ex officio_, of so many and such various officers of State sufficiently indicates the wide field which was covered by the authority of the Pregadi. The large number of the Senatorial body, and the diversity of subjects with which it dealt, required that business should be carried on with parsimony of time and precision of method; and therefore private members were restricted to the right of debate. Only the Doge, his councillors, the Savii Grandi and the Savii di Terra ferma had the right to move the Senate; and their propositions related to peace, war, foreign affairs, instructions to ambassadors, and representatives of foreign Courts, to commercial treaties, finance, and home legislation. The various measures were spoken to by their proposers, and by the magistrates whose offices they affected. As in the case of the Great Council, the Senate also on rare occasions exercised judicial functions. It was in the discretion of the College to send a faulty commander for trial either to the Great Council or to the Senate; but in that case the charge must be one of negligence or misjudgment; if the charge implied treason, it was taken before the Council of Ten. A few of the higher officers of State were elected in the Senate, among them the Savii Grandi and the Savii di Terra ferma, and the Admiral of the Fleet. The functions of the Senate were legislative, judicial, and elective. But just as the Great Council was pre-eminently the elective body, so the Senate was pre-eminently the legislative body in the constitution of Venice.
