Vote-Getter Arrested: Sanudo Diaries August 21, 1496

The late fifteenth century saw a Venice ready to prosecute against fraudulent ballot practices.

Editor's note: "In a system of government in which elections were continuous and rivalries for positions intense, electoral fraud wa as frequent as it was ardently condemned." [p. 138]

Sanudo Diaries August 21, 1496 (1:275); "I note that on August 18, by order of the Council of Ten, several members of the ducal staff whose job it was to carry the ballot boxes in the Great Council were arrested."

Editor's note: ballotini = ballot box clerks, who passed out and collected the ballot boxes.

Sanudo Diaries August 21, 1496 (1:275-6); "These men, Salvador Nocente and Francesco Triuli, were discovered in a way that would take too long to relate; [they had found a means by] which they could help those whom they wished to get elected to offices in the Great Council. They were discovered by Zuan Battista Foscarini as follows: He had been elected to the Senate, and one of the ballot-box clerks said to him, "I helped you." And he knew nothing about it."

Editor's note: "The organizer of this fraud was identified to the patrician Zuan Jacomo Bon. Arrested on his ship at Porto Pisano (he was a captain involved in the Venetian attempt to support Pisa against Florence), he was sent to Venice for judicial examination." [p. 139]

Twenty years later individuals could loan the government $$ and be placed in some public service offices, because money was needed to fund the war. But here, in 1496, strict adherence to the rules was enforced and those convicted made examples of, as a warning to others. And this apparently, even for people acting overseas on behalf of the state on sensitive maritime issues. This brief story will resume in September.
__________________________________________________
All quotes as Sanudo Diaries or Editor's notes or Editor's Footnotes from Venice, Cita Excellentissima, Selection from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo translated by Linda L Carroll,  editors: Patricia H LaBalme and Laura Sanguineti White, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008