to satisfy any reasonable and justifiable ambition. The High Chancellor was the head of the ducal chancery; he signed all public acts, all nominations to any important office, and was present at all the most secret meetings of the Councils, though only as a witness, and never with the right to vote. He was elected by the Great Council, and took office with a ceremony almost as solemn as that accorded to the Doge himself, and like the latter he held his position for life; he received a generous salary, and had precedence over all nobles, both in meetings and processions, both over the nobility of the Great Council and over the sons and brothers of the Doge, and was preceded only by the procurators of Saint Mark and by the six counsellors of the Doge. He wore the ducal purple with scarlet stockings, was forbidden to dress in black in public, and like the Doge he was privileged to wear his hat on all occasions. The form of address used to the head of the Republic was ‘Domino, Domino’; that used in addressing the Chancellor was ‘Domino,’ without repetition; whereas all other patricians were addressed as ‘Messer,’ the usual prefix to the names of knights throughout Italy. When the High Chancellor died his funeral took place in Saint Mark’s with a pomp equal to that accorded to a dead doge. Very valuable privileges were attached to the condition of a citizen ‘de jure’; all chancellors were taken from those included in the ‘Silver Book,’ so that in the course of time, in the fourteenth century, a special course of study was prescribed for young men destined for that career; and those who embraced it were [Illustration: S. SEVERO] frequently sent to the smaller courts of Europe as ‘ministers resident,’ but not as ambassadors, and they could aspire to the highest commands in the army. From all this it is clear that the position of the ‘original citizen’ class in Venice had a strong resemblance to that of the ‘magistrate’ class in France, for instance; and on the whole it had enough privileges to ensure its not being hostile to the nobility.