With the doge were associated six ducal councillors, who were necessarily consulted on every subject and without whom the doge could do nothing. In fact, the ducal functions were really discharged, not by the doge, but by a committee of seven of whom the doge was one. The _Collegio_ or cabinet of ministers (_savii_), conducted the routine work of administration, and prepared all business for the other public bodies. The business of every department passed through the _Collegio_, in which the six _savii grandi_ presided in weekly terms. The _Quarantia_, or Forty, was originally created in the twelfth century to act as a permanent senate, but it was gradually limited to judicial functions, and became the great law-court of Venice. The functions of the senate fell to the _Pregadi_, a body of a hundred and sixty members, whose name was derived from the originally voluntary consultation of prominent citizens by the doge. The _Pregadi_ became a permanent part of the constitution in 1229. Their chief business was the first consideration of all legislative proposals, the appointment of ambassadors, and the general supervision of foreign affairs. At the basis of the constitution was the _Maggior Consiglio_, [Sidenote: The Great Council.] which had gradually taken the place of the primary assembly of all citizens. The council was originally elective, and its rise was a natural result of the growth of Venetian population. But in 1297 a law was carried which finally changed the government of Venice from a democracy to a close oligarchy. A list was drawn up of all who had sat in the Great Council for the last four years, and their names were put up to ballot in the _Quarantia_. All who received twelve votes were to be members of the council. Three electors were to be appointed every year to make a list of any other candidates, and their names, if approved by the doge and his councillors, were to be balloted by the _Quarantia_. For a few years the addition of names was frequent, though few candidates were successful unless their ancestors had at some time or other had a seat in the council. But in 1315 the names of all eligible candidates were drawn up once for all and placed in a book, and in 1319 the three annual electors were abolished. Henceforth membership of the Great Council became a hereditary privilege, and the admission of a member’s son as soon as he had reached the age of twenty-five was regarded as a matter of course. The _serrata del Maggior Consiglio_, or closing of the Great Council, divided the Venetian population into two sharply defined classes: the nobles, who had the privilege of membership, and the lower classes, who were for ever excluded from any voice in the government.