In the 13th century, Florence banned its noble families from holding public office and instituted a republic. The names of a few hundred select citizens were placed in leather bags and every two months a new government was drawn by lot. In more conservative Venice, a group of nobles simply elected one of their number doge for life. There was no question of hereditary succession. Even where there were dukes and kings, in Milan and Naples, dynastic rivalries and reversals eroded any belief in divine right. 'No trace is here visible,' Jakob Burckhardt wrote in his great study of the Italian Renaissance, 'of that half-religious loyalty by which the legitimate princes of the West were supported.'

LRB 1 December 2005 | PDF Download