John Cabot, the Discoverer of North-America and Sebastian, His Son

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: quence of the Genoese war, and the spirit of territorial extension which animated the Republic after the treaty of Turin, the rulers again resorted to extremely liberal measures. Anyone who removed to Venice with his family had only to cause his name to be recorded in the registers of the Pro- veditor to...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: quence of the Genoese war, and the spirit of territorial extension which animated the Republic after the treaty of Turin, the rulers again resorted to extremely liberal measures. Anyone who removed to Venice with his family had only to cause his name to be recorded in the registers of the Pro- veditor to acquire immediately civic rights; at least de intus, that is, rights to be exercised only within the territory of the Republic.1 Such excessive generosity soon resulted in the same evils as in 1348, for the applications became more numerous than ever. But as the Proveditor was obliged to accept every demand, with no option as regards granting citizenship, the right to confer it was transferred to a special college, composed of at least one hundred and fifty members,2 clothed with discretionary powers, as we presume. Venice having been again greatly depopulated by epidemics, the Senate, on the 7th of July 1407, issued a general decree extending the right of citizenship to any stranger married to a Venetian woman, and coming to reside in the city.3 We infer that once more such a great facility, which dispensed with the condition of previous residence, resulted after a while in detrimental effects. However, it is not till sixty- five years later that we find modifications introduced in the law. On the nth of August 1472, the Doge Nicola Trono decreed that in future a residence of at least, fifteen consecutive years and payment of all State taxes during that time, should be first required;4 but nothing was said relative to marrying a Venetian woman. The reader must bear in mind that these naturaliza- 1 Ferro, art. Ciltadiiunza. A. Avog., MS.; Tentori, vol. i, p. 9 Sandi, lib. iv, chapt. 5, vol. ii, 108; Ckcchetti, // Doge di Vcnezia, p- 815. Venezia, 1864, 8vo, p....