I promise there’s a Very Good Reason I’m talking about Venice today,
because regular viewers of OSP may remember a few months back when I said “Veneesa, oh no!” – wait,
no, wrong clip – “I promise you won’t hear a peep out of me about Venice until I learn enough
to write a book on it.” Yet, here I am, running my cartoon mouth about my favorite lagoon-town.
But I, dear viewers, am a man of my word. Many words, in fact, because ya boi wrote a BOOK.
Friends, viewers, people who clicked on this video because they just like Venice,
I present to you The Veneziad – a historical epic poem, written in the style of the Iliad, Odyssey,
and Aeneid, set in medieval Venice just on the eve of the Renaissance. The year is 1379 in the midst
of a frightful war with Genoa, who’s blockaded Venice inside its very own lagoon to starve
it out and destroy it. In the face of potential calamity, our story follows the seafaring journey
of a Venetian merchant and his two children as they race home from distant seas to save their
beloved city. Can they make it in time??? Idunno, read it and find out, because The Veneziad will
launch as a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter June 4th – if you’re watching before then,
you can click the link below to visit the page and sign up to get notified when it launches…
and if you’re watching after that, then, well, book’s live, go grab it! I’m thrilled to say the
Veneziad is published by Wraithmarked, makers of the absolute fanciest books the indie world
has ever seen. So we’re talkin’ deluxe materials, painted edges, gorgeous art and interior design,
all in a cohesive Venetian theme to make this book a treasure you can read and display proudly. More
news to come in the next few weeks: including artwork, more story details, stretch goals,
and all kinds of cool stuff – but for now, let me say thank you, because without all of your
support for OSP, a project like this would never be possible. So stay tuned, I really think you’re
going to like this. Now let’s do some history!
With all that so eloquently put, allow me to spend the rest of this video gushing about
how the Venetian Republic is the Best Republic. See, there are two main ways to judge the quality
of a system of governance: you can eyeball it by simply counting how long it lasted,
but perhaps the best metric is how well it handled the intrusion of somebody who tried
to exploit the system for their own ends – Like how a monarchy naturally becomes an absolute
nightmare as soon as some jerk becomes the tyrant du jour, because by its very nature it contains
zero internal checks or balances to thwart their iron-fisted shenanigans. Government is already
a very hard thing to get right, and ambitious plotters can topple even the proudest Republics.
Now, having spent many
years studying up on various governments in world history, from the ancient world to the present
day, I've seen my fair share of certified disaster engines as well as some genuinely clever systems,
so I can say with professional confidence that the Venetian Republic is absolutely f*cking brilliant.
And I am all too happy to explain why: based in the beautiful canal-crossed city of Venice,
this government ran continuously from the 700s AD through 1797 with no interruption, no getting
conquered, no civil wars, not even a succession crisis! One thousand straight years with nary
a PEEP of everything falling apart. If I didn't know any better I'd question if they were actually
Mediterraneans. But all this is just more proof that Venice was among best statecrafters to ever
play the game, winning on hard-mode by making a government that could survive time and themselves.
And no story illustrates that better than the tale of Marin Falier, the Worst Venetian Ever.
But first, we have to zoom out and ask what made little old Vembis so special? Well gosh how much
time do we have? No no no, focus Blue, focus – See, like basically every other Republic of the
day, the Venetian government was an aristocracy, staffed by a set list of noble families,
most of whom also worked as merchants. What set their system apart was an elegant web of
checks and balances between multiple branches: the grand council, the leading Duke (or Doge),
and the various smaller sub-councils in between. With power so widely distributed, no one player
had the means to go rogue – and when everyone in the government had a stake in the smooth flow of
trade, everybody's incentive was aligned on making Venice make money, so faction politics were less
appealing than keeping the state running smoothly. Stable government guaranteed stable business. The
madmen weaponized Capitalism for the good of the Republic. Ma dai! [Really!?] That's
allowed??? This is what I mean! Geniuses! But without a doubt, their weirdest quirk was the
ludicrously-convoluted way they elected a new Doge: a process that began with going into Saint
Mark’s Basilica to find a child, who then used the medieval equivalent of a bingo-ball machine – I
wish I was joking – to pick 30 members of the Grand Council as Electors. This was the first of
five fully randomized steps: as the 30 were cut by lottery to 9. Thus begins the voting stages,
approving 40 new electors by majority votes of 7-out-of-9. And they did this seven more times,
randomizing down to 12, they then voted for 25, cut to 9, picked 45, cut to 11, and picked 41–
then and only then actually voting for a goddamn Doge, nominating candidates among themselves and
needing 25 out of 41 votes to actually elect the man. And we thought the Pope’s election
was complicated, no, compared to this the Papal Conclave is just brunch with a gimmicky campfire!
Venetian elections were so notoriously complicated people printed infographics to explain it. This
system was convoluted, extremely time-consuming, and perfect. See, a system this randomized,
layered, and reliant on overwhelming voting majorities made it impossible to coordinate
as a faction to sway the result. This process rarely produced a truly outstanding Doge,
but always succeeded in its actual goal: picking the most agreeable, perfectly unproblematic Doge
that would calmly do their work and not make a mess. That is, every time except once.
In 1354, Marin Falier was elected Doge via the ceremonial Bingo For Babies,
after a distinguished career in public service. He’d served for decades on the Council of Ten,
the Republic’s security council created in 1310 after a failed coup specifically to snuff out
future conspiracies. Falier’s first job in 1315 was literally overseeing treason punishments – Jot
that down, because the Council of Ten is a useful tool that’ll help us later – but in the meantime,
Falier governed 3 different cities, commanded a fleet in the Black Sea, and was ambassador
to the Pope in Avignon, because lest we forget the Pope was casually in France for a century
there. Pope fights, wild stuff. However, Signor Falier was known for taking offence
easily and throwing hands hard, personally slapping a bishop who was late to a parade.
But as Falier donned the goofy
hat and became the Doge, he embarked on a rapid ensh*ttening arc to become Supreme Villain of the
Republic and The Single Worst Venetian Ever, so his story got a little embellished after the fact
to match his reputation: starting with tales of an impossibly-dense fog blanketing the city for
days before his ceremonial arrival, and the doomed omen of him entering between the two grand columns
which marked where the city held executions – Clearly one of the historians appreciated some
good Foreshadowing. As Doge, his first order of business was feuding with an aristocrat who
flirted with his wife at a banquet, then getting furious with the Republic for barely punishing
the man. Whether or not this had any bearing on the actual plot, Falier decided within months of
becoming Doge that the Republic had it too good for too long, and these snooty aristocrats would
get their comeuppance – everything you expect from a cartoon villain monologue. He conspired
with some local mooks, and their evil scheme was to corral the nobles into Saint Mark’s Square and
kill them all, before acclaiming Marin Falier as Prince of Venice – Oh my delicate republic-loving
sensibilities, just saying that is disgusting!
Now, the timing of this was odd, because the man was already the most powerful guy in the
state and 80 years old, so he didn’t have all that much to gain from the plot. Either he had sights
on a dynasty or was truly that malicious that he wanted the Republic and its lawmakers dead.
As quite an escalation from slapping that bishop, this would have been the bloodiest,
most ruinous plot against the Republic and Venice itself it had ever seen, but luckily,
conspirators get yappy, so word of the plan got out beforehand. Someone heard a tip to stay off
the streets on April 15th and dutifully took the news to the Doge, who presumably reacted
with “Oh noooo, aw that’d be the wooorst, oh man dang that’s, aw that’s crazy man,
anyway don’t worry we’ll take care of it” but word independently reached the Council of Ten,
whose express purpose was preventing conspiracies. Behold, the surprise tool, it’s helping us later.
They diligently investigated and found Falier was in on it, so they mustered their own forces and
made arrests, including Falier’s family members, fellow conspirators, and even
Filippo Calendario – the architect behind the extremely-famous south wing of the Doge’s palace.
Props to the man for an invaluable contribution to Venetian heritage but my question is why on earth
the architect gets in on a plot to overthrow the state? Like, my guy, you’re literally conspiring
to kill your clientele. I know I know separate the art from the artist but holy hell Filippo
what were you THINKING?
What really sells this story for me is how Marin Falier worked on the same government body that
foiled him, for two decades, and the fact that he of literally all people should have known better
is the best evidence we have that this guy wasn’t a genius schemer, but a spiteful, stupid man. This
dumbass treason-weasel thought he’s destroying the Republic like Palpatine, man getdaf***outtahere
don’t embarrass yourself. In the official records, the Council of Ten replaced Falier’s name with
“Non Scribatur,” Not To Be Written – a decade later, when the Great Council had new frescos
of the Doges painted along the council chamber’s walls, his space was covered by a black cloth and
the inscription “Hic est locus Marini Faletro, decapitati pro criminibus” – Here is the place
of Marin Falier, beheaded for Crimes”.
So, what does this story offer us? Well besides endless comedy at Treason-Boy’s expense,
it’s an object lesson in why Venice worked so darn well. The Republic was precision engineered for
consistency and effective teamwork, and the one time the bingo-ball failed them and they botched
an election, the State had the means to stop him, specifically because Venice created the
Council of Ten after the last time someone was dumb enough to throw a coup. There’s a
delicate balance of consistency with tradition and adaptation to circumstance that set Venice
apart from its neighbors. Venetian history is a millennium-long story of people working extremely
hard across generations to preserve something they knew was valuable. Venice is not a flawless-fave,
just ask the Byzantines, and their republic was inherently sexist and classist – they are,
however, an example well-worth learning from. Electoral college? Getouttahere,
it’s Little-League Bingo time Let’s GOOOOOO!
Thank you for watching! I’ve got a lot more Venice coming down the line,
so stay tuned for the next few videos. And of course The Veneziad is just over the horizon,
you can sign up to stay in the loop via the link down below. Launch day is June 4 and the
campaign runs for a month. I’ll have lots more to share very soon, but until then: thank you.