The Venetian Republic lasted more than a thousand years—longer than any other republic in history. One of the great secrets of its success was the institution of the Doge, a figure with all the trappings of a king but few of the actual powers. This lecture looks at the special role played by “Messer lo Doge” in Venetian politics, history and culture, with emphasis on his powers and limitations, and on those moments when the safeguards on this office were tested almost to destruction by ambitious politicians.

Ross King is the award-winning author of numerous books on Italian and French art and history, including Brunelleschi’s Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling. His biography Machiavelli: Philosopher of Power has been called a ‘convincing portrait of one of the most misunderstood thinkers of all time’. His most recent book, published in April 2021, is The Bookseller of Florence: The Story of the Manuscripts That Illuminated the Renaissance.