Part VIII:
Requirements of Citizenship
Document 22
| In a decree of the Great Council of Venice, 21 August 1552: "...the benefit and privilege of citizenship are extended to those persons who wish to remain in this city and be domiciled permanently herein, together with all their descendants, renouncing allegiance to every other city, with the firm intention of dying and living on through their descendants in this land. To such persons, indeed, should every grace and favour (sic) be extended . . . .Be it determined that from henceforth persons who wish to become citizens of this city at home only, by virtue of a privilege, shall not be entitled to do so unless they have first lived here for fifteen consecutive years with the whole of their families, and unless they have paid the city's taxes for fifteen years as do all our other citizens. Those who take a Venetian woman to wife shall not be accepted as citizens at home unless they have lived in Venice for eight consecutive years after their marriages and have for eight years paid the taxes as they should" (qtd in Chambers and Pullan 276-7). |
Questions to discuss:
- What requirements for citizenship strike you as fair? Why?
- What requirements of citizenship strike you as excessive? Why?
- Why would it be important to Venetians for a citizen to "renounce allegiance to every other city"?
- Why do you think Venetians repeated the requirement about paying taxes?
- What do you know about the requirements for citizenship in this country?
- How do they compare with those of Renaissance Venice?
- Do residents of America who are not citizens pay taxes?
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