  The Venetian republic was one of the most successful trans-modern states,
surviving for a millennium through innovation, commercial cunning, exploitation
of colonies and legal stability. Part of the success might be due to its
government structure, a republic ruled by a doge chosen among a relatively
limited set of Venetian patrician families. In this paper we analyze the
structure of the social network they formed through marriage, and how
government was monopolized by a relatively small set of families, the ones that
became patrician first.
