The Venetian court system at the time of Shakespeare is somewhat simple, according to Thomas H. Luxon, who quotes Gasparo Contarini in his article A Second Daniel: The Jew and the "True Jew" in The Merchant of Venice

(As a side note, Gasparo Contarini wrote a book entitled The Commonwealth and Government of Venice. It is from him that we derive most of our information about the Venetian government.)

Hence, it is likely that the Duke of The Merchant of Venice would be one of the auditors. A particular group of these auditors / magistrates were called "Judges or Consuls of the Merchants." Presumably, this would be the group of auditors that would have taken care of Shylock's proceedings.

According to another source entitled Global Governance: An Heretical History Play by Fleur E. Johns, there was something known as the "New College of Forty." Johns summarizes Contarini with a blanket statement saying that the auditors and the College were created "solely to hear and decide the claims of foreigners and to appeals against the decisions of magistrates outside the city." (Johns, 25). This is a little confusing, and for the life of me, I absolutely cannot find any other mention of this so-called "New College of Forty" in any other source by Contarini and Johns. However, let's put things into a logical order.

Multiple sources say that the auditors presided over various types of "courts," to handle different types of cases. Luxon (again quoting Contarini) also points out that it was common to invite a foreign judge from a mainland Italian city to preside over the cases of foreigners. Putting one and one together, I suspect that the College of Forty was a group of foreigners who could be reliably called upon to preside over cases. If it was common practice to invite a foreigner, even though they already had a group with the name "Judges of Merchants," then there must have been a group of foreigners who could be called in to aid the these judges.

Enter Bellario's role. For more on lawyers, see Venetian Lawyers.

Sources:

Luxon, Thomas H., A Second Daniel: The Jew and the "True Jew" in The Merchant of Venice, [ONLINE] http://www.shu.ac.uk/emls/04-3/luxoshak.html

Johns, Fleur E., Global Governance: An Heretical History Play, [ONLINE] http://www.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1125&context=gj

Ok, I don't feel like deleting anything above, but just note that this constitutes a separate entry from anything above. I was able to find Gasparo Contarini's actual text. I am going to try and relay as much of it concerning the heirarchy of the Ventian court system as I can, in an english we can all understand...

First off, the Civil Judges were an assigned group of judges who fell below the rule of the Counsels. In other words, if a case went before the Counsels, the verdict was supreme and could not be appealed. However, if a case was brought before the Civil Judges, then the case could be appealed. Appealed cases were brought before the Auditors, of which there were two kinds - the old and the new. The old auditors were called as such, because they were...well...old. They were from the government structure prior to the one described here. They handled civil cases, for the most part.

If the plaintiff still chose to appeal the case after the auditors were done with it, then they could pass it on to the College of Forty, which would be a lot like traffic court (you are blessed if you've never been). The auditor would stand present and announce his verdict and a counsel of forty judges would preside over the case. There are rules and regulations outlining the proceedings in the College, however I don't understand most of them. The one that stands out is that each case is only given a maximum of an hour and a half to present itself.

At the end of the case, it seems as though there were three pots that are brought out, of different colors. The green pot is for votes to cancel the auditor's verdict. The white pot is to approve of the verdict. The red pot is to abstain.

I think, although I am not positive as there are weird references to it, that the College of Forty was the Cousels mentioned earlier. This would make sense as Contarini seems to imply that the College's decision is final - no more appeals after that. Looking at our court system in the United States today, which was partially derived from the Venetian system among others, it makes sense, as the College would be much like our Supreme Court.

Anyway, lots of appealing...lots of colorful pots.

The New auditors deal only with foreign affairs. They are given this task for they are not part of the old system. Cantarini does not really go into the New auditors all that much. Presumably, the New auditors follow the same regulations as the old auditors. There is a New College of Forty to assist the new auditors. Furthermore, the new auditors handle matters only within the city. Hence, the new auditors would deal primarily with merchants.

There is part of the goverment for you.

Now for the role of the Duke. According to Contarini, the Duke had the honor of a king. The passage is fairly straightforward, so I will just quote it:

"The Duke who hath no time of government limited unto him, but ruleth during beareth the shew (?) of a kingly power, representing in all things the glory, gravitie and dignity of a king; the rest of the citizens do bear him honor and reverence as unto a king; and all decrees, lawes, and publike letters go forth under his name..." (Contarini, 18)

Now that there is some understanding of the heirarchy of Venetian courts, let's apply that knowledge to the court scene in the Merchant of Venice. I don't know why the Duke is presiding over Shylock's case. Contarini states that the Duke has auhtority over all of the courts (Contarini, 40-41), yet he does not say that he necessarily presides over them at any time. Presumably, given the power alloted to him in Commonwealth, he can do as such. For the Duke to have presided over this case, it must have been damned important (excuse the linguistics).

Shakespeare's use of the Duke is understandable though. Having the Duke there must have had brought an enormous degree of venerability to the case while it was acted out on stage. For the Duke to be there! Well, it must have been something, then! To Shakespeare's audience, the case was extraordinarily important. It was a bloody Jew out to kill someone in order to collect his bond. What's more important than resolving such a case?

In all likelihood, however, the Duke would not have been there. The case would have been handled either by the Merchant Judges (see previous entry) or by the New Auditors. The case would have been tried and then Shylock would have had a chance for appeal.

Yet it is somewhat likely that the Duke might have shown up in this court case. The problem was that the case started off as a civil case and then ended up as a criminal case, with Shylock potentially threatening the life of Antonio. Which court would handle this? There is no court proceedings expressly mentioned in Contarini's work that would fit those needs. (For a possible explanation, see below)

The question to be asked now is the following: Assuming the Duke would have presided over the case, why was Balthasar asked to come to preside over the case? For the answer this, see the page entitled Venetian Lawyers

Source:

Contarini, Gasparo. The Commonwealth and Government of Venice, c. 1500 [CAN BE FOUND ONLINE] at http://dewey.library.upenn.edu/SCETI/PrintedBooksNew/index.cfm?TextID=contarini&PagePosition=1

I came across a source this morning which gave light onto something fairly interesting. Here is the quote:

"Griston [a member of the New York, Cleveland and Federal Bars and law partner of S.A. Tannenbaum] thought it necessary to fix the period of the play before it could be understood and appreciated. The action of the play must be after A.D. 311 when Constantine made Christianity an official religion, and before A.D. 320 when the right to seize the body of an insolvent debt was abolished. The scene is laid, not in Venice, but in the State of the Veneti (Aquileia) where roman law applied in the fourth century. The Duke is not the Doge but the Dux or military governor acting under a 'charter' of authority, and Portia is an arbiter." (Phillips, 109)

Actually, Contarini does make reference to such origins of the government and explicitly discusses the State of Veneti in his publications. Furthermore, Shakespeare woiuld probably more familiar with past governments than present government, particularly since Contarini's work had just come out as Shakespeare would have been writing the Merchant.

Source:

Phillips, O. Hood, Shakespeare and the Lawyers, Methuen & Co: London, 1972, pg. 109