Republican models had in general either combined the two
procedures or vacillated between them. Election had predominated
in ancient Rome, as it did in Venice. The Venetian republic was
even seen by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century observers as the
archetype of the elective republic. The Florentine republicans had
for a while hesitated between lot and election, bringing about an
explicit debate about the respective merits of the two methods of
appointment.