DOG DAYS, hot summer days, when Sirius, the dog-star, rises. DOGE, the title of the chief magistrate in the extinct lics of Venice and Genoa. For the character of the office at Venice see the articles COMMUNE, MEDIAEVAL; BUCENTAUR. In Genoa the institution of the doge dates from 1339. At first he was elected without restriction and by popular suffrage, holding office for life ; but after the reform effected by Andrea Doria (q.v.) in 1528 the term of his office was reduced to two years. At the same time plebeians were declared ineligible, and the appointment of the doge was entrusted to the members of the great and the little councils, who employed for this purpose a machinery almost as complex as that of the later Venetians.
See B. Cecchetti, Il Doge di Venezia (1864) ; E. Musatti, Storia della promissione ducale (Padua, 1888) ; and H. F. Brown, Venice: a Historical Sketch