"Venice never developed a professional spy force, like the professional cryptologers. Instead it relied mostly on amateurs, criminals and other people paid for

"Venice never developed a professional spy force, like the professional cryptologers. Instead it relied mostly on amateurs, criminals and other people paid for with sometimes huge, sometimes only meagre amounts of money, and sometimes with favors, especially the release or un-banishment of criminals." So they used a lot of spying and as a merchant empire, did traded and guarded a lot of information about everything, but they did not really had a secret service - they had professional cryptologers which was usually a family buisness: "Venice’s cryptology department was usually centered upon a foremost cryptologer, who was also responsible for educating new recruits. He got special affordances, like being allowed to choose new recruits himself. This contributed to the department of cryptology being a nepotic affair. Younger family members were often selected and preferred. "