So the British Empire and the United States used a mix of professional civil servants and settler democracy to administer their territories and colonies, but how did the Republic of Venice, the Republic of Genoa, the Republic of Piss, and even the Republic of Florence manage to govern their territories?
Did they have a system of professional civil servants or bureaucrats? Did they have special schools and exams for them?
Were these places given a Republican system of government or were the locals treated as second class and colonized peoples? Especially since many of the Venetian colonies were populated by non-Italians and non-Catholics.
Were these places put under the rule of the military or the Church? I did hear that some colonies were treated as feudal holdings by aristocrats and merchants.
I am curious about Florence since it seemed to occupy Pisa which used to be a maritime republic. Were Pisans given self-governance or representation in the florentine government and legislature?
Thank you
I think there is a temporal difficulty in answering your question. The organization of the Venetian or Genoese state and its overseas territories was different in the 18th century, which was different than how it was organized in the 16th century, which was in turn very different to how it was organized in the 14th century. Likewise, territorial expansion and power projection would have been different through the eras. This makes your question very difficult to answer. Even a discussion exclusively on the use professional civil servants and bureaucrats has a difficult answer: The answer is a conditional, "In later periods, yes." The Venetians in particular developed a large (for the time, at least) civil service apparatus. But in earlier periods, even venetian diplomats and administrators would nowadays be considered "Part Time," balancing their duties to the republic with their personal activities. And in even earlier periods, diplomatic missions would be ad-hoc affairs, as would be missions to overseas possessions.
We can get your specific question on Florence and Pisa out of the way with this older answer of mine which might interest you. As for the rest, I've pasted the bulk of my answer below in order to satisfy Reddit's word count limit.