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Late in his life, Desiderius Erasmus recalled a dinner invitation that he once received from the mercenary captain Bartolomeo d’Alviano (1455–1515). At the time, Erasmus was in Venice working with Aldus Manutius on the 1508 edition of his Adages, and d’Alviano was captain general of Venice’s army. Although Erasmus dismissed d’Alviano as a man of war, this article proposes that the men shared a good deal in common, particularly an appreciation of Hellenistic studies in Venice. D’Alviano nurtured a literary circle and argued for the construction of what became the Biblioteca Marciana. The article also shows that each man (scholar and soldier by profession) at some point held the tools of the other’s craft. By investigating this exchange and their attempts to cross new linguistic divides, it argues for the importance of tracing connections between warcraft and literary production in the Renaissance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sixteenth-century Venetian Republic not only had more permanent diplomatic representatives than any other European state, it was also unique in requiring its ambassadors to deliver a final report, or relazione, on the states in which they had served. Although relazioni were intended to assist statesmen in foreign policy decision-making, over the course of the sixteenth century, ambassadors devoted increasing attention to ethnographic topics, including the customs, religious observances, foodways, and dress of the states on which they reported. Through an examination of the relazioni and their reception, this article addresses the questions of why ambassadors increasingly emphasized ethnographic material and how this new emphasis was debated among Venetian elites. The shift in the nature of diplomatic reporting did not go unnoticed by contemporaries; it engendered a vigorous debate about both the parameters of political knowledge and the nature and reliability of eyewitness versus textual authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the intertwined processes of popular protest and archival suppression in early modern Venice. It concentrates on a cycle of contention extending over several months in 1569, including a labour protest that started among the workers of the state shipyard and turned into a large revolt, anonymous placards and food riots. Such was the extent of the unrest that a major explosion in the shipyard raised suspicion of sabotage. Eventually, the government had to capitulate to the workers' demands. This cycle of protests in Venice, a city normally renowned for peace and concord, has left minimal traces in the official records: the government tried to suppress the protests not only in practice but also on paper. It carried out convictions in secret, obliterated the revolt from its archives, buried any mention of protest under countless other records, and elided dissent from published histories. By using a variety of non-governmental sources, it is possible to investigate how contentious politics were written out of government records, and hence of history. Manipulating archives was always easier than subduing people: the more power was contested in the streets, the more it needed to be asserted in the archive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review describes the topics covered during eleven meetings held from February 4 to June 17, 2021 within the "Venice in Question" seminar, coordinated by Daniele Dibello (Universiteit Gent) and organized by the Deputazione di Storia Patria per le Venezie, alongside other Venetian institutions. Presenting recent studies on Venetian history, the seminar involved Italian and international scholars, animating a dialogue between different historiographical approaches and traditions. While embracing a broad chronological span, from the Middle Ages to the early 19th century, the seminar pointed out aspects relevant to scholars of the 18th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay aims to analyse England’s naval guerrilla warfare against the Republic of Venice from 1628 to 1649. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 16th century the Republic of Venice created an efficient diplomatic network that was active in the most important courts of Europe. Starting from 1560 the Serenissima maintained a resident ambassador at the Savoy court, as it was considered of great political importance. In their relations, all Venetian diplomats underlined the progressive consolidation of the ducal power and tried to explain the causes of this process. The essay focuses on the thoughts of the Venetian ambassadors on the Savoy sovereignty in the period 1560-1613, when the Duchy was ruled by Emmanuel Philibert and Charles Emmanuel I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Frederick III of Habsburg between Venice and the House of Este" aims at providing a brief insight into the political and diplomatic relations that served as the background to Frederick's Romzug, thus focusing on the first steps of Frederick's journey and on the relationship he was able to establish in northeast Italy with the Republic of Venice and the Este House in Ferrara. In fact, the first Italian states that the Habsburg emperor visited in 1452 after leaving Austria on his journey to Rome were the Serenissima and the territories under the supremacy of the Este House. Hence, this study sheds some light on the first part of the emperor's journey in Lower Austria, Styria and Carinthia, where conflicts with the Austrian "Stände" were raging at that time, and mainly on the emperor's stays at the House of Este (in January and May 1452) and his visit to Venice on the way back to Austria (in May 1452). The analysis of Frederick's documents (Regesta Imperii) has shown that the emperor was able to establish long-lasting political and diplomatic relations with the most important Italian courts during his first journey to Rome. Not only do Frederick's documents bear witness to the emperor's "Vicariate policy", but they also show how privileges were bestowed upon Italian princes: in order for the emperor to establish political relations, some were elevated to the knighthood, some were awarded the title of doctor and others were appointed as notaries. All these documents confirm that Frederick III actively tried to influence the politics of Italy and of the Italian courts in a manner not seen before then. Through intensive diplomatic activity, which was advanced during the Romzug, Frederick gradually managed to rebuild the role of the Habsburg Empire in Italy. In doing so, he paved the way for the House of Habsburg to become a world political power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Venice is considered the best-informed community of the late Middle Ages. The study examines the availability of information for the second half of the 15th century, particularly with regard to the key year 1462/1463, and as a case study concentrates on areas of the supposed Venetian periphery of interest, above all Hungary and the two principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. The result is a thoroughly differentiated system of information acquisition, verification and control. Means of communication, as well as different areas of interest of the Serenissima, can be identified. A distinction is made between information maps and communication maps. The latter also include the distribution of news from the lagoon city exchanged with foreign envoys. During the period concerned, news was exchanged in an astonishingly liberal way, in turn integrating the Serenissima into the information networks of the other Italian states. The study thus places the „information commodity" within the research field of late medieval gift exchange and patronage structures. In short, a thoroughly pragmatic Venetian approach to news acquisition and evaluation can be observed. Verification of the quality of the information obtained was subject not least to quantitative and ranking criteria. Ultimately, the informational power of Venice was based above all on its outstanding reputation among its contemporaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to analyse the economic effects of the development of military logistical structures – especially food supply structures – in the state-building process in the Early Modern period, using the Republic of Venice as a case study. It will consider both technical elements (officials, structures, laws) and economic dynamics (grain purchasing and bread production contracts). The article will also profile the grain merchants who traded with Venetian officials and took on bread production contracts. It will trace the circumstances, many of them outside of the control of the state, which shaped the fundamental role played by merchants and entrepreneurs in directing the evolution of supply structures: these developments were influenced primarily by military needs and the competences required to fulfil them, but also by market forces and the rewards available to entrepreneurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Radovi Zavod za povijesne znanosti HAZU u Zaru is the property of Zavod za Povijesne Znanosti HAZU and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Looks at widespread perception of immortality of the Venetian Republic during the Italian Wars from 1494 to 1530. Notion that the Venetian republic embodied an ideal amalgam of freedom, justice and stability; Impact of perceptions of the immortality of venice on its international affairs; Reasons why Venetian imperialism is a threat to Italians.

In 1588 three Venetian private cargo ships (Balancera, Labia, and Ragazzona) were obliged by the king of Spain to participate in the Armada expedition. The paper describes the copious correspondence and controversy between the Spanish crown and the Venetian doge which, despite the insistence of the government of the Serenissima, ended with the ships' seizure. Since these ships had suffered considerable damage during the expedition, further correspondence continued with requests for compensation from the owners, only a small part of which seems to have been disbursed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past few decades, interest in migration and mobility in and out of Early Modern cities has greatly increased. In particular, the reception of newcomers has turned out to be fundamentally important to cultural and economic growth. However, attention to the history of migration has mainly focused on particular foreign communities and their collective assimilation within the city fabric. This contribution, instead, concentrates on Venetian spaces for urban hospitality more broadly. The paper analyses different ways in which an Early Modern port city managed migration and mobility within its urban spaces, questioning how institutions, legislations and policies affected social actors’ residential patterns, and vice versa. The aim is to highlight the place of women within the hospitality industry and to underline the role of gender relations in these spaces. The use of different types of sources and distinct approaches allows for an enriched analysis of this complex subject, approaching the same phenomena from multiple perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Tiempos Modernos is the property of Tiempos Modernos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article is devoted to Leon Modena's anti-Christian polemical work Magen ve-herev (1643 ca.) as a useful source for the reconstruction of notions about the historical Jesus in the early modern period. In this work, Modena depicts Jesus in a sympathetic way, placing his religious activity against the backdrop of second Temple Judaism. Modena's Jesus is fully Jewish, and Magen ve-herev offers different perspectives on the religious and historical context of Jesus' life, and on the development of Christianity. The text is interpreted not exclusively against the backdrop of Jewish anti-Christian polemics but as the result of an increasing interest in the history of Christianity and ecclesiastical history, mainly as a response to the religious strife that resonated in the Republic of Venice and its ghetto. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the paintings of artist Jacopo Bassano and the elements of regional identity of his art. Topics discussed include the depiction of peasant and rural life in Bassano's paintings; his art representing the identity of the sociopolitical entity of the Venetian Republic; and the patronage received by Bassano from several Venetian patricians.

Copyright of Electronic Turkish Studies is the property of Electronic Turkish Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses politics in the early modern Republic of Venice, focusing particularly on the vacanza ducale (ducal vacancy) of 1595 which lasted almost four weeks before the election of Marino Grimani as doge to replace the deceased 86th doge Pasquale Cicogna. Topics include official record keeping in early modern Venice which didn't allow the recording of debates, political attitudes by the governed classes, guilds, and the social conditions of women and servants.

This paper contributes to the study of the accounting and legal practice existing in the Venetian Republic in the late Middle Ages. The author examines two account books created by the Soranzo fraterna, a trading firm organized as a family partnership and operating in the first half of the 15th century. The larger of the surviving ledgers, known as the libro real novo, is generally considered to be the earliest extant Venetian example of doubleentry bookkeeping. New sources discovered by the author in the State Archives of Venice confirm that the libro real novo represents a compilation of accounts (a so-called estratto) prepared in view of a complicated litigation at the giudici di petizion court. The detailed examination of the judicial conflict in question reveals the purposes behind the composition of this book and the impact that the circumstances of its creation had on the accounting techniques used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last quarter of the eighteenth century found the Republic of Venice confined to the Adriatic and Ionian Seas, a development which brought closer the Italian, Greek, and Slavic cultural elements that made up Venetian society. An illustrative example of this intercultural dialogue is the Church of the Dormition of the Virgin in Visnjeva, Montenegro. According to an archival document, which is presented here for the first time, the church was built and decorated by artists and artisans of Heptanesian-Greek and Slavic origin. Through this case study, this article examines the broader issue of crosscultural exchanges in the Adriatic and Ionian Seas, assesses the reception of Heptanesian icon painting in the Adriatic, and illuminates the factors behind the creation of a common aesthetics in the Ionian-Adriatic region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In agreement with the last will of Doge Francesco Erizzo († 1646), his heart was buried in San Marco, the political and religious center of the Serenissima, next to the high altar and thus ad sanctos to the relics of Venice's patron saint. This unprecedented privilege not only disrupted the city's restrictive policies concerning public monuments, but her republican ideals in general. Due to the significance of the heart in Christian eschatological thinking and corporal state doctrines his burial elevated Erizzo to the status of an absolute ruler threatening the Republic's sacred constitution. In Venice, however, individual and public interests were closely intertwined. This study therefore analyzes the heart burial in the context of Erizzo's self-fashioning, Venetian state ideology, devotional practices and collective memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present investigation has three interlinked goals. The first is to resolve a concrete and long-standing problem that has challenged epigraphists and art historians. It involves establishing a plausible date for a five-line proverbial inscription carved in Old Venetian on the Treasury wall of San Marco in Venice. The inscription, often read and sometimes misread, has a lengthy critical history given its sensitive location in the great ceremonial passageway between St Mark’s Basilica and the Doge’s Palace, the nerve centres of Venetian religious and political power. It is also the focal point of an intriguing sculptural ensemble whose problematic dating is also at stake in the investigation. The critical disarray over the chronology of our public text is such that it has been assigned to various points between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries. I attempt to clarify this chronological issue with detailed evidence drawn, in particular, from palaeography and linguistics. The second aim is to demonstrate, via a specific case study, the descriptive and predictive value of vernacular epigraphic philology as a critical tool in historical research when its interdisciplinary resources are systematically and conjointly exploited. The third objective is to provide an epigraphic contextualization for the enquiry. In this background survey I review the current state of play in Italian and Venetian medieval inscription studies, highlighting the discipline’s recent advances but also its reluctance to draw on the type of diachronic and comparative analysis of script and language exemplified in our case study. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focusses the relationship between belonging and local resources in a community of the Republic of Venice. The research copes with a wealthy local family, which did buy «nativeness» at the beginning of the eighteenth century. This privilege guarantees the profitable use of various resources connected to a water channel crossing the territory of Rovato community. The episode is part of a wider contest that is useful to define the social perimeter of those entitled to local privileges, in both Rovato and Venice's republic. This story -- apparently marginal -- catalyzes the wider conflicts that drag on throughout the century. Such a perspective allows us to identify issues that historiography has not yet adequately problematized. Defining common goods in a collective, municipal or private sense is at the center of a widespread conflict, which involves (and sometimes creates) local bodies. The sources -- above all judicial -- highlight the permeability of these historical processes with respect to the actions and initiatives of individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interest towards the history of collective resources in Italy significantly grew over last decades. One of the main limitations of the studies which emerged so far is the lack of interest for quantitative data. Also in Italy during the early modern age, pastures were the main collective resources. These had a certain impact on the economy, both on a local and on a State level, but the extent of such impact has not been properly analyzed yet, also due to the lack of sources. A possible (indirect) way to estimate the impact of collective resources on the economy is farm animals' count. At the beginning of the 17th century the Republic of Venice, in particular the Superintendents over common goods in the mainland (Provveditori sopra beni comunali in Terraferma), undertook a survey of goods which under Venetian laws belonged to the State, but were granted for use to village communities. In this context, communities needed to declare the goods they owned, which were indeed designated as «communal». Shortly afterwards, superintendents would list these goods in a «catastico» and granted them again to the communities under a detailed regulation. In the declaration, communities had to inform superintendents about the number of «fires», that is the families the village consisted of, and the number of «big animals », the cattle and horses that each family owned. These declarations are known for Friuli, the widest area of the Venetian «Terraferma», displaying also the most diverse landscape. It is reasonable to identify a ratio between the availability of forage deriving from communal pastures and the number of cattle for breeding. This article elaborates on this relationship by comparing mountains and plains in Venetian Friuli at the beginning of the 17th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rarely could real estate property that belonged to an entail circulate on the market. That property was obliged to pass from generation to generation according to the order established by the founder of the entail, who forbade the sale of any such property. The Republic of Venice, ruled by patricians who often made recourse to entrails, normally impose the respect of this rule. However, it also devised a complex procedure and outlined the conditions for lifting the inalienability clause. This article is a case study of the Venier Palace in the parish of San Vio, in the Venice neighborhood of Dorsoduro, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It show that the existence of several entails belonging to various families was an obstacle neither to the change of property rights (both free or inalienable) nor to the legal sale of real estate properties via permutation and preemption rather than via the market. Even large-scale reconstruction was initiated, although it ended because of lack of financing means. In short, I argue that entails were not sanctuaries for property but rather valuable refuges. Shifting the attention away from the testamentary will and toward the management of entails, this article demonstrates how flexible this inheritance practice in fact was. In so doing, it also downplays the symbolic role played by palaces in the self-image of the Venetian patrician and high-lights how the ruling class and the heirs both regarded the assets' value and preservation as more important to the integrity of the assets' material continuity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Radovi Zavod za povijesne znanosti HAZU u Zaru is the property of Zavod za Povijesne Znanosti HAZU and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Radovi Zavod za povijesne znanosti HAZU u Zaru is the property of Zavod za Povijesne Znanosti HAZU and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Radovi Zavod za povijesne znanosti HAZU u Zaru is the property of Zavod za Povijesne Znanosti HAZU and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In 1744, the Venetian sea captain Gerolamo Maria Balbi (1693- 1761) presented the Senate with a project to build a galea alia ponentina ("galley of Western design") that would join the Venetian fleet based in Corfu. The Senate approved Balbi's project hoping that the galley of new design would restore Venice's maritime reputation after the losses of the war against the Ottomans in 1718. The construction of the galley by the Venetian shipwright Giovan Battista Fausto lasted more than two years and was sent to Corfu in 1746. However, the newly built galley proved to be unseaworthy due to its faulty design and was sent back to Venice where it lay abandoned in the Arsenal until its dismissal in 1753. This article discusses Balbi's galley, which offers a unique glimpse into the technical experimentation in ship design in the Arsenal during the last decades of the Republic of Venice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses instances of corruption reported in connection with three high Venetian officials of Albania Veneta. The apparent abuse of their mandates to govern the region took place during the first two decades of the fifteenth century, when Venice was establishing direct power over the region. Under such circumstances, these cases were seen as the most infamous misconducts and deeds against the Republic and its subjects. By analysing the conditions that prompted the officials' corruption, I argue that the officials' behaviour was not just due to their personal arrogance or individual ambition, but was also prompted by a set of specific socio-political circumstances that generally facilitated corrupt behaviour. Particularly important among these seem to have been the ambiguity of institutional responsibilities, the collision of old and new governing procedures, and the officers' networks and private connections within the regional society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the early sixteenth century, the Republic of Venice began to admit the first of a succession of patrician historiographers into the heavily restricted inner sanctum of its state records, the secret chancery, in order to inform their accounts of the city's recent affairs. Whilst this development has often been considered from the perspective of Venetian politics and self-image, the experiences of the historians within a constantly evolving collection of state records also provide us with an invaluable case study into the nascent practice of archival scholarship at a time before its emergence as a fundamental aspect of the historian's craft. The following study will consider the administrative and scholarly developments which took place within the archive of the Venetian secret chancery across the turn of the seventeenth century - a period in which the location, staffing and accessibility of the chancery archive underwent its most substantial reform - in order to demonstrate how the discovery and use of historical information in contemporary Venice was heavily influenced by the practical and ever changing circumstances of the archive as a site for the preservation, indexing and retrieval of government records. As we come to better appreciate the role of the archive in shaping our conception of the past today, we must also consider the ways in which the works of early modern historians were equally facilitated and restricted by the physical surroundings of the record collections with which they were confronted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the rise and fall of the Venetian Empire in maritime power and international trade. Topics discussed include the significance of mercantilism in the economic development of Venice, Italy, the history of Venice's dominance in maritime trading, and its trading commodities. Also discussed are history of Venice's republic, and the growth of foreign traders.

The article presents abstracts on social history topics which include the use of petitions to adjourn and move trials to other cities in the Republic of Venice, Italy, the use of entails in the Republic of Venice, and kinship and matrimonial alliances in France during the Old Regime.

Copyright of Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article presents a report from a June 15-16, 2015 conference in Rome, Italy on the early modern history of diplomacy hosted by the Deutsches Historisches Institut Rom historical institute and Roma Tre university. Topics of presentations delivered included papal democratic relations with the Holy Roman Reichstag, diplomatic proceedings at the 1713 peace congress in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and diplomatic service in the historiography of the Venetian Republic.

In the first four or five centuries of its manufacturing in Europe, paper was neither cheap nor available in unlimited quantities. Old rags, the primary material from which the paper was exclusively made, were a strategic commodity and trade with them was strictly regulated. Owing to their perpetual scarcity, as well as to the overall laboriousness of the papermaking process, a skilled master printer of the Incunabula period was hardly able to purchase a ream or two of high-quality paper for his monthly earnings. Consequently, the earliest printers had to rely on the support of ‘venture capitalists’ in order to secure steady supplies of paper. But the limitations of its manufacturing were not resolved by the end of the Incunabula period. Alas, the shortage and high cost of paper accompanied the development of print in Italy and elsewhere practically up until the advent of its industrial production from wooden pulp in the nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the history of the Romani people, also known as Gypsies, in the Eastern Mediterranean region from the 14th to 17th centuries. Topics discussed include the history of Romani communities in the regions of the Venetian state and the Rumelia region of the Ottoman Empire, now the Balkans; relations between Romani and other communities of these regions; and the history of the dispersion of the Romani during this time.

Copyright of Studia Histórica: Historia Moderna is the property of Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)