Venice Reconsidered offers a dynamic portrait of Venice from the establishment of the Republic at the end of the thirteenth century to its fall to Napoleon in 1797. In contrast to earlier efforts to categorize Venice's politics as strictly republican and its society as rigidly tripartite and hierarchical, the scholars in this volume present a more fluid and complex interpretation of Venetian culture. Drawing on a variety of disciplines—history, art history, and musicology—these essays present innovative variants of the myth of Venice—that nearly inexhaustible repertoire of stories Venetians told about themselves.

Popular Politics in an Aristocratic Republic explores the different aspects of political actions and experiences in late medieval and early modern Venice. The book challenges the idea that the city of Venice knew no political conflict and social contestation during the medieval and early modern periods. By examining popular politics in Venice as a range of acts of contestation and of constructive popular political participation, it contributes to the broader debate about premodern politics. The volume begins in the late fourteenth century, when the demographical and social changes resulting from the Black Death facilitated popular challenges to the ruling class’s power, and finishes in the late eighteenth century, when the French invasion brought an end to the Venetian Republic. It innovates Venetian studies by considering how ordinary Venetians were involved in politics, and how popular politics and contestation manifested themselves in this densely populated and diverse city. Together the chapters propose a more nuanced notion of political interactions and highlight the role that ordinary people played in shaping the city’s political configuration, as well as how the authorities monitored and punished contestation. Popular Politics in an Aristocratic Republic combines recent historiographical approaches to classic themes from political, social, economic, and religious Venetian history with contributions on gender, migration, and urban space. The volume will be essential reading for students of Venetian history, medieval and early modern Italy and Europe, political and social history.

No other work on Galileo Galilei has brought together such a complete description of the historical context in its political, cultural, philosophical, religious, scientific, and personal aspects as this volume has done. In addition to covering the whole of Galileo's life, it focuses on those things that are most pertinent to the Galileo Affair, which culminated in his condemnation by the Inquisition in 1633. It also includes an extensive discussion of the relationship between religion and science in general, and of the relationship between Christianity and science in particular, without which a true understanding of the affair is much weakened. This discussion of the relationship of Christianity with science-a long, generally positive relationship-is most timely since the case of Galileo is, as many historians and Pope Benedict XVI have stated, the beginning of the alienation of the Church from much of the intellectual culture of our present age. The "warfare between science and religion" is an old myth that should finally be retired, but for many it is still axiomatic. This work shows the significance of astrology in the history of society and the Church (Galileo was a master astrologer), and the importance of the internal tensions and factions within the Roman Curia in the seventeenth century. It also tells of the profound battles among Church leadership over the direction of the Church in a time of uncertainty and intellectual and cultural ferment. The Galileo Affair is not just of its time and place, and it is not just about Galileo, but it touches upon that perennial issue of how the Church deals with issues of adaptation and change.

Over the course of several centuries, Venice fashioned and refined a portrait of itself that responded to and exploited historical circumstance. Never conquered and taking its enduring independence as a sign of divine favor, free of civil strife and proud of its internal stability, Venice broadcast the image of itself as the Most Serene Republic, an ideal state whose ruling patriciate were selflessly devoted to the commonweal. All this has come to be known as the "myth of Venice." Exploring the imagery developed in Venice to represent the legends of its origins and legitimacy, David Rosand reveals how artists such as Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, Carpaccio, Titian, Jacopo Sansovino, Tintoretto, and Veronese gave enduring visual form to the myths of Venice. He argues that Venice, more than any other political entity of the early modern period, shaped the visual imagination of political thought. This visualization of political ideals, and its reciprocal effect on the civic imagination, is the larger theme of the book.

The field of Venetian studies has experienced a significant expansion in recent years, and the Companion to Venetian History, 1400-1797 provides a single volume overview of the most recent developments. It is organized thematically and covers a range of topics including political culture, economy, religion, gender, art, literature, music, and the environment. Each chapter provides a broad but comprehensive historical and historiographical overview of the current state and future directions of research. The Companion to Venetian History, 1400-1797 represents a new point of reference for the next generation of students of early modern Venetian studies, as well as more broadly for scholars working on all aspects of the early modern world. Contributors are Alfredo Viggiano, Benjamin Arbel, Michael Knapton, Claudio Povolo, Luciano Pezzolo, Anna Bellavitis, Anne Schutte, Guido Ruggiero, Benjamin Ravid, Silvana Seidel Menchi, Cecilia Cristellon, David D’Andrea, Elisabeth Crouzet-Pavan, Wolfgang Wolters, Dulcia Meijers, Massimo Favilla, Ruggero Rugolo, Deborah Howard, Linda Carroll, Jonathan Glixon, Paul Grendler, Edward Muir, William Eamon, Edoardo Demo, Margaret King, Mario Infelise, Margaret Rosenthal and Ronnie Ferguson.

This book brings to life the story of the construction of some of the most outstanding early Renaissance buildings in Venice. Through a series of individual case studies, Richard J. Goy explores how and why great buildings came to be built. He addresses the practical issues of constructing such buildings as the Torre dell’Orologio in Piazza San Marco, the Arsenale Gate, and the churches of Santa Maria della Carita and San Zaccaria, focusing particular attention on the process of patronage. The book is the first to trace the complete process of creating important buildings, from the earliest conception in the minds of the patrons--the Venetian state or other institutional patrons--through the choice of architect, the employment of craftsmen, and the selection of materials. In an interesting analysis of the participants’ roles, Goy highlights the emerging importance of the superintending master, the protomaestro.

Throughout history, marriage has been used as a method of creating and strengthening bonds between elites and the societies over which they ruled. Nowhere is this more apparent than in early modern Venice, where members of the patriciate looked to marital alliances with outsider brides to help maintain their position and social distinction in a fluid society. This book explores the parameters of upward social mobility, contemporary evaluations of social status and moral behaviour, and the place of marriage and concubinage within patrician society. Drawing heavily on the records of the Avogaria di Comun, which had the task of examining the social backgrounds and moral reputations of women from outside the patriciate who wished to marry patricians, this study provides a fascinating reconstruction of Venetian society as it was seen by individuals at every level.

Despite the growing critical relevance of Shakespeare's two Venetian plays and a burgeoning bibliography on both The Merchant of Venice and Othello, few books have dealt extensively with the relationship between Shakespeare and Venice. Setting out to offer new perspectives to a traditional topic, this timely collection fills a gap in the literature, addressing the new historical, political and economic questions that have been raised in the last few years. The essays in this volume consider Venice a real as well as symbolic landscape that needs to be explored in its multiple resonances, both in Shakespeare's historical context and in the later tradition of reconfiguring one of the most represented cities in Western culture. Shylock and Othello are there to remind us of the dark sides of the myth of Venice, and of the inescapable fact that the issues raised in the Venetian plays are tremendously topical; we are still haunted by these theatrical casualties of early modern multiculturalism.

Venice's Secret Service is the untold and arresting story of the world's earliest centrally-organised state intelligence service. Long before the inception of SIS and the CIA, in the period of the Renaissance, the Republic of Venice had masterminded a remarkable centrally-organised state intelligence organisation that played a pivotal role in the defence of the Venetian empire. Housed in the imposing Doge's Palace and under the direction of the Council of Ten, the notorious governmental committee that acted as Venice's spy chiefs, this 'proto-modern' organisation served prominent intelligence functions including operations (intelligence and covert action), analysis, cryptography and steganography, cryptanalysis, and even the development of lethal substances. Official informants and amateur spies were shipped across Europe, Anatolia, and Northern Africa, conducting Venice's stealthy intelligence operations. Revealing a plethora of secrets, their keepers, and their seekers, Venice's Secret Service explores the social and managerial processes that enabled their existence and that furnished the foundation for an extraordinary intelligence organisation created by one of the early modern world's most cosmopolitan states.

This thoughtful and engaging book offers the first extended analysis of coups, a central factor shaping world history and politics. Ivan Perkins introduces a new theory to explain why a military coup or revolution is such an unthinkable prospect in advanced democracies. Focusing especially on the first three coup-free states—the Venetian Republic, Great Britain, and the United States—the book traces the evolutionary origins of political violence and the historical rise of republican government. Perkins concludes with a new explanation for the “democratic peace” and shows why coup-free states form enduring alliances.