DOCSLIB.ORG

Patrician Lawyers in Quattrocento Venice

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Patrician Lawyers in Quattrocento Venice _________________________________________________________________________Swansea University E-Theses Servants of the Republic: Patrician lawyers in Quattrocento Venice. Jones, Scott Lee How to cite: _________________________________________________________________________ Jones, Scott Lee (2010) Servants of the Republic: Patrician lawyers in Quattrocento Venice.. thesis, Swansea University. http://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa42517 Use policy: _________________________________________________________________________ This item is brought to you by Swansea University. Any person downloading material is agreeing to abide by the terms of the repository licence: copies of full text items may be used or reproduced in any format or medium, without prior permission for personal research or study, educational or non-commercial purposes only. The copyright for any work remains with the original author unless otherwise specified. The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holder. Permission for multiple reproductions should be obtained from the original author. Authors are personally responsible for adhering to copyright and publisher restrictions when uploading content to the repository. Please link to the metadata record in the Swansea University repository, Cronfa (link given in the citation reference above.) http://www.swansea.ac.uk/library/researchsupport/ris-support/ Swansea University Prifysgol Abertawe Servants of the Republic: Patrician Lawyers inQuattrocento Venice Scott Lee Jones Submitted to the University of Wales in fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2010 ProQuest Number: 10805266 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10805266 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 LIBRARY Thesis Summary Candidate’s Surname / Family Name: Jones _____________________________ Candidate’s Forenames: Scott Lee______________________________________ Candidate for the Degree of: PhD____________ Full title of thesis: Servants of the Republic: Patrician Lawyers in Quattrocento Venice_________________________________________________ Summary: Lawyers have widely been recognized as playing a role in the transition from the medieval to the modem state. Their presence in Renaissance Venetian politics, however, remains largely unexplored. Relying primarily on a prosopographical analysis, the thesis explores the various roles played by lawyers, dividing those roles into three main categories: diplomats, territorial governors, and domestic legislators. What emerges is a clear pattern of significant involvement by legally trained patricians in the Venetian political system. Noble lawyers were most often ambassadors, serving in many of the principal courts inside and outside of Italy as Venice was extending her influence on the Italian peninsula. They also served as administrators of Venetian rule throughout the Venetianterraferma (mainland) state. Lastly, their domestic political officeholding further confirms their continuing participation, as they held many of the most important domestic offices throughout the Quattrocento. The thesis ends with short biographies of each of the nearly three- dozen lawyers who make up this study, as well as chronologies of the offices they held. These chronologies include archival references for each office. Declarations/Statements DECLARATION This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree. Signed: Date: 16/5/2011 STATEMENT 1 This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated. Where correction services have been used, the extent and nature of the correction is clearly marked in a footnote. Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit references. A bibliography is appended. Signed: Date: 16/5/2011 STATEMENT 2 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organizations. Signed: Date: 16/5/2011 Table of Contents Acknowledgements List of Tables and Figures List of Abbreviations Frequently Cited Works Introduction....................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1—Renaissance Lawyers: A Comparative Look.........................................4 Renaissance Lawyers in Florence...................................................................................4 Early Modem Lawyers in the Papal Court.................................................................... 8 Lawyers in Late Medieval England ..............................................................................10 Chapter 2—Venice’s Lawyers: An Introduction...................................................... 14 Family Social Status...................................................................................................... 16 Lawyers and Marriage .................................................................................................. 18 Connections between Lawyers..................................................................................... 20 Lawyers and Wealth ......................................................................................................22 Lawyers’ Education.......................................................................................................26 Lawyers’ Lifespans ............................................................................................. 32 Chapter 3—Venice’s Lawyers and the Cursus Honorum........................................35 Chapter 4—The Lawyer as Diplomat.........................................................................42 General Background.....................................................................................................42 Where Venice’s Lawyers Served as Ambassadors .......................................................46 Frequency of Election as Ambassadors........................................................................ 50 Different Types of Ambassadorial Missions................................................................. 51 Lawyers as Ambassadors of War and Peace.................................................................................... 51 Lawyers and Commercial Negotiations............................................................................................. 65 Lawyers as Ceremonial Representatives............................................................................................68 Chapter 5—The Lawyer as Governor........................................................................73 General Background.....................................................................................................73 Where Venice’s Lawyers Governed ..............................................................................77 The Activities of Venice’s Lawyer-Governors..............................................................80 Governors in Times of Instability.........................................................................................................80 Lawyers as Reformers of a City’s Law............................................................................................ s 86 Lawyers as Builders................................................................................................................................... 87 Chapter 6—The Lawyer as Legislator........................................................................90 The Structure of Venice’s Government........................................................................ 90 Lawyers and the Dogeship............................................................................................ 95 Lawyers as Procurators................................................................................................ 99 Lawyers as Ducal Councilors....................................................................................... 99 Lawyers and the Council of Ten.................................................................................102 Lawyers and the Collegio............................................................................................ 104 Lawyers as Avogadori di Comun..................................................................................107 Chapter 7—Lawyers in Other Roles......................................................................... 110 Lawyers and the Military .............................................................................................110 Lawyers and Public Ceremonies .................................................................................113 Lawyers as Criminals.................................................................................................. 115 Chapter 8—Conclusions.............................................................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Caterina Corner in Venetian History and Iconography Holly Hurlburt
    Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal 2009, vol. 4 Body of Empire: Caterina Corner in Venetian History and Iconography Holly Hurlburt n 1578, a committee of government officials and monk and historian IGirolamo Bardi planned a program of redecoration for the Sala del Maggior Consiglio (Great Council Hall) and the adjoining Scrutinio, among the largest and most important rooms in the Venetian Doge’s Palace. Completed, the schema would recount Venetian history in terms of its international stature, its victories, and particularly its conquests; by the sixteenth century Venice had created a sizable maritime empire that stretched across the eastern Mediterranean, to which it added considerable holdings on the Italian mainland.1 Yet what many Venetians regarded as the jewel of its empire, the island of Cyprus, was calamitously lost to the Ottoman Turks in 1571, three years before the first of two fires that would necessitate the redecoration of these civic spaces.2 Anxiety about such a loss, fear of future threats, concern for Venice’s place in evolving geopolitics, and nostalgia for the past prompted the creation of this triumphant pro- gram, which featured thirty-five historical scenes on the walls surmounted by a chronological series of ducal portraits. Complementing these were twenty-one large narratives on the ceiling, flanked by smaller depictions of the city’s feats spanning the previous seven hundred years. The program culminated in the Maggior Consiglio, with Tintoretto’s massive Paradise on one wall and, on the ceiling, three depictions of allegorical Venice in triumph by Tintoretto, Veronese, and Palma il Giovane. These rooms, a center of republican authority, became a showcase for the skills of these and other artists, whose history paintings in particular underscore the deeds of men: clothed, in armor, partially nude, frontal and foreshortened, 61 62 EMWJ 2009, vol.
    [Show full text]
  • Europa E Italia. Studi in Onore Di Giorgio Chittolini
    21 CORE VENICE AND THE VENETO Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Reti Medievali Open Archive DURING THE RENAISSANCE THE LEGACY OF BENJAMIN KOHL Edited by Michael Knapton, John E. Law, Alison A. Smith thE LEgAcy of BEnJAMin KohL BEnJAMin of LEgAcy thE rEnAiSSAncE thE during VEnEto thE And VEnicE Smith A. Alison Law, E. John Knapton, Michael by Edited Benjamin G. Kohl (1938-2010) taught at Vassar College from 1966 till his retirement as Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities in 2001. His doctoral research at The Johns Hopkins University was directed by VEnicE And thE VEnEto Frederic C. Lane, and his principal historical interests focused on northern Italy during the Renaissance, especially on Padua and Venice. during thE rEnAiSSAncE His scholarly production includes the volumes Padua under the Carrara, 1318-1405 (1998), and Culture and Politics in Early Renaissance Padua thE LEgAcy of BEnJAMin KohL (2001), and the online database The Rulers of Venice, 1332-1524 (2009). The database is eloquent testimony of his priority attention to historical sources and to their accessibility, and also of his enthusiasm for collaboration and sharing among scholars. Michael Knapton teaches history at Udine University. Starting from Padua in the fifteenth century, his research interests have expanded towards more general coverage of Venetian history c. 1300-1797, though focusing primarily on the Terraferma state. John E. Law teaches history at Swansea University, and has also long served the Society for Renaissance Studies. Research on fifteenth- century Verona was the first step towards broad scholarly investigation of Renaissance Italy, including its historiography.
    [Show full text]
  • Brill's Series of Primary Sources: Western Travelers in the Islamic World (Http: // Brill'
    134 Book Reviews / Iran and the Caucasus 16 (2012) 134-136 Brill’s Series of Primary Sources: Western Travelers in the Islamic World (http: //www.primarysourcesonline.nl/c19/). Brill’s online Series of Western travel literature on the Islamic World contains more than 220 main written sources by Western travellers, missioners, merchants, diplomatic representatives from early mediaeval period till the 20th century. It is a huge collection of important primary sources for the political, cultural, economic, ethnographical and differ- ent other issues of the history of late mediaeval and early modern Islamic societies from Africa to India and from the Caucasus to Arabic peninsula. In this review, we will focus only on some main sources listed in the Series concerning Iran and especially the history of the Safavids. However, for the Timurid period one of the most valuable sources is the narrative of the embassy of Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo to the court of Timur at Samarcand in 1403-1406 whose travel laid through Iran. This narrative was translated from Spanish into English for the first time in 1859 by Clemente Ri Markham with notes, preface and an introduction on Timur Lang’s life. There is also the publication of the Spanish text with Russian translation by I. I. Sreznevskij in St. Petersburg in 1881. The next source to be introduced relates the 15th century’s history of Iran and includes the reports of Venetian ambassadors to the court of Uzun Hasan Aq Qoyunlu who was the ruler of Western Iran and Aturpa- takan (Azerbaijan). Those are Caterino Zeno, ambassador in 1471-1473; Giosofat Barbaro, ambassador in 1471-1478; and Ambrogio Contarini, ambassador in 1474-1476.
    [Show full text]
  • A Distant World: Russian Relations with Europe Before Peter the Great
    - A Distant World: Russian Relations with Europe Before Peter the Great Poe, Marshall https://iro.uiowa.edu/discovery/delivery/01IOWA_INST:ResearchRepository/12674991040002771?l#13675102750002771 Poe, M. (2003). A Distant World: Russian Relations with Europe Before Peter the Great. University of Iowa. https://doi.org/10.17077/pp.005136 Document Version: Accepted manuscript https://iro.uiowa.edu Free to read and download Copyright © New York Public Library, 2003. Posted by permission. Downloaded on 2021/10/01 00:06:26 -0500 - “A Distant World: Russia and Europe before Peter the Great.” Cynthia Whittaker et al., ed., The World Engages Russia (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2003), 2-23. A Distant World: Russian Relations with Europe Before Peter the Great Marshall Poe Draft: Not for Citation Shortly after the fall of the western Roman Empire in the fifth century, a number of previously unknown groups—the Veneti, the Sclaveni and the Antes—rather suddenly appeared in the writings of European annalists. Though their exact identity is the subject of some dispute, most historians agree that they were probably Slavs. The early history of this group is shrouded in mystery. We do not know where they came from, who they were, or even what they called themselves. One thing, however, is certain: they were on the move. Under pressure from the Avars, a group of nomadic pastoralists from the western Eurasian Steppe, the Slavs migrated out of their homeland above the Danube to the north and east and settled regions so inhospitable that no agriculturalist had ever attempted to scratch out a living there. Indeed, the only inhabitants of this corner of northeastern Europe at the time were Uralic-speaking hunter-gatherers, the ancestors of today’s Finns.
    [Show full text]
  • A Narrative of Italian Travels in Persia, in the Fifteenth and Sixteen Centuries
    A NARRATIVE ITALIAN TRAVELS PERSIA, FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES. ^Translates antJ iZtittrU CHARLES GREY, Esq. LONDON": PRINTED FOR THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY. M.DCCC.T.XXIII. CONTENTS. PAGE Travels in Persia, by Catering Zeno - 1 Discourse of Messes Giovan Battista Ramusio on the Writings of Giovan Maria Angiglello, etc. - 67 The Travels of a Merchant in Persia - - 139 Narrative of the Most Noble Vincentio d'Alessandri 209 A NARRATIVE ITALIAN TRAVELS IN PERSIA. The close of the fifteenth century is an epoch in the history of the East, and especially of Persia, of which but little is known. The blast of Timour's invasion had swept over that historic land and left it deso- late. These four Accounts of Travels by Europeans are, therefore, especially interesting in a geographi- cal and historical point of view, and will, with the books of Barbaro and Contarini, which are in Ilamusio's collection, complete the series of Italian voyages about that period. In order clearly to un- derstand the facts brought forward, it will be neces- sary to glance at the motives of policy which started the embassies, and the historical changes which in- fluenced their results. In Eastern Europe the Byzantine empire had, after a long and gradual decline, at length crumbled into ruins beneath the power of the Ottomans, which threatened to be as great a scourge to Europe as that of Timur (or Tamerlane) had been to Asia, while the stability and vitality of their empire oifered a great contrast to the ephemeral charac- A 11 A NARRATIVE OF ter of Timur's dominion.
    [Show full text]
  • Sacred Scripture / Sacred Space
    Sacred Scripture / Sacred Space Unauthenticated Download Date | 2/4/19 9:22 AM Materiale Textkulturen Schriftenreihe des Sonderforschungsbereichs 933 Herausgegeben von Ludger Lieb Wissenschaftlicher Beirat: Jan Christian Gertz, Markus Hilgert, Hanna Liss, Bernd Schneidmüller, Melanie Trede und Christian Witschel Band 23 Unauthenticated Download Date | 2/4/19 9:22 AM Sacred Scripture / Sacred Space The Interlacing of Real Places and Conceptual Spaces in Medieval Art and Architecture Edited by Tobias Frese, Wilfried E. Keil and Kristina Krüger Unauthenticated Download Date | 2/4/19 9:22 AM ISBN 978-3-11-062913-2 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-062915-6 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-063347-4 ISSN 2198-6932 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Library of Congress Control Number: 2018964345 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2019 Frese et al., published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston This book is published in open access at www.degruyter.com. Cover Images: Florenz, San Pancrazio, Capella Rucellai, facade. Photo: Miguel Hermoso Cuesta, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Typesetting: Sonderforschungsbereich 933 (Nicolai Schmitt), Heidelberg Printing and binding: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen www.degruyter.com Unauthenticated Download Date | 2/4/19 9:22 AM Contents Acknowledgements V Tobias Frese, Kristina Krüger Sacred Scripture / Sacred Space The Interlacing of Real Places and Conceptual Spaces in Medieval Art and Architecture.
    [Show full text]
  • Leonardo Da Vinci and the Persistence of Myth Emily Hanson
    Washington University in St. Louis Washington University Open Scholarship All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) 1-1-2012 Inventing the Sculptor: Leonardo da Vinci and the Persistence of Myth Emily Hanson Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/etd Recommended Citation Hanson, Emily, "Inventing the Sculptor: Leonardo da Vinci and the Persistence of Myth" (2012). All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs). 765. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/etd/765 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY Department of Art History & Archaeology INVENTING THE SCULPTOR LEONARDO DA VINCI AND THE PERSISTENCE OF MYTH by Emily Jean Hanson A thesis presented to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts May 2012 Saint Louis, Missouri ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wouldn’t be here without the help and encouragement of all the following people. Many thanks to all my friends: art historians, artists, and otherwise, near and far, who have sustained me over countless meals, phone calls, and cappuccini. My sincere gratitude extends to Dr. Wallace for his wise words of guidance, careful attention to my work, and impressive example. I would like to thank Campobello for being a wonderful mentor and friend, and for letting me persuade her to drive the nearly ten hours to Syracuse for my first conference, which convinced me that this is the best job in the world.
    [Show full text]
  • Reinhold C. Mueller
    Reinhold C. Mueller Aspects of Venetian Sovereignty in Medieval and Renaissance Dalmatia [A stampa in Quattrocento Adriatico , Fifteenth Century Art of the Adriatic Rim , Papers from a colloquium, Florence, 1994, edited by Charles Dempsey (Villa Spelman Colloquia Series, 5), Bologna, Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1996, pp. 29-56 – Distribuito in formato digitale da “Reti Medievali”] The reader is forewarned that this paper, which maintains the character of the original oral presentation, makes no attempt at covering completely such a vast subject, on which there is an extensive bibliography - much of it in Serbo-Croatian, a language I do not know. My intent is simply to offer for discussion some little-exploited historical materials on well-known themes that exemplify contacts between the two coasts of the Adriatic Sea, especially - but not only - during the Quattrocento. Following an overview of the history of Venetian sovereignty in that part of the Stato da mar, attention will turn to aspects of politics and society, that is, to the political, financial and monetary administration of the subject territories and to the movement of people and peoples across the Adriatic. I. AN OVERVIEW OF HISTORY AND MYTH Venetian efforts at domination of the eastern Adriatic can be said to have begun in the year 1000, with the naval expedition commanded personally by doge Pietro II Orseolo, which put an end to the activity of pirates installed at the mouth of the Narenta River and first avowed control over the Adriatic as the “Gulf of Venice.” Lordship over the Adriatic was central to Venetian historiography and mythology over the centuries: from the supposed papal grant of lordship at the peace of 1177 with Barbarossa and the ceremony each Ascension day of the doge wedding the sea, to invocations of Jove and Neptune - all depicted as part of a political program in the redecoration of the Ducal Palace after the fire of 1577 As late as the eighteenth century, Tiepolo still represented Neptune and the sea as the source of Venice’s wealth, when that was already history.
    [Show full text]
  • Equestrian Monument to Bartolomeo Colleoni, 19Th Century
    anticSwiss 30/09/2021 08:14:52 http://www.anticswiss.com Equestrian monument to Bartolomeo Colleoni, 19th century FOR SALE ANTIQUE DEALER Period: 19° secolo - 1800 Ars Antiqua srl Milano Style: Altri stili +39 02 29529057 393664680856 Height:28cm Material:Bronzo Price:1200€ DETAILED DESCRIPTION: 19th century Equestrian monument to Bartolomeo Colleoni Dark patina bronze with marble base, cm alt 28 The work in question is a reproduction of the famous equestrian monument executed by Andrea del Verrocchio for Campo San Zanipolo in Venice between 1480 and 1488. It represents the leader Bartolomeo Colleoni (1395 / 1400-1475), one of the most enterprising captains of fortune of the Republic of Venice of the fifteenth century. He plays the classic bold and daring leader, full of charm and pride. He was at the service of the Serenissima and of Filippo Maria Visconti. The equestrian statue theme has been particularly prevalent in Western sculpture since Greek art. From the Roman imperial age this subject took on a heroic but also propaganda function that will characterize it until the twentieth century. More or less famous leaders were portrayed in this capacity; famous are the examples of Marcus Aurelius, Napoleon and Garibaldi, numerous are the works of this kind that adorn the main Italian and foreign squares. The realization of an equestrian monument, by one of the greatest artists of the fifteenth century, for the leader Bartolomeo Colleoni, who died a few years earlier, was decreed by the Republic of Venice in 1479. The following year the execution was entrusted to the Florentine Andrea Verrocchio (Florence, 1437 - Venice, 1488), however he disappeared before the work was finished.
    [Show full text]
  • VENICE Grant Allen's Historical Guides
    GR KS ^.At ENICE W VENICE Grant Allen's Historical Guides // is proposed to issue the Guides of this Series in the following order :— Paris, Florence, Cities of Belgium, Venice, Munich, Cities of North Italy (Milan, Verona, Padua, Bologna, Ravenna), Dresden (with Nuremberg, etc.), Rome (Pagan and Christian), Cities of Northern France (Rouen, Amiens, Blois, Tours, Orleans). The following arc now ready:— PARIS. FLORENCE. CITIES OF BELGIUM. VENICE. Fcap. 8vo, price 3s. 6d. each net. Bound in Green Cloth with rounded corners to slip into the pocket. THE TIMES.—" Good work in the way of showing students the right manner of approaching the history of a great city. These useful little volumes." THE SCOTSMAN "Those who travel for the sake of culture will be well catered for in Mr. Grant Allen's new series of historical guides. There are few more satisfactory books for a student who wishes to dig out the Paris of the past from the im- mense superincumbent mass of coffee-houses, kiosks, fashionable hotels, and other temples of civilisation, beneath which it is now submerged. Florence is more easily dug up, as you have only to go into the picture galleries, or into the churches or museums, whither Mr. Allen's^ guide accordingly conducts you, and tells you what to look at if you want to understand the art treasures of the city. The books, in a word, explain rather than describe. Such books are wanted nowadays. The more sober- minded among tourists will be grateful to him for the skill with which the new series promises to minister to their needs." GRANT RICHARDS 9 Henrietta St.
    [Show full text]
  • Venetian Foreign Affairs from 1250 to 1381: the Wars with Genoa and Other External Developments
    Venetian Foreign Affairs from 1250 to 1381: The Wars with Genoa and Other External Developments By Mark R. Filip for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in History College of Liberal Arts and Sciences University of Illinois Urbana, Illinois 1988 Table of Contents Major Topics page Introduction 1 The First and Second Genoese Wars 2 Renewed Hostilities at Ferrara 16 Tiepolo's Attempt at Revolution 22 A New Era of Commercial Growth 25 Government in Territories of the Republic 35 The Black Death and Third ' < 'ioese War 38 Portolungo 55 A Second Attempt at Rcvoiut.on 58 Doge Gradenigo and Peace with Genoa 64 Problems in Hungary and Crete 67 The Beginning of the Contarini Dogcship 77 Emperor Paleologus and the War of Chioggia 87 The Battle of Pola 94 Venetian Defensive Successes 103 Zeno and the Venetian Victory 105 Conclusion 109 Endnotes 113 Annotated Bibliography 121 1 Introduction In the years preceding the War of Chioggia, Venetian foreign affairs were dominated by conflicts with Genoa. Throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the two powers often clashed in open hostilities. This antagonism between the cities lasted for ten generations, and has been compared to the earlier rivalry between Rome and Carthage. Like the struggle between the two ancient powers, the Venetian/Gcnoan hatred stemmed from their competitive relationship in maritime trade. Unlike land-based rivals, sea powers cannot be separated by any natural boundary or agree to observe any territorial spheres of influence. Trade with the Levant, a source of great wealth and prosperity for each of the cities, required Venice and Genoa to come into repeated conflict in ports such as Chios, Lajazzo, Acre, and Tyre.
    [Show full text]
  • Venetian Art, 1600–1797 Massimo Favilla, Ruggero Rugolo, And
    VENETIAN ART, 1600–1797 Massimo Favilla, Ruggero Rugolo, and Dulcia Meijers* Part One: The 17th Century On 21 August 1609, Galileo Galilei gave a demonstration of his recently perfected telescope to Doge Leonardo Donà and the senators of the Vene- tian Republic from a room atop the bell-tower of St. Mark’s. By means of this extraordinary instrument, places and things once invisible to the naked eye suddenly came within view: in this case, even the domes of the basilica of Santa Giustina in Padua.1 Venice thus witnessed the beginning of a new vision of the world, which in the realm of painting helped bring about the infinite and vertiginous perspectives displayed on the baroque walls and ceilings of all of Europe. Three years earlier, in 1606, the Roman curia had excommunicated the Republic of San Marco for the state’s stalwart defense of its own jurisdic- tion (the Interdict crisis). In the face of unacceptable interference from Rome, the Dominante reacted with obstinate opposition and held its ground throughout the trying episode. The passing of the century brought still other critical moments: the devastating plague of 1630, followed by the disastrous war of Candia (1645–69), in which Venice finally lost the homonymous island (Crete in Italian) to the Ottoman Empire, the high point in 1687 of Venice’s long-awaited first victories over the Ottomans led by the future Doge Francesco Morosini “il Peloponnesiaco,” and the appro- priately solemn consecration of the monumental Basilica della Salute in 1631 (in the wake of the plague) designed by Baldassare Longhena.
    [Show full text]