How Did Venetian Diplomatic Envoys Define Europe, Its Divisions, Centres and Peripheries (Ca
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Chapter 9 How Did Venetian Diplomatic Envoys Define Europe, Its Divisions, Centres and Peripheries (ca. 1570–1645)? Piotr Chmiel 1 Introduction The scope of this paper is to analyse some categories of geographical and cul- tural notions used in the political discourse of the early modern Most Serene Republic of Venice (Serenissima), as displayed in texts produced mainly by its diplomatic elites. By analysing these sources, I will try to understand what the meaning of ‘Europe’ was, to retrace perceived divisions of this entity and, finally, to discover its centres and peripheries. Within this scope, I will use reports and dispatches sent to Venice mainly from Constantinople (by the so-called baili, or ambassadors of the Serenissima to the sultan’s court)1 and other (European) capitals, and from the Venetian consulate in Aleppo between circa 1570 and 1645. This set of sources will be completed by several treatises produced within the Venetian diplomatic circle. I am aware of the fact that this constitutes only a small part of the large corpus of Venetian diplomatic sources. Nevertheless, I think that this sample of texts is well representative of the opinions of the political elite of the Serenissima, at least during the period in question. The sources quoted are all preserved in the State Archives of Venice (Archivio di Stato di Venezia) and in two Venetian libraries: the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana and the Biblioteca del Museo Correr; some of them (mainly ambas- sadorial reports) have been published.2 1 On the title bailo cf., for example, Dursteler E.R. “The Bailo in Constantinople: Crisis and Career in Venice’s Early Modern Diplomatic Corps”, Mediterranean Historical Review 16 (2001) 1–30. 2 A helpful list of the abbreviations related to the sources used in this paper includes: ASVe — Archivio di Stato di Venezia; BNM — Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana; BMC — Biblioteca del Museo Correr; the fonds of ASVe: BAC — Bailo a Costantinopoli; Delib. Cost. — Senato, Deliberazioni Costantinopoli; Disp. Cost. — Senato, Dispacci Costantinopoli; Disp. Alep. — Senato, Dispacci consoli Aleppo; the fonds of BMC: DR — Donà delle Rose; WL — Wcovich-Lazzari; reg. — register (registro); f. — page (folio); bt. — booklet; ms. — manu- script; disp. — dispatch. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004414716_011 212 Chmiel The Venetian diplomatic sources are particularly useful for an analysis as proposed in the present article due to an extensive number of texts created by the officials of the Most Serene Republic active in foreign missions. The most famous texts are the reports, the so-called relazioni, that each ambassador of the Republic was obliged to present after his return to Venice during a session of the Senate. The reports described the countries of the ambassadors’ mis- sions and contained general information on their activities. They were usually structured in a certain order, starting with general specifications of the receiv- ing state, its geography, inhabitants and internal organisation, followed by the description of the ruler and, finally, of relations between the monarch of the receiving state and other rulers. Dispatches, sent to Venice from missions sev- eral times each month, represented another type of diplomatic documents. They discussed the current political situation on site, everyday activities of the ambassador and his contacts with the local court.3 A broad exchange of information, assessments and opinions between the network of Venetian diplomats and the complex bureaucratic structure of the Serenissima’s headquarters reflects the vivid reality of an early modern state in general and of one the most powerful European republics of its time. Although the organisation of the Venetian diplomacy — and the state — certainly was not perfect, both the Republic and the diplomacy were perceived by their officials as an ideal, well-shaped state. Thus, the Venetian internal order and liberty (or liberties) — as well as Venice’s main challenges in inter- national relations, concerning, for instance, the policies towards the Ottoman Empire, the Papacy and the Kingdom of Spain — were natural points of ref- erence for Venetian diplomats in their description of other political realities of the continent. While bearing in mind this important context of opinions expressed in Venetian diplomatic sources, it should be stressed that an exact analysis of the abovementioned aspects of those texts remains beyond the lim- its of this article.4 3 On the various documents produced by Venetian diplomats, cf. Antonibon F., Le re- lazioni a stampa di ambasciatori veneti (Padua: 1939); Queller D.E., “The Development of Ambassadorial Relazioni”, in Hale J.R. (ed.), Renaissance Venice (London: 1973) 174–196; Carbone S., Note introduttive ai dispacci al Senato dei rappresentanti diplomatici veneti. Serie: Costantinopoli, Firenze, Inghilterra, Pietroburgo (Rome: 1974); Benzoni G., “A proposito della fonte prediletta di Ranke, ossia le relazioni degli ambasciatori veneziani”, Studi Veneziani 16 (1988) 245–257. For a recent discussion on the usefulness of the relazioni for a contemporary history of contacts between Venice and the Ottoman Empire, see Dursteler E.R., “Describing or Distorting the ‘Turk’? The Relazioni of the Venetian Ambassadors in Constantinople as Historical Source”, Acta Histriae 19 (2011) 231–248. 4 On the image and reality of the Venetian diplomacy, the state institutions and the values declared by the ruling class, cf. Bouwsma W.J., Venice and the Defence of Republican Liberty. .