French Views of Venice: From the Fourth Crusade through Napoleon A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of The School of Continuing Studies and of The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Liberal Studies By Elizabeth Anna Griffith, M.A.L.S Georgetown University Washington, D.C. April 30, 2013 ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many people helped me with this thesis. Fr. John W. O’Malley, SJ, arch-enemy of the superfluous word, advised me, encouraged me, and taught me to trust my historical instincts. Prof. James Grubb inspired me, steered me, and referred me to Prof. Reinhold Mueller, who was generous with ideas and material from his forthcoming book. Sem Sutter of the Georgetown Library tracked down articles and books with good cheer. Prof. Kathryn Olesko made the Republic of Letters come alive. Prof. Frank Ambrosio and Deborah Warin reminded me how much there is to love about Italian history. Jan Janis, Lourdes Riviriego, and Bill Skinner lent their formidable language skills to difficult Old French texts and embraced the challenge with cheerful zeal. Mario Cellarosi decoded a nearly impenetrable piece of Venetian legalese. Abby Sherburne helped me understand an obscure Latin footnote. My sister “Renaissance Ladies” Louisa Woodville and Ann McClellan were encouraging and helpful every step of this long journey. My cohort-mates in the Georgetown DLS program Mary Gresens and Daphne Geanacopoulos knew exactly what to say and when to say it. Ann Ridder gave good and patient counsel. My family and friends showed good-natured interest as I embraced what one called “the Journal of Obscurity.” Fellow “lagoonatics” Eric Denker, Judith Martin, Luca Zan, and Luis Guardia have fanned the flames of this idea for more than ten years. Much longer ago I learned to love European history from my Aunt Phoebe, who took me to France and Italy when I was fifteen. Thanks to all of you. The biggest thanks goes to my husband, Don Daniel, for letting Antelm the Nasty, James the Bastard, Amelot, Daru, and Napoleon crash our dinners, and who shared his own scholarly wisdom and patient support these past two years. iii CONTENTS FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... vi ILLUSTRATIONS ........................................................................................................... vii INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER ONE OVERVIEW OF VENETIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY .................................................................... 9 Cassiodorus Chronicles through the Fifteenth Century Relazioni Official Historians and Diarists Exposition of Venetian Myth and Anti-Myth, Sixteenth Century Visitor Accounts, Fifteenth – Eighteenth Centuries Papal Denunciation and Anti-Papal Defense Enlightenment Writings of the Late Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Historiography After the Fall Archival History and Risorgimento Politics British Interest Celebration of Liberalism World War I and the Rise of Fascism Republican Italy Annaliste Exploration of Venice American Expropriation of Venetian History Venetian Historiography Since 1970 Venetian Historiography in Recent Years CHAPTER TWO FRENCH VIEWS OF VENICE FROM THE FOURTH CRUSADE ............................................. 39 Five Sources 1209: Geoffrey de Villehardouin 1216: Robert de Clari 1212: Peter des Vaux-le-Cernay 1232: La Chronique d’Ernoul et de Bernard le Tresorier (Antelm the Nasty) 1304: The Chronicle of Morea Comparative Reading of Various Points Positive Attributes: The Wealth of Venice, Shipbuilding Expertise, Maritime Skill Negative Attributes: Greedy, Unchivalrous, Unchristian, Treacherous Analysis of Influence iv CHAPTER THREE BETWEEN CRUSADER RHETORIC AND HUMANISM, REPUBLICANISM AND MONARCHY: FRENCH VIEWS OF VENICE FROM THE LEAGUE OF CAMBRAI ERA................................. 89 Overview of texts 1389: Songe du Vieil Pèlerin by Philippe de Mézières 1453: Spurious letter from “Morbesan” to Pope Nicholas V 1501: Memoirs of Philippe de Commines 1508: L’enterprise de Venise by Pierre Gringore 1509: La légende des venitiens by Jean Lemaire de Belges 1510 – Harangue by Loüis Hélian 1509-19 – Traicté du gouvernement et regyme de la cyté et Seigneurie de Venise commissioned by Admiral Louis Malet de Graville Themes: Greedy, Unchivalrous, Unchristian, Treacherous, Proud, Lowborn, Ungovernable, Decadent Appointment of Literary Censor CHAPTER FOUR BETWEEN HUMANISM AND ENLIGHTENMENT: FRENCH VIEWS OF VENICE FROM THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ................................................................................................ 121 Amelot: Origins and First Publication 1676: Histoire du gouvernement de Venise 1677: The Squitinio, Translated as the Examen 1677: Harangue 1677: Supplement 1769: Casanova’s Confutazione della storia del governo Veneto d’Amelot de la Houssaie Summary of Amelot’s Influence CHAPTER FIVE FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO DEMOCRACY: FRENCH VIEW OF VENICE FROM THE AGE OF NAPOLEON ...................................................................................................................... 183 Daru and Stendhal 1819: Histoire de la République de Venise Statutes of the Inquisition of State Napoleon: General, Journalist, Stage Director Themes: Greedy, Unchivalrous, Unchristian, Treacherous, Proud, Lowborn, Ungovernable, Decadent, Neglectful of Duty, Weak French Reception CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION: MAKING MEANING OF FRENCH VIEWS ON VENICE .............................. 231 APPENDIX: FORGERIES AND COMMENTARY ................................................................. 249 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................ 269 v FIGURES 1. Gentile Bellini, Processione della Vera Croce, 1496, Accademia, Venice ......... 12 2. Luca Carlevarijs, The Piazza San Marco, 1710-15, Kiplin Hall, Yorkshire .......... 13 3. Titian, Caterina Cornaro, 1542, Uffizzi, Florence ............................................ 107 4. A Venetian torture chamber, British Museum ............................................... 215 vi TABLES 1. Works of Art Set in Venice, 1798-1912 ........................................................... 228 2. French Themes about Venice ......................................................................... 231 vii viii INTRODUCTION Venice had a long, influential, and often peculiar existence as a polity, and has an even more distinctive one in its afterlife. Venice the place triggers the imagination as almost no other. Venice as a political idea has been claimed by champions of representative government and elite rule alike, capitalism and socialism alike. Venice as an all-purpose stand-in for degradation and evil is a centuries-old phenomenon and still alive and well.1 A place that made its fortune on spice, Venice acts as one: tiny but powerful, leaving all it contacts with a lasting aftertaste. The most basic demarcation for original sources on Venice are the categories called “myth” and “anti-myth.” These are summed up by James S. Grubb as follows. The Venetian myth extols “a city founded in liberty and never thereafter subjected to foreign domination; a maritime, commercial economy; a unified and civic-minded patriciate, guardian of the common good; a society intensely pious yet ecclesiastically independent; a loyal and contented populace; a constitution constraining disruptive forces in a thousand-year harmony and constancy of purpose; a republic of wisdom and benevolence, provider of fair justice and a high degree of toleration.” The Venice of anti-myth, on the other hand, is “tyrannical, oppressive, unstable, contentious, divided, inconstant, treacherous, covetous, impious.”2 Both grew up accretively, with the apotheosis of the myth generally held to be Contarini’s 16th-century De 1 Webster Tarpley, “The Venetian Conspiracy,” YouTube (June 20, 2012), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFeSm5x4W4o (accessed February 20, 2013). “Webster Tarpley on Venice, the mediaeval Venetian Conspiracy, that conquered Amsterdam and Britain; the Byzantine Empire; Martin Luther; the Vatican; 911; NeoCons and homosexual Republicans.” 2 James S. Grubb, “When Myths Lose Power: Four Decades of Venetian Historiography,” The Journal of Modern History 58, no. 1 (Mar., 1986): 44, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1881564 (accessed February 20, 2004). 1 magistratibus et republica Venetorum (translated as The Commonwealth and Government of Venice), and the anti-myth to be Daru’s nineteenth-century Histoire de la République de Venise. Here I explore the French historical view of Venice, from the Fourth Crusade in 1204 through the Napoleonic era, and explain the apparent longstanding antipathy of the French for the Venetians. While scholars have written on situational, time-bound antagonisms, no work has heretofore traced these into a continuous narrative, measuring thrust and counter thrust against long waves of cultural change in Europe, and the weakening and death of the Venetian state. This is what I do in the pages that follow. Negative French views toward Venice reflect interrelated themes that evolved from the thirteenth through the nineteenth centuries. These strands incorporated French-Venetian contact during the Crusades, in the Latin Crusader Kingdoms, in courts and marketplaces throughout Europe, on battlefields in Italy, and finally in salons, coffeehouses, and the Republic