Diplomacy and Scribal Culture: Venice and Florence, Two Cultures of Political Writings

Abstract

How useful is it to apply the notion of scribal culture in the field of political history? This article examines the role of written culture in light of its relations with two different modes of political expression: the voice and the printed word. In order to identify the options available to the authorities in the ancien régime, it compares the areas where manuscripts were used in the Republic of Venice and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, two states where literary and political controversies broke out in different ways. Until the mid-seventeenth century, Tuscany had a prudent tradition of censoring official writings, while Venice fought in the Interdict controversy of 1606–07. The context of intense political negotiations in the years 1642–43, when the two states eventually concluded a league, allows us to highlight the clash between two different political cultures with specific reference to scribal culture.