Introduction: Venice, Real and Imagined

Abstract

Abstract: Despite its steady political decline, Venice was still a bustling center of commerce in the long eighteenth century and boasted a vivacious social and cultural life that attracted tourists and artists. The uniqueness of the city elicited a productive interplay between reality and imagination in the visual arts and in the memories of visitors. François-René de Chateaubriand, however, was unimpressed by Venice during his first visit in 1806. His letter to a friend laconically chronicling his negative view of the city was published in the Mercure de France and spurred a lively debate. The Venetian noblewoman, writer, and salonnière Giustina Renier Michiel countered the French writer's disdain for her city with a scathing, public response that solidified her fame and reputation for patriotism. Indeed, as Susan Dalton argues, Renier Michiel incorporated "strategic accommodations" in her response in order to safeguard her literary fame. One of the most fascinating aspects of Venice's uniqueness was this type of female agency and visibility, which was embodied by famous poets of the Renaissance like Gaspara Stampa and Veronica Franco and by celebrated eighteenth-century artists like Rosalba Carriera. Nevertheless, as John Hunt's essay demonstrates, female visibility and agency in Venice transcended social class. Even women of the lower classes partook in the city's political life thanks to their freedom of movement and access to valuable information. Records of witchcraft trials testify that some of them, in fact, exploited Venetians' passion for gambling and claimed to have the power to magically predict the names of the noblemen who would win elections.