:Language and Statecraft in Early Modern Venice

Abstract

This book by treats Renaissance Venice's outlawing of blasphemy, strong insult, and loose political talk. It also takes up the question of official attitudes toward the clever conversation of the city's up-market prostitutes. Obvious links between speech and government are at once apparent. The author's aims, however, reach beyond this linkage, for she sees a Venetian state that was “constructing a normative language” which was “a useful tool in the practice of statecraft” (pp. 10, 215). The structure of the book has very clear lines that are set forth in the introduction. In it, Elizabeth Horodowich reflects on sociolinguistics, state formation, manuals of conduct, everyday speech, and her intended use of archival materials. Chapter one, “Defining the Art of Conversation,” analyzes the materials on speech in three sixteenth-century primers of conduct: Baldasarre Castiglione's Il cortegiano, Giovanni della Casa's Il Galateo ovvero De' Costumi, and Stefano Guazzo's La civil conversazione. None was a Venetian work, but because they were enormously popular in their day, the author feels justified in using them to underline the place of speech in behavior.