Medieval Venice Research Articles

The Sword of Roland in La Serenissima: Materiality and the Occult in Late Medieval Venice

Among the many recipes contained within a fifteenth-century book of secrets housed in Venice’s Biblioteca Marciana, there is a singularly unique one that offers to create the ‘Sword of Roland the Paladin’. The recipe, supposedly learned from a necromancer from Bologna, would create a solution from a mélange of herbs and alchemical salts and would purportedly invest the blade with occult powers. This recipe for creating the ‘Sword of Roland’ promises the potential of an object, rather than an actual physical thing. Nonetheless, this specific recipe offers an exceptional lens through which to investigate the intersection of material objects and magic in the late medieval Mediterranean Basin. It does so in four ways: in the physical space of the Biblioteca Marciana, in the physical codex in which the recipe is found, in the actual objects required to make the solution and in the very urban space of Venice itself.

Patere and formelle in Medieval Venice: towards an astronomical reading

This paper explores the possibility that patere and formelle, characteristic decorative elements of medieval Venetian architecture, may represent stars and constellations: their arrangements on the facades of religious and civil buildings would have had the purpose of favouring the traveller’s geolocation, conveying simple messages such as 'You are facing north’, ‘You are facing east’, to an audience generally accustomed to reading the sun and stars for orientation. Stars and constellations are depicted not only in the Western way, but also according to iconographies of different geographic areas, particularly from the Near and Middle East

Crossing the Alps: Early Urbanism Between Northern Italy and Central Europe (900–400 BC). Edited by Lorenzo Zamboni, Manuel Fernández-Götz, and Carola Metzner-Nebelsick. Leiden: Sidestone Press 2020. Pp. 434. £166.50. ISBN 978-90-8890-961-0 (paper).

<i>Crossing the Alps: Early Urbanism Between Northern Italy and Central Europe (900–400 BC)</i>. Edited by Lorenzo Zamboni, Manuel Fernández-Götz, and Carola Metzner-Nebelsick. Leiden: Sidestone Press 2020. Pp. 434. £166.50. ISBN 978-90-8890-961-0 (paper).

Protection rent as explanation for racialized market outcomes

Abstract Protection rent is a helpful concept for understanding the role of violence in the racialized stratification of wealth accumulation. In the USA, persons institutionally classified as white have faced lower prices for protection from violence than have persons classified as non-white. Thus, whites have received protection rents that have systematically increased their accumulated wealth. Historian of medieval Venice, Frederic Lane created the concept of protection rent to describe the economic advantage that some economic actors enjoyed over others as a result of paying a lower price for protection from the purveyor of force with which they were aligned. This article applies Lane’s concept of protection rent to the variable cost of protection faced by economic actors in the USA, where racialization is associated with significant differences in wealth accumulation.

Authority and Power in Russia

Can classical political theories of mixed constitution from Polybius to Cicero help us shed new light on Russian politics? In order to so, this article first considers political structures of such non-parliamentary republics as medieval Novgorod and Venice, while choosing Constantinople as a basis for their comparison. Second, using Anthony Kaldellis's recent book that has reinterpreted Byzantium in terms of the classical theory of res publica, it analyzes the question of auctoritas in ancient republican Rome and then imperial Constantinople. Third, the author employs Giorgio Agamben's book on the state of exception, in order to see how mechanisms of power and authority that the Roman emperors had employed might help us interpret anew the phenomenon of tsardom, given that Ivan the Terrible was the first in Russia to be crowned as tsar, that is, Ceasar. This might have a lasting significance even for present day politics.

You Are Invited to a Masked Ball P.S.: Do Not Wear a Mask

You Are Invited to a Masked Ball P.S.:Do Not Wear a Mask David Caldwell (bio) Rob Reiner's 1987 movie The Princess Bride tells the story of a princess, memorably named Buttercup, who is kidnaped and rescued. Fans of the film will recall that Princess Buttercup's abductors are a lovably inept trio of villains, and that her savior in dogged pursuit of the band is a mysterious man in black. His outfit includes a black mask. Genuinely curious, one of the kidnapers, a giant named Fezzik, asks his pursuer, "Why are you wearing a mask? Were you burned with acid, or something like that?" The man in black replies, "Oh no, it's just that they're terribly comfortable. I think everyone will be wearing them in the future." More than thirty years later, the prophetic nature of that whimsical dialogue enhances enjoyment of it, though many would claim it was a bit off in its assessment of comfort level. However, the prediction of universal face coverage resonates no less during the Covid-19 pandemic than does a bit of advice that Fezzik gives his fellow accomplice Inigo Montoya elsewhere in the film. As Montoya prepares to engage their pursuer in a sword fight, he tells his friend. "You be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted." In addition to the role of the mask in various health practices over time, representations in popular culture, theater, literary prose, and eventually in film provide a revealing account of human masking and unmasking over the centuries. America's tumult of mistrust and apprehension over pandemic face coverings in 2020 has unfolded as the latest chapter in the history of humans alternately covering their faces and leaving them unmasked. In particular, a selective examination of masking in other times, both in historical context and in the virtual venues of literature, reveals much about American society since the election of Donald Trump. In The Princess Bride the man in black, played by Cary Elwes, makes his way up the Cliffs of Insanity, through the Fire Swamp, [End Page 199] and into the Pit of Despair--fantasy destinations that again scream metaphorical comparisons to 2020. This tour, however, first provides historical context, then drops in on a couple of exceptionally garish masked balls from 19th and 20th century literature. They are the type of festivity that would be inconceivable for a non-literary party planner. Similarly, prior to the ascendancy of Donald Trump in politics, the unprecedented spectacle of his administration could scarcely have been conceived outside of fantasy. While the Pit of Despair is not a destination on this overview of mask culture, we will drop by 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Masks are optional there. Humans have always found reasons to cover their faces, whether as a means of expression or as a tool for concealment. Even the use of masks as protective equipment by various professions in the technological age has historical precedence. Beginning in the 17th century, European plague doctors wore beaked visors with glass eye coverings to protect themselves from miasma, the putrid and supposedly infectious air that was believed to cause the disease. In some European cities and towns, including many where a memorial plague column dominates the public square, historical epidemics remain a part of the cultural fabric. For example in Venice today, replicas of the plague mask are sold as curiosities. Medieval Venice is a particularly instructive example of pandemic response, due to its development of the forty-day quarantine for incoming ships and their crews on two outlying islands, a prerequisite for permission to disembark in the harbor. The word quarantine derives from the Italian term for forty days, quaranta giorni. Between plagues, Venice´s embrace of mask-wearing has historically found a less macabre outlet in costume balls that highlight what is called "cosplay" today. During Carnival season in particular, elaborately decorative face coverings are a staple of Venetian galas. The social convention of the masked ball emerged during the Middle Ages, around the same time as the first epidemics. Though the two phenomena are not necessarily related, their separate deployment of masks is enlightening. After the emergence of the plague...

Magic in medieval Venice

AbstractThe scholarly investigation of premodern magic has grown significantly over the past quarter of a century. Many studies have focused on learned treatises written and received by members of the intellectual elite in the medieval and early modern eras. The practice and interest in magic, however, cut across all social spectra. One aspect of this premodern interest in the occult that has been neglected in the extant scholarship has been that of the occult in the service of trickery or fraud, whose practitioners used their claims to accessing bodies of privileged knowledge to defraud others. Using the case of an anonymous alchemist, “Cristoforo di Parigi,” purportedly exiled from Venice due to his alchemical practices, I trace the state of the field of studies on fraudulent magic, broadly, and in Venice, specifically. Fourteenth‐ and fifteenth‐century Venice, furthermore, is the perfect site for such an analysis, as magic and its medieval receptivity have not been extensively studied within that specific venue during the Middle Ages.

Dominae in claustro: San Zaccaria between politics, society and religion in early medieval Venice

Attraverso il confronto con gli altri monasteri femminili e maschili esistenti in laguna negli stessi secoli, il presente intervento indaga il ruolo rivestito dal cenobio femminile di San Zaccaria all’interno delle vicende politiche, sociali e religiose del dogado veneziano nei secoli cruciali dell’alto medioevo. L’analisi evidenzia da un lato l’esistenza di una chiara scansione cronologica entro la quale la comunita monastica esplica in maniera piu o meno incisiva una funzione di rappresentanza dapprima della famiglia dogale poi della citta stessa, dall’altro in che misura tale funzione sia determinata da vicende esterne al dogado o da elementi interni al monastero stesso.

Fragmenting membership. Petitions for citizenship in late medieval Genoa and Venice

Fragmenting membership. Petitions for citizenship in late medieval Genoa and Venice

Caught between business, war and politics:late medieval roots of the early modern European news networks

This essay challenges the notion that the early modern news-gathering practices and networks in Europe crystallized only in the late fourteenth and throughout the fifteenth century, corresponding with the emergence of permanent embassies and state-run postal systems. Inspired by an article published in 2005 by Georg Christ that for the first time problematized this notion, the author offers additional evidence conveyed in the experience of late medieval Venice and Florence, while relying on contemporary chronicles, merchant letters and diplomatic dispatches. Mainly through the analysis of three historical case studies, the essay argues that the existing networks of lower-tier diplomatic representatives, sea captains and military liaisons were already functioning as nodal points of an intelligence-gathering mechanism whose news reports usually ended up circulating in the public sphere. But, as further shown in this study, it was the merchant circles that decisively shaped such a news-gathering network by lending it its own matter-of-fact writing style, as well as allowing it to rely on its own scarsella system of couriers.

The role of the contrada in Medieval Venice, Ferrara and Siena

The role of the contrada in Medieval Venice, Ferrara and Siena

Constraining Elites: The Self-Enforcing Constitution of the Patricians of Venice

Historians often attribute the prosperity of medieval and Renaissance Venice – situated in a brackish lagoon with a lack of most basic resources – to the virtuous and wise leadership of the Venetian patriciate. Rather, this paper argues that the origins of Venetian prosperity are institutional. In particular, unique formal and informal constitutional constraints, including the dispersion of power through overlapping committees, complex – and anonymous – election procedures, strict term limits, and ducal oaths of office, operated to check the ambition of the patriciate qua patriciate. We detail these constraints and provide examples of their effectiveness in the provision of the rule of law and a sound currency.

Rumours of Wars and Deeds of Emperors: Circulation of News and “Stories” about Non-Venetians in Early Medieval Venice

ABSTRACT Venice's geographic position firmly places it in Western Europe, yet its history demonstrates that Venice had many ties and interests in the eastern Mediterranean. Initially on the Byzantine periphery, Venice became an autonomous duchy during the eighth century, but continued to nurture close relations with the Byzantines and intensified those with the rest of Europe. Moreover, the economic and other activities of its inhabitants enabled a widespread Venetian presence in the Mediterranean world and some parts of Europe. At the same time, foreigners were drawn to this network of lagoons and islands. Taking advantage of these factors, this article aims to examine the circulation of news and descriptions of events concerning “others” in early Medieval Venice.

“As an Angel Revealed to Her”: Miracles, Visions, Predictions, and Supernatural Phenomena and the Politics of Memory in Early Medieval Venice

ABSTRACT The study of miracles, visions, predictions, and other supernatural phenomena has become important for understanding religious practices, mentalities, and the use of the past in the Middle Ages. In spite of the absence of local martyrs and saints and the small hagiographical production in Venice during the early Middle Ages, these phenomena were also relevant in this regi0n. This article emphasizes both the unique aspects of the Venetian texts and their similarities with early medieval sources from the rest of Italy. In particular, it focuses on the ways Venetian authors employed miracles and divine interventions to shape a past that could be utilized for their present.

The Grotto of the Virgin in San Marco: Artistic Reuse and Cultural Identity in Medieval Venice

This article reconsiders the significance of artistic reuse in medieval Venice, examining the reinvention of three distinct artifacts of diverse provenance into a unified artwork in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century in the ducal church of San Marco. Through an in-depth analysis of the material history of the work, known as the Grotto of the Virgin, this essay aims to solve one of the enigmas that surround its making and meaning: its function. The grotto is here associated with the feast of the Purification of the Virgin and identified as an unusual example of a light holder. By proposing a new approach to the study of the grotto and an innovative interpretation of its function and meaning in Venice, the article also addresses broader art historical questions concerning the nature of composite artifacts and the methodologies available for their study, the importance of the Fourth Crusade in the history of the treasury of San Marco, and the significance of artistic reuse in the construction of a Venetian public image at San Marco in the later Middle Ages.

International Trade and Institutional Change: Medieval Venice’s Response to Globalization*

AbstractInternational trade can have profound effects on domestic institutions. We examine this proposition in the context of medieval Venice circa 800–1600. Early on, the growth of long-distance trade enriched a broad group of merchants who used their newfound economic muscle to push for constraints on the executive, that is, for the end of a de facto hereditary Doge in 1032 and the establishment of a parliament in 1172. The merchants also pushed for remarkably modern innovations in contracting institutions that facilitated long-distance trade, for example, the colleganza. However, starting in 1297, a small group of particularly wealthy merchants blocked political and economic competition: they made parliamentary participation hereditary and erected barriers to participation in the most lucrative aspects of long-distance trade. Over the next two centuries this led to a fundamental societal shift away from political openness, economic competition, and social mobility and toward political closure, extreme inequality, and social stratification. We document this oligarchization using a unique database on the names of 8,178 parliamentarians and their families’ use of the colleganza in the periods immediately before and after 1297. We then link these families to 6,959 marriages during 1400–1599 to document the use of marriage alliances to monopolize the galley trade. Monopolization led to the rise of extreme inequality, with those who were powerful before 1297 emerging as the undisputed winners.

The Political and Social Vocabulary of John the Deacon’s ‘Istoria Veneticorum’ by Luigi Andrea Berto (review)

Reviewed by: The Political and Social Vocabulary of John the Deacon’s ‘Istoria Veneticorum’by Luigi Andrea Berto Mariusz Bęcławski Berto, Luigi Andrea, The Political and Social Vocabulary of John the Deacon’s ‘Istoria Veneticorum’( Cursor Mundi, 12), trans. Antony Shugaar, Turnhout, Brepols, 2013; hardback; pp. xvi, 264; R.R.P. €70.00; ISBN 9782503531595. This volume offers an English translation of a revised version of Luigi Andrea Berto’s Il vocabolario politico e sociale della ‘Istoria Veneticorum’ di Giovanni Diacono(Il Poligrafo editore, 2001). The book analyses the chronicle Istoria Veneticorum, a fundamental source for the study of medieval Venice for culture or language historians. Berto effectively uses a thematic approach to examine the manner in which political and social vocabulary was used in the chronicle, with a close consideration of the text’s original context. The chronicle, comprising two books, records in chronological order events from the Lombard invasion of Italy [ c.569] up to the period of rule of Pietro II Orseolo (991–1008). It recounts the complicated events surrounding the medieval Venetian dukedom, for instance, the attempt by Duke Obelerio to dethrone Duke Giovanni Particiaco in 830. The unsuccessful coup had terrible consequences for the residents of the Malocco who had supported Duke Obelerio. Berto also attempts to extend our knowledge of John the Deacon, the author of the Istoria Veneticorum, and the general conditions in which he wrote the chronicle. There is actually no explicit reference in the text to the Istoria’s author or authors. However, the mention of a certain deacon John in the chronicle’s final section, has led to authorship being conventionally assigned to John the Deacon. While there is more evidence to support this hypothesis, it is rather difficult to believe that a single author is responsible for the composition of the Istoria Veneticorum. Part of the chronicle is made up of fragments taken word-for-word from other works, and, furthermore, some episodes seem to be written in styles of other time periods. Interestingly, some of the events recorded in the chronicle extend beyond the lifetime of John the Deacon: the struggle, for instance, between Duke Orso Particiaco [End Page 184](864–81) and the Patriarch of Grado Pietro caused by the disagreement over the election of Abbot Domenico as bishop of Torcello. Berto’s linguistic analyses are organised thematically, using categories such as space, social definitions, and kinship. A number of examples are worth citing. I found it fascinating, for instance, to learn in Chapter 1, ‘Dukes, Sovereigns, and Holders of Other Offices’, that the names of rulers differ in relation to the geographic location. Certain sovereigns from Constantinople were referred to as augustus, while those in the West were not: ‘we have already pointed out that none of them are ever given the epithet of augustus, but we do find the use of cesar’ (p. 49). In Chapter 5, Berto tackles the vocabulary of place names. We read that, for example, provinciaseems to describe an ecclesiastical province, and ducatus, is sometimes used as a synonym to ‘the office of duke’, but its meaning can alter according to whether it is preceded by the adjective dignitasor stands alone (pp. 147–49). In Chapter 6, Berto compares the collective terms for people used in the Istoria Veneticorum, for example, vulgusand plebs(p. 223). We learn that the former was used pejoratively, while the latter seems to have been applied only in generic contexts, such as when the plebselected the deacon Giovanni as Bishop of Olivolo (p. 224). There is also a mention of the term natio, which was known to express ethnic affiliation but John the Deacon did not use it (p. 242). Berto’s study is careful and thorough, and overall, by making this important source available to English-language scholars, this volume makes a significant contribution to studies of medieval Venice. It is highly recommended to students and scholars of medieval culture and linguistics. Mariusz Bęcławski The University of Warsaw Copyright © 2014 Mariusz Bęcławski

The Venetian Version of the Fourth Crusade: Memory and the Conquest of Constantinople in Medieval Venice

On a busy day in October 1202, Walframo of Gemona, a resident of Venice living in the parish of San Stae, made his will. Although still a young man, he was anxious to put his affairs in order because, as he put it, “preparing to go in the service of the Lord and his Holy Sepulcher, I am mindful of the day of my death.” Walframo was apparently a man of some wealth. In his will he left his wife, Palmera, her dowry of seventy Venetian lire as well as three houses and four household slaves that Walframo had given to her as a morning gift after their nuptials. He also directed her to spend three hundred Venetian lire for the benefit of his soul. Days later, Walframo boarded one of the hundreds of vessels that made up the great fleet of the Fourth Crusade and sailed out of the Venetian lagoon. Whether he ever returned home is unknown.

High Throughput, Multiplexed Pathogen Detection Authenticates Plague Waves in Medieval Venice, Italy

BackgroundHistorical records suggest that multiple burial sites from the 14th–16th centuries in Venice, Italy, were used during the Black Death and subsequent plague epidemics.Methodology/Principal FindingsHigh throughput, multiplexed real-time PCR detected DNA of seven highly transmissible pathogens in 173 dental pulp specimens collected from 46 graves. Bartonella quintana DNA was identified in five (2.9%) samples, including three from the 16th century and two from the 15th century, and Yersinia pestis DNA was detected in three (1.7%) samples, including two from the 14th century and one from the 16th century. Partial glpD gene sequencing indicated that the detected Y. pestis was the Orientalis biotype.ConclusionsThese data document for the first time successive plague epidemics in the medieval European city where quarantine was first instituted in the 14th century.

Somatic Treasures: Function and Reception of Effigies on Holy Tombs in Fourteenth Century Venice

The article explores the function of effigies in the design of holy shrines in late medieval Venice. Even though representations of deceased laymen were a common feature in sepulchral art, precedent-making holy shrine, Nicola Pisano’s tomb for Saint Dominic from 1267, did not include an effigy. Even much later elaborate shrines, such as the tomb of Saint Peter Martyr (1335-9) by Giovanni di Balduccio, refer to the deceased through a mourning scene, although that scene takes a prominent frontal place in the narrative relief. In Venice, however, we find a concentration of effigial tombs such as the one that Venetians acquired for relics of Saint Simeon by Marco Romano (1318). An earlier or coeval shrine for the same Old Testament prophet in Zadar is equally an effigial shrine, although the body is sculpted as a high relief rather than a three-dimensional sculpture. Equally as well, Filipo de’Santi‘s Venetian work for the deceased Blessed Odorico da Pordenone (1332) is an effigial tomb that demonstrates the purpose of such tomb design: to create a simulacrum of the precious tomb content of miracle working relics. The main premise of this discussion is derived from pilgrims’ accounts that testify to the fact that relics, fragmentary or full-body, were the main attraction at Venetian churches. Starting with the end result — viewers’ reaction to holy sites — this research attempted to isolate the representations of the dead body and elucidate some artistic choices that artists made in order to enhance the viewer’s experience.