Venetian Ambassador Research Articles

Города Англии середины XVI века в Relazioni венецианских послов

The article examines the data of the final reports of the Venetian ambassadors on English cities. The information of the Venetian ambassadors about the cities of England, unfortunately, is brief. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that they basically boil down to pointing out that London is the main city of the country, that other cities of England are simply listed by the Venetian ambassadors, that the testimonies of the Venetians, albeit indirectly, help to recreate the perception of the cities of the English kingdom by the Venetians.

Rehabilitating Reputation in Early Modern Venice

Abstract Until the sultanate’s fall from power in 1517, the Republic of Venice spent several lucrative centuries trading with the Mamluks of present-day Egypt and Syria. Even in their final years of partnership, Venice’s close contact with the Mamluks continued, as visually described in The Reception of the Venetian Ambassadors in Damascus (1511). In the composition, the anonymous Venetian painter depicts a diplomatic meeting of these two parties. This article proposes that the contested patron of the work, Pietro Zen, had a specific agenda in commissioning the painting. As the consul in the composition, Zen had the Reception created to erase his past errors as ambassador to Damascus. By repainting history, Zen hoped to restore his reputation as a skillful Venetian diplomat as well as render for posterity his family’s legacy of working in the Levant.

Batumi in European Sources of the 15th Century

The article discusses the reports of European travelers about Batumi in the late Middle Ages. German (Bavarian) warrior andtraveler Johann (Hans) Schiltberger tells about Batumi in the 20s of the 15th century, who calls Batumi the capital of Samegrelo.An interesting fact is the attack of 200 Burgundian pirates on Batumi in 1445 under the command of the famous knight GeoffreyToyse, a relative of Duke Philip III (1419-1467). The Europeans who came to loot were met here by Gurieli with a detachment of 600people. The captured Toyse was released only at the request of the Emperor of Trebizond.In the 70s of the 15th century, the Venetian merchant and Diplomat Giosafat Barbaro and the Venetian ambassador to the courtof Uzun Hassan - Ambrogio Contarini attributed Batumi to a part of Samegrelo, however, the first one called the head of Samegrelo“Bendiani”, the second – “Gorbola”. Based on the above-mentioned, we think that at the beginning of the 15th century, Batumi was subordinate to the leader of Samegrelo, in the middle of the 40s, Gurieli repulsed the Burgundian pirates in Batumi, which indicates his certain legal status. In the late 1450s, Batumi was part of the Principality of Samtskhe (South Georgia), and in the 1470s it was already part of Sabediano, which was ruled by Bediani, also known as Dadian-Gurieli

Residences as instruments of power: Venetian ambassadors’ houses in Madrid during the reigns of Philip IV and Charles II

Against the traditional vision, the relations between the Spanish Monarchy and the Republic of Venice improved significantly during the second half of the 17th century. Once again, the war against the Ottomans in Candia (1645-1669) forced the Serenissima to look for the support of the Catholic King. For this reason, the role played by their ambassadors in Madrid, with a view to achieve the necessary assistance of Philip IV, became essential for the Venetian interests. At the same time, they pursued to ensure a relevant and closer position to the principal nucleus of power in the Spanish court. Accordingly, the continuous disputes with the members of the Spanish institutions with regard to their lodging become an essential field of study to measure the degree of influence, supremacy or immunity of these legates during the reigns of the two last monarchs of the House of Austria.

Early Modern Attitudes to the Ravens and Red Kites of London

Ravens (Corvus corax) and red kites (Milvus milvus) were commonly seen in London in the early modern period. The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the diversity of attitudes towards these birds. Previous historiography on the subject has failed to contextualize its sources. The excited accounts of travellers like Schaseck, the Venetian Ambassador’s amanuensis and Lupold von Wedel need to be counter-balanced by considering the bored antipathy common amongst the British naturalists; William Turner, Francis Willughby and John Ray and the descriptions of sanitation services provided by European naturalists and local poets. The final part of the paper reconstructs the patchwork of legislation and custom relating to the species from early modern London.

‘MUCH TO DELIVER IN YOUR HONOUR'S EAR’: ANGELO NOTARI’S WORK IN INTELLIGENCE, 1616–1623

It has long been surmised that the Paduan singer, lutenist and composer Angelo Notari (1566–1663) was employed as a spy after immigrating to England circa 1610. In examining Venetian counterintelligence papers previously neglected by musicologists, I here confirm that Notari was indeed an intelligencer. More specifically, he was a paid informant for the Venetian State Inquisitors between 1616 and 1619 and participated in a contentious international trial concerning the Venetian ambassador to England, Antonio Foscarini. I argue that Notari's work as a musician was inextricable from his identity as an intelligencer and former Venetian citizen and demonstrate that Italian musicians in Jacobean London significantly influenced international diplomatic relations. By identifying intersections between the two highly social practices of music-making and intelligence-gathering, I encourage greater musicological attention to political networks that transmitted music across borders and, conversely, musical networks that transmitted political intelligence. I thus situate seventeenth-century musical transculturation within its broader diplomatic, confessional and economic contexts.

La trascendencia del linaje: los embajadores de la república de Venecia en Madrid durante el reinado de Felipe IV (1621-1665)

En el presente ensayo pretendemos ahondar en el origen y carrera política de los embajadores venecianos en la corte española durante el reinado de Felipe IV, así como delimitar qué elementos fueron esenciales de cara a su elección como legados de la Serenissima. Con vistas a ello, es preciso señalar que, en lo tocante a los procesos electorales, la ley veneciana era sumamente estricta, buscando limitar la presencia de miembros de una misma casa en las distintas embajadas o mermar en las votaciones el peso de las relaciones no institucionales, las cuales eran consideradas corrupción. Antes bien, en las próximas páginas trataremos de poner de manifiesto la ineficacia de estos mecanismos a la hora de minimizar la influencia de los intereses personales y familiares de cara a la obtención de tan importantes cargos de representación.

Reforming Female Convents: the Role of a Venetian Ambassador in Curia (1519)

In 1519, Patriarch Antonio Contarini (1508–24) was trying to impose his authority over the female monasteries in Venice. He wanted to impose a stricter discipline and a more rigid lifestyle to the nuns, who were accustomed to comforts. However, he soon found major impediments from many Venetian families. The majority of nuns had aristocratic origins, and their relatives did not want them to lose their ancient privileges. Besides, monasteries symbolised the honour of the city and their families, so many noblemen reacted against any changes. After complaints began to spread, the government decided to get in touch with its ambassador in Rome, Marco Minio. Minio was asked to intercede with the pope: the Republic wanted a papal approval of Contarini’s reformation to end the dispute. In the present paper, Minio’s correspondence on this subject is analysed to trace the process developed in June–August of 1519. The Venetian ambassador tried to balance words and a decision to appease both the Republic and the Holy See. The case study is indeed an example of clever procrastination which eventually made it possible for Venice to accomplish its goal.

Russia’s Secret Archives: A Genealogy

Russia’s Secret ArchivesA Genealogy Gregory Afinogenov (bio) A reader even casually acquainted with the study of Soviet history since 1991 will have encountered the “archival revelation” genre, which presents the so-called “secret Soviet archives”—such as the Communist Party collections, unavailable to Western researchers before the fall of the Soviet Union—as the royal road to an accurate understanding of the Soviet social, political, and economic order.1 The importance of these revelations appears almost self-evident in light of the regime’s manifest obsession with secrecy and of the conspiratorial norms that shaped Bolshevik culture from its earliest days, and there can be no doubt that previously inaccessible documents have fundamentally reshaped the field.2 Yet most historians have abandoned the notion that even the resealed KGB archives contain high-level smoking guns that reveal unknown dimensions of the regime; instead they have embraced the new questions that reams of day-to-day documents have opened up. For the wider public, in contrast, rhetoric about archival secrecy remains irresistible. Implications that Vladimir Putin is either on the brink of shutting down all archival access or has already done so out of a desire to [End Page 467] suppress evidence of Stalinist crimes surface frequently in the press, even from professional historians.3 In fact, the trope of Russian archival secrecy is not just the product of Bolshevik paranoia but also a long-standing feature of West European and American discourse about Russia, whose roots extend deep into Muscovite history. Its function has been to legitimate outside observers’ interpretations of Russian actions and motives, particularly in their global dimensions, by grounding them in the external authority of real or fabricated high-level sources. Two essential shifts have shaped its deployment since the early modern era. The first was the 18th-century turn to imperial archives as an imagined locus for such documents; the second was the 19th-century transformation of archives into theaters for the performance of public sovereignty. Archival access and openness came to be seen as hallmarks of liberal governance that Russia lacked, while secrecy became evidence of malevolence. In the end, when the Bolsheviks arrived at their world-historical moment at the end of 1917, they would find the trope of secrecy and revelation readymade and easy to adapt to the purposes of the global proletarian revolution. The formation of administrative bureaucracies in early modern Europe made secrecy and leaks generalized features of the political landscape in both monarchical and republican regimes; as Max Weber put it, “bureaucratic administration always tends to exclude the public, to hide its knowledge and action from criticism as well as it can,” although the nature of the public to be excluded changed greatly over time.4 Institutions like the Vatican Secret Archives were created to be storehouses of arcana imperii, above all materials related to foreign affairs; closed to the public in principle, in practice they could be quite porous.5 Just as Europeans debated the significance of secrecy [End Page 468] internally, they also sought secrets from other states. This “insatiable quest for information” rebuilt diplomacy around the need to procure as much information as possible about one’s rivals and allies, whether by stealing documents or recruiting confidential informants.6 The relazioni of Venetian ambassadors about other countries, like similar texts by diplomats elsewhere, were nominally secret yet circulated widely in manuscript and sometimes eventually in print. They offered both an empirical and a normative assessment of a particular state and the ambassador’s experiences there. Disseminating them could be politically advantageous for either the diplomat or his enemies, if done judiciously.7 Outside of embassies, secrecy became a lens through which to understand neighboring societies perceived to be culturally alien. European travelers in the Ottoman Empire purported to reveal the “inner workings of the sultan’s harem” and promised that their accounts would make them privy to knowledge hitherto concealed from Europeans. This “language of concealment” was commercially successful to the extent that it met the audience’s expectations about the Ottomans.8 Unlike intelligence reports—which were specific in time, place, and application—travel literature turned the revelation of secrets into a generalized trope...

Экскурсы в английскую историю в итоговых отчетах венецианских послов в Англии в 30-х – 50-х гг. XVI в.

Экскурсы в английскую историю в итоговых отчетах венецианских послов в Англии в 30-х – 50-х гг. XVI в.

Introduction: Non-state Actors in Mediterranean Politics

Introduction: Non-state Actors in Mediterranean Politics

Memling’s Pagagnotti Virgin and Child : Italian Renaissance sculpture reimagined

Hans Memling's Pagagnotti Virgin, the central panel of a triptych painted in Bruges for a distinguished Florentine patron (fig. 1), belongs to a group of small devotional paintings by the artist which have long been acknowledged as the earliest Netherlandish paintings to employ the distinctly Italianate, all'antica motif of putti and garlands, widely associated with Renaissance sculpture. The other works in this group are the triptych of the Virgin and Child and an unknown donor in Vienna, the Resurrection triptych in the Louvre, and the Virgin and Child in Washington, all of which have been speculatively associated with Italian patronage, because of their use of the putto motif.1 In my view, on grounds of quality of execution and inventiveness of design, the Pagagnotti triptych is the prime version in this group. Now divided between the Uffizi and the National Gallery, London, it was painted for the Dominican Benedetto Pagagnotti, bishop of Vaison in Provence, who resided in Florence and was one of the most important churchmen in the city.2 It should probably be dated no later than 1480, since the detail of the mill from the background of its central panel, much cited by late fifteenth-century Florentine painters, first appears in an altarpiece by Filippino Lippi of 1482-83.3 Pagagnotti's desire to own a Netherlandish devotional image is explicable given the vogue for Netherlandish painting in Florence at the time, but Pagagnotti did not himself visit the Netherlands, and must have placed the commission through a middleman, perhaps his nephew Paolo Pagagnotti, who did visit Bruges.4It is likely that Memling introduced the putti and garlands as a gesture to his Italian patron, together with other details of apparently Italianate inspiration which have hitherto largely escaped notice: in the upper corners, the figures of Samson rending the jaws of the lion, and Cain slaying Abel, painted to resemble gilded sculptures, and the decorative detail of the arch itself. This article will consider the possible sources for these Italianate elements.Working in Bruges offered Memling ample contacts with the many Italians resident there, and with Italian visitors.5 These included some of his most important clients in the 1470s, such as the manager of the Medici bank, Tommaso Portinari, and the Venetian ambassador to the Burgundian court, Bernardo Bembo. Such individuals offered the potential for artistic exchange, whether through the commissioning of locally produced artworks such as tapestries, for which drawings were often sent from Italy, or as the owners of personal possessions brought from Italy, such as the sestertius of the Emperor Nero held by Bembo, a noted antiquarian, in his presumed portrait by Memling (Antwerp, Koniklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten), an object that the artist studied closely.6 Confraternity membership provided another means of communication: Memling was a member of the Confraternity of Our Lady of the Snow, to which several members of Bruges' Italian community also belonged.7Contacts between Italy and the Low Countries extended well beyond the mercantile community to princes, nobles, diplomats, prelates and legists, whose travels to Italy must have generated a flow of artefacts from south to north, such as the gold chain presented to the distinguished Burgundian nobleman Philippe de Croy on his mission to Naples in 1472.8 There were also numerous Italians employed in various capacities at the Burgundian court during the reign of the Italophile duke, Charles the Bold (ruled 1467-77).9 These included the Neapolitan nobleman and ducal secretary Giovanni di Candida, who in the 1470s produced the first Renaissance portrait medals in the Netherlands.10 The Florentine goldsmith Niccolo di Forzore Spinelli, also known as Niccolo Fiorentino, was appointed in 1468 as maker of ducal seals.11 It is possible that both these artists brought with them drawings and other artworks from Italy.By 1498, when Gerard David cited them in The Justice of Cambyses (Bruges, Groeningemuseum), it was possible to see in Bruges versions of two antique gems from the Medici collection, the famous and much-reproduced 'Sigillo di Nerone' of Apollo, Olympos and Marsyas, and the so-called Ceres and Triptolemus. …

К вопросу о налогах Франции 50-х гг. XVI в. (по данным венецианского посла Джакомо Соранцо)

К вопросу о налогах Франции 50-х гг. XVI в. (по данным венецианского посла Джакомо Соранцо)

Balyosunun Kapudanı: İhtida, Çetrefilli Sadakatler ve İstanbul ile Venedik Arasında Uluc Hasan Paşa (1588-1591)

This article concentrates on the relationship between the Ottoman Grand Admiral Uluc Hasan Pasha (Hasan Veneziano), a Venetian renegade, and the Venetian ambassadors (baili) in Istanbul. Based on documentation from Venetian and Spanish archives, it analyzes how two compatriot’s shared background shaped diplomatic negotiations and their personal relationship. First, it scrutinizes several aspects of this mutually beneficent cooperation in the higher echelons of cross-confessional diplomacy. Secondly, it studies Hasan’s vacillation between the Serenissima and the Ottoman Empire, his past and present, his patria and his new homeland. It examines how this Ottoman convert resolved his inner conflicts and what kind of a role his tangled loyalties played in diplomatic negotiations. Finally, by comparing and contrasting a number of similar cross-confessional diplomatic negotiations between Christian rulers and renegade pashas, it aims to analyze the Europeans’ different attitude towards Ottoman renegades and illustrate how divergences in imperial projects and the renegades’ social background led the Habsburgs and the Venetians employ different arguments and use a different vocabulary while negotiating with their former subjects.

THE PROBLEM OF “ALBANIAN NATIONALISM” DURING THE REIGN OF KOCA MEHMED RAGIB PASHA (1757-1763) IN THE LIGHT OF THE VENETIAN REPORT

This paper examines the position and actions of the Albanian population in certain sanjaks on the basis of published material of Venetian provenance. From the perspective of his position in Constantinople, Francesco Foscari, the Venetian ambassador (1757-1762) in the Ottoman Empire, followed with great interest the developments in connection with the actions of Albanians for several years, especially because their actions threatened to disrupt the Ottoman-Venetian relations. His correspondence is one of the major neo-Ottoman sources regarding the interests of Albanians and their relationship with the Ottoman authorities. This contemporary watched the events from the perspective of a man whose education, beliefs and manners did not belong to the Islamic (Ottoman) cultural sphere, which added credibility to his reports. The reports of Francesco Foscari are kept at the State Archive in Venice (Archivio di Stato di Venezia) and were published in 2007 due to the efforts of the publishing house La Malcontenta and editor Filippo Maria Paladini.

Отношения папы Пия IV c правителями итальянских государств в первой половине 60-х годов XVI века. по сведениям венецианских послов Джироламо и Джакомо Соранцо

Отношения папы Пия IV c правителями итальянских государств в первой половине 60-х годов XVI века. по сведениям венецианских послов Джироламо и Джакомо Соранцо

YOUTH, MANHOOD, POLITICAL AUTHORITY, AND THE IMPEACHMENT OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM

ABSTRACTThis article examines the attempted impeachment of the duke of Buckingham by parliament in 1626 through the lens of manhood, and specifically early modern definitions of youth. The parliamentary speeches of Buckingham's accusers and the reports of observers such as the Venetian ambassador are used to demonstrate how youth and inexperience were deployed as evidence of his insufficient manhood, and therefore legal justifications for Buckingham's removal from power. The attributes of youth – wilfulness, rashness, and being a prisoner to one's passions – provided a narrative in which Buckingham could be placed to discredit his political authority. Additionally, through personal correspondence with his allies, and Buckingham's own defence of himself before parliament, this article demonstrates that definitions of youth and its relationship with political authority were malleable in the early modern period. Buckingham's impassioned defence of both his political career, and himself as a man, point to an ongoing negotiation over the terms of manhood, and how men were judged as figures of legitimate political authority.

Storiografi, diplomatici e mitografici secenteschi tra Italia e Portogallo

This article examines the exchange that took place between Portugal and the Italian intellectual community during the 17th century from an historiographical, political and literary viewpoint. In particular, it investigates Italy’s response to the asymmetry that had traditionally characterized Portugal as peripheral nation on the one hand and empire on the other. An analysis is made of Italian historiographical works connected with the ‘union’ and the ‘disunion’ of Portugal with respect to Castile between 1580 and 1640, including the monographs of Girolamo Conestagio and Giambattista Birago Avogadro, as well as travel writings, historical and political essays (Bentivoglio, Botero, Venetian ambassadors, Laffi, Leti, Siri and Buonfiglio Costanzo) and literary works (Boccalini, Tassoni, Salvetti and Battista). Lastly, a detailed analysis is presented of the diplomatic confrontation between Fulvio Testi and F.M. de Melo, together with a look at how Sebastianism was received in Italy, focusing on the “faux Sébastien” and such renowned intellectuals as Sarpi, Pallavicino, Spontone, Torsellini and Conestagio, who wrote in verse.

“Possession is Nine Tenths of the Law”: Britain and the Boundaries of Eastern Europe since 1945

This article argues that British policy on boundaries in Eastern Europe after 1945 was based on hardheaded Realpolitik whereby the justice of any given border was of entirely secondary importance to wider policy imperatives. British disregard for the legal and moral merits (or demerits) of respective cases was justified by British policy makers on two counts: firstly, international relations could not assess boundary disputes on a case-by-case basis as such thinking had undermined international stability to the point of global conflagration after 1918; secondly, British policy makers declared that it was their aim to stabilize the international system by means of détente. In reality, the proclaimed goal of universally beneficial goals by means of a “pragmatic” consolidation of the status quo hid a real desire to institutionalise a system that was seen as the best possible option for Britain given the harsh reality of its relative decline after 1945. “There is no government on earth which divulges its affairs less than England, or is more punctually informed of those of others.” —Sagredo, Venetian Ambassador to London in the Sixteenth Century.

‘Soe Honny from the Lyon came’: The 1657 Wedding-Masques for the Protector's Daughters

In November 1657, as a new session of Parliament approached and Cromwell deliberated with his council over the membership of his new upper house of Parliament, the French ambassador wrote home to remark that the atmosphere in Whitehall appeared to be changing:there seems to be a different spirit, dances having been held there again during these past days, and the preachers of the older times are withdrawing from it, ... The subalterns of the army grumble at it; but their superiors being won over, everything will be arranged without any disturbance.'Bordeaux perceived change and new promise at a moment that is often overlooked. The dancing accompanied the marriages of the Protector's youngest two daughters. First came Frances, the younger of the two, who after negotiations so prolonged and tumultuous that Mary Cromwell called them 'the gratest confusion and troble as ever poor famly can be in', was finally allowed to marry the man she had set her heart on: Robert Rich, the sickly grandson of Cromwell's old ally, the Earl of Warwick.2 Mary's marriage, on the other hand, had been arranged by her father. She married Thomas Belasyse, Viscount Fauconberg, whose family was otherwise noted for its continuing devotion to the royalist cause: his father and brother had distinguished themselves in the service of Charles I, and his uncles, Henry Slingsby and John Belasyse, had been in the thick of the disastrous 1655 uprising.3 The Venetian ambassador wrote that 'the union has caused universal amazement'.4The marriages were gossiped about because they were politically and dynastically important. Cromwell's older children had married earlier in his career to humbler spouses, but Frances and Mary were considered sufficiently princessly that rumours repeatedly circulated that they would marry into the European elite, including the persistent linking of Frances with Charles Stuart.5 The celebrations for the two weddings featured works by three of the Commonwealth's leading poets. Marvell and Waller wrote 'Two Songs at the Marriage of the Lord Fauconberg and the Lady Mary Cromwell' and On the Marriage of Mts. Frances Cromwell wth Mr. Rich Grandchild to the Earle of Warwicke' respectively.6 The Stationers' Register records an epithalamium for Mary's wedding by Davenant 'to bee sung in recitative musicke' and Henry Herbert mentions a Davenant epithalamium for Frances, which is likely to be a confusion of the former, but no such piece survives.7 As far as I know Waller's text has been ignored since its discovery and criticism of Marvell's songs has been limited.8 The boldest reading is Sherwood's argument that they constitute a revival of the Stuart court masque; low key, but unmistakably regal.9 Such arguments miss the point that icons or cultural forms never can be revived simply. The Protectorate's elite reused cultural materials that past kings had used. Without more drastic social reform it could do little else. But it could not replicate the original ideological import of these materials any more than it could erase the regicide.Reports of the wedding celebrations agree that Frances' entertainment at Whitehall was grander than Mary's at Hampton Court. William Dugdale writes that Henry Scobell, as Justice of the Peace, tied the knot for Frances and Rich, and there followed festivities attended by nobles including the Countess of Devonshire (Rich's grandmother) and the Earl of Newport, with music provided by a large orchestra and mixed dancing.10 Mercurius Politicus corroborates that the Countess and 'many other persons of high honour and quality' were present, and Frances' marriage certificate lists Cromwell, Warwick, Newport, Robert Lord Rich, and Lord Strickland as witnesses.11 Other accounts mention expensive gifts given by Frances' elder sister Elizabeth claypole and the Countess of Devonshire.12 Less is known about Mary's wedding. Mercurius Politicus reports the presence of 'many noble persons', but no account that I have found lists any of them. …