Venetian Authorities Research Articles

La centralità dei nomadi nel commercio della Caucasia settentrionale. Rapporti diplomatici fra i Mongoli e Venezia sul Mar d’Azov nel XIV secolo

This paper examines the significant role of nomadic populations in shaping trade networks in Northern Caucasia in the 14th century. Focusing on the diplomatic relations between the Mongol elite of the Ulus Jochi (Golden Horde) and the Venetian authorities, the paper explores how nomads’ idea of juridical spaces and attitude towards commerce dictated the pace of European presence in the Northern Black Sea basin, sometimes favoring, sometimes halting mobility, economic practices, and cultural exchanges in the region. By analyzing historical sources and accounts, this study aims to show the active role of the Mongols in regulating the European commercial expansion in Northern Caucasia during the difficult 14th century.

Rebellion on Hvar island (1510–1514). People’s revolt or Venetian manipulation?

In the extensive work of the Dubrovnik-born Benedictine Lodovico Tuberon de Crieva, „Commentaria de temporibus suis” describing the events in the Mediterranean in the years 1490–1522, there is a small passage about the events on the island of Hvar (ital. Lesina). The island was then, together with most of the Dalmatian coast, under the rule of the Venetian Republic. On Hvar in 1510, a popular uprising against the local nobles broke out, which lasted with varying intensity until 1514. The Venetian authorities then sent considerable armed forces, which, after defeating the rebels at sea and on land, suppressed the rebellion. It is surprising, however, that Tuberon suggests in the above-mentioned passage that the outbreak of the revolt could have been provoked by the Venetians themselves, who feared the nobility allegedly favoring the King of Hungary. He also mentions the leading role of a clergyman who was supposed to encourage the plebs to act and initiate a revolt. Taking the mentioned text of Tuberon as a starting point, the author analyzes the political and social situation on the island of Hvar as well as the background and course of the events in the years 1510–1514. The author's goal is to establish what the grounds for Tuberon's presumptions were and to what extent they are true.

The plague in Poljice in 1783

Due to its unique geographical position, Poljice represents an area that has retained certain autochthonous features for a long time and has accepted the Ottoman and then Venetian influences to a minimal extent. That had the effect that Poljice became an area with special status. Only on its territory the Venetian authorities did not appoint an official (provveditore or superintendent), as was the case in the parts of Dalmatia that belonged to the Republic based on the demarcation carried out in 1699 and 1718. Without a representative of the central government, residents did not readily accept its regulations, including sanitary ones. This fact determined this research, which tries to show how the plague epidemic was suppressed in the absence of state sanitary authorities in 1783, which was remembered as one of the most severe that hit Dalmatia in that century.

Between Misery and Reward: The Culture of Vigilance in the Experience of a Venetian Consul during the Early Modern Period

Consular participation in state surveillance did not seem to be the basis of the legitimacy of Venetian consuls in Izmir in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Indeed, their activity as informants did not contribute to producing the knowledge that was then used by those in power to make decisions, or to judge and punish illegal behaviour. By placing the Izmir consuls in a broader context in which the state rewarded the participation in a set of specific tasks of as many private individuals as possible, this article reassesses the oftendebated and much-contested efficacy of consular information activity. Rather than providing the Venetian authorities with reliable and indispensable information, this article argues that consular vigilance defined a bond of loyalty and mutual expectations between these consuls and Venice. Far from resulting in superior central control, political power projected its authority onto the narratives and behaviour of consuls and potential informers.

The Independent Parasite: Mosca’s Theatrical Service in Volpone

This article explores the relationship between Volpone and Mosca as a master-servant bond grounded on roleplaying and theatricality. I argue that Mosca’s growing importance as an actor within Volpone’s theatrical schemes for wealth acquisition lead Mosca to envision detachment from his master and to gain an independent self. Mosca’s independence is legally recognized by the Venetian authorities only for a moment in the final act before he is discovered and punished. Notwithstanding its conservative ending, the play reveals paths of advancement for the parasite through deceit and theatricality. In addition, Mosca’s soliloquies reveal an introspective mind that delights in his role of parasite. I relate this introspection to a form of subjectivity arising from the precarious employment of household servants in early modern London, which prompted their adaptation to a variety of roles. My argument examines early modern texts that put forth an ideology of service and that discuss duplicity and the parasite. I specifically delve into the figure of the parasite in Gervase Markham’s A health to the gentlemanly profession of seruingmen and in Jonson’s Discoveries as well as into the the concept of “eye-service” and parasitical service in William Gouge’s Of Domesticall Duties to draw connections between the anxiety of social mobility found in these texts and the rise of Mosca in Jonson’s play. Through Mosca’s rise and fall in the play, Jonson, I argue, shows the possibilities but also the limits of social mobility for servants in the transitional period of early-seventeenth-century London.

The Greek Church in Latin and Venetian Cyprus 1191–1570

The Greek Church faced considerable problems following the Latin Conquest of Cyprus and the establishment of the Lusignan dynasty. Much of its property was impounded by the new Latin rulers, in the 1220s its bishoprics were reduced to four, with each bishop subject to a Latin diocesan. Under the provisions of the Bulla Cypria of 1260 it accepted papal primacy and ceased to have its own archbishop following the death of Germanos. Limits were placed on the numbers of monks in Greek monasteries and the refusal of Greek monks to accept the validity of Latin unleavened communion bread resulted in the martyrdom of 13 of them in 1231. Despite this, however, the Greek Church overcame these challenges and even strengthened its position in the later Lusignan and Venetian periods. Several reasons explain its ability to survive and maintain the allegiance of most of the population. The small number of Latins on Cyprus, concentrated mainly in the towns of Nicosia and Famagusta, made them fear absorption into the far more numerous Greeks and so disposed to tolerate a Greek Uniate Church that formally accepted papal primacy. The great distance separating Cyprus from Rome and Avignon together with increasing absenteeism among the Latin clergy from the later fourteenth century onwards made it impossible to enforce papal directives. The growing Ottoman threat from the late fifteenth century onwards likewise made the Venetian authorities on Cyprus reluctant to implement papal rulings that would anger the Greek majority. In addition, the Greek Church of Cyprus maintained contact with the Greek patriarchates of Constantinople, Antioch and Alexandria, all outside the areas under Latin rule, and so was not isolated from the Orthodox Christians subject to the patriarch of Constantinople.

Document of October 10th, 1365 on the Cession of the Benedictine Monastery to the Nuns of St. Clare in Kotor

The first mentions of the nuns of St. Clare in Kotor date from the fourth decade of the 14th century. Their position in that commune improved in the second half of that century. In December 1364, at the request of the Kotor authorities, Pope Urban V asked the Bishop of Kotor, Dujmo II, to restore the former Benedictine monastery due to the needs of the nuns St. Clare. In the presence of the highest authorities of Kotor, on October 10th, 1365, a document on this legal action was issued. It is preserved in a transcript in the manuscript collection II b 21, held in the manuscript department of the Archives of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Zagreb. The document contained the act of assigning the monastery to the Clarisses, prescribing the income which was given on that occasion to the monastery of St. Clare, as well as the appointment of Clare of Foro Julius as its first nun. Part of the transferred revenues consisted of communal revenues from fish market customs duties. The second part of the donation consisted of revenues in the amount of two hundred perpers, half of which came from the butcher's slaughterhouse, and the other half from customs revenue on wine. Customs officers or gabellers, ie persons who leased the mentioned revenues, were obliged to take care of the collection of those revenues. Revenues that the monastery of St. Clare received in October 1365 and are mentioned during the 15th century. Dukal of October 15th, 1447, says that the Venetian authorities after Kotor accepted their rule, recognized the right of the nuns of St. Clare on the said revenues. However, Kotor municipal authorities have occasionally challenged the right to collect assigned revenues, as well as the right to elect procurators themselves. That is why the nuns complained to the Venetian authorities, who ordered the Kotor authorities to allow them to enjoy the allocated income and the right to elect procurators themselves. The problem of paying the income from the fish market to the Clarisses was also present at the end of the 15th century, and Venetian authorities had to intervene.

Enclosure within a Closed Sea? The Fisheries against theCommonsin the Republic of Venice in the Eighteenth Century

This article will analyse the role of the authorities in the progressive restriction on the use of aquatic spaces and maritime resources in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the laguna of Venice. The tensions between private and common uses of the territory was an age-old problem that had not begun towards the end of the early modern period. However, during this period, the growth in fishing activities augmented the role of the fish farms called valli da pesca, which was vehemently opposed by the Venetian fishermen whose different communities used the laguna for their own activities. This restructuring of the space could be termed an enclosure, which meant that access to spaces and resources was restricted. In return, this movement modified the organisation of these activities profoundly, not only socially and politically, but also economically and ecologically. Thus, by creating a more productive system, the Venetian authorities played a key role in the metamorphosis and development of this area, on one hand protecting the fishing communities and their activities in the laguna while on the other, supporting the fishing sector to become more efficient and productive.

BENEDETTO CASTELLI’S CONSIDERATIONS ON THE LAGOON OF VENICE: MATHEMATICAL EXPERTISE AND HYDROGEOMORPHOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATIONS IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY VENICE

ABSTRACT This paper deals with the geoenvironmental politics of early-modern Venice as a case study of geological agency that enlightens the entanglements of geo-history and human history. It focuses on a controversy that was sparked by Galileo’s pupil Benedetto Castelli, as he claimed that his mathematical treatment of running waters could solve all of the most urgent problems linked to the management of the Lagoon of Venice. From an epistemological viewpoint, the controversy is relevant as a case of clashing ‘styles of thought’, as it constituted a disciplinary conflict that pitted Galileian physico-mathematical abstraction (which resulted from the isolation of a set of quantifiable data) against ‘geological’ concreteness (a form of comprehensive knowledge which aimed to cope with systemic complexity). Castelli was not able to convince the Venetian authorities that his method could solve the main problems relative to the conservation of the lagoon at a time when its depth and navigability were worryingly diminishing. While the Venetian authorities invested in diverting rivers away from the lagoon to reduce sediment supply, Castelli argued, to the contrary, that it was precisely the diversion of the rivers that caused shoaling because of the loss of the great quantity of water discharged by the rivers, which he accurately calculated. His analytical approach was dismissive of the comprehensive knowledge and complex methods that Venetian water experts and engineers had developed towards a systemic understanding of the hydrogeology and the environment of the lagoon with the active involvement of citizens and fishermen in the assessment of the state of the waters.

Kule na ulazu u Kanal sv. Ante – neodvojivi dio šibenskih fortifikacija

Velika i Mala kula na početku šibenskog Kanala sv. Ante, na današnjim rtovima Burnji i Južni turan, dio su srednjovjekovnog fortifikacijskog sustava grada zajedno s kaštelom sv. Mihovila i gradskim bedemima, čemu do sada u znanstvenoj literaturi nije posvećena dovoljna pažnja. Kule su ostale dijelom fortifikacijskog sustava Šibenika i početkom ranog novog vijeka sve do izgradnje tvrđave sv. Nikole, odnosno definitivnog rušenja kula početkom Ciparskog rata 1570. godine. Iako su građene na priličnoj udaljenosti od gotovo jednog kilometra od gradskih bedema, do izgradnje tvrđave sv. Nikole predstavljale su prvi obrambeni pojas Šibenika s morske strane. Između kula na udaljenosti od oko 140 metara nalazio se lanac koji se najvjerojatnije sastojao od povezanih drvenih trupaca što su lancu omogućavali da pluta. Teško je sa sigurnošću kazati kad su mletačke vlasti dale porušiti kule, ali se čini da je barem jedna srušena tijekom tzv. Trećeg mletačko-osmanskog rata (1537. – 1540.) kad je mletačkim posjedima u Dalmaciji prijetila velika opasnost od snažne osmanske flote. Kule su definitivno prestale biti dio fortifikacijskog sustava grada početkom Ciparskog rata 1570. godine.

The Jewish Ghetto and the Visual Imagination of Early Modern Venice by Dana E. Katz (review)

Reviewed by: The Jewish Ghetto and the Visual Imagination of Early Modern Venice by Dana E. Katz Daniel Jütte Dana E. Katz. The Jewish Ghetto and the Visual Imagination of Early Modern Venice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. xiii + 188 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009418000636 In 2016, the Venetian ghetto was in the limelight. Media coverage and an exhibition at the Doge's Palace commemorated the five hundredth anniversary of the establishment of Venice's enclosed Jewish neighborhood—the first [End Page 460] Jewish ghetto in the Italian peninsula and, as the trajectory of the word "ghetto" indicates, an influential template for the spatial confinement of religious and ethnic minorities. The spotlight was also on in a literal sense: in cooperation with Ca' Foscari University, the Compagnia de' Colombari, an international theater ensemble, performed Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice in the heart of the so-called Ghetto Nuovo. For one week in July, the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo, the quarter's central square, became an open-air stage in which the historical high-rise tenements served as the backdrop for the play that is arguably the most famous literary treatment of Venetian Jewish history. These same buildings also play a central role in Dana Katz's new book. Her study focuses on the interplay between the architectural fabric and the theater of everyday life in a period when the Venetian ghetto was not yet a tourist attraction, but rather a space of lived segregation. As the book's title indicates, Katz is particularly interested in the ways in which the ghetto shaped the visual imagination of both the Serenissima and its Jewish community (one of the largest in early modern western Europe). Chapter 1 embeds the case of the Venetian ghetto in the history of Jewish confinement. The ghetti of Florence and Rome, which date to the second half of the sixteenth century, were informed by the Venetian precedent (though the Judengasse in Frankfurt am Main preceded Venice's ghetto by about half a century). But there were also differences: while most early modern Italian ghetti were located in or near the center of town, the Venetian ghetto was situated at the urban periphery and enclosed not only by walls, but also by water. Chapter 2 explores this uniquely Venetian "topography of enclosure," while showing that, despite the two layers of segregation, active surveillance remained a central concern for the Venetian authorities. Katz rightly points out that neither the architecture of enclosure nor the practices of surveillance were unique to Jewish ghetti: precedents and parallels can be found in urban enclaves such as monasteries and convents. And as in these Christian analogues, enclosure was never, in reality, absolute. Chapter 3 elaborates on the theme of transgression, highlighting the role of "windows as sites of visual disturbance" (67). Drawing on a rich body of sources that record Christian complaints about Jewish gazes from windows, Katz notes that "the documentary language in contemporary Venice … gives sensory primacy to sight, although sight's sister sense, particularly hearing (or touch), also induced anxieties around the ghetto's architectural openings" (75). Chapter 4, "Walls as Boundaries of the Night," develops the observation about touch, exploring how nighttime increased the fear of "cutaneous contact between Christians and Jews" (86). Nocturnal darkness, that great leveler of premodern times, brought to the fore deep-rooted collective anxieties about contagion and pollution that were often associated with Jewish bodies. But despite the physical walls and the barriers of stereotypes, the Venetian ghetto cannot simply be reduced to a chapter in what Salo Baron famously criticized as the "lachrymose conception of Jewish history." As Katz points out, the ghetto's "enclosing walls and gates attracted a growing Jewish population" (13). Leon Modena, the ghetto's most famous preacher in the seventeenth century, is [End Page 461] a case in point: his frequent complaints about the ghetto's crammed living conditions notwithstanding, Modena spoke in his autobiography of his "great longing and love for Venice" (quote, p. 13). Indeed, historians such as Robert Bonfil and Stefanie B. Siegmund have shown how, in early modern Italy, ghettoization was sometimes a driving force behind new developments in Jewish self-governance, cultural production...

The Professionalization of Cryptology in Sixteenth-Century Venice

This article examines the evolution of cryptology as a business trait and a distinct state-controlled and -regulated profession in sixteenth-century Venice. It begins by briefly discussing the systematic development of cryptology in the Renaissance. Following an examination of the amateur use of codes and ciphers by members of the Venetian merchant and ruling classes, and subsequently by members of all layers of Venetian society, the article moves on to discuss the professionalization of cryptology in sixteenth-century Venice. This was premised on specialist skills formation, a shared professional identity, and an emerging professional ethos. The article explores a potential link between the amateur use of cryptology, especially as it had been instigated by merchants in the form of merchant-style codes, and its professional use by the Venetian authorities. It also adds the profession of thecifrista—the professional cipher secretary—to the list of more “conventional” early modern professions.

Concurrence et collaboration dans le monde du livre vénitien, 1469-début duxvie siècle

RésumésLe début de l’imprimerie en Europe est l’histoire non seulement d’un grand succès économique et commercial, mais aussi de risques importants pris par les individus. Le nécessaire approvisionnement en papier est l’occasion de conflits et exige une disponibilité constante en capital ; la rentabilité de l’industrie du livre est soumise à une bonne appréciation du marché de la consommation. À Venise, n’importe qui peut se lancer dans l’industrie du livre et cette concurrence est amèrement décriée par les imprimeurs à la fin duxve et au début duxvie siècle. Cette situation les conduit à formuler les risques économiques qu’ils prennent dans les suppliques de privilèges qu’ils demandent aux autorités vénitiennes et à conceptualiser des réalités de leur milieu, en particulier la concurrence. Ce terme, toujours pris dans un sens négatif, est pourtant extrêmement rare dans les documents de la pratique comme dans les textes théoriques de cette époque. Cette formalisation de la concurrence est contrebalancée par la nécessité de collaborer au sein de cette industrie. Celle-ci peut être abordée par le biais de l’analyse des réseaux sociaux. La confiance est restaurée par les collaborations dans un groupe restreint et se nouent des réseaux de collaborations denses dans lesquels les concurrents deviennent partenaires. Cela permet aussi à certains acteurs de créer autour d’eux de largesconsortia, entraînant la constitution d’une économie oligopolistique, typique des industries sans réglementation étatique.

Competition and Collaboration in the Venetian Book World from 1469 to the Early Sixteenth Century

The early history of printing in Europe is one of great economic and commercial success, but also of significant risks taken by those involved. The supply of paper, essential to the functioning of a press, could cause conflicts and required constantly available capital: the profitability of the book industry depended on the growth of the market. In Venice, anyone could set up as a printer, creating competition that was strongly criticized by printers and booksellers in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. This prompted them to formulate the economic risks they faced in supplica addressed to the Venetian authorities, and to conceptualize the realities of their situation, especially in terms of competition. This word, always used in a pejorative sense, is nevertheless rare in both theoretical and practical documents of the time. However competitive this economic milieu was, it was counterbalanced by the necessity of collaboration, a phenomenon that can be studied through social network analysis. Trust was restored through the constitution of dense collaborative networks, in which competitors became partners. Yet this also enabled some actors to establish strong consortia, leading to the kind of oligopolistic economy typical of industries without state regulation.

Stephen Ortega, Negotiating Transcultural Relations in the Early Modern Mediterranean

Stephen Ortega’s work concentrates on Ottoman Muslims who visited Venetian territories and their “transcultural” relations with Venetian authorities as well as Christians living in those territories.

The Lost Map of Matteo de’ Pasti: Cartography, Diplomacy, and Espionage in the Renaissance Adriatic

The sculptor Matteo de’ Pasti left Rimini in 1461 bound for Ottoman Sultan Mehmed ii’s court at Constantinople with gifts from Sigismondo Malatesta. When his ship stopped in Crete, Matteo was detained by the island’s Venetian authorities on charges of espionage. Contemporaries report that he carried with him a map, now lost, but assumed to be a strategically valuable one of the Adriatic. Discussions of Matteo’s mission claim that it attempted to supply the sultan with essential intelligence for an invasion of Italy. Yet, this spy story finds little confirmation in historical sources. Indeed, our knowledge of the map’s very existence derives from the reports of Sigismondo’s enemies. I examine this prominent embassy as a means to reconsider attitudes toward the utility of maps in the scholarly imagination and the role of art and artists in early modern diplomacy. Revisiting documentary evidence and the claims scholars have grounded therein, I explore how we have told the tale of this journey in ways that conform to our own shifting expectations, sometimes at the expense of fidelity to the sources at hand. Overwhelming focus on the absent map has obscured both Matteo’s role as envoy and the distinctive place of evidently skillful and delightful visual culture in this attempted exchange.

Youth in Peril in Early Modern Venice

The essay contributes to the broader historiographical debate about identifying European perceptions of childhood innocence. Venetians applied the notion of sexual innocence to both children and adolescents well before the eighteenth century. Through an analysis of criminal investigations from the repositories of the Executors of the Bestemmia and the Council of Forty during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, the essay illustrates the ways in which Venetian authorities, parish priests, and members of the city’s neighborhood communities attempted to shelter youth from exposure to adult sexual behavior. Within the spheres of public and clandestine prostitution, the intimacy of the domestic hearth, and the neighborhood streets, judicial authorities, relying on the testimonies of eye witnesses, removed youth in danger from their homes and places of work, punishing prostitutes, exploitative parents, and sexual predators. While formal laws defined minority and majority age and cognizance of right and wrong in gendered terms, ordinary Venetians were more casual about age than legal theorists and expressed a strong aversion toward the sexual perils surrounding youth of both sexes from their childhood years to well into their teens.

Mehmed II, Malatesta and Matteo De’ Pasti: a match of mutual benefit between the ‘Terrible Turk’ and a ‘Citizen of Hell’

AbstractIn 1461 the notorious Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, Lord of Rimini, sent his court artist Matteo De’ Pasti to portray the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II. The artist never reached his destination, being arrested as a spy by Venetian authorities in Crete. Despite the mission's failure it has as much to contribute to our understanding of Italian–Ottoman relations as other fruitful visits. Malatesta had selected Valturio's military treatise De re militari along with maps of Italy as gifts for the sultan. The treatise has been dismissed by many as having no practical use. However, this is to overlook the fact that it explained developments in Italian military architecture that would have been beneficial to the Ottomans. Furthermore, it will be argued that De’ Pasti's services could have extended beyond the production of portrait medals by bringing to light his experience as an inspector of fortifications. The gifts that were sent and the knowledge possessed by the loaned artist highlight the diversity of attitudes to be found within the Italian city‐states towards the ostensible enemy. In fact, the fractured political system of the Italian peninsula will be shown to have been fertile ground for the nurturing of this obliging friendship with the Ottomans.

What News on the Rialto? The Trade of Information and Early Modern Venice’s Centralized Intelligence Organization

This article explores one of the earliest centrally organized state intelligence services in world history. Contrary to the orthodoxy that sees systematized intelligence as a modern political phenomenon, this was developed in early modern Venice. The article reveals the complex organization of Venetian systemized intelligence that distinguished it from other contemporaneous states’ espionage networks. It also shows how Venetian authorities commodified intelligence by engaging citizens and subjects in a trade of information for mutual benefits. Ultimately, the article challenges our understanding of early modern political communication and offers a fresh vista of intelligence as a business trait and economic necessity.

La risposta di Venezia alla rivolta di San Tito a Creta (1363-1366) : un delitto di lesa maestà?

Our contribution is about the judicial interpretation of a serious revolution exploded in Candia in 1363. In the august of the same year, many Venetian patricians and colonists deposed the Duke of Crete in charge and proclaimed independence from Venice. The homeland - shocked by the attack at the heart of its power - tried to come to terms with the rebels, but once Venice became aware of their will in persisting to be mutinous, decided to counter attack, accused the rebels to attempt to its majesty, proclaimed the insurgents heretics and fought against them. The judicial language used by Venetian authorities is centered around some categories and cases in point which referred to a specific kind of crime in late Medieval Europe : the crimen lese maiestatis. The most interesting fact, that we output in our contribution, is that these categories substituted the expression crimen lese maietstais. In particular, the terms proditio and rebellio, were used by Venetians in order to connote the crime committed : the refuse of the obedience to the political authority. During our contribution, the Cretan revolt has been compared to two others serious rebellions which upset the political life in Venice : the conspiracy of Baiamonte Tiepolo and Marco Querini and the coup d’état planned by the doge Marino Falier. In this way the law system and justice were used by Venice as flexible elements to create consent and to legitimate its power.