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Department of History

Ethnic and religious minorities

Seminar Tutor

Jonathan Davies

Site Visit

The Ghetto. Meet at Ponte delle Guglie.

Seminar Questions

  • What was the impact of ethnic and religious minorities on the economic life of Venice between c. 1350 and c. 1600?
  • What were the contributions of ethnic and religious minorities to cultural life in Renaissance Venice?
  • How successful were government attempts to control ethnic and religious minorities?
  • Why did government policies towards ethnic and religious minorities in Venice change between c. 1350 and c. 1600?

Key Texts


Chambers, David, and Brian Pullan (eds), Venice: A Documentary History 1450-1630 (Oxford, 1992; rept. Toronto, 2001) , pp. 323-53.

Muir, Edward, 'The Anthropology of Venice', in Eric R. Dursteler (ed.), A Companion to Venetian History 1400-1797 (Leiden, 2013), pp. 487-511. Brill e-book

Ravid, Benjamin, 'Venice and its Minorities', in Eric R. Dursteler (ed.), A Companion to Venetian History 1400-1797 (Leiden, 2013), pp. 449-86. Brill e-book

E-Resources

Further Reading


Beck, H.-G, et al. (eds), Venezia. Centro di Mediazione tra Oriente e Occidente (secoli XV- XVI). Aspetti e Problemi (Florence, 1977)

Botticini, Maristella, 'A Tale of "Benevolent" Governments: Private Credit Markets, Public Finance, and the Role of Jewish Lenders in Medieval and Renaissance Italy', The Journal of Economic History 60 (2000), 164-89. JSTOR

Calabi, Donatella, ‘Gli stranieri e la città’, in Storia di Venezia, vol. 5, Il Rinascimento. Società ed economia, ed. Alberto Tenenti and Ugo Tucci (Rome, 1996)

Calabi, Donatella, and Paola Lanaro, eds, La città italiana e i luoghi degli stranieri, XIV-XVIII secolo (Bari, 1998)

Calabi, Donatella, et al., La città degli Ebrei. Il ghetto di Venezia, architettura e urbanistica (Venice, 1991)

Calimani, R., Storia del Ghetto di Venezia (Milan, 1985)

Cozzi, G., (ed.), Gli ebrei e Venezia secoli XIV-XVIII (Milan, 1987)

Davis, Robert C., and Benjamin Ravid, (eds), The Jews of Early Modern Venice (Baltimore, 2001)

De Maria, Blake, Becoming Venetian: Immigrants and the Arts in Early Modern Venice (New Haven, 2010)

Dursteler, Eric R., 'Speaking in Tongues: Language and Communication in the Early Modern Mediterranean,' Past & Present 217 (2012): 47-77

Fedalto, G., Ricerche storiche sulla posizione giuridica ed ecclesiastica dei Greci a Venezia nei secoli XV e XVI (Florence, 1967)

Geanakoplos, D.J., Byzantium and the Renaissance: Greek Scholars in Venice (Hamden, 1972)

Hermet, Aleramo, and Paola Cogni Ratti di Desio, La Venezia degli Armeni: sedici secoli, tra storia e leggenda (Milan, 1993)

Lowry, M.J.C., ‘The social world of Nicholas Jensen and John of Cologne’, Bibliofilia (1981).

Lowry, M.J.C., Nicholas Jenson and the Rise of Venetian Publishing in Renaissance Europe (Oxford, 1990)

Lowry, M.J.C., ‘Venetian Capital, German Technology and Renaissance Culture in the Later Fifteenth Century’, Renaissance Studies 2.1 (1988), 1–13.

Lupprian, Karl-Ernst, Il Fondaco dei tedeschi e la sua funzione di controllo del commercio tedesco a Venezia (Venice, 1978)

Molà, Luca, La communità dei Lucchesi a Venezia (Venice, 1994)

Molà, Luca, and Mueller, Reinhold C., ‘Essere straniero a Venezia nel tardo Medioevo: accoglienza e rifiuto nei privilegi di cittadinanza e nelle sentenze criminali’, in Simonetta Cavaciocchi (ed.), Le migrazioni in Europa. Secc. XIII-XVIII (Florence, 1994), pp. 839-51.

Mueller, Reinhold, ‘Mercanti e imprenditori fiorentini a Venezia nel tardo medioevo’, Società e Storia 54 (1992), 29-60.

Mueller, Reinhold, '"Veneti facti privilegio": stranieri naturalizzati a Venezia, 1300-1500', in P. Lanaro and D. Calabi (eds), La città e i luoghi degli stranieri: Italia XIV-XVIII secolo (Bari, 1998), pp. 41-51

Mueller, Reinhold, 'Venezia e i primi schiavi neri', Archivio veneto, fifth series, 113 (1979): 139‑42.

Pertusi, A., (ed.), Venezia e l’Oriente fra tardo Medioevo e Rinascimento (Florence, 1966)

Pignatti, T., ‘The relationship between German and Venetian painting’ in J.R. Hale (ed.), Renaissance Venice (London, 1973)

Preto, P., Venezia e i Turchi (Florence, 1975)

Ravid, Benjamin, ‘From yellow to red: On the distinguishing head-covering of the Jews of Venice’, Jewish History 6 (1992), 179-210 Springer Link

Ravid, Benjamin, ‘The First Charter of the Jewish Merchants of Venice, 1589’, AJS Review 1 (1976), 187-222. JSTOR

Ravid, Benjamin, 'The religious, economic and social background and context of the establishment of the ghetto of Venice', in G. Cozzi (ed.), Gli ebrei e Venezia (Milan, 1987), pp. 211-59.

Ravid, Benjamin, Studies on the Jews of Venice, 1382-1797 (Aldershot, 2003)

Salzberg, Rosa, "Controlling and Documenting Migration via Urban ‘Spaces of Arrival’ in Early Modern Venice", in Migration policies and materialities of identification in European cities: papers and gates, 1500-1930s, edited by Hilde Greefs and Anne Winter (New York, 2018)

Salzberg, Rosa, "Mobility, cohabitation and cultural exchange in the lodging houses of early modern Venice", Urban History 46.3 (2019): 398-418.

Salzberg, Rosa, and Claire Judde de la Rivière, "Comment être vénitien? Identification des immigrants et «droit d’habiter» à Venise au XVIe siècle", Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine 64.2 (2017): 69-92

Tenenti, A., 'Gli schiavi di Venezia alla fine del cinquecento', Rivista storica italiana 57 (1955), 52-69.

Tiepolo, Maria Francesca, and Eurigio Tonetti (eds), I Greci a Venezia (Venice, 2002)

Varanini, Gian Maria. and Reinhold C. Mueller (eds), Ebrei nella Terraferma veneta del Quattrocento (Florence, 2005)

Venezia e i Turchi. Scontri e confronti di due civiltà (Milan, 1985)

Venezia e la Germania: Arte, politica, commercio, due civiltà a confronto (Milan, 1987)

Zannini, Andrea, Venezia città aperta. Gli stranieri e la Serenissima XIV-XVIII sec. (Venice, 2009)