Introduction to Renaissance Venice
Seminar Tutor
Jonathan Davies
Seminar Questions
- What were the major forces of change in Renaissance Venice?
- What was the myth of Venice and how was it challenged in this period?
- How did Venetians respond to the problems and challenges that they faced in this period?
- What were the major forces of order and disorder in Venice in this period?
- In what major ways has Venetian historiography evolved in recent decades?
Key Texts
- M. Sanudo, 'Praise of Venice', in Chambers, David, and Brian Pullan (eds), Venice: A Documentary History 1450-1630 (Oxford, 1992; rept. Toronto, 2001) , pp. 4-21.
- E. Crouzet-Pavan, “Towards an Ecological Understanding of the Myth of Venice". In Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City State, 1297-1797, edited by John Martin and Dennis Romano, 39-67 (Baltimore, 2000).
- E. Dursteler, 'Introduction: A Brief Survey of Histories of Venice', in E. Dursteler (ed.), A Companion to Venetian History, 1400-1797 (Leiden, 2013), pp. 1-24.
Further Reading
- E. Crouzet-Pavan, Venice Triumphant: The Horizons of a Myth (Baltimore, 2005).
- F. De Vivo, "Review Article: The Diversity of Venice and her Myths." The Historical Journal 47(1) (2004): 169–177.
- J. Grubb, “When Myths Lose Power: Four Decades of Venetian Historiography”, Journal of Modern History Vol. 58 (1986): 43-94.
- R. Finlay, “The Immortal Republic: The Myth of Venice During the Italian Wars (1494- 1530)” Sixteenth Century Journal Vol. 30, No.4 (1999), 931-944.
- P. Fortini Brown, Venice & Antiquity: The Venetian Sense of the Past (New Haven, 1996).
- P. Fortini Brown, ‘How Renaissances happened in Venice’ in Alison Brown (ed.), Language and Images of Renaissance Italy.
- D. Rosand, Myths of Venice. The Figuration of a State (Chapel Hill, NC, 2001)
- M. Tafuri, Venice and the Renaissance, trans. Jessica Levine (Cambridge, Mass., 1995).
- W. J. Bouwsma, Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty: Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter-Reformation (Berkeley 1968).
- G. Fasoli, ‘Nascità di un mito’, in Studi Storici in onore di Gioacchino Volpe, vol. 1 (Florence, 1958), pp. 445-79.