Introductory description

This module analyses the cultural, economic, political, social, and religious history of Venice and its empire from the late fourteenth to the late sixteenth century. It also sets developments in Venice against those in the princely courts of northern Italy.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

1. Venice: City, Empire, Myth (I). Site visit: Torcello
2. Venice: City, Empire, Myth (II). Site visits: The Arsenale and the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni
3. Government. Site visits: The Doge’s Palace and the Museo Correr
4. The Material World. Site visits: Rialto and the Palladian Villas of Emo and Godi
5. Society. Site visits: From Campo San Polo to the Ponte dei Pugni and the Ghetto
6. Travel/Reading Week – no seminar or site visit
7. Religion. Site visits: The Basilica di Santi Giovanni e Paolo and the Scuola Grande di San Rocco
8. Culture. Site visits: Piazza San Marco and the Accademia
9. The Princely Courts. Site visits: Mantua (The Ducal Palace and the Palazzo Te)
10. Travel Week – no seminar or site visit

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate a systematic knowledge and understanding of the cultural, economic, political, social, and religious history of Venice and its empire from the late fourteenth to the late sixteenth century.
• Critically analyse and evaluate a broad range of textual, visual, and material primary sources relating to the history of Venice, including the city of Venice itself and its former territories.
• Effectively communicate ideas, and make informed, coherent and persuasive arguments, relating to the history of Venice.
• Critically review and consolidate theoretical, methodological, and historiographical ideas relating to the history of Venice.

Indicative reading list

• Burke, Ersie C., The Greeks of Venice, 1498-1600: Immigration, Settlement and Integration (Turnhout, 2016)
• Carboni, Stefano (ed.), Venice and the Islamic World, 828-1797 (New Haven, 2007)
• Castiglione, Baldesar, The Book of the Courtier, ed. Daniel Javitch, trans. Charles S. Singleton (New York: Norton, 2002)
• Chambers, D.S., (ed. and trans.), Patrons and Artists in the Italian Renaissance (London, 1970)
• Chambers, David, and Brian Pullan (eds and trans), Venice: A Documentary History 1450-1630 (1992; rept. Toronto, 2001)
• Chojnacka, Monica, Working Women of Early Modern Venice (Baltimore, 2001)
• Chojnacki, Stanley, Women and Men in Renaissance Venice: Twelve Essays on Patrician Society (Baltimore, 2000)
• Cole, Alison, Art of the Italian Renaissance Courts (New York, 2005)
• Contarini, Gasparo, The Commonwealth and Government of Venice, trans. Lewis Lewkenor (London, 1599)
• Davis, Robert C., The War of the Fists: Popular Culture and Public Violence in Late Renaissance Venice (New York, 1994)
• Dursteler, Eric R. (ed.), A Companion to Venetian History 1400-1797 (Leiden: Brill, 2013)
• Howard, Deborah, The Architectural History of Venice (New Haven, 2004)
• Huse, Norbert, and Wolfgang Wolters, The Art of Renaissance Venice: Architecture, Sculpture and Painting, 1460-1590, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Chicago, 1993)
• King, Margaret L., Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician Dominance (Princeton, 1986)
• Marinella, Lucrezia, The Nobility and Excellence of Women and the Defects and Vices of Men, ed. and trans. Anne Dunhill (Chicago, 1999)
• Martin, John Jeffries, Venice’s Hidden Enemies: Italian Heretics in a Renaissance City (Berkeley, 1993)
• Molà, Luca, The Silk Industry of Renaissance Venice (Baltimore, 2000)
• Ravid, Benjamin, Studies on the Jews of Venice, 1382-1797 (Aldershot, 2003)
• Rosand, David, Myths of Venice: The Figuration of a State (Chapel Hill, NC, 2001)
• Salzberg, Rosa, Ephemeral City: Cheap Print and Urban Culture in Renaissance Venice (Manchester, 2014)
• Sansovino, Francesco, Sansovino's Venice, ed. and trans. Vaughan Hart and Peter Hicks (London, 2017)
• Sanudo, Marin, Venice, cità excelentissima: Selections from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo, ed. and trans. Patricia H. Labalme and Laura Sanguineti White (Baltimore, 2008)
• Vivo, Filippo de, Information and Communication in Venice: Rethinking Early Modern Politics (Oxford, 2007)

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Subject specific skills

See learning outcomes.

Transferable skills

See learning outcomes.