Paula Findlen		Tues 2:15-4:05
History 213B/313B		Bldg. 20-22K
Winter 2002
		HERETICS, PROSTITUTES AND MERCHANTS: THE VENETIAN EMPIRE     Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee; And was the safeguard of the west: the worth Of Venice did not fall below her birth, Venice the eldest Child of Liberty. ... And what if she had seen those glories fade, Those titles vanish, and that strength decay; Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid When her long life hath reached its final day; Men are we, and must grieve when the shade Of that which once was great, is passed away William Wordsworth,"On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic"

Between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries the republic of Venice created a powerful empire that controlled much of the Mediterranean. Situated at the imaginary boundary between East and West, the Venetians established a thriving merchant republic that allowed many social groups, religions, and ethnicities to coexist within its borders. This seminar explores some of the essential features of Venetian society, as a microcosm of early modern European society. We will examine the relationship between center and periphery, order and disorder, orthodoxy and heresy as well as the role of politics, art and culture in Venice. The seminar will conclude with a discussion of the decline of Venice as a political and economic power and its reinvention as a tourist site and living museum for the modern era.

The following books can be purchased in the Stanford Bookstore and are on reserve in Green Library. Readings marked with a ® can be found in the course reader, available through Field Copy (2799 Alma; 323-3155). Those marked with an asterisk (*) are available through the class web site as pdf files.

Mark Cohen, ed., The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi

John E. Dotson, Merchant Culture in Fourteenth Century Venice:

Moderata Fonte, Women’s Worth

Edward Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice

Sister Bartolomea Riccoboni, Life and Death in a Venetian Convent

Fake Venice
http://www.delux.lu/pages/backlotset/page.html

Further information on the Zibaldone da Canal

Images from the Zibaldone da Canal Search for "Zibaldone da Canal"

Download Venice Presentation (in Powerpoint) from Tessa Yeager's visit to Venice

Course Reader

Maps

Be sure to read the "Historical Background to dangerous Beauty" before the movie.

Martin and Romano, "Reconsidering Venice"* (Grad Students only)

Morris, The Venetian Empire ®

McKee, "The Colony of Crete"*

John Dotson, Merchant Life in Fourteenth-Century Venice

Edward Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice

Sister Bartolomea Riccoboni, Life and Death in a Venetian Convent

Contarini, The Commonwealth and Government of Venice ®

Finlay, "Reality and Myth in Renaissance Venice"* or, in two parts for easier download
"Reality and Myth in Renaissance Venice" - part 1*
"Reality and Myth in Renaissance Venice" - part 2"*

Chojnacki, "Identity and Ideology in Renaissance Venice"* or, in two parts for easier download
"Identity and Ideology in Renaissance Venice"- part 1*
"Identity and Ideology in Renaissance Venice-part 2"*

Moderata Fonte, Women’s Worth

Mark Cohen, Autobiography of a Venetian Rabbi

Pullan, "Nations Set Apart: Christian and Jew in Venice"*

Valensi, The Birth of the Despot®

Wolff, Venice and the Slavs®

Davis, Decline of the Venetian Nobility*

Sella, "The Rise and Fall of the Venetian Wool Industry"*

Pemble, Venice Rediscovered®

Undergraduates taking this class will be required to write a short paper (5 pp; 20%); a final paper (13-15 pp; 40%), attend class regularly and participate in discussion (20%). I will expect you to do one or two presentations on the readings with other students (10%). Students taking the class for WIM (Writing in the Major) credit are required to hand in a rough draft of their final essay on Monday, March 11 at 5:00 pm.

There are two ways to take this class as a graduate student. You can take it as a one-quarter colloquium. Graduate students taking the colloquium will be required to write the short paper (5 pp.), due on February 2 and a final paper (18-20 pp.) on a topic of their own choosing, due on March 20. Please consult with me early in the quarter about your final project. The second option is to take this class as a two-quarter research seminar (313B + 413). Students taking the research seminar will write the short paper and develop an original research project on any aspect of late medieval/early modern history that interests you. An 8-10 page prospectus of your research project is due on March 20. The research paper (35-50 pages) will be due at the end of spring quarter, with a rough draft deadline several weeks before.

I will hold office hours on Monday 2-3 (Bldg 370-104; 725-0120) and Thursday 1-2 (Bldg 200-118; 723-9570) and by appointment. I also check my email several times a week between Monday and Friday (pfindlen@stanford.edu).

This course is designed as a thematic introduction to Venetian history. As a result, there is no single reading that offers a continuous narrative of the important events and institutions. Students wishing to consult a standard history of the Venetian Republic should begin with Frederic C. Lane, Venice: A Maritime Republic (Baltimore, 1973); and Garry Willis, Venice Lion City: The Religion of Empire (New York, 2001). For an excellent introduction to some of the most recent scholarship, see John Martin and Dennis Romano, eds., Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297-1797 (Baltimore, 2000). The only work to offer an introduction to original sources is David Chambers and Brian Pullan, eds., Venice: A Documentary History 1450-1630 (London, 1992). All four books are on one-day reserve for this class.

I am hoping to arrange a trip to Morgan Manor in Los Altos Hills, which is the early twentieth century home (1915) of a Stanford trustee and San Francisco businessman Percy T. Morgan containing a painted Venetian ceiling reputed to be from the Palazzo Grimani.

Paula Findlen

History 213B/313B

Winter 2002

John Martin and Dennis Romano, "Reconsidering Venice," in Martin and Romano, eds., Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297-1797 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), pp. 1-35.

Jan Morris, The Venetian Empire (London: Penguin, 1980).

Sally McKee, "The Colony of Crete," in her Uncommon Dominion: Venetian Crete and the Myth of Ethnic Purity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), pp. 19-56.

Gasparo Contarini, The Commonwealth and Government of Venice, trans. Lewes Lewkenor (London, 1599) [original: De magistratibus et republica Venetorum (1543)].

Robert Finlay, "Reality and Myth in Renaissance Venice," in his Politics in Renaissance Venice (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1980), pp. 14-43.

Stanley Chojnacki, "Identity and Ideology in Renaissance Venice: The Third Serrata," in Martin and Romano, Venice Reconsidered, pp. 263-294.

Brian Pullan, "Nations Set Apart: Christian and Jew in Venice," in his The Jews of Europe and the Inquisition of Venice, 1550-1670 (London: I. B. Tauris, 1997; 1983), pp. 145-167.

Lucette Valensi, The Birth of the Despot: Venice and the Sublime Porte, trans. Arthur Denner (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987).

Larry Wolff, Venice and the Slavs: The Discovery of Dalmatia in the Age of Enlightenment (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), pp. 1-9, 25-75.

James C. Davis, The Decline of the Venetian Nobility as a Ruling Class (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962), pp. 34-53, 106-125.

Domenico Sella, "The Rise and Fall of the Venetian Wool Industry," in Eric Cochrane, ed., Late Italian Renaissance 1525-1630 (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), pp.331-350.

John Pemble, Venice Rediscovered (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 1-49, 73-109.

Maps