Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T23:25:41.991Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Heart of the State, Site of Tension: The Archival Turn Viewed from Venice, ca. 1400-1700*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Filippo de Vivo
Filippo de Vivo*
Affiliation:
Birkbeck, University of London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In recent years, a new historiographical trend has focused on archives not as mere repositories of sources, but as objects of inquiry in their own right. Particular attention has been paid to how their continually evolving organization and management reflect the political presuppositions of the institutions presiding over them. This article acknowledges this archival turn and provides an example drawn from the famous case study of the Venetian chancery between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, at a time of substantial developments in the management of archives. It proposes a more inclusive and socially contextualized approach in order to demonstrate that archives were not just tools of power but also sites of economic, social, and political conflict. A close reading of the very document that led to the institutional view of the Venetian archive as the “heart of the state” reveals that the patrician rulers worried about both the fragility of their archive and the reliability of the notaries in charge of it. This perspective helps to explain the exalted representation of the archive in the late Middle Ages and the early modern era—a representation that, taken at face value, continues to inspire historical analysis today—by illuminating the practical difficulties surrounding archival methods at the time. The history of archives emerges as a promising field of inquiry precisely because it can shed light on both the history of the state and the social context in which the state’s actions had to be negotiated.

Type
Political Cultures in Italy, from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century
Information
Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales - English Edition , Volume 68 , Issue 3 , September 2013 , pp. 457 - 485
Copyright
Copyright © Les Éditions de l’EHESS 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Funding for this research came from a Starting Grant awarded by the European Research Council. I presented previous versions of this paper at the Clark Memorial Library in Los Angeles, the Venetian Seminar at Warwick, and the Villa I Tatti/Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies in Florence. I am very grateful to Roisin Cossar, Andrea Guidi, and Cecilia Hewlett for their observations. This article is dedicated to the memory of our fellow borsista Shona Kelly Wray (1963-2012).

References

1. See below, 469-73. For the meanings of the words stato and status in fifteenth-century Italy, see Rubinstein, Nicolai, “Notes on the Word Stato in Florence before Machiavelli,” in Florilegium Historiale: Essays Presented to Wallace K. Ferguson, ed. Rowe, J. G. and Stockdale, W. H. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971), 313–26 Google Scholar; and Skinner, Quentin, “From the State of Princes to the Person of the State,” in Renaissance Virtues, vol. 2 of Visions of Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 368–413 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Senato, Mar, registro (hereafter r.) 5, carta (hereafter c.) 123v, Archivio di Stato di Venezia (hereafter “ASV”), Venice. See Tenenti, Alberto, Venezia e il senso del mare. Storia di un prisma culturale dal XIII al XVIII secolo (Milan: Guerini e associati, 1999), 391 Google Scholar.

3. Rosiello, Isabella Zanni, “Gli archivi di stato. Una forma di sapere ‘segreto’ o pubblico?,” Quaderni storici 47 (1981): 624–38 Google Scholar; see also Rosiello, , Gli archivi tra passato e presente (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2005)Google Scholar, and L’archivista sul confine. Scritti di Isabella Zanni Rosiello, ed. Carmela Binchi and Tiziana Di Zio (Rome: Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali, 2000).

4. Guyotjeannin, Olivier, Morelle, Laurent, and Parisse, Michel, eds., Les cartulaires. Actes de la table ronde organisée par l’École nationale des Chartes et le G.D.R. 121 du CNRS (Paris: École des chartes, 1993)Google Scholar; Kosto, Adam J. and Winroth, Anders, eds., Charters, Cartularies and Archives: The Preservation and Transmission of Documents in the Medieval West (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2002)Google Scholar; Brown, Warren et al., eds., Documentary Culture and the Laity in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)Google Scholar.

5. See respectively: Guyotjeannin, Olivier, “L’érudition transfigurée,” in Passés recomposés. Champs et chantiers de l’histoire, ed. Boutier, Jean and Julia, Dominique (Paris: Éditions Autrement, 1995), 152–62 Google Scholar; Meier, Christel et al., eds, Pragmatische Dimensionen mittelalterlicher Schriftkultur (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2002)Google Scholar. See also: Cook, Terry and Schwartz, Joan, eds., “Archives, Records, and Power,” special issue, Archival Science 2, nos. 1-2 (2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially Ann L. Stoler, “Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance,” 87-109; Anheim, Étienne and Poncet, Olivier, eds., “Fabrique des archives, fabrique de l’histoire,” special issue, Revue de synthèse, 5th ser., 125, no. 1 (2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Blair, Ann and Milligan, Jennifer, eds., “Toward a Cultural History of Archives,” special issue, Archival Science 7, no. 4 (2007)Google Scholar; Anheim, Étienne and Chastang, Pierre, eds., “Les pratiques de l’écrit dans les sociétés médiévales (VIe-XIIIe siècle),” special issue, Médiévales 56, no. 1 (2009)Google Scholar; Head, Randolph, ed., “Archival Knowledge Cultures in Europe, 1400-1900,” special issue, Archival Science 10, no. 3 (2010)Google Scholar; Hutchinson, Ben and Weller, Shane, eds., “Archive Time,” special issue, Comparative Critical Studies 8, nos. 2-3 (2011)Google Scholar.

6. O’Toole, James M., “Cortes’ Notary: The Symbolic Power of Records,” Archival Science 2, nos. 1-2 (2002): 45–61 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dirks, Nicholas B., “Annals of the Archive: Ethnographic Notes on the Sources of History,” in From the Margins: Historical Anthropology and Its Futures, ed. Axel, Brian Keith (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002), 47–65 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stoler, Ann L., Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

7. Head, Randolph, “Knowing Like a State: The Transformation of Political Knowledge in Swiss Archives, 1450–1770,” Journal of Modern History 75, no. 4 (2003): 745–82 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Burke, Peter, A Social History of Knowledge: From Gutenberg to Diderot (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), 116–48 Google Scholar; Soll, Jacob S., The Information Master: Jean-Baptiste Colbert’s Secret State Intelligence System (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. Isabella Lazzarini, “Materiali per una didattica delle scritture pubbliche di cancelleria nell’Italia del Quattrocento,” Scrineum. Saggi e materiali online di scienze del documento e del libro medievale 2 (2004): 1-85; Lazzarini, ed., “Scritture e potere. Pratiche documentarie e forme di governo nell’Italia tardomedievale (secoli XIV-XV),” special issue, Reti Medievali 9 (2008); Varanini, Gian Maria, “Public Written Records,” in The Italian Renaissance State, ed. Gamberini, Andrea and Lazzarini, Isabella (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 385–405 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9. Tigrino, Vittorio, “Castelli di carte. Giurisdizione e storia locale nel Settecento in una disputa fra Sanremo e Genova (1729-35),” Quaderni Storici 101, no. 34 (1999): 475–506 Google Scholar; Lezowski, Marie, “Conflitti di precedenza, uso degli archivi e storiografia locale alla fine del Cinquecento (Pavia 1592),” Quaderni storici 133, no. 1 (2010): 7–39 Google Scholar.

10. Langeli, Attilio Bartoli, Notai. Scrivere documenti nell’Italia medievale (Rome: Viella, 2006)Google Scholar; Nussdorfer, Laurie, Brokers of Public Trust: Notaries in Early Modern Rome (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009)Google Scholar; Langeli, Attilio Bartoli, Giorgi, Andrea, and Moscadelli, Stefano, eds., Archivi e comunità tra Medioevo ed età moderna (Rome: Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali, 2009)Google Scholar.

11. Ketelaar, Eric, “Tacit Narratives: The Meanings of Archives,” Archival Science 1, no. 2 (2001): 131–41 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Blouin, Francis X. Jr. and Rosenberg, William G., eds., Archives, Documentation, and Institutions of Social Memory: Essays from the Sawyer Seminar (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006)Google Scholar; Blouin, Jr. and Rosenberg, , eds., Processing the Past: Contesting Authority in History and the Archives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. Darnton, Robert, “What Is the History of Books?,” in Books and Society in History, ed. Carpenter, Kenneth E. (New York: R. R. Bowker, 1983), 3–26 Google Scholar; Chartier, Roger, Culture écrite et société. L’ordre des livres (XIVe-XVIIIe siècle) (Paris: Albin Michel, 1996)Google Scholar.

13. Bautier, Robert-Henri, “La phase cruciale de l’histoire des archives. La constitution des dépôts d’archives et la naissance de l’archivistique (XVIe-début du XIXe siècle),” Archivum 18 (1968): 139–49 Google Scholar.

14. Stoler, Along the Archival Grain.

15. Cammarosano, Paolo, Italia medievale. Struttura e geografia delle fonti scritte (Rome: La Nuova Italia Scientifica, 1991)Google Scholar; Vigueur, Jean-Claude Maire, “Révolution documentaire et révolution scripturaire: le cas de l’Italie médiévale,” Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes 153, no. 1 (1995): 177–85 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16. Giambattista Lorenzi, ed., Monumenti per servire alla storia del Palazzo Ducale di Venezia, ovvero Serie di atti pubblici dal 1253 al 1797 (Venice: Tipografia del commercio di Marco Visentini, 1868), 10. For the same reason, the ducal chancery was occasionally described as “Superior,” ibid., 28. On the notarial archive, see Fabris, Maria Pia Pedani, “Veneta auctoritate notarius.” Storia del notariato veneziano (1514-1797) (Milan: Giuffrè, 1996)Google Scholar.

17. Vivo, Filippo de, “Ordering the Archive in Early Modern Venice (1400-1650),” Archival Science 10, no. 3 (2010): 231–48 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. Cessi, Roberto, ed., Deliberazioni del Maggior Consiglio di Venezia (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1951), 2: 225 Google Scholar. See also Compilazione delle leggi, busta (hereafter b.) 107, c. 203 (September 23, 1450) and b. 348, c. 684 (June 11, 1624), ASV, Venice.

19. De Vivo, “Ordering the Archive,” 234.

20. “Description ou traictié du gouvernement ou régime de la cite et seigneurie de Venise,” in Histoire des relations de la France avec Venise du XIIIe siècle à l’avènement de Charles VIII, ed. Paul-Michel Perret (Paris: H. Welter 1896), 2: 277-80. I use the English translation, with some revisions, from David Chambers and Brian Pullan, eds., Venice: A Documentary History, 1450-1630 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), 59-61.

21. Ibid.

22. Crouzet-Pavan, Elisabeth, Venice Triumphant: The Horizons of a Myth (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 183–228 Google Scholar. On the literature of the “myth of Venice” in this period, see Fasoli, Gina, “Nascita di un mito,” in Studi storici in onore di Gioacchino Volpe (Florence: Sansoni, 1958), 1: 445–79 Google Scholar; John G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), 272-330; Franco Gaeta, “L’idea di Venezia,” in Dal primo Quattrocento al Concilio di Trento, ed. Manlio Pastore Stocchi and Girolamo Arnalid, vol. 3 of Storia della cultura veneta (Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1981), bk. 3: 565-641. On the myth’s European echoes, see William J. Bouwsma, “Venice and the Political Education of Europe,” in Renaissance Venice, ed. John R. Hale (London: Faber and Faber, 1973), 445-66 and Eco O. G. Haitsma Mulier, The Myth of Venice and Dutch Republican Thought in the Seventeenth Century (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1980).

23. Contarini, Gasparo , Della republica et magistrati di Venetia (Venice: Presso Aldo, 1591), 10–11 Google Scholar.

24. Bascapé, Giacomo C. , “Sigilli della repubblica di Venezia. Le bolle dei dogi. I sigilli di uffici e di magistrature,” in Antichità e Alto medioevo, vol. 1 of Studi in onore di Amintore Fanfani (Milan: A. Giuffrè, 1962 Google Scholar), 91-103 and Pertusi, Agostino , “Quedam regalia insignia,” Bollettino dell’Istituto di storia della società e dello stato veneziano 7 (1965): 3–123 Google Scholar.

25. Paoli, Cesare , Diplomatica. Nuova edizione, ed. Bascapé, Giacomo C. (Florence: Sansoni, 1942), 259 Google Scholar; Brown, Alison , Bartolomeo Scala, 1430-1497, Chancellor of Florence: The Humanist as a Bureaucrat (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 168 Google Scholar.

26. See the references to Contarini, Donato Giannotti, Giovanni Botero and Nicolò Crasso in Trebbi, Giuseppe , “La cancelleria veneta nei secoli XVI e XVII,” Annali della Fondazione Luigi Einaudi 14 (1980): 62–125 Google Scholar, here 77-78 and 116.

27. Muir, Edward , Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 190–93 Google Scholar. On ritual and the Chancery, see Favilla, Massimo and Rugolo, Ruggero , “Venezia, 1772. Le ‘molto ben architettate apparenze’ per l’entrata del cancellier grande Giovanni Girolamo Zuccato,” Studi veneziani 61 (2010): 193–212 Google Scholar.

28. Grubb, James S. , “When Myths Lose Power: Four Decades of Venetian Historiography,” Journal of Modern History 58, no. 1 (1986): 43–94 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29. For von Ranke’s fascinating description of the Venetian archives, see “Über die Verschwörung gegen Venedig im Jahre 1618” (1831), in Herder, Johann Gottfried von , Sämmtliche Werke (Berlin: von Duncker & Humblot, 1878), 42: 172–78 Google Scholar. For examples of plays and novels which were at least partly based on archival sources, see Infelise, Mario , “Venezia e il suo passato. Storie miti ‘fole,’” in Storia di Venezia. L’Ottocento e il Novecento, ed. Isnenghi, Mario and Woolf, Stuart J. (Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 2002), 2: 967–88 Google Scholar. I have addressed this apparent tension in Vivo, Filippo de , “Quand le passé résiste à ses historiographies. Venise et le XVIIe siècle,” Cahiers du Centre de Recherches Historiques 28–29 (2002): 223–34 Google Scholar.

30. Brown, Rawdon , preface to Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts, Relating to English Affairs, Existing in the Archives and Collections of Venice, and in Other Libraries of Northern Italy: vol. 1, 1202-1509 (London: Eyre and Spottiswood/Longman/HM Stationery Office, 1864 Google Scholar), v-cviii; Baschet, Armand , Les archives de Venise. Histoire de la chancellerie secrète: le sénat, le cabinet des ministres, le Conseil des Dix et les inquisiteurs d’État dans leurs rapports avec la France, d’après des recherches faîtes aux sources originales pour servir à l’étude de l’histoire de la politique et de la diplomatie (Paris: H. Plon, 1870 Google Scholar); Cecchetti, Bartolomeo , Gli archivi della Repubblica veneta dal XIII secolo al XIX (Venice: Tipografia del commercio, 1865 Google Scholar); Brown, Horatio F. , “The Constitution of the Venetian Republic and the State Archives,” in Studies in the History of Venice (London: John Murray, 1907), 1: 293–334 Google Scholar.

31. See the remarks in Agostino Sagredo, “Dell’archivio pubblico di Venezia e della scuola di paleografia. Lettera al prof. Francesco Bonaini,” Archivio storico italiano 2 (1855): 189-90, repeated in Brown, “Preface,” xxxiii. On archival science in Italy, see Lodolini, Elio , Lineamenti di storia dell’archivistica italiana. Dalle origini alla metà del secolo XX (Rome: La Nuova Italia Scientifica, 1991 Google Scholar), and Paola Carucci and Maria Guercio, Manuale di archivistica (Rome: Carocci, 2008).

32. Cencetti, Giorgio , “Il fondamento teorico della dottrina archivistica,” in Scritti archivistici (Rome: Il Centro di Ricerca Editore, 1970), 38–46 Google Scholar, especially 40 (the first edition of this essay dates from 1939).

33. See the section on Venice in Carucci, Paola et al., eds., Guida generale degli Archivi di Stato italiani (Rome: Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali, Ufficio centrale per i beni archivistici, 1994), 4: 857–1148 Google Scholar.

34. Lazzarini, Vittorio , Scritti di paleografìa e diplomatica (Padua: Antenore, 1969), 183–94 Google Scholar; Bascapé, “Sigilli della repubblica di Venezia.”

35. Pozza, Marco , “La Cancelleria,” in Storia di Venezia. Dalle origini alla caduta della Serenissima, vol. 2, L’età del comune, ed. Gracco, Giorgio and Ortali, Gherado (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1995 Google Scholar), 349-69 and vol. 3, La formazione dello stato patrizio, ed. Arnaldi, Gironamo , Cracco, Giorgio and Tenenti, Alberto (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1997), 365–87 Google Scholar, here 371.

36. Trebbi, Giuseppe , “La cancelleria,” and “Il segretario veneziano,” Archivio storico italiano 144 (1986): 35–73 Google Scholar; Neff, Mary F. , “A Citizen in the Service of the Patrician State: The Career of Zaccaria de ‘Freschi’” Studi veneziani, n.s., 5 (1981): 33–61 Google Scholar; Peppo, Paola De , “‘Memorie di veneti cittadini.’ Alvise Dardani, cancellier grande,” Studi veneziani, n.s., 8 (1984): 413–53 Google Scholar; Casini, Matteo , “Realtà e simboli del Cancellier Grande veneziano in età moderna (sec. XVI-XVII),” Studi veneziani, n.s., 22 (1991): 195–251 Google Scholar; Zannini, Andrea , Burocrazia e burocrati a Venezia in eta moderna. I cittadini originari (sec. XVI-XVIII) (Venice: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 1993), 119–81 Google Scholar; Grubb, James S. , “Elite Citizens,” in Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State 1297-1797, ed. Martin, John and Romano, Dennis (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 339–64 Google Scholar; Anna Bellavitis, Identité, mariage, mobilité sociale. Citoyennes et citoyens à Venise au XVIe siècle (Rome: École française de Rome, 2001); Massimo Galtarossa, “La formazione burocratica del segretario veneziano. Il caso di Antonio Milledonne,” Archivio veneto, 5th ser., 158 (2002): 5-64, and Mandarini veneziani. La cancelleria ducale nel Settecento (Rome: Aracne, 2009).

37. Chabod, Federico , “Was There A Renaissance State?,” in The Development of the Modern State, ed. Lubasz, Heinz (New York: Macmillan, 1964), 26–42 Google Scholar.

38. Rück, Peter , L’ordinamento degli archivi ducali di Savoia sotto Amedeo VIII, 1398-1451 (Rome: Arti graf. Panetto e Petrelli 1977 Google Scholar); Leverotti, Franca , ed, “Cancelleria e amministrazione negli stati italiani del Rinascimento,” special issue, Ricerche storiche: rivista semestrale del Centro piombinese di studi storici 24, no. 2 (1994 Google Scholar).

39. Brown, Bartolomeo Scala; Robert Black, Benedetto Accolti and the Florentine Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Klein, Francesca , “Costruzione dello stato e costruzione di archivio. Ordinamenti delle scritture della repubblica fiorentina a metà Quattrocento,” Reti Medievali 9 (2008): 1–31 Google Scholar.

40. King, Margaret L. , Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician Dominance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986 CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

41. Cozzi, Gaetano , ed., Stato, società e giustizia nella repubblica veneta (sec. XV-XVIII), 2 vols. (Rome: Jouvence, 1981-85 Google Scholar); Viggiano, Alfredo , Governanti e governati. Legittimità del potere ed esercizio dell’autorità sovrana nello stato veneto della prima età moderna (Treviso: Fondazione Benetton, 1993 Google Scholar); Corazzol, Gigi , Cineografo di banditi su sfondo di monti. Feltre 1634-1642 (Milan: Edizioni Unicopli, 1997 Google Scholar).

42. For an exception see Salmini, Claudia , “Buildings, Furnishing, Access and Use: Examples from the Archive of the Venetian Chancery, from Medieval to Modern Times,” in Archives and the Metropolis, ed. Roberts, M. V. (London: Guildhall Library Publications / Centre for Metropolitan History, 1998), 93–108.Google Scholar

43. Pavone, Claudio , “Ma è poi tanto pacifico che l’archivio rispecchi l’istituto?,” Rassegna degli Archivi di Stato 30, no. 1 (1970): 145–49 Google Scholar; D’Angiolini, Piero and Pavone, Claudio , “Gli archivi,” in I documenti, vol. 5 of Storia d’Italia, ed. Romano, Ruggero and Vivanti, Corrado (Turin: Einaudi, 1973), 2 Google Scholar: 1659-91.

44. Carucci, et al., Guida, 870–71, 4: 895–96, 903 Google Scholar.

45. The words recur in 1667 in the writings of the great chancellor Domenico Ballarin (see Zannini, Burocrazia e burocrati, 118), and again in the following century in the state-sponsored compilation of laws: Compilazione delle leggi, b. 107, c. 219, ASV, Venice. For discussion by recent historians, see Giuseppe Trebbi, “La cancelleria,” 115; Zannini, Andrea , “L’impiego pubblico,” in Il Rinascimento. Politica e cultura, ed. Tenenti, Alberto and Tucci, Ugo , vol. 4 of Storia di Venezia. Dalle origini alla caduta della Serenissima (Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1996), 415–63 Google Scholar, here 440; Pozza, “La cancelleria,” 365; Paul M. Dover, “Deciphering the Diplomatic Archives of Fifteenth-Century Italy,” Archival Science 7, no. 4 (2007): 297-316, especially 303; Vivo, Filippo de , Information and Communication in Venice: Rethinking Early Modern Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 49 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46. Baschet, , Les archives, 154; Cozzi, Gaetano , “Politica, società, istituzioni,” in La Repubblica di Venezia nell’età moderna. Dalla guerra di Chioggia al 1517, ed. Cozzi, Gaetano and Knapton, Michael , vol. 12 of Storia d’Italia (Turin: UTET, 1986), 1: 3–252 Google Scholar, here 143; Carucci et al., Guida, 4: 870.

47. Consiglio di Dieci, Misti, r. 15, c. 114v (December 22, 1456), ASV, Venice.

48. For what follows, see Luzzatto, Gino , “Il debito pubblico nel sistema finanziario veneziano dei secoli XIII-XV,” in Studi di storia economica veneziana (Padua: A. Milani, 1954), 211–24 Google Scholar; Zille, Ester , “Salari e stipendi a Venezia tra Quattro e Cinquecento,” Archivio veneto 173 (1992): 5–29 Google Scholar; Pezzolo, Luciano , “La finanza pubblica,” in Dal Rinascimento al Barocco, ed. Cozzi, Gaetano and Prodi, Paolo , vol. 6 of Storia di Venezia. Dalle origini alla caduta della Serenissima (Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1994), 713–73 Google Scholar. For comparison with other Italian states, see Caferro, William , “Warfare and Economy in Renaissance Italy, 1350-1450,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 39, no. 2 (2008): 167–209 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49. Romano, Dennis , The Likeness of Venice: A Life of Doge Francesco Foscari, 1373-1457 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 275–76 Google Scholar; Avogaria di Comun, Deliberazioni del Maggio Consiglio, r. C, c. 66r (April 11, 1456), ASV, Venice.

50. See Mueller, Reinhold C. , “La crisi economico-monetaria veneziana di metà Quattrocento nel contesto generale,” in Aspetti della vita economica medievale. Atti del Convegno di Studi nel X anniversario della morte di Federigo Melis (Florence: Università degli Studi di Firenze, Istituto di Storia Economica, 1985), 541–56 Google Scholar.

51. See Scialoja, Antonio , “Un precedente medioevale dei ‘pools’ marittimi,” in Studii in memoria di Bernardino Scorza, ed. Andrioli, Virgilio et al. (Rome: Soc. editrice del “Foro italiano,” 1940), 751–96 Google Scholar; Frederic C. Lane, Venice and History: The Collected Papers of Frederic C. Lane (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966), 221-23 and 249-50; Frederic C. Lane and Reinhold C. Mueller, Money and Banking in Medieval and Renaissance Venice (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), 193.

52. Senato, Misti, r. 49, f. 181 (May 18, 1413), ASV, Venice.

53. Mueller, “La crisi,” 555.

54. Consiglio di Deici, Misti, r. 15, c. 114v (December 22, 1456), ASV, Venice.

55. For an example, see Mueller, Reinhold C. , The Venetian Money Market: Banks, Panics, and the Public Debt, 1200-1500 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997 Google Scholar),

56. Jean-Claude Hocquet, “Le sel et la fortune de Venise” (PhD diss., Université de Lille III, 1978-79). Ironically, the Provveditori themselves would soon fuel speculation, when private people began offsetting their own debts with certificates of credits issued to the Sal.

57. Mueller, “La crisi.”

58. Quoted in Alberto Tenenti, “Il senso dello Stato,” in Tenenti and Tucci eds., Il Rinascimento, 325.

59. Romano, The Likeness of Venice, 265-77.

60. Hale, John R. and Mallett, Michael E. , The Military Organization of a Renaissance State: Venice c. 1400 to 1617 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 108 Google Scholar.

61. Quoted in Macchi, Mauro , Storia del Consiglio dei Dieci (Milan: G. Daelli, 1864), 3: 53.Google Scholar

62. “Sicut omnibus notum est, iamdiu per Cancellarium et notarios Cancellarie nostre, in qua dici potest locatum esse cor status nostri, data est noticia nostro dominio et capitibus huius consilii qui fuerunt per tempora de maximis eorum necessitatibus, qui hoc iddem quotidie repplicare non cessant, devotissime supplicantes ut providere dignemur, nam eorum salaria habere non possunt ... et per consequens vivere non possunt nec servire nostro dominio sicut tenentur. Et si volunt recipere eorum salaria, vel partem eorum, opportet quod vendant ea cum danno et interesse xxx et xl pro cento, aut vadant per Rivoaltum, ubi quasi semper reperitur maior numerus notariorum quam in cancellaria, euntes quodammodo elimosinando, et petendo servicia, non solum a civibus nostris, sed etiam a mercatoribus forensibus, qui habent soluere duo et tria pro cento obligando se eis, quod non est benefactum, nec cum honore nostri dominii, quod dicti notarii per quorum manus transeunt omnia facta nostra ad statum nostrum plurimum importantia, se faciant propter talia servitia quodammodo servos aliorum, et presertim forinsecorum.” Consiglio di Dieci, Misti, r. 15, c. 114v (December 22, 1456), ASV, Venice.

63. Andrea Da Mosto, Archivi dell’amministrazione centrale della Repubblica Veneta e archivi notarili, vol. 1 of L’Archivio di Stato di Venezia. Indice generale storico descrittivo e analitico (Rome: Biblioteca d’arte editrice, 1937), 149; Carucci et al., Guida, 4: 895, 899, 931, 948 and 949.

64. De Vivo, Information and Communication, 32-40.

65. De Vivo, “Ordering the Archive,” 236.

66. Consiglio di Dieci, Comuni, f. 351, cc. nn. (May 30, 1624), ASV, Venice.

67. Maranini, Giuseppe , La costituzione di Venezia dopo la serrata del Maggior Consiglio (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1974), 273–96 Google Scholar; Lazzarini, , Scritti di paleografìa e diplomatica, 190 Google Scholar; Carucci, et al., Guida, 4: 906 Google Scholar; Pedani Fabris, “Veneta auctoritate notarius,” 21-28.

68. Trebbi, , “La cancelleria,” 79–81.Google Scholar

69. Compilazione delle leggi, b. 107, c. 191 (July 8, 1444), c. 205 (February 13, 1451) and c. 517 (October 6, 1573), ASV, Venice; G. Lorenzi, Monumenti, 140 (July 20, 1507).

70. De Vivo, “Ordering the Archive,” 247; See also Vianello, Amelia , Gli archivi del Consiglio dei Dieci. Memoria e istanze di riforma nel secondo Settecento veneziano (Padua: Il Poligrafo, 2009 Google Scholar).

71. Cecchetti, Gli archivi, 11-13; Baschet, Les archives, 156.

72. Compilazione delle leggi, b. 107, c. 143 (April 23, 1402), ASV, Venice; the document is partially published in Angiolini and Pavone, “Gli archivi,” 1659.

73. Lorenzi, Monumenti, 59 (March 26, 1423).

74. Ibid., 72 (September 1, 1445).

75. Consiglio di Dieci, Misti, r. 15, c. 191r (October 31, 1459), ASV, Venice.

76. Compilazione delle leggi, b. 107, c. 143 (April 23, 1402), ASV, Venice.

77. Carucci et al., Guida, 4: 894-95.

78. Collegio, Cerimoniali, r. 2, c. 1 (February 12, 1594), ASV, Venice. The series had reached six volumes by 1797: see Carucci et al., Guida, 4: 890.

79. Inventory by Antonio de Negri in Secreta, Indici, b. 6, ASV, Venice.

80. Lorenzi, Monumenti, 77 (May 28, 1451).

81. For example, Compilazione delle leggi, b. 107, c. 245 (August 11, 1462), ASV, Venice.

82. Consiglio di Dieci, Misti, r. 15, c. 191 (October 31, 1459), ASV, Venice.

83. Compilazione delle leggi, b. 108, c. 14 (October 30, 1600), ASV, Venice.

84. Compilazione delle leggi, b. 22, c. 820 (January 30, 1611), and 162 (May 30, 1624), ASV, Venice. Inquisitori di stati, b. 924, c. nn., in the same repository contains a list of the senators who accessed the Secreta in the years 1698-99, specifying which manuscripts they had consulted.

85. Compilazione delle leggi, b. 108, c. 6-9 (April 21, 1600), ASV, Venice.

86. See for example Compilazione delle leggi, b. 107, c. 360 (May 5, 1522), b. 187, c. 636 (September 24, 1587); Senato Terra, r. 81, c. 130v (October 14, 1611), ASV, Venice.

87. See Vivo, de , Information and Communication, 46–57 Google Scholar.

88. Lazzarini, Scritti di paleografìa e diplomatica, 168-69. The notarii presbyteri continued to register private deeds in Venice until the early sixteenth century, even though pope Eugene IV prohibited this practice in 1433. See Giorgio Cracco, “Relinquere laicis quae laicorum sunt. Un intervento di papa Eugenio IV contro i preti-notai di Venezia,” Bollettino dell’Istituto di storia della società e dello stato veneziano 3 (1961): 179-89. For comparisons, see Bartoli Langeli, Notai, 59-86, and Frances Andrews, “Living like the Laity? The Negotiation of Religious Status in the Cities of Late Medieval Italy,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 20 (2010): 27-55.

89. Segarizzi, Arnaldo , “Cenni sulle scuole pubbliche a Venezia nel secolo XV e sul primo maestro d’esse,” Atti dell’Istituto Veneto di Scienze Lettere ed Arti 75 (1915-16): 637–65 Google Scholar; Nardi, Bruno , Saggi sulla cultura veneta del Quattro e Cinquecento (Padua: Antenore, 1971), 30–44 Google Scholar; and Ross, James B. , “Venetian Schools and Teachers, Fourteenth to Early Sixteenth Century: A Survey and a Study of Giovanni Battista Egnazio,” Renaissance Quarterly 29, no. 4 (1976): 521–66 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

90. Trebbi, “La cancelleria,” 87, and “Il segretario,” 44. Candidates’ translating skills are mentioned in Compilazione delle leggi, b. 107, c. 503 (September 27, 1570), ASV, Venice.

91. The only exception was promotion to grand chancellor, who was chosen by the Great Council on the Ten’s recommendation.

92. Bellavitis, Identité, mariage, mobilité sociale, 69-70 and 324-25.

93. Trebbi, “La cancelleria,” 89-97; Zannini, Burocrazia e burocrati, 23-60.

94. Bellavitis, , Identité, mariage, mobilité sociale, 72–73 Google Scholar.

95. On the idea of a citizen “serrata,” see Cozzi, “Politica, società, istituzioni,” 144, and Grubb, “Elite Citizens.”

96. Trebbi, “La cancelleria,” 76-77.

97. Trebbi, “Il segretario,” 42.

98. Compilazione delle leggi, b. 107, c. 143 (April 23, 1402), ASV, Venice.

99. Lazzarini, Scritti di paleografìa e diplomatica, 190 (on 1311), and Lorenzi, Monumenti, 77 (May 28, 1451). In the sixteenth century a Venetian ambassador recommended the same measure to colleagues for the custodians of their own archives. Cavalli, Marino , Informatione dell’offitio dell’Ambasciatore di Marin Cavalli il Vecchio, ed. Bertelé, Tommaso (Florence: Olschki, 1935), 80 Google Scholar.

100. Baschet, Les archives, 175-76.

101. Consiglio di Dieci, Comuni, r. 64, c. 151v (December 18, 1614), ASV, Venice.

102. Compilazione delle leggi, b. 107, c. 207 (January 19, 1452), ASV, Venice.

103. Consiglio di Dieci, Misti, r. 15, c. 167v (January 24, 1459), ASV, Venice.

104. See for example, Consiglio di Dieci, Comuni, f. 257, c. nn. (September 25, 1606), ASV, Venice.

105. As early as 1283, doge Giovanni Dandolo’s compilation of laws included a special twelve-leaf section in the Liber Officiorum devoted to regulations concerning public notaries. This clearly distinguished between notarii curie and other notarii. See Cessi, Deliberazioni, 2: 225-28.

106. Ibid., 2: 226.

107. Contarini, Gasparo, De Magistratibus &Repvblica venetorvm Libri quinque (Paris: Ex Officina Michaeli Vascosani, 1543), 110 Google Scholar.

108. Neff, “A Citizen in the Service.”

109. Pizzati, Anna, “Gerardo, Giacomo,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1961)Google Scholar, s.v.

110. Compilazione delle leggi, b. 107, c. 193 (June 18, 1449), ASV, Venice; the law had to be repeated in 1499, ibid., c. 317.

111. Compilazione delle leggi, b. 107, c. 629 (March 17, 1598), ASV, Venice. See also b. 108, c. 315 (May 22, 1640).

112. Alvise Cherini or Querini, who had also recited the funeral oration for the great chancellor Francesco Girardo the previous year. See de Vivo, Information and Communication, 210.

113. Fabris, Pedani, “Veneta auctoritate notarius,” 155 Google Scholar.

114. Scarabello, Gianni, “Dolce, Agostino,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1991)Google Scholar, s.v.

115. Fletcher, Jennifer, “Marcantonio Michiel: His Friends and Collection,” Burlington Magazine 123, no. 941 (1981): 459–60 Google Scholar.

116. Fabris, Pedani, “Veneta auctoritate notarius,” 159 Google Scholar.

117. Neff, “A Citizen in the Service,” 48.

118. V. Riccardo Predelli and Pietro Bosmin, eds., I libri commemoriali della Republica di Venezia. Regesti (Venice: Deputazione Veneta di Storia Patria, 1876-1914), 5: vii-viii.

119. There are, for example, doodles on the end pages of registers 23 (Regina) and 24 (Stella) in Maggior Consiglio, Deliberazioni, ASV, Venice.

120. Dean, Carolyn, “Beyond Prescription: Notarial Doodles and Other Marks,” Word &Image 25, no. 3 (2009): 293–316 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

121. Maggior Consiglio, Deliberazioni, r. 23, c. 8 (September 21, 1455), ASV, Venice.

122. See above, note 40.

123. Pullan, Brian, “Service to the Venetian State: Aspects of Myth and Reality in the Early Seventeenth Century,” Studi secenteschi 5 (1964): 96–147 Google Scholar; Gilmore, Myron, “Myth and Reality in Venetian Political Theory,” in Renaissance Venice, ed. John R. Hale (London: Faber and Faber, 1973), 431–44 Google Scholar; Queller, Donald E., The Venetian Patriciate: Reality versus Myth (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986)Google Scholar. For wider historiographical reflections on this theme, see Grubb, , “When Myths Lose Power,” and Martin, John and Romano, Dennis, “Reconsidering Venice,” in Martin and Romano, Venice Reconsidered, 1–35 Google Scholar.

124. The comparative history of archives in late medieval and early modern Italy is the subject of a four-year team project which I am currently leading at Birkbeck, University of London, funded by the European Research Council. See http://www.bbk.ac.uk/history/archives/ .

125. Klein, “Costruzione dello stato.”

126. “Raccomandomi alle Signorie vostre e di nuovo le riprego mi mandino da potere vivere ... io non posso vivere di promesse ... Arei possuto avere le spese e potre’le avere da la Corte; non le voglio e pel passato me ne sono valuto poco, parendomi onore di vostre Signorie e mio fare così. E andando io lemosinando qua 4 ducati e 3 ducati ... .” Niccolò Machiavelli, Legazioni. Commissarie. Scritti di governo, Edizione Nazionale delle opere, ed. Denis Fachard and Emanuele Cutinelli-Rèndina (Rome: Salerno editrice, 2004), 2: 507; See also Guidi, Andrea, Un segretario militante. Politica, diplomazia e armi nel cancelliere Machiavelli (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2009), 37–137 Google Scholar. I would like to thank Andrea Guidi for drawing my attention to this passage.

127. Zutshi, Patrick, “Innocent III and the Reform of the Papal Chancery,” in Innocenzo III. Urbs et Orbis, ed. Andrea Sommerlechner (Rome: Società Romana di Storia patria / Instituto per il Medio Evo, 2003), 1: 85–86 Google Scholar.

128. Del Re, Niccolò, La Curia romana. Lineamenti storico-giuridici. Quarta edizione aggiornata ed accresciuta (Vatican City: Libreria editrice vaticana, 1998), 440 Google Scholar and Frenz, Thomas, L’introduzione della scrittura umanistica nei documenti e negli atti della Curia pontificia del secolo XV (Vatican City: Scuola Vaticana di Paleografia, Diplomatica e Archivistica, 2005), 32 Google Scholar.

129. Sandri, Leopoldo, “Un prefetto dell’Archivio Vaticano. Michele Lonigo (1572-1639) e il suo processo,” in Studi in onore di Riccardo Filangieri (Naples: L’Arte tipografica, 1959), 2: 503–23 Google Scholar; and Filippini, Orietta, “‘Per la fuga non disinteressata di notizie’. Michele Lonigo dall’Archivio Vaticano alle prigioni di Castel Sant’Angelo (1617). I costi dell’informazione,” in Offices, écrit et papauté (XIIIe-XVIIe siècle), ed. Armand Jamme and Olivier Poncet (Rome: École française de Rome, 2009), 705–36 Google Scholar.

130. See Grangaud, Isabelle, ed., “Società post-coloniali. Ritorno alle fonti,” special issue, Quaderni storici 129 (2008)Google Scholar, and Burns, Kathryn, Into the Archive: Writing and Power in Colonial Peru (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

131. Chittolini, Giorgio, Molho, Anthony, and Schiera, Pierangelo, eds., Origini dello Stato. Processi di formazione statale in Italia fra medioevo ed età moderna (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1994)Google Scholar. For a discussion of the recent historiography of the state in Italy, see also Blanco, Luigi, “Fra storia e storiografia. A trent’anni da ‘Lo Stato moderno’”, Storia amministrazione costituzione 16 (2008): 185–206 Google Scholar. For the most recent and broadest attempt to reconsider the question of the Renaissance state, see Gamberini and Lazzarini, The Italian Renaissance State.