Venetian History

Visualising Communities. Possibilities of Network Analysis and Relational Sociology for the Survey and Analysis of Medieval Communities (in German)

by Johannes Preiser-Kapeller

Working Paper for a presentation for the SGB "Visions of Community" (http://www.univie.ac.at/viscom/index_viscom.php?seite=events) and the FSP "Gemeinschaftskonzepte, Identitäten und politische Integration", University of Vienna; slides online: http://oeaw.academia.edu/JohannesPreiserKapeller/Talks

Der Begriff des Netzwerkes erlebt spätestens seit der rasanten Verbreitung von „social
networks“ wie Facebook... more Der Begriff des Netzwerkes erlebt spätestens seit der rasanten Verbreitung von „social
networks“ wie Facebook einen fast inflationären Gebrauch in der öffentlichen Diskussion,
aber auch in verschiedenen Wissenschaftsdisziplinen, darunter der Geschichtsforschung.
Dabei ist es oft schwer zu entscheiden, wo dem Netzwerk-Begriff auch eine analytische
Aussagekraft zugrunde liegt und wo es sich nur um eine „Metapher“ oder ein „Schlagwort“
handelt, das Vergleichbarkeit mit Phänomenen der Gegenwart suggeriert, ohne
Wesentliches für den historischen Erkenntnisgewinn zu leisten.
Ein Ziel der sozialen Netzwerkanalyse ist es, Geflechte von Akteuren und Beziehungen in
strukturell und quantitativ fassbarer Form darzustellen. Darüber hinaus betrachtet aber die
„relationale Soziologie“ Akteure nicht nur als in soziale Netzwerke eingebettet; vielmehr
werden ihre Verhaltensweisen und Identitäten durch Interaktionen und Kommunikationsakte
im Netzwerk geprägt, ja überhaupt definiert. Die strukturell-quantitative Perspektive wird
damit wesentlich um qualitative Aspekte ergänzt; sowohl die Verknüpfungen zwischen
Akteuren als auch deren Rollen und Identitäten werden als Ergebnisse dynamischer
Prozesse verstanden.
In den letzten Jahren wurden diese Ansätze auch mit Konzepten der Systemtheorie (Niklas
Luhmann) und der Komplexitätsforschung verknüpft, um die Emergenz und Dynamik von
Gemeinschafts- und Identitätsbildungen von der individuellen Ebene über Gruppen bis hin zu
großen sozialen Formationen besser erfassen zu können. Diese Konzepte werden im
Vortrag präsentiert, diskutiert und durch auf der Grundlage mittelalterlicher Quellen erstellte
Fallbeispiele illustriert. Einige Ansätze und Beispiele wurden bereits in diversen Beiträgen
und Working Papers näher ausgeführt, die unter
http://oeaw.academia.edu/JohannesPreiserKapeller auch im Internet frei zugänglich sind.

Review of: Maria Pia Pedani, Venezia porta d'Oriente

by Marco Giani

Review of: Maria Pia Pedani, Venezia porta d'Oriente (2010). Published in: Laboratoire Italien, XI (2011), pp. 348-350.

Review in Italian. Review in Italian.

Review of: Vera Costantini, Il sultano e l'isola contesa

by Marco Giani

Review of: Vera Costantini, Il sultano e l'isola contesa (2009). Published in: Laboratoire Italien, XI (2011), pp. 351-352.

Review in Italian. Review in Italian.

The hard defence of a shameful peace

by Marco Giani

Presented at «The Price of Peace» conference (organized by Cultures of War and Conflict Resolution Network with Northern Renaissance Seminar). Lancaster (UK), June 10th 2011.

On 7 March 1573, after only three years, the Holy League (mainly Spain, Papacy and Venice) split up. The Most Serene... more On 7 March 1573, after only three years, the Holy League (mainly Spain, Papacy and Venice) split up. The Most Serene Republic came to an agreement with the Ottoman Empire it had defeated just two years before in the glorious Battle of Lepanto (1571). There was a general outcry from all Europe: Venice, the merchant Republic, sold out its dominion (Cyprus) and its dignity to the enemy. Was it the truth? Why Venetians would have act like that, if they were the driving force of the Holy League (formed after Ottoman attack against Venetian Cyprus, 1570)? Paolo Paruta, a young writer, wrote a Discorso in order to justify this decision: a linguistic and rhetorical analysis of this work is going to help us to understand Venice’s reasons. Paruta, an honest spokesman of his city’s mentality in early 1570s, can introduce us to each matter (pro pace or pro bello) of this hard contention the Lion Republic had to face in this turning point of its history.

Venetian warfare in the age of Palmanova: Paolo Paruta’s Discorsi Politici (1599)

by Marco Giani

Presented at «New Research in Military History» conference (organized by the British Commission for Military History). London, 18th November 2011.

In his Discorsi Politici (1599) the Venetian Ambassador Paolo Paruta (1540-1598) analyzes several topics from ancient... more In his Discorsi Politici (1599) the Venetian Ambassador Paolo Paruta (1540-1598) analyzes several topics from ancient and modern History. Writing during the passage from Late Renaissance to the Age of Raison d’État, Paruta has the opportunity to face the new Renaissance warfare: mercenary troops, modern State armies, gunpowder and fortifications. As Ambassador of the Most Serene Republic in Rome, he announced to Pope Clement VIII the building of Palmanova fortress (1593); as political writer, he shows a deep aware of this historical turning point for Venice. The Lion Republic, harshly defeated in the Battle of Agnadello (1509), can aim no more for an offensive war, it has just to try to defend its territory from the Hapsburg and the Turks. So politics and military tactics match together: as mouthpiece of the Venetian neutrality, he opts for defensive tactics. This basic choice works as historiographical criteria, too: Charles V was right in not attacking Suleiman the Magnificent during the two Sieges of Vienna (1529, 1532); the Venetian Republic was betrayed during the Italian Wars by its offensive commanders, such as Bartolomeo d’Alviano. The last sentence of Paruta’s book («[W]here the business is doubtful and difficult, we must rather adhere to that which holds us from doing any thing, then to what eggs us on») is very far from the final, offensive exhortation of Machiavelli’s Principe: Venice and Florence have different points of view not only in the Parliament, but in the battlefield too. Yet the whole Italian Renaissance is on its last legs, under the Spanish dominion of the Peninsula. No more place for Scipio Africanus: the wise Parutian politician should follow the example of Fabius Maximus in his struggle to save the borders of the State.

Women under Venetian Colonial Rule in the Early Renaissance

by Sally McKee

Greek women in Latin households of fourteenth-century Venetian Crete

by Sally McKee

Households in Fourteenth-Century Venetian Crete

by Sally McKee

Cristian Luca, Il patrizio veneto Polo Minio, viaggiatore in Moldavia nei primi decenni del Seicento, in Gaetano Platania (ed.), Da Est ad Ovest, da Ovest ad Est. Viaggiatori per le strade del mondo, Sette Città, Viterbo, 2006, p. 81–96

by Cristian Luca

Does the Priest Have to Be There? Contested Marriages Before Roman Tribunals. Italy, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries. In: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften, 3, 2009, 10-30.

by Cecilia Cristellon

The Council of Trent established the requirements that a marriage be celebrated by the parish priest and two or more... more The Council of Trent established the requirements that a marriage be celebrated by the parish priest and two or more witnesses be present at the marriage (1563), but neglected to specify who the parish priest was. The decrees provoked confusion among both laymen and churchmen. Traces thereof can be found in the hitherto essentially unexplored documentation of The Congregation of the Council. This institution was founded in 1564 specifically to resolve the questions that arose all over the catholic world by the application of the decrees promulgated at Trent. The related records are held in the Vatican Secret Archive. Through an examination of this documentation, complemented by files of the Holy Office the author analyzes how the new rules were understood, experienced, used, circumvented, and manipulated both by laymen and churchmen in order to end an unwanted marriage, to facilitate a union that was socially transgressive, opposed by family, or even heterodox, and to respond to pastoral concerns.

El matrimonio antes del Concilio de Trento en la República de Venecia, in: I. Arellano, J. M. Usunaríz (ed.), El matrimonio en Europa y en el mundo hispánico: siglos XVI y XVII, Madrid: Visor Libros, 2005, 187-195.

by Cecilia Cristellon

La sposa in convento (Padova e Venezia 1455-1458), in: S. Seidel Menchi, D. Quaglioni (ed.), Matrimoni in dubbio. Unioni controverse e nozze clandestine in Italia dal XIV al XVIII secolo, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2001, 123-148.

by Cecilia Cristellon

Ursina Basso contro Alvise Soncin: il "consilium" respinto di Bartolomeo Cipolla e gli atti del processo (Padova e Venezia 1461-1462), in: S. Seidel Menchi, D. Quaglioni (ed.), Matrimoni in dubbio. Unioni controverse e nozze clandestine in Italia dal XIV al XVIII secolo, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2001, 279-303.

by Cecilia Cristellon

L'ufficio del giudice: mediazione, inquisizione, confessione nei processi matrimoniali veneziani, 1420-1532. In: Rivista Storica Italiana, 3, 2003, 851-898.

by Cecilia Cristellon

"Io voleva tuor quello che mio padre me daria". Autorità parentale e scelte matrimoniali dei figli: Venezia XV e XVI secolo, in: D. Lombardi, I. Fazio (ed.), Generazioni: legami di parentela tra passato e presente, Roma: Viella, 2006, 205-221.

by Cecilia Cristellon

I processi matrimoniali veneziani. In: Tribunali del matrimonio (secoli XV-XVIII), Hg. Seidel Menchi, S., Quaglioni, D. (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2006), 101-122.

by Cecilia Cristellon

Ritratto di una cortigiana del Cinquecento: Caterina de Medici da Verona e le sue vicende (1518-1582). In: Ritratti. La dimensione individuale nella storia (secc. XV- XIX), Hg. Seidel Menchi, S., Pierce, R. (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2008), 147-176.

by Cecilia Cristellon

Words or Gestures? Marriage Rituals in Renaissance Italy: Continuity and Change, 1400-1600, in: Regional Variations in Matrimonial Law and Custom in Europe, 1150- 1600, Ed. Korpiola, M. (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 275-287.

by Cecilia Cristellon

Co-authored with Silvana Seidel Menchi

Public Display of Affection: The Making of Marriage in the Venetian Courts before the Council of Trent (1420- 1545). In: The Erotic Cultures of Renaissance Italy, Hg. Matthews- Grieco, S. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), 173-197.

by Cecilia Cristellon

Marriage and Consent in Pretridentine Venice: Between Lay Conception and Ecclesiastical Conception, 1420-1545. In: The Sixteenth Century Journal, 39, 2008, 389-418.

by Cecilia Cristellon

The main sources of this article are 750 matrimonial trials discussed before the ecclesiastical court in Venice... more The main sources of this article are 750 matrimonial trials discussed before the ecclesiastical court in Venice (1420-1545). This article analyzes the differing conceptions of marriage held by the laity and by the ecclesiastical hierarchy as these ideas were expressed in a dialectical relationship in court. Central to this analysis is the concept of consent, since consent, with widely differing interpretations, formed the foundation and the essence of both canonical and lay customary marriage. In the pre-Tridentine ecclesiastical court, custom played a leading role in deciding matters related to the marriage bond. These sources allow access to aspects of marriage that are usually not recorded and make it possible to reevaluate social phenomena which have been defined from a post-Tridentine perspective as transgressive. Practices such as bigamy, concubinage, and stuprum appear not as deviant, but as part of socially accepted marital behavior that is much broader and more heterogeneous than historians have appreciated.