Describing the City, Describing the State

Sandra Toffolo, PhD (2013, European University Institute, Florence), is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of St Andrews. Her research focuses on Venice and the Venetian mainland state in the Renaissance.

“Sandra Toffolo’s work has undoubtedly identified a perspective that, until now, has been neglected by historiography. […] Toffolo’s attempt to bring together the two souls of the Venetian State – sea and mainland – is also admirable. It is something that scholars have only recently started to explore. […] Sandra Toffolo’s book succeeds in opening a window on the potential for further inquiries into Renaissance geographical descriptions, on the one hand, and for a stronger inclusion of mainland voices, long underrated in the study of Venice” Daniele Dibello, Ghent University. In: Journal of Early Modern History, Vol. 25, Nos. 1–2 (March 2021).

• AcknowledgementsList of FiguresA Note on the BookIntroduction1 Geographical Descriptions, the Myth of Venice, and the Venetian Terraferma2 Placing Texts within Literary Contexts3 Constructing a Mainland State4 Outline of the Bookpart 1: Perceptions of Venice in Its Urban Setting1 Venice, Religious City1 God’s Role in the Foundation of Venice2 Divine Protection throughout History3 Connections to Saint Mark4 External Religious Structures5 The Piety of the Venetians2 Venice, Centre of Material Culture1 A City Situated ‘in the Stormy Fury of the Sea’2 Urban Structure3 Wealth4 Commerce5 Industry6 Art and Scholarship3 Venice, Seat of an Ideal Government1 The Development of a Political Narrative of Venice2 Elements of a Political Venice3 The Ideal of a Mixed Constitution4 The Concept of Liberty5 Politics and Morality4 Venice, Morally Exemplary City1 ‘It Presses Every Gathered Virtue to Its Bosom’2 A Moral Venice from Its Foundation3 Morality and Poetry part 2: Perceptions of Venice and the Terraferma as a State5 Venetian Views on Venice and the Terraferma as a State1 Justifications for Mainland Expansion2 The Conquest of Friuli3 Links between Venice and the Terraferma4 Political Affiliation as a Factor in the Depiction of Territories6 Viewing the Venetian Mainland State from the Mainland1 Two Poems Dedicated to Local Families2 Ubertino Posculo’s Oratio de laudibus Brixiae3 Michele Savonarola’s Praise of Padua4 Silvestro Lando’s Preface to the Statutes of Verona5 A Paduan Pilgrim on His Way to the Holy Land6 Four Poems by Bartolomeo Pagello7 Jacopo Sanguinacci’s Inchoronato regno sopra i regni8 Francesco Corna da Soncino’s Poem on Verona7 Foreign Views of the Venetian State1 ‘Hit Is also Vnder the Domynyon of the Venysyans’: Views of Formal Political Affiliation2 Political and Geographical Affiliation: the Case of Greece3 Conflicting Ideas on Venice and the Venetian State4 Interpreting Venice and Its Dominions in One Common FrameworkConclusion: Venice as City, Venice as StateBibliographyIndex