Publisher's Synopsis
For the first time in a generation, leading scholars of medieval and Renaissance Venice join forces to define the current state of the field. Forays into neglected aspects of Venetian studies reveal new insights into coinage and concubinage, the first Jewish ghetto and the Fourth Crusade, and other matters from dowry inflation to state spectacle to cheese. These essays are emblematic of the dynamism that has marked Venetian scholarship over the past half-century, reflecting a shift in the definition of 'history' and 'historiography' from states, military engagements, and economies to prostitutes, brawlers, peasants, and the poor. Contributors bring to this volume impressive experience and expertise in the use of archival material to explore a rich variety of subject matter, interpretations, and methodologies. They draw on both public and private sources - tourist guides, eyewitness reports, government edicts, police records, diary entries, and literary sources in dialect - to articulate a compelling narrative of cultural change in an age of social discipline.;Through topics such as "Venice's Hostage Crisis: Diplomatic Efforts to Secure Peace with Byzantium between 1171 and 1184", "The Abbot's Concubine", and "Curfew Time in the Ghetto of Venice", contributors explore diplomatic, economic, and architectural matters, as well as social and cultural trends. Many take interdisciplinary and intercultural approaches, employing innovative methodologies that take Venetian historiography in new directions. Marked by an interweaving of texts and contexts that represents a microcosm of the kind of discussion that continues to animate the discipline, "Medieval and Renaissance Venice" demonstrates the ways in which historiography continuously seeks to make the past vitally present.
