82 alfredo viggiano
position to unravel the question of Venetian backwardness or, rather, the
trends of “modernization” in the Republic’s constitutional apparatus in a
comparative perspective with other contemporary states.
There was now an irreparable fracture between the mythic represen-
tations, encomiastic and celebratory literature, and use of the historical
memory of the Venetian past, on the one hand, and the daily life, prac-
tices and culture of the institutions on the other—between the “culture of
power and power of culture.” In 1752, Marco Foscarini, savio del consiglio
and future doge, published Della Letterature veneziana. Foscarini was
familiar with some of the fundamental texts of the European Enlighten-
ment and had read Montaigne, Locke, Pufendorf, Giannone, and Bayle,
yet he maintained he had nothing to learn from the greatest authors of
the republican commonwealth. In Foscarini’s eyes, it was through the
study of one’s national history that one might contribute to the conser-
vation of time-honored institutions.84 Thus, it was necessary to revive
local glories, particularly by rereading the wisdom of Paolo Sarpi, who
now seemed little more than a monument. From this point of departure,
Foscarini articulated the plan for a “purged (cleansed) civil history”—and
“that is, that part of history that studies the laws and tries to understand
the internal constitution of principalities.”85 It was an idea that Vettor
Sandi would later revive in his nine-volume I Principi di storia civile della
Repubblica di Venezia [The Principles of the Civil History of the Republic
of Venice], dedicated to reconstructing the legislation and history of the
Venetian magistracies from their origins, published in Venice between 1755
and 1772. Sandi’s is an immobile history, devoid of conflicts; it describes
a harmonious development of the powers that guaranteed the Republic’s
independence. Detailed archival research and the internal history of the
single institutions easily elided with the venerable formulas of political
discourse.86
The grand tradition of 18th-century “antiquarian” history and philologi-
cal erudition would also contribute during the 1750s and 1760s to rewrit-
ing the “great code” of republican political discourse. Flaminio Correr,
like Sandi a member of a middling noble house, published in 1749 his
84 Piero Del Negro, “Foscarini, Marco,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. 49
(Rome, 1997), pp. 390–95.
85 Marco Foscarini, Della letteratura veneziana (Padua, 1752), pp. 324–25.
86 On Sandi and his works, see F. Dalla Colletta, I Principi di storia civile di Vettor Sandi.
Diritto, istituzioni e storia nella Venezia di metà Settecento (Venice, 1995). Also important
are the pages of Venturi, La Repubblica di Venezia, pp. 3–14, 164–71.