politics and constitution 83
Ecclesiae Venetae [The Venetian Church], a genealogical history of all the
city’s churches: here, “love of country” was an exaltation of the “city of Our
Lady,” and the same was true for the cult of St Mark, relics, and accounts of
the myth of Venice’s foundation. At the request of this erudite scholar, the
doors of monastic and parochial archives were thrown open.87 It should
be emphasized, however, that this book so radically conservative, baroque,
and aligned with the Counter-Reformation ideologically was also the most
innovative methodologically: it included a critique of sources, analysis of
the cultural and sacral foundations of authority, the tension between the
language of religions and that of politics, and an iconological study of
miraculous images. It has been written that these works constituted the
expression “of a composite axis that was held together, though, by the
will to reaffirm Venetian identity as aristocratic perfection and to oppose
attempts to question the balance of power consecrated by history.”88
Even the principal monument of Venetian political and constitutional
history of the late 18th century would not escape that vague sense of
necrophilia that tinged the spirit of the time. In 1781, the Council of Ten
instructed Francesco Donà, the “state historian,” to compose an official
history of the Republic. The official commission affirmed that the author
was to work toward a “modern, political, economic and civil history,”
enriching it with “illustrations from ancient history” and
accompanying historical accounts with the documents that prove what
occurred, their causes and effects and the maxims of Our Predecessors
[taken] out of the obscurity that has enveloped them, and considering dif-
fering views of foreign writers while preserving the honor of our venerable
historical memory (memorie), from which both the living and posterity shall
gain useful and necessary teachings.89When he submitted his work in 1784, Donà underlined that “History” could
only be a history of the State, and in this alone could it be critiqued: “the
multiplicity and vastness and obscurity of the sources from which one
must draw the necessary documents to bring forth from contradictions
and doubts... the examples and true maxims of Our Fathers... modern
87 Gino Benzoni, “La cultura,” in Storia di Venezia, vol. 8, ed. Del Negro and Preto,
pp. 887–88.
88 Piero Del Negro, “Proposte illuminate e conservazione nel dibattito sulla teoria
e la prassi dello Stato,” in Storia della cultura veneta. Il Settecento, vol. 5 (1986), part 2,
pp. 122–43.
89 Amelia Vianello, Gli archivi del Consiglio dei dieci: memoria e istanze di riforma nel
secondo Settecento veneziano (Padua, 2009), p. 131.