introduction 21
and order not because it was a tightly defined, hierarchical society, as the
hoary myth suggests, but, rather, because of the malleability and adapt-
ability of its social boundaries.
The most compelling recent history of venice is the eminent french
cultural and environmental historian elisabeth Crouzet-Pavan’s Venise
triomphante: les horizons d’un mythe, published in france in 1997 and in
a wonderful english translation in 2002. Crouzet-Pavan approaches vene-
tian history with great insight and innovation through an examination of
the determining influence of venice’s physical setting on its history. She
describes the way the land was drained, the water tamed, and the physi-
cal setting manipulated and transformed; and she argues that the unique
challenge of building a city on water produced early on a need for collec-
tive effort, which ultimately gave rise to the highly centralized, unusually
stable structures of the venetian state. Unfortunately the narrative peters
out in the first decades of the 16th century, thus neglecting venice’s adap-
tation to the changing early modern world and the eventual end of the
Republic. More comprehensive is Joanne ferraro’s recent Venice: History
of the Floating City, which surveys venice from its founding to the present
with strong attention to society, environment, gender, and religion. The
book also excels at placing the city within a broad web of connections
stretching to europe, the Mediterranean and beyond.
ConclusionAs this rapid overview has shown, there is a long, rich, and variegated
tradition of histories of venice. One could reasonably ask whether there
is a need, indeed if there is even room on the shelf, for another such his-
tory. It has been suggested that every generation feels the need to grapple
with and rewrite the lagoon’s history, which may well be true. However,
what the contributors to the present volume hope to do is not so much
rewrite venice’s history for a new generation as provide an accessible,
single-volume survey of venetian history from 1400 to the fall of the
Republic that is informed by the most current scholarship. The intent is
to provide a snapshot that will serve as a scholarly point-of-entry into the
present state of venetian studies for students, non-venetianist scholars,
non-specialists, and others. This may serve research and teaching pur-
poses or may simply satisfy historical curiosity. To this end, each chapter
provides a historical overview of its topic, a sense of the current historio-