22 eric r. dursteler
graphical discourse surrounding it, as well as an indication of both the key
works in the field and potential future directions of research.
The contributors to this volume are among the most important schol-
ars working on venice today, and they embody the international scope
of scholarship on venice, as well as its ongoing richness and vibrancy. As
the breadth of chapters suggest, venetian studies today is a wide-ranging,
interdisciplinary field. While rooted in and respectful of the primarily
political foundations of the first generations of venetian historical schol-
arship of Daru, Romanin, Molmenti, and Cessi, scholars today have largely
moved beyond old questions regarding the myth or anti-myth of venice,
or the city’s rise and decline. Instead, they are asking a whole new series
of social, cultural, religious, political, and gender-related questions of a
greatly expanded body of sources. In addition, they have embraced a more
expansive vision of the city that situates it within ever-widening circles of
lagunar, Italian, maritime, european, and Mediterranean contacts.54 This
historiographical shift has in turn breathed new life into and attracted
many new students to researching venice, who see in it an ideal forum
for transcultural questions that push beyond traditional historical, histo-
riographical, and disciplinary boundaries. At this exciting juncture in the
centuries-long tradition of venetian scholarship, the time seems ripe for
a volume of this sort.
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cultura veneta, vol. 1 (1976): Dalle origini al Trecento, pp. xv–xvii.
Arnaldi, Girolamo, and Manlio Pastore Stocci, eds., Storia della cultura veneta, 6 vols
(vicenza, 1976–86).
Benzoni, Gino, “Dal rimpianto alla ricostruzione geografica,” in Gino Benzoni and Gaetano
Cozzi, eds., Venezia e l’Austria (venice, 1999).
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——, “Ranke’s favorite Source: The venetian Relazioni: Impressions with Allusions to
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54 Martin and Romano, “Introduction”; elizabeth Horodowich, “The New venice: His-
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