the venetian intellectual world 583
about 150 years after doge andrea dandolo took up the writing of the
chronicles Brevis and Extensa, the nobleman Bernardo Giustiniani, a great
statesman and humanist if not quite a doge, composed his De origine urbis
Venetiarum rebusque gestis a Venetis [History of the Origin of Venice and
the Deeds Accomplished by the Venetians, 1492], both a monumental his-
tory of the city and a magnificent work of propaganda.32 like the earlier
chroniclers and the humanists lauro Quirini and Paolo Morosini, Gius-
tiniani focused on the origin of Venice, a moment of foundation by the
free and untainted progenitors of the Venetian aristocracy in which the
city’s cosmic destiny was encompassed. as important was Giustiniani’s
De divi Marci Evangelistae vita, translatione et sepulturae loco [On the Life,
Translation, and Place of Burial of Saint Mark the Evangelist], a companion
work which focused on the second founding of Venice with its acquisition
of the relics of its patron saint.33
about the time of Giustiniani’s death—his history was published
posthumously—there was launched “by public decree” a series of official
histories of Venice.34 Several of the authors were patricians, in whom cul-
minated the tradition of historical writing about Venice by a member of
the highest stratum of the political class that had begun with doge andrea
dandolo. others were not, among them the first, who wrote seemingly
on speculation and was rewarded with a post later recognized as that of
“public historian” only after his manuscript had been approved for publica-
tion. Marc’antonio Sabellico’s Historiae rerum venetiarum [History of Ven-
ice], dedicated to the doge and Senate, was published in 1487.35 notably,
e politici, “introduzione,” pp. xiii–xcviii; Piero del negro, “Forme e istituzioni del discorso
politico veneziano,” in Storia della cultura veneta, vol. 4 (1984): Dalla Controriforma alla
fine della Repubblica. Il Seicento, part 2, pp. 407–36; and del negro, “Proposte illuminate
e conservazione nel dibattito sulla teoria e la prassi dello stato,” in Storia della cultura
veneta, vol. 5, part 2 (1986): Dalla Controriforma alla fine della Repubblica Il Settecento, pp.
123–45. Bouwsma’s Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty also discusses the ideal of
republican liberty in 16th-century Venetian thought.
32 Bernardo Giustiniani, De origine urbis venetiarum rebusque gestis a Venetis, in Joannes
Georgius Graevius, ed., Thesaurus antiquitatum et historiarum Italiae, vol. 5, part 1 (leiden,
1722), cols 1–171.
33 Bernardo Giustiniani, De divi Marci evangelistae vita, ejus translatione & sepulturae
loco, in Joannes Georgius Graevius, ed., Thesaurus antiquitatum et historiarum Italiae,
vol. 5, part 1 (leiden, 1722), cols 1–171.
34 Prior to Sabellico’s appointment, an attempt was made to secure the labor of Flavio
Biondo; see Gilbert, “Biondo, Sabellico.”
35 a collection of the sequence of six histories from the 15th to 17th centuries in apostolo
Zeno, ed., Degl’istorici delle cose veneziane, i quali hanno scritto per pubblico decreto, 10 vols
(Venice, 1718–22). The recent edition of Pietro Bembo’s History of Venice, ed. and trans.
robert W. ulery (cambridge, Mass., 2007) includes an english translation.