the venetian intellectual world 585
with no attempt—blessedly, for the historian—to revise the whole in a
polished narrative.
Morosini’s chronicle prefigures the diaristic literature that appeared
from about 1500, most famously the diaries of Marin Sanudo (Marino
Sanuto) and Girolamo Priuli.40 Both were patrician writers, like Morosini;
Sanudo, however, whose diary would fill 58 printed volumes with fresh
and critical observations of daily events, derived from a family of lesser
lineage and political rank. energized by the crisis of the italian wars, both
men brought a sharp eye to the contemporary scene and did not hesitate
to probe inconsistencies and platitudes. in these works and others of the
genre we have news of floods, fires, and famines, births and deaths, the
departures of ships and arrivals of foreigners, the scams of charlatans and
counterfeiters, love affairs and courtesans. also providing lively commen-
tary on events in Venice and elsewhere were the letters of merchants,
written without pretense of learning.41
From the same era date complete series of relazioni by ambassadors
and rectors of Venetian subject cities, which constitute in themselves a
historiographical genre: an “original and inimitable creation of Venetian
culture.”42 in the 17th century, a new trend was signaled by the work of
two historians, neither of them a member of the Venetian patriciate: the
Servite friar Paolo Sarpi, of whom more below, and the cypriot mercenary
enrico camerino davila, who wrote a vivid account of the French reli-
gious wars.43 Their works, as well, were descended from humanist models
but were executed with a verve and ferocity not found in the texts com-
missioned by public decree.
40 Girolamo Priuli, I Diarii (1494–1512), ed. arturo Segre (1 [1912]) and roberto cessi
(2–4 [1938]), 4 vols (città di castello, 1912, 1938); Marin Sanudo, I diarii di Marino Sanuto,
ed. rinaldo Fulin, et al., 58 vols (Venice, 1879–1903; repr. Bologna, 1969); an anthology of
excerpts from the latter: Marino Sanudo, Venice, Cità Excelentissima: Selections from the
Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo, ed. Patricia h. labalme and laura Sanguineti White;
trans. linda l. carroll (Baltimore, 2008). The genre of “diary as chronicle” thoroughly
examined by neerfeld, Historia per forma di diaria. Sanudo also wrote other historical
works of a non-official variety; see especially Le Vite Dei Dogi, ed. angela caracciolo aricò,
2 vols (Padua, 1989, 2001).
41 For examples from the 14th and 16th centuries respectively, see John e. dotson,
Merchant Culture in Fourteenth Century Venice: The Zibaldone Da Canal (Binghamton, n.Y.,
1994); and ugo Tucci, ed., Lettres d’un marchand vénitien Andrea Berengo (1553–1556) (Paris,
1957).
42 Ventura, “Scrittori politici,” p. 553. For the relazioni, see also donald e. Queller,
“The development of ambassadorial relazioni,” in John r. hale, ed., Renaissance Venice
(london, 1973), pp. 174–96.
43 Benzoni, “la cultura: contenuti e forme,” p. 561.