628 linda l. carroll
The Middle Decades: Return to Traditional ValuesPost-war expressionism was concluding its course by the fifth and sixth
decades of the century, also the period in which civic and religious
authorities reasserted and increased their hegemony. Freedom of speech,
especially political criticism and the exploration of heterodox views, began
to be restricted by both the Venetian government and the Catholic Church,
a process that would continue in increments over the next decades.
While Venice’s former tolerance of reformist publications had served its
strategy of resistance to Charles V, his defeat of the Protestants at Muhl-
berg in 1547 and the deaths in the same year of Venice’s principal allies
Francis i and henry Viii left the republic unprotected. seeking an ally in
the Church, Venice created a new government commission to assist the
local inquisition. although it began to burn books almost immediately,
the Venetian inquisition did not at first take the further step of investi-
gating authors and publishers. as the Church developed indices of con-
demned books, the Venetian government commission monitored local
compliance with their implementation. by about 1570 severe state and
Church censorship had been imposed on heterodox materials in Venice.
gradually the number of condemned books increased, together with the
formalities involved in obtaining permission to publish; controls began
to be enforced by surprise visits to bookstores and presses and resulting
inquisition trials. this occurred against the backdrop of Venice’s increased
need for good relations with its main ally, the Church, in its war against
the Ottomans.12
during the transitional period comprising the middle decades of the
16th century, as the publication of even such important texts as Machia-
velli’s works and the Decameron was curtailed, translations from greek
and Latin and a variety of devotional works became popular. the most
favored entertainment genre, the novel, split into two threads, the seri-
ous treatise and the fable, though initial efforts at the more moral direc-
tion were met with resistance by a hedonistic culture. authors of tales,
fables, and chivalric novels, in contrast, achieved success by providing
entertainment at a remove from realism, their works based on fantastic
events occurring in an ancient, Carolingian, gothic, or Oriental setting
12 For material in this paragraph, see Paul F. grendler, “the roman inquisition and the
Venetian Press 1540–1605,” Journal of Modern History 47 (1975), 50–57; Pesenti, “stampatori,”
in SCV 4.1, pp. 101–02.