politics and constitution 75
followed by Roman threats and obligatory Venetian resistance gave way
to a conflict that would be monitored with apprehension in all European
capitals on the eve of the Thirty Years’ War.62
The spread of writings, pamphlets, and anti-Roman satire invaded the
capital. But they were not limited to Venice: the cities and countryside of
the terraferma were also called on to participate personally in the “written
war” with Rome. Loyalty to the Republic versus the bond with Rome: to
the themes of fiscal repartition and the administration of justice that had
marked the difficult constitutional dialogue between the capital and sub-
ject provinces—between respect for and claims of autonomy, and forms
of integration and participation—there was now added, and urgently,
the great question of “ecclesiastical matters” (res ecclesiae).63 During the
16th century, the greatest point of friction was represented by those mem-
bers of the nobility who had shown sympathy for or adhered to the “sect
of the Lutherans.” Throughout that century, indeed, the papacy had con-
tinued to accuse the Venetian political class of being infested with heresy,
of being observant Catholics only on the surface. A latent tension, until
the outbreak of the Interdict crisis, would be ever-present in relations
between the Republic and the papacy. Faced with the will of the Holy
Office of the Inquisition to prosecute Venetian nobles, the city of St Mark
responded by instituting the magistracy of the Savi all’Eresia to guarantee
and protect to some extent the members of that privileged class.64
Beginning in the 17th century—and this is a structural date—the ques-
tion became even more complex due to the increasing numbers of Vene-
tian nobles who attempted to obtain regular and secular ecclesiastical
benefices within the territories of the Serenissima, with the risk of creating
privileged territorial enclaves, veritable states within the state.65 Republi-
can patriotism was thus, in many cases, subordinated to loyalty to Rome.
Families like the Correr and the Grimani gravitated around the papal
62 The episodes are recounted in an “instant book” by Paolo Sarpi, Paolo Sarpi, Istoria
dell’Interdetto, ed. C. Pin (Padua-Conselve, 2006).
63 On the origins of the question, see Giuseppe Del Torre, Patrizi e cardinali. Venezia e
le istituzioni ecclesiatiche nella prima età moderna (Milan, 2010); for the 18th-century legis-
lation, see particularly F. Agostini, Istituzioni ecclesiastiche e potere politico in area veneta
(1754–1866) (Venice, 2002).
64 Federica Ambrosini, Storie di patrizi e di eresia nella Venezia del Cinquecento (Milan,
1999).
65 Antonio Mennito Ippolito, Politica e carriere ecclesiastiche nel secolo XVII. I vescovi
veneti fra Roma e Venezia (Bologna, 1993); Anna Pizzati, Commende e politica ecclesiastica
nella Repubblica di Venezia fra ’500 e ’600 (Venice, 1997).