634 linda l. carroll
against this backdrop, Venice acted more assertively in several con-
flicts with the Church. Venetian publishers objected when rome decided
to remove permission for the printing of religious texts in Venice, which,
reformist works and university texts having already moved away from Ven-
ice, were among the few lucrative genres left to it. the republic assumed
control of censorship. the tension between the two states led to a rup-
ture formalized by rome with an interdict in 1605 and by Venice with
measures including the exclusion of Jesuits from its territory in 1606. the
theater ban was lifted the following year.23 Venice’s actions were justified
in a critique of the papacy articulated by Fra Paolo sarpi in his history of
the Council of trent, which characterized the papacy as self-serving and
detached from the genuine purpose of religion and care of the faithful.
too inflammatory to be published even in Venice, it was taken to eng-
land by sympathizers for publication there, where it became an important
text in the growth of free thinking and broader distribution of governing
power. Venice’s moment of assertiveness, however, ended without the
republic having regained real sovereign powers from the Church, such
as the naming of bishops or dominion of the adriatic, lost to the papacy
during the Cambrai wars. it was accompanied by a sharp drop in Venetian
commercial activities and followed by a series of military victories of the
papacy and spain that left Venice increasingly condemned to an isolation
unrelieved by its allies, even James i of england.
Literature, Melodrama, and Publishing
Venetian writing of the early 17th century was deeply affected by the
political situation, as has been shown by the scholarly studies that it
has only recently attracted. as verifiable fact and observation assumed
dominance in new learned forms developed by galileo and sarpi, and also
in the innovative form of the gazette, authors of literary and theatrical
texts turned increasingly to imagination and emotion in such genres as
the romance and melodrama. the first decades of the century saw only
a few translated romances published in Venice. gian Francesco biondi
reversed the trend, but from his new home in London, whence he sent his
work, inspired by the english romance, to Venice to be published.
23 gaetano Cozzi, Venezia barocca: conflitti di uomini e idee nella crisi del Seicento
veneziano (Venice, 1995), esp. pp. 265, 273–78; grendler, “roman,” pp. 54–57, 63–65;
Pesenti, “stampatori,” in SCV 4.1, pp. 104–15; Muir, Culture Wars, esp. p. 124.