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Dating La Veniex[ia]na:
The Venetian Patriciate and the Mainland Nobility at
the End of the Wars of Cambrai,
with a Note on Titian
Linda
L. Carroll,
Newcomb College,
Tulane
University
One of a
number of controversial plays generated in Venice and its mainland territories
in the early sixteenth century, La Veniexiana provoked debate over even
its title. Discovered by Emilio Lovarini in a manuscript miscellany of the
Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana – It. IX. 288 [= 6072], the play was published by
him as La Venexiana in 1928 in the series “Nuova scelta di
curiosità letterarie inedite o rare” of the Commissione per i
testi di lingua (Bologna, Romagnoli Dall’Acqua), and subsequently in
several popular editions. A new transcription was produced by Giorgio Padoan,
assisted in reading the severely-faded manuscript by a Wood’s lamp. Padoan
discerned, for the title, ‘La Veniex’ followed by a
superscript ‘na’, which he reconstructed as La Veniexiana[1].
The feminine singular of the title has often been interpreted as ‘the Venetian
woman’. However, a new English translation (The Venetian Comedy)
privileges the classical custom of reference to the noun com(m)edia,
preferable also because the play features two women and is intensely involved
with its Venetian setting[2].
Less easily
settled are the intertwined debates over the date, authorship, and
interpretation of the play, which centers on the rivalry of two patrician women
for the erotic attentions of a young Lombard. Valiera is the bride of an older
man referred to (sarcastically?) as ‘Miser Grando’ (V, 78; ‘Messer
Grande’) and is assisted by her servant, Oria. Anzola is a wealthy widow
who employs both a maidservant and a gondolier. On the basis of various pieces
of evidence, reviewed in detail below, Lovarini concluded that the play was
written during the Wars of the League of Cambrai (1509-1517) by Girolamo
Fracastoro. Interpreting the same evidence in the light of further research,
Padoan dated the play to approximately 1536 and rejected the Fracastoro
candidacy, as well as another popular one, that of Giovan Francesco Valier. The
present article will provide a detailed account of the historical events to
which the play refers, missing from Padoan’s largely generalized analysis,
which will serve as the
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512
basis for a new
hypothesis of the play’s date and give some indications of its originating
circle. Also elucidated will be the play’s commentary on relations within the
Venetian patriciate and between it and the mainland knightly nobility upon whom
the continued existence of the Venetian state depended.
Lovarini
based his theory of Fracastoro’s authorship on the presence of two poems by him
in the manuscript, the name “Hieronymus Zarellus” written at the end of
the text, and his familiarity with influential Venetians. Fracastoro’s
academic expertise in medicine, Lovarini believed, led him to cast the
erotically-charged protagonists as “gran malate”. He dated the play to
the Cambrai Wars because of the “fed gubelina” (II, par. 104) of
Anzola’s Bergamasque boatman and Julio, the Lombard, reflecting the allegiance
of many mainland cities to the empire during the war. Lovarini saw further
evidence in the hand of the manuscript[3].
Padoan made
an extensive analysis of the Veniexiana and of the other plays in its
manuscript and a related manuscript (Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, It. IX. 71
[= 5938]), which included several written on the mainland during and after the
Wars of Cambrai. He questioned the dates assigned to some of the plays,
disassociating various details from the second decade of the sixteenth
century. A reference in Ardelia (in IX, 288) to “la festa de le
heberice noze” (“the festivities of the Iberian wedding”) was defined as
possible only after the 1529 peace ending the Wars of Cognac against Charles V[4].
For oxele (III, par. 6), he assumed a penultimate accent and accepted a
post-1521 negative meaning found in Boerio. He did not consider that it could
have been simply the feminine of oselo, in use at the time, possibly
with a colloquial meaning, or a derivative of the verb oxelar ‘to
seduce’ (said of women) or ‘to concentrate one’s efforts’[5].
He questioned whether the term ghibellino could have been used by a “suddito
del ducato di Milano” during the Wars of Cambrai, when France held formal
investiture, but his confused answer detailed the affiliation of Milan and
other Po Valley cities with the empire rather than France. He further undercut
his argument in noting Venice’s concern for the “‘gibellini’” in its
resident Bergamasque population in the late 1520s, when Milan and Venice were
allied with France against the empire. Padoan’s review of Milanese history led
him to conclude that even the most abstract understanding of ghibellino
would have been permissible at only three points: in 1510 when Milan and Venice
were opposed, in 1521 when Milan was back in Sforza’s hands, and after 1535,
when Milan was officially in Charles’s hands. He excluded 1510 because of a
reference to the University of Padua, which was then closed. A reference to new
mocenigo coins resulted in his elimination of 1521, when coins were
notoriously scarce. Julio’s carrying of arms (I, par. 20) eliminated the second
and third decades of the century, when Venetians and foreigners alike were
forbidden to do so. These and other considerations led to a proposed date of
approximately 1536.
The
contemporary references in the play may be more completely explicated
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513
by the records of Marin
Sanudo’s Diaries, which document a cluster of similar events in late 1517 and
early 1518.
The poor
state of Venetian coins was much on the minds of the city’s magistracies at the
time. Years of war and the diversion of trade to Lisbon had shut off the flow
of German silver and African gold into Venice, forcing its citizens to use
foreign coins, many of which were counterfeit or clipped. To add insult to
injury, they bore imperial eagles (contemptuously referred to as osiegi
when Venice switched to an alliance with France in 1513) and papal tiaras. The
Venetian government responded by banning a number of them and reducing the
value of those permitted. In October 1517, the Council of Ten ordered the Mint
to begin striking new Venetian coins to supplant the imported ones. A proposal
to increase the value of the mocenigo was finally enacted in late
February, 1518[6].
It was also
in this period that the University of Padua reopened. Its long closure during
the war explains the importance of Julio’s relatives’ arrival at that point (V,
par. 145). Among the professors rehired was Anton Francesco dei Dottori, who
had spent the war years confined to Venice, and even jailed, because of his
imperial affiliation. His case was veined with irony: despite patricians’
objections to his political leanings, his reappointment was rendered imperative
by his expertise in Roman law, which was vital to the Republic’s dealings with
the mainland state and external powers, including the empire, that Roman law
governed[7].
Milan at the
time was held by the French, who, after recapturing it in 1515, sent Duke
Massimiliano Sforza to a French prison. As Matteo Bandello wrote in novella
I, 28, many Milanese of “la fazione Ghibellina” took refuge with the
Gonzaga of Mantua, staying on after their hope that Maximilian I would regain
the city proved vain. Indeed, the novella tells the story of a Mantuan
gentlewoman who deceived her husband with one of the gallant refugees. The
Venetian ambassador returning from Milan in 1516 reported the intense animosity
of the Milanese for the Venetians, upon whom they blamed the French conquest[8].
On January
27, 1518, Lorenzo Orio, who held a university degree in law and was serving as avogador
di comun or state attorney, married the daughter of Bortolo Valier[9].
Shortly before, the bridegroom had lost the election for the coveted post of
ambassador to England, a typical setback in a checkered career. After the
outbreak of the Wars of Cambrai, having failed at an unrealistic youthful
ambition of an ambassadorship, Orio obtain a slot on the traditional gateway to
government service, the
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maritime commission[10].
His career stalled at that point, perhaps because of his and his kinsmen’s
poor contribution to the defense effort. While many patricians personally
participated at critical points, Lorenzo remained in Venice. His uncle Marco’s
imprisonment by papal forces after the defeat at Agnadello prevented him from
fulfilling the warrior potential demonstrated when he had served as adjutant to
the great Spanish general Gonsalvo Hernandez in the capturing of Cephalonia,
an episode that also had ended badly when a foolhardy foray resulted in Marco’s
imprisonment by the Turks[11].
His search for public office, impeded by debts, finally succeeded toward the
end of the war[12]. Shortly
before his nephew’s wedding, he achieved the crowning honor of the Ten and its
Headship[13]. Marco’s
brother Francesco, vicedomino of Ferrara at the time of Agnadello, was
the only Venetian governor to voluntarily abandon his post, an act of cowardice
accentuated by Ferrara’s distance from the rout. After a lengthy period without
public office, he finally was elected state attorney and, after offering three
men for the defense of Padua, tax assessor[14].
He apparently increased his popularity by laxly enforcing the law[15].
He was elected to the Ten and then its Headship shortly before the wedding, but
died almost immediately[16].
Following in
his uncle’s footsteps, Lorenzo sought to revitalize his career via the post of
state attorney, which he achieved only after offering the state a large loan[17].
He dutifully indicted several powerful patricians on charges of embezzling
state funds while officeholders during the war years, meanwhile only partially
paying his election loan and refusing the state further financial assistance[18].
Shortly after his uncle Francesco became a Head of the Ten, Lorenzo and another
state attorney were sent on a review of the fiscs and general legal situations
of the mainland towns, in disarray after the years of fighting. They reported
numerous problems, caused both by locals and by the Venetian governors. Among
the points on which they cautioned the Signoria was the need to retain the
fidelity of the wealthy city of Brescia[19].
After his return, Orio failed to be elected to a number of offices, including
the ambassadorship to England. Finally, by expanding the candidate pool to
include himself, he was elected ambassador to Hungary, a post that many avoided
because of increasing Turkish aggression against
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the eastern borders of
Europe. His delay of his departure and seeking of other offices, however, gives
rise to the suspicion that he sought the ambassadorship to achieve sufficient
prestige to ensure election to a more desirable position[20].
The office to which he was named, however, embroiled him in more controversy:
special prosecutor on the case of Contin Martinengo, a Brescian noble who
served the Venetians as a condottiero and who had kidnapped a girl
affianced to another. At first deprived of his condotta, Martinengo was
eventually absolved because of his military value and the death of the injured
party[21].
The father of
the 1518 bride, Bortolo Valier qu. Vetor, shared some of his son-in-law’s
inclinations. At critical points of the war he offered a substantial loan to
gain admission to the Senate and provided money and men for the defense of
Padua and Treviso[22].
When the final exertion to conclude the war required great outlays, however, he
offered piddling sums (e.g. 10 ducats to the doge’s 500) and paid only a
fraction of those despite considerable personal wealth[23].
The source of the family fortune appears to have been the mills of Treviso and
grain and flour provisioning, the sector in which significant fortunes were
made in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries[24].
The need becomes clear in light of David Herlihy’s work on the growing
population of the period[25].
A few of the
Valier assisted in mainland defense. Simon, a professional soldier, was
imprisoned by the French after the capture of Brescia, along with Vetor
Martinengo, father of Contin. Father and son Agustin and Bortolo protected
Padua with their persons and ten men. Vicenzo had a role in the taking of
Rimini from Cesare Borgia and the reconquest of Padua in the summer of 1509,
although his efforts to turn these contributions into a government career
failed. Other Valier gave little in funds or effort[26].
Carlo even drew accusations of cowardice for his much-announced but spineless
attempt to defend Treviso and its grain mills. He was, moreover, charged with
selling grain to the enemy Germans, an offense whose seriousness was increased
by the importance of fodder to the waging of war[27].
A similar issue might also have played a role in the beheading of contrabander
Gaspare Valier as punishment for killing
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the employee of the Council
of Ten who guarded contraband in Treviso[28].
At his execution Gaspare wore the fur gown typical of mainland nobles and a scufia,
a “large, loose” German fashion only recently introduced in the mainland areas
close to the Alps and at odds with the “neat, Venetian bareta,” garb
that Venetians might have taken as indicating imperial sympathies[29].
Eleven days
after the Orio-Valier wedding, on the Wednesday before Marti di carlevar,
a comedy was performed in the Giustinian home in the Procuratie Nuove. Sponsored
by the Compagnia della Calza Ortolani, it celebrated the wedding of the
Spaniard Gaspare Bexalù with a Roman woman[30].
The Bexalù, a family of Sephardic Jewish background, served as papal
financiers and had played an important role in papal loans to Venice during the
Cambrai War, whose repayment was then being negotiated[31].
The next day, 11 February 1518 Zuoba di la caza, the Heads of the
Council of Ten forbade all, especially soldiers and maskers, from bearing arms
and entering convents (belying Padoan’s contention that arms were not carried
then). The Signoria had recently cashiered many of the capitani who had
led its armed forces during the war, a large number of whom were spending
Carnival in Venice, including Ortolano Marc’Antonio Martinengo[32].
At the
conclusion of Carnival season, a performance of Plautus’s Amphytrion was
sponsored in Treviso by the podestà-capitanio, followed by a
joust between his company and the military company of condottiero Count
Mercurio Bua[33]. Bua was
typical of the mainland knightly nobility who offered their defense and
intelligence services to the Venetian Signoria after its conquest of mainland
territory, in some cases their own feuds. They included the Martinengo of
Brescia, the Manfron of the Romagna, the di la Volpe of Verona, the Sanseverino
with holdings in Lombardy and the kingdom of Naples, and, at times, the Gonzaga
of Mantua. A number of members of such families married Venetian patricians,
especially during the Wars of Cambrai, and were admitted to the Maggior
Consiglio, a phenomenon little noted by scholars and deserving of further
research[34].
The Treviso
festivities typified the contemporary connection between the cultural and
military spheres, one feature of which was the strong link between Venetian
Compagnie della Calza and the military. Though often regarded as purely festive
societies, the Compagnie give much evidence of a dual origin. Pace
Jaynie Anderson,
p.
517
their parti-colored calze
were identical to or a witty version of the unencumbering leggings worn by
soldiers and rooted in peasant garb, as is easily seen in the works of Luca
Signorelli, e.g. The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian[35].
A large number of condottieri belonged to Compagnie della Calza,
including members of all the families listed above except the Bua; since extant
rolls are partial their number was perhaps even higher. Some Compagnia
festivities had specific military links. When Federico II Gonzaga came to
Venice in 1517 in search of a condotta, the young patricians greeting
him grouped according to their Compagnie della Calza. Condottiero
Marc’Antonio Martinengo sponsored a 1521 Ortolano party as a condition of his
entrance into the group shortly after he had been rehired amidst preparations
for a renewal of warfare[36].
In the early
sixteenth century Compagnie della Calza provided a meeting ground on which
noble condottieri and the patrician Venetians who employed them and
occasionally joined them could work out intricate alliance manoeuvers. The Holy
Roman Emperor was the traditional liege lord not only of various Lombard signori
such as the Sforza, the Gonzaga, and the Este, but also of the landed nobility
engulfed by the Venetian state. Faced with the Habsburg-Valois rivalry for
Italian territory and with Venice’s mainland defense needs, the families and
their individual members were often divided in decisions over military careers.
Some remained with the empire; some chose service to France, which in the late
fifteenth century had displayed greater military prowess; and some became condottieri
and capitani for Venice. Some, subjected to pressures, tempted by
better financing or simply preferring the winning side, varied their allegiance[37].
The tension between the latter choices and continuing imperial claims upon
loyalty was heightened during the frequent alliances between France and Venice.
Venetian patricians faced similar choices, and specific political colorations
have been discerned for some Compagnie della Calza[38].
What bearing do
the preceding considerations have on the interpretation of the
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play? In addition to
providing a strong case for the location of its events in late 1517 and early
1518, they cast light on the circumstances of its origin and the nature of its
commentary on social issues. It is clear that the play was written by an
individual contemptuous of the weak elements in the Venetian patriciate that
had withdrawn from the tradition of defense and governance. The author and his
intended (readerly?) audience had a detailed familiarity with the city’s
topography and language, beginning with the title’s vernacular rather than
learned usage (vinitiana). That knowledge extended to Venetian types
(the characters seem to be composites rather than specific individuals) and habits.
For example, the lack of magnificence of Valiera’s husband’s home was easily
understood to be the fruit of traditional Venetian sobriety, such as that of
Bortolo Valier, rather than poverty. A familiarity with family fortunes was
also assumed, the implied submission of the Orio to the Valier in the servant’s
name Oria consonant with the subsuming of the former by the much wealthier
latter with Lorenzo Orio’s wedding.
The author is
no less critical of the growing courtier mentality among the mainland nobility.
Julio is armed, is compared to St. George, declares that he would rather be a
soldier, and lacks gainful employment, all of which might indicate that he is a
cashiered capitano, possibly one who entered Venetian service after his
Duke had lost his state. Yet his braided hair (I, par. 21), languor and
servility to women bespeak the effeminateness (II, par. 76) that contemporaries
disparaged as deriving from Spanish influence[39].
He proclaims “fede da vero ghebelino” (II, 107), wears a scufia
(II par. 117) and speaks the florid, courtly language in use among mainland
nobility at the time, pace Giannetti and Ruggiero[40].
Summed up, Julio resembles nobles such as Federico II Gonzaga at the time of
his 1517 visit. He had lived the war years, his teenage years, at the papal
court as a hostage. He was seeking a wealthy and geopolitically advantageous
wife, was already manifesting imperial leanings, and his family was intimate
with the Valier[41].
The author
might have been a Venetian patrician or a member of the Gonzaga or Este court
familiar with Venice, but was more likely a member of a mainland noble family
(or its retinue) from a part of the Venetian state close to Milan, such as
Brescia or Bergamo. The servant’s name Oria seems to indicate a special disparagement
of the Orio, perhaps pointing to the Martinengo family. One thing is certain:
he was unwilling to assimilate the paradox of holding on to power by
exchanging a heroic stand for a courtly, effeminate one. If he was a mainlander
and the play primarily for mainland
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519
consumption, the address
of the prologue to a Venetian audience is the most audacious sally of the play.
No records of
performances remain, despite the hint at an all-male audience in the
Prologue’s final sentence. The mockery of a Venetian patriciate so weak that it
could not control the sexual activity of a bride would never have been
tolerated within the Venetian state, and even outside of it any performance
would have been kept secret. The play may well have been written for the 1519 Carnival
season as a commentary on the events of the year before, when the vantage of
hindsight would show some of them to have been ironic, such as the legislated
striking of new mocenighi, which never materialized and thus gave
further proof of Venetian patrician impotence. The time references (III, par.
127) accord with early February.
Seen through
the lense of research on gendered figurations, the sexual conquest of both
Venetian women by the effeminate Lombard and their passion for him embody the
conversion of the formerly warlike Lombard nobles to satellites of the
Spanish-influenced imperial court and the embracing of them by the Venetian
patriciate in the interest of retaining their mainland state. Both groups were
motivated by the subordinate status to which it was widely, and correctly,
assumed they would be reduced when the empire would pass to Charles V from
Maximilian[42].
One final
note: it is impossible in this context not to think of two paintings by Titian,
the Concert Champêtre and The Young Man in a Red Hat, which
portray the same young mainlander wearing the same red scufia[43].
The Fête, which depicts the irenic state of the mainland on the
eve of the Cambrai wars, may also depict more literally than has hitherto been
suspected the simultaneously cultured and erotic entertainments popular among
some young nobles. For example, a certain Francesco Valier had a cathedral
canon of Padua organize an excursion for several patricians and their
prostitute companions in conjunction with the festivities for Francesco
Pisani’s cardinalate in October 1517; other Venetian patricians indulged on
Murano[44].
The garments and sword of the The Young Man in a Red Hat, which dates to
the early postwar years, virtually repeat those of Julio.
For this material, permission is granted for electronic copying,
distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use.
Whether you intend to utilize it in scientific purposes, indicate the
source: either this web address or the Annuario. Istituto Romeno di cultura
e ricerca umanistica 5 (2003), edited by ªerban Marin, Rudolf Dinu, Ion
Bulei and Cristian Luca, Bucharest, 2004
No permission is granted for commercial use.
© ªerban Marin, March 2004, Bucharest, Romania
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[1] Anon., La Veniexiana. Commedia
di anonimo veneziano del Cinquecento (ed. and trans. by Giorgio Padoan), Padua: Antenore, 1974:
“Introduzione,” 1-38, Tav. I; rev. by Linda Carroll
in Archivio Veneto 58 (1977): 166-69; Giorgio Padoan, “Sulla fortuna della Pastoral,
della Veniexiana e di altri testi”, in Momenti del Rinascimento
veneto [hereafter, Momenti] Padua: Antenore, 1978: 193-207; idem, “La Veniexiana:
‘Non fabula non comedia ma vera historia,”‘ in Momenti, 287. Padoan’s
edition with its numbered paragraphs will be cited hereafter.
[2] Five
Comedies from the Italian Renaissance (trans. and ed. by Laura Giannetti and Guido Ruggiero), Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2003.
[3] Emilio Lovarini, “Prefazione,” in Anon., La Venexiana (ed. by E. Lovarini), Florence: Le Monnier, 1947:
7-38.
[4] For the
following see Padoan, Momenti:
288-89, 295-99.
[5] Giuseppe Boerio, Dizionario del dialetto
veneziano, 2nd ed., Venice: Cecchini, 1856: s.v.
[6] Frederic C. Lane, “Venetian Bankers, 1496-1533”,
in Venice and History, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1966: 69-86;
Marino Sanuto, I diarii
[hereafter, Sanuto] (ed. by
Rinaldo Fulin et al.), 58 vols.,
Venice: Visentini, 1879-1902, vol. 24: 114-15 (list of banned coins, all with
eagle or tiara), 117, 311, 325; vol. 25: 32, 39-40, 46, 54, 55, 113, 129, 134,
135-36, 137, 138-39, 159-60, 253-54, 259; Anon.,
“Dialogo ala vilanesca”, in Antichi testi di letteratura pavana (ed. by
Emilio Lovarini), Bologna:
Romagnoli, 1894: 72.
[7] Sanuto, vol. 25: 66, 69, 78; on Roman
law, James S. Grubb, Firstborn
of Venice. Vicenza in the Early Renaissance State, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1988: 28-46.
[8] Sanuto, vol. 23:169.
[10] Ibidem,
vol. 6:183,
226, vol. 9:121, 469, vol. 10: 56.
[11] Ibidem,
vol. 3: 614, 615, 619, 669, 723, 727, 814, 1068, 1078, 1108-10, 1127, 1140,
1142, 1221, 1272-1173, 1277, 1517, 1542, 1602, vol. 4: 7, 9, 10, 13-16, 17, 28,
33, 73, 790, vol. 5: 273, 452, 1003, vol. 6: 115, 292, 300, 519, 531, vol. 7:
7, 259, 569, 649, 655, 663, 701, 710, vol. 9: 299, vol. 10: 614-15.
[12] Ibidem,
vol. 11: 31, 789, vol. 12: 265, 282, 294, 402, 462, 541, 588, vol. 14: 639,
vol. 15: 78, 343, vol. 16: 257, 335, vol. 17:17.
[13] Ibidem,
vol. 20: 235, 244, 343, 350, 585, vol. 21: 5, 43.
[14] Ibidem,
vol. 8: 127, 296, 299, 303, 321, 326, 438, 442, 465, vol. 9: 199, 445, vol. 10:
18, 684, vol. 12: 272, 288, vol. 13: 83, 412, vol. 14: 44, 263, vol. 17: 250,
vol. 18: 244.
[15] Ibidem,
vol. 19: 323, 354, vol. 21: 215.
[16] Ibidem,
vol. 22: 313, 522, 656, vol. 23: 5, 256, 264.
[17] Ibidem,
vol. 22: 7, 67, 110, 125, 208, 215.
[18] Ibidem,
vol. 22: 351, 352, 355-356, 363, 373, 513, vol. 23: 33, 52, 94, 99-101, 138,
214-215, 264-265, 289, 380.
[19] Ibidem,
vol. 23: 289, vol. 24: 217-218, 353, 358-363.
[20] Ibidem,
vol. 24: 648, vol. 25: 89, 221, 236, 307, 459, 498, 502, 504, 513-514, 526, 549
(attempt to drop the cases he started on last day of office), vol. 26: 76, 152,
177, 180, 284, 317-318, 322.
[21] Ibidem,
vol. 25: 417, 420, 493, 495-496, 522, vol. 26: 40, 479, vol. 27: 266-267, 369,
509, vol. 28: 90, 91, 114, 122, 123,
124, 125, 126, 337.
[22] Ibidem,
vol.
10: 725, vol. 17: 251, 295.
[23] Ibidem, vol. 19:
153, vol. 20: 459, vol. 22: 511, 675, vol. 23: 307.
[24] Ibidem,
vol. 2: 219, vol. 8: 379, 380, 389, 394, 463-464, 481-482, 589, 590 and cf.
vol. 10: 334, vol. 11: 185; Achille Olivieri,
“Capitale mercantile e committenza nella Venezia del Sansovino”, in Investimenti
e civiltà urbana (ed. by Annalisa Guarducci),
Florence: Le Monnier, 1991: 531-69.
[25] David Herlihy, “Popolazione e strutture
sociali dal XV al XVI secolo”, in Tiziano e Venezia, Vicenza: Neri
Pozza, 1980: 71-74.
[26] Sanuto, vol. 14: 227, e.g. vol. 17:
250, 302, 335, vol. 20: 264, vol. 22: 514.
[27] Ibidem,
vol. 12: 481-482.
[28] Ibidem,
vol.
11: 211, vol. 12: 137, 139, 186, 188-190.
[29] Quotations
from Stella Mary Newton, The
Dress of the Venetians, 1495-1525, Aldershot: Gower Publishing, 1988:
43-44.
[30] Sanuto, vol. 25: 248.
[31] Felix Gilbert, The Pope, His Banker, and
Venice, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980; Linda L. Carroll, “Venetian Attitudes toward the
Young Charles: Carnival, Commerce, and Compagnie della Calza”, in Young Charles
V 1500-1531 (ed. by Alain Saint-Saëns)
New Orleans: University Press of the South, 2000: 48-49.
[32] See e.g. Sanuto, vol. 24: 260-61, vol. 25: 306.
[33] Ibidem,
vol. 25: 63, 140, 214, 253.
[34] See Ibidem,
vol.
2: 1342, vol. 3: 29, vol. 4: 642, vol. 7: 693, vol. 8: 119, vol. 9: 326, vol.
14: 325, vol. 20: 373.
[35] Carroll, “Who’s on Top?: Gender as
Societal Power Configuration in Italian Renaissance Drama”, Sixteenth
Century Journal 20 (1989): 533-37; Jaynie Anderson,
Giorgione: The Painter of ‘poetic brevity’,
including Catalogue raisonné, Paris, New
York: Flammarion, 1997: 165.
[36] Carroll, “Charles”; Sanuto, vol. 25: 306, vol. 28: 337,
vol. 29: 194, 200, 429, 536; see also Carroll,
“‘I have a good set of tools’: The Shared Interests of Peasants and Patricians
in Ruzante’s Lettera giocosa”, in Theatre, Opera and Performance in
Italy from the Fifteenth Century to the Present. Essays in Honour of Richard
Andrews (ed. by Brian Richardson),
forthcoming.
[37] Sanuto, vol. 2: 1031, vol. 3: 39, 187,
673, vol. 4: 278, vol. 5: 80-81, vol. 7: 756, vol. 9: 327, vol. 16: 49; some switching
of sides below the top command at the end of a contract or when troops had gone
unpaid for a long period was tolerated but too much or any appearance of
passing military intelligence to the other side was condemned and some
exemplary cases were dealt with harshly.
[38]
Carroll, “Charles”; idem,
“The Shepherd Meets the Cowherd: Ruzante’s Pastoral, the Empire and
Venice”, Annuario. Istituto Romeno di cultura e ricerca umanistica 4
(2002): 288-297; idem, “‘Fools of
the Dukes of Ferrara’: Dosso, Ruzante, and Changing Este Alliances”, MLN 18.1 (January, 2003; Italian Issue): 60-84.
[39] Benedetto Croce, La Spagna nella vita italiana
durante la Rinascenza, 4th ed., Bari: Laterza, 1944: esp.
118-121.
[40] See e.g. Sanuto, vol. 8: 160 for Gian Francesco
Gonzaga, vol. 15: 474 for Marc’Antonio Martinengo; Giannetti and Ruggiero,
“Introduction”, in Five Comedies: xviii; the red stockings that the
boatman asks for (II, par. 124) would have been less likely after the early
1520s, when fashions grew progressively more sober.
[41] For Federico, Carroll, “Charles”; for Valier and
Gonzaga, A. Luzio and R. Renier, “La coltura e le relazioni
letterarie di Isabella d’Este Gonzaga”, Giornale storico della letteratura
italiana 37 (1901), 209-210, n. 2; Sanuto,
vol. 7: 727, 737-738, 756, vol. 8: 34, 67, 160, vol. 9: 46, 265, vol. 11: 48,
330, 620.
[42] Sanuto, vol. 27: 455; Carroll, “Who’s on Top?”; Richard Helgerson, Dangerous Alliances.
Home, State, and History in Early Modern Painting and Drama, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2000.
[43] For the
attribution of Fête to Titian, Charles Hope, “Titian’s Life and Times”, in Titian (ed. by
Paul Holberton), London: National
Gallery Company, 2003: 14; for the young men in Fête as
mainlanders, Newton, op. cit.:
43-44.
[44] See Zuan
Antonio Da Corte (Cortivo), Historia
di Padova, 1509-1530 (Diario degli avvenimenti padovani dal 13 giugno
1509 al 12 ottobre 1529), Padua, Biblioteca Civica, B.P. 3159, fol. 109v; Sanuto, vol. 35: 375; on Titian and
erotic subjects, see Hope, “Some
problems of interpretation in Titian’s erotic paintings”, in Tiziano e
Venezia, cit.: 111-24.