"As the sixteenth century opened, members of the patriciate were increasingly withdrawing from trade, desiring to be seen as "gentlemen in fact" as well as "gen

Originally published in 1987. Since Machiavelli, historians and political theorists have sought the sources of the stability that earned for Venice the appellat

Through close examination of Renaissance paintings, drawings, book illustrations, and other art works, Patricia Fortini Brown brings fourteenth--fifteenth centu

Based on a fascinating body of previously unexamined archival material, this book brings to life the lost voices of ordinary Venetians during the age of Catholi

"The entire town is disguised," declared a French tourist of eighteenth-century Venice. And, indeed, maskers of all ranks—nobles, clergy, imposters, seducers,