The Republic of Venice is remembered chiefly as a maritime state, yet from the early fifteenth century it began to exert direct control over a substantial hinterland stretching from the borders of Milan in the west, to the fringes of Germans and Slavic lands to the north and east. For a century it retained this dominant position, before the combined forces of the league of Cambrai forever changed the balance of power with victory over Venice at the battle of Agnadello in 1509 - what had seemed a politically solid and economically prosperous mainland dominion suddenly dissolved, and indeed looked set to disappear permanently. Yet, as this volume clearly demonstrates, this defeat by no means signalled the end of Venice’s territorial ambitions. For almost three-hundred years, until it fell under Austrian domination in 1797, the Republic sought to regain a position of influence within the Italian peninsula, and diverted much attention to the retention and expansion of its mainland dominion. Divided into two sections - ‘Politics, Institutions and Society’ and ‘Demography, economy and society’ - the book addresses a broad sweep of social, cultural, civic, economic and strategic themes. These are investigated and compared, allowing for revealing conclusion to be drawn that ultimately limit the grounds for comparison between Venice’s territorial state and those of the main European monarchies. It argues that whereas the larger states gradually gained in cohesion, centralization and unity, Venice substantially maintained a model of territorial government rooted in the practice of medieval city-states - a model that survived because the Republic’s practice of government was flexible enough to adapt to changing national and international circumstances. By building upon, and expanding, recent research investigating the nature of relations between Venice and its territories, this study offers a fascinating perspective upon the extent to which the Republic tried and succeeded in endowing a heterogeneous territorial conglomeration with cohesion and unity.
