Information and Communication in Venice: Rethinking Early Modern Politics

Abstract

Today, in an age of spin-doctoring and media power, we take it for granted that information and politics affect each other. This book investigates the political uses of communication in 16th- and 17th-century Venice. Unlike traditional book history, it defines communication broadly, encompassing orality and literacy, manuscript and print: from council debates to written reports, newsletters, rumours, graffiti, and pamphlets. The book combines political and cultural history, urban history, and the history of the book. Chapters 1-3 discuss communication at different levels: the government; the political arena of factions and professional informers; the city of ordinary people without personal connection with the authorities. Chapters 4-6 analyse the interaction between these spheres both in peace and in conflict (e.g., during the Venetian Interdict of 1606-7, in which Paolo Sarpi played a prominent role as information strategist). The book rethinks the boundaries of early modern politics. Traditional political historians view events from the upper windows of government buildings, while social historians have taught us to look at history from below. Neither perspective is sufficient in isolation. Even secretive oligarchs ensconced inside the Ducal Palace were constantly preoccupied by their vociferous subjects in the squares below. Politics involved not just patricians but ordinary people. They were denied any institutional political role and, in Venice's proverbially pacific history, mostly abstained from extra-institutional collective activities like rioting. Barred from political action, however, they participated in political communication, a form of political action which could influence the conduct of high politics.