When Venice was both a center of Renaissance culture and a gathering place for news from around the world, Marin Sanudo tried to write everything down. He was the finest diarist of his time, with a keen eye for the everyday and the monumental alike. Venice, Cità Excelentissima offers a broad and engaging introduction to Sanudo's detailed observations of life in his beloved city and the world it knew.
This expertly translated volume glimpses into Renaissance life at a spectacular time when Venice was at the top of its game. Organized thematically, the selections offer a Venetian's viewpoint of the glories of high culture, the gritty reality and sparkling drama of daily life, the perils of diplomacy and war, and the high-risk ventures of voyages and commerce. Here, the work of the Renaissance's most assiduous historian is finally given the accessibility it warrants and the merit it is due.
Marin Sanudo's diaries are like having a New York Times for thirty years of the Venetian Renaissance. Pulsing with life, his fifty-six close-packed volumes illuminate government, crime, justice, intrigue, the economy, the arts, architecture, war on land and sea, and the fascinating personality of Sanudo himself. A book as scintillating and colorful as the jewel of cities that it chronicles, this crystalline translation and fascinating commentary make the most important source for Venetian history available in English for the first time. (Joseph Connors, Director, Villa I Tatti, Florence)
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008
ISBN-13: 978-0801887659
