Elizabeth Horodowich has written a short and very readable summary, A Brief History of Venice: A New History of the City and Its People (2009, pb, 230pp), which includes brief references to the physical remains from each period that may still be seen today when visiting the city.

Somewhat denser is William H. McNeill’s Venice: The Hinge of Europe, 1081-1797 (originally published in 1974, reissued in 2009, pb, 323pp), which focuses more attention on Venice’s relations with the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires and the emerging European powers.

If art is your primary focus, Patricia Fortini Brown’s Art and Life in Renaissance Venice (2005, pb, 176pp) provides historical and social context along with excellent illustrations. Jan Morris originally wrote her impressionistic portrait of Venice fifty years ago, but has revised it several times for later editions. It is currently available as Venice in Kindle (2008, 336pp) and Audiobook (2010, 5:16 hours) formats, and in book form as The World of Venice (1995, pb, 320pp).

Our featured speaker for the Friday evening program (Oct. 22), Joanne Ferraro, provides an unusual perspective on Venice’s social history and the role of women in Marriage Wars in Late Renaissance Venice (2001, 240pp, also available in Kindle), based on her examination of court records of marital disputes.

Recommended Resources for Venice: Queen of the Adriatic

Brown, Patricia Fortini. ―The Historical Imperative: Inventing a Civic Past. Venice & Antiquity: The Venetian Sense of the Past. New Haven, Conn.; London: Yale University Press, 1996. 1-45.

---. Art and Life in Renaissance Venice, 2nd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2005). [Very nice introduction to Venetian art]

---. Private Lives in Renaissance Venice: Art, Architecture, and the Family. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.

Crouzet-Pavan, Elisabeth. ―Sopra le acque salse”: espaces, pouvour et société à Venise à la fin du Moyen Âge. Rome: Instituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 1992.

Ferraro, Joanne. Family and Public Life in Brescia, 1580-1650. The Foundations of Power in the Venetian State. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Paperback, 2003.

---. Marriage Wars in Late Renaissance Venice. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Winner of the Helen and Howard R. Marraro Book Prize from the Society for Italian Historical Studies (2002) Winner of the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women Book Prize (2002).

---. Nefarious Crimes, Contested Justice: Illicit Sex and Infanticide in the Republic of Venice, 1557-1789. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.

Findlen, Paula. The Italian Renaissance: Essential Readings. Blackwell, 2002.

Goy, Richard, Building Renaissance Venice: Patrons, Architects and Builders (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006). [Recent study of Venetian architecture]

Howard, Deborah. ―San Marco‖ and ―The Palazzo Ducale. Venice & the East: The Impact of the Islamic World on Venetian Architecture, 1100-1500. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. 65-109, 171-88.

Kaminski, Marion, Venice: Art and Architecture. H. F. Ullmann, 2008.

**Kotkin, Joel. The City: A Global History. Random House/Modern Library, 2005.

Lane, Frederic C. Venice: A Maritime Republic. Baltimore, London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983.

--- and Mueller, Reinhold. Money and Banking in Medieval and Renaissance Venice. Baltimore, London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985.

Martin, John and Dennis Romano, Eds. Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297-1797. Baltimore, London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.

McGregor, James H. Venice from the Ground Up. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2008.

**McNeill, William. Venice: The Hinge of Europe, 1081-1797. London, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974, 1986.

Norwich, John Julius. A History of Venice. New York: Knopf: Distributed by Random House,
1982. [Classic history of Venice--but very detailed and long--for avid readers only]

Rosand, David. Myths of Venice: the Figuration of a State. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

Schulz, Juergen. The New Palaces of Medieval Venice. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State

Literature Set in Venice

Dumas, Alexandre. The Count of Monte Cristo (1844)

Fiorato, Marino. The Glassblower of Murano (2009)

Mann, Thomas. Death in Venice (1912)

McEwan, Ian. The Comfort of Strangers (1981)

Shakespeare, William. The Merchant of Venice (~1596)

Online Resources

Search Engine for Medieval, Renaissance and Classical Studies

National Gallery of Art Venice Collection

The Venice Project at Yale University Sterling Library