The Limits of Identity: Early Modern Venice, Dalmatia, and the Representation of Difference (Art and Material Culture in Medieval and Renaissance Europe)

This book considers the production of collective identity in Venice (Christian, civic-minded, anti-tyrannical), which turned on distinctions drawn in various fields of representation from painting, sculpture, print, and performance to classified correspondence. Dismemberment and decapitation bore a heavy burden in this regard, given as indices of an arbitrary violence ascribed to Venice's long-time adversary, “the infidel Turk.” The book also addresses the recuperation of violence in Venetian discourse about maintaining civic order and waging crusade. Finally, it examines mobile populations operating in the porous limits between Venetian Dalmatia and Ottoman Bosnia and the distinctions they disrupted between “Venetian” and “Turk” until their settlement on farmland of the Venetian state. This occurred in the eighteenth century with the closing of the borderlands, thresholds of difference against which early modern “Venetian-ness” was repeatedly measured and affirmed. Contents 5 Acknowledgements 7 List of Figures and Tables 11 Introduction 19 Chapter 1 43 “A Diabolical Violence” and “Authority Above the Law”: Ottoman Rule in Venetian Public Discourse 43 Perceptions of Violence and Excess under Ottoman Rule 44 Traumatic Iterations of the Present in the Past: History’s Inversions in Seventeenth-Century Venice 54 Trauma and the Consolidation of Historical Narrative in Seventeenth-Century Venice 59 The Ottoman “Turk” and Fault Lines in Venetian Representations of Difference 80 Chapter 2 83 Justice and Iniquity: Decapitation’s Double Valence in Early Modern Venice 83 The Civic Stage for Public Justice in Venice 91 Cutting Out the City’s “Evil Members:” Venetian Principles of Universal Justice 98 Justice and the Executioner’s Sword in Venetian Civic Life 109 Chapter 3 121 Judith Triumphant: Severed Heads on Public Monuments and in Celebrations of Venetian Victory 121 The Republic Triumphing as Justice and Judith: Venetian Cultural Production during the Second Ottoman-Venetian War (1499-1503) 125 The “Eyes of the Republic” and Venetian Heads 136 The Reign of Judith and Justice in Venice and Her Waters 140 Judith Triumphing in Venetian Wartime Celebrations 143 Judith Triumphing in Venetian Painting and the Performing Arts 156 Chapter 4 164 Severed Heads and Bodies in Pieces: Venetian Reception of Jerusalem Liberated 164 Tasso’s Epic in Venetian Production and Reception 166 Decapitation and its Double Valence in Tasso’s Epic 182 From Beheading to Bodies in Pieces 194 Tasso’s Epic as Metaphor for Venetian-Ottoman Relations 198 Dressing the Infidel as the Turk 207 The Distance between Visual Culture and the Violence of Tasso’s Text 217 Chapter 5 221 Provincial Subjectivity and the Troubling of Difference: The Morlacchi in Venetian Text and Image 221 The Staging of Difference in Venice 228 Naming and Difference 236 The Morlacchi as the Unruly Third Term 242 Venice and the Management of the Morlacchi as Provincial Subjects 254 Venice and the Elision of Difference 272 The Assimilation of Difference in the Interests of the Venetian State 275 Conclusion 280 Bibliography 283 Index 313 Plates 335 "This book considers the production of collective identity in Venice (Christian, civic-minded, anti-tyrannical), which turned on distinctions drawn in various fields of representation from painting, sculpture, print, and performance to classified correspondence. Dismemberment and decapitation bore a heavy burden in this regard, given as indices of an arbitrary violence ascribed to Venice's long-time adversary, 'the infidel Turk.' The book also addresses the recuperation of violence in Venetian discourse about maintaining civic order and waging crusade. Finally, it examines mobile populations operating in the porous limits between Venetian Dalmatia and Ottoman Bosnia and the distinctions they disrupted between 'Venetian' and 'Turk' until their settlement on state-owned land. This occurred in the eighteenth century with the closing of the borderlands, thresholds of difference against which early modern 'Venetian-ness' was repeatedly measured and affirmed"--Provided by publisher. This book considers the production of collective identity in Venice (Christian, civic-minded, anti-tyrannical), which turned on distinctions drawn in various fields of representation from painting, sculpture, print, and performance to classified correspondence. Dismemberment and decapitation bore a heavy burden in this regard, given as indices of an arbitrary violence ascribed to Venice's long-time adversary, "the infidel Turk." The book also addresses the recuperation of violence in Venetian discourse about maintaining civic order and waging crusade. Finally, it examines mobile populations operating in the porous limits between Venetian Dalmatia and Ottoman Bosnia and the distinctions they disrupted between "Venetian" and "Turk" until their settlement on state-owned farmland. This occurred in the eighteenth century with the closing of the borderlands, thresholds of difference against which early modern "Venetian-ness" was repeatedly affirmed