The city-state of Venice, with a population of less than 100,000, dominated a fragmented and fragile empire at the boundary between East and West, between Latin Christian, Greek Orthodox, and Muslim worlds. In this institutional and administrative history, Monique O'Connell explains the structures, processes, practices, and laws by which Venice maintained its vast overseas holdings. The legal, linguistic, religious, and cultural diversity within Venice's empire made it difficult to impose any centralization or unity among its disparate territories. O'Connell has mined the vast archival resources to explain how Venice's central government was able to administer and govern its extensive empire. O'Connell finds that successful governance depended heavily on the experience of governors, an interlocking network of noble families, who were sent overseas to negotiate the often conflicting demands of Venice's governing council and the local populations. In this nexus of state power and personal influence, these imperial administrators played a crucial role in representing the state as a hegemonic power; creating patronage and family connections between Venetian patricians and their subjects; and using the judicial system to negotiate a balance between local and imperial interests. In explaining the institutions and individuals that permitted this type of negotiation, O'Connell offers a historical example of an early modern empire at the height of imperial expansion.

About the Author
Monique O'Connell is an assistant professor of history at Wake Forest University.

Reviews
O'Connell offers an excellent guide to how Venice ruled its empire. Choice 2010 With Men of Empire, Monique O'Connell demonstrates why she deserves to be considered among the preeminent scholars of the new generation of Venetian specialists. She skillfully brings together details from a wide variety of primary sources to create a complete picture of the Quattrocento Venetian approach to governing a maritime state. -- Eleanor Congdon International Journal of Maritime History 2010



Book Information
ISBN 9780801891458
Author Monique O'Connell
Format Hardback
Page Count 264
Imprint Johns Hopkins University Press
Publisher Johns Hopkins University Press
Weight(grams) 499g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 23mm