Seeking Book Recommendations on the Economics, History, and Culture of the Italian Renaissance

by decaffinatedplease

Recently, I was struck by inspiration for a creative project that I've been working on for a couple of months now. Due to its nature, it requires some pretty thorough and detailed worldbuilding. The primary inspiration for much of the setting is the Italian Renaissance, with special regards to the trade and politics of the time. I've done a lot of surface level research--articles online, etc. but I'd like to dig deeper to find inspiration to really flesh things out. The economics of the world and how things got to where they are are the central focus of a lot of the project, so understanding the background of what influences the aesthetic and cultural decisions of the inspiration is very key to me.

Any recommendations are welcome! While I know Italy is a sizable place with a LOT of history, so if it's a more broad look at the key events that is fine, but for drilling down I'd love to get into more specifics on the history of Venice, which is a major touchstone for my inspiration at the current iteration of the project.

Here's a few of the topics I'm interested in reading on

  • Italian Renaissance History & Politics
  • Trade and Economics of 15th-18th Century
  • History & Politics Specifically about Venice up through the 18th Century
  • The different cultural norms across Renaissance Italy
  • Anything related to Italian navies & maritime history for that period

I hope this hasn't been too broad, and I'm sure that there's a wealth of information out there. I appreciate in advance any who post suggestions!

Giallo555

Sorry, I am super late, I find this project quite interesting so I would really like to help you. The problem is that all of the resources, both primary and secondary, I can think about now on the spot are in Italian. I will list them anyway maybe they can be useful to you.

Italian became the bureaucratic, cultural and academic language of most Italian states in 1500 (before it was Latin), therefore if you don’t know these 2 languages it’s hard to read original resources. Unfortunately a lot of things are not translated. This is true for Venetian documents in particular which is what you seem to be most interested in. I will mostly post Venetian sources as they are the ones I know best.

  1. [Monumenta spectant historiam Slavorum meridionalium: Commissiones et relationes venetae] (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q06CIFiHA9EC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=lingua&f=false) Collection of relations and letters written by Venetian governors and functionary stationed in Istria. Quite interesting from a linguistic point of view since one can see the transition between Latin and Italian. Quite interesting also to understand the relation between Venice and the Ottoman empire and the cultural habits of the Venetian. (Politics Maritime History)

  2. [La Spedizione di Carlo VIII. in Italia raccontata da Marin Sanudo] (https://books.google.it/books?id=11OWPgAACAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=Italiani&f=false). Marin Sanudo was one of the most important Venetian chroniclers. Here he tells of the descent of the French in Italy. This is interesting for all sorts of reasons, you can learn a lot about the political relationship between different city-states, military techniques of the time, and how the war was conducted. (Politics, History)

  3. [I Diari] (https://archive.org/details/idiariidimarino00unkngoog/page/n61/mode/2up?q=Italiani)

always from Sanudo, here he talks about various events from his life. I diari is a 58 volume long opera that talks about all the various political events that occurred in Italy through Sanudo life from the endo of 1400 to 1530. (Politics, History)

  1. [Tesoro Politico] (https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=it&id=wsET1TnGsQC&q=italiani#v=onepage&q&f=false) is a series of political relations from ambassadors and politicians from various Italian states compiled by the Italian academy of Cologne in 1598 (Politics, some Economics)

  2. [Della literature Veneziana] (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bE4PAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=it#v=onepage&q=lingua&f=false) as per title a collection of essays from Doge Marco Foscarini on the Venetian literature. The writings are from 1700 but he talks about all sorts of authors from the Renaissance. (Literature)

  3. [Le relazioni degli ambasciatori Veneti al Senato] (https://books.google.it/books?id=MiIp9J43wf4C&q=Italia#v=snippet&q=Italia&f=false), the most complete collection of relations from Venetian senators and ambassadors from the renaissance, they often speak about the political problems of Italy as an all, so you will find a lot of information here. (Politics, History, Geopolitics, Economics)

  4. From what I understand you seem to be also interested in the 1700, if that is the case I would say reading anything from Francesco Algarotti and Casanova (both Venetian) is a really good way to understand the worldview of the average educated Italian of the time. Another thing you should read is the [Osservatore Veneto] (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=d24J2EsabBEC&hl=it&source=gbs_similarbooks) from a 1700 magazine edited by Carlo Gozzi (another interesting person to understand the mentality of an Italian intellectual of the time). The magazine is a wonderful window into the culture and society o the time. (Society and Culture)

I’m sorry I couldn’t come up with more stuff in English, I really want to help so if you have any questions feel free to contact me, I will do my best to help. Unfortunately for various reasons Italian intellectuals were generally reticent in writing in foreign languages and not many translations have been done, so most of the stuff is in Italian. I will also think of what more could I add.

Feel free to message me with any questions 😃