Course description
This multicultural course studies the rich cartographic imagination of Venice and the territories of its Republic in literary, theatrical, and visual examples from the thirteenth through twentieth centuries. The course situates this area of study within the broader history of diplomatic and ambassadorial exchanges that connected the city with and beyond the East. We begin with discussion of Venice’s mythical origins and its Eastern influences, before moving first to discuss representations of “foreignness,” the marvelous, monsters, and the bizarre in works by Marco Polo, Giovanni Boccaccio, and Matteo Bandello. Our engagement with theatrical texts will allow us to contextualize how and why Venetian audiences were historically both receptive to and desirous of productions that could bring them beyond European borders (metaphorically speaking). Venetian women’s writing plays an essential hand in this literary-geographical expansion, particularly in the genre of epic. Lucrezia Marinella’s epic narration of Venice’s role in the Fourth Crusade is thus our subsequent text. We turn then to discussing various tourists’ impressions of Venice from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. How did Venice itself occupy the space of “Other” within Europe? We conclude with a reading of Italo Calvino’s masterful reconstruction of Marco Polo’s journeys in the East: a study in dialogue and reciprocity that speaks to the core of our analytical modes of thinking.

Engagement with the literary history of the early mapping of lands between the East and West will guide students in their examination of various maps produced in the Renaissance world. Select examples from Cesare Vecellio’s The Clothing of the Renaissance World: Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas (1590, 1598)—a two-volume set of illustrated costumes associated with different geographical regions that seeks to represent figures from doges to peasants—will accompany of our study of visualized difference from the page to the stage. We will further examine various visual allegories of continents and geographical centers as we traverse them in our course readings. So as to welcome other art historical examples of the cartographic imagination into the seminar, students will be exposed to visual works by Paolo Veronese, Palma Vecchio, Vittore Carpaccio, and Rosalba Carriera. Direct engagement with these examples will feature throughout the course (when appropriate) at various Venetian cultural institutions.

Among the questions we will discuss are: what information is conveyed when we imagine space, peoples, lands, and territories in visual, theatrical, and textual forms? What presumptions are bound up with the cartographic imagination and upon what notions of difference, identity, and power do they depend? What tools (aesthetic, epistemological, analytical, etc.) are used to translate the cartographic imagination from the page to the stage? To what modern examples of the cartographic imagination can we compare our various course materials? How does Venice sustain its cartographic imagination in the present day?

Learning Outcomes
Students in this course will:
• Contextualize historical representations of Venice and the cartographic imagination across the ages in literature, theater, and art;
• Demonstrate their understanding of contemporary scholarly approaches to these areas of study;
• Evaluate the formal characteristics of primary examples from the thirteenth through twentieth centuries;
• Articulate convincing evidence-based reasoning in written coursework;
• Conduct research on the relevant scholarly traditions that accompany our course matter.

Teaching and Evaluation Methods
All course readings will be scanned and made available to students on Moodle. There are no required texts for purchase. Students are responsible for ensuring access to course readings in class on a daily basis, whether by bringing their computer, tablet, or hard copy print outs. Students may not consult readings or other course materials on their phones. No phone use in class is permitted.

Coursework will consist of daily reading assignments, active participation in in-class discussion and collaborative exercises; daily reflection blog posts; two “lead a reading” textual analytical presentations; three short written responses (max. 2 pages); and one final paper (8-10 pages) and presentation.

Grade Distribution:

Attendance and Active Participation 25%
Daily Blog Posts 10%
“Lead a Reading” Presentations (x2) 20%
Three Short Written Responses 20%
Final Paper + Presentation 25%

Syllabus: Weekly Readings and Calendar
* readings subject to change

Orientation Week

Week 1: Mythical Origins: Venice and Geographic Prophecy
Class 1
- Introductions: syllabus and course review
- Edward Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice, selection from ch. 1
Class 2
- Elisabeth Crouzet-Pavan, Venice Triumphant: The Horizon of a Myth (selections)
- Edward Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice, selection from ch. 2

Week 2: Early Venetian Eyes on the East
Class 1
- Marco Polo, Travels (selection)
Class 2
- Marco Polo, Travels (selection)

Week 3: Comedy in the Venetian Short Story
Class 1
- Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron: preface; Introduction; Day Four, Story 2
Class 2
- Matteo Bandello, Novelle (Short Stories), tale of Gerardo pp. 67–115

Week 4: Theater Babel
Class 1
- Angelo Beolco (Ruzante), The Veteran
Class 2
- Angelo Beolco (Ruzante), The Weasel

Week 5: The Makings of the Cosmopolitan Commedia dell’arte (part one)
Class 1
- Carlo Goldoni, The Boors (Acts I and II)
Class 2
- Carlo Goldoni, The Boors (Act III)

Week 6: The Makings of the Cosmopolitan Commedia dell’arte (part one)
Class 1
- Carlo Goldoni, The Mistress of the Inn (Acts I and II)
Class 2
- Carlo Goldoni, The Mistress of the Inn (Act III)

Midterm Break (no classes)

Week 7: Theater Unthinking Europe (part one)
Class 1
- Carlo Gozzi, Five Tales for the Theater (selection)
Class 2
- Carlo Gozzi, Five Tales for the Theater (selection)

Week 8: Theater Unthinking Europe (part two)
Class 1
- Carlo Gozzi, Five Tales for the Theater (selection)
Class 2
- Carlo Gozzi, Five Tales for the Theater (selection)

Week 9: Venice and/in the Epic Tradition (part one)
Class 1
-Federica Ambrosini, “Toward a Social History of Women in Venice: From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment”
- Lucrezia Marinella, Enrico, or Byzantium Conquered (selections)
Class 2
- Lucrezia Marinella, Enrico, or Byzantium Conquered (selections)

Week 10: Venice and/in the Epic Tradition (part two)
Class 1
- Lucrezia Marinella, Enrico, or Byzantium Conquered (selections)
- Lucrezia Marinella, The Nobility and Excellence of Women (selections)
Class 2
- Lucrezia Marinella, Enrico, or Byzantium Conquered (selections)

Week 11: Venice and the Tourist Tradition
Class 1
- Charles Dickens, “An Italian Dream,” Pictures of Italy, chapter VII
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Venice”
Class 2
- Georg Simmel, “Venice”
- Jean-Paul Sartre, “Venice from my window”

Week 12: Venetian Futures and Venetian Pasts
Class 1
- Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (selections)
Class 2
- Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (selections)

Exam Week
Final paper due.

Bibliography
* readings subject to change

Required Readings:
Ambrosini, Federica. “Toward a Social History of Women in Venice: From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment,” in Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297–1797, ed. John Jeffries Martin and Dennis Romani. 420–53. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.
Bandello, Matteo. Twelve Stories, trans. Percy Pinkerton. London: John C. Nimmo, 1895.
Beolco, Angelo (Ruzante). The Veteran and The Weasel: Two One-Act Renaissance Plays, trans. Ronnie Ferguson. New York: Lang, 1995.
Boccaccio, Giovanni. Decameron, trans. Wayne Rebhorn. New York: Norton, 2013.
Calvino, Italo. Invisible Cities, trans. William Weaver. New York: Harcourt, 1978.
Crouzet-Pavan, Elisabeth. Venice Triumphant: The Horizon of a Myth, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Dickens, Pictures of Italy, ed. Kate Flint. London: Penguin Books, 1998.
Goldoni, Carlo. “The Boors,” from Id., Three Comedies, trans. I. M. Rawson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961.
Goldoni, Carlo. The Mistress of the Inn, trans. Merle Pierson. London: Brentano’s Ltd., 1924.
Gozzi, Carlo. Five Tales for the Theater, ed. and trans. Albert Bermel and Ted Emery. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
Marinella, Lucrezia. Enrico, or Byzantium Conquered, trans. Maria Galli Stampino. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.
Muir, Edward. Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991.
Redford, Bruce. Venice and the Grand Tour. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Venice from my window,” in Id., Rome and Venice. London: Seagull Books, 2021.
Simmel, Georg. “Venice” [1907] Theory, Culture & Society 24 (2007): 42–46.

Suggested Readings:
D’Alessandro Behr, Francesca. Arms and the Woman: Classical Tradition and Women Writers in the Venetian Renaissance. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2018.
Dursteler, Eric. Renegade Women: Gender, Identity and Boundaries in the Early Modern Mediterranean. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.
Ferraro, Joanne M. Venice: History of the Floating City. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Norwich, John Julius. A History of Venice. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.
Pennisi, Francesca A. “Un-Masking Venice: Allegory and the Politics of Reading in Decameron IV.2.” Heliotropia - An online journal of research to Boccaccio scholars. 2.1 (2004).
Ravid, Benjamin. “Venice and its Minorities,” in A Companion to Venetian History, 1400–1797, ed. Eric Dursteler. 449–71. Leiden: Brill, 2013.

Last updated: July 4, 2024