Since the opening of the Venetian state archives in the early nineteenth century, legions of scholars have pored through its vast materials and produced thousands of books on the history of Venice. This can be a challenge for the modern English-speaking reader, since most of those books are either highly specialized or not in English (or both). The works listed here are among the best available, and most offer an in-depth treatment of a subject accessible to readers with a basic grasp of Venetian history. They are heavily weighted toward works in English, but I have also included essential books in other languages as well. This is by no means meant to be an exhaustive bibliography of Venetian history (which could easily run as long as this book itself!), but rather a starting place for those interested in learning more about the fascinating and unique history of Venice.
GENERAL HISTORIES OF VENICE
Cessi, Roberto. Storia della Repubblica di Venezia. 2 vols. Giuseppe Principato, 1968.
Crouzet-Pavan, Elisabeth. Venice Triumphant: The Horizons of a Myth. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
Diehl, Charles. Venise: Une république patricienne. Flammarion, 1915.
Horodowich, Elizabeth. A Brief History of Venice. Running Press, 2009.
Howard, Deborah. The Architectural History of Venice. Yale University Press, 2002.
Kretschmayr, Heinrich. Geschichte von Venedig. 3 vols. F. A. Perthes, 1905–34.
Lane, Frederic C. Venice: A Maritime Republic. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973.
Norwich, John Julius. A History of Venice. Knopf, 1982.
Romanin, Samuele. Storia documentata della Repubblica di Venezia. 3rd ed. 10 vols. Filippi Editore, 1972–75.
———. Storia di Venezia. 12 vols. (thus far). Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1992–.
Zorzi, Alvise. Venice, 697–1797: A City, A Republic, An Empire. Overlook, 2001.
EARLY VENICE
Ammerman, A. J., and Charles E. McClennen, eds. Venice Before San Marco: Recent Studies on the Origins of the City. Colgate University Press, 2001.
Carile, Antonio, and Giorgio Fedalto. Le origini di Venezia. Pàtron, 1978.
Cessi, Roberto. Le origini del ducato veneziano. A. Morano, 1951.
Dale, Thomas E. A. Relics, Prayer, and Politics in Medieval Venetia: Romanesque Painting in the Crypt of Aquileia Cathedral. Princeton University Press, 1997.
Dorigo, Wladimiro. Venezia origini: Fondamenti, ipotesi, metodi. Electa, 1983.
Hodgson, Francis Cotterell. The Early History of Venice from the Foundation to the Conquest of Constantinople A.D. 1204. George Allen, 1901.
MIDDLE AGES
Borsari, Silvano. Il Dominio veneziano a Creta nel XIII secolo. Fauso Fiorentino, 1963.
Cessi, Roberto. Venezia Ducale. 2 vols. Deputazione di Storia Patria per le Venezie, 1963–65.
Crouzet-Pavan, Elisabeth. “Sopra le acque salse”: Espaces, pouvoir et société à Venise à la fin du Moyen Age. École Française de Rome, 1992.
Fees, Irmgard. Reichtum und Macht im Mittelalterlichen Venedig: Die Familie Ziani. Max Niemeyer, 1988.
Fotheringham, John Knight. Marco Sanudo: Conqueror of the Archipelago. Clarendon, 1915.
Hodgson, Francis Cotterell. Venice in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. George Allen and Sons, 1910.
Kedar, Benjamin Z. Merchants in Crisis: Genoese and Venetian Men of Affairs and the Fourteenth-Century Depression. Yale University Press, 1976.
Larner, John. Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World. Yale University Press, 1999.
Madden, Thomas F. Enrico Dandolo and the Rise of Venice. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.
Nicol, Donald M. Byzantium and Venice. Cambridge University Press, 1988.
———. The Last Centuries of Byzantium. Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Ortalli, Gherardo. Petrus I. Orseolo und seine Zeit. Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani, 1990.
Queller, Donald E., and Thomas F. Madden. The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.
Rando, Daniela. Una chiesa di frontiera: Le istitutzioni ecclesiastiche veneziane nei secoli VI–XIII. Il Mulino, 1994.
Romano, Dennis. The Likeness of Venice: A Life of Doge Francesco Foscari, 1373–1457. Yale University Press, 2007.
Rösch, Gerhard. Venedig und das Reich. Max Niemeyer, 1982.
Thiriet, Freddy. La Romanie vénitienne au Moyen Age. E. de Boccard, 1959.
RENAISSANCE VENICE
Bouwsma, William J. Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty. University of California Press, 1968.
Chambers, David S. The Imperial Age of Venice, 1380–1850. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970.
Chojnacki, Stanley. Women and Men in Renaissance Venice: Twelve Essays on Patrician Society. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.
Davis, Robert C. Shipbuilders of the Venetian Arsenal: Workers and Workplace in the Preindustrial City. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.
———. The War of the Fists: Popular Culture and Public Violence in Late Renaissance Venice. Oxford University Press, 1994.
Eglin, John. Venice Transfigured: The Myth of Venice in British Culture, 1660–1797. Palgrave, 2001.
Finlay, Robert. Politics in Renaissance Venice. Rutgers University Press, 1980.
Geanakoplos, Deno. Greek Scholars in Venice. Harvard University Press, 1962.
Gilbert, Felix. The Pope, His Banker, and Venice. Harvard University Press, 1980.
Hale, J. R. Renaissance Venice. Faber and Faber, 1973.
King, Margaret. The Death of the Child Valerio Marcello. University of Chicago Press, 1994.
———. Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician Dominance. Princeton University Press, 1986.
Labalme, Patricia. Bernardo Giustiniani: A Venetian of the Quattrocento. Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1969.
Lane, Frederic C. Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders of the Renaissance. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1934.
Lowry, Martin. The World of Aldus Manutius: Business and Scholarship in Renaissance Venice. Cornell University Press, 1979.
Muir, Edward. Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice. Princeton University Press, 1981.
Pullan, Brian. Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice: The Social Institutions of a Catholic State. Harvard University Press, 1971.
Queller, Donald E. The Venetian Patriciate: Reality Versus Myth. University of Illinois Press, 1986.
Redford, Bruce. Venice and the Grand Tour. Yale University Press, 1996.
Rosenthal, Margaret F. The Honest Courtesan: Veronica Franco, Citizen and Writer in Sixteenth-Century Venice. University of Chicago Press, 1992.
ART, MUSIC, AND ARCHITECTURE
Bellavitis, Giorgio. L’Arsenale di Venezia. Marsilio, 1983.
———, and Giandomenico Romanelli. Venezia. Laterza, 1985.
Brown, Patricia Fortini. Art and Life in Renaissance Venice. Prentice Hall, 1997.
———. Private Lives in Renaissance Venice: Art, Architecture, and the Family. Yale University Press, 2004.
———. Venetian Narrative Painting in the Age of Carpaccio. Yale University Press, 1988.
———. Venice and Antiquity: The Venetian Sense of the Past. Yale University Press, 1996.
Cessi, Roberto, and Annibale Alberti. Rialto. Nicola Zanichelli, 1934.
Concina, Ennio. L’Arsenale della Repubblica di Venezia. Electa, 1984.
———. A History of Venetian Architecture. Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Cooper, Tracy. Palladio’s Venice: Architecture and Society in a Renaissance Republic. Yale University Press, 2005.
Demus, Otto. The Mosaics of San Marco. University of Chicago Press, 1984.
Denker, Eric. Whistler and His Circle in Venice. Merrell, 2003.
Glixon, Jonathan. Honoring God and the City: Music at the Venetian Confraternities, 1260–1806. Oxford University Press, 2003.
Goy, Richard J. The House of Gold: Building a Palace in Medieval Venice. Cambridge University Press, 1993.
———. Venice: The City and Its Architecture. Phaidon, 1997.
Hocquet, Jean-Claude. Venise: Guide culturel d’une ville d’art, de la Renaissance à nos jours. Les Belles Lettres, 2010.
Howard, Deborah. Jacopo Sansovino: Architecture and Patronage in Renaissance Venice. Yale University Press, 1975.
———. Venice and the East: The Impact of the Islamic World on Venetian Architecture, 1100–1500. Yale University Press, 2002.
Huse, Norbert, and Wolfgang Wolters. The Art of Renaissance Venice. University of Chicago Press, 1990.
Lorenzetti, Giulio. Venezia e il suo estuario. Bestetti & Tumminelli, 1926.
Muratori, Saverio. Studi per una operante storia urbana di Venezia. Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, 1959.
Pincus, Debra. The Tombs of the Doges of Venice. Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Rosand, David. Painting in Cinquecento Venice: Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto. Yale University Press, 1986.
———. Titian, His World and His Legacy. Columbia University Press, 1982.
Rosand, Ellen. Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice: The Creation of a Genre. University of California Press, 1991.
Schulz, Juergen. The New Palaces of Medieval Venice. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004.
———. Venetian Painted Ceilings of the Renaissance. University of California Press, 1968.
Tassini, Giuseppe. Curiosità Veneziane. 9th ed. Filippi Editore, 1988.
Wolters, Wolfgang. Der Bilderschmuck des Dogenpalastes. Franz Steiner, 1983.
ECONOMIC HISTORY
Borsari, Silvano. Venezia e Bisanzio nel XII secolo. I rapporti economici. Deputazione di Storia Patria per le Venezie, 1988.
Heynen, Reinhard. Zur Entstehung des Kapitalismus in Venedig. Union Deutsche, 1905.
Hocquet, Jean-Claude. Le sel et la fortune à Venise. 2 vols. Lille, 1978–79.
Lane, Frederic C. Andrea Barbarigo, Merchant of Venice, 1418–1449. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1944.
———, and Reinhold C. Mueller. Money and Banking in Medieval and Renaissance Venice. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985.
Luzzatto, Gino. Storia economica di Venezia del XI al XVI secolo. Venice, 1961.
MacKenney, Richard. Tradesmen and Traders: The World of the Guilds in Venice and Europe. Routledge, 1990.
Mueller, Reinhold C. The Venetian Money Market: Banks, Panics, and the Public Debt, 1200–1500. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
Rapp, Richard T. Industry and Economic Decline in Seventeenth-Century Venice. Harvard University Press, 1976.
Stahl, Alan M. Zecca: The Mint of Venice in the Middle Ages. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.
MODERN VENICE (SINCE 1797)
Berendt, John. The City of Falling Angels. Penguin, 2005.
Cipriani, Arrigo. Harry’s Bar: The Life and Times of the Legendary Venice Landmark. Arcade, 2011.
Davis, Robert C., and Garry R. Marvin. Venice, the Tourist Maze: A Cultural Critique of the World’s Most Touristed City. University of California Press, 2004.
Del Negro, Piero, and Federica Ambrosini. L’aquila e il leone: I contatti diplomatici per un accordo commerciale fra gli Stati Uniti d’America e la Repubblica Veneta, 1783–1797. Programma e 1+1 Editore, 1989.
Fletcher, Caroline, and Jane Da Masto. The Science of Saving Venice. Paul Holberton, 2005.
Gianfranco, Pertot. Venice: Extraordinary Maintenance. Paul Holberton, 2005.
Ginsborg, Paul. Daniele Manin and the Venetian Revolution of 1848–49. Cambridge University Press, 1979.
Keahey, John. Venice Against the Sea: A City Besieged. St. Martin’s Press, 2002.
Norwich, John Julius. Paradise of Cities: Venice in the 19th Century. Doubleday, 2003.
Pemble, John. Venice Rediscovered. Oxford University Press, 1995.
Plant, Margaret. Venice, Fragile City: 1797–1997. Yale University Press, 2002.
Preto, Paolo. Il Veneto austriaco, 1814–1866. Fondazione Cassamarca, 2000.