Marino Sanudo

The diarist and historian Marino Sanudo is known as “il Giovane” to distinguish him from the eponymous geographer (d. 1343), both of whom can be found in appropriate Reference Works, whereas only the younger is profiled in the Overview in the present article. There is no monograph-length biography of the younger Marino, though steps can be taken Toward a Life of Sanudo. He was born into the Venetian patriciate in 1466, acquired a humanist education in Venice, and devoted himself to letters—rather than to academic studies—in the university city of Padua. His interest in current affairs, combined with the opportunity to accompany his cousin on an official tour of the Terraferma, resulted in two works—Commentarii della guerra di Ferrara and Itinerarium—that set the tone for the remainder of his literary career. His subject matter became more political as he approached political maturity, membership of the Great Council (Maggior Consiglio), and held a succession of public offices. Thus De origine, situ et magistratibus urbis venetae and Le vite dei dogi both celebrate the unique features of Venetian government, administration, and society. As he finished work on the lives of the doges, the French invasion of Italy in 1494 provided Sanudo with a new subject, the conflict in which all the major Italian states became embroiled. For present purposes, the resulting text is paired with a short one of 1502–1503: La spedizione di Carlo VIII and Descriptione de la patria de Friul. The current affairs related in La spedizione finish at the point when those recorded in I diarii begin. La spedizione was written in a Tuscan form of Italian that could be read with ease by a wide range of people, but the diaries are centered on Venice and written in the Venetian volgare. That fact has generated the analysis found under Text and Language. From 1496 to 1533, Sanudo kept a record of political events, economic developments, and social activities, his interest focused on Venice and its Neighbors, but also extending to More Distant Lands. All the while he continued to hold public offices and to collect an extensive library, both of which have generated brief studies in Journals and Collections of Papers, but his hope of being appointed Venice’s official historian was frustrated by the appointment of Andrea Navagero in 1506. Sanudo died on 4 April 1536. His diaries have exercised a particularly profound influence on modern studies of Renaissance Venice.

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