TEXT: Written by MATT RIGGSBY
  Edited by NIKOLA VRTIS
  Cartography by MATT RIGGSBY
  Reviewers: S.A. Fisher, Phil Masters, and Christopher R. Rice
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  STEVE JACKSON GAMES
  Stock #37-0663 
  Version 1.0 – July 2018
  ®
  Hot Spots:
  TM
  Renaissance Venice
  TM
  GURPS System Design z STEVE JACKSON
  GURPS Line Editor z SEAN PUNCH
  Assistant GURPS Line Editor z JASON “PK” LEVINE
  GURPS Project Manager z STEVEN MARSH
  Executive Editor z MIRANDA HORNER
  Production Artist and Indexer z NIKOLA VRTIS
  GURPS FAQ Maintainer z VICKY “MOLOKH” KOLENKO
  Chief Executive Officer z PHILIP REED
  Chief Creative Officer z SAM MITSCHKE
  Chief Operating Officer z SUSAN BUENO
  Marketing Director z RHEA FRIESEN
  Director of Sales z ROSS JEPSON
  Page Design z PHIL REED and JUSTIN DE WITT
   Art Direction and Prepress Checker z NIKKI VRTIS
  
  IntroductIon  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 3
  Art Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . .3
  Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
  Publication History . . . . . . . . . . . .3
  Recommended Works . . . . . . . . . .3
  About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
  1 . GeoGraphy and  
  Land use  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 4
  The CiTy  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 4
  The Sestieri. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4
  Transportation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
  Climate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
  Landmarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
  Map of VenezIa  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .5
  The Lagoon  
  and Terraferma  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 6
  Map of VenezIa and  
  the terraferMa  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .7
  Map of the VenetIan eMpIre  .  .  .  .  .  .  .7
  2 . hIstory  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 8
  foundaTions  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 8
  merChanT empire .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 8
  TerresTriaL power .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 9
  Venezia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
  Eminent Venetians . . . . . . . . . . . .10
  Long TwiLighT  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 11
  Timeline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
  3 . the apparatus  
  of power  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 12
  an arisToCraTiC repubLiC .  .  .  .  . 12
  Foreign Relations. . . . . . . . . . . . .13
  Archives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
  Police and the Courts. . . . . . . . . .14
  Quis Custodiet  
  Ipsos Custodes . . . . . . . . . . . . .14
  Intelligence and Espionage . . . . .14
  soCiaL CLasses  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 15
  Moors of Venice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16
  Status and Display . . . . . . . . . . . .16
  Slaves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16
  Trade and indusTry  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 17
  Trade Goods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
  Itinerary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
  Money. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
  The miLiTary  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 18
  Armies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
  The Navy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
  Demon Ship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
  Shipbuilding. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
  4 . daILy LIfe  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 21
  sCuoLe  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 21
  Compagnie Delle Calze . . . . . . . . .21
  reLigion  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 21
  Buffianna,  
  L’ammazzavampiri . . . . . . . . .22
  Convents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
  arT  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 22
  Coats of Arms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23
  Pets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23
  CLoThing .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 23
  The demimonde  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 23
  food  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 24
  Life of The mind  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 25
  Publishing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25
  Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25
  women in pubLiC Life .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 26
  arChiTeCTure  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 26
  Places to Stay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26
  On the Block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
  reCreaTions  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 27
  Public Entertainment . . . . . . . . .27
  fLoor pLans of VenetIan hoMes  .  .  .28
  Private Diversions . . . . . . . . . . . .29
  5 . caMpaIGns  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 30
  Venezia as home .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 30
  Merchant Princes. . . . . . . . . . . . .30
  Secret Agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30
  Venezia as desTinaTion .  .  .  .  .  .  . 31
  CrossoVers .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 31
  A Man, a Plan, a Canal. . . . . . . . .32
  BIBLIoGraphy .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 33
  Index .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 34
   
  contents 
  2
  contents
  about GURPS
  Steve Jackson Games is committed to full support of GURPS players. We 
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  our errors. Errata pages for GURPS releases are available at sjgames.com/
  errata/gurps.
  Rules and statistics in this book are specifically for the GURPS Basic 
  Set, Fourth Edition. Page references that begin with B refer to that book, 
  not this one.
  
  During the Renaissance, Italy (the heartland of the era’s 
  intellectual, artistic, and commercial revival) was defined 
  not by large territorial kingdoms and principalities, as most 
  of Western Europe was, but by independent or near-in-
  dependent cities. One of the greatest was western-facing, 
  banking-rich Firenze. Its only equal (and, in some ways, 
  one which surpassed it) was a city on the opposite side of 
  the peninsula: the trade-rich gateway to the East, the city of 
  St. Mark, La Serenissima, the republic of Venice, or, as the 
  natives call it, Venezia.
  Venezia was an anomaly in almost every way compared to 
  the rest of Western Europe. It retained ties to the Byzantine 
  Empire long after that remnant of classical antiquity had 
  become semi-legendary to the rest of the continent. It was 
  a republic (though a very peculiar republic indeed) when 
  other states were formal or de facto autocracies. It carried on 
  pragmatic relations with the Muslim powers of the Eastern 
  Mediterranean while the Crusades and later wars against the 
  Turks raged. Even its construction was unusual: the city was a 
  literal island rising above the waters of a lagoon, defended by 
  difficult waters and the Mediterranean’s most formidable fleet 
  instead of stone walls.
  This work describes the city of Venezia at its height from 
  the beginning of the 15th century (when it disposed of one of 
  its last major trading rivals on the Italian peninsula), through  
  a transition from a pure center of trade into a center of indus-
  try and artistic and intellectual activity, to late in the 16th 
  century (when it began a long decline, outmaneuvered by the 
  major powers of Western Europe for trade to the Far East and 
  colonization of the New World).
  GlossaRy
  This book uses a few Italian terms, mostly place names, but 
  there are a few technical terms well worth knowing.
  ca’: A Venetian house; short for “casa.”
  calle: A Venetian street.
  condottiero: Literally, a contractor, but in general use, a mer-
  cenary, particularly a mercenary officer.
  doge: Native ruler of Venezia.
  Firenze: Florence.
  Milano: Milan.
  Napoli: Naples.
  Quattrocento: Literally, 400, meaning the 15th century, or 
  the 1400s; preceded by the Trecento (1300s) and followed 
  by the Cinquecento (1500s).
  rio: Literally “river,” but in Venice, a canal.
  Roma: Rome.
  Venezia: Venice.
  Publication HistoRy
  Although some articles in the second edi-
  tion of Pyramid magazine addressed Venezia, 
  this is all new material.
  Recommended 
  WoRks
  This work covers roughly the same 
  time period as and an adjacent territory to 
  GURPS Hot Spots: Renaissance Florence, 
  which is strongly recommended. Rather 
  than repeat certain topics, notably a general 
  history of the Renaissance and a description 
  of land-based armies in Italy during this 
  period, this work refers the reader there. The 
  city description format comes from GURPS 
  City Stats.
  about tHe autHoR
  Matt Riggsby is trained in anthropology 
  and archaeology, and, like the rest of his 
  generation, toils in computers. He works for 
  an international medical software company 
  and lives with his lovely and talented wife, 
  above-average child, and a pack of doges.
   
  intRoduction 
  3
  intRoduction
  aRt acknoWledGments
  P. 13: “Doge Andrea Gritti (1455–1538),” by Workshop of Titian. 
  From the Friedsam Collection, bequest of Michael Friedsam, 1931, the 
  Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, metmuseum.org.
  P. 20: “The arrival of Henri III of France at the Lido in Venice in 
  1574.” Gift of Carolyn Bullard and Susan Schulman, in honor of 
  George Goldner, 2015, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,  
  metmuseum.org.
  P. 24: “Wineglass.” Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1883, the Metropoli-
  tan Museum of Art, New York, metmuseum.org.
  P. 25: “The Malèrmi Bible, vol. II,” by Niccolò Malèrmi (translator). 
  From Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1933, the Metropolitan Museum of 
  Art, New York, metmuseum.org.
  P. 27: “The Molo, Venice, from the Bacino di San Marco,” by Luca 
  Carlevaris. From Robert Lehman Collection, 1975, the Metropolitan 
  Museum of Art, New York, metmuseum.org.
  P. 29: “Intartenimento che demo ogni giorno li Ciarlatani from Habiti 
  d’huomeni et donne Venetiane.” From Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1947, 
  the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, metmuseum.org.
  P. 30: “Piazza San Marco,” by Canaletto. Purchase, Mrs. Charles 
  Wrightsman Gift, 1988, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 
  metmuseum.org.
  P. 33: “Zecchino, Domenico Contarini (1659–75).“ Bequest of 
  Joseph H. Durkee, 1898, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,  
  metmuseum.org.
  
   
  GeoGRaPHy and land use 
  4
  Venezia is peculiar in a number of ways, not the least 
  of which is its geography. It sits on a cluster of tiny islands 
  reinforced with landfill and stitched together with pedes-
  trian bridges. This arrangement produced a city of narrow 
  streets and extensive canals, where boats replace horses and 
  carts. From its sheltered location in a lagoon behind a per-
  manent sandbar, the island city came to control a pocket- 
  sized empire.
  tHe city
  Venezia is located at the northern end of the Adriatic 
  Sea, where the coast of Italy begins to bend east toward the 
  Balkan Peninsula (see regional map, top of p. 7). Venezia is 
  an island, or more precisely over 70 small, close-set islands, 
  shored up and extended with landfill, about a mile east of the 
  mainland shore.
  The city is shaped a bit like a stylized fish facing west, with 
  a thick head at one end, narrowing to the east, and flaring out 
  again at the eastern shore (see the city map on p. 5). The “fish” 
  is underlined by an additional island curving in parallel with 
  the “body” of the fish, about 300 yards to the south. At its wid-
  est, the city is a bit under two and a half miles across. It’s up to 
  a mile and a third north to south, but much narrower in most 
  places, so the total area is only a little over a square mile. The 
  Grand Canal, a sort of aquatic “main drag” 30 to 100 yards 
  wide, forms a backward S-shape through the western half 
  of the city. It is lined with some of the city’s finest homes. 
  Large pools and courtyards are maintained by the Arsenale, 
  a massive shipyard at the eastern end of the city.
  From time to time, the city’s footprint expands slightly as 
  someone sinks more pilings into the seabed and fills in a little 
  more area with earth. However, the effect of such expansions 
  is slight. As a practical matter, the city’s area is sharply lim-
  ited, but its wealth and power constantly bring people in, so 
  it is densely packed. Through the period covered in this sup-
  plement, it has a population of 100,000 to 150,000, sometimes 
  reaching even higher than that. Residences and warehouses 
  go up to the water’s edge and are built taller than is common 
  for the era.
  Most of the land is 
  built up or paved, and 
  very little of it is culti-
  vated. Larger homes 
  have small kitchen 
  garden 
  plots, 
  and 
  some very wealthy 
  people have decora-
  tive gardens attached 
  to second homes. The less built-up islands of the lagoon have 
  more greenery.
  tHe sestieRi
  Venezia proper is divided into six neighborhoods called  
  sestieri (see the map on p. 5). To the west of the Grand Canal 
  are Santa Croce to the far west, San Polo inside the upper 
  curve of the Grand Canal, and Dorsoduro along the south 
  shore. To the east of the Grand Canal are Cannaregio in the 
  northwest, San Marco occupying the middle third of the 
  south shore, and Castello covering the east end.
  Sestieri are further divided into a number of parishes, 
  around 80 altogether. Each parish is centered on its own 
  church (rarely being out of sight of a church may cause prob-
  lems for some kinds of supernatural entities). 
  All neighborhoods hold a mix of classes and professions, 
  so there’s no “rich” or “poor” part of town. Broadly speaking, 
  the western part of the city has more fishermen (and far more 
  Jews; see Ghetto, p. 6) than the east, which is dominated by 
  the Arsenale (p. 6). The central portion holds the lion’s share 
  of commerce and government.
  A number of outlying islands are associated with the city 
  but aren’t part of the sestiero system. They can be thought of 
  as suburbs, not in the city in the strictest legal and adminis-
  trative sense but very much a part of civic life. Giudecca and 
  San Giorgio Maggiore comprise the long stretch of islands 
  immediately south of the city proper. Several smaller and less 
  densely occupied islands are to the north, notably 
  San Michele and San Cristoforo (home of a mon-
  astery during the period covered here, combined 
  into a single island and turned into a cemetery 
  in the 19th century) and Murano (the center of 
  Venezia’s glass industry from the end of the 13th 
  century). Murano is a few hundred yards north of 
  San Michele and not shown on the city map. Each 
  of these associated islands, of course, has its own 
  homes, workshops, and religious institutions.
  cHaPteR one
  GeoGRaPHy  
  and land use
   . . . works and contrivances 
  . . . could not be copied and made 
  by others so that [the inventors] 
  are deprived of their honour.
  – 1474 statute on patents
  
   
  GeoGRaPHy and land use 
  5
  tRansPoRtation
  Transportation is usually by foot along a series of often 
  narrow, twisting streets, or by boat. A few streets are as lit-
  tle as half a yard wide, and a good many are narrow enough 
  that a horse would have a hard time passing through and two 
  or three men with shields could block the street. Horses and 
  carts are almost unknown; indeed, horses were largely pro-
  hibited within the city after 1480. 
  The spaces between the city’s constituent islands, shored 
  up and squared off, form a network of canals, which take the 
  place of major roads. Hundreds of small bridges arch high 
  above them, allowing ground and water traffic to cross paths. 
  Bridges are as likely to have steps as sloping surfaces, and 
  many have an inverted V shape instead of an arch. 
  Heavy hauling and longer trips across the city are per-
  formed by water. Small, flat-bottomed boats are in common 
  use for transportation, but modern-style gondolas had not yet 
  been standardized. Providing water transportation for hire is 
  a common job.
  climate
  The Venetian climate is, obviously, Mediterranean, with 
  hot but not punishing summers, and mild winters with 
  temperatures rarely dipping below freezing. (Even so, a few 
  winters were cold enough to freeze much of the lagoon and 
  permit walking or riding carts from the city to the mainland.) 
  The omnipresent sea further moderates temperatures. At the 
  same time, though, the city is very wet, with frequent rain, a 
  good deal of fog in cooler seasons, and constantly high humid-
  ity. Still, the dangerous high tides threatening the modern city 
  are centuries away; some flooding is possible during extreme 
  weather, but the Lido (see p. 6) protects the city from most 
  storm surges.
  landmaRks
  The city has a number of notable landmarks and important 
  neighborhoods which everyone knows about and may form 
  the basis of navigation around town.
  Rialto
  Part of the San Polo neighborhood, on the inside of the 
  upper curve of the Grand Canal’s reversed S, this region 
  has long been an important one. Initially, it was the seat of 
  Venetian government. After a market was established there 
  in the 11th century, it became the center of Venetian banking.  
  maP of Venezia
  0 
  Feet 
  2,000
  San Michele
  Cannaregio
  San Polo
  Santa Croce
  Dorsoduro
  San Marco
  Castello
  Giudecca
  Ghetto
  Rialto
  Piazza  
  San Marco
  Arsenale
  Rio
  Calle
  Key
  N
  San Cristoforo
  San Giorgio 
  Maggiore
  
   
  GeoGRaPHy and land use 
  6
  For the period in question here, it’s Venezia’s equivalent of 
  Wall Street surrounded by shopping districts. The center  
  of the marketplace demands the highest rents for firms  
  that occupy space there – largely bankers, insurers, and 
  similar businesses.
  Piazza San Marco
  This region on the south shore of the city is doubtless 
  Venezia’s best-known and most-recognized area; paintings 
  of it are nigh inevitable in modern Italian restaurants. Where 
  the Rialto is the heart of Venezia’s business community, 
  this is the heart of Venetian government and political life.  
  Ships can dock in a great many places around the city 
  and even along the Grand Canal, but the Molo (the stone- 
  reinforced bank by the piazza) is where ceremonial embar-
  kations and departures take place.
  Entry to the piazza is to the north, between a pair of mon-
  umental columns. The piazza itself is shaped like a reversed 
  L, rotated to the left. Along the eastern side of the piazza 
  are the ducal palace and the Basilica San Marco, Venezia’s 
  leading church. The ducal palace is far more than a resi-
  dence. It hosts meetings of the Maggior Consiglio (or Grand 
  Council; see p. 12), many government offices, and even cells 
  for important prisoners. A freestanding bell tower sits at 
  the inside corner of the L. Further to the west, the piazza is 
  surrounded by the Procuratie, a series of lesser government 
  office buildings. The piazza has long had a clock tower in 
  the northeast corner; there was one attached to the church 
  until the 1490s, which was replaced by a more elaborate one 
  attached to the Procuratie. 
  Other notable establishments in the area include the Zecca 
  (the mint) and, starting in the 1530s, the Biblioteca Marciana 
  (Library of St. Mark), one of the first major public libraries in 
  early modern Europe, containing an important and ever-grow-
  ing collection of manuscripts and printed books. (The Bridge 
  of Sighs, the famed covered stone bridge in this area, won’t be 
  constructed until 1600.)
  Ghetto
  This neighborhood in the Cannaregio region, on the site 
  of former metal foundries, is home to Venezia’s Jewish pop-
  ulation. It was informally the Jewish neighborhood until 
  1516, when it became their official home. (Jews were formally 
  prohibited from living in the city, but with exceptions and 
  loopholes.) There are actually two parts: the Ghetto Nuovo, 
  which is completely surrounded by canals, and the adjacent 
  Ghetto Vecchio, a strip of land between the Ghetto Nuovo and 
  a major feeder into the Grand Canal. (Despite the name, the 
  Ghetto Nuovo was inhabited earlier; it had been the home of 
  a newer foundry.) The total area is about five acres. If the rest 
  of Venezia is densely populated, the Ghetto is packed to the 
  gills. Buildings up to seven stories high are common. It also 
  has limited entrances, which may be closed off to enforce cur-
  fews. For religious reasons, synagogues are only found on the 
  topmost floors.
  San Michele
  This island off the north shore of the city proper, about 
  halfway between the city and Murano, is nearly as open as 
  the city is built up. It houses a monastic community, which 
  maintains pleasant gardens on most of the island. Fishermen 
  often stop to rest there and at the adjacent San Cristoforo. 
  The San Michele monastery is sometimes used as a prison. 
  Although not in the city proper, it is more than close enough 
  to be convenient.
  Arsenale
  The Arsenale is the industrial heart of Venezia’s naval 
  power. One of the earliest examples of assembly line-style 
  construction, this shipyard and armory takes up over 100 
  acres in the center and eastern portion of the city, practi-
  cally a city within the city. Consistent with its military and 
  economic significance, the Arsenale is well-protected. Unlike 
  Venezia itself, walls and fortified gates surround it, and it is 
  constantly guarded to keep out spies. Within the walls lie a 
  series of large pools and slipways for constructing ships in 
  stages. There is also a variety of buildings for all stages of 
  craftwork involved in making and arming ships, from distill-
  ing pitch for caulking to (by the late 16th century) foundries 
  for making cannon, as well as bakeries and other facilities to 
  care for the workers during their long days. The single larg-
  est building is the Corderie della Tana, a nearly 350-yard-
  long hall running east to west near the southern end of the 
  Arsenale, for making rope.
  tHe laGoon and teRRafeRma
  The city sits inside a vaguely crescent-shaped lagoon pro-
  tected from the open sea by a substantial sandbar called the 
  Lido. Unlike almost every other contemporary city, Venezia 
  has no defensive wall. The water and a powerful navy pro-
  tect it, so it never fell under direct attack during the period 
  under discussion here and only rarely during other periods; 
  the last significant threat was when the Genoese briefly took 
  the nearby town of Chioggia in 1379.
  Venezia’s large navy of state-of-the-art (during this period, 
  anyway) galleys manned by veteran sailors isn’t the only obsta-
  cle to attack. There’s also the underwater terrain. The lagoon 
  is shallow, with many submerged sandbars. Small boats can 
  move across it freely, but warships with deeper drafts are 
  limited to deeper channels, which can shift over time. (A gon-
  dola or similar small boat has a draft of less than a foot, while 
  even the lightest galley has a draft of over a yard.) This gives 
  the Venetians a huge home-field advantage. If attacked, as hap-
  pened once or twice during the Middle Ages, they can remove 
  buoys marking channels for larger ships, strategically block 
  some of them with sunken barges, rely on their own intimate 
  knowledge of the underwater terrain to get their own ships 
  around, and trap any invading force to harass or destroy later.
  The Lido, other islands of the lagoon, and the nearby main-
  land (called the terraferma) are, naturally, dominated by the 
  city. Areas of the marshy land around the shores of the lagoon 
  have been converted to pans for a lucrative salt industry.  
  
   
  GeoGRaPHy and land use 
  7
  Agricultural produce comes 
  from the hinterland of the ter-
  raferma and the nearby Brenta 
  river valley. Until the early 
  Renaissance, Venezia seemed 
  to want little part of any land 
  beyond its immediate shores, 
  but the city eventually became 
  more concerned with securing 
  agricultural resources (Venezia 
  has long had to import most of 
  its food), the industrial capac-
  ity of nearby towns, and trade 
  routes west.
  Though the swampy regions 
  of the coast are hotbeds of 
  malaria (indeed, some of the 
  outlying islands have been 
  abandoned 
  because 
  of 
  it), 
  Venezia itself seems not to have 
  suffered quite so badly from it. 
  This is perhaps because, rela-
  tive to similar-sized cities, it is 
  so built up that there remains 
  no more standing water for 
  mosquitoes to breed in.
  The Venetian Empire
  Venezia maintains an overseas empire, of sorts 
  (see map, below). It is quite modest as empires go, but 
  provides Venezia with a variety of useful possessions 
  for raw materials and trade with the interior of terri-
  tories they don’t control. These are notable Venetian 
  possession held through most or 
  all of the period covered by this 
  supplement:
  • Istria.
  • Dalmatia: By the early 
  16th century, most of Dalmatia 
  was lost to the Turks, leaving 
  only the coastal city of Zara.
  • Durazzo: This territory 
  fell to the Turks in 1501.
  • Corfu.
  • Crete.
  • Cyprus.
  • Peloponnesian 
  and 
  Aegean fortresses: The Vene-
  tians controlled about a half 
  dozen towns or fortresses  
  in the southernmost regions 
  of the Peloponnese and a great 
  many islands around Greece. 
  The ones on the mainland 
  slowly fell to the Ottomans, 
  with the last going under 
  by 1540. However, Venezia 
  retained most of the islands 
  through the period in ques-
  tion here and beyond.
  maP of Venezia and tHe teRRafeRma
  0 Miles 4
  Padua
  Brenta River
  Venezia
  Lido
  Chioggia
  N
  maP of tHe Venetian emPiRe
  For details on the inset, see Map of Venezia and the Terraferma, above.
  Venezia and the Terraferma
  Istria
  Dalmatia
  Corfu
  Durazzo
  Aegean 
  Islands
  Crete
  Cyprus
  0 
  Miles 200
  N
  Venezia is beautiful, built on the sea, 
  who cannot see it cannot appreciate it.
  – Venetian proverb
  
   
  HistoRy 
  8
  From an unpromising beginning as a haven for refugees 
  on a collection of swampy islands, Venezia rose to become 
  an empire of merchants ruling the Mediterranean Sea. But 
  in its later years, it found itself overtaken by events, and as 
  its natural advantages were rendered obsolete, it fell into a 
  long decline.
  foundations
  The environs of Venezia (that is, the coastline and the 
  islands around the lagoon) were lightly inhabited by fishermen 
  since at least the Roman imperial period. However, the tradi-
  tional foundation date of the city is 421 A.D., when it is said 
  that merchants from nearby Patavium (modern Padua) set up 
  a trading emporium close to the lagoon. The region fell under 
  Byzantine authority after the empire retook most of Italy in the 
  early mid sixth century. During this period, a steady stream of 
  refugees fleeing the various barbarian migrations – including 
  the wealthier classes from Patavium – occupied the lagoon. 
  (Perhaps, because the region offered malaria rather than loot, 
  barbarian armies weren’t interested in it.) The growing settle-
  ment was administered from the nearby city of Ravenna.
  In the eighth century, the people of the lagoon threw off 
  their appointed governor in a conflict related to the controversy 
  over iconoclasm (see GURPS Hot Spots: Constantinople, 
  527-1204 A.D., p. 23) and elected their first native ruler, the 
  doge. However, the conflict was essentially religious rather 
  than political, so they remained under Byzantine rule for a 
  time, with their elected rulers being accepted and confirmed 
  by Constantinople.
  The Byzantine presence faded from Italy through the 
  eighth century, notably with a Lombard invasion in the 750s. 
  Venezia proved either too insignificant or too difficult for 
  the Lombards to take, or possibly both. A direct attack on 
  the region of the city in 810 failed, leaving it unoccupied by 
  foreign powers. The seat of government moved around the 
  lagoon for several decades, finally settling in the Rialto in the 
  early ninth century. The city that would become Venezia was 
  now truly taking shape.
  meRcHant emPiRe
  Though theoretically under Byzantine authority (the Byz-
  antines left Italy but didn’t renounce it), Venezia was for all 
  practical purposes an independent city. Still, it enjoyed a close 
  relationship with the empire. In its early centuries, it was a 
  close neighbor and a logical point of entry into Europe for 
  traffic from the east. This gave a strong incentive for the Vene-
  tians to become interested in commerce. Venetian merchants 
  negotiated favorable trading conditions at eastern ports. This 
  gave the city’s merchants a near-monopoly on immensely 
  lucrative trades in medicines, dyes, and spices from Asia. In 
  an era when merchant galleys were almost indistinguishable 
  from naval vessels, Venezia’s concentration on trade made it 
  a military power at sea as well. Merchants also brought home 
  Byzantine styles; many older buildings, still in use during the 
  Renaissance, bore a distinctly Byzantine look.
  The Middle Ages were, to some extent, the age of mer-
  chant-adventurers. Mercantile expeditions would set out from 
  the city to foreign ports, negotiate for goods without solid 
  advance knowledge of what might be available there, and 
  bring them back home for resale. Eventually, this became bet-
  ter organized, with seasonal convoys providing safety in num-
  bers, and small colonies of local factors semi-permanently 
  stationed in foreign ports to keep an eye on market conditions 
  year-round and engage in longer-term negotiations.
  For a rising power, Venezia’s territorial ambitions were 
  quite modest. Initially, Venezia’s control only extended to the 
  lagoon’s immediate hinterland. By the beginning of the sec-
  ond millennium, the city began to exert influence over a num-
  ber of ports around the eastern coast of the Adriatic, initially 
  by buying or coercing the allegiance of local rulers, and centu-
  ries later, by assuming direct control. This provided Venetian 
  vessels with safe ports along their routes and denied such 
  ports to pirates and commercial rivals like Genoa. It gained 
  a larger overseas empire through careful negotiation. Venezia 
  arranged significant trade concessions for ferrying crusaders 
  to the Holy Land, and leveraged that into a range of territories 
  in the Eastern Mediterranean.
  Overseas holdings became particularly extensive around 
  the Aegean in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade. As pay-
  ment for transportation, the Crusaders became involved in a 
  Byzantine dynastic struggle in support of Venezia’s preferred 
  candidate for the imperial throne. The Crusaders ended up 
  conquering the empire. Venezia leveraged that into control 
  over parts of the Peloponnese, most of the islands of the 
  Aegean, and the island of Crete. Even then, its territories were 
  relatively modest, largely limited to islands, mainland ports, 
  and the surrounding territories necessary to support them. 
  The Venetians’ attention remained focused on trade.
  cHaPteR tWo
  HistoRy
  
   
  HistoRy 
  9
  At home during this period, society became significantly 
  more rigid. In 1297, the government enacted the serrata, or 
  the limiting of the Maggior Consiglio (Grand Council; p. 12). 
  This body, which acted as a weak legislature and advisory 
  body to the doge, was up to this point theoretically open to 
  a broad cross-section of the city’s population. In practice, 
  it was limited enough to be dominated by smaller factions. 
  With the restructuring of who could participate, the size of 
  the council was increased from a little over 100 members to 
  well over 1,000. This gave the council a much broader base 
  of membership, making it much harder for a single group to 
  control. At the same time, though, restrictions were placed 
  on eligibility for membership. By 1316, membership in the 
  council was restricted to a number of aristocratic families, 
  who became a hereditary oligarchy.
  teRRestRial PoWeR
  Through the 14th century, Venezia began to turn its atten-
  tion west. It succeeded in a long conflict with shipping rival 
  Genoa at the dawn of the 15th century, neutralizing the other 
  city as both a military and economic threat. Venezia then 
  began to expand into the Italian mainland. Within the first 
  few decades of the 15th century, it established control over a 
  sizable chunk of northern Italy nearly as far west as Milano 
  (the territories roughly correspond to modern Veneto, Friuli, 
  and parts of Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna).
  The Arsenale also underwent tremendous growth to 
  support the city’s dominant naval position. It consoli-
  dated facilities and drew craftspeople from all over the 
  city to live permanently in and around the worksite.
  The Venetian empire was now at its height. It con-
  trolled significant cities such as Padua and Verona 
  in Italy; the better part of the eastern coast of the 
  Adriatic, giving it dominance over both overland 
  routes across the Balkan peninsula and the short-
  est sea routes into Western Europe from the Levant 
  and points east; and a number of territories farther 
  east – Crete, parts of the Peloponnese, and most 
  islands in the Aegean. It also had trading colonies all 
  over the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts.
  In 1453, when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman 
  Empire despite Venetian support, Venezia was one of 
  the first stops for Byzantine scholars fleeing the fall 
  of the city, giving it a wealth of Greek texts and schol-
  arship. However, Venetian support for the last of the 
  Byzantines and the concessions they had won from 
  the now-vanished empire also put the Venetians in 
  direct conflict with the Turks. Through the late 15th 
  century, Venezia lost many of its possessions on the 
  Balkan peninsula. 
  By 1475, the campfires of Turkish scouts in 
  Dalmatia could be seen from Venezia itself. Venezia 
  eventually negotiated peace and a return of its mer-
  chants to Constantinople in 1479, but with a loss of 
  many of its old privileges and several of its Aegean 
  and mainland Greek territories (the Ottomans didn’t 
  need Venezia nearly as much as the Byzantines did). 
  Through the dynastic inheritance of one of its noble-
  women, Venezia also took possession of Cyprus in the 
  1470s, making up for some of its other losses.
  The year after the fall of Constantinople, Venezia 
  also signed on to the Most Holy League established by 
  the Treaty of Lodi. This treaty provided for extensive 
  consultation and exchanges of resident ambassadors 
  between its signatories (a novel practice; up to this 
  point, ambassadors were sent for specific missions 
  and then returned home). The signatories included 
  all the major cities of the Italian peninsula, and the exchanges 
  were intended to maintain a balance of power and end the 
  ongoing wars that had plagued the peninsula for decades.
  The increased diplomatic contacts kept Italy relatively 
  peaceful for a generation, which also made the peninsula 
  relatively prosperous. Even Venezia, which remained preoc-
  cupied abroad with Turkish wars through much of the sec-
  ond half of the 15th century, stayed reasonably prosperous, 
  though not to the extent that it had been in the first half.
  Venezia
  Population: 125,000 (Search +3)
  Physical and Magical Environment
  Terrain: Island/Beach
  Appearance: Attractive (+1) 
  Hygiene: -1
  No Mana (No Enchantment)
  Culture and Economy
  Language: Italian (Venetian dialect) Literacy: Accented
  TL: 4
  Wealth: Comfortable (¥2) 
  Status: -1 to 5
  Political Environment
  Government: Oligarchy
  CR: 4 (Corruption -1)
  Military Resources: $4M 
  Defense Bonus: +2
  Notes
  Venezia is physically and politically much the same through 
  the Renaissance, so these stats can stand for just about any 
  time during the 15th and 16th centuries. Its population varies 
  between 100,000 and 150,000, which changes the city’s military 
  resources but little else.
  What vary over time are the search bonuses. Through most 
  of the 15th century, the city provides +3 to search rolls for 
  spices and other imports from the East. That declines to +2 by 
  the end of the century, but is replaced by bonuses of +2 to +3 
  for manufactured goods. Search rolls for books are initially at 
  no bonus at the beginning of the century, improve to +1 in the 
  middle of the century, and rise to +3 by the end. Rolls for glass-
  ware and anything having to do with sea transport (maps, 
  ship rentals, experienced sailors, etc.) are at +2 throughout.
  
   
  HistoRy 
  10
  What it lost in trade to the east, it made back partially with 
  greater trade to the west. Venetian galleys sailed the Atlantic 
  coast as far north as Flanders, and the city controlled trade 
  routes through the Alps to northern Europe.
  The city’s economy also went through a significant shift 
  away from being solely a trading city to performing some 
  manufacturing as well. Native industries expanded enor-
  mously in fields such as publishing, glassmaking, and textile 
  manufacture. One of the results of this prosperity was a signif-
  icant growth in the arts, though perhaps not for the Venetians 
  as much as for the more flamboyant Medici in Firenze.
  But after the peaceful, prosperous years of the late 15th 
  century, the beginning of the 16th century was a time of cri-
  sis. The long peace resulting from Lodi collapsed in 1494, 
  restarting the cycle of Italian wars. This time, there was 
  greater involvement by the larger powers of France, Spain, 
  and the Holy Roman Empire, to whom Italy was a theater 
  for working out their own conflicts. Venezia’s peace with the 
  Turks also collapsed, with another war starting in 1499. By 
  1503, Venezia was forced to permanently cede significant 
  territory on the eastern side of the Adriatic. Finally, also in 
  1503, Portuguese ships arrived in the Gulf of Aden, having 
  gone the long way around Africa. Although these were merely 
  exploratory voyages and trips around Africa would remain 
  exceptionally risky for generations, they marked the rise of a 
  long-term threat to Venezia’s traditional dominance of trade 
  with the East.
  But worse was yet to come. Just a few years later, Venezia 
  ended up on the wrong end of the League of Cambrai, an 
  alliance of Aragon, France, the Holy Roman Empire, and the 
  Papacy. Faced with that formidable opposition, it quickly 
  lost essentially all of its possessions on the terraferma.  
  eminent Venetians
  Some names appear over and over again in Venetian 
  history: Loredan, Tron, Zen, and others. The limited pool 
  of patrician families (see p. 12) ensures a certain conti-
  nuity in leadership over time. Nonetheless, the Venetian 
  system of elevating the safest possible candidates to high 
  office also ensures that there are few great leaders, though 
  one may inadvertently slip through. Most memorable 
  Venetians are found in other occupations. Here are a few 
  notable people one might find in the city over the years.
  Gentile Bellini (1429-1507): A member of an artistic 
  family (his father was an early adopter of oil paints and 
  his brother Giovanni was a noted painter in his own right), 
  Gentile’s lifelong interest in the East paid off in 1479. At 
  that time, the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II requested the 
  services of a Venetian painter, and the Venetians sent 
  Gentile. He and the sultan got along remarkably well, 
  though Gentile thought it safest to return home quickly; 
  when debating with the sultan a point of the anatomy of 
  a person whose head has been cut off, Mehmed casually 
  had a slave decapitated to demonstrate his argument. The 
  only surviving portraits of Mehmed are Bellini’s, snapped 
  up at bargain prices by Italian merchants in Constantino-
  ple when Mehmed’s successor had them sold off as bor-
  derline-blasphemous images. Gentile remained influential 
  in Venetian painting, including popular oriental themes in 
  his work and eventually training the painter Titian. 
  Alvise Cadamosto (1432-1483): Born to a noble family 
  (in a house on the Grand Canal, no less) later wiped out 
  by a corruption scandal, Cadamosto was a particularly 
  adventurous merchant sailor. At a chance stopover in 
  Lisbon in 1454, he was hired by Portugal to assist in its 
  explorations around the coast of Africa, where he discov-
  ered the Cape Verde islands and made it as far south as 
  modern Guinea-Bissau. His fortune made, he returned to 
  Venezia in 1463 to take up a career as an official, mer-
  chant, and diplomat.
  Bartolomeo Colleoni (1400-1475): Though born in the 
  Milanese sphere of influence, Colleoni became Venezia’s 
  most reliable condottiero. He served in the ranks of a 
  number of mercenary armies, characteristically changing 
  sides frequently, and was finally made captain-general 
  (head of Venezia’s land forces) for life in 1455. He was 
  notable not for his tactical ability (though he was cer-
  tainly a competent general) so much as for his ability to 
  impose discipline and restrain his troops from excessively 
  destructive looting. He occasionally freelanced for other 
  clients while in Venezia’s employ, but neither against his 
  adopted city nor when the city required his services. He’s 
  best known now, though, for the legalistic implementa-
  tion of his will. When he died, he left the city a vast sum 
  of money on the condition a statue of him be erected 
  near San Marco. The Piazza San Marco, the center of the 
  city’s government and ceremonial life, had no statues of 
  anyone – general, politician, or even saint – and no one 
  wanted to break precedent. The government, then, not-
  ing that the will didn’t actually specify a particular San 
  Marco, put a grand statue of Colleoni up in front of the 
  Scuola Grande di San Marco, headquarters of a major 
  civic organization in the northern part of the city.
  Cassandra Fedele (1465-1558): Probably the most cel-
  ebrated female scholar of her day. She carried on phil-
  osophical correspondence with notable leaders in Italy 
  and abroad, and even addressed the Venetian Senate on 
  women’s issues. Moreover, it appears that she partici-
  pated in erudite conversation with other women, indicat-
  ing an entire class of educated women in Venezia.
  Franceso Foscari (1373-1457): Although his prede-
  cessor warned against electing this popular figure (and 
  rumors of buying his election dogged him through his 
  career), Foscari served as doge from the spring of 1423 
  to October of 1457, a few weeks before his death, making 
  him the city’s longest-serving ruler. His reign saw Venezia 
  at its territorial height, reaching its farthest extent on the 
  terraferma and still holding many overseas possessions. 
  But thereafter, there was essentially nowhere to go but 
  down; Constantinople fell on his watch, and only a few 
  years later, ailing and compromised by the clearly corrupt 
  actions of his son, he was forced to retire.
  
   
  HistoRy 
  11
  The rapidly shifting nature of Renaissance politics being what 
  it was, the Papacy fell out with France and allied with Venezia, 
  then Venezia switched its allegiance to France, all of which 
  resulted in Venezia recovering its lost Italian possessions by 
  1512. (Adding insult to injury, the Ottomans conquered Egypt 
  in 1517. Venezia had long had a trading relationship with the 
  Mamluk sultanate and its predecessors, giving them markets 
  and access to goods from the Far East separate from those of 
  the Ottomans, but that was now cut off.)
  While Venezia ended up only a little behind where it had 
  been, these closely set catastrophes left a definite impres-
  sion. After another decade, Venezia extricated itself from 
  alliances with feuding major powers such as Spain, France, 
  and the Papacy. Venezia managed to remain sufficiently 
  strong to maintain relative independence from the major 
  powers of Europe, to which the other important Italian cit-
  ies had already succumbed. Nevertheless, the city was very 
  gradually weakening from loss of territory to the Turks and 
  loss of trade to the Portuguese. It staved off catastrophe 
  through a combination of shifting to manufacturing from 
  pure shipping and exchange, and good luck (the Portuguese 
  took decades to establish stable trade with the Far East). For 
  a few decades, the combined forces of the Ottomans and 
  sultanates in Gujarat and Sumatra beat back the expanding 
  Portuguese, returning to Venezia the lion’s share of the spice 
  trade. And despite constant threats abroad, the city reached 
  a creative and intellectual peak. Presses in Venezia pro-
  duced books read all over Europe, and painting and musical 
  styles developing there would go on to set the course of arts 
  through Europe.
  lonG tWiliGHt
  The battle of Lepanto in 1571 was possibly the city’s last hur-
  rah as a major power. In the last major engagement between 
  fleets of rowed galleys, a combined Spanish-Venetian fleet 
  defeated a formidable Ottoman force off the northwest coast 
  of the Peloponnese, preventing Turkish naval dominance of 
  the Mediterranean. (The Spanish marine contingent included 
  a young Miguel Cervantes, who lost the 
  use of his left hand in the battle.) This 
  was also an important symbolic victory 
  against an enemy whom Europeans 
  usually regarded as nigh invincible. 
  The number of Ottoman galleys seized 
  at the battle was enough to depress the 
  Arsenale’s production for years.
  Over ensuing decades, though, 
  Venezia’s influence shrank. Only the 
  year before Lepanto, the Turks had 
  conquered Cyprus, taking the last 
  of Venezia’s major eastern posses-
  sions. The war with the Turks likewise 
  severely damaged the city’s other con-
  nections to the eastern world. And only 
  a year or two after Lepanto, a bout of 
  plague decimated the city’s population.
  More 
  importantly, 
  trends 
  that 
  started in Venezia moved on to the rest 
  of world. The impetus of the Renais-
  sance passed to northern Europe, and 
  the value of its trade routes steadily 
  declined as Spain, Portugal, and even-
  tually the Dutch and English developed 
  Atlantic routes. Its Atlantic-facing 
  rivals undercut Venetian shipping, and 
  the city had no overseas colonies to 
  enrich it. It was still a player in Euro-
  pean diplomacy, but only one among 
  many rather than a leading power. 
  Land-based empires slowly absorbed 
  its possessions, and rivalries with other 
  Italian states became a significant 
  issue again. The system still managed 
  to creak on for another few centuries 
  as Venezia became a tourist attraction for the gentry of other 
  nations like Britain. The last doge was deposed in 1797 by 
  Napoleon as he expanded his empire to the south. But the 
  Venetian republic, which had survived for a millennium, had 
  lived long enough to see new republics that it had indirectly 
  inspired arise in France and America.
  timeline
  421 – Traditional founding of the city.
  726 – Ursus is elected first doge of Venezia.
  c. 821 – Seat of government moves to the Rialto.
  c. 1000 – Venetian acquisitions along Dalmatian coast begin.
  1095 – First Crusade begins.
  1122 – Venezia attacks and eventually conquers Tyre, giving it a foothold on 
  the Levant coast.
  1202 – Fourth Crusade. Venezia acquires many former Byzantine territories.
  1297 – The serrata expands the Maggior Consiglio (Grand Council) but locks 
  up membership in a small elite.
  1405 – Venezia conquers Padua, marking a major move into the terraferma.
  1428 – Venezia gains control of Crema, marking the westernmost extent of 
  the city’s authority.
  1453 – Constantinople falls; Byzantine refugees flee to Italy, mostly through 
  Venezia.
  1454 – Treaty of Lodi marks the beginning of decades of relative peace.
  1473 – Venezia gains direct control of Cyprus.
  1479 – Venezia makes peace with Turks in the aftermath of the fall of Con-
  stantinople. Venezia establishes an embassy in Paris, the first permanent 
  embassy in Europe outside of Italy.
  1494 – French attack on kingdom of Napoli disrupts Italian balance of power, 
  essentially ending the Peace of Lodi.
  1503 – Venezia loses territories to Ottomans. Portuguese circumnavigate 
  Africa.
  1512 – Convoluted War of Cambrai (during which Venezia loses and regains 
  most of the terraferma) ends. Permanent Jewish residents allowed in the 
  Ghetto district.
  1514 – Major fire destroys most of the Rialto.
  1571 – Spanish and Venetian naval alliance defeats Turks at Lepanto.
  1797 – Napoleon conquers Venezia, bringing an end to the republic.
  
   
  tHe aPPaRatus of PoWeR 
  12
  Venezia styles itself a republic, and relative to the autoc-
  racies governing other states of the time, perhaps it is. The 
  city’s complex, interlocking institutions keep power within a 
  rigidly defined ruling class, but prevent it from collecting in 
  the hands of a single person or family.
  an aRistocRatic RePublic
  The city’s theoretically ultimate deliberative body and the 
  source of power and legitimacy is the Maggior Consiglio, com-
  posed of adult male members of the ruling class, who number 
  from 2,000 to 3,000 during this period. But since a body that 
  size is supremely unwieldy, it isn’t directly responsible for leg-
  islation or execution of policy. Rather, its main importance 
  is to elect and provide members for other government bodies 
  and ratify their decisions.
  Probably the most important body selected from the 
  Maggior Consiglio is the Consiglio dei Pregadi, often called 
  the Senate. This group is essentially the legislature and chief 
  regularly meeting deliberative body. It was originally a group 
  of 60 members specifically selected for the job, but by 1500, a 
  great many others were allowed to participate and vote. These 
  include the members of the Quarantia, the city’s 40-member 
  appeals court; a secondary council of 60 additional sena-
  tors selected by outgoing senators rather than directly by 
  the Maggior Consiglio; the heads of a variety of other coun-
  cils; and ambassadors and military commanders recently 
  returned from foreign assignments. In all, there can be up to 
  300 people allowed to act as senators. On a day-to-day basis, 
  only about half do so, and the body needs a quorum of only 
  70 in order to act.
  These deliberative and executive bodies, along with a great 
  many other committees, administer a variety of departments 
  that oversee assorted civic functions. There are magistrates 
  called provveditori and sopraprovveditori charged with matters 
  such as regulating the city’s salt industry, maintaining mili-
  tary readiness, enforcing sumptuary laws (see p. 16), auditing 
  the accounts of other offices, supplying the city with meat, and 
  so on. (The Arsenale has a variety of provveditori with specific 
  responsibilities for galleys, sailors, gunpowder supplies, etc.) 
  Actual responsibilities can be far-reaching. For example, 
  the public health ministry, created during this period to fend 
  off recurring plagues, is one of the few bodies which can slow 
  the pace of the city’s commerce (foreign ships suspected of 
  carrying plague could be restricted to an outlying island in 
  the lagoon for 40 days, from which the word “quarantine” is 
  derived). The public health ministry also has considerable 
  power in regulating the poor, prostitutes, laundries, food sup-
  plies, and anything else which might be seen to impact the 
  city’s health. 
  For the most part, offices are very temporary, lasting from 
  a few months to a couple of years. The constant churn through 
  government bodies further serves to prevent factions and per-
  sonal power bases from forming.
  The Doge
  The city also has someone at least nominally in charge. The 
  city’s leader, and very much a chief executive rather than a 
  ruler, is the doge. The doge acts as the most important public 
  face of the government, leading public ceremonies. More sub-
  stantively, he also presides over the most important councils, 
  setting agendas and acting as chairman. He is elected in a pro-
  cess that shows how Venetian institutions protect themselves 
  from factionalism. The election of the doge is a 10-step series 
  of choosing small bodies of electors by supermajority vote of 
  another body of electors, winnowing them down by lot, and 
  having the survivors select a separate body of electors which 
  will be reduced in turn until one last body picks the doge. The 
  process requires a total of 180 different people whose partic-
  ipation is at least partly up to chance. Even minor players in 
  the process are subject to random selection. During the vot-
  ing stages, it is standard procedure for an official to leave the 
  building where the panel of voters is deliberating by a particu-
  lar door and bring in the first boy under 15 he meets to count 
  the ballots. 
  Such an election is exceptionally hard to fix (though cer-
  tainly people tried). Still, that isn’t regarded as enough pro-
  tection, so other limits on the doge’s activities are in place. 
  For example, the doge cannot discuss business or open offi-
  cial correspondence without members of the Minor Consiglio 
  present (a body of six advisors, one from each of the city’s 
  sestieri; see p. 4). The three chief members of the Quarantia 
  also attend these meetings.
  cHaPteR tHRee
  tHe aPPaRatus 
  of PoWeR
  
   
  tHe aPPaRatus of PoWeR 
  13
  While there are few formal requirements for office other 
  than membership in the patrician class, there are certainly 
  informal ones. For example, one is more likely to be elected doge 
  if one has few close relatives and none in positions of power.  
  And ironically, popularity is likely to disqualify someone as 
  a doge, with several natural candidates for the office passed 
  over precisely because they were widely loved; Venezia’s rul-
  ing class has a mortal terror of popular dictators. Higher 
  office holders are also very old. The electoral boards in charge 
  of selecting candidates for office choose men of long experi-
  ence, so members of the Senate are typically at least 50, and 
  the average age of a new doge is over 70. The dogeship is one 
  of the city’s few lifetime offices (subject to being deposed in 
  extraordinary cases), but given the late date of appointment, 
  it’s usually a short term anyway.
  Council of Ten
  Lurking behind Venezia’s institutions is the shadowy 
  Council of Ten, a body that acts in secret. The name is mis-
  leading. It originally was comprised of 10 members elected by 
  the Senate for non-consecutive one-year terms. By this time, 
  it also includes the doge and the Minor Consiglio for a total of 
  17 members. The Ten are nominally responsible for the city’s 
  security and foreign affairs, though over the years, they’ve also 
  become responsible for a number of important financial deci-
  sions. In practice, they form the leadership of a secret police, 
  operating both domestically and abroad, and they have the 
  power to override any other part of the government. Indeed, 
  the Council are arguably the city’s true rulers. They’ve got both 
  the power to do nearly anything they want and small enough 
  numbers to make it happen quickly. They don’t and can’t 
  oversee everything the government does, but they are key in 
  deciding important policies, and they’re behind nearly all of 
  the many shadowy moves the government makes.
  foReiGn Relations
  It’s been said that the only thing that could unite Italy 
  during the Renaissance was hatred of Venezia. That’s an exag-
  geration, but when Italian politics and diplomacy of the early 
  Renaissance were based on balancing powers so that nobody 
  could gain an upper hand, wealthy Venezia, with its exten-
  sive trade networks and overseas territories, naturally found 
  itself on the wrong side of alliances more often than most. 
  The Treaty of Lodi in 1454 put resident ambassadors from 
  all over the peninsula around the continent and created an 
  emphasis on maintaining a balance of power. Venezia was 
  blocked from further expansion, though its diplomatic corps 
  was busy shifting its alliances to keep others from expanding 
  as well. After the Peace of Lodi collapsed at the end of the 
  century and external powers engaged themselves in Italian 
  conflicts, Venezia extended its system of ambassadors to the 
  rest of Western Europe. The republic managed, by the same 
  strategy of shifting from one side to another, to keep those 
  powers more or less at bay.
  While Venezia cannot be said to be an ally of the Muslim 
  powers of the East by any stretch of the imagination, its 
  relations with the Turks, the Egyptian Mamluks, and other 
  Muslims is at least tempered by pragmatism and a modest 
  familiarity. Venezia sometimes finds itself at war with the 
  Turks, usually as part of a coalition of other Christian nations. 
  Even so, the Venetians are often ambivalent about such alli-
  ances and may arrange a separate peace to preserve their trad-
  ing relationship. The Venetians are also not above forming 
  alliances with Muslim powers. For example, they concluded 
  an alliance with Persia to help contain the Ottomans, and the 
  republic explored the possibility of arming the Mamluks to 
  fight the Portuguese entering the Indian Ocean.
  aRcHiVes
  Venezia is home to a highly literate ruling class that is con-
  cerned that no part of the government operates without some 
  kind of oversight. As a result, the government produces vast 
  quantities of records: spending accounts, judicial verdicts, 
  meeting minutes, signed contracts, treaties, documents taken 
  in evidence of disputes, copies of official correspondence, and 
  so on. Once created, records are compiled and maintained by 
  a staff of up to 80 scribes and archivists, drawn from the citta-
  dini (p. 15), the city’s hereditary middle class.
  These records are stored in large archives in suitable 
  locations across the city. Treasury records are kept in the 
  Procuratie, records on many economic matters and market 
  regulation at the Rialto, naval records at the Arsenale, and so 
  on. But the largest and most important archives are held at 
  the ducal palace. These archives are themselves subdivided. 
  The main ducal chancery holds most records of the major 
  councils, while a secret chancery contains records pertain-
  ing to particularly sensitive topics (it is, naturally, subject 
  to elaborate security procedures, and the guards themselves 
  are illiterate so they can’t learn its secrets), which is separate 
  from the Council of Ten’s own secret chancery. 
  By the end of the 16th century, these records comprise 
  hundreds of thousands of bound volumes of documents, 
  individually indexed and added to separate registers. These 
  registers ultimately allow archivists to search for informa-
  tion based on such criteria as date, the government body in 
  question, and the subject matter.
  
   
  tHe aPPaRatus of PoWeR 
  14
  Police and tHe couRts
  Venezia has a patchwork of people with police powers. 
  Most are judges and other officials with the power to inves-
  tigate and make arrests, though their ability to bring force 
  to bear is unclear. The Capi di Sestieri (District Captains), for 
  example, were originally commissioned to find and punish 
  traitorous conspirators, wherever they may appear, but they 
  soon established patrols to prevent general daytime crime 
  as well.
  At least two different customs officials have police powers. 
  The Signori di Contrabanni (Lords of Contraband) are the pri-
  mary force, with perhaps 50 men specifically charged with 
  rooting out smuggling. The captains of the customs posts, 
  overseeing legitimate commerce, have police powers as well.
  There is a body of perhaps 50 to 100 night watchmen 
  (not to be confused with the defunct “lords of the night”; 
  p. 24), and a few other judges with their own small forces. 
  Between them, Venezia may have employed up to 300 police 
  in total, not counting paramilitary guards at the Arsenale 
  and other important locations. Each group has its own laws 
  to enforce, but there are ongoing squabbles over jurisdiction 
  and attempts to increase “territory.” For example, the Capi 
  di Sestieri try repeatedly to expand from daytime into night-
  time patrols.
  What we think of as criminal law is initially aimed primar-
  ily at punishing the guilty, without imagining that the actions 
  of the courts would actually reduce crime, though deter-
  rents creep in over time. Rather than take state-sponsored 
  vengeance with physical punishments, penalties for crimes 
  from which one might profit (notably theft) are set with elab-
  orate schedules and conditions in a way intended to make it 
  impossible to gain a monetary benefit. Penalties for violent 
  crimes are less well defined and often left to the conscience 
  of the judge. There is no presumption of innocence, so a 
  judge might punish a defendant who just feels guilty, with 
  a lack of conclusive evidence mitigating but not eliminating 
  penalties. Fines are very common punishments, followed 
  closely by imprisonment (there is a notoriously dark, damp 
  prison in the ducal palace, and other holding facilities else-
  where). Exile and physical punishments like mutilation and 
  beatings are relatively rare but still carried out. Given a lack 
  of prison space, the Quarantia often needs to issue gratia 
  adjusting sentences downward and releasing prisoners early. 
  Capital punishment is largely reserved for the worst crimes, 
  including murder and violent robbery involving large sums 
  of money or value.
  intelliGence  
  and esPionaGe
  Venezia is known for a profusion of spies, both at home 
  and abroad. Part of this reputation may come from the fact 
  that it cares about intelligence at all and takes a systematic 
  approach to it, putting Venezia well ahead of other states of its 
  time. Some of its sources simply collect what might be called 
  public information. Venetian diplomats file regular reports 
  with their government, providing up-to-date information on 
  what is happening abroad. Even when they simply summarize 
  the news of the day, they provide a significant benefit. Mer-
  chants likewise supply information on current events from 
  places they visit.
  But it goes beyond that. Diplomats and merchants work-
  ing as agents for the Venetian government also function as 
  spymasters, recruiting locals to provide them with less pub-
  lic information. Ambassadors are granted a secret budget 
  specifically for this purpose. Aristocratic informers might be 
  bribed with luxuries rather than cash; one Spanish nobleman 
  was given a painting by Titian. And, of course, some spies are 
  employed more or less directly by the government, usually 
  by the Council of Ten or some subsidiary body thereof. Most 
  of this espionage is political, but some of it is economic as 
  well, the two so often going hand in hand in Venezia. Reports 
  discuss market conditions, harvests, the activities of mer-
  chants, and other matters of economic significance, and 
  Venetian spies are as likely to try to discover trade secrets 
  as political ones.
  Most of the work of Venezia’s spies is information-gath-
  ering, but they do undertake more active operations from 
  time to time. Spy networks are used to send covert mes-
  sages, employing secret third parties to communicate with 
  people who can’t be seen talking to Venetians. 
  Some activities might be considered black-ops mis-
  sions. A number of sudden deaths of otherwise healthy 
  people – such as several people who were associated 
  with Catarina Cornaro, the last queen of Cyprus – may 
  plausibly be attributed to Venetian assassins. Likewise, 
  the Council of Ten is known to have at least attempted a 
  number of poisonings, in one case recruiting a professor 
  of botany to formulate a poison (unsuccessfully, as it hap-
  pens). There was even a project to gather a covert strike 
  force of exiles to burn a Turkish fleet, with the right to 
  return to Venezia as the reward.
  Venezia’s intelligence-gathering machinery isn’t lim-
  ited to foreign shores. It is just as active at home. Covert 
  informants are used to prevent crimes from treason to 
  smuggling, and courtesans are occasionally used in plots 
  to unmask those conspiring with foreign governments. 
  Adventure Seed:  
  Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes
  Adventurers are engaged by a shadowy figure, wearing 
  a mask and cloak but offering gold. This mysterious per-
  son claims to represent one of the Signori di Contrabanni 
  (above), and asks the party infiltrate a conspiracy to smug-
  gle arms into the city from abroad and assassinate several 
  government officials. As the investigators make contacts 
  in the alleged conspiracy (progress is slow; the conspira-
  tors are serious about security), another shadowy figure 
  approaches one of the adventurers, claiming to represent 
  one of the Capi di Sestieri (above), demanding information 
  on the conspiracy and that they feed misinformation to 
  their erstwhile employer, who is identified as a conspirator 
  working against his own operation. Yet another shadowy 
  figure approaches a different adventurer and makes similar 
  demands, claiming to be a representative of the Council of 
  Ten (p. 13). What is going on here? Is anyone not a conspir-
  ator? Could everyone, even the purported arms smugglers, 
  actually be an undercover agent for the city?
  
   
  tHe aPPaRatus of PoWeR 
  15
  The government also encourages the people of Venezia to 
  inform on one another in the name of civic unity and gen-
  eral order, and the people do so enthusiastically. Lion-headed 
  boxes are distributed around the city in which people can 
  deposit written accusations against their neighbors, and it 
  appears they are well-used. While most accusations are likely 
  trivial and ignored, the government handsomely rewards 
  those on whose accusations they act.
  Code
  Many doges use hidden messages passed among covert 
  agents and their masters. Spies experiment widely with 
  invisible inks. Objects like bouquets of flowers can be 
  arranged to convey messages (for example, with specific 
  colors representing letters or words). Shorthand systems 
  obfuscate words and parts of words, greatly complicating 
  decoding messages. Devices like the Cardan grille provide a 
  template in which a writer can compose a note with words 
  scattered over a page, then fill the rest with other text, mak-
  ing those initial words appear to be part of the overall text; a 
  reader with a similar grille may then block out the irrelevant 
  text and see the real message.
  This era also sees the birth of real cryptography in Europe. 
  Many people used some variation of a simple substitution 
  cipher, as they had done for centuries. In an encoded message, 
  one character would consistently be replaced with another (X 
  for A, Q for B and so on). But spies had also already figured out 
  frequency analysis by this period, letting them crack ciphers 
  by determining the most often used characters in the cipher 
  and substituting the most commonly used characters in the 
  language. Ideally, people would change ciphers frequently, 
  but in practice, it didn’t happen often enough for real security.
  In 1467, the cipher disk, the first encryption device, was 
  invented. It consists of two concentric rings of characters, 
  one of which rotates around the other. Someone encoding 
  a message would pick a position on the disk and write part 
  of a message in the resulting cipher. However, he could then 
  change the position of the disk, usually indicating the new 
  setting by a capital letter in the message, and continue with 
  what is essentially a new cipher. This method still has weak-
  nesses, but a more sophisticated use was developed by the 
  early 1550s. Each letter in the encoded message uses a differ-
  ent setting on the wheel and therefore essentially a different 
  cipher based on a key word or phrase transmitted separately. 
  This cipher method was considered essentially unbreakable 
  for centuries until someone finally figured out that if the 
  length of the cipher key could be determined, it became much 
  easier to crack.
  social classes
  Venetian society has been rigidly stratified since the early 
  14th century. The population is divided into three classes. The 
  patricians (or gentilhomini), who make up less than 5% of the 
  city’s population, form the city’s ruling class. Membership in 
  this class is strictly hereditary, with names of members and 
  their lines of descent painstakingly recorded in the carefully 
  guarded Libro d’Oro (Book of Gold). There are a few excep-
  tions to the rigid protection of membership in the patrician 
  class, but new admissions are very rare. For example, new 
  families are sometimes ennobled after plagues wipe out older 
  ones. Glassblowers living on Murano have their own excep-
  tion: Should one of them marry a woman of the patrician 
  class, their sons become patricians as well. And individuals, 
  such as the painter Titian, might be elevated on the grounds 
  of exceptional merit.
  Beneath the gentilhomini are the cittadini, compris-
  ing no more than 8% of the population. They are excluded 
  from political offices but often serve in important bureau-
  cratic positions as well as heading up scuole grandi (p. 21). 
  Members of the cittadini lack executive power, but since they 
  can hold long-term positions in the government bureaucracy, 
  they can have significant influence over the patricians who 
  quickly rotate through leadership positions above them. For 
  example, judges are members of the patrician class. They 
  serve terms typically measured in months, so they have little 
  experience, and they often have no professional legal train-
  ing. Meanwhile, the cittadini staff supporting the courts has 
  long-term appointments, allowing them to act as professional 
  advisors and institutional memory. Membership in the cit-
  tadini is primarily hereditary, but one might join if he can 
  prove his father and grandfather had been residents of the 
  city and none of them had been manual laborers.
  Beneath them is the great mass of popoli, common resi-
  dents without political rights worth speaking of. They may 
  engage in trade, live in the city, and so on, but they have no 
  political representation. Or, at least, no formal represen-
  tation – public protests have been known to sway rulers’ 
  positions. However, certain subgroups of the popoli have a 
  variety of privileges. For example, the arsenalotti (workers at 
  the Arsenale) provide a ceremonial bodyguard for the doge 
  and hold other prominent positions at public events. The 
  admiral in charge of the Arsenale is a position for a worker 
  who rises by merit rather than an official imposed from the 
  upper classes.
  Finally, the city has a small number of long-term resi-
  dents, not formally citizens but allowed to stay or work in the 
  city, at least temporarily. These include foreign merchants 
  with permission to live in the city (much as Venetians were 
  permitted to set up trading colonies elsewhere; foreign mer-
  chants include Germans, Greeks, Turks, and others), slaves 
  (see p. 16), and Jews (see p. 22). All told, these groups together 
  likely make up less than 3% of the population. These groups 
  lack both formal political power and the numbers and popu-
  lar appeal to be even informally influential.
  Distinctions between classes are primarily legal and 
  political rather than economic. Certainly, many patricians 
  are wealthy, but there are poor ones as well, while the mostly 
  poor members of the popoli can become rich without their 
  status changing. However, there are notable social divisions. 
  While marriages outside of one’s class are not legally pro-
  hibited, they are rare and subject to official scrutiny. The 
  most common exceptions are when poor patricians marry 
  their sons to the daughters of wealthy cittadini to gain  
  huge dowries.
  
   
  tHe aPPaRatus of PoWeR 
  16
  Mechanisms are in place to keep up appearances for 
  members of the upper classes who have fallen on hard times. 
  For example, many offices carry substantial salaries, so des-
  titute patricians support at least a minimum of expected 
  expenses by taking government jobs. Patricians are also 
  responsible for maintaining a number of galleys, but their 
  basic expenses are reimbursed, so even the poorest patri-
  cian can uphold his minimum obligations. And generally 
  speaking, members of higher classes who become poor have 
  an easier time finding aid than members of lower classes; 
  the Venetians find the fall from a great height a greater trag-
  edy than just being poor.
  Status
  Here are suggested Status levels for members of Venetian 
  society.
   Rank/Title 
  Status 
  Rank/Title 
  Status
   Popolo 
  0 
  Gentilhomino 
  3
   Cittadino 
  1 
  Gentilhomino official 
  4
   Cittadino official 
  2 
  Doge 
  5
  status and disPlay
  The patricians of Venezia count as one of their chief vir-
  tues mediocritas, or moderation. Even the city’s wealthiest 
  and most powerful residents make a show of modesty, not 
  being more ostentatious than their neighbors. At least, not 
  in public. For example, a home, even a grand one, is often 
  called a ca’ rather than a palazzo, as it might be called else-
  where in Italy.
  Sumptuary laws against conspicuous consumption sup-
  port the ideology of moderation. Clothing styles and combi-
  nations of clothing, the size of gatherings (such as weddings), 
  and the like are all regulated in various ways. In 1562, the min-
  istry in charge of enforcing sumptuary laws, to demonstrate 
  its seriousness, constructed two boxes where residents could 
  leave confidential accusations. The first was for accusations 
  against those breaking the law; the second was for officials 
  failing to enforce it.
  However, the sumptuary laws are widely evaded through 
  clever use of loopholes (for example, if the law limits the 
  number of jeweled buttons one might have on a shirt, a shirt 
  might be made with that many buttons interspersed with 
  jeweled studs which look exactly like the buttons but aren’t 
  actually fasteners), or simply ignored. Moreover, enforce-
  ment is lax, and members of the upper classes who are in 
  the best position to extravagantly break such laws are also 
  more than able to afford the modest fines levied against 
  them without a second thought; pagare le pompe (to pay 
  the fine), meaning to accept a pro forma punishment while 
  carrying on as one desires, is a common colloquialism in 
  Venezia. The city’s sumptuary laws are themselves arguably 
  all for show.
  The Price of Marriage
  For the upper classes, marriage is, among other things, a 
  very expensive business partnership between the bride and 
  groom. At the beginning of the 15th century, dowries were 
  legally capped at a price equivalent to about 200 times the 
  annual wage of a manual laborer, and those legal caps were 
  likely bypassed on a regular basis. By the end of the 16th 
  century, legal limits had increased to 800 times a labor-
  er’s annual pay. The considerable capital women bring with 
  them and their lingering control over it make women 
  at the very least powerful partners in the operation 
  of a household and its business. (Should a husband 
  die, his widow is legally entitled to the return of her 
  dowry even if the man had made no further provi-
  sion for her in his will.) Among the lower classes, 
  dowries are naturally much smaller, but the dowry 
  continues to serve as a sort of insurance policy 
  against the husband’s death, and a major invest-
  ment in a household enterprise.
  slaVes
  Slavery is practiced in Renaissance Italy, but on 
  nowhere near the scale of its classical past. Venezia 
  is probably Europe’s biggest slave market, but given 
  the greatly reduced scope of slavery, that’s not say-
  ing much. The majority of slaves in Venezia and to a 
  somewhat lesser extent elsewhere in Italy are imported from 
  points east. Most are of Russian, Circassian, or Tartar (that 
  is, of Turkic or Mongol descent in western Asia) origin, with 
  tiny sprinkling of others. Indeed, “tartar” is sometimes used 
  in Venetian documents as a synonym for “slave.” Most slaves 
  sold in Venezia are also women. On average, slaves are sold 
  as late teens. 
  Early in this period, individuals go for a price in the 
  neighborhood of five or six times the annual wage of a man-
  ual laborer, with prices increasing over time as deteriorating 
  relations with the Ottoman east dry up supplies. The large 
  investment necessarily means that slaves are usually traded 
  individually rather than in large lots, and they are almost 
  entirely owned by wealthy households, where they tend to be 
  employed as domestic servants. While many die in bondage, 
  some slaves are freed by arrangement with their masters or, 
  following classical tradition, in their master’s will.
  Eventually, toward the end of the period in question here, 
  the supply of slaves fades so much that the institution, while 
  not outlawed, becomes largely moribund. Indentured servi-
  tude mostly replaces slavery for the cities of northern Italy.
  Moors of Venice
  Though the story of Othello is fiction, Venezia is neverthe-
  less home to a number of Black Africans and their European- 
  born descendants (this should surprise no one; Africa is 
  nearby, trans-Mediterranean trade has been going on since 
  the Bronze Age, and Venetian ships are frequent visitors at 
  African ports). Though some are slaves, many are free men 
  holding the same rights and participating in the same associ-
  ations as other free Venetians. Africans have a reputation for 
  swimming and boating skills, particularly valuable in mari-
  time Venezia, and a number find employment as gondoliers. At 
  least one became the head of the gondoliers’ guild.
  
   
  tHe aPPaRatus of PoWeR 
  17
  tRade and industRy
  Venezia’s wealth is derived primarily from trade. Indeed, 
  most of the city’s domestic and foreign policies are driven by 
  a desire for profitable trade abroad. At home, the city nur-
  tures the Western world’s foremost shipbuilding program 
  (Shipbuilding, p. 20), while abroad, the government’s primary 
  concern has long been securing ports and concessions on tar-
  iffs and resident merchants by any means necessary.
  For centuries, Venezia has been a major conduit for trade 
  between Europe and Asia. While some independent specu-
  lative merchant ventures survive, trade is typically much 
  better organized than during the medieval period. Merchant 
  houses retain factors in foreign ports, who negotiate for 
  goods in consultation with their principals and maintain 
  local warehouses. 
  Large, regularly scheduled convoys, usually seven each 
  year, then make voyages to ports around the Black Sea 
  and eastern Mediterranean, and return with a minimum of 
  fuss and wrangling. The government rents out galleys to 
  wealthy merchants, who in turn rent out space on those 
  ships to lesser traders. Sailors can supplement their 
  income by engaging in trading on their own, using a 
  small allowance for cargo (generally speaking, no more 
  than they can carry), but even that small allowance can be 
  quite valuable. Large Venetian galleys also ply the seas to 
  the west, making their way along the European coast as 
  far as Flanders and Britain. Overland trade to the north, 
  following routes through the Alps, picks up considerably 
  during this period.
  tRade Goods
  Venezia deals in a huge number of commodities across the 
  Mediterranean and into Europe. These include many of the 
  usual standbys from the East like dyes, medicines, and spices, 
  as well as manufactured and craft items like decorated ceram-
  ics, paper, and soap, and even grain grown in the terraferma. 
  However, Venezia also trades in a great many goods produced 
  at home or in its dominions.
  Salt
  One of Venezia’s first major native industries was salt. The 
  shallow, swampy shores of the lagoon were relatively easy 
  to modify into salt pans, where seawater can be let in and 
  blocked off. The water evaporates, leaving behind increasingly 
  concentrated brine and eventually salt. The lucrative trade 
  continues through the Renaissance, even though it becomes 
  comparatively far less important.
  Textiles and Fibers
  Venezia imports both raw wool and woolen fabrics from 
  elsewhere in Europe. England was initially the most import-
  ant source of wool, but that advantage slowly shifted to Spain. 
  The city is itself a notable producer of serge, a durable woolen 
  fabric with a subtle diagonal pattern. The city is also known 
  for producing fabric with a vivid crimson color. Venetians 
  import significant quantities of cotton from the Levant and 
  Egypt, sending most of it north to Germany.
  But the most important textile is silk. Up until the period 
  in question here, Venezia imported its silk fiber from the East, 
  with a bit coming from Spain and southern Italy as well. With 
  the narrowing of routes to their main sources and the growth 
  of its mainland empire, the Venetians expanded raw silk pro-
  duction on the terraferma. From minimal production in the 
  15th century, cities in Venezia’s orbit like Verona were pro-
  ducing over 100,000 lbs. of silk a year by the middle of the 
  16th century and sending it to Venezia for processing. The city 
  is particularly famous for its silk velvet, often produced with 
  figurative patterns and threads of precious metals. As with 
  many other industries, silk production is highly regulated. 
  Weavers are required to include special borders in their fab-
  rics indicating its quality. Also, production of some lesser fab-
  rics (some cotton cloths and mixed fabrics involving cast-off 
  remnants of the silk spinning process and other fibers) is left 
  to the cities of the mainland.
  Metalwork
  One significant aspect of Venetian trade is shipping raw 
  metal – mostly copper and copper alloys in the form of var-
  iously size ingots, wire, and even semi-finished items – to 
  eastern ports, and reimporting finished goods. There is sig-
  nificant traffic in inlaid copper and bronze vessels, resold 
  back into Europe. Lead moves around as well, but very  
  little iron.
  Sugar
  During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, sugar is mostly 
  a product of nations bordering on the Mediterranean, taking 
  advantage of their hot weather and great exposure to sun-
  light. In particular, Venezia brings sugar in from its posses-
  sions in the Eastern Mediterranean, notably Cyprus. Sugar 
  is traded in the form of “loaves,” solid lumps that may be 
  broken up and ground or grated as needed, like modern jag-
  gery or piloncillo.
  Glass
  Venezia is a noted center of glass manufacture, though 
  the glass industry was moved to the nearby island of 
  Murano in the 1290s to reduce the risk of fire in the city 
  proper. In the 1450s, Venetian glaziers figured out how to 
  produce cristallo (transparent, colorless glass) in quantity.  
  Itinerary
  Typical voyages to eastern ports like Constantinople or 
  Alexandria take a little over a month, though the weather 
  can make that time vary by a factor of two. The trip back 
  usually takes about twice as long as the trip out. Such voy-
  ages are also punctuated by four or five stops along the 
  way at Venetian possessions along the Balkans and the 
  islands of the eastern Mediterranean.
  
   
  tHe aPPaRatus of PoWeR 
  18
  The process uses quartz rocks (refined by repeated heating 
  and cooling, then ground into powder) instead of mere sand, 
  along with a number of other high-quality ingredients, like 
  a flux made from carefully refined ashes of specific species 
  of plants. Murano produces a variety of colored glasses as 
  well, including gold-threaded and complex multicolored glass 
  beads, and enameled glassware. Glass vessels are painted 
  with pigmented compounds containing fluxes, giving the 
  paints a lower melting point than the glass itself. Though 
  highly honored, Venezia’s glaziers are also prohibited from 
  leaving the city in order to maintain the city’s monopoly on 
  its glass technology.
  Books
  During this period, Venezia is a major publishing hub, 
  adopting the printing press early. Publishers sprang up 
  through the Renaissance, mostly concentrated in the northern 
  part of the city, not far from the Ghetto, or in the center, west 
  of the Rialto. The number of publishers went from one in the 
  1460s to over 150 by 1500. Over 10,000 different titles were 
  published there during the 15th century, more than in the rest 
  of Europe combined. Nearly three times as many were pub-
  lished during the 16th.
  Venetian publishers developed products for broader mar-
  kets (see Publishing, p. 25) than the very expensive and rather 
  narrow range of texts that had been hand-copied by monks 
  up that point. Technical and commercial innovations occur as 
  well, beyond the printing press and movable type.
  • Italic type: Early publishing in Venezia saw the rise of 
  italic type replacing blocky early types. Italic is narrower than 
  its predecessors, so it allows books to be printed more effi-
  ciently, putting more words on less paper.
  • Small sizes: While paper and book sizes are far from stan-
  dardized, book-making techniques can divide them into rough 
  size classes. Many early books are folios. They use a single 
  large sheet of paper folded in half, making four sizable pages 
  each. For example, the Gutenberg Bible, published in folio 
  format, has pages about 12” by 18”. The next size down is the 
  quarto, with the paper folded twice and the edges trimmed, 
  making eight pages. Publishers in Venezia popularized the 
  octavo, with the paper folded three times to make 16 small 
  pages per sheet. Octavos are far more portable than most 
  medieval and early printed books, typically small enough to fit 
  into a pouch or large pocket.
  • Minimalist contents: Many early editions of classical lit-
  erature contained not just the text, but commentary as well. 
  Venetian publishers cut down on the extra pages by omitting 
  the commentary.
  • Better illustrations: This era sees the rise of copper-plate 
  engraving. A flat metal plate is coated with wax, and an artist 
  creates a drawing with a stylus by scratching wax off the sur-
  face. The plate is then treated with acids that etch grooves into 
  the exposed lines on the plate where wax has been removed. 
  The etched plate can then be used for printing, producing 
  much finer detail than the previous standard of woodcut 
  engraving, and on a more durable surface.
  money
  The most common coins in Venezia are a series of small bil-
  lon coins. The smallest is the piccolo (worth about $1), some-
  times called a denaro. Twelve of these make a soldo. There 
  are at various times other denominations, like half-soldi, 
  two-soldi, and four-soldi coins. Through the early part of the 
  Renaissance, these were accompanied by a single denomina-
  tion of gold coin, the ducat, worth 124 soldi ($1,488). In the 
  16th century, the city started issuing multiple denominations 
  (half-ducats, quarter-ducats, etc.). The coin came to be known 
  as a zecchino or sequin.
  Through the Middle Ages and into the early Renaissance, 
  the city also issued a pure silver coin, the grosso, worth about 
  10 times as much as the piccolo. However, issues with the sup-
  ply of silver led to the coin shrinking and vanishing by the 
  16th century, and silver coins are issued sporadically at best 
  through the period in question here.
  Venetian coins are notable for not displaying a picture of 
  the head of state. While other states in Europe are happy to 
  stamp their coins with the face of their king, duke, or other 
  ruling aristocrat, Venezia doesn’t want the doge to take on the 
  airs of a monarch. With a few short-lived exceptions (such as 
  the late-15th-century silver tron issued by a doge of the same 
  name), Venetian coins bear figures of Christ, St. Mark, and 
  other civic symbols.
  tHe militaRy
  Like other Italian cities of this period, Venezia mostly uses 
  mercenaries for fighting on land. On the sea, however, it has a 
  huge merchant fleet which doubles as a powerful navy.
  aRmies
  Venezia keeps no native standing army. Instead, it relies 
  on condottieri, mercenary troops, to fight its wars on land. 
  By this period, cities engage senior officers who bring 
  with them armies consisting of primarily of heavy cavalry, 
  pikemen, and musketeers. They possibly have supporting 
  troops, such as artillerists, combat engineers (improvised 
  earthworks and diverted rivers are common in Renaissance 
  warfare), and swordsmen for attacking fortified positions. 
  Like most cities, with the notable exception of Firenze, 
  Venezia prefers long-term relationships with its mercenary 
  officers. This reduces the odds that a condottiero will turn 
  on his employers to make a fast buck. See GURPS Hot 
  Spots: Renaissance Florence, pp. 15-18, for more on Italian 
  Renaissance armies.
  Nevertheless, the business of dealing with mercenar-
  ies is a constant problem. Venezia’s handling of a war with 
  Milano in the 1420s is a case in point. In 1425, the duke of 
  Milano had come to distrust one of his mercenary com-
  manders, Francesco Bussone, usually called Carmagnola. 
  So, Carmagnola went to Venezia to offer his services in a war 
  everyone knew was coming. Between his in-depth knowledge 
  of Milano’s forces and his own demonstrable skill as a gen-
  eral, he was the right man for the job of Venezia’s top general, 
  and the Venetians hired him.
  
   
  tHe aPPaRatus of PoWeR 
  19
  The conduct of the war, though, was not all that they might 
  desire. Carmagnola won several notable battles, but rarely 
  pressed his advantages in order to take and hold new ground. 
  Moreover, his victories tended to produce large numbers of 
  prisoners rather than large numbers of enemy casualties, and 
  those prisoners were often released in short order. This was, 
  unfortunately for those who hired mercenaries in Renaissance 
  Italy, par for the course. Battles were won by maneuver, with 
  one side often surrendering when their position became 
  untenable. Despite casualties among the rank and file, nearly 
  everybody worth speaking of survived to fight another day, 
  and the never-ending, back-and-forth fighting 
  ensured the mercenaries actually in the field 
  would make a lot of money.
  Despite his ability, Carmagnola played 
  this game too openly. His endless excuses to 
  refuse to engage in new campaigns unless 
  granted more money and titles resulted in 
  failure to advance very far, and a Venetian 
  flotilla sent upriver into the terraferma (and 
  manned by committed Venetian sailors rather 
  than foreign mercenaries) was eventually 
  defeated because Carmagnola was unwilling 
  to advance in order to support them. 
  He also received letters from his old 
  employer, the duke of Milano, who was feeling 
  him out about hiring him back. Although Carmagnola reg-
  ularly presented letters from Milano to the Venetians, when 
  spies recovered the original, unedited messages between 
  Milano and Carmagnola (in which the general appeared 
  far more inclined to be bought off by the other side), the 
  Venetians finally had enough. Once the most recent round of 
  fighting with Milano had died down, Carmagnola was lured 
  to Venezia on the pretext of planning another campaign. He 
  was arrested, tried, and executed in 1432. As for the war with 
  Milano, it continued in inconclusive fits and starts until the 
  Peace of Lodi.
  tHe naVy
  On land, because of the condottiero system, Venezia is 
  wealthy enough to be a force on par with other Italian cit-
  ies. At sea, however, Venetian power is in a class of its own. 
  Venetian ships are made at home, staffed by natives, and not 
  sold to other countries. The total size of the Venetian fleet at 
  any given time is highly variable, but the Arsenale is known 
  to put out over 100 ships in a good year, most of which are 
  smaller galleys. The city mustered over 100 warships for 
  Lepanto. Also, something like 300 pure merchant ships sailed 
  the Adriatic at any given time, suitable for transport but not 
  fast or maneuverable enough for fighting.
  Medieval and early Renaissance vessels can be divided 
  roughly into two classes: round ships and galleys. Round 
  ships, three or four times as long as they are wide, are round 
  only by comparison to long, narrow galleys. They are rela-
  tively lightly crewed (perhaps one or two dozen men) and 
  driven entirely by sail. They’re slower, less maneuverable, 
  and lack enough crew to put up a good fight if attacked. Thus, 
  during most of this period (before the development of can-
  non suitable for naval engagements), they’re suitable only for 
  shipping, not fighting. However, they’re quite good as bulk 
  cargo ships and passenger vessels. Round ships vary in size, 
  but a capacity of 500 tons isn’t unusual, and very large ones 
  can get up to 1,000 tons. Instead of cargo, they can carry 
  hundreds of passengers.
  Like most Mediterranean nations of its time, Venezia uses 
  galleys for serious business in long-distance trade and in war. 
  Galleys are long vessels propelled by both oars and sails, with 
  a pedigree stretching back into classical antiquity. The com-
  bination of sails and large banks of oars provides speed and 
  maneuverability, but at the cost of considerable manpower 
  needs, and poor suitability for deep-sea sailing.
  The lightest Venetian galleys, frequently used for war, are 
  about eight times as long as they are wide, with a deck about 
  40 yards long and six to seven yards across. (They’re narrower 
  at the waterline; substantial “balconies” run along the sides to 
  hold the rowers.) A Venetian galley has a fighting platform in 
  front and a high castle in back. The majority of the length of 
  the ship is taken up by benches for the rowers, about 30 on 
  each side. (With additional sailors to work the sails and three 
  rudders, they have a total crew of about 70.) Rowers are typ-
  ically arranged in sets of three, but unlike classical triremes, 
  which had three vertically separated banks of oars, Venetian 
  galleys have all of their rowers on a single level. Three row-
  ers share a bench, but each uses a different oar; benches are 
  slanted, with the rower sitting closest to the outside of the ship 
  forward of the one sitting farthest inside. Oars are about 30’ 
  long and weight around 120 lbs., weighted on the rower’s end 
  for balance. The light galley also has two masts holding large 
  triangular sails.
  Light galleys move quickly and maneuver well with oars, 
  but have poor performance with sails (for example, they can’t 
  tack against the wind) and are easily swamped in heavy seas. 
  They’re useful as warships for their agility and their ability to 
  put men and weapons in place quickly, but they’re not great 
  cargo ships. Being single-decked ships, they have little room 
  for cargo beyond a small castle in back and an aisle between 
  the rowers’ benches. They also sit low in the water. Additional 
  weight just complicates the problems they already have.
  For moving goods, Venezia builds larger vessels. Great gal-
  leys can carry from 150 to 250 tons of cargo, and are some-
  what blunter in construction, being about six times as long 
  as they are wide (rather than eight). They have a sizable com-
  partment beneath the rowing deck and running the length of 
  the ship. This space may be used for cargo or passengers, and 
  may be subdivided into sections such as an armory, a kitchen, 
  and cabins.
  Adventure Seed: Demon Ship
  A Venetian legend concerns a ship full of demons approaching the 
  lagoon, bringing massive storms with it. The ship was driven back when 
  a fisherman was ordered to take his boat out against the demons by 
  three men who turned out to be some of Venezia’s patron saints. When 
  a new demonic vessel approaches, shipping is blocked, and waves 
  threaten to swamp the city. The saints are nowhere to be seen, and it’s 
  up to a group of adventurers to take on the demons. Do they gather up 
  relics of saints, hoping for a similar outcome, or do they go head to 
  head against the Devil’s navy?
  
   
  tHe aPPaRatus of PoWeR 
  20
  Larger size, including greater height, makes them some-
  what more suitable for open-sea voyages. Venetian galleys 
  make trips along Europe’s Atlantic coast nearly as far as 
  Germany. They’re sometimes divided into size classes based 
  on their intended destinations. For example, Constantinople 
  galleys of the early 15th century carry 150 tons, while Flanders 
  galleys, which must be bigger to withstand the heavier seas of 
  the Atlantic, carry 200 tons.
  Great galleys have crews of around 200 men, not counting 
  any passengers who might be on board. Frequently, around 20 
  of them are designated bowmen or arquebusiers, depending 
  on the dominant technology of the time, but the remainder 
  of the crew is expected to fight as well should the ship enter 
  combat.
  While the light galleys move well with oars and poorly 
  under sail, the great galleys move better under sail and not 
  as well when driven by oars, particularly when heavily laden 
  with cargo. Rigged for war, a great galley does well enough. 
  On mercantile expeditions, oars are rarely used as primary 
  propulsion except to take a ship in and out of port. Still, not 
  being at the mercy of wind and current during the critical 
  stages of the beginning and end of a journey means that 
  even clumsy galleys can shave days or weeks off of the time it 
  might take a round ship to encounter the right conditions to 
  bring it into port.
  During the 16th century, the Venetians experimented 
  with mounting cannon on their ships. Because the long 
  banks of rowers provide no space to mount guns, the can-
  non were typically fixed to the front of the ship. During the 
  second half of the century, the Venetians invented a new 
  class of ship, the galleass. This was a ship with three masts, 
  15 or so oars on each side, and a separate deck with cannon. 
  While it was relatively slow – with the oars providing the 
  heavy ship with little but extra maneuverability – it created 
  the naval broadside. It was sufficiently novel that a handful 
  of galleasses were able to wreak havoc among the Turks, 
  who thought they were ships which had simply fallen out of 
  line at Lepanto.
  For most of this period, the rowers are free men. In peace-
  time, serving on a galley is a business opportunity for the 
  common person. In times of war, the Venetians prefer to rely 
  on citizens with a stake in the outcome of the battle rather 
  than disinterested or downright hostile prisoners and slaves. 
  Service is further encouraged by medical care for veterans, 
  pensions, and preferred employment. A brave sailor missing 
  a limb or an eye might, for example, be granted a secure job 
  somewhere in the Arsenale as a reward for service. This begins 
  to change somewhat toward the end of the period, as the 
  decline in the value of the city’s trade makes crewing a ship 
  less lucrative; prisoners pressed into service instead.
  sHiPbuildinG
  One of the major sources of Venetian naval power is the 
  Arsenale, a large shipyard near the eastern end of the city. 
  From a modest facility for building and repairing private 
  ships, the Arsenale has grown into an assembly line-style insti-
  tution for building and maintaining warships and their weap-
  ons, possibly the first such facility in the world. Employing as 
  many as 12,000 people at a time and encompassing 15% of 
  the city’s area behind fortified walls, the Arsenale uses care-
  fully planned processes to manufacture sails, rope, wooden 
  structural members, and other necessities of shipbuilding. 
  The facility turns them into finished ships with astonishing 
  speed. Ships under construction float down stations along 
  the Arsenale’s canals where different parts of the construc-
  tion process are performed. In this way, the Arsenale can 
  turn out a large galley on a daily basis. The facility once even 
  went from starting to build a ship’s frame to sending out a 
  finished ship in a single hour while an observing dignitary 
  ate his lunch, though quality may have been lacking in that 
  case. Part of the Arsenale’s operation includes timekeeping. 
  Bells in clock towers ring out hours 
  when workers should report to the 
  Arsenale, break for meals, and 
  end the day.
  In addition to ships, the Arse-
  nale produces weapons and other 
  items necessary for shipping 
  and naval warfare. It was even a 
  home to technical development. 
  Over the centuries, workers at 
  the Arsenale developed superior 
  handguns, cannon, and the ear-
  liest European ships meant as 
  platforms for artillery.
  The arsenalotti, the craftspeo-
  ple working at the Arsenale, are 
  closely observed and regulated to 
  prevent espionage and sabotage, 
  but they also enjoy a number of 
  privileges. To encourage loyalty, 
  they are well-paid and typically 
  given pride of place in civic cer-
  emonies. They also provide a 
  semi-ceremonial bodyguard for 
  the doge.
  
   
  daily life 
  21
  In addition to being financially wealthy, Venezia is a city 
  with a rich civic life. Nearly every resident belongs to at least 
  one civic club, daily life is full of pageantry promoting a com-
  mon Venetian identity, the food partakes of a broad range of 
  traditions, and the city is bursting with art and intellectual 
  activity. Even the homes of the poor are models of domes-
  tic architecture, bearing the arms of the aristocrats who  
  built them. 
  scuole
  Outside of government, most of Venezia’s important civic 
  institutions have a distinctly religious character. Religious 
  fraternities called scuole provide most social services. 
  They’re divided into scuole grandi, a handful of large orga-
  nizations (six by the mid-16th century) run by cittadini, and 
  scuole piccole, much smaller and more numerous groups 
  (over 200 during this period) that represent a wide range 
  of specific interests and consist mostly of common people. 
  They might be formed by members devoted to a given 
  saint, concerned about a particular affliction (for 
  example, blindness), or of a common national ori-
  gin (for example, German or Greek). A number of 
  scuole piccole are associated with individual crafts 
  and trades. Though guilds are theoretically legally 
  separate from scuole (that is, a craft guild might 
  perform its business separately from the business 
  of a scuola dedicated to that craft), no guild is not 
  associated with a scuola, and membership of a 
  guild and its associated scuola is typically identical.
  Depending on their size and wealth, scuole pro-
  vide such social services as dowries for impover-
  ished women, funeral expenses including burial 
  and a Mass, hospitals (that is, free or inexpensive 
  accommodations for travelers and the temporarily 
  indigent, not necessarily medical facilities), even 
  licenses to beg for alms in preferred locations. Scuole of a 
  national character might offer diplomatic services for their 
  members, like a modern consulate. Depending on their char-
  ters, the services may be given to members and their families, 
  members of groups of interest, or anyone in need. Scuole are 
  associated with churches, to which they often contribute lav-
  ishly, but the wealthier ones maintain separate headquarters, 
  which are typically exceptionally well decorated.
  ReliGion
  Venezia is as staunchly Catholic as any city in Italy. There’s a 
  church for about every 100 to 200 people. However, Venetians 
  have a saying that they are Venetians first, Christians second. 
  The government makes sure it retains as much local control 
  over religious matters as possible in the Catholic context, 
  sometimes leading to clashes with the Papacy. For exam-
  ple, in the 1500s, Venezia was, at least for a while, home to 
  a number of Protestants, though they eventually had to flee 
  north to Germany. When a papal decree was issued forbid-
  ding Christians from importing alum (an important indus-
  trial material) from the Ottoman Turks on the grounds 
  that it enriched infidels, the Venetians simply ignored it.  
  The Venetians happened to know that the Papacy owned the 
  largest alum mine in Europe, managed by their Medici bank-
  ers, and would profit tremendously from reduced imports, so 
  they had all the more reason not to take the religious justifica-
  tion particularly seriously.
  The city is tolerant of religious preferences of residents of 
  foreign origin, so long as they keep it to themselves. For exam-
  ple, the Scuola di St. Georgio maintains a Greek Orthodox 
  church, while resident Germans and English were eventu-
  ally permitted to hold Lutheran and Anglican services. Some 
  Muslims are resident, if only as slaves and servants imported 
  from the East and as visiting merchants and diplomats.  
  cHaPteR fouR
  daily life
  Compagnie Delle Calze
  Not all civic organizations are as long-standing or as seri-
  ous as the scuole. The city also has compagnie delle calze, bands 
  of fashionable young aristocrats who wear distinctive calze, or 
  stockings. Shapely legs are, during this period, considered a 
  particularly important feature of male beauty, so tight-fitting, 
  colorful legwear are the muscle shirt of the day. Compagnie are 
  approved by the civic government for a period of a year or so at 
  a time, during which they sponsor and participate in a variety 
  of public spectacles, from processions to plays to semi-private 
  receptions for foreign dignitaries. They might be thought of as 
  fraternities of Venezia’s wealthiest young men which use civic 
  duty as an excuse for showing off.
  
   
  daily life 
  22
  They are allowed to pray as they see fit and otherwise follow 
  their religion, though Venezia doesn’t have a mosque.
  Venezia has an ambivalent relationship with Jews. Chris-
  tendom has a long history of anti-Semitism limiting Jewish 
  access to and residence in many cities. However, a Jewish 
  presence provides a workaround to long-standing laws against 
  Christians loaning money to one another at interest, a vital 
  need in the rapidly expanding economy of the Renaissance. 
  Jewish doctors also have a reputation for superior medi-
  cal skills and are in great demand. Thus, through the early 
  Renaissance, Venezia grudgingly allowed limited Jewish resi-
  dence in the city. Jews were prohibited from staying in the city 
  for more than a few months, and all but doctors were required 
  to identify themselves by wearing a distinctive yellow hat. 
  In 1512, Jewish residence in Venezia was regularized by 
  the assignment of a small neighborhood in the northern part 
  of the city, the Ghetto Nuovo, in return for additional tax pay-
  ments, retention of Christian watchmen ensuring that the 
  Jews kept to a curfew in their sealed quarter, and the estab-
  lishment of pawnbroking services on attractive terms for the 
  benefit of the poor. Soon, the city had Jewish residents from 
  across Europe and the Mediterranean: Germanic Jews pri-
  marily involved in banking, Levantine Jews keeping trading 
  contacts in the Ottoman empire, and Jews of Spanish descent 
  looking for a new home after fleeing forced conversion. The 
  city eventually became a major center of Jewish scholarship, 
  hosting a notable Hebrew publishing industry. 
  Jews are welcome to convert to Christianity, but an official 
  eye is kept on them for signs of apostasy. Something as minor 
  as eating kosher food can get a former Jew hauled into court 
  on serious criminal charges.
  conVents
  Marriage is an institution in some crisis, at least among the 
  ruling class. Since sons carry membership in their class with 
  them, they are a vital political commodity and are married off 
  only with greatest care. This in turn has led to inflation in the 
  price of a suitable dowry for a bride to bring with her, so even 
  families which can find appropriate political matches for their 
  daughters often can’t afford to have them all marry. By one 
  estimate, as many of half of Venezia’s upper-class adults never 
  marry. Many of these women end up cloistered in the city’s 
  three dozen or so convents, whether they want to go or not 
  (and, despite a certain cultural appeal, many did not). Perhaps 
  three-quarters of the inmates of the city’s convents are mem-
  bers of the patrician class.
  The maintenance of convents serves the dual purpose 
  of furnishing an honorable occupation for women who 
  would otherwise have difficulty finding an acceptable social 
  role and standing as a symbol of Venezia’s supposed piety. 
  Convents provide a very narrow scope for women’s self-de-
  termination. Many are answerable only to the pope himself; 
  priests visit to celebrate Mass and hear confessions, but have 
  no say in the convent’s policies or operations. Still, even if the 
  dominion of men doesn’t follow women into the convents, 
  class distinctions do. The daughters of the wealthy are given 
  substantial endowments (though nowhere near the stagger-
  ing magnitude of a dowry) and live lives of relative leisure, 
  while women of the lower classes, who can’t contribute 
  nearly as much to the convent’s financial upkeep, are typi-
  cally assigned menial tasks.
  With a few exceptions at most convents, nuns are clois-
  tered; that is, they can’t leave their convents, and visitors, 
  with exceptions for certain clergy and necessary craftspeo-
  ple, can’t enter the spaces the nuns inhabit. However, con-
  vents usually have a large parlor where outsiders can come 
  and converse with the sisters, separated by windows and 
  barred gates. These parlors are popular social venues. In 
  theory, only relatives of inmates can visit, but in practice, 
  this isn’t a notable restriction for patricians. Most upper-
  class Venetians can count at least one relative among the 
  inmates at any given convent. In any event, such regulations 
  are widely ignored. The sisters, eager for contact with the 
  outside, also find ways to encourage visitors. Many have 
  become notable for their delicious baked goods – distributed 
  to visitors and justified on grounds of charity, despite what 
  some officials regard as an alarming cost of the ingredients.
  Adventure Seed: Buffianna, 
  L’ammazzavampiri
  Venetian convents are, in a very real way, secret soci-
  eties. They’re communities that are almost completely 
  closed off from the outside world and operate under their 
  own supervision. It only stands to reason, then, that they 
  use their low profile to train generations of secret war-
  riors to fight monsters. Libraries of religious institutions 
  are ideal repositories of information about how to defeat 
  unholy creatures, and young women can spend all their 
  time training for combat, freed of domestic responsibili-
  ties and the demands of society. Of course, their mission 
  to rid the world of, or at least defend the city from, super-
  natural threats is greatly complicated by the fact that they 
  can’t be seen doing so.
  aRt
  Venetian painters are enthusiastic users of and innovators 
  with oil-based paints, and frequently work on canvas and other 
  portable media rather than make fresco paintings directly on 
  walls. This is perhaps because of the humid Venetian climate. 
  Frequently damp walls aren’t a good place to apply the water-
  based colors widely used elsewhere, and they’re not suitable 
  for oils either. Venezia’s great painters, like Tintoretto and 
  Titian, are noted for their work with color and light. They are 
  also known for a distinctive technique of starting by apply-
  ing paint to the canvas and not doing a preliminary charcoal 
  sketch on the canvas and filling in with paint later.
  Venezia is a very musical city. Nearly every home has at 
  least one musical instrument, and excellent composers are 
  rife during this period, particularly in the 16th century.  
  
   
  daily life 
  23
  Popular instruments include violins and sim-
  ilar string instruments, flutes and recorders, 
  reed instruments, and horns. Keyboard instru-
  ments are still relatively expensive and therefore 
  rare. Private concerts are a common occurrence. 
  Venetian ecclesiastical choral music, notably com-
  positions for opposing choirs in the San Marco 
  cathedral, is among the most remarkable and 
  innovative of the period.
  coats of aRms
  Coats of arms, after the style of chivalric devices 
  from the north, have become popular, but they follow few of 
  the rules of the emblems used by feudal lords. In Venezia and 
  its territories, any family can have a badge identifying itself, 
  not just noble ones. The badges are rarely if ever quartered 
  and combined with other coats.
  clotHinG
  Venetians have a reputation as snappy dressers. Indeed, 
  even members of the middle and lower classes can be found 
  wearing clothing clearly beyond their means. This is made 
  possible by a thriving clothing rental industry. Ordinary citi-
  zens often appear marvelously dressed for grand processions 
  and other public ceremonies, wearing garments they only 
  have for the day.
  Typical man’s costume includes a long undershirt, dou-
  blet (a jacket or vest made from two layers of fabric), and 
  hose. Sleeves are attached to the torso of the doublet by 
  laces, allowing the wearer to “balloon” the material of the 
  undershirt out through the gaps at the shoulders and create 
  a contrast of colors. Venezia is also at the leading edge of a 
  change in the design of hose. Instead of a pair of tight hose 
  from toes to waist, hose in Venezia are, like doublets, com-
  posed of multiple parts that are laced together. The upper 
  part resembles a pair of baggy shorts tied to the doublet at 
  the waist. Over the course of the Renaissance, these come to 
  extend down to the knees. The tight lower part comes more 
  and more to resemble modern socks. Different hose in con-
  trasting colors and patterns are popular. Over this basic cos-
  tume, men may wear capes (either around the shoulders or 
  fastened above one shoulder but going under the other arm) 
  and robes.
  Women’s basic costume likewise has a layered struc-
  ture, with an under-dress and at least one gown over that, 
  with gaps and low cuts revealing lower layers. Fancier out-
  fits involve multiple layers of gowns. Women frequently go 
  veiled in public. Unmarried women tend to wear white or 
  pale-colored veils, while married women and widows usu-
  ally wear black. These veils are typically large, loosely woven 
  pieces of fabric resembling a shawl, thrown over the head 
  and sometimes extending well down the back and sides, but 
  possibly leaving the bottom of the face bare.
  Well-dressed women wear platform shoes to make them 
  appear taller. Some make them appear much taller, acting as 
  something between platform shoes and stilts. One surviving 
  pair lifts their wearer over 18”. Such extreme footwear is typi-
  cally hidden under the wearer’s long skirts.
  Early in the period, men tend to wear their hair long, up 
  to shoulder length and often with bangs or in a sort of angled 
  bowl cut to keep hair out of the eyes and off the face. Hair 
  becomes shorter through the period, with very short cuts com-
  mon by the middle of the 16th century. Beards become more 
  common starting around the same time. Women wear their 
  hair long throughout, but display it more later in the period. 
  Caps and bag-like cauls give way to smaller cauls, nets, and 
  headdresses that allow hair to flow freely.
  One other garment is all but unique to Venezia: the mask. 
  While their origin may lie in elaborate Carnival celebrations, 
  masks are commonly worn for nearly half the year by this 
  period (Christmas to Lent, and parts of late spring and early 
  summer) and may be found from time to time even out of 
  season. These masks are far less elaborate than modern ones, 
  usually limited to a piece of cloth covering half the face or less, 
  though some ornate, stylized shapes are made from stiffened 
  paper, fabric, or leather. Men typically wear white masks, 
  while women wear black ones. They provide a bit of anonym-
  ity and egalitarianism in a city known for a rigid class struc-
  ture, and etiquette demands that even if the identity of a mask 
  wearer is obvious, no one should admit to recognizing him. 
  Various laws prohibit masked people from entering convents, 
  gambling, and so on, but they’re about as effective as the city’s 
  other sumptuary laws (see p. 16).
  tHe demimonde
  Many foreign men comment at great length on the city’s 
  courtesans, of whom there are thousands. As with everything 
  else in the city, there are class distinctions. In addition to  
  lower-class prostitutes, the upper classes have the cortigiana 
  onesta, or honest courtesan. The cortigiane oneste provide 
  not just sex, but companionship and educated conversation. 
  They are known for their elaborate dress, rivaling that of 
  noblewomen, and are sometimes treated as minor celebrities. 
  Pets
  Venetians, like many other people, keep pets. Dogs and cats 
  are common. Dogs became more popular in later years and were 
  common in art as symbols of loyalty. Large dogs are particularly 
  popular among the nobility, though they are largely kept at villas 
  on the terraferma, where they can be used for hunting. Song-
  birds, whose small cages are easy to keep in Venezia’s tiny living 
  spaces, are also quite popular.
  
   
  daily life 
  24
  Indeed, they’re as fashion-forward as women of the patrician 
  class, though there are notable differences in dress. For exam-
  ple, while courtesans may wear veils just like anyone else, they 
  may also identify themselves by having bare breasts supported 
  by a corset.
  Though not blind to the chastity-related moral issues, 
  the government tolerates prostitution for two reasons. One 
  is that, given their low incidence of marriage, having ready 
  female companionship for all of those unmarried upper-
  class men without dishonoring the unmarried upper-class 
  women – most of whom are locked away in convents any-
  way – is believed to prevent homosexuality. A more prac-
  tical consideration is that Venezia’s courtesans make a lot 
  of money, and they are a significant source of tax revenue. 
  Oddly, courtesans are frequent visitors at convents, where 
  the inmates receive them warmly. They and the nuns appar-
  ently have a great deal to talk about.
  Naturally, the grudging allowance of prostitution as a 
  means of preventing same-sex relations between men is of 
  limited effectiveness because same-sex relations are exactly 
  what some men want. Homosexuality is technically illegal, as 
  it is through much of Christendom. Indeed, in the 1400s, there 
  was some debate about reducing the punishment for sodomy 
  from burning at the stake to decapitation followed by burning. 
  However, enforcement is beyond lax. Indeed, Pietro Aretino 
  (a noted 16th-century poet, satirist, and gossip-monger) fled to 
  Venezia from Roma so that he could live safely, with his bisex-
  uality an open secret in his social circle of nobility and artists. 
  At the beginning of the Quattrocento, the “lords of the night,” 
  a council charged with rooting out sodomy, were judged too 
  zealous and disbanded, with their functions taken over by the 
  Council of Ten. The Council usually has better things to do 
  with its time than to enforce moral laws, and it has a definite 
  interest in not prosecuting the wealthy and powerful, whom 
  the lords of the night often pursued. Such prosecutions are 
  now rare, and potential targets usually have sufficient advance 
  warning that they have time to flee the city. Venezia has, there-
  fore, something of an underground gay subculture centered 
  on certain taverns, barbers, and pastry shops.
  food
  The staples of the poor are bread and a porridge made 
  from ground grain or beans. It resembles modern polenta, 
  but is usually made from at least one of broad beans, chick-
  peas, farro, millet, or spelt. Cheese, both recognizable ver-
  sions of asiago produced locally and other cheeses imported 
  from Venezia’s colonies, is a common source of protein, as are 
  eggs (produced by domestic chickens found in many house-
  holds) and nuts (such as almonds). Herbs are widely used for 
  flavoring. Many ingredients available to the poor are often 
  combined in the form of savory pies. Fruit is very common 
  and of high quality.
  Wealthier people, of course, eat a lot more meat. Pork 
  and lamb are preferred, but chicken and rabbit, which can 
  be raised in a small enclosure in a kitchen garden, are more 
  common; game is often consumed in the countryside, though 
  less so in the city. Many meat dishes involve multiple treat-
  ments, such as boiling and then roasting or frying. One com-
  mon dish, for example, involves chicken that is first poached, 
  then shredded and cooked with almond milk and bread as 
  a thickener. Though pasta is available, it’s not cheap since it 
  requires expensive hard wheat, and it isn’t nearly as popular 
  in Venezia as it is becoming elsewhere in Italy. Instead, rice, 
  though a relatively rare and expensive grain, is preferred. 
  Risotto is a popular dish.
  Unsurprisingly for a maritime power completely sur-
  rounded by water, seafood is often consumed in Venezia by 
  all classes. This includes not just a variety 
  of saltwater and freshwater fish, but also 
  mussels, clams, shrimp, octopus, squid, 
  and so on. Waterfowl such as herons and 
  geese are a common form of poultry.
  With the city’s connections to the 
  East, Venetian cooks have unusually 
  good access to spices, so ginger, cin-
  namon, and the like are relatively pop-
  ular. Since the city controls Cyprus,  
  it has sufficient imports of sugar from the 
  cane fields there. It’s quite common to mix sweet and savory 
  flavors, like finishing a savory dish with a sprinkling of sugar 
  or garnishing it with marzipan, often colored and sculpted.
  Although wine is a major trade item, and wines from all 
  over travel through the city, Venezia and its environs are ter-
  rible places to grow grapes. The high humidity means lots of 
  problems with fungal infections. The one vine which does do 
  well – the Dorona – produces both large green grapes and a 
  prized golden-colored wine which is enjoyed by the rich. It 
  is grown mostly on surrounding islands, but a few gardens 
  within the city grow it as well.
  With so many of its residents involved in long-distance 
  trade, and the city’s advantageous position on trade routes, 
  Venetians can develop exotic tastes. The output of Venezia’s 
  publishers includes cookbooks containing not just native 
  dishes, but some in Moorish, Arab, and German styles. 
  The Ghetto provides an opportunity to try foods made 
  in the kosher tradition, though converts from Judaism 
  are well-advised to stay away from their old cuisine to  
  avoid persecution.
  Near the very end of the period in question here, a vari-
  ety of new foods begin to appear in Italy. Most of them are 
  New World crops. Notably, maize, first brought to Europe by 
  Columbus at the end of the 15th century, starts to be grown as 
  an economic crop rather than a curiosity in private gardens, 
  though it doesn’t really start to take off for another 50 to 100 
  years. Other crops, like tomatoes and 
  potatoes, also start to creep in, though 
  during this period, they’re curiosities 
  and novelties, not common foods (cer-
  tain well-known Italian dishes like 
  caprese and gnocchi become theo-
  retically possible at this time). The 
  other notable introduction is coffee, 
  which starts to be imported from the 
  Ottoman Empire to Venezia late in the 
  16th century.
  
   
  daily life 
  25
  life of tHe mind
  Venezia has no university. It exercises considerable con-
  trol over the nearby University of Padua, noted for its facul-
  ties in law and medicine, but has no institutions of higher 
  learning of its own. Nevertheless, it is one of the intellectual 
  and artistic capitals of Europe. Many of the great artists and 
  creative minds of the period at least passed through the city 
  at some time or another: Albrecht Durer, El Greco, Leonardo 
  da Vinci, Michelangelo, and many Greek scholars fleeing 
  Constantinople.
  Most schooling is private. The wealthy hire private tutors 
  for their children, while the somewhat less wealthy often club 
  together to hire teachers to instruct groups of their children at 
  once. Churches and scuole sometimes offer rudimentary edu-
  cation to the poor.
  This period sees a shift in the primary subject matter of 
  a complete education. Initially, Venetian students tended to 
  have a purely practical education. Merchants need at the very 
  least basic literacy and math skills. These could be expanded 
  on somewhat with things like a modicum of legal training and 
  additional languages, the better to draw up contracts and win 
  over customers. This changed through the Renaissance, 
  as the classical trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) 
  and quadrivium (arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, 
  and music) were revived as part of the Renaissance’s 
  return to classical models. Additionally, increasing 
  quantities of classical literature were taught. 
  This period also sees the rise of some kinds of 
  specialized education, such as the beginning of sys-
  tematic education for the deaf. Though usually done 
  in monasteries, where vows of silence had already 
  led to the creation of forms of sign language, one 
  of the earliest secular thinkers on education for the 
  deaf was a polymath who graduated from Padua.
  Venetian mathematicians made significant 
  advances, such as calculations for ballistics based 
  on parabolas. Before this period, most people 
  believed that missiles went in a straight line until 
  they ran out of momentum and then dropped to 
  the ground. Mathematicians in Venezia’s orbit also 
  formulated elementary descriptions of probability.
  One unusual social phenomenon of the period – an 
  outgrowth of public scholarly disputes of the Middle Ages, 
  with fame, honor, and a substantial dinner at stake – is a series 
  of duels between mathematicians. Mathematics is becoming 
  more sophisticated during this period, with mathematicians 
  making new discoveries or learning about techniques from 
  increasingly available international sources. Mathematicians 
  demonstrate their skills by solving problems posed by others.
  PublisHinG
  While Venetian publishers started offering books largely 
  in Latin, Italian dominates Venetian publishing for most of 
  this period. But books in any major European language can 
  be found. In the early 16th century, there was even a short-
  lived industry of printing Qurans for the Ottoman market, 
  though the Turks eventually prohibited the sale of Qurans 
  printed by non-Muslims. Publishers’ moves in the direction 
  of small, cheap books soon reach their logical conclusion in 
  broadsheets, inexpensively produced pamphlets which can be 
  sold for pennies. These might contain anything from popu-
  lar ballad lyrics to pornography to religious instruction. They 
  also include Europe’s first newspaper, the monthly gazeta de 
  la novita.
  Publishing in Venezia even contains concepts resembling 
  modern copyright and public domain. Publishers may be 
  granted exclusive rights to publish specific new works, and 
  booksellers may be granted exclusive rights to import new 
  books not published in Venezia. But unlike modern copy-
  rights, it’s a “use it or lose it” proposition. If a publisher 
  doesn’t publish a book he has the exclusive rights to, he may 
  lose those rights.
  By the last quarter of the 16th century, Venezia’s publish-
  ing industry went into a sharp decline. In addition to an eco-
  nomic downturn, the rise of publishing elsewhere ate sharply 
  into the city’s export market. By 1600, an explosion of printers 
  through Europe had reduced Venezia’s printing market from 
  continental domination to a nearly local business.
  lanGuaGe
  Venetians speak Italian, of course, but a single “standard” 
  dialect has so far not evolved from the many spoken on the 
  Italian peninsula. The Tuscan dialect spoken in and around 
  Firenze has yet to become the dominant form of the language. 
  Venetian Italian is certainly mutually comprehensible with 
  neighboring dialects, but it retains a particular accent. The 
  letter Z, usually pronounced as a zh, is relatively common in 
  Venetian Italian, where other dialects might use a G or J. For 
  example, the name Giorgio was sometimes spelled Zorzo.
  There are also peculiarities of usage. Where other wealthy, 
  powerful Italians might build a palazzo, Venetian patricians 
  would build a mere casa (sometimes abbreviated ca’). Other 
  local terms are special names for Venezia’s peculiar thor-
  oughfares, including calle for street; ramo for a dead-end alley 
  branching off a calle; and rio for canal.
  
   
  daily life 
  26
  Women in Public life
  The public roles of women in Venezia are, at least nomi-
  nally, rather restricted. However, they go far beyond the ste-
  reotypical roles of virgins (Convents, p. 22) and whores (The 
  Demimonde, pp. 23-24).
  Class is, as with so much else in Venezia, a deciding factor. 
  Many social restrictions fall most heavily on women of the 
  patrician class, who are expected to be exemplars of propriety. 
  These women are most likely to go about veiled and to have 
  fathers or husbands who could insist on their not leaving the 
  house without some kind of escort (of course, it’s a rare mem-
  ber of the upper class who would consider going out without 
  at least a servant or two anyway). However, patrician women 
  wield considerable power within their households. The sub-
  stantial dowry a noblewoman brings with her is in many ways 
  still hers, not something her husband controls, so she has a 
  great deal of say in how it is used in business, for political 
  ends, or in any other way. Women of the upper classes are the 
  people who negotiate alliances between noble families. They, 
  ultimately, decide who marries whom, and how much money 
  moves around when they do. They also have a considerable 
  say in inheritance. They, in essence, control the long-term des-
  tinies of families.
  Women of the other classes typically operate under looser 
  restrictions. Like their patrician sisters, they might be excluded 
  from political office and trading expeditions, but their behav-
  ior and appearance isn’t policed as vigorously. They are an 
  active part of their household’s enterprise and public life, with 
  few if any overt restrictions on their dress and movement. 
  They act as business partners to their spouses if married or the 
  rest of their family if not. A number of women are craftspeople 
  in their own right. The Arsenale employs hundreds of women, 
  mostly dealing with the production of sails. Some very skillful 
  women artists (notably Marietta Robusti, the eldest child of 
  the noted painter Tintoretto) appear during this period.
  One aspect of this is that while education isn’t emphasized 
  as something women need, it is nevertheless something avail-
  able to a number of them. Though separated in many ways 
  from male academic society, women carry on intellectual pur-
  suits in parallel. The women of the middle-class cittadini are 
  the most likely to be engaged in such activities. They don’t 
  carry the weight of social expectations that are laid on patri-
  cian women, but they’re more likely to be wealthy enough to 
  afford extensive instruction. Foreigners also don’t carry the 
  same expectations. For example, the first Greek printing press 
  in Venezia was set up by a woman, Anna Notaras, daughter of 
  the last Byzantine chief admiral.
  Another peculiar class-based distinction among women 
  concerns wills. Patrician men often write wills encouraging 
  their wives not to remarry after they are gone. This is seen as 
  important to keep together a family fortune. In poorer fami-
  lies, women are often encouraged to remarry, with husbands 
  understanding the difficulty of a widow surviving on her own.
  aRcHitectuRe
  Broadly speaking, Venezia’s architecture would not be 
  unfamiliar in any other Mediterranean city of the period. 
  Most buildings are multi-storied and built around court-
  yards for light, privacy, and ventilation. The courtyard might 
  include a small garden for herbs and vegetables, and possi-
  bly a chicken coop or rabbit hutch. However, there are many 
  local adaptations. For example, brick and stone are the main 
  materials to the exclusion of dried earth, even in poor homes. 
  In Venezia’s damp climate, hard earth is a completely unsuit-
  able material. Though wood is used, it’s not as common as it 
  is elsewhere.
  A few distinctive styles exist in Venetian architecture. 
  The earliest is Byzantine, using round arches, cloverleaf-like 
  crosses as a decorative motif, and, in churches, positioning 
  domes over square areas. The San Marco basilica is in this 
  style. The style was popular during the early Middle Ages, 
  and sees a revival during the Renaissance. During the 
  later Middle Ages, Gothic architecture became more pop-
  ular, with pointed and foliate arches and vaults. However, 
  Venezia doesn’t host the soaring cathedrals of other great 
  European cities; the soft ground under the city won’t sup-
  port the weight of, say, Firenze’s Duomo. Finally, with the 
  rise of humanism and a revival of ancient learning and cul-
  ture, classical styles of architecture enjoy a vogue during the 
  Renaissance, using relatively unadorned pillars and round 
  arches. However, classically styled buildings in Venezia are 
  all brand-new, since the city wasn’t founded until after the end  
  of antiquity.
  Because real estate is at a premium in the 
  densely packed city, buildings in Venezia can 
  get quite tall relative to other cities of the age. 
  Most have at least three very tall stories, and 
  it’s not uncommon to see buildings four or five 
  stories tall. Venetian buildings frequently have 
  mezzanines, shorter and sometimes partial sto-
  ries like a loft built in between two main floors. 
  Irregularly shaped lots also mean that, while a 
  home might present a symmetrical façade to 
  the street, the structure behind the façade may 
  fit the area, with odd extensions or rooms with 
  peculiar angles.
  Places to Stay
  For very short-term visitors, Venezia has an ample supply of inns. 
  For longer-term residents, the city also has an active real estate rental 
  market. Something like half of the patrician class lives in buildings 
  they don’t own, and the proportion is significantly higher for the lower 
  classes. Being a visitor isn’t necessarily an obstacle to finding a rental, 
  though some groups planning a very long-term stay may go ahead and 
  buy or build on a purchased lot. Both German and Turkish merchants 
  have combined warehouses and residences in the city.
  
   
  daily life 
  27
  A typical arrangement in a larger home is to have a 
  broad space called a portego running down the spine of 
  the building like a wide hallway. The portego is used for 
  the household’s “public” events, like parties and private 
  concerts. Ideally, the portego would have rooms along 
  it on either side, but, again, irregularly shaped lots may 
  disturb the pattern, and many homes have rooms only 
  on one side. The portego may terminate in a large sala, a 
  windowed room facing the outside.
  In addition to a main entrance along a sidewalk, build-
  ings facing a canal may have a direct entrance from the 
  water, such as a broad set of steps leading to a colonnade 
  and entrance. Very few people live on ground floors. Those 
  are usually given over to shops, warehouses, and storage 
  rooms. Living spaces are upstairs.
  While a number of wealthy Venetians might have a 
  country villa somewhere on the terraferma, most are more 
  likely to have a casino (literally, “small house”) in the city 
  itself or on one of the surrounding islands. Rather than 
  a residence or place of business, the casino is a place for 
  gatherings and recreation. In addition to large, open rooms, 
  most have an enclosed garden for outdoor activities. Ideally, 
  they are used for literary and philosophical events and family 
  gatherings, but over time, they become associated with less 
  reputable activities, notably gambling.
  The homes of the poor are far less elaborate. They live 
  in what would be recognized as townhouses today. A typi-
  cal home for the lower and middle classes consists of a pair 
  of rooms per floor with windows on opposite sides. The liv-
  ing space is most often two or three floors of paired rooms, 
  sometimes with shops or small industrial establishments on 
  the ground floor. Series of these tall, narrow homes are built 
  together as a single structure, with the whole group sometimes 
  presenting a unified façade like that of a larger ca’. Indeed, the 
  wealthy sometimes build housing complexes on this model, 
  wrapping a few rows of apartments around a courtyard, dec-
  orating them with altars and coats of arms, and renting them 
  for below-market rates as a charitable enterprise, giving the 
  poor homes with a more impressive appearance (outwardly, 
  anyway) than they might usually afford.
  RecReations
  Wealthy and well-connected, the Venetians have many, 
  many ways of amusing themselves.
  Public enteRtainment
  With its narrow streets, prohibitions on draft animals, and 
  republican ideology, Venezia doesn’t see the kinds of horse 
  racing that many other Italian cities do, nor the chivalric 
  tournaments of the north, but it isn’t without sporting events. 
  Mock combats known as guerra di canne (stick wars) are 
  staged with wooden weapons and, sometimes, armored com-
  batants, like the SCA but with more bruises and less anachro-
  nism. The objectives vary, but might involve driving opponents 
  from a bridge or taking (or keeping) a small mock castle.  
  on tHe block
  The map on p. 28 illustrates some typical aspects of 
  Venetian architecture. 
  The structure at the bottom is a substantial ca’, proba-
  bly with a wealthy owner. A portego runs left to right with a 
  doorway facing a calle. In addition to two stairways inside 
  the portego, there’s an external stairway on the inside of 
  the courtyard, and there are steps up from the canal. The 
  ca’ likely has a somewhat different arrangement on upper 
  stories, with a sala over the main door and other rooms to 
  either side. 
  The structure in the upper part of the map is part of 
  a complex for poorer people, composed of a good many 
  small homes, two or three stories tall, around a private 
  courtyard and common well.
  
   
  daily life 
  28
  flooR Plans of Venetian Homes
  Scale: 1 hex = 1 yard. For more details, see On the Block, p. 27. Top: Complex of small homes for less-wealthy people, centered 
  on a common courtyard and well. Bottom: Single-family casa.
  Key
  Window
  Door
  Well
  Calle  
   (outside)
  Rio
  
   
  daily life 
  29
  Mock naval battles are sometimes staged as well. While, like 
  modern combat sports, the goal is simply to drive away or 
  exhaust the enemy, injuries are inevitable. Venetians also play 
  a variant of the popular Italian game of calcio, a brutal sport 
  resembling a cross between modern rugby and soccer. Apart 
  from these team sports, boxing is also popular. Venetians pre-
  fer punching to grappling and don’t enjoy wrestling.
  Factionalism is a factor in most of these contests. Sides 
  are typically drawn from different and often opposed neigh-
  borhoods, guilds, or other organizations. Participants fight in 
  large part for the glory of their group defeating a rival, and 
  particularly heated contests can rouse loyalist spectators to 
  violence themselves. Members of the upper classes rarely par-
  ticipate. As neutral parties, they are sometimes instrumental 
  in calming the crowds that become too rowdy.
  Not all of Venezia’s sports are so bloody, though. Less vio-
  lent games include ball games resembling tennis or handball. 
  Implements such as paddles and scoops are used to catch or 
  hit back a ball struck or thrown by an opponent.
  Far gentler public spectacles also occur. Countless 
  processions and festivals throughout the year  
  celebrate civic unity. These include events such 
  as parading noted saints’ relics around and the 
  annual marriage to the Adriatic, still celebrated 
  today with a flotilla of boats making their way to 
  the Lido. Various civic groups (the arsenalotti, 
  members of different scuole, and so on) have 
  specific duties and places of honor in different 
  ceremonies. Street entertainers – like jugglers, 
  sleight-of-hand magicians, and musicians – typ-
  ically accompany these civic events. (Venetians 
  are smart enough to know that making a hand-
  kerchief seem to vanish doesn’t put one in league 
  with the Devil.) Vendors sell foods like sweet 
  dumplings and roasted chestnuts. The largest 
  of these festivals is Carnival, which saw notable 
  celebration well back into the Middle Ages and is 
  still lavishly celebrated today (though only after 
  a long hiatus starting with the city’s conquest by 
  the French). The season of Carnival runs from 
  around Christmas to Lent.
  Weddings are typically private affairs. Even 
  so, celebrations around marriages of very wealthy 
  families can spill out into public celebrations.
  Theater also enjoys a revival during this period. 
  Initially, plays are usually performed outdoors. 
  Later in the 16th century, Venezia sees the first 
  construction of a purpose-built theater in Europe 
  since the fall of the Roman Empire. It is soon fol-
  lowed by others, sparking a boom of theater build-
  ing throughout Italy.
  PRiVate diVeRsions
  Perhaps as a consequence of a relative lack of 
  large open spaces, Venetians have a wide range 
  of private amusements for the home beyond 
  near-universal recreations like dances, feasts, 
  gambling games, and music recitals. Recognizable 
  variants of chess and checkers are played, and 
  wealthy Venetians sometimes have very expensive sets of 
  pieces made from stone and exotic woods.
  By the Renaissance, cards have become popular as a game 
  as well as a device for divination. For most of the period, cards 
  are still produced by hand and therefore quite expensive, 
  though printed cards do eventually become available, reduc-
  ing the price significantly. Venezia has import restrictions on 
  playing cards to protect the local card-making industry.
  The wealthy also enjoy a genre of game books. Readers 
  flip back and forth between passages based on answers to 
  questions, solutions to puzzles, or the results of dice rolls (fre-
  quently 3d6; GURPS has a longer pedigree than one might 
  imagine) or random selections of playing cards. Many of 
  these games are presented as fortune-telling or advice-giv-
  ing. For example, they frequently use astrological symbolism, 
  and purport to teach useful lessons on various topics such 
  as how to find love or construct a building, but their struc-
  ture resembles modern choose-your-own-adventure books in 
  many ways.
  
   
  camPaiGns 
  30
  Venezia is in many ways the most modern of ancient cities. 
  It has strong institutions where officials move through offices 
  for limited terms while depending on a professional civil ser-
  vice. Leaders are chosen by consensus rather than by birth. 
  The leadership is mostly concerned with the economic well-
  being of the polity, and administrations are entirely willing to 
  ignore national and ideological lines in order to make a profit. 
  It is also a center of manufacturing and technological develop-
  ment in everything from national defense (the Arsenale and its 
  workers) to intellectual and scientific development (for exam-
  ple, its printing industry). Players could find the city a bit too 
  modern for their tastes, though the music, architecture, and 
  long civic processions can take the edge off of that.
  Venezia as Home
  If the city is the center and setting of a campaign, any sort 
  of urban campaign can find a natural home there: career 
  criminals (though there’s no hint of organized crime), politi-
  cal intrigue, criminal investigation by one of the city’s several 
  police organizations (with accompanying turf wars with other 
  police organizations), and so on. However, the most natural 
  kinds of campaigns involve either buying and selling or pursu-
  ing secrets upon secrets.
  meRcHant PRinces
  In Venezia, it seems that everybody is involved with trade. 
  Merchant ventures can operate on a number of levels. They 
  can be a sideline for those whose main interests are else-
  where. Just a pouch of pepper, a bundle of silk thread, or a 
  sheaf of marbled papers picked up overseas can find a buyer 
  in the markets of Venezia, so a group of adventurers whose 
  main preoccupations are political, military, or ideological 
  can also make a profit on the side. If they’re truly Venetian, 
  oarsmen on a galley, bodyguards for an 
  ambassador, or scholars making long 
  journeys to find lost manuscripts are 
  likely to engage in this kind of trade 
  nearly by reflex. Their major limita-
  tion, though, is finding transporta-
  tion to where they want to go.
  A step above the opportunistic 
  peddler is the middle-class merchant. 
  For these people, trade is their main 
  occupation. They research markets, 
  scour government policy and incom-
  ing rumors for every possible hint 
  on trends, and cut deals for a living. 
  However, they’ve got limited means 
  to actually direct shipping, so they 
  need to buy space on other people’s 
  ships. There’s heavy traffic on the 
  Adriatic, but trips to more distant 
  and exotic ports are less frequent.
  At the top of the heap, patricians control shipping, rent-
  ing vessels from the government and in turn subletting space 
  to lesser merchants. The biggest trading voyages are the 
  large, regularly scheduled convoys to major ports. However, 
  a wealthy patrician can command a galley out of season if 
  he needs to, and a poverty-stricken one can doubtless gather 
  enough lesser merchants to pay for a crew. Once under way, 
  the voyage may be dull, but there’s always the chance of pirate 
  attacks or being blown off course and closer to hostile ports.
  secRet aGents
  Venezia didn’t produce a lot of armies or knights errant, 
  but it did generate one adventuring profession in quantity: 
  spies. One of the city’s major resources was people who 
  covertly gathered information and, if they had to, took direct 
  action, both domestically and abroad.
  A Venetian spy campaign can be run over the full range 
  of genre conventions that would be applicable to a modern 
  spy campaign. A realistic 
  campaign might strongly 
  resemble a Le Carre 
  novel, only with much 
  fancier clothes. There are 
  endless series of secrets, 
  layers of hidden decision 
  making, and a security 
  apparatus that may act 
  rarely, but will do so in a 
  completely ruthless and 
  amoral fashion when it 
  kicks in for the good of 
  the state. The flexibility of 
  Venetian foreign policy, 
  where yesterday’s mortal 
  enemies are today’s close 
  allies, requires a certain 
  moral flexibility as well.
  cHaPteR fiVe
  camPaiGns
  
   
  camPaiGns 
  31
  On the other end of the spectrum, one could do worse than 
  an over-the-top thriller in the James Bond or even Matt Helm 
  mode, with suave agents enjoying the finest luxuries and tech-
  nology the 16th century can provide while defending Venezia’s 
  interests from Italian rivals, the less sophisticated but much 
  larger states of western Christendom, and the ever-looming 
  apocalyptic threat of the Turks.
  Venezia as destination
  The modernity which players can find comforting can dis-
  orient characters, particularly if they come from somewhere 
  else. The city doesn’t have proper lords, but it isn’t really a 
  democracy, either. It doesn’t have walls. Still, the luxuries 
  available can draw the interest of any visitor. It’s the best place 
  in the Western world to find any book, and it’s one of the best 
  possible places to find an incredible variety of other goods. It’s 
  also a point of transition between worlds. In its era, it’s the 
  point of departure from the West to the East, and the first port 
  of call when traveling from the East to the West. For visitors 
  from any direction, it contains elements of the familiar and 
  the unfamiliar.
  Rather than a friendly if somewhat disorienting place to 
  go, Venezia may also appear as an enemy. But given the dif-
  ficulty inherent in attacking the city directly, it would need 
  to be the target of intrigue, not just the source. There’s the 
  stereotype of Venezia disproportionately attracting the ire of 
  surrounding cities in Italy, and the Council of Ten has long 
  had an unsavory reputation as a dark conspiracy with tenta-
  cles around the known world. Visitors – under cover as mer-
  chants, craftspeople, or clergy – might come to infiltrate the 
  city’s secret places to gather information or carry out assassi-
  nations. Or, in a lighter vein, they might just be there to carry 
  out a heist, stealing the relics of a saint or the Libro d’Oro.
  cRossoVeRs
  Venezia can be used in combination with a variety of other 
  GURPS books. Here are some specific suggestions.
  dunGeon fantasy
  Venezia doesn’t have dungeons. It doesn’t even have base-
  ments. The city is built on landfill at sea level. Anyone trying 
  to adventure underground will drown.
  It is, however, the ultimate town. Nearly anything that might 
  be commercially available can be found there. Anything valu-
  able can find buyers with ready money (and Venetians have 
  on more than one occasion put aside moral considerations for 
  profit). The government acts like something between a very 
  rich merchant house and a hermetic cabal (GURPS Dungeon 
  Fantasy 17: Guilds, pp. 15, 18), ready to shell out buckets of 
  ducats to hire adventurers willing to carry out their shadowy 
  missions. Adventurers can explore ruined classical temples 
  and abandoned churches and graveyards on the terraferma, 
  or they can sail off to distant, exotic locations before return-
  ing home to sell their loot.
  HoRRoR
  With its narrow and twisting streets, masks as everyday 
  wear, and centuries upon centuries of dark secrets, Venezia is 
  a good place for scary stories. Jack the Ripper-like serial kill-
  ers could walk the streets, vanishing quickly after they strike 
  and perhaps even being protected by the highest levels of gov-
  ernment. For a more supernatural tinge, there are plenty of 
  reasons why ghosts of the murdered and betrayed might stalk 
  the living, and several horror authors have made Venezia the 
  abode of vampires, certain types of which thrive in the city’s 
  environment of secrecy. The city also works very, very well as a 
  series of glittering facades concealing deep moral corruption, 
  making it excellent for Gothic horror. Venezia is the sort of 
  place where everybody can be suspicious, and you can never 
  really know whether those you trust the most are really trying 
  to destroy you. Even if the Council of Ten aren’t vampires or 
  evil wizards (and they very well may be), there can always be 
  something creeping up behind you.
  infinite WoRlds
  Venezia, forming the main link between East and West 
  through most of the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, 
  is a useful point for introducing any outside innovation into 
  Europe, or slowing some of them down. Without Venezia as 
  a point of entry into the West for Byzantine scholars in the 
  empire’s last days, some aspects of the Renaissance would 
  have been blunted, and without an influx of alternative ver-
  sions of the Bible from the Orthodox world, the Reformation 
  might have been delayed or reshaped.
  Centrum is conflicted over Venezia. On one hand, the 
  remarkable stability of the Venetian system, which went for 
  centuries without a hint of internal revolt, is the kind of thing 
  that makes Centrum agents positively giddy. On the other 
  hand, there are hardly any worlds where the Venetian empire 
  scaled up well.
  loW-tecH
  A lot of TL4 happens in Venezia. Venetians didn’t invent 
  the printing press, but they took it from an early, experi-
  mental technology to a commonplace one. Glassblowers on 
  Murano invented clear glass, paving the way for spyglasses, 
  eyeglasses, and all kinds of other optics. The Arsenale argu-
  ably perfected the rowed galley and took the first steps toward 
  broadsided ships of the line, to say nothing of inventing centu-
  ries-before-their-time assembly-line techniques. Venezia is an 
  excellent place for a would-be inventor to set up shop, because 
  most allied specialists one would want are available nearby. 
  It’s also an outstanding place to do industrial espionage.
  
   
  camPaiGns 
  32
  And there’s always room for somewhat more fanciful 
  inventions. GURPS Fantasy-Tech 1: The Edge of Reality 
  contains any number of ideas for developments from the 
  Renaissance, including a few developed specifically for the 
  defense of Venezia.
  Renaissance floRence
  The only city in northern Italy that comes close to Venezia’s 
  wealth and influence (and the only other comparable city in 
  all of Italy save for Roma) is Firenze. Firenze is an excellent 
  location to visit in any Venezia-centric campaign and vice 
  versa. It can be a long-term rival and shadowy additional 
  hazard in any campaign involving political intrigue and mer-
  cenary warfare, particularly during the complicated years of 
  the Peace of Lodi. The relationship between the two cities, 
  ruled as they are by some of the most pragmatic men of their 
  age, constantly shifts back and forth between violent enmity 
  and close alliance. Diplomats, along with their guards and 
  other hangers-on, will likely come to respect their opposite 
  numbers well over time as thorough professionals in the same 
  business, but will never, ever be able to entirely trust them.
  Firenze may also serve as a potential refuge for Venetians 
  who are wealthy enough. Cosimo de Medici stashed consid-
  erable resources in Venezia and so could ride out exile from 
  his homeland until his allies managed to turn things around 
  for him. Foresighted Venetians would do well to make simi-
  lar preparations.
  Finally, many of the suggestions for campaigns involving 
  Firenze in Chapter 6 of GURPS Hot Spots: Renaissance 
  Florence apply to Venezia as well.
  elseWHeRe  
  in HistoRy
  A few other GURPS books suggest links to 
  Venezia, but not for the period in question here. 
  Here are some tips for tying them together.
  The Silk Road
  During the time of GURPS Hot Spots: The 
  Silk Road, Venezia doesn’t exist, or is at best a 
  nascent shipping town, far from what it became 
  a few centuries after the fall of the Tang. How-
  ever, by the 13th century, Central Asian land 
  routes had reopened enough for two genera-
  tions of Polos to make their way from Venezia to 
  China and back, and Venezia engaged in direct 
  negotiations with Mongols late in the century 
  as they took over ports around the Black Sea. 
  The city didn’t have its overseas empire yet, and 
  the Arsenale only existed in embryonic form, 
  but the aristocratic republican government was 
  taking recognizable shape.
  Constantinople
  The period of GURPS Hot Spots: Con-
  stantinople, 527-1204 A.D., sees much of 
  Constantinople’s glory transferred to Vene-
  zia. Venezia starts the period in its earliest 
  formative stages, becomes the imperial capi-
  tal’s junior partner in the region, and ends the 
  period by leading Constantinople’s conquest 
  during the Fourth Crusade, with the legend-
  ary blind doge Enrico Dandolo personally 
  commanding the Venetian contingent. One of 
  Venezia’s most memorable symbols, the Roman 
  bronze horses adorning the San Marco, was looted from 
  the Hippodrome during the Fourth Crusade. During this 
  period, Venezia is an up-and-coming power. Its merchants 
  enjoy special privileges in Constantinople and do not hesi-
  tate to take every advantage of their status.
  Crusades
  In its own way, Venezia is a major player in the Crusades, 
  but not one that actively engaged in fighting. It didn’t domi-
  nate Mediterranean shipping as it did during the Renaissance, 
  but the medieval city was still one of a handful of powers 
  that could move large quantities of men and material from 
  Western Europe to the Holy Land. Venezia is, if not the place 
  to go, then at least a place to go for would-be Crusaders who 
  want to go east. For their part, the Venetians are mostly just 
  looking to turn a profit. See GURPS Crusades for more 
  about this era.
  a man, a Plan, a canal
  Early in the 16th century, there was some discussion in the Vene-
  tian government of working with the Sultan of Egypt on building a 
  canal connecting the Nile or the Mediterranean with the Red Sea. 
  The idea was far from original, and a short-lived canal had been 
  constructed by Darius during antiquity, though it had silted up. The 
  Venetians were willing to try again, but the Ottoman conquest of 
  Egypt soon put a stop to that.
  In the worldline Moro-2, discussion started in the mid-15th cen-
  tury between the Mamluks and Venetians about reestablishing the 
  canal which Darius had created. The new canal opened in 1472, link-
  ing the base of the Nile delta with the Red Sea. In a diplomatic coup, 
  Venezia convinced Persia and Egypt to form an alliance against the 
  Ottomans, stopping their expansion south.
  The year is 1562. Venetian ships regularly sail to Goa and Mum-
  bai. On the terraferma, the borders of Venezia’s empire stretch nearly 
  to Genoa and Firenze. The Ottoman-Mamluk-Persian triangle has 
  seen countless small conflicts, but remains stable as the Ottomans, 
  blocked to the south and east, slowly stretch their reach around the 
  Black Sea. Increased trade around the Mediterranean and into Africa 
  has propped up the declining Songhai Empire for now. 
  The greatest threat to Venezia is that its newfound wealth and 
  power are dependent on the good graces of the Mamluk sultan. 
  Should one turn away from secular pragmatism into religious fervor, 
  the city’s lifeline to the Far East could be cut off in an instant. 
  The second greatest is the gathered powers of Europe. So far, 
  Venezia has managed to buy itself enough allies at the right times to 
  prevent a dedicated alliance against them, but the cost has sometimes 
  been punishing. Although the Spanish crown turned down a crackpot 
  proposal to find a western route to Asia a lifetime ago, it is starting to 
  reconsider based on accounts of large islands to the west, rich in gold, 
  discovered by a Songhai ship blown far off course.
  
   
  biblioGRaPHy 
  33
  Ackroyd, Peter. Venice: Pure City (Nan A. Talese, 2010). Less 
  a narrative than a thematic consideration of various parts of 
  Venezia’s culture and history. Ackroyd is a novelist as well as a 
  biographer and historical scholar, so much in this book needs 
  to be taken figuratively, but it contains a great many interest-
  ing tidbits.
  Brown, Patricia Fortini. Private Lives in Renaissance Venice 
  (Yale University Press, 2004). Lavishly illustrated, and packed 
  with useful information on the day-to-day lives of the people 
  of the city. It does lean toward treatments of the upper classes, 
  since they’ve left us with the most physical and written evi-
  dence, but the poor and middle classes are addressed as well.
  Calimani, Riccardo. The Venetian Ghetto: The History of a 
  Persecuted Community (Mondadori, 1995). A history of the 
  Jews in Venezia from the later Middle Ages to the present day.
  Herskovitz, Marshall. Dangerous Beauty (Warner Brothers, 
  1998). The based-on-fact movie about a 16th-century courte-
  san and her entanglements with Venetian noblemen. Includes 
  recreational swashbuckling, top-notch sets and costumes, and 
  battles with galleys.
  Lane, Frederic. Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders of the 
  Renaissance (Johns Hopkins Press, 1934). This clas-
  sic study on Venetian shipbuilding, revised sev-
  eral times over Lane’s long career, provides a 
  wealth of detail on the technical aspects of 
  Venetian ships.
  Lane, Frederic. Venice, A Maritime 
  Republic (Johns Hopkins University Press, 
  1973). A solid narrative history of the 
  city from its earliest years. Some may 
  find it a bit dry, but if you’re looking for 
  an overview of changing rates of return 
  from investment in the city’s public debt, the 
  monte, this is the one to read.
  Laven, Mary. Virgins of Venice (Viking, 2003). 
  A comprehensive study of Venetian convents during the 
  Renaissance, addressing numbers, class distinctions, internal 
  structure, and nuns throwing rocks at potential interlopers.
  Mallett, Michael. Mercenaries and Their Masters: Warfare in 
  Renaissance Italy (Rowman and Littlefield, 1994). Excellent 
  background on armies of the Renaissance, including organi-
  zation, tactics, armaments, and political relationships, though 
  starting and ending a bit earlier than the period in question 
  here. It doesn’t touch on naval forces, which are at any rate 
  largely limited to a handful of cities such as Venezia.
  Mattingly, Garrett. Renaissance Diplomacy (Dover, 1988). 
  The first half of this book concentrates on the origins of diplo-
  macy in the Renaissance, which essentially means the diplo-
  macy of Italy, in which Venezia was deeply involved.
  Muir, Edward. Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice 
  (Princeton University Press, 1986). A deep consideration of 
  the many processions and other public rituals practiced in the 
  city, examining not just the events themselves but also their 
  meaning to Venetian society.
  Strathern, Paul. The Venetians: A New History from Marco 
  Polo to Casanova (Pegasus, 2014). While this broad narrative 
  history may seem thin in places, it provides a relative wealth 
  of detail in others. In particular, the two chapters Strathern 
  spends on Venezia’s slow-motion assumption of direct control 
  over Cyprus – including several never proven but plausible 
  assassinations, a ruse involving a faked death, and diplomatic 
  jockeying with several other Mediterranean powers – are 
  worth the price of admission alone.
  Trincanato, Egle. A Guide to Venetian Domestic Architecture 
  (Canal and Stamperia Editrice, 1996). A survey of surviving 
  historic Venetian homes ranging from charity town houses 
  to palaces. It contains line drawings of facades, a great many 
  floor plans, and even excerpts from historical maps and draw-
  ings of the city showing their surroundings.
  Varriano, John. Tastes and Temptations: Food and Art in 
  Renaissance Italy (University of California Press, 2009). Not 
  specific to Venezia, but addressing the relationship between 
  food and art, from regional and “national” food prefer-
  ences and specialties, appearance of food in period art, 
  and the artistic symbolism of food.
  discoGRaPHy
  Concerto 
  Palatino. 
  Venetian 
  Music 
  for 
  Double Choir (Accent, 1999). Contains works by 
  Giovanni Gabrielli and Adrian Willaert demon-
  strating Venetian polychoral styles. The inclu-
  sion of Gabrielli takes this recording a bit past the 
  period in question here and toward the Baroque, 
  but Willaert is solidly a composer of this era.
  O’Dette, Paul. Alla Venetiana: Early 16th Century Venetian 
  Lute Music (Harmonia Mundi, 2005). Music from some of the 
  city’s most active and interesting years by one of this genera-
  tion’s foremost lutenists.
  Pritchard, Ian. L’Arpicordo: 16th Century Venetian Keyboard 
  Music (Morphic Resonance Music, 2009). Like the lute record-
  ings, this is music that would have been heard in private 
  homes, but in wealthier ones that could afford an expensive 
  keyboard instrument.
  Singer Pur. Musica Nova: The Petrarca Madrigals (Oehms 
  Classics, 2009). While Adrian Willaert is best known for his dis-
  tinctively Venetian polychoral works, most of his output was 
  madrigals and motets, and it does not get more Renaissance 
  Italian than these madrigals based on poems by Petrarch.
  Wilson, Christopher. Early Venetian Lute Music (Naxos, 
  2000). A selection of mostly short pieces for one or two lutes, 
  largely predating the ones in O’Dette’s recording above.
   
  biblioGRaPHy
  
   
  index 
  34
  index
  Adventure seeds, 14, 19, 22;  
  see also Campaigns.
  Aegean Islands, 7-9.
  Architecture, 26-28.
  Archives, 13.
  Armies, 18-19; important 
  mercenaries, 10, 18-19.
  Arsenale, 6, 31; geography, 4; 
  history, 9, 11; magistrates, 12; 
  map, 5; shipbuilding, 19-20; 
  workers, 15, 20, 26.
  Arsenalotti, 15, 20, 26.
  Art, 22-23.
  Bellini, Gentile, 10.
  Bibliography, 33.
  Books, publishing, 18, 25.
  Brenta River, 7.
  Bussone, Francesco, 18-19. 
  Ca’ (casa), definition, 3.
  Cadamosto, Alvise, 10.
  Calle, definition, 3.
  Campaigns, adventure seeds, 
  14, 19, 22; crossovers, 31-32; 
  historical, 32.
  Canals, city, 5; in Egypt, 32.
  Cannaregio, 4, 6; map, 5.
  Capi di Sestieri, 14.
  Carmagnola, 18-19.
  Castello, 4, 5.
  Catholicism, 21.
  Chioggia, 6, 7.
  City stats, 9.
  Climate, 5.
  Clothing, 16, 23.
  Coats of arms, 23.
  Code, 15.
  Colleoni, Bartolomeo, 10.
  Combat, mock, 27, 29.
  Compagnie delle calze, 21.
  Condottieri, definition, 3; see also 
  Mercenaries, Military.
  Consiglio dei Pregadi, 12.
  Constantinople, campaigns, 32; 
  history, 8-11.
  Convents, 22; masks and, 23; 
  visitors, 22, 24.
  Copper, 17.
  Corfu, 7.
  Council of Ten, 13; adventures, 
  14, 31; archives, 13; morality 
  laws, 24; spying, 14.
  Courtesans, 23-24; espionage, 14.
  Courts, 12, 14.
  Crete, 7-9.
  Crusades, campaigns, 32; history, 
  8, 11.
  Cyprus, 7, 14; history, 9, 11; map, 
  7; sugar, 17, 24.
  Dalmatia, 7, 9, 11.
  Demimonde, 23-24; espionage, 
  14.
  Discography, 33.
  Doges, 12-13; definition, 3; first, 
  8, 11; last, 11; notable, 10; 
  secret codes and, 15; Status, 
  16.
  Dorsoduro, 4, 5.
  Ducal palace, 6, 13, 14.
  Dungeon fantasy campaign, 31.
  Durazzo, 7.
  Economy, see Trade.
  Education, 25, 26.
  Entertainment, private, 29; 
  public, 27, 29.
  Espionage, 14-15.
  Fedele, Cassandra, 10.
  Fibers, 17.
  Floor plans of homes, 27, 28.
  Food, 24.
  Foreign relations, 13.
  Foscari, Franceso, 10.
  Galleasses, 20.
  Galleys (ships), 19-20.
  Geography, 4-7.
  Ghetto, 4, 6, 11, 22; food, 24; 
  map, 5; see also Jews.
  Giudecca, 4, 5.
  Glass, 17-18.
  Glossary, 3.
  Government, 12-13; archives, 
  13; clashes with Papacy, 21; 
  courts, 12, 14; espionage, 
  14-15; foreign relations, 13; 
  history, 8, 9; length of terms, 
  12; military, 18-20; police, 
  14; see also Council of Ten, 
  Maggior Consiglio.
  Grand Canal, 4, 6.
  Grand Council, see Maggior 
  Consiglio.
  GURPS, 31, 32; City Stats, 3; 
  Crusades, 32; Dungeon 
  Fantasy, 31; Dungeon 
  Fantasy 17: Guilds, 31; 
  Fantasy-Tech 1: The Edge of 
  Reality, 32; Horror, 31; Hot 
  Spots: Constantinople, 527-
  1204 A.D., 8, 32; Hot Spots: 
  Renaissance Florence, 3, 
  18, 32; Hot Spots: The Silk 
  Road, 32; Infinite Worlds, 
  31; Low-Tech, 31.
  History, 8-11; foundations, 8; 
  timeline, 11.
  Homosexuality, 24.
  Horror campaign, 31.
  Industry, see Trade.
  Infinite Worlds 
  campaign, 31, 32.
  Islands, main, 4-6; 
  map, 5; outlying, 4.
  Istria, 7.
  Jews, history, 11; residents, 4, 6, 
  15, 22.
  Lagoon, 6-7; freezing, 5; history, 
  8.
  Landmarks, 5-6.
  Language, 25.
  Libro d’Oro, 16.
  Lido, 6, 7, 29.
  Lords of the night, 24.
  Low-tech campaigns, 31-32.
  Maggior Consiglio, 12; building, 
  6; history, 9, 11.
  Magistrates, 12.
  Maps, city, 5; empire, 7; floor 
  plans, 28; Venezia and the 
  terraferma, 7.
  Marriage, convents, 22, 24;  
  price of, 16.
  Masks, 23.
  Mathematicians, 25.
  Mediocritas, 16.
  Mercenaries, 18-19; important, 
  10, 18-19.
  Metalwork, 17.
  Military, 18-20; police, 14.
  Minor Consiglio, 12, 13.
  Monasteries, 4, 6, 25.
  Money, 18.
  Moors, 16.
  Moro-2 worldline, 32.
  Murano, 15, 17-18, 31.
  Music, 22-23.
  Muslims, relationships with, 13, 
  21-22.
  Navy, 19-20; rowers, 20.
  Neighborhoods, see Sestieri.
  Newspaper, first, 25.
  Padua, 7, 9, 11, 25.
  Painters, 22.
  Pets, 23.
  Piazza San Marco, 5, 6, 10.
  Place names in Italian, 4.
  Places to stay, 26; floor plans of 
  homes, 27, 28.
  Police, 14.
  Population, 4, 9.
  Printing presses, 18, 25.
  Provveditori, 12.
  Publishing, 18, 25.
  Pyramid, 3.
  Quarantia, 12, 14.
  Quattrocento, definition, 3.
  Recreations, 27.
  Religion, 21.
  Religious fraternities, see Scuole.
  Renaissance Florence campaign, 
  32.
  Rialto, 5-6.
  Rio, definition, 3.
  Round ships, 19.
  Salt, 6, 17.
  San Cristoforo, 4, 6; map, 5.
  San Giorgio Maggiore, 4, 5.
  San Marco, 4, 5; Piazza, 5, 6, 10.
  San Michele, 4, 6; map, 5.
  San Polo, 4, 5.
  Sandbar, see Lido.
  Santa Croce, 4, 5.
  Scuole, 21, 25, 29; leadership, 15.
  Senate, 12.
  Serge, 17.
  Sestieri, 4; map, 5; Minor 
  Consiglio, 12; police, 14;  
  see also Ghetto, Scuole.
  Ships, building, 20; rowers, 20; 
  sandbars and, 6; types of, 19-
  20; see also Arsenale.
  Signori di Contrabanni, 14.
  Silk, 17.
  Silk Road campaign, 32.
  Slaves, 16.
  Social classes, 15-16, 26.
  Sopraprovveditori, 12.
  Status, displaying, 16, 23, 26; 
  trait, 16.
  Streets, 5.
  Sugar, 17.
  Sumptuary laws, 16.
  Terraferma, 6-7; campaigns, 31, 
  32; history, 10-11; map, 7; 
  trade goods, 17.
  Textiles, 17.
  Timeline, 11.
  Trade, goods, 17-18; history, 8-11; 
  money, 18; travel times, 17.
  Transportation, 5.
  Venezia (Venice), as destination, 
  31; as home, 30-31; empire, 7; 
  maps, 5-7; notable locations, 
  5-6; notable people, 10, 18-19; 
  see also specific topics.
  Watchmen, 14.
  Women, clothing, 23; convents, 
  22; demimonde, 14, 23-24; 
  in public life, 26; notable, 10; 
  marriage, 16, 26; slaves, 16.
  Nowhere else in the world is used to the joy 
  that heaven bestowed so abundantly on Venice.
  – Veronica Franco, Capitolo XII
  
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SOURCE: textdata/thevault/GURPS [multi]/4th edition/GURPS 4e - Hot Spots - Renaissance Venice .pdf