Men of Empire

The city-state of Venice, with a population of less than100,000, dominated a fragmented and fragile empire at theboundary between East and west, between Latin Christian,Greek Orthodox, and Muslim worlds. In this institutionaland administrative history, Monique O'Connell explainsthe structures, processes, practices, and laws by which Venicemaintained its vast overseas holdings.The legal, linguistic, religious, and cultural diversitywithin Venice's empire made it difficult to impose any centralization or unity among its disparate territories. O'Connellhas mined the vast archival resources to explain how Venice's central government was able to administer and govern its extensive empire.O'Connell finds that successful governance dependedheavily on the experience of governors, an interlocking network of noble families, who were sent overseas to negotiate the often conflicting demands of Venice's governing council and the local populations. In this nexus of state power and personal influence, these imperial administrators played acrucial role in representing the state as a hegemonic power;creating patronage and family connections between Venetianpatricians and their subjects; and using the judicial system tonegotiate a balance between local and imperial interests.In explaining the institutions and individuals that permitted this type of negotiation, O'Connell offers an historical example of an early modern empire at the height of imperial expansion.