Chapter One
In the Service of Venice

The Decision To Serve the State

The Contarini family was at the center of Venice virtually from the beginning of the city's existence. According to Venetian tradition, the first doge, Paolo Lucio Anafesto, was elected in the early eighth century. The families who later claimed descent from his electors took great pride in their putative ancestry, regarding themselves as superior to others in both dignity and devotion to the state.

One of these families was the Contarini, whose many branches were prominent in Venetian history for centuries. Like many noble clans, the Contarini constructed more or less imaginary genealogies linking them to important ancestors. One version traces the family back to a Roman official supposedly in charge of defending the area where the river Reno flows into the Po—the "Conte di Reno," whence the name Contarini.^[1] Other versions of the family legend mention that the first Contarini came from Constantinople via Capo d'Istria,^[2] from Concordia to Torcello and then to Venice,^[3] or from Concordia via Loreto.^[4]

[1] One such genealogy, is Venice, Biblioteca Civica Correr (hereafter cited as VBC), Cod. Cicogna 2327: "Portione de Huomeni Illustri della Famiglia Contarini di Venetia."

[2] Archivio di Stato, Venice (hereafter cited as ASV), Marco Barbaro, Arbori de' patritii Veneti , vol. II, fol. 437.

[3] VBC, Cod. Cicogna 1613: "Tute le caxade de zentilhomeni de Venetia dal principio fin al presente, MDVII," fol. 9r.

[4] VBC, Cod. Cicogna 2330 (without title or page numbers), gives brief summaries of family histories together with their coats of arms.

The last two accounts inform us that the Contarini were tribunes characterized by a particular faculty for acquiring possessions.^[5] In historical times the clan gave the Republic eight doges, the first of whom, Domenico, is remembered for supporting the start of the construction of St. Mark's basilica in the eleventh century. There were Contarini among holders of every Venetian political and ecclesiastical office, including twenty-two bishops and four patriarchs of Venice. By the sixteenth century the Contarini had far more members in the Great Council than any other clan,^[6] and their genealogy in the detailed Arbori by Barbaro runs to almost eighty pages.^[7]

The branch of the family to which Gasparo Contarini belonged was neither the wealthiest nor the best known. Its palazzo stood distant from the center of the city, indeed at its very edge, facing the islands of San Michele and Murano. Far from resembling the graceful Contarini Fasan or the imposing Contarini degli Scrigni on the Grand Canal, the palazzo was a large, plain building in a compound of warehouses, artisans' quarters, and smaller rented dwellings. Its distinction still derives from a garden that is unusually large by Venetian standards and from a small mid-sixteenth-century building constructed at its farthest corner, which has come to be known by the romantic name of "il casino degli spiriti."^[8] The proximity of the church of the Madonna dell'Orto gave this branch of the Contarini the name by which it continued to be

[5] The term tribunes was used as the title for late Roman administrative officials, and later became an honorific title signifying elevated social status; see Ernst Rodenwaldt, "Untersuchungen über die Biologie des venezianischen Adels," Homo: Zeitschrift für die vergleichende Forschung am Menschen 8 (1957): 4, who thinks that the Contarini possibly had Germanic ancestors, since a document of 1116, preserved in Venice, was signed by a Berengarius Guntarenus and a Peter Guntarinus, from whom the family name might have originated.

[6] In 1513, 147 families were represented among 2,622 members of the Great Council, of whom 188 were Contarini; the next most numerous were the Morosini with 85; Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (hereafter cited as VBM), MSS It., Cl. VII, 90 (=8029). In June 1527, among 2,708 male members of Venetian noble families in the Great Council listed by Marino Sanuto in his diary, the Contarini had 172, followed by the Morosini with 102 and the Malipiero with 81; Sanuto, I Diarii (Venice, 1879-1903), 45:569-72 (all references to Sanuto, Diarii , are to vol. and col. nos.).

[7] ASV, Barbaro, Arbori , vol. II, fols. 437-516.

[8] The derivation of the name is not certain. The explanation given by Giulio Lorenzetti, Venice and Its Lagoons (Trieste: Edizioni LINT, 1975), is attractive: the building was "at one time the site of mere, parties and literary gatherings" (405), and "the meetings and literary discussions held in the nearby garden overlooking the lagoon in the Casino degli Spiriti . . . were well known" (408). But there is no evidence for such meetings, presumably linked with the fame of Gasparo Contarini as a writer and thinker. The Contarini family must have constructed the casino between 1537 and 1566: it appears in the tax declaration of the latter date only. See below, note 15.

known until its extinction in the male line in 1688.^[9] A small, elegant chapel there with an altar painting by Tintoretto, busts of family members (including that of Gasparo), and funerary inscriptions remains as a memorial to the Contarini "della Madonna dell'Orto" (see figs. 1 and 2).^[10]

Gasparo, born in 1483, was the eldest of seven sons and four daughters of Alvise Contarini and Polissena Malipiero. Alvise also had two illegitimate children, a daughter whose name is not mentioned in the documents (daughters were often anonymous in the records: "a girl") and a son, Angelo. Probably all grew up together, since Contarini's later references to his "fratel natural" and "nostra sorella natural" show the same affectionate concern that he extended to other members of his family.^[11] Three of his sisters and his half-sister married Venetian patricians,^[12] while one became a nun. Of the brothers, only

[9] Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna, Delle inscrizioni veneziane (Venice, 1824-53), 2:250; ASV, Barbaro, Arbori , vol. II, fol. 466; VBC, MS Gradenigo Dolfin 131, fols. 293-294.

[10] For the church, see Ashley Clarke and Philip Rylands, eds., Restoring Venice: The Church of the Madonna dell'Orto (London: Elek, 1977); V. Zanetti, La chiesa della Madonna dell'Orto in Venezia (Venice, 1870); Giuseppe Bigaglia, La chiesa della Madonna dell'Orto in Venezia (Venice: A. Vidotti, 1937); and Lino Moretti, La chiesa della Madonna dell'Orto in Venezia (Turin: Scaravaglio, 1981).

[11] His illegitimate sister was married to Vincenzo Belegno, a Venetian nobleman, in 1514; ASV, Avogaria di Comun, Reg. 106, Cronaca Matrimoni , fol. 1; VBC, Cod. Cicogna 2171, fol. 29. Contarini writes about the wedding festivities celebrated by the family, and mentions that "the whole house was topsy-turvy"; Hubert Jedin, "Contarini und Camaldoli," Archivio italiano per la storia della pietà 2 (1959): 59-118; also published separately as a preprint by Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura (Rome, 1953), spanning pp. 3-67, which version I use; see p. 27. His interest in her and her family continued, as can be seen in a letter to his sister Serafina, nun in the convent of S. Chiara in Murano (n.d., but probably 1540 or 1541), in which he asks her to treat their niece Belegnia, daughter of Vincenzo Belegno, as a daughter. She was about to enter the convent, and Contarini wished that she be shown the same courtesy and kindness that would be extended to himself: Archivio Segreto Vaticano (hereafter cited as ASVat), A.A., Arm. I-XVIII, 6461, fol. 65r-v.
Contarini's illegitimate brother Angelo is the subject of several letters by the cardinal in 1541 to diplomats and the papal legate at the French court; see ibid., fol. 58r; and ASVat, Fondo Borghese, ser. I, 409-10, fols. 200r-v, 201v-202r; Monumenti di varia letteratura tratti dai manoscritti di Monsignor Lodovico Beccadelli , ed. Giambattista Morandi (Bologna, 1797-1804), 1(2):94-95 (hereafter cited as Monumenti Beccadelli ). Although he had lived in Turkish lands for twenty-three years and had a Turkish wife and a son, Angelo was imprisoned by the Turks when war with Venice began, and all his goods were confiscated. Presumably he traded for the family: Contarini writes of "roba sua" and "roba nostra." He asks his correspondents to urge King Francis I to intercede with the Turks and obtain his half-brother's release.

[12] Contarina married Matteo Vitturi in 1502, Laura married Nicolò Grimani in 1511. See ASV, G. Giomo, Indice dei matrimoni patrizii per nome di donne . For Paola's marriage, see below, note 17.

Image not available.

1.
Monument to Cardinal Contarini, Contarini Chapel, Madonna Dell'Orto, Venice. Photo by Sam Habibi Minelli.

Image not available.

2.
Detail: Bust of Cardinal Contarini by Alessandro Vittoria, in the Contarini Chapel, Madonna dell'Orto, Venice. Photo by Osvaldo Böhm.

two married; they also had illegitimate offspring, as did two of the unmarried ones.^[13]

The brothers seem to have been a closely knit group. After the death of their father in 1502 they continued to live together, forming a

[13] See James C. Davis, A Venetian Family and Its Fortune, 1500-1900 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1975), 93-106; and Rodenwaldt, "Untersuchungen," 18-19, for the Venetian custom of having only some brothers in a family marry. Regarding evidence for illegitimate children: Contarini's brother Tommaso mentions in his will a bequest to "Felicita, mother of Bianca, my deceased daughter"; ASV, Arch. notarile, Testamenti , Atti Ziliol, C., busta 1261, no. 885. The will of Gasparo, son of Contarini's brother Vincenzo, mentions "my dearest brother" Hieronymo Contarini, to whom no bequest is made; ibid., busta 1258, no. 409. Hieronymo is not included in any genealogy, since only legitimate descendants were shown. The third brother who fathered an illegitimate child was Ferrigo. His son Giulio became Contarini's successor as bishop of Belluno in 1542 after receiving a papal dispensation from the impediment due to his birth; ASVat, Fondo Concistoriale, Acta Camerarii , vol. V, fol. 64r. Contarini's fourth illegitimate nephew was Don Placido, monk of S. Giustina in Padua, son of his brother Zuan Antonio; Ludovico Beccadelli, "Vita di Monsignor Reverendissimo et Illustrissimo Messer Gasparo Contarino Gentilhuomo Venitiano et Cardinale della S. Romana Chiesa," in Monumenti Beccadelli 1(2):50 (hereafter cited as Beccadelli, "Vita").

fraterna , a family economic unit in which each was a flail partner.^[14] They held real property in common, both in Venice and in the country, as shown by their tax declarations of 1514, 1537, and 1566.^[15] In addition to their own dwelling in Venice, inherited from their father, they owned rental property that in 1537 brought an income of about one thousand ducats, shops, and several hundred campi of land (about eight-tenths of an acre each) in the Po Valley consisting of fields, meadows, pastures, and woods. In Piove di Sacco near Venice the family had a country villa that was the favorite retreat of Gasparo Contarini.^[16] The extent of their commercial wealth is not easy to ascertain, but it must have been considerable, at least in the mid-1530s. The

[14] Frederic C. Lane, "Family Partnerships and Joint Ventures," in Venice and History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966), 36-55; and Davis, A Venetian Family , 7-8. Sanuto, Diarii , repeatedly mentions "Gasparo Contarini et fradelli" as an economic unit: for example, 46:383, 417-18 ["figlioli" mistakenly for "fradelli"]; 47:305; 49:318.

[15] ASV, Dieci Savi alle Decime, Redecima 1514 (S. Marco, Castello, Canareggio, S. Polo), Keg. 363, no. 46; Redecima 1537 (S. Croce, S. Polo), Reg. 366; and Redecima 1566 (Canareggio), BI, 133, no. 763. The first is in the name of Gasparo Contarini and his brothers, the second in that of Tommaso Contarini and his brothers, and the third in that of Tommaso Contarini and his nephews Alvise and Gasparo, sons of Vincenzo. The 1566 declaration is especially informative and detailed. It is briefly discussed by Bernardo Canal, "Il Collegio, l'Ufficio e l'Archivio dei Dieci Savi alle Decime in Rialto," Nuovo Archivio Veneto 16 (1908): 143, who points out the usefulness of the declarations for our knowledge of the everyday life of Venetian families.

[16] The villa is described in the tax declarations as entailing only expenses for the family, unlike their other country property, which was rented. Contarini mentions it in letters to his friend Tommaso Giustiniani; Jedin, "Contarini und Camaldoli," 55, 56, 59. The Contarini also owned land near the villa together with Daniele Dandolo; see Redecima 1514 as cited in preceding note. It was later divided; Jedin, "Contarini und Camaldoli," 61, 62. In 1518, the Contarini owned at least 445 campi ; Robert Finlay, Politics in Renaissance Venice (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1980), 166.

brothers traded in Apulia, Cyprus, Alexandria, the eastern Mediterranean, and Spain,^[17] and had one or more galleys of their own.^[18] The commercial involvements of the family declined as brothers died off without leaving sons to carry on the business in their stead. By 1549 only Tommaso, Gasparo's next younger brother, was alive, and his main occupation during the remainder of his long life until 1578 was officeholding.^[19] It is likely that the Contarini gradually concentrated their wealth in land rather than commerce, following the pattern of many Venetian noble families in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.^[20]

Of Gasparo's education little is known. Lodovico Beccadelli, his secretary and biographer, states that his precocious intellectual gifts were recognized and encouraged by his father.^[21] Presumably the other sons were given a more practical education as apprentices in the family

[17] The Contarini della Madonna dell'Orto were well off in 1515, when they offered to lend the state 3,000 ducats at a time when the usual amount of loans was under 1,000; Sanuto, Diarii 21:85, 86, 186, 188. They financed two expensive embassies of Gasparo in 1521-25 and 1528-30. In 1521 their sister Paola was married to Matteo Dandolo (ASV, Avogaria di Comun, Reg. 106, Cronaca matrimoni , 1; and VBC, Cod. Cicogna 2171, fol. 87) with a dowry of 8,000 ducats; see Sanuto, Diarii 30:29. The legal limit on dowries was 3,000 ducats in 1505 and 4,000 in 1535. Even if "official limits bore no relation to reality," as Brian Pullan maintains in "The Occupation and Investments of the Venetian Nobility in the Middle and Late Sixteenth Century," in Renaissance Venice , ed. J. R. Hale (London: Faber & Faber, 1973), 389, the sum of 8,000 ducats was very large. See also Stanley Chojnacki, "La posizione della donna a Venezia nel Cinquecento," Tiziano e Venezia: convegno internazionale di studi (Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1976), 69.

On the other hand, some evidence points to the opposite conclusion for the later 1530s: Contarini as cardinal had a small household in Rome, in marked contrast to those of his fellow Venetian cardinals Grimani and Pisani, for example; also, at the time of his death, the Venetian Senate petitioned the pope on behalf of the family, referring to it as "ruined" and "poor"; VBC, Cod. Cicogna 1540, fols. 113-114: "1542. Die 26 Aug . Oratori in Curia Gabrieli Venerio. Raccomandazione per la famiglia del Card Contarini." The involvement of the family in overseas trade is mentioned also by their brother-in-law Matteo Dandolo in a sketch of Contarini's life, published by Gigliola Fragnito in Memoria individuale e costruzione biografica: Beccadelli, Della Casa, Vettori alle origini di un mito , Pubblicazioni dell'Università di Urbino, Serie di lettere e filosofia (Urbino: Argalìa Editore, 1978), 174.

[18] Sanuto, Diarii 40:595; 46:357, 383,417-18.

[19] Renzo Derosas, "Contarini, Tommaso," in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani (Rome: Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960-), 28:300-305 (hereafter cited as DBI ). I wish to thank Dr. Derosas for kindly allowing me to see the typescript of his article before publication.

[20] See Pullan, "Occupation and Investments," 379-408, esp. 381; also Ugo Tucci, "The Psychology of the Venetian Merchant in the Sixteenth Century," in Hale (ed.), Renaissance Venice , 346-78, esp. 357-59.

[21] Beccadelli, "Vita," 10.

business. After receiving instruction in grammar, Gasparo studied at the schools of San Marco and Rialto, where his teachers included the humanist Giorgio Valla, the historian Marcantonio Sabellico, and Antonio Giustinian, who eventually left teaching for a diplomatic career.^[22] At the age of eighteen, in 1501, Contarini entered the faculty of arts at the University of Padua. His stay there lasted eight years,^[23] with one brief interruption in 1502, occasioned by the death of his father and the need to settle family affairs. He returned to Venice without a degree in 1509 when the university was closed because of the War of the League of Cambrai.^[24]

Little material about Contarini's ýears at Padua has come to light.^[25] His studies seem to have centered on the works of Aristotle. Bernardo Navagero, one of his friends, declares hyperbolically that Contarini knew Aristotle's works so well that if all of them were lost he would have been able to write them again from memory.^[26] He also studied theology, which at Padua included the traditions of both St. Thomas and Scotus;^[27] however, it is not possible to determine the extent of his

[22] On the two schools, see Bruno Nardi, "La scuola di Rialto e l'umanesimo veneziano," in Umanesimo europeo e umanesimo veneziano , ed. Vittore Branca, Civiltà europea e civiltà veneziana, Aspetti e problemi 2 (Florence: Sansoni, 1963), 93-139; and idem, "Letteratura e cultura veneziana del Quattrocento," in La civiltà veneziana del Quattrocento (Florence: Sansoni, 1957), 101-45. Very useful are James Bruce Ross, "Venetian Schools and Teachers, Fourteenth to Early Sixteenth Century: A Survey and a Study of Giovanni Battista Egnazio," Renaissance Quarterly 39 (1976): 521-60, with bibliography; and Fernando Lepori, "La scuola di Rialto dalla fondazione alla metà del Cinquecento," Storia della cultura veneta , ed. Girolamo Arnaldi and Manlio Pastore Stocchi (Vicenza: Neri Pozza Editore, 1980), 3(2):539-605.

[23] See Gigliola Fragnito, "Cultura umanistica e riforma religiosa: il 'De officio boni viri ac probi episcopi' di Gasparo Contarini," Studi veneziani 11 (1969): 82n.29, for Contarini's presence in Padua; also Franz Dittrich, Gasparo Contarini, 1483-1542: eine Monographie (Braunsberg, 1885), 13-21 (hereafter cited as GC ).

[24] The university was not reopened until October 1517; see Sanuto, Diarii 23:562; 25:30, 69.

[25] GC , 13-21, discusses Contarini's teachers and the subjects he studied. The evidence for these years is sketchy, and much of what Dittrich suggests is inferred from general works about the university and the curriculum of that period, like A. Favaro, "Lo studio di Padova al tempo di Niccolò Copernico," in Atti del R. Istituto Veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti 6 (1880): 285-356. For more recent works, consult the bibliography of Lucia Rossetti in Quaderni per la storia dell'Università di Padova 1 (1968): 179-311; 2 (1969): 109-88. See also François Dupuigrenet Desroussilles, "L'Università di Padova dal 1405 al Concilio di Trento," in Arnaldi and Stocchi (eds.), Storia della cultura veneta 3(2):607-47.

[26] Giuseppe De Leva, "Della vita e delle opere del cardinale Gasparo Contarini," Rivista periodica dei lavori della I. R. Accademia di scienze, lettere ed arti in Padova 12 (1863): 53.

[27] For a survey, see Antonino Poppi, "La teologia nell'Università e nelle scuole," in Arnaldi and Stocchi (eds.), Storia della cultura veneta 3(3):1-33.

training in theology, in which he seems to have been essentially self-taught. Greek, under Marco Musuro, who held a chair from 1503 on, was a subject Contarini took up seriously, as were mathematics and astronomy;^[28] but he did not acquire unusual proficiency in these studies.

The Paduan period saw the establishment of a network of continuing friendships.^[29] The deepest bonds tied Contarini to two Venetian nobles, Tommaso Giustiniani and Vincenzo Querini: "At the center of Contarini's affective life before 1514 there lay, one might say, a triangle, the apex representing Giustiniani, his spiritual mentor and elder by seven years, the other angles himself and Querini, his alter ego , about four years older than himself."^[30] Querini left Padua in 1502 and obtained the doctorate in philosophy in Rome; Giustiniani stayed on at Padua until 1505, when he returned to Venice. Upon his own return to Venice in 1509 Contarini resumed contact with his two friends. To his inner circle belonged also Niccolò Tiepolo, Sebastiano Zorzi, Giovanni Battista Egnazio, and Trifone Gabriele.^[31]

One finds frequent mention of this group of young aristocrats (Egnazio being the only commoner), this "generation" of Venetian nobili who shared experiences of religious crisis at a time of political

[28] GC , 13, 16. On Musuro, see Martin Lowry, The World of Aldus Manutius (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1979), 164-67 and passim; Francesco Foffano, "Marco Musuro, professore di greco a Padova ed a Venezia," Nuovo Archivio Veneto 3 (1892): 453-73; and Deno J. Geanakoplos, Greek Scholars in Venice: Studies in the Dissemination of Greek Learning from Byzantium to the West (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962). For the teaching of mathematics, see Carlo Maccagni, "Le scienze nello studio di Padova e nel Veneto," in Arnaldi and Stocchi (eds.), Storia della cultura veneta 3(3):135-71.

[29] For these friendships and biographical notices of individuals who were close to Contarini during this early period of his life, see James Bruce Ross, "Contarini and His Friends," Studies in the Renaissance 17 (1970): 192-232. See also Beccadelli, "Vita," 11-12; and Eugenio Massa, "Gasparo Contarini e gli amici, fra Venezia e Camaldoli," in Gaspare Contarini e il suo tempo: atti convegno di studio , ed. Francesca Cavazzana Romanelli (Venice: Comune di Venezia, Assessorato Affari Istituzionali, and Studium Cattolico Veneziano, 1988), 39-91.

[30] Ross, "Contarini and His Friends," 195. On Giustiniani, see Eugenio Massa, "Paolo Giustiniani," in Bibliotheca Sanctorum (Rome: Istituto Giovanni XXIII della Pontificia Università Lateranense, 1966), 7, cols. 2-9, with bibliography. Also useful is Jean Leclercq, Un humaniste érémite: le bienheureux Paul Giustiniani (1476-1528 ) (Rome: Edizioni Camaldoli, 1951). There is no modern biography of Querini. See Cicogna, Delle inscrizioni veneziane 5:62-73; for bibliography, Jedin, "Contarini und Camaldoli," 7n.1; and idem, "Vincenzo Querini und Pietro Bembo," in Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1946), 4:407-24, reprinted in Jedin, Kirche des Glaubens—Kirche der Geschichte: ausgewàhlte Aufsätze und Vorträge (Freiburg i.B.: Herder, 1966), 1:153-66.

[31] Ross, "Contarini and His Friends," 195nn.9-12, for bibliography on these men; also Ross, "Venetian Schools and Teachers," for Egnazio.

disorder and war.^[32] In fact, however, little specific information exists about the circle that supposedly formed around Giustiniani and met at his house on Murano. The meetings are thought to have taken place between 1505 and 1510, when he left Venice to become a hermit at Camaldoli.^[33] Perhaps we should think of these young men simply as a loosely structured group of friends rather than a more formal "circle." Giustiniani may have played an important role among them not only because he was the oldest but also because of his intense intellectual and spiritual travails during these years, which touched sympathetic chords in the minds and emotions of the others.

The stages of Giustiniani's passage from a Venetian patrician, by his own admission a sensuous and passionate man,^[34] to an ascetic reformer of his order and an advocate of church reform have yet to be told fully.^[35] Judging from the available evidence, he was a charismatic figure

[32] For the first use of the term generation in this sense, see Carlo Dionisotti, "Chierici e laici nella cultura italiana del primo Cinquecento," in Problemi di vita religiosa in Italia nel Cinquecento: atti del Convegno di storia della chiesa in Italia (Bologna, 2-6 settembre 1958 ) (Padova: Antenore, 1960), 176. The essay appears in a fuller version under the title "Chierici e laici" in his Geografia e storia della letteratura italiana (Turin: Einaudi, 1967), 55-88; the passage on the Venetian group is on 78. Roberto Cessi, "Paolinismo preluterano," Rendiconti dell'Accademia dei Lincei: classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche 12 (1957): 3-30, sees (p. 8) the group consisting of Giustiniani, Querini, Egnazio, and Contarini as among the "best interpreters" of a mystical awakening in early sixteenth-century Venice.

[33] Giustiniani himself describes his life on Murano thus in a letter of 20 July 1518 to "two gentlemen, his friends": "I remember my wanting to try the solitary life in a house I had on Murano, and experience showed me that such a life was that of a pagan philosopher rather than of a religious Christian soul. In it there was no drowning out of the world, no mortification of one's own will, no virtue of obedience, no true poverty, while instead there were countless dangers to chastity" (Johannes Benedictus Mittarelli and Anselmus Costadoni, eds., Annales Camaldulenses Ordinis Sancti Benedicti (Venice, 1755-73), 9, col. 595. Of course it is possible that this statement eight years after he left Venice did not reflect his feelings at the time. But it is significant that in thinking back he says nothing about the "circle of Murano." Neither is it mentioned in the extracts from his writings between 1505 and 1509 quoted by Leclercq, Un umaniste érémite , 22-34, or in the letters of Contarini to Giustiniani and Querini. Fragnito speaks of the "group" of which Giustiniani was the "spiritual director," adducing as evidence his later letters, written after he entered Camaldoli, and stating that "they also throw some light on the themes and subjects that were discussed at the meetings of the 'group' itself"; but no exact reference pointing to the existence of this group is given; see "Cultura umanistica," 86. Massa casts doubt on the existence of the "Murano circle" in "Gasparo Contarini e gli amici," esp. 39-53. See also his L'Eremo, la Bibbia e il medioevo in umanisti veneti del primo Cinquecento (Naples: Liguori Editore, 1992), 15-23.

[34] See Leclercq, Un humaniste érémite , 17-22.

[35] His writings and letters are in course of being published in a modern edition by Eugenio Massa. Thus far two volumes of a projected multivolume edition have appeared under the general title Trattati, lettere e frammenti (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1967-74). Volume I bears the title I manoscritti originali del Beato Paolo Giustiniani custoditi nell'Eremo di Frascati ; volume 2 is entitled I primi trattati dell'amore di Dio . The work by Leclercq, Un humaniste érémite , while based on the original manuscripts, remains a sketch.

whose opinions strongly influenced his friends. Gradually detaching himself from the social and political activities expected of a young man in his milieu, he repudiated civic life for monastic withdrawal and his humanistic education for Christian learning. His search for a life of solitude led him to consider and reject the Camaldolese monastery of San Michele in Isola, which his friend Paolo Canal had entered shortly before his death in 1508.^[36] Like a latter-day St. Jerome, Giustiniani traveled to the Holy Land in 1509 but did not find there the sort of peaceful retreat he envisioned. Finally, in 1510, he decided to enter the Camaldolese hermitage near Arezzo, not as a layman, as he had at first wanted, but as a monk, assuming the name Paolo. He was joined a year later by Vincenzo Querini, who left Venice and a public career to become Fra Pietro. Contarini called their departure a "loss"^[37] that left him suddenly alone without his "brothers and friends."^[38]

New light on Contarini's inner life at this juncture was shed by the discovery in 1943 of thirty of his autograph letters to Giustiniani and Querini,^[39] which were published by Hubert Jedin ten years later.^[40] The letters begin in 1511, when Contarini was twenty-eight, and span the twelve-year period until 1523, when he turned forty. In them we catch glimpses of Contarini's ideology at a crucial period of his life during which he established his own identity through his choices in religion and career along lines that were to remain characteristic of his thought.^[41]

If it is true that "human nature can best be studied in a state of conflict,"^[42] then these letters provide a unique source for understanding

[36] Giustiniani writes that he hopes to find Canal in heaven, and calls him his "friend beyond compare . . . who, if it is permitted to speak like this, showing one's love, was half and more than half of myself"; Giustiniani to all his friends, Dec. 1510, in Mittarelli and Costadoni (eds.), Annales Camaldulenses 9, col. 476. For a bibliography on Canal, see Fragnito, "Cultura umanistica," 87n.48.

[37] Jedin, "Contarini und Camaldoli," 25 (letter 7).

[38] Ibid., 37 (letter 11).

[39] Ross, "Contarini and His Friends," 192n.3.

[40] Ibid., 193n.3.

[41] I am using the term ideology here in Erik H. Erikson's sense, as an "unconscious tendency underlying religious as well as political thought: the tendency at a given time to make facts amenable to ideas, and ideas to facts, in order to create a world image convincing enough to support the collective and the individual sense of identity" (Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History [New York: W. W. Norton, 1962], 22).

[42] Ibid., 16.

Contarini's complex personality. They have attracted considerable attention from scholars, and their interpretation has become almost a subtopic of sixteenth-century Italian religious history.^[43] On the simplest level, they evoke a sense of immediacy through their candor and lack of stylistic pretension. To their first commentator, Jedin, the letters seemed to reveal above all Contarini's deep religious crisis and his struggle to find a merciful God, made more acute by his uncertainty about his own vocation, which prompted him to consider whether he too should not embrace the monastic life and join his two friends.^[44] Jedin saw Contarini's crisis as culminating in a religious insight on Holy Saturday 1511, strongly reminiscent of Luther's later "experience in the tower."^[45] While Jedin could not determine the precise moment when Contarini solved his doubts concerning his vocation, he thought that it had happened by the fall of 1515.^[46]

Although most later scholars do not share Jedin's view that Contarini seriously considered entering a monastery,^[47] there is less agree-

[43] In addition to Jedin's "Contarini und Camaldoli," 3-10, see also his "Ein 'Turmerlebnis' des jungen Contarini," Historisches Jahrbuch der Görresgesellschaft 70 (1951): 115-30; and idem, "Gasparo Contarini e il contributo veneziano alla riforma cattolica," in La civiltà veneziana del Rinascimento (Florence: Sansoni, 1958). See further Heinz Mackensen, "Contarini's Theological Role at Ratisbon in 1541," Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 51 (1960): 3-57; Cessi, "Paolinismo preluterano"; Felix Gilbert, "Religion and Politics in the Thought of Gasparo Contarini," in Action and Conviction in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Memory of E. H. Harbison , ed. T. K. Rabb and J. E. Seigel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 90-116; Fragnito, "Cultura umanistica," esp. 97-115; Innocenzo Cervelli, "Storiografia e problemi intorno alla vita religiosa e spirituale a Venezia nella prima metà del '500," Studi veneziani 8 (1966): esp. 466-67; Ross, "Contarini and His Friends," 192-232; Delio Cantimori, "Le idee religiose del Cinquecento: la storiografia," in Storia della letteratura italiana , ed. Emilio Cecchi and Natalino Sapegno, vol. 5: Il Seicento (Milano: Garzanti, 1967), 7-87; Giuseppe Alberigo, "Vita attiva e vita contemplativa in un'esperienza cristiana del XVI secolo," Studi veneziani 16 (1974): 177-225 (the somewhat shorter French version appeared as "Vie active et vie contemplative dans une expérience chrétienne du XVI siècle," in Théologie: le service théologique dans l'église. Mélanges offertes à Yves Congar pour ses soixante-dix ans [Paris: Cerf, 1974], 287-321); and Giovanni Miccoli, "La storia religiosa," in Storia d'Italia (Turin: Einaudi, 1974), 2(1): 947-55.

[44] Jedin, "Contarini und Camaldoli," 9.

[45] Jedin, "Ein 'Turmerlebnis,'" does not give sufficient weight to conversion experience as a topos, and makes no reference to what Heiko A. Oberman calls "Turmerlebnistradition." See Oberman's "Wit sein pettler. Hoc est verum: Bund und Gnade in der Theologie des Mittelalters und der Reformation," Die Reformation: von Wittenberg nach Genf (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986), 93.

[46] Jedin, "Contarini und Camaldoli," 10.

[47] For example, Felix Gilbert thinks that "Jedin's assumption that Contarini intended to become a monk is erroneous," since it "cannot be reconciled with [his] repeated declarations that he was not suited to a monastic life" ("Religion and Politics," 94). Similar views are expressed by Innocenzo Cervelli, Machiavelli e la crisi dello stato veneziano (Naples: Guida, 1974), 15; and Fragnito, "Cultura umanistica," 99.

ment on the central thrust of this correspondence between Contarini and his two friends.^[48] The main reason is the variety of themes touched on or implicit in his unsystematic and at times emotional letters.^[49]

Almost at the very beginning of the correspondence we find the account of Contarini's Holy Saturday experience.^[50] Despite his affirmation of love for Giustiniani and gratitude for his friend's affection, Contarini confesses his inability to follow Fra Paolo's example; he knows that he is not cut out for the monastic life. He must have arrived at this conviction before the date of the first letter,^[51] since from the outset he is not arguing with himself as to whether to become a monk. He firmly announces the position from which he does not depart in the entire course of the correspondence: he must seek a way in the world for himself, as a layman, "among the multitude of the city" and among his friends and relatives.^[52] Several references to his hardened heart^[53] sound an almost formulaic note; maintaining that it is preventing him from following the way of truth, Contarini has offered his friend at least an initial reason for his decision.

[48] Ross, "Contarini and His Friends," has discussed the correspondence of Contarini, Giustiniani, and Querini in a sensitive manner as showing "the spiritual crisis" of Contarini between 1511 and 1514, followed by its resolution between 1514 and 1516, and states that her analysis "differs from Felix Gilbert's recent treatment . . . in tracing more fully the stages of his affective experience and relating them causally to the bonds of intimacy with Querini and Giustiniani rooted in their earlier Paduan comradeship" (205n.58). Alberigo, "Vita attiva," interprets the letters as revolving not so much around the problem of an active or contemplative life for Contarini as around the question of Querini's monastic vocation and Contarini's refusal to see monastic withdrawal as a privileged state of Christian life. They have been called "letters of confession" that show Contarini's personal and emotional interiority by Miccoli, "Storia religiosa," 948. Cantimori, "Idee religiose," 17, considers them as evidence of a passionate element, mystical in quality, in the religious preoccupations of Contarini, Querini, and Giustiniani, and as Contarini's affirmation of the priority of man's will and emotions over the intellect. Cessi, "Paolinismo preluterano," 17, uses them to argue for a mystical component in Contarini's thought. Eugenio Massa, "Paolo Giustiniani e Gasparo Contarini: la vocazione al bivio del neoplatonismo e della teologia biblica," Benedictina 35 (1988): 429-74, uses the letters as evidence for Contarini's Aristotelian, traditional philosophical and theological attitudes in contrast to the Neoplatonic thought of Giustiniani, less constrained by scholastic presuppositions.

[49] That they lack literary polish was already stressed by Jedin, who stated that Contarini wrote his friends "no epistles with the possibility or explicit intention of eventual publication in mind . . . [but] rather always out of the immediate experience of the moment, frequently in haste because a courier was already waiting, at times on torn-off pieces of paper, since nothing better was handy, in one sitting, as was his habit. What was lost to literary form through this was made up for by a gain in the content" ("Contarini und Camaldoli," 9).

[50] Ibid., 12-15 (24 Apr. 1511).

[51] Ibid., 11-12 (1 Feb. 1511).

[52] Ibid., 13, 15.

[53] Ibid., 11, line 19; 13, line 35; 14, line 42.

The real reason, however, is profoundly personal. Alluding to a now lost letter of Giustiniani, Contarini summarizes what his friend had written him—that even after leading a life of self-abnegation Giustiniani was troubled by fears of not being able to do sufficient penance for past sins. "I see you persisting in this idea and this fear,"^[54] writes Contarini in what is a key phrase for understanding the almost pathological anxiety and depression he himself was enduring.^[55] If someone like his friend, who not only embraced an austere eremitical life but also persistently urged others to do the same, still felt such fear, the problem of finding a way to God's mercy and forgiveness naturally became even more acute for Contarini, determined as he was to remain in the world. Giustiniani's avowal of his fears obviously made a strong impression on Contarini, who repeatedly states that he is comparing his own life with that of his friend. Perhaps on some level he even welcomed these fears as a quasi-logical reason for not becoming a monk himself.

Against this background his confession on Holy Saturday took place. He describes it in a measured, almost dry fashion: "I spoke for quite a while with a monk full of sanctity, who among other topics, almost as if he knew my difficulties, began to tell me that the way of salvation is broader than many people think. And, not knowing who I was, he spoke to me at length."^[56] No sudden illumination occurred during this confession. Only afterward, as Contarini was mulling over the discussion, did his thoughts turn to the human condition before God and to the question of what constitutes man's happiness. "And, in truth, I understood that even if I did all the penance I could, and more, it would not suffice in the least to merit happiness or even render satisfaction for past sins."^[57] From this basic insight flowed Contarini's belief that God loves man with a love beyond human understanding, since he wanted "to send his only-begotten son who through his passion would render satisfaction for all those who desire to have him as their head and want to be members of the body whose head is Christ.... Only we must strive to unite ourselves with [Christ] our head in faith, hope, and the little love of which we are capable. As for the satisfaction for past sins and those into which human frailty continually falls, his passion has been enough and more than enough."^[58] Contarini

[54] Ibid. 13, line 27.

[55] He describes himself as "poco men che quasi disperato" (ibid., 13, line 33).

[56] "Contarini und Camaldoli," 13-14.

[57] Ibid., 14.

[58] Ibid.

concluded that it was licit for him to live in the world, in the midst of the city, since justification before God was not a matter of doing penance in a hermitage but of believing firmly in the merits of Christ's sacrifice on the cross. He restates that he has known fear from experience, especially fear of the day of judgment, to which someone who loves a solitary life would be particularly susceptible. Obviously he is thinking here of Giustiniani, his spiritual guide and mentor in the past. Now a new moment occurs in their friendship, and it is Contarini who gives Giustiniani spiritual advice: "Let all your thoughts be focused on that perfect love [which is Christ], with hope and absolute faith that if we approach him with even a little love, no other satisfaction is necessary because he has rendered satisfaction out of the depth of his charity for the love of us."^[59]

This, the most famous letter in the correspondence, has frequently been singled out for special comment. Contarini's insight has been likened to Luther's and used to explain, at times too mechanically, Contarini's later thought.^[60] In spite of apparent similarities to Luther's "Turmerlebnis," as recounted by the old reformer, Contarini's experience was structurally different. It neither occurred during a specific, definable crisis, nor was it a sudden conversion experience.^[61] Rather, the event of confession to which he went in a somewhat uncertain frame of mind, followed by discussion with the unknown monk, was an emotional stimulus that led to a profoundly significant religious re-orientation.^[62] Contarini had felt the inadequacy of his own insecure position when confronted with Giustiniani's clear choice and was seeking

[59] Ibid., 15.

[60] I am thinking here especially of Mackensen's affirmation in "Contarini's Theological Role at Ratisbon," 53: "This then was the experience and time from which sprang Contarini's doctrine of justification, which came to full flower thirty years later at Ratisbon and received its final formulation in The Epistle on Justification. " Such a view slights the sweep of Contarini's intellectual development between 1511 and 1541, using an inadequate analogy that does not consider what other factors could have helped Contarini to persist in his original insight, and to deepen it.

[61] I am using the term here in William James's sense: "To be converted, to be regenerated, to receive grace, to experience religion, to gain an assurance, are so many phrases which denote the process, gradual or sudden, by which a self hitherto divided, and consciously wrong inferior and unhappy, becomes unified and consciously right superior and happy, in consequence of its firmer hold upon religious realities" (The Varieties of Religious Experience [New York: New American Library, 1958], 157).

[62] See Gordon W. Allport, The Individual and His Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1950), 38, who distinguishes three forms of religious awakening: that brought on by a definite crisis, that triggered by a single event or stimulus, and that which occurs gradually without a specific crisis or event.

a rationale for his rejection of the monastic life. His insight on Holy Saturday had both emotional^[63] and intellectual aspects that testify to the intensity of his search for a way to be accepted by God and to resolve his own uncertainties. His belief in justification by faith was arrived at by a process which William James considered as conscious in part only, for it was also the result of "subconscious incubation and maturing of motives deposited by the experiences of life."^[64]

Without giving the episode a purely psychological explanation, one can see that Contarini is rationalizing a position to which he is already committed. He is not simply adding another chapter to the old debate about the relative merits of the active and the contemplative life,^[65] and opting in the end for the former. Rather, he is using his religious insight to construct a model for Christian life different from that of the late medieval church, which taught that the active life of the layman in the world had less value before God than the contemplative withdrawal of the cleric. In his effort to justify himself before Giustiniani, Contarini underscored the validity of Christian vocations both in the world and in the cloister, different though they were. He did not attack Giustiniani's life of contemplation; indeed, he thought that the ability to lead such a life was a privilege granted to only a few truly heroic Christian souls. Yet although he admired contemplative devotion, he insisted on the acceptability and dignity in the eyes of God of his own choice of the life of a Christian layman, the choice made by the vast majority of those belonging to the corpus Christianorum .^[66]

[63] Cantimori, "Idee religiose," 11-17, stresses the "predominance, in those who experienced religious problems, of passionate and sentimental elements, permeated by subjective psychological reactions" (15) and notes the emotional fervor with which Contarini, Querini, and Giustiniani express themselves in their letters of this period.

[64] James, Varieties of Religious Experience , 186. Ross, "Contarini and His Friends," 208n.63, has pointed out the relevance of James's chapters 9 and 10 for an understanding of what Contarini describes in these letters. Also useful is James's chapter 8: "The Divided Self, and the Process of Its Unification." See also Gordon W. Allport, Becoming: Basic Considerations for a Psychology of Personality (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955), 95-96, for a discussion of man's "ultimate presuppositions" and the "creative pressure" exerted by them on conduct.

[65] Christopher Cairns states that "Contarini was . . . a result of the Venetian political tradition in which . . . the distinction [between active and contemplative life] is perhaps no longer meaningful" (Domenico Bollani, Bishop of Brescia: Devotion to Church and State in the Republic of Venice in the Sixteenth Century [Nieuwkoop, Neth.: B. De Graaf, 1976], 239n.18). On this subject see also Gilbert, "Religion and Politics," esp. 105-7; and Antonino Poppi, "Il prevalere della 'vita activa' nella paideia del Cinquecento," in Rapporti tra le università di Padova e Bologna: ricerche di filosofia, medicina e scienza , ed. Lucia Rossetti (Trieste: Edizioni LINT, 1988), 97-125.

[66] Alberigo develops this point fully in "Vita attiva," and rightly thinks that Contarini denied the automatic relationship between a given state of life and personal perfection (223). However, I do not fully share his view that Contarini refused to recognize the existence of a privileged "state" of Christian life. Alberigo's wide-ranging article includes a full bibliography on the history of the distinction between the lay and clerical state in the Western church.

In expressing his newfound belief in justification by faith, Contarini did not dissociate his own experience from the life of the church, nor did he reduce it to a purely personal level.^[67] His point of departure was traditional: reception of the sacrament of penance at Easter. Just as traditional was his willingness to accept his confessor's spiritual counsel. It is only in the light of subsequent interpretations of fides sine operibus and the momentous implications of this formula that Contarini's description of the hoped-for solution to his religious problems acquires a more radical tinge.

In 1511, Contarini is writing to a friend who shared his insight. Giustiniani, too, had declared that he could reach heaven only through the merits of Christ's passion, not through his own works.^[68] In fact, belief that salvation was a gratuitous gift of God was common among serious Christians at the time.^[69] It would be a mistake to regard these serious young men as proto-Lutherans simply because they expressed that belief. Contarini and his friends shared a Christocentric spirituality that emphasized the vast reach of God's love compared with the limited powers of man to merit it in any way. Striking in Contarini's case was, first, his unwillingness to follow his friends in seeking closeness to God in the cloister and, second, the unusual combination of a strong commitment to ecclesiastical and political institutions with an absolute conviction that man is justified by faith. Without in any way withdrawing from the institutional church of his time, Contarini sensed that it failed to offer him the ethic of the secular life for which he was groping. He had to formulate this ethic alone, seeking a way through lengthy uncertainty and anguish, but convinced of the validity of his choice of a Christian vocation in the world.

The insight of Holy Saturday 1511 did not suddenly resolve all of Contarini's perplexities, nor could it have done so. While answering

[67] The otherwise thoughtful analysis of Contarini's letters by Miccoli, "Storia religiosa," 948-51, makes the contrary points too strongly.

[68] Giustiniani to all his friends, Dec. 1510, in Mittarelli and Costadoni (eds.), Annales Camaldulenses 9, col. 476.

[69] "It seems difficult to find during these years men seriously concerned with the search for their own salvation who fail to express vigorously and absolutely their conviction of the total gratuitousness of that salvation," Alberigo rightly observes in "Vita attiva," 187. Besides Giustiniani, Querini also several times mentions his acceptance of the central importance of Christ's suffering for man's salvation; see, e.g., Mittarelli and Constadoni (eds.), Annales Camaldulenses 9, cols. 460, 475, 476.

the question "How shall I be saved?" it left open a correlative question, "What shall I do with the life I will live in the world?" Over the next three years expressions of doubt about finding his way recur in Contarini's correspondence. He describes his condition as ranging from passivity before God, in which he is ready to "receive that impression which seems right to His Majesty,"^[70] to almost pathological states of extreme melancholy and affliction of spirit accompanied by disgust with the mere reading of Scripture.^[71] Yet while his dejection, even depression, persists as an undertone in his letters until 1515, it did not prevent him from exploring new lines of thought.

The second of Contarini's close friends, Vincenzo Querini, entered Camaldoli in the fall of 1511.^[72] Our knowledge of Querini's thought and character is incomplete; as in the case of Giustiniani, no modern work on him exists, and much of his correspondence remains to be published.^[73] Those letters that are available, however, show him to be a much more complex figure than Giustiniani, whom he regarded as his spiritual guide.

After a promising early start in public life as Venetian ambassador to the court of Burgundy and to Emperor Maximilian, he decided to follow in the footsteps of Giustiniani. Yet despite his deep religious zeal, Querini showed a remarkable degree of uncertainty and ambivalence even after he became a Camaldolese hermit on 22 February 1512. His available letters are evidence that he was an emotional, high-strung man who cherished deep affective bonds with friends and family. Often moved to tears, he was not afraid to weep,^[74] and seems to have agreed with Giustiniani that "not weeping does not show strength of mind."^[75] His debate about choices forms the substance of his correspondence with Giustiniani published thus far. His unusually intense, almost relentless self-examination reveals how difficult leaving Venice was for him. In unfolding his thoughts to Giustiniani he signs several letters

[70] Jedin, "Contarini und Camaldoli," 18 (letter 4).

[71] Ibid., 37-38, 39 (letters 11 and 12). Massa argues that the reason for this disgust was Contarini's inability to read the Bible without employing the "logical-scientific" system he had learned at Padua, whereas Giustiniani could, because he belonged among the "progressives of the human spirit" ("Giustiniani e Contarini," 470).

[72] For bibliography, see above, note 29.

[73] It is among the manuscripts belonging to the Camaldolese of the Sacro Eremo Tuscolano, near Frascati.

[74] See, for example, Querini to Giustiniani, Dec. 1510, in Mittarelli and Costadoni (eds.), Annales Camaldulenses 9, col. 498; and again 15 July 1510, col. 457.

[75] Giustiniani to Niccolò Tiepolo and Contarini, Mar. 1517, in ibid., col. 590, where Giustiniani writes at some length about his own weeping.

not with his own name but with "Licenope,"^[76] as if that were someone else participating in the debate. Licenope is in essence his better self, who would like to follow Giustiniani into the hermitage and who tries to overcome Vincenzo's doubts, weaknesses, and hesitations. As a professed Camaldolese monk, Querini still expressed views that were closer to those of Contarini rather than of Giustiniani when he wrote:

Let us perform holy works of piety, and walk in this world like pilgrims.... Only with help from above and not otherwise, this can be done equally well in solitude, in the city, among people, while engaged in public administration, or with wife and children .... We should consider only that man to be on the true path of salvation who feels himself loving Jesus Christ from his heart, and who acts in accordance with His will and through Him. If you remain in your fatherland, among your family, who knows? Maybe you will reach your goal before many who go to live in solitude.^[77]

Even as a hermit who, in fact, had gone to live in solitude, he continued to be attracted to Florentine humanist circles and the court of Leo X, where he helped to conduct diplomatic negotiations between Venice and the Holy See in 1514.^[78] At the time of his death shortly afterward, his nomination to the cardinalate was expected, which would have meant a very different stage in his restless life.

With Querini's departure from Venice the second group of Contarini's letters begins, an exchange that continued until Querini's death.^[79] Discussing above all the question of Querini's monastic vocation and then the possibility of his cardinalate, the letters show new dimensions of Contarini's thought. His ideas about the nature of the

[76] For example, in Querini's long letter of 1511 to Giustiniani (no closer date given), ibid., cols. 496-509, he uses "Licenope," probably a play on the Latin form of his name, Quirinus, in the phrase "I said to myself" (col. 505) and as his signature. He signs himself the same way in two letters of 15 July (cols. 454 and 461), a letter of 13 August (col. 517), and a letter of 15 September (col. 518). Throughout the letter to Giustiniani of 1 August 1510 (cols. 461-67) he writes of "Licenope" in the third person.

[77] Nelson H. Minnich and Elisabeth G. Gleason, "Vocational Choices: An Unknown Letter of Pietro Querini to Gasparo Contarini and Niccolò Tiepolo (April, 1512)," The Catholic Historical Review 75 (1989): 18.

[78] Jedin, in "Vincenzo Querini und Pietro Bembo," seeks to explain Querini's behavior and defends him against the accusation of hypocrisy and self-seeking made by Vittorio Cian, "A proposito di un'ambasceria di Pietro Bembo (dicembre 1514)," Archivio veneto 30 (1885): 355-81.

[79] Jedin, "Contarini und Camaldoli," 19-48 (letters 5-15, from the end of November 1511 to 11 July 1514). To them should be added Contarini's letter to Querini written after 22 February 1512, in Mittarelli and Costadoni (eds.), Annales Camaldulenses 9, cols. 539-43.

Christian life are stated with increasing clarity and firmness, and one can discern that he is beginning to solve the second of his pressing problems, that of the nature of his own vocation.

Following Aristotle,^[80] Contarini writes to Querini that "solitary life is not natural to man, whom nature has made a sociable animal." He warns that anyone who wants to embrace the eremitical life must possess a "perfection which is almost beyond human nature," attained by extremely few men.^[81] Contarini distrusts Querini's attempt to force his monastic vocation by sheer willpower and sounds a recurring caution: one cannot do violence to one's own nature without running serious risks.^[82] The second argument he uses with Querini is the pull of human affections. Citing his obligations to friends and family, including his grandmother,^[83] Contarini touches a sensitive chord with his warmhearted and effusive friend, who by his own admission keenly felt the force of human love.^[84] The third theme struck by Contarini is that of civic duty. In a rather formal Latin letter he informs Querini that many say he has left his homeland in the hour of need, like a soldier who deserts his unit or a sailor who jumps ship. They think that no republic can last if its citizens behave as Querini did. Contarini reports that his attempts to defend his friend fall on deaf ears; his countrymen roundly condemn what they see as Querini's selfishness. The letter closes with a summary of other criticisms leveled at Querini and Contarini's rather stiff admonition to his friend to defend his honor and his name.^[85]

Not Querini but Giustiniani replied to Contarini's attempts to dissuade Fra Pietro from the monastic life.^[86] Apparently Niccolò Tiepolo had written to Querini in a similar vein, for Giustiniani addresses both friends in a bitter letter that calls them instruments of the devil, miserable Antichrists, wretched souls, and even persecutors of Christ. In their letters "all is falsity, ignorance, impiety, and manifest heresy."^[87]

[80] Ross, "Contarini and His Friends," passim, esp. 210-13.

[81] Jedin, "Contarini und Camaldoli," 23 (letter 7).

[82] He cites the telling example of a monk whose presumption in wanting to lead an extremely ascetic life ended in death; see ibid., 24.

[83] Ibid., 25.

[84] For example, see especially the letter of Querini to Giustiniani, ca. 1511, in Mittarelli and Costadoni (eds.), Annales Camaldulenses , cols. 496-509.

[85] The letter was written in 1512; see ibid., cols. 539-43. To Jedin's doubt that it was sent ("Contarini und Camaldoli," 30n.29), Fragnito offers a convincing reply; see "Cultura umanistica," 94n.73.

[86] Giustiniani to Contarini and Niccolò Tiepolo, Feb. 1512, in Mittarelli and Costadoni (eds.), Annales Camaldulenses 9, cols. 544-50.

[87] Ibid., col. 548.

The heresy mentioned here could only refer to Contarini's denial of the superior value of the monastic life, since Giustiniani does not attribute specific doctrinal errors to Contarini or Tiepolo.^[88] Contarini's reply to this torrent of accusations is an impressively gentle letter, reminding Giustiniani that he should not judge everyone by his own example.^[89] But he stands firm in his conviction that everyone has to follow his own way to salvation in accordance with his nature and that the eremitical life is for only the very few. He thinks that Querini "was perhaps presumptuous" in wanting to reach such a rare state of perfection immediately, without prior experience, and shrewdly surmises that Querini's nature "is not much inclined to solitude."^[90] Giustiniani's reply expresses regret for his verbal violence. Apologizing to Tiepolo and Contarini, whom he calls "not only good . . . but most kind," he promises to be more careful in future and to speak more circumspectly with friends and others.^[91] The exchange about Querini's vocation terminates with Contarini's perfunctory acceptance of his friend's choice, accompanied by routine exclamations like "O happy Querini, on what service are you embarked!"^[92] But his own way is different; although his "most beloved friends" are his exemplars, he will go only so far as to come for a visit, but he will not imitate them.^[93]

The letters spanning the period from July 1512 to February 1514 deal more directly with Contarini's state of mind. He barely mentions the upheavals that the War of the League of Cambrai brought to Venice and makes no allusion to his own participation in it.^[94] Rather, he focuses on what he calls his melancholy disposition and states that he is

[88] See Alberigo's informative discussion in "Vita attiva," 206-13 and bibliography in 218n.82.

[89] Jedin, "Contarini und Camaldoli," 32 (letter 9).

[90] Ibid., 31.

[91] Giustiniani to Tiepolo and Contarini, 18 Apr. 1512, in Mittarelli and Costadoni (eds.), Annales Camaldulenses 9, col. 561.

[92] Jedin, "Contarini und Camaldoli," 34 (letter 10).

[93] Ibid., 35.

[94] Sanuto, Diarii 21:85, states that Contarini was at the siege of Padua in September 1509 with his brothers and twenty men. In 1513, he sent one of his brothers with fifteen men to the defense of Padua; Sanuto, Diarii 17:257, 300. Ross's references should be corrected: "Contarini and His Friends," 205n.51, mentions two men of the same name as if they were one. Sanuto, as usual, refers to our Contarini in Diarii 21:85 as "Gasparo Contarini, qu . sier Alvise"; the Contarini in 9:146, in contrast, who was sent to Padua on 8 September 1509, is "Gasparo Contarini, qu . sier Francesco Alvise." The latter is mentioned among the defenders of Padua in 12:327, 353. Besides these two, there was also a third Gasparo Contarini, son of sier Hironimo, grandson of sier Luca (Sanuto, Diarii 12:326, 327). For the defense of Padua, see Frederic Lane, Venice, a Maritime Republic (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 242-45.

again restless, depressed, tormented by dark thoughts, and unable to proceed with a planned program of studies. Even reading the Scriptures is of no help; on the contrary, it causes him vexation.^[95] While holding fast to his belief in the merits of Christ, Contarini tries to understand what is happening to him, and arrives at the conclusion that God permits his afflictions so that he can learn to trust the divine mercy completely, without illusions about his own power to will inner peace or arrange his life according to his own plans.^[96]

Unlike Giustiniani and Querini, Contarini never mistrusted human learning or wanted to turn away from it in order to devote himself entirely to Christian knowledge.^[97] A good case can be made that his inner turmoil and uncertainty about his vocation were caused by conflicting values he accepted both from humanistic culture and late medieval spirituality.^[98] But it is also possible that a medical reason, the exact nature of which we may never know, was at least partly responsible for his anxiety, despondency, and inaction during these years. He began to resolve the inner tensions not by embracing one set of values and rejecting the other, but by seeking to harmonize them as much as possible through the intellect, while leaving also an ample role to the will. This incipient resolution may have coincided with improved health.

Two letters, dated 26 November 1513 and 26 February 1514,^[99] help to establish the time of Contarini's turning point, when he started the process of "unification of a personality sorely divided."^[100] In the first, Contarini indulges in a bit of rhetoric by alluding to the first

[95] Contarini to Giustiniani and Querini, in Jedin, "Contarini und Camaldoli," 37 (letter 11).

[96] Mittarelli and Costadoni (eds.), Annales Camaldulenses 9:38; and Contarini to Giustiniani, in Jedin, "Contarini und Camaldoli," 39 (letter 12).

[97] On Giustiniani's and Querini's attitudes toward humanist learning, see Felix Gilbert, "Cristianesimo, umanesimo e la bolla 'Apostolici regiminis' del 1513," Rivista storica italiana 79 (1967): 976-90.

[98] So Cessi, "Paolinismo preluterano," 8; reemphasized by Fragnito, "Cultura umanistica," 109.

[99] Jedin dates letter 8 in "Contarini und Camaldoli," 26-29, to 1512. It should be dated 1514 and arranged so as to follow letter 13 (40-43). Contarini writes on 26 February 1514 about the marriage of his illegitimate sister to Vincenzo Belegno, son of Beneto Belegno, which took place "on the day after the feast of the Purification of Mary," that is, on 3 February. Two sources confirm 1514 as the correct year of the marriage: ASV, Avogaria di Comun, Reg. 126: Cronaca Matrimoni, 1; and VBC, Cod. Cicogna 2171, fol. 29. The departure of Querini, mentioned by Contarini (p. 27) and discussed by Jedin (27n.8), probably refers to Querini's trip to Rome; see Jedin, "Vincenzo Querini und Pietro Bembo," 156-57.

[100] Ross, "Contarini and His Friends," 217.

canto of Dante and comparing himself, lost and wandering in the deep valley, to his two friends who have reached the top of the mountain. He affirms that he cannot follow them but must remain content with his lowliness (bassezza ). At the same time, and in a different vein, he states that he has begun to read St. Augustine's work On the Trinity and The Republic of Plato, recently published in Greek.^[101] Philosophy and theology continued to occupy him, and he did not perceive them as antithetical. While he occasionally experienced "vain and mad fears" and perturbations, he was nevertheless able to pursue his studies in a more systematic fashion. He acknowledged, however: "I have to be content [with the study] of that morality which the philosophers have grasped by natural light, also a great gift of God."^[102] For the rest, he entered into the speculations of St. Thomas to the extent that he was able. He is not comfortable with the writings of "older" prescholastic theologians who interpret Scripture in a mystical key or counsel a way of life he cannot follow, and states that reading some of their writings is actually harmful to him, since they hold up an ideal of Christian life that he cannot embrace.

This is a new note struck by Contarini. He has arrived at some certainties and gained the courage to state his own convictions clearly. If monastic life is not for him, neither is the striving after perfection according to patristic precepts. He mentions the pleasure he takes in music, the company of friends, and social occasions with relatives.^[103] While he still is not entirely sure about God's will for him, his tone suggests much greater inner peace than he had enjoyed since 1511.

Contarini's focus of attention soon shifts from himself to the possibility of Querini's cardinalate. Having heard the rumor that Querini might be appointed by Pope Leo X, Contarini urges his friend not to refuse but to become an instrument of the pope for the good of the church. For the first time Contarini explicitly mentions his longstanding concern with church reform, writing that the news rekindled in his heart a desire he had harbored for many years: "to see God in his goodness turn his eyes finally to this poor little ship of his which is being buffeted by so many storms."^[104] A conviction is expressed here that will recur many times—that it is necessary for good men to accept the burden of high office for the benefit of the whole church^[105] and to

[101] Fragnito, "Cultura umanistica," 110, thinks that Contarini's simultaneous reading of St. Augustine and Plato is a sign that he is overcoming his crisis.

[102] Jedin, "Contarini und Camaldoli," 27 (letter 8).

[103] Ibid., 28.

[104] Ibid., 44 (letter 14).

[105] Ibid., 45.

become active movers of reform. He appeals to Querini to set a good example to other prelates who as a result might change their way of life. While Querini should not actively seek the cardinalate, he should accept it as God's will. And here Contarini unexpectedly reveals his own dreams: he hints at his desire to live together with Querini, to whom he remained deeply attached, as a member of his household and to resume their former intimacy.^[106] The emotional intensity of these idealistic young men's friendship flared up again here, almost for the last time.

Querini's death in Rome on 23 September 1514 shattered this dream. No letter written by Contarini during the following seven months has come down to us. The last group of his letters, fifteen in all, runs from 1515 and 1516, plus one each from 1518 and 1523. A number are merely brief notes sent to Giustiniani shortly after Contarini visited Camaldoli in 1515. For the most part they report Contarini's activities or deal with visitors and family affairs. Obviously he continued to be linked by ties of close friendship to Giustiniani, but the fervent, emotional expressions of the past have almost entirely given way to a calm, more matter-of-fact writing style. There are still echoes of old themes: not only does he have ups and downs, but he also characterizes himself as having moments when, "seized by a certain frenzy," he would like to ascend to the heavens, only falling soon afterward to the level of brute animals.^[107] But these states are transitory. Finally there is the avowal that God has gradually led him "to see a little light, and to discern the fight way."^[108]

That way is Contarini's acceptance for himself of the traditional role of a Venetian patrician. He mentions his interest in government service for the first time in November 1515, recounting to Giustiniani how his brothers and friends urged him to become a candidate for the post of avogador di comun , or public prosecutor and state attorney.^[109] Contarini admits that he was "excited by the stimulus of ambition,"^[110] but professes somewhat lamely to have been glad that he lost the election,

[106] Ibid., 47 (letter 15).

[107] Ibid., 52 (letter 20). This is an echo of Contarini's reading of Neoplatonic works to which he may have been led by his Florentine friends mentioned in letter 19 (51).

[108] Ibid., 53 (letter 20).

[109] There were "three avogadori , elected to sixteen-month terms by the Great Council; they were the state prosecutors in the three supreme courts or Quarantie , and at least one state attorney was required to be present in all councils to guard against violations of the law" (Finlay, Politics in Renaissance Venice , xvi-xvii).

[110] Jedin, "Contarini und Camaldoli," 55 (letter 22).

since he could then return to his studies and the quiet life of a "friar without a hood." Lest he be misunderstood, he makes it clear that he is not contemplating a monastic vocation. On the contrary, in the strongest statement yet on this subject he professes to feel horror at the very thought of it, since he is neither called nor inclined to such a life.^[111]

As if to underline that point, Contarini describes his deep enjoyment of life in his country villa and his interest in agriculture. This may mean simply that he was reading the few classical works on the subject,^[112] but it may be that, like Machiavelli in the same years, he went himself to inspect the work in the fields. Family affairs, property matters, and his brothers are mentioned several times. Contarini saw himself as part of a family group and took keen interest in its well-being. The last letter to his Camaldolese friend is written after a break of three years in the correspondence, and exactly twelve years after his insight of Holy Saturday. Contarini affirms his belief in justification by faith in a clear, strong statement that seems like an epilogue to this period of his life:

Truly, I have arrived at the firm conclusion which, though I had already read it, nevertheless I now can understand very well in my [own] mind: that nobody can become justified through his own works or cleansed from the desires in his own heart. We must have recourse to divine grace which we obtain through faith in Jesus Christ, as St. Paul says, and we too must say with him: happy the man to whom God does not impute his sin, irrespective of his works [Rom. 4:6] ... having experienced it, and seeing what I can do, I have taken refuge in this alone. All the rest seems nothing to me.^[113]

These words were written in Valladolid, when Contarini was Venetian ambassador to Emperor Charles V. Despite the rhetorical dismissal of "all the rest," the writer in actuality was embarked on a public career that was to involve him intimately in the inner circles of the Venetian ruling elite. His letters alone do not suffice to give us a picture of the young Contarini, nor do they reveal the full extent of his participation in public life. Other evidence might help us to understand him during this period.

By modern standards Contarini's inner troubles and turmoil occurred late, when he was almost thirty, and continued past the point where he might have been expected to have made his choices. But while the reason for his vacillations is hidden in the makeup of his

[111] Ibid., 56.

[112] Ibid., 59 (letter 24).

[113] Ibid., 67 (letter 30).

personality and in his medical history, contributing circumstances can be adduced for his late entrance into public life. First of all, by Venetian criteria he was relatively young for the holding of office.^[114] If he entered the Great Council in 1508, at the usual age of twenty-five, he would most likely have spent the next few years attending meetings and voting on candidates for office rather than competing for office himself. A patrician theoretically could be elected to the Senate at thirty-two, or to the Council of Ten at forty; however, "deference to the elderly pushed the age of de facto eligibility to councils some ten to twenty years beyond the legal requirement."^[115] A period of political apprenticeship lasting ten to twenty years was not uncommon; during it one would be regarded as young in politics, even though by the usual standards of the time one could be approaching old age. "From the age of twenty-five to about forty-five, a patrician found high offices closed to him, although a host of minor positions, in the city and abroad, introduced him to government."^[116]

The first extant record of Contarini's candidature for an office is from 23 January 1512, when his name was included among those from whom the ambassador to Hungary was to be chosen.^[117] He was then twenty-eight years old, a typical age for being considered for this minor office (though his precocious friend Querini was already ambassador to Duke Phillip of Burgundy in his mid-twenties). Contarini's candidacy implies previous active participation in the Great Council; and though he lost by the sizable margin of 48 yes to 128 no votes, he was apparently willing to serve Venice in a post that would have entailed a financial outlay by his family. His famous letter to Querini, written less than a year before, thus acquires additional value as a personal document. When he reported Querini's detractors as castigating him for deserting Venice in her hour of need, he was probably expressing also some of his own thoughts and feelings.^[118] They were formu-

[114] For a discussion of the age at which early-sixteenth-century Venetians assumed higher offices, see Robert Finlay, "The Venetian Republic as a Gerontocracy: Age and Politics in the Renaissance," Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 8 (1978): 157-78; and his Politics in Renaissance Venice , 124-41. For an illuminating contrast, see David Herlihy, "Vieillir à Florence au Quattrocento," Annales: E.S.C . 24 (1964): 1338-52 (reprinted in Cities and Society in Medieval Italy [London: Variorum Reprints, 1980]).

[115] Finlay, Politics in Renaissance Venice , 126.

[116] Ibid., 139.

[117] Sanuto, Diarii 13:408. The lists of the times Contarini was proposed for office given by Fragnito, "Cultura umanistica," 99n.94, and by Ross, "Contarini and His Friends," 219n. 114 and 22 In. 126, should be supplemented; see n. 120 below.

[118] Mittarelli and Costadoni (eds.), Annales Camaldulenses 9, col. 541.

lated more clearly nine years later when, in a letter to his friend Niccolò Tiepolo, newly appointed ambassador to England, he wrote this about the career of a Venetian diplomat: "Such a life is most beautiful and honorable, most similar to a life of studies; or rather, it is more important."^[119] The very period when Contarini's letters were full of his inner vacillations and uncertainties was also when his name appears frequently on lists of men to be considered for offices.^[120] His identity as a Venetian patrician was being forged in a conventional, seemly fashion, and he was embarking upon a cursus honorum that would lead him to ever greater responsibilities until 1535. In a sense, then, he was a "young man" in the Venetian political milieu until 1516, when he was elected as one of three arbitrators to settle differences that had arisen in a patrician family over property matters,^[121] and 1518, when he finally obtained his first office as provedador sora la camera de imprestidi ,^[122] one of three officials elected by the Senate for a two-year term whose task was to reduce the public debt.^[123]

Between 1518 and 1520 he was in charge of surveying and measuring reclaimed land in the Po delta before it was put up for sale by the government. He was also responsible for drainage and irrigation

[119] Letter of 25 April 1521, in Franz Dittrich, ed., Regesten und Briefe des Cardinals Gasparo Contarini (Braunsberg, 1881), 252 (Inedita, no. 1) (hereafter cited as Reg .); also Sanuto, Diarii 30:217.

[120] After January 1512 the chronology of Contarini's nominations for offices, all unsuccessful, is as follows (parenthetical references are to Sanuto, Diarii , except as otherwise specified): 2 Oct. 1512: ambassador to Florence (15:161); 15 Oct. 1512: ambassador to the duke of Urbino (15:232); 4 Nov. 1512: ambassador to the doge of Genoa (15:315); 5 Sept. 1514: ambassador to France and England (19:21); 2 Sept. 1515: avogador di comun , after his brother offered the government a loan of 3,000 ducats (21:15, 16, 181; and Jedin, "Contarini und Camaldoli," 55-56); 16 Sept. 1515: avogador di comun (21:85, 86, 186, 188) (Contarini lost despite the offer of 500 ducats to be added to the existing loan, already among the largest listed; usually loans were under 1,000 ducats; see 21:182, 183, 185, 188, 190); 17 Jan. 1516: ambassador to Milan (21:460); 20 Jan. 1516: avogador di comun (21:464); 7 May 1516: ambassador to Rome (22: 198); 24 Aug. 1516: one of six councillors to the Senate (22:465); 22 Jan. 1517: ambassador to the king of Castile (23: 516); 14 May 1517: ambassador to France (24:236); 19 Nov. 1517: ambassador to England (25:90); 3 July 1518: ambassador to Hungary (25:516); 3 Sept. 1518: ambassador to Rome, followed on the same day by voting for ambassador to Spain (26:12-13); 12 Sept. 1518: one of two censors (26:39); 29 Sept. 1518: savio di terra ferma (26:71); and 2 Oct. 1518: ambassador to Verona (26:90).

[121] The family was the Premarin; see Sanuto, Diarii 22:11.

[122] He was elected on 17 October; see ibid., 26:129. The commission is in ASV, Collegio, Secreta, Commissioni, 1513-1559, fol. 37r-v. It specifies that Contarini is to be in charge of measuring land belonging to the Republic in the Polesine, that he is to determine its exact character and use, and that he is to draw a salary of not more than 1 ½ ducats per day.

[123] Marin Sanuto, Cronachetta , ed. R. Fulin (Venice, 1880), 148-49.

projects and had to deal with complaints and disputes, some of which reached the Senate.^[124] According to a contemporary, Contarini and his brothers made an important investment in the reclaimed land, acquiring twenty thousand campi . Tax records do not substantiate this figure, however; the actual investment was probably smaller.^[125] Still, it shows a respectable level of family wealth, especially after the forced loans of the War of the League of Cambrai.

Contarini discharged the duties of his first office well, if we can believe Agostino da Mula, Venetian podestà and captain of Rovigo, who praised him in the collegio for his work in surveying and measuring land. The doge, too, recognized that work by giving him the customary thanks upon completion of a charge.^[126] More importantly, Contarini's willingness, even his eagerness, to be nominated for other offices argues for his growing interest in a public career, setting him apart from many nobles who shirked the burdens of office in any way they could.^[127] Contarini himself stated that he was ambitious and able

[124] Sanuto, Diarii 28:120, 137, 197, 236, 237, 270, 549, 620-21.

[125] Marcantonio Michiel in his Diarii , which span the period 1511-20, asserts that Contarini and his brothers bought that amount of land; VBC, Cod. Cicogna 2848, fol. 300. See also Lane, Venice , 257, 472. Such a figure seems unlikely, however. One campo was approximately 0.3 hectare or 0.8 acre, and according to Michiel was sold for 70 to 76 ducats. But see Ugo Tucci, "Pesi e misure nella storia della società," in Storia d'Italia (Turin: Einaudi, 1973), 5(1):606. The size of campi varied from province to province in the Veneto. An unsavory side of the Contarini acquisition of land, at least for modern sensibilities, emerges from a document of 1528, when the "nuntio et commisso," or agent, of Gasparo Contarini and his brothers bought on their behalf two campi of land in Campolongo Maggiore in the Saccisica for 20 ducats. The small landowner and his son who sold the plot were forced to do so in order to survive: "volentes sibi ipsis subvenire in hac tam magna penuria victus ne fame pereant" (quoted by Paolo Sambin, "Altre testimonianze [1525-1540] di Angelo Beolco," Italia medioevale e umanistica 7 [1964]: 231-32). I am indebted to Professor Linda Carroll for this reference. Michiel goes on to say that the Contarini were important creditors of the state, having previously bought shares in the monte nuovo or funded debt. They probably received at least some of the land in lieu of repayment of their loans. In later tax declarations the figure of 445 campi owned by Gasparo Contarini is mentioned; ASV, Dieci Savi sopra le Decime, Condizione de' nobili e cittadini veneti per beni in Padova e territorio, 1518-1523, Reg. 418, no. 957.

[126] Sanuto, Diarii 29:381.

[127] See Donald E. Queller, "The Civic Irresponsibility of the Venetian Nobility," in Economy, Society, and Government in Medieval Italy: Essays in Memory of Robert L. Reynolds , ed. David Herlihy, Robert S. Lopez, and Vsevolod Slessarev (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1969), 223-36; and idem, The Venetian Patriciate: Reality Versus Myth (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986). Contarini continued to be nominated for office without being elected: on 4 Dec. 1518 for ambassador to France (Sanuto, Diarii 26:241); 29 Dec. 1518 for savio di terra ferma and ambassador to France (26:319); 4 Jan. 1519 for savio di terra ferma (26:337); and 24 Jan. 1519 for the same (26:395). On 22 February Contarini wrote to the Senate about his surveying of public land near Rovigo (Sanuto, Diarii 26:483). He is mentioned as having surveyed land in the Polesine (27:111, 154). In April he was nominated three times for ambassador to Rome (27:180, 205, 316), and proposed for savio di terra ferma (27:429) and savio del consiglio (27:461). He spent forty-five days in the area of Bassano supervising the construction of drainage and irrigation ditches (27:462, 466), and was spokesman for the Venetian government in response to local complaints (27:625). On 26 September he was nominated for ambassador to France (27:682) and savio di terra ferma (27:688, 28:392).

to take pleasure in competition for office.^[128] Moreover, his brothers supported him and were willing to invest money in his career, in the hope of gaining prestige and benefits for the family through him. Contarini remained involved in public life during the seventeen years following his initial success. The question of how to lead his life in the world had been fully answered. He assumed wholeheartedly the duties of a Venetian patrician.

Venetian Ambassador

Contarini was elected to his first major post as ambassador to the young Holy Roman Emperor Charles V on 24 September 1520.^[129] He left Venice on 16 March 1521 and arrived in Germany in April.^[130] His commission opened with conventional phrases, then proceeded to instruct him to establish connections with the French ambassador at the imperial court, "as is fitting to the indissoluble league and alliance which we have with his Most Christian Majesty."^[131] Here, in one sentence, was the root of countless awkward moments Contarini would have to face, since in the conflicts between Charles V and Francis I Venetian sympathies, especially under the doge Andrea

[128] Jedin, "Contarini und Camaldoli," 55 (letter 22).

[129] Sanuto, Diarii 29:202. The Mantuan ambassador Giambattista Malatesta characterized him in a dispatch of 30 October 1520 as "a very learned man, though not very expert in matters of state" (quoted in Finlay, Politics in Renaissance Venice , 222).

[130] Sanuto, Diarii 30:29, mentions that Contarini delayed his departure on account of his sister Paola's marriage to Matteo Dandolo (whose name is erroneously given as Marco). See also col. 128; and ASV, Avogaria di Comun, Reg. 106, Cronaca matrimoni, 1, where the marriage is listed under March 1521; also VBC, Cod. Cicogna 2171, fol. 87.

[131] ASV, Collegio, Secreta, Commissioni, 1513-1559, fol. 53r; the commission is dated 18 March 1521. For a narrative account of Contarini's embassy, see GC , 26-124. Orestes Ferrara, Gasparo Contarini et ses missions (Paris: A. Michel, 1956), adds no substantive material or interpretation.

Gritti, were with the latter. The emperor was feared because of his interests in Italy, above all in Milan and Naples, and the Venetians preferred to side with the French, considering them a lesser threat to the maintenance of peace. One of the principal tasks of the Venetian ambassador was to steer Charles V away from Italy as much as possible.

Accompanied by his younger brother Tommaso, who probably was in charge of the practical details of the household,^[132] Contarini lived for the next four years at the imperial court, moving with it to the Low Countries, England, and then Spain. His meticulous and lengthy dispatches deal with important personages he encountered, events at the court, conversations with Charles V and various members of the imperial suite, and transmit much information about politics and economics.^[133] He was in Worms during the momentous diet of 1521, and at the imperial court in the late summer when the Spanish comuneros rose, with effects on Charles V that Contarini observed closely. In Bruges, Contarini met Thomas More, whom he described as "uno cavalier Englese molto letterato." Unfortunately for the modern reader, his report of their dinner together tells very little more than that he tried in vain to get information from More about negotiations between Cardinal Wolsey, in whose suite More was traveling, and Charles V.^[134] A series of dispatches describes in detail the ceremonies

[132] The Senate granted Contarini 730 ducats for his expenses on 29 September 1520 (Sanuto, Diarii 29:215), and he was given 400 ducats when he departed (29: 669). Tommaso's surviving letters, all addressed to relatives, show that he enjoyed the journey and that he took special delight in jousts, dances, and pageants at the imperial court. He describes ball games, bullfights, and other festivities and writes in admiring terms about the knightly qualifies of Charles V (33:67). See also 32:270-71, 34: 356-58, 36:543-44. Tommaso later had a long and distinguished career in the Venetian public service; see Derosas, "Contarini, Tommaso," in DBI 28:300-5.

[133] Contarini's dispatches to the Senate from his embassy to Charles V are preserved in VBM, MS It., Cl. VII, 1009 (=7447), copied by his secretary Lorenzo Trevisani (hereafter cited as Dispatches, Charles V); their translation by Rawdon Brown is accompanied by valuable marginal notes: London, Public Record Office (hereafter cited as PRO), MSS. 31/14/70, 31/14/71, and 31/14/91. Extracts and summaries focusing on English affairs were published by Brown in Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts Relating to English Affairs, Existing in the Archives and Collections of Venice, and in Other Libraries of Northern Italy , vols. 3-4 (London, 18691-71) (cited hereafter as CSPV ). Copies of many letters are included in Sanuto, Diarii , vols. 31-39 passim. Eight dispatches from Worms are printed in Deutsche Reichstagsakten , Jüngere Reihe, vol. 2 (Gotha, 1896). The dispatches would merit detailed analysis and fuller discussion than they receive in GC , sec. 2. For political events of these years, see especially Karl Brandi, The Emperor Charles V , trans. C. V. Wedgwood (London: Jonathan Cape, 1939), 134-77, 181-236.

[134] Bruges, 19 Aug. 1521; in Dispatches, Charles V, fol. 79v; and CSPV 3, no. 302.

accompanying the emperor's visit to England and his meetings with Henry VIII. Contarini's special interest was directed to Cardinal Wolsey, at that point a powerful and influential figure at the English court.^[135] Finally, Contarini's long sojourn in Spain from June 1522 to August 1525 coincided with the Habsburg-Valois wars, which culminated in the battle of Pavia and the capture of the French king.^[136]

Contarini's strategy from the outset was to emphasize the necessity of peace between Christian rulers in the face of the formidable challenge posed by the Turks. He hoped to move Charles V to lead a crusade against the Ottomans. On the emperor's side there was considerable distrust of Venice, reinforced by Mercurio Gattinara, who became grand chancellor upon the death of Chièvres on 27 May 1521. Gattinara was strongly anti-French; he used his position of increasing importance as advisor to Charles V to press Contarini for an alliance of Venice with the imperial side.^[137] After Henry VIII joined the emperor against the French king in August 1521, the English ambassadors also began to urge that Venice follow suit.

Contarini was at once personally liked, politically mistrusted, and repeatedly embarrassed. Not only did he have to defend Venetian unwillingness to change sides, but it was also his duty to try to explain away the intelligence received at the imperial court that his government was actively helping the French king with a loan of 25,000 ducats.^[138] On another occasion, when the emperor learned that Venice had invited Francis I to come to northern Italy and that a Turkish force of ten thousand men besieging Postoina, a town in the Archduke Ferdinand's domains, had marched through Venetian territory without eliciting any protest from the Republic, Contarini's position became extremely uncomfortable.^[139] The emperor was visibly upset. Pedro Ruiz de la Mota, bishop of Palencia, even observed to Contarini, "You Venetians are not just French, but arch-French [francesissimi ]!"^[140]

[135] For example, Canterbury, 31 May; and London, 6 June 1522; in Dispatches, Charles V, fols. 235v-237v, 240r-v; and CSPV 3, nos. 463, 466.

[136] Contarini visited Francis I when the latter was a prisoner in Madrid; see GC , 104-5.

[137] See John Headley, The Emperor and His Chancellor: A Study of the Imperial Chancellery Under Gattinara (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

[138] Brussels, 30 Mar. 1522; in Dispatches, Charles V, fols. 208-210v; and CSPV 3, no. 438.

[139] Brussels, 28 Apr. and 16 May 1522; in Dispatches, Charles V, fols. 221v-222v, 227v-228r; and CSPV 3, nos. 448, 458.

[140] Bruges, 20 May 1522; in Dispatches, Charles V, fol. 229v; and CSPV 3, no. 460.

Eventually Venice did change sides under pressure from the emperor, whose old tutor, elected Pope Hadrian VI on 9 January 1522, now also supported imperial policy in Italy. Doge Andrea Gritti, despite his known pro-French sympathies, was too astute a politician to persist in a course that could be ruinous for Venice, only recently emerged from the costly War of the League of Cambrai. On 29 July 1523, an alliance was concluded among Charles V, his brother Ferdinand, Henry VIII, the pope, and Venice.^[141] During his involvement in the negotiations leading to that agreement, Contarini had ample opportunity to see how little room Italian states had for maneuvering between the two great powers in European affairs. Essentially, they could support one side or the other in the continuous conflicts but could not hope to develop an independent foreign policy.

A brief but more pleasant period for Contarini personally followed the conclusion of the alliance between the emperor and Venice. In this accord, however, the Venetians proved to be less than half-hearted partners, vacillating and delaying in fulfilling their obligations almost from the start. Contarini took every opportunity to divert Charles's attention from Italy, and at the same time exerted himself to keep Venice from antagonizing the emperor. This meant defending the reputation of Venice against charges of duplicity, even treason, or continually apologizing for the actions of the Venetian government, which remained pro-French even to the extent of signing a nonaggression clause with Francis I while allied with the emperor.

After the French invaded Italy in 1524 and occupied Milan, Contarini resigned himself to the prospect of war in Lombardy and spent the next months trying to find excuses for Venice's failure to support Charles V in accordance with the terms of the treaty of the preceding year. When at the beginning of February 1525 news of the imperial victory at Pavia and the capture of Francis I reached Spain, Contarini's position was awkward indeed. The Venetians had not supported Charles, and Gattinara told Contarini that their conduct was inexcusable. Contarini appealed in vain to the chancellor as one Italian to another, asking his help and protection for all Italian states, which were in a difficult situation.^[142] The emperor seemed to be overmighty, without effective counterbalance to his power. The papal nuncio Baldassare Castiglione, who arrived in Madrid in March 1525, was in an

[141] GC , 74.

[142] Madrid, 12 Mar. 1525; in Dispatches, Charles V, fol. 422r; and CSPV 3, no, 956.

equally unpleasant position, having to defend Clement VII's separate peace with France. In fact, all the Italian states that had not supported the emperor were in a similarly difficult situation.

Another task of the Venetian ambassador was to protect the interests of his compatriots, as when both the Spanish and English governments confiscated Venetian galleys in 1521 and 1522.^[143] The English called their action "borrowing"; yet despite many efforts, Contarini was unable to free the galleys. To add to his discomfort, he had to cope with the repercussions of reports that Venetians were denying imperial troops passage through their territory. Contarini's appeals to Wolsey met with no success, and eventually he and Antonio Surian, the Venetian ambassador to England, had to resign themselves to their powerlessness.^[144] Venice was not strong enough to enforce the restitution of her galleys when diplomatic means failed, and in the end Contarini, in a revealing joint dispatch with Surian, wisely counseled his government to accept the inevitable:

We know that these parties chuse at any rate to have the gallies aforesaid, wherefore we are of opinion that it is much better they should take them, apparently with the good will and approval of your serenity, than on the contrary, to their displeasure; and considering the nature of the present times, and the business on the carpet, we intend, when an opportunity presents itself for conferring with the Emperor, to offer them to him ourselves and thus make a present of what we are unable to sell.^[145]

During his years at the Spanish court Contarini received the training of an expert diplomat. His dispatches are good examples of thorough, professional reporting by a Venetian ambassador at one of the centers of European political life. Naturally they focus on external events and offer only glimpses of Contarini's own thoughts and attitudes. Yet from the rare instances where a personal note can be detected, it is

[143] In Cadiz the Boschaina was seized. On receipt of letters from the Venetian government about this incident Contarini immediately took up the matter with Gattinara, who obtained the emperor's directive to the Council of Castile to free the ship (dispatches from Worms, 7 May [Dispatches, Charles V, fol. 8r-v;] and 14 May 1521 [Dispatches, Charles V, fols. 11r-12r]). The Donata , belonging to the Donà family, was seized as well (dispatch from Ghent, 9 Jan. 1522 [Dispatches, Charles V, fols. 158r-160r; CSPV 3, no. 388; and Davis, Venetian Family , 24]). The Spanish suspected the galleys of aiding the French (dispatch from Ghent, 11 Jan. 1522 [Dispatches, Charles V, fols. 160v-161v; CSPV 3, no. 391]).

[144] Hampton Court, 13 and 19 June 1522; in Dispatches, Charles V, fols. 244r-245r, 247r-248v; and CSPV 3, nos. 474, 484.

[145] Contarini's and Surian's dispatch, Canterbury, 31 May 1522, translated by Rawdon Brown; PRO, MS. 31/14/71,388.

possible to see something of his development. During the first months of his embassy Contarini was above all anxious to please the Senate. He wrote like a novice, loading his reports with peripheral detail.^[146] Gradually, however, he acquired self-confidence, and on occasion even showed more enterprise than ambassadors were expected to display.^[147] He also became a shrewd observer of men and developed a sound strategy for dealing with important persons at the court, foremost among them Gattinara. In a revealing dispatch describing his efforts to keep Charles V out of Italy, Contarini gave his assessment of the chancellor's character:

I urged the chancellor strongly to maintain the friendship with England, and made use of many arguments which the chancellor admitted; so I believe him now to be better disposed than he was formerly. It is requisite above all to sustain the fancies of the chancellor, and then adroitly to dispel them, because he is a man of very small brains, and when he once takes an impression he becomes obstinate. The path on which he was entering seemed very perilous. . . . I therefore deemed it necessary to pursue the abovementioned course, which has not proved fruitless.^[148]

Actually, Contarini's personality was so pleasing to Gattinara that he continued to like the ambassador despite his strong disapproval of Venetian political decisions—about which the chancellor did not mince words.^[149]

In the course of fifty-two months^[150] spent in the emperor's entourage, Contarini had ample opportunity to observe the change in Charles V from the shy young monarch at the Diet of Worms to the self-assured victor over the French in 1525. Contarini generally spoke of the emperor without warmth but with respect. He praised the Habsburg ruler's seriousness, habits, and willingness to work long

[146] For example, the minute description of the king of Denmark's dress and hair in a dispatch from Brussels, 4 July 1521 (Dispatches, Charles V, fol. 41r-v; CSPV 3, no. 248).

[147] E.g., Hampton Court, 4 July 1522 (Dispatches, Charles V, fols. 250v-251v; CSPV 3, no. 492), in which Contarini justified himself after being reproved by the government for his independence.

[148] Valladolid, 16 Aug. 1524; Dispatches, Charles V, fol. 370v; and CSPV 3, no. 860; also Contarini's final report to the Senate, in Eugenio Albèri, Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al Senato (Florence, 1839-63), 1st ser., 2:55-56 (hereafter, this report specifically [whose full page span is 1-73] is cited as "Relazione"), on Gattinara.

[149] One of the worst moments of Contarini's mission was a six-hour session with Gattinara in which the latter demanded a decision as to whether Venice would become an ally of Charles V; dispatch from Valladolid, 26 October 1522; in Dispatches, Charles V, fols. 269v-273v; and CSPV 3, no. 571.

[150] Contarini says fifty-six: "Relazione," 73. He may have reckoned the time from his appointment, but then it would have been fifty-eight.

hours, gave him credit for his devotion to the Catholic religion, and quoted the emperor's confessor to the effect that Charles's most negative trait was nothing worse than an inability to forgive injuries readily.^[151] Charles V, for his part, was favorably impressed by Contarini, to whom he was courteous throughout the entire embassy. Nevertheless, as Contarini observed the Habsburg court and government, he developed no admiration for it. While he could not write about his reservations in his dispatches, he did express them in the report on his mission that he eventually read before the Venetian Senate, as was customary for returning ambassadors.^[152] In it he noted that the Habsburg lands were scattered, that their lines of political authority were not clear, and that the working of the government was cumbersome; he remarked with obvious disapproval on their civil unrest and the institution of the inquisition.

Contarini's reflections on the Habsburg possessions form a sharp contrast with his view of Venice. In the former he saw a loosely structured agglomerate of territories held together only by a dynastic bond, while in the latter he admired, and idealized, a well-ordered state.^[153] An important revelation of Contarini's private thoughts can be found in his comments on the Spanish Inquisition. In January 1525, in the port of Almazarón, the inquisition seized three masters of Venetian vessels, one of whom was his brother Andrea. They were suspected of having sold a Bible with texts in Hebrew, Latin, and Chaldaean and annotations by a rabbi, and they were brought to Murcia for interrogation. Officials of the inquisition demanded the surrender of all books carried by the galleys, threatening to board the vessels and search for any writings that might be against the faith. One of the captains protested in vain, declaring that he could not permit anything so contrary to Venetian laws. Andrea Contarini, for his part, sent a plea for help to his brother Gasparo.^[154] The latter immediately spoke to the emperor, his

[151] Ghent, 27 July 1521; in Dispatches, Charles V, fols. 61v-62r. See also "Relazione," 60-61. Tommaso Contarini, who enjoyed the diversions at the court, expressed great admiration for the emperor's prowess in tourneys and corridas (cf. note 132 above).

[152] For a different view from mine, see Federica Ambrosini, "Immagini dell' impero nell'ideologia del patriziato veneziano del '500," in I ceti dirigenti in Italia in età moderna e contemporanea: atti del Convegno Cividale del Friuli, 10-12 settembre 1983 , ed. Amelio Tagliaferri (Udine: Del Bianco, 1984), 70. She argues that Contarini considered a universal monarchy of Charles V not a threat but a possible advantage to Italian states.

[153] See the discussion of his treatise on Venice in the following chapter.

[154] Copy of letter from Andrea Contarini to Gasparo Contarini, Murcia, 28 Jan. 1525; in Sanuto, Diarii 38:200-201.

council, and the grand inquisitor, and then sent his brother Tommaso to take charge of the galleys. Contarini attempted to secure freedom for his compatriots by addressing the entire council of the inquisition on 4 February: "I spoke for a long time, explaining to them that the practice in Italy as well as in the whole Catholic church was to tolerate any infidel author, such as Averroes and many others, although, as it seemed to them, he contradicted the faith. I adduced many reasons why it would be wrong not to permit our adversaries to be heard and read. . . . In brief, I believe that I omitted little that could be said." Contarini heard that the Venetians had sold Lutheran books, but claimed not to believe it. Although the accused were soon freed, Contarini became convinced that "the inquisition in this kingdom is a most terrible thing, and not even the king has power over it. As far as the New Christians are concerned, what appears to us insignificant seems serious to the inquisition."^[155]

In this incident and its echoes in the later report to the Senate it is possible to see a significant side of Contarini, a man who never advocated or approved of the use of force and coercion in matters of religion. On the contrary, he had faith in human reasonableness, and the necessity of calm debate on disputed issues was one of his firmest convictions. While it is not possible to say whether Contarini read Erasmus while he was in Spain, he certainly was in an environment where the views of the Dutch humanist were known.^[156]

The nearly four hundred dispatches Contarini wrote during his embassy would repay close study not only as diplomatic documents illustrating the complexities of the Habsburg-Valois wars, but also as evidence for customs and ceremonies at the court of Charles V and for the rapid changes in the image of the world with which European intellectuals were confronted at that period. For example, Contarini showed keen interest in Central America and acquired remarkably accurate knowledge of its geography (which was probably incorporated into his lost work Geographia ).^[157] He also astonished the Spanish court by offering an explanation for the seeming loss of one day in the carefully kept log of Magellan's voyage around the world.^[158] Through dis-

[155] Letter of Gasparo Contarini to Federico Contarini and his other brothers, Madrid, 7 Feb. 1525; in ibid., 38:202-3. A faulty copy is in Reg ., 257 (Inedita, no. 3). See also Contarini's comments on the inquisition in "Relazione," 40.

[156] Cf. Marcel Bataillon, Erasme et l'Espagne (Paris: Droz, 1937).

[157] See Paola Mildonian, "La conquista dello spazio americano nelle prime raccolte venete," in L'impatto della scoperta dell'America nella cultura veneziana , ed. Angela Caracciolo Aricò (Rome: Bulzoni Editore, 1990), 118n.9.

[158] Ibid., 117n.6.

cussions with Pietro Martire d'Anghiera, an Italian humanist and teacher at the court who later became an administrator, a member of the Council of the Indies, and the author of De orbe novo decades III , a history of Spanish discoveries, Contarini obtained a good deal of knowledge about the native peoples and their customs.^[159] He was familiar with Cortés's reports of the conquest of Mexico and saw some of the treasures that were sent back to Spain. But although he admired the skill of Mexican artisans, whose feather-work he called "miraculous" and "finer than the finest embroidery," he had on the whole a conventional attitude toward the people who were conquered.^[160] As a Venetian he was concerned with ascertaining the quantity of spices and gold imported from the Spanish and Portuguese overseas possessions, a subject he knew to be of particular interest to his government. Yet strangely, he showed little interest when approached by Sebastian Cabot with a plan, whose details were not spelled out, for launching an enterprise that could be "of great use" to Venice. Contarini duly reported his conversations with the navigator, but did not conceal his skepticism, which was shared by enough Venetian senators to cause Cabot ultimately to offer his services to England instead.^[161] Cautious and conservative, Contarini had no sympathy for untried schemes in unknown lands.

It is surprising how rarely Contarini's dispatches mention Luther and the religious situation in Germany. Although he discussed the Lutheran movement as a political problem for Charles V,^[162] he gave no sign of a personal interest in the German reformer's theology. Official correspondence, of course, was hardly the place for expressing personal views on religion; still, it is striking how little Contarini reported to Venice about the Reformation and how dry his reports on that subject are. Among his few surviving private letters of the period, at least three convey some interest in Luther as well as his reflections on the impact

[159] Pietro Martire's work was published in three installments, in 1511, 1516, and (first complete edition) 1530. See also Giovanni Stiffoni, "La scoperta e la conquista dell'America nelle prime relazioni degli ambasciatori veneziani (1497-1559)," in Caracciolo Aricò (ed.) L'impatto , 356.

[160] "Relazione," 53. He may have seen the pieces that are now preserved in the Museum für Völkerkunde in Vienna. His letter about the conquest of Mexico City is printed in Sanuto, Diarii 33:501-3. See also Federica Ambrosini, "Echi della conquista del Messico nella Venezia del Cinquecento," in Caracciolo Aricò (ed.), L'impatto , 7-23, esp. 10-11.

[161] Giorgio Padoan, "Sulla relazione cinquecentesca dei viaggi nord-atlantici di Nicolò e Antonio Zen (1383-1403)," in ibid., 234n.45.

[162] Toledo, 26 June 1525; in Dispatches, Charles V, fols. 456v-457r; and CSPV 3, no. 1049.

of Lutheranism.^[163] But he did not perceive the Reformation as directly touching Venetian interests; instead he concentrated on the minutiae of the Franco-Spanish wars into which Venice, too, was being drawn.

In June 1525, to Contarini's considerable relief, his designated successor, Andrea Navagero, arrived in Toledo. After inducting Navagero into the conduct of affairs, Contarini finally left for Venice on 11 August. The leisurely return trip took him through southern France and northern Italy.^[164] Not until 16 November did he make his formal report to the Senate, in accordance with the provisions of a law of 1268.^[165] Marin Sanuto has left a vivid picture of Contarini and Lorenzo Priuli, who accompanied Navagero and then spent two months with Contarini in Spain, as the two appeared before Venetian dignitaries.^[166] Priuli, the younger, was dressed in crimson velvet and spoke first. Contarini addressed the Senate after dinner. Sanuto does not fail to mention that he was clad in the solemn black velvet robe of a Venetian noble. He spoke for three and a half hours, presenting an informative description of the countries he had visited, their people, cities, and governments, and of Charles V and his court. The summary of Contarini's report can still be read with profit, especially where it deals with the emperor's family and advisors. How his report struck his audience is hard to say, since we are told that he spoke "in a very soft voice which could not easily be heard."^[167] Apparently he lacked the oratorical ability that would have brought him to the fore in a large group like the Great Council, a fact that may partly account for his slow start in public life. Later, however, he seems to have become a more effective speaker, for Sanuto praised his "wise and good speeches."^[168] Contarini's biographer Giovanni della Casa reports that Contarini spoke

[163] To Niccolò Tiepolo, Worms, 25 Apr. 1521 (Reg ., 252-53 [Inedita, no. 1]); to his brother-in-law Matteo Dandolo, Worms, 26 Apr. 1521 (Reg ., 254-57 [Inedita, no. 2]) and Brussels, 3 Feb. 1522 (Sanuto, Diarii 32:473).

[164] For Contarini's description of the homeward journey, see "Relazione," 66-73.

[165] In 1268 the Great Council ordered that all reports of embassies be made in writing. This order was reaffirmed in 1425, but the oldest extant reports date from the end of the fifteenth century. On 15 November 1524, the Senate issued a decree that every report had to be presented in writing two weeks after it was delivered, and registered by the chancery; see Angelo Ventura, "Scrittori politici e scritture di governo," in Arnaldi and Stocchi (eds.), Storia della cultura veneta 3(3):553-54. See also Donald E. Queller, "The Development of Ambassadorial Relazioni," in Hale (ed.), Renaissance Venice , esp. 184-87. Contarini's relazione is printed in Albèri, Relazioni , 1st ser., 2:1-73; and in Luigi Firpo, ed., Relazioni di ambasciatori Veneti al Senato , vol. 2: Germania, 1506-1554 (Turin: Bottega d'Erasmo, 1970).

[166] Sanuto, Diarii 40:284, 286.

[167] Ibid., 286.

[168] Ibid., 55:348, 536; 56:667.

calmly, in a simple direct way that carried authority, so that his audience remembered what he said,^[169] while an eighteenth-century biographer even makes his eloquence exemplary.^[170] The latter two sources are not reliable, but Sanuto's testimony to Contarini's increasing effectiveness as a speaker is important because it comes from a contemporary who saw him in action. It is certain, however, that Contarini never developed the charismatic qualifies necessary for an outstanding public speaker; he remained most effective in small groups.^[171]

Contarini's embassy had an unpleasant epilogue. He stated before the Senate that he had spent more than four thousand ducats "of his, that is of his brothers' property" on it.^[172] While he did not ask directly for any financial relief, a proposal was made by some of the highest Venetian officials that he be allowed to keep one thousand ducats that the emperor had given him as a parting present. Two votes were taken, but the motion failed to pass:^[173] nobles simply were expected to draw on their own resources in the service of the state. Despite the length of the embassy and its attendant high costs, the senators were not moved to grant Contarini even partial compensation. The ambassador's reaction to this setback is characteristic. We are told that, far from displaying any resentment, "he wanted to rest awhile, and to see whether he could be elected on Sunday to the Council of Ten in the place of sier Andrea Badoer, . . .who had died"^[174] —a clear indication of Contarini's ambition to enter the inner circle of Venetian government. While he did not succeed in so doing at this date, another lower office was open to which he had been elected while still on his embassy, that of savio di terraferma , one of five officials charged with overseeing affairs of the Venetian mainland, especially regarding war and defense.^[175] He was

[169] Giovanni della Casa, "Gasparis Contareni Vita," in Gasparis Contareni Cardinalis Opera (Paris, 1571), [4] (hereafter cited as Opera ).

[170] ". . . Sic sententiam dicebat, ut neminem magis prudenter, magisve composite locutum unquam fuisse constaret" (Card. Angelo Mafia Quirini, Tiara et purpura veneta [Venice, 1761], 147).

[171] It is interesting to note that one generation after Contarini, Agostino Valier, the reforming bishop of Verona, in a tract addressed to Contarini's nephew Alvise, attached little importance to oratorical skills, thinking that ornate rhetoric was not in keeping with the traditions of a Venetian patrician; see Valier, Memoriale . . . a Luigi Contarini Cavaliere sopra gli studi ad un senatore veneziano convenienti , ed. G. Morelli (Venice, 1803), 46-47.

[172] This was in addition to the 730 ducats that the Senate had voted for his expenses on 29 September 1520; Sanuto, Diarii 29:215.

[173] Ibid., 40:308.

[174] Ibid.

[175] Contarini received the news of his election in letters from his family, and replied in a dispatch from Brussels on 5 March 1522: "I thus know my obligation to be as great as any ever incurred by any other son and servant of that most illustrious state. . . . After my duty to God [I am] bound to spare no labour in the service of the State, and besides my fortune to place my life itself, if necessary, at the disposal [of] your Highness" (PRO, MS. 31/14/70, 299). Brown notes in the margin that "the appointment implied that members of the Grand Council were well satisfied with their ambassador at the Imperial Court."

also elected capitano of Brescia, or military governor charged with the fortifications and defense of the city.^[176] On 20 November 1525, thus, he assumed the post of savio , which had been reserved for him until his embassy was concluded.^[177] But he never actually held the position at Brescia and indeed resigned it two years later. The reason is uncertain, for members of his family regarded the post as important; a period of poor health may have been the determining factor.^[178]

Despite his efforts as ambassador, the mission to Charles V did not immediately result in election to higher office but was followed only by a series of short-term, often ad hoc appointments. He was, for example, on several committees convoked to settle disputes involving

[176] Oliver Logan, Culture and Society in Venice, 1470-1790 (London: Batsford, 1972), 25, has a succinct paragraph on the hierarchy of Venetian offices and the place of the military governorship of Brescia in it. He considers it "at the summit of the cursus honorum ," along with the civil and military governorships of Padua, the lieutenancy of Friuli, and full ambassadorships. Contarini was elected by the Great Council on 19 March 1525 (Sanuto, Diarii 38:106). There was disagreement over holding the post of capitano open for him until he could assume it. On 19 June 1525 a motion was made and passed by the Senate over the objections of Niccolò Malipiero, Contarini's maternal uncle, to elect another capitano of Brescia at the expiration of whose term of office Contarini could assume the post (ibid., 39:89). His brothers complained to the public prosecutors (avogaria di comun ), and the motion was annulled (ibid., 95). It was decided that a substitute should be elected until Contarini could take up the post (ibid., 105). See also J. R. Hale, "Terra Ferma Fortifications in the Cinquecento," in Florence and Venice: Comparisons and Relations (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1980), 2:168-69.

[177] Sanuto, Diarii 39:484, 40: 316.

[178] Cicogna, Inscrizioni 2:229, states that Contarini did not accept the position because he fell ill with quartan fever and because he wanted to avoid the tumults of war. The anonymous "Portione di Huomeni Illustri della Famiglia Contarini di Venetia," VBC, Cod. Cicogna 2327, fol. 82r-v, gives the same reasons but is more explicit: the news of the sack of Rome, which reached him as he was about to take up his position at Brescia, together with his poor health, was the reason for his refusal. Neither source mentions that all through 1526 Contarini intended to assume the position though he never actually did so. On 24 April 1526 (the vigil of St. Mark's), for example, he accompanied the doge to solemn vespers carrying a sword, the symbol of his captaincy in Brescia (Sanuto, Diarii 41:214). On 5 October 1526, he stated in a letter that he was beginning to think about his post (Reg ., 260 [Inedita, no. 5]), while in September 1527 he mentioned that his possessions had been loaded on board a ship and he was ready to depart when he fell ill and renounced the appointment on the advice of family and friends (to Giustiniani, Opera , 94). One wonders whether he underwent another period of listlessness or depression.

cities, individuals, and a monastery.^[179] In January 1527, he and Lorenzo Priuli were appointed censors by the three heads of the Council of Ten and charged to examine a book that Franciscans in Venice claimed contained libelous and heretical material. Contarini and Priuli presented their report on this book, Alvise Cinzio's Libro della origine delli volgari proverbi ,^[180] on 18 March 1527, as a consequence of which the author had to modify his text. This seemingly minor episode was to have significant consequences. On 29 January 1527, while the matter was still pending, the heads of the Council of Ten issued a regulation providing that no book could be printed in Venice unless they first licensed it after examination by two censors. This requirement of an imprimatur marked the beginning of official press censorship in Venice.^[181]

In September 1527 Contarini was elected one of the advisors to the Senate^[182] and in the following month was sent as envoy to Duke Alfonso d'Este of Ferrara.^[183] His mission was to help secure the duke's adherence to the anti-imperial League of Cognac concluded in May 1526 among France, England, Pope Clement VII, Venice, and Milan.^[184] After the terrible sack of Rome by the troops of Charles V in May 1527—atrocious even by the standards of sixteenth-century

[179] Between Verona and Vicenza (Sanuto, Diarii 42:472), between Diana d'Este and a monastery about water mills (43:57), and problems among the Benedictines of S. Giustina in Padua (43:68).

[180] The book is scarce. A fine copy, which probably belonged to Cinzio himself, is in the Biblioreca Marciana in Venice; it contains some manuscript poems by the author in the back; Degli Fabritii, Alvise Cintio, Libro della origine delli volgari proverbi (Venice: Bernardino & Matheo Vitali, 1526) [Cod. Ital. C1. IX, 648 (=11942)]. On the flyleaf is the following note: "J'ai cherché ce livre pendant 30 ans, et le hasard seul me l'a procuré. Il a été bruslé par l'inquisition et recherché avec rant de soins qu'il est presque introuvable. Je l'ay payé fort chef. La pièce MS qui est ò la fin écrite de la main de l'Auteur semble annoncer que cet exemplaire lui a appartenu." An attached letter is dated I May 1784. The Franciscans objected to a commentary on the proverb "Ciascun tira l'acqua a suo molino" (Everyone diverts the water to his own mill, clxxv -clxxix ). It castigates Franciscans who tolerate and perpetuate abuses in their order and no longer follow the teachings of their founder.

[181] Sanuto, Diarii 43:26, 748. Horatio Brown, The Venetian Printing Press (London, 1891), 67-71, discusses this incident more fully; as does Cicogna, Inscrizioni 5:586-88. Paul Grendler, The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 1540-1605 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), 74, mentions it only in general terms.

[182] He was elected to the zonta de pregadi , an advisory body of the Senate; Sanuto, Diarii 46:122.

[183] Ibid., 239-40.

[184] Sanuto (ibid., 42:78) describes its publication and celebration in Venice on 8 July 1526.

warfare^[185] —the league decided to take action against the overmighty emperor. Together with the envoys of the other member-states and Florence, Contarini persuaded the duke to join the anti-Habsburg allies^[186] and signed the resulting treaty in the name of the Republic. He stressed that the duke had housed him in his palace, had come twice to his rooms to consult with him, and had "done him great honor."^[187] While these outward manifestations were meant to show Duke Alfonso's respect for Venice rather than for the person of the ambassador, Contarini's emphasis on them demonstrates that he was an ambitious man who wanted to make his successes known. His first allegiance clearly was to the Council of Ten, and only then to the Senate, as Sanuto tells in a revealing passage.^[188] It comes as no surprise, therefore, that Contarini was soon proposed as a candidate for the Council of Ten.^[189] Although he was not elected on this occasion, his star definitely was in the ascendant.^[190]

In January 1528 a new ambassador to Pope Clement VII was elected. Although the respected old Marco Dandolo received the most votes, he did not accept the office, and the Senate chose Contarini in his stead.^[191] Contarini's willingness, even eagerness, to accept the post was evidence of his keen desire for a public career. In a sense, it was a gamble: he and his brothers had to bear the heavy expenses of the embassy, which, however, might then open the door to higher offices in the Venetian government. The mission, moreover, was an especially difficult one. While the pope was confined to Castel Sant'Angelo following the sack of Rome, Venice, though his ally, had taken advantage

[185] Recent works dealing with the sack of Rome and containing bibliographies of earlier literature are Judith Hook, The Sack of Rome, 1527 (London: Macmillan, 1972); Eric R. Chamberlin, The Sack of Rome (London: Batsford, 1979); and André Chastel, The Sack of Rome, 1527 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983).

[186] For the most important provisions of the treaty, see Sanuto, Diarii 46:336-38.

[187] Only a summary of Contarini's report is extant; see ibid., 321 -22. Also see p. 302 for a partial summary of additional provisions of the treaty.

[188] Contarini had been sent on his mission by the Council of Ten, to whom he reported while there. Sanuto repeatedly states that he was not informed of the contents of Contarini's letters (which have not survived): ibid., 275, 280, 284. Some senators "murmured" at their being left in the dark concerning Contarini's mission, and a motion was passed requiring that Contarini's oral report be made before the Senate (312). Nevertheless, Contarini reported first to the Council of Ten and only on the following day to the Senate (319).

[189] On two occasions, 24 November and 15 December 1527, Contarini was one of four candidates for the Council often; ibid., 323, 376.

[190] As shown, for instance, by his being chosen as one of eight senators who accompanied the papal legate during his ceremonial visit; ibid., 459.

[191] This occurred on 16 January 1528; see ibid., 492.

of the situation by unilaterally reestablishing its right to make ecclesiastical appointments in all territories of the Republic^[192] and occupying the papal cities of Ravenna and Cervia on the pretext of protecting their inhabitants.^[193] Thus, upon the pope's liberation from detention in December, the Venetian government was faced with the necessity of sending a particularly skilled envoy to the Holy See for what were bound to be protracted negotiations over the two occupied cities and the recurrent problem of jurisdictional rights. At the same time, it was the ambassador's task to draw Clement VII into the anti-imperial league.

Under these pressing circumstances it at first seems strange that Contarini did not leave on his embassy until late May. The explanation for the delay lies at least partly in the unsettled conditions of the papal court at Orvieto, where the pope had moved from Rome, as well as in the uncertainties of the war in southern Italy and in Lombardy, in which Venice was involved on the side of the league and against the emperor.^[194] But the most important factor was the lack of agreement among the members of the Venetian government about whether an ambassador should be sent at all. On 6 May the collegio , the initiative and executive body of the Republic, discussed making a motion in the Senate to send Contarini on his embassy.^[195] When such a motion was in fact made two days later it was opposed by Lunardo Emo, one of the savi del consiglio (a high-level advisory committee of six), and attacked by Alvise Mocenigo on the grounds that "nothing good could come of it" and that the Florentines and the duke of Ferrara would be alienated. Others spoke in the opposite sense, and at length the matter was tabled for lack of agreement.^[196] On 10 May discussion was resumed,

[192] The Republic had had to relinquish this right to the pope in 1510 during the War of the League of Cambrai. In August 1527, when the bishopric of Treviso fell vacant, the Venetian government reasserted its right to appoint a successor. See Heinrich Kretschmayr, Geschichte von Venedig (Gotha: Perthes, 1905-34), 3:16-17. For relations between the Venetian government and the church following the War of the League of Cambrai, see Paolo Prodi, "The Structure and Organization of the Church in Renaissance Venice: Suggestions for Research," in Hale (ed.), Renaissance Venice , esp. 412-13.

[193] On the economic importance of Cervia in the production of salt, see Jean-Claude Hocquet, "Monopole et concurrence à la fin du moyen âge: Venise et les salines de Cervia (XII -XVI siècles)," Studi veneziani 15 (1973): 21-133; and idem, Le sel et la fortune de Venise , 2d ed. (Lille: Publications de I'Universit é de Lille, 1982), 1:95, 246-47, and passim. On Venetian relations with Ravenna, still useful is Pietro Desiderio Pasolini, Delle antiche relazioni fra Venezia e Ravenna (Florence, 1874).

[194] F. Bennato, "La partecipazione militare di Venezia alla Lega di Cognac," Archivio veneto , 5th set., 58 (1956): 70 -87.

[195] Sanuto, Diarii 47:364.

[196] Ibid., 392, 393.

and a long list of speakers stated their views for or against Contarini's mission. Among the former we find the doge Andrea Gritti, and among the latter the irascible Alvise Mocenigo, who was not in the habit of mincing words and wanted to treat the seizure of Ravenna and Cervia as an accomplished fact rather than a matter for negotiation. Yet despite opposition, the motion to dispatch Contarini carried. An additional delay was caused by the death of his brother Andrea before Contarini finally left on or shortly after 19 May.^[197]

The surviving documentation for this embassy is unusually full, making possible an insight into the highest councils of the Venetian government and giving a far better picture of Contarini's personality than do the surviving dispatches from Spain.^[198] His experience, self-confidence, and knowledge of psychology are mirrored in the reports, which also document the growth of a friendship between the pope and the ambassador. Whereas Contarini's dispatches from Spain were almost invariably the straightforward accounts of an observer rather than an actor, and the emperor remained a figure described only from the outside, the dispatches from the papal court have a much more personal quality, revealing their author's character and shedding new light on his thought.

On 11 May Contarini was voted money for his expenses and staff,^[199] and on the twenty-third he was given a commission with detailed instructions.^[200] The Senate spelled out the arguments he was to use

[197] Sanuto (ibid., 470), without mentioning the name, reports simply that "one of his brothers died." That it was Andrea can be seen from ASV, Barbaro, Arbori , vol. II, fol. 466. Andrea Contarini participated in the family trading ventures in North Africa; Barbaro adds after his name, "fu in Barberia." GC , 127, should be corrected on the date of Contarini's departure, which according to Sanuto was the twentieth; Contarini's final report to the Senate mentions the eighteenth as his departure date, but since it was written several years later it was probably in error: see Albèri, Relazioni , 2d set., 3:260.

[198] Contarini's dispatches are in VBM, MS It., Cl. VII, 1043 (=7616). CSPV , vol. 4; and Reg . give extracts and summaries from them (the latter is not always reliable because the author used copyists). VBC, Cod. Cicogna 3477 (hereafter cited as Ducali ), contains thirty ducali , or instructions, from Doge Andrea Gritti to Contarini. Written on parchment, they are badly damaged, and several can no longer be read. Expert restoration in 1976 has made it possible to use portions or all of twenty-one of them. The ducali were published in part by Domenico Urbani, "Lettere ducali a Gasparo Contarini," Raccolta Veneta 1 (1866): disp. 1, 19-34, and disp. 3, 7-25.

[199] ASV, Senato Terra, Reg. 25 (1528/29), fol 44v; and Sanuto, Diarii 47:405. Contarini was given 400 ducats, although on 10 May a proposal was made to give him an initial sum of 600 ducats; see ASV, Senato, Delib. Secreta, Reg. 53 (1528/29), fol. 54v.

[200] ASV, Senato, Delib. Secreta, Reg. 53 (1528/29), fols. 68r-70v. There was disagreement in the Senate about what Contarini should say to the pope, especially regarding Ravenna and Cervia; Sanuto, Diarii 47:501.

both in the initial public audience and in the subsequent private one. Contarini was ordered to express above all the sorrow of his government at the pope's plight, to stress Venetian obedience to the Holy Father, and to emphasize the great danger the Spanish posed for Italy and all Christianity. Only in the private interview was the envoy to broach the question of Ravenna and Cervia by expressing the surprise of the Republic at hearing that there existed some misunderstanding on the part of Clement VII regarding the two cities, which Venice had saved from imperial occupation at great cost to herself and which had formerly been in her possession with the acquiescence of many popes. To Clement's predictable reaction at this point Contarini was to use another approach by urging the pope to consider the insignificance of the cities in comparison with the benefits he could derive from Venetian help and support. The tactics become clear: without arguing about legal matters but falling back on his skill and pleasant manner,^[201] Contarini was to deflect the pope's interest away from Ravenna and Cervia; instead he was to turn the pope against Charles V as the cause of all his sufferings, thus drawing him closer to Venice and France as his true allies.

The persuasiveness of Contarini's arguments depended not only on the Senate's well-laid plans but also on the political and military situation in Italy. Shortly before Contarini's departure, Andrea Doria, the French and papal captain-general, had been victorious over a Spanish fleet near Amalfi. The anti-imperial allies were on the offensive: Marshal Lautrec's army was besieging Naples, and Venetian forces had taken several cities in Apulia, including Trani and Manfredonia. The affairs of the allies were going well in the north also: the Senate even hoped that all Lombardy might be taken.^[202] But the situation began to change abruptly when Doria shifted his allegiance from Francis I to Charles V.^[203] This defection was followed by a further setback for the

[201] There are several references to the tone Contarini was to adopt, for example: "Et vederai de redur sua Beat in quella bona dispositione che devemo desiderar, come speramo seguira mediante la dexterita del ingegno tuo" (ASV, Senato, Delib. Secreta, Reg. 53 [1528/29], fol. 69r). Or again: "Et vederai de addolcirla, mitigarli l'animo, et aquietarli lanimo quanto piu potrai" (ibid., fol. 69v).

[202] Ibid., 22 Sept. 1528, fol. 105r.

[203] Contarini's dispatches of 12 July 1528, in which he reports that Doria and Francis I are said to have ironed out their disagreements (VBM, MS It., C1. VII, 1043 [=7616], fol. 27r); of 19 July (fol. 31v); of 21 July (two), when the first news of Doria's change of sides reached the papal court (fols. 32v-34r); and of 23 July (fols. 34v-35r) show the anxiety of the pope, his advisors, and Contarini himself. Henceforward I quote from the corrected text of the Regesten , collated with the originals. The latter will be cited as Dispatches, Papal Court, and used to supplement the Regesten where their summaries are too brief.

anti-imperial camp: an outbreak of disease among French troops and the death of Lautrec made it necessary to raise the siege of Naples on 30 August. The anti-imperial forces were now disunited and poorly led. This was the atmosphere in which Contarini was to persuade the pope to join what was clearly becoming the losing side.

Contarini entered on his embassy with no very favorable opinion of Clement VII's statecraft. While still in Spain he had come to the conclusion that the pope was too timid to be relied on.^[204] This verdict was only confirmed by a year at the papal court, when he wrote in blunt words to the Council of Ten: "Your Excellencies should know that the pope is by nature extremely timid and cowardly."^[205] The final report to the Senate on his embassy, in March 1530, again makes a point of Clement's indecisiveness and irresolution; Contarini had found no reason to change his view.^[206] Yet despite their antagonism in political matters and Contarini's critical attitude, the two men developed a warmer relationship than the usual one of a ruler and an ambassador, marked by the pope's expressions of trust in Contarini.

Their first long private interview in Viterbo, where the pope now resided, set the tone for subsequent audiences. The pope recalled how badly Venice had treated him, showing great perturbation and raising his voice as he spoke. In obedience to the Senate's instruction Contarini reiterated that the Venetians had saved Ravenna and Cervia from falling into enemy hands, and then proceeded to portray an idealized Venice: "Could a better occasion than this be found to gratify the [Venetian] Signoria, which would be most obliged to [Your Holiness]? In the past we have been the church's front line of defense against the Turks. So we are still, [only] now on the sea against the Turks and on land against Lutheran Germans who are greater enemies of the Holy See than the Turks!" To this the pope replied coldly, "Much though you personally please me, your embassy displeases me equally."^[207] He pointed to the practical reality of the salt pans of Cervia, which produced annually seventy thousand sacks of salt, the tax on which would constitute an important source of revenue for the depleted papal treasury,^[238] and refused even to consider the Venetian side

[204] Toledo, 7 May 1525: "Dio voglia, che questa timidità sua non sii causa de la ruina d'Italia. Certo è, che molto ha pegiorata la conditione di quel eccellentissimo stato [Venice] et ha diminuita la reputatione d'Italia" (Reg ., 23 [no. 57]).

[205] Rome, 31 July 1529: "V. Serenità sappia, che la natura del Pontefice e supra modum timida et vile" (Reg ., 60 [no. 191]).

[206] Albèri, Relazioni , 2d ser., 3:265.

[207] Viterbo, 7 June 1528; Reg ., 29 (no. 86).

[208] Dispatches, Papal Court, 7 June 1528, fol. 7r.

of the case.^[298] He had other complaints against Venice as well, primarily its heavy taxation of the clergy and its interference in ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

To his surprise and even frustration, Contarini came to realize that the pope's indecisiveness did not extend to the subject of the papal state and that Clement was unwilling to engage in any negotiations regarding the two disputed cities. The French and English ambassadors supported him in his demands for their restitution.^[210] Contarini had to hear repeatedly that Venice was a stumbling block to the success of the anti-imperial forces; indeed, while the French agent, Joachim Passano, went so far as to curse Ravenna and Cervia several times as the cause of all the mischief, the pope was overheard cursing Venice.^[211] Clearly, Contarini's diplomatic finesse was a necessity in this difficult situation.

That he possessed the needed abilities is beyond doubt. His dispatches show that he was successful in winning the pope's goodwill despite his unwelcome charge. Clement took a liking to Contarini from the first, and the ambassador knew how to make the most of this liking. Less than three weeks after his arrival Contarini was already on easy terms with the pope, who discussed various subjects with him as they walked together. Contarini mentioned in passing the Venetian expenses during the war but then went on to other things; he reported that he did not wish to make himself odious and thus endanger Venetian affairs, "which must be treated with all possible delicacy and skill."^[212] The pope and the ambassador could even adopt a bantering tone about serious issues, showing that both were masters of that art of conversation so highly admired in their society.^[213] Time after time Contarini reports that he had sought to calm the pope, or "soothe and appease his mind," always aware that he must not exceed certain limits lest he irritate the pontiff.^[214] Sometimes he tried to move the issues onto a philosophical plane, but the pope was uniformly unresponsive,

[209] Second dispatch of the same date, ibid., fols. 8v-9r; and 8 June 1528, fols. 9v-10r.

[210] The English ambassador, Stephen Gardiner, is described as "caldissimo ad far ogni opera adcio Ravenna et Cervia siano restituite al Pontefice" (ibid., 14 June 1528, fol. 11v).

[211] Ibid., 28 Sept. 1528, fol. 87r; and 18 July 1528, fol. 29v.

[212] Ibid., 10 June 1528, fol. 10v.

[213] Contarini describes how the pope and he made rather barbed remarks to each other "while laughing" (ridendo ); Reg ., 14 June 1528, 31 (no. 89). There is a faint reminder of the conversations in the Cortegiano in this dispatch, with phrases like "Io ridendo . . . dissi," or "proferendo tale parole cum riso."

[214] Reg ., 31 (no. 89).

and Contarini took refuge in resigned platitudes about the divine will.^[215] Clement VII, like many weak people, had a stubborn side, especially when he thought his dignity had been offended. He never swerved from his contention that the Venetians had not only taken his lands but also injured his honor. He put his case plainly to Contarini: the Signoria had shown openly, "so that everyone can see, that you Venetians take little account of me. . . . You behave without proper respect in taking my lands, conferring [ecclesiastical] benefices, levying imposts"; and on another occasion the pope cried, "I want my lands, and you do not want to give them to me!"^[216]

Try as he might, however, Contarini did not succeed in moving the pope, though he was aware that Clement thought highly of him personally. "I continually seek to placate the mind of His Holiness by various means. Therefore I sometimes try to be in his presence, seeing that I am not displeasing to him. In this way I can always drop some word or make some courteous and appropriate gesture, which certainly does no harm. In my judgment it is necessary to proceed step by step in this business, and to use all [possible] skill."^[217] The Senate in response praised its ambassador's dexterity and prudence, granting him discretion in further talks.^[218] But despite Contarini's entreaties, it put no pressure on the Venetian cardinals Corner and Grimani to rejoin the papal court and help counteract anti-Venetian sentiment in the pope's entourage.^[219] Thus Contarini was left to answer for Venetian actions alone, as a resourceful and intelligent man in an increasingly intractable situation.

His dispatches from this embassy can be read on several levels. Most report how the complex political situation during an intense phase of the Habsburg-Valois struggles looked from the perspective of the

[215] Dispatches, Papal Court, 18 July 1528, fols. 29v-30r.

[216] Reg ., 16 June 1528, 31 (no. 91), and 27 June 1528 (no. 93). Clement could also be subtle: he realized that he had a strong card to play by threatening to seek the aid of the emperor, both for the restoration of the Medici in Florence and for the restitution of church lands. Appealing to Venice to return his cities he added ominously, "Perhaps you do not know the difference between the mad and the wise. The mad and the wise both do the same thing—the difference between them does not lie in that. But the wise do it at the right time and the mad at the wrong time, and therein lies the difference" (Reg ., 30 July 1528 [date should be corrected], 33 [no. 100]).

[217] Reg ., 16 June 1528, 31 (no. 91).

[218] ASV, Senato, Delib. Secreta, Reg. 53 (1528/29), 27 June 1528, fol. 83v.

[219] This despite Contarini's report to the Council often (12 July 1528, ASV, Capi del Consiglio dei X, Lettere di ambasciatori, busta 22 [Roma, 1515-38], fol. 170) about the desirability of their coming; and to the Senate in the same sense (Dispatches, Papal Court, 15 July 1528, fol. 27v).

papacy and illuminate the diplomatic intricacies of the papal court.^[220] Contarini is a keen observer who creates a sense of immediacy, at times even of tension, in the reader. Then, the letters and instructions from the Senate and Doge Andrea Gritti together with Contarini's replies give a good idea of how Venice attempted to deal with the new political realities of an Italian peninsula whose fate was increasingly determined by the large European territorial states. Gritti, despite his pro-French views, was a political realist. His ducali , or letters to Contarini, written between 27 July 1528 and 21 January 1530, range from, at the start, urging the ambassador to draw Clement VII into firmly supporting the anti-Habsburg forces,^[221] to a final realization that the best course of action for the Venetians would be to come to terms with Charles V and the pope and work for a general peace.^[222] Differences of opinion about this change of direction existed within the Venetian ruling group.^[223] The fear of Habsburg power runs through the entire correspondence of the Senate with Contarini, together with an at times pathetic trust in Francis I, who certainly did not deserve it.^[224] Not only did Francis show no concern for his former allies when concluding the Peace of Cambrai with Charles V; he also subsequently offered to subsidize the emperor in a war against Venice and to divide the Venetian territory with him in return for the cession of Milan to France.^[225] For the Venetians this was a hard blow indeed, and for Contarini personally a bitter political lesson.

His dispatches also offer a wealth of information about his personality. We meet in them a Venetian patrician, proud of his standing, well versed in court etiquette, and moving with ease in the world of princes. Beyond his role as ambassador he filled the more personal one of

[220] GC , 125-203, presents a detailed discussion of the main political events reported on by Contarini.

[221] Ducali , 30 Aug. and 31 Oct. 1528; 19 Apr. and 23 July 1529.

[222] Ibid., 26 Sept. and 22 Oct. 1529.

[223] Sanuto, Diarii 48:413-14 and 49:222, shows that there was no general agreement about how to instruct Contarini.

[224] News of Charles V's planned trip to Italy greatly worried the Venetian Senate, which deliberated about asking Francis I to come: ASV, Senato, Delib. Secreta, Reg. 53 (1528/29), 2 Apr. 1529, fol. 166r. Contarini, too, had faith in Francis I's promises to Venice and rejected the possibility that the French king could think of concluding a separate peace with Charles V; see Dispatches, Papal Court, 9 Apr. 1529, fols. 222v-223r. Without regard for the Italian states, and to the great consternation of Contarini, Francis I did precisely that; ibid., 14 Aug. 1529, fols. 288v-290v. Contarini tersely records in his final report to the Senate that "the Republic and all other allies were excluded from this peace" (Albèri, Relazioni , 2d ser., 3:263).

[225] Albèri, Relazioni , 2d ser., 3:199.

the pope's frequent confidant,^[226] at times even of his conscience. Most striking is Clement VII's exclamation to Contarini, made after only seven months of acquaintance: "I trust you to such an extent, that if you were not the Venetian ambassador and a nobleman of that city, I would place all my disagreements in your hands."^[227]

The welfare of Italy was a theme often brought up by Contarini in his conversations with Clement, only to elicit the justified response that Venice, having seized the cities of its neighbor, was hardly the model of a state concerned with the common good. One senses Contarini's frustration as he replied to the pope on one such occasion: "Holy Father, this is not the time to dwell at length on the problems of Ravenna and Cervia. If you do not wish to hear me as orator of the illustrious Signoria of Venice, then listen to me as an Italian speaking to you only for the common good of Italy and for the Holy See, which will certainly be ruined entirely if the plans of its enemies succeed!" When the pope replied that he was interested only in the good of the church, that he had done too much for Italy already with no other result than his own defeat, Contarini became disturbed indeed, fearing the ruin of Italy.^[228] That the good of Italy was not merely a convenient diplomatic counter but genuinely dear to Contarini can be seen from his impassioned letter to Carlo Cappello, the Venetian ambassador to Florence, written immediately after reports of the accord between Charles V and Clement VII, made public in Barcelona on 29 June 1529, reached Rome. Passing on the bad news that now emperor and pope would collaborate against the Florentine Republic, Contarini declares that men with noble hearts should have little concern for their own lives, property, or wealth in the defense of freedom. If the

[226] Brief remarks show that Contarini continued to be on friendly personal terms with the pope; for example: "Doppo pranso retiratese [Clement VII] cum me solo ne la sua camera intrassemo in ragionamento de le presente ocorentie" (Dispatches, Papal Court, 4 Oct. 1528, fol. 90r); or 10 June 1528, fol. 10v; and 14 Oct. 1528, fol. 98r—both of which mention Contarini's walking with the pope. On one occasion the pope sent his secretary, Sanga, to tell Contarini that he would see him as his friend: "Et cosi heft da sera preditto secretario mi fece intender, che hoggi a 21 hora dovesse andar perche seria admesso non gia come oratore, ne per parlarli de facende alcune, ma solurn come privato amico suo" (ibid., 7 June 1529, fol. 252v).

[227] Reg ., 4 Jan. 1529, 44 (no. 126).

[228] Reg ., 5 Sept. 1528, 34 (no. 103). The pope's reply should be corrected to read: "Io non voglio procurar se non il ben de la chiesia; troppo ho io fatto per Italia et a bon fine, siche mi ho ruinato" (Dispatches, Papal Court, fol. 66v). See also, e.g., Reg., 7 June 1529, 55 (no. 173); or 14 Aug. 1529, 61 (no. 196), where Contarini asserts what he takes to be best for Italy.

Florentines comprehend this and make the necessary preparations for their defense they will withstand their enemies: "Thus, they will preserve themselves and Italy to their eternal glory, and [their enemies] will be baffled in their designs."^[229] The Senate, too, had expressed concern at the rumor that the emperor was actually to come,^[230] only reinforcing Contarini's anxiety. He was in a position to see how little room for maneuver the Italian states really had, and his concern for Italy and desire to speak as an Italian went far beyond mere rhetoric. Unfortunately, however, the pope thought neither as an Italian nor even as a Florentine but as the head of the house of Medici, on whose restoration he was single-mindedly bent.

The greatest theoretical interest attaches to the arguments Contarini used with Clement VII and reported to the Senate in a dispatch of 4 January 1529, the most lively and personal dispatch in his entire diplomatic correspondence.^[231] In a private audience with the pope Contarini explained that this time he had not come to convey an official instruction from his government, but to be heard as an Italian, a private person, and a Christian. Encouraged by Clement to continue, he appealed to the pope to act in a manner different from other rulers who pursued only their own interests. Contarini called on the pope to put the interests of all Christians first and to become a peacemaker among European states. He argued that what distinguished the pope's position from that of other princes was his twofold appointment by Christ: as his vicar, the holder of the highest spiritual authority in the respublica Christiana , and as the magistrate primarily responsible for the well-being of the Christian commonwealth, who for that very reason must give an example of unselfish behavior. In answer to

[229] Reg ., 16 July 1529, 58 (no. 183), should be corrected to read: "Et cosi cum immortal gloria si conserverano loro et Italia et costoro rimanian inganati del pensier loro" (Dispatches, Papal Court, fol. 273r). In a dispatch of 31 October 1529 Contarini is more explicit: "All of Italy can be regarded as a body composed of several members. It is not possible for one of them to suffer without harm to the others" (Reg ., 70 [no. 227]).

[230] ASV, Senato, Delib. Secreta, Reg. 53 (1528/29), 2 Apr. 1529, fol. 166r. Kretschmayr, Geschichte von Venedig 3:14, thinks that during its whole history Venice had rarely concerned itself with the idea of Italy as much as it did during the period of the League of Cognac.

[231] Dispatches, Papal Court, fols. 148r-154r, should be used to correct the long extracts in Reg ., 4146 (no. 126). See GC , 146-51; Ludwig von Pastor, Geschichte der Päpste seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters , vol. 4, pt. 2 (Freiburg i.B., 1956), 347-49; and Giuseppe De Leva, Storia documentata di Carlo V in correlazione all'Italia (Venice, 1863-94), 2:503-5.

Clement's declaration that in pursuing the return of Ravenna and Cervia he was acting only for the good of the church, Contarini made a sharp reply:

Your Holiness should not think that the welfare of Christ's church is comprised in this little temporal state which she has acquired. Even before this state existed there was a church, and a most excellent one. The church is the community of all Christians. This state is like the state of an Italian prince, joined to the church. But Your Holiness should above all be concerned with the welfare of the true church, which consists in peace and tranquillity among all Christians, and for the present relegate to second place the interests of this temporal state.^[232]

For Clement VII Contarini's words must have lost some of their sting because they were spoken by a Venetian in the service of his state.^[233] Yet the pope responded to this serious plea by admitting its truth, though still assuming the attitude of a political realist: "Don't you see that the world has reached a point where it is the most cunning schemer who reaps most praise, is esteemed and extolled as an admirable man, whereas he who acts in opposite fashion is thought of as good but worthless and is left only with the name of 'a good man'?" In his reply Contarini raised the issue to a higher plane: "Holy Father, if [you] search through the whole of Sacred Scripture, which cannot lie, you will see that there is nothing stronger or more powerful than truth, virtue, goodness, and right intention. I have found this to be true and have experienced it in many of my private affairs; let Your Holiness take heart and proceed with honorable intention, and God will undoubtedly send his help and render you most glorious!"^[234] Contarini's words made an impression on the pope,^[235] who however did not change his mind either about the disputed cities or about the political stand that half a year later culminated in the alliance with Charles V.

This letter, striking for its reported dialogue, is also important for revealing Contarini's thought. His primary purpose was to convince Clement VII to embrace the cause of the anti-imperial side, but Ludwig von Pastor, the historian of the popes, has judged Contarini's

[232] Reg ., 43 (no. 126).

[233] Already in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries there was Venetian insistence on the pastoral rather than political role of the pope; see Gaetano Cozzi, "I rapporti tra stato e chiesa," in La chiesa di Venezia tra riforma protestante e riforma cattolica , ed. Giuseppe Gullino (Venice: Edizioni Studium Cattolico Veneziano, 1990), 17.

[234] Reg ., 44 (no. 126).

[235] Contarini reports, "Io non credo inganarme, vedeva, che le parole mie li facevano impressione" (Reg ., 45 [no. 126]).

motives too harshly in asserting that the Venetian ambassador in this instance confused what was advantageous for the Republic and the lost cause of the independence of Italy with the welfare of Christendom.^[236] Contarini's dispatch touches on two themes to which he was often to return: that of an idealized, spiritual papacy, and that of the crucial importance of experience and example. Of course he was speaking to the pope as a Venetian; but that fact should not cast into doubt Contarini's own convictions about the papacy, which he was to elaborate in later tracts, or the important place he gave to emotion in his understanding of human nature. In this dispatch we see not ad hoc arguments but ideas that had become a permanent part of Contarini's thinking, and which he shared with other Venetian patricians who dreamed of a reformed, spiritual church removed from the sordidness of money, possessions, and political deals. Beyond the inadequacies of the individual pope he discerned the ideal papacy instituted by Christ, just as beyond the world of contention, whether in politics or religion, there was for him the power of human goodness and charity to move men's hearts. In this famous audience Contarini spoke as a Venetian deeply imbued with reform ideas current among his friends, as an expert diplomat, and as a concerned Christian who expressed his vision of what the papacy might become if the pope were to take reform seriously.

The doge on several occasions praised Contarini's conduct of affairs and expressed trust in him.^[237] The collegio , too, was most pleased with his dispatches.^[238] After receiving the report of 4 January, the Senate wrote to express its great satisfaction with his handling of matters and sent him a mandate to engage in negotiations for a universal peace.^[239] This did not mean, however, that he had much scope for initiative or that he could conclude any agreement on his own. One little episode, insignificant in itself, shows that even a trusted ambassador like Contarini was expected to be above all the obedient servant of the

[236] Pastor, Geschichte der Päpste 4(2):349.

[237] Ducali , 10 Nov. 1528, 30 Oct. 1529, and 28 Dec. 1529.

[238] ASV, Collegio, Lettere Secrete, 30 Dec. 1528.

[239] ASV, Senato, Delib. Secreta, Reg. 53 (1528/29), 15 Jan. 1529, fol. 141v: "Abbiamo per quelle [Contarini's letters of 2, 4, and 5 January] inteso il longo, et fiducial conferimento per voi havuto cum la Sant del Pontefice circa le occorentie delli importantissimi presenti tempi. Nelche invero vi havete si ben, et accomodamente disporta, che di tal officio vostro et noi [the Signoria] et il Senato nostro habbiamo sentita cumulata satisfattion, et vi attribuimo merite, et condigne laude." The mandate is on fols. 142v-143r.

state. When rumors reached Venice that the pope was ill and that the emperor might come to Italy, but no letter arrived from Contarini for several days, he was sharply reminded of his duty to keep an anxious Signoria and Senate promptly informed. The doge lectured him, the experienced diplomat, in no uncertain terms about transmitting not only facts but also hearsay and rumors, adding pedantically that of course Contarini should specify which was which.^[240]

During the first half of 1529 Contarini continued to work in vain against a rapprochement of pope and emperor, aided for a time by Gian Matteo Giberti, bishop of Verona as well as former secretary and leading counselor of Clement VII, who had left the papal court after the sack of Rome.^[241] Giberti was strongly pro-French, and both the doge and Contarini had high hopes that he could influence the pope at least to remain neutral. Giberti, however, who knew Clement well, realized there was little he could do and returned to his diocese despite Contarini's annoyance and efforts to detain him.^[242] Contarini was again left to look after Venetian interests alone. He could neither prevent Clement from signing an accord with the emperor^[243] nor do more than wait passively to learn what Charles V and Francis I would determine about Italy and Venice in the Peace of Cambrai.^[244] After July his dispatches become increasingly reports of what he had learned at second hand. Charles V landed in Genoa on 12 August; meanwhile, the pope was preoccupied with the impending meeting with the emperor, for which Bologna was chosen. Contarini found that Clement did not want to tell him anything specific about his dealings with the emperor,^[245] which meant that he had to operate from rumors—such as that Clement might consent to the present state of Ravenna and Cervia, which proved groundless.^[246] One can sense his frustration when he complains at finding himself "in deep darkness," not knowing how to proceed since he had heard nothing from Venice in three weeks.^[247] No

[240] Ducali , 17 Feb. 1529. The instruction to write is repeated in ASV, Collegio, Lettere Secrete, 1528 (dated 7 Feb. 1528) (more Veneto = 1529).

[241] For Giberti, see the excellent study by Adriano Prosperi, Tra evangelismo e controriforma: G. M. Giberti (1495-1543) (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1969).

[242] Reg ., 14 Apr. 1529, 52 (no. 159).

[243] Reg ., 28 July 1529, 59 (no. 189). The treaty had been negotiated in Barcelona, and agreed upon on 29 June.

[244] Dispatches, Papal Court, 7 Aug. 1529, fol. 285r.

[245] Ibid., 10 Sept. 1529, fol. 306v.

[246] Ibid., 5 Sept. 1529, fol. 304v.

[247] Ibid., 19 Sept. 1529, fol. 311r. Contarini's tone is almost sarcastic: "Pero la [the Signoria] prego instantemente che la si degni qualche volta per sue lettere darmi qualche pocco de lume."

wonder that he asked for the appointment of a successor, alleging that he could no longer support the burden and expense of his mission. Yet despite his discouragement he continued in his embassy, reaching the high point of his Venetian diplomatic career in his personal contributions to the Peace of Bologna in 1530.

In 1529 the Venetian government began preparing for a general peace. After the conclusion of separate treaties between the pope and the emperor and between the emperor and the French king, it was obvious that the anti-imperial league had crumbled and that the Italian states were on their own. Venice naturally tried to preserve her territories. But an equally important objective for her was to prevent Milan, her neighbor to the west, from becoming a Spanish dependency. Over and over Contarini was sent instructions to work for the restitution of Milan to Duke Francesco Sforza, a difficult task since the duke's anti-imperial stand had made him unpopular with Charles V and his advisors.^[248] Contarini urged the pope to make sure than the Milanese ruler was an Italian,^[249] but became perturbed when he suspected that the emperor might grant Milan to the pope's nephew Alessandro de' Medici, admittedly an Italian but pro-imperial and therefore undesirable from the Venetian point of view. A tone of growing unease appears in Contarini's reports about the pope's Italian policies, especially his attitude toward Florence. Despite Clement's assurances, the envoy was worried about the destiny of Florence and took every opportunity to put in a good word for the Florentines, urging the pope to work for the liberty and the good of his native city. At one point he provoked Clement into exclaiming, "Do you think I do not realize what it would mean to place Florence at the mercy of Spaniards and Germans? I have many women relatives there. Do you think I want them to go—to use his own words—to the bordello with Spaniards and Germans?"^[250] Ironically, despite these disclaimers, one of the clauses in the agreement between the emperor and the pope specified that they would collaborate in reducing Florence to a Medici dependency, and Contarini's fears proved justified when the last Florentine republic fell in 1530.

The Venetian Senate and Signoria had no choice but to adapt to the reality of the emperor's power. After Charles V arrived in Italy the

[248] Ducali , 26 Sept. and 5 Dec. 1529, reiterate that Venice stood by the duke of Milan. See also ASV, Senato, Delib. Secreta, Reg. 53 (1528/29), 19 Nov. 1529, fols. 267v-270r.

[249] Reg ., 10 Aug. 1529, 61 (no. 196).

[250] Reg ., 13 July 1529, 60 (no. 190).

instructions to Contarini change tone: now he was to stress above all Venice's desire for peace, with no reference to the role Venice had played in the anti-imperial league.^[251] In October, Contarini accompanied the papal train on its journey to Bologna. He received a mandate from the doge as well as credentials from the Senate to negotiate in the name of the Republic with both emperor and pope.^[252] While realistic about the necessity of restoring to Charles V cities conquered in Apulia, the Venetians were still hoping against hope for some agreement that would leave Ravenna and Cervia in their hands. Contarini was told to use "all the strength and quickness" of his mind, and even ordered to engage the good offices of the emperor to persuade Clement VII if necessary.^[253] This was no easy task for the Venetian ambassador, for it meant petitioning the emperor to help a state that only very recently had been his enemy. Predictably, Charles V was not willing to put pressure on the pope in this matter. Despite Contarini's best efforts in the course of several meetings, Clement VII remained adamant about regaining possession of the two cities,^[254] and finally the majority in the Venetian Senate realized that the cities would have to be returned to the pope.^[255]

The emperor made a splendid entrance into Bologna on 5 November.^[256] Contarini's pleasant and gentlemanly manner came to his aid at the awkward moment of meeting Charles V face to face. Saying nothing about Venice's war against him, the emperor greeted Contarini not as the orator who was an agent of the Republic, but as Messer Gasparo Contarini, with whom he had been on very friendly terms while the latter was ambassador to him in Spain; "and he received him

[251] Ducali , 26 Sept. and 22 Oct. 1529. In the former a striking change of tone in regard to the emperor occurs, and Contarini is told that Venice is "most inclined" toward His Majesty. See also ASV, Senato, Delib. Secreta, Reg. 53 (1528/29), 31 Aug. 1529, fol. 225r; 5 Oct. 1529, fol. 239r-v:

[252] Dispatches, Papal Court, 22 Oct. 1529, fol. 247r.

[253] Ibid., 2 Nov. 1529, fol. 252r.

[254] Reg ., 26 Oct. 1529, 68-69 (no. 224); 27 Oct. 1529, 69 (no. 225); and 5 Nov. 1529, 71 (no. 230). In early November Contarini still tried in vain to appeal to the pope "non come oratore dei miei signori, ma come Gasparo Contarini, privato e sviscerato servitore della Santità Vostra" (Albèri, Relazioni , 2d ser., 3:160).

[255] ASV, Senato, Delib. Secreta, Reg. 53 (1528/29), 10 Nov. 1529, fols. 253v, 254r. This decision provoked intense debates. Hardliners in the Senate like Girolamo Pesaro, Alvise and Pietro Mocenigo, and Lunardo Emo did not favor the restitution of the cities; see Albèri, Relazioni , 2d ser., 3:171-72. See also Sanuto, Diarii 52:212.

[256] Dispatches, Papal Court, 5 Nov. 1529, fols. 338r-340r, describes the emperor's entry into the city with about eight hundred horse and three to four thousand infantry, and his gracious reception of Contarini.

with such kind words and courteous actions that all who were present marveled."^[257] Contarini later replied with a masterful speech to the effect that Venice had gone to war against the emperor only for defensive reasons but now welcomed him as a bringer of peace.^[258]

The documents of the peace negotiations show Contarini to be a skilled, intelligent statesman who knew how to smooth over difficulties with his genial manner.^[259] He could speak informally to emperor and pope, assuming the persona of a "private person," and get a ready hearing. Clement VII solicited his advice,^[260] while Charles V accepted it when it was offered. In the latter case Contarini stressed that he was approaching the emperor "not as the Venetian orator" but as a faithful servitor who allowed himself to suggest that neither Charles V nor his counselors understood the nature of Italians. He argued deftly against the Spanish plan to retain fortresses in Milanese territory as a pledge of the duke's loyalty, saying that if that were to occur the people would think the Spaniards were the real masters of Milan and would not pay taxes to the duke; as a result, the latter would be unable to pay the indemnity he was required to give to the emperor, and in the end no solid result would be achieved.^[261] With great diplomatic skill and tact Contarini won Charles V's high opinion.^[262] He was instrumental in persuading the emperor to return Milan to Duke Francesco Sforza as a means of keeping peace in northern Italy, even though the duke had been an enemy. This victory of Venetian diplomacy kept direct Spanish power out of northern Italy for the time being. Contarini also managed to whittle down the payment demanded of Venice to one

[257] Albèri, Relazioni , 2d ser., 3:162.

[258] Ibid., 173.

[259] The judgment of Horatio F. Brown, "Cardinal Contarini and His Friends," in Studies in the History of Venice (London: John Murray, 1907), 2:128, to the effect that Contarini had no "grain of humor," should be qualified. See, for example, the quick reply Contarini made "sorridendo" to Clement VII's complaint that the Venetians had not paid him interest on the value of the salt from Cervia while the city was in their hands: "Your Holiness might with more justification ask for the interest on what you suffered during the siege and sack of Rome, in which so many silver objects, crosses, chalices, relics, together with churches, were robbed and destroyed!" (Albèri, Relazioni , 2d ser., 3:188).

[260] The pope asked Contarini, "Ditemi il vostro parer, non come ambasciatore, ma come Messer Gasparo Contarini privato" (Albèri, Relazioni , 2d ser., 3:191 ).

[261] Ibid., 207. See also Ducali , 17 Dec. 1529.

[262] Charles V was convinced of Contarini's goodwill toward him. During the peace negotiations he remarked, "Domine orator, . . . although you can be accused of doing everything for your homeland, still we know that next to it you have always loved the person of the emperor" (Albèfi, Relazioni , 2d ser., 3:178).

hundred thousand ducats in addition to what was still owed the emperor after the peace treaty of 1523.^[263]

While Contarini in Bologna was using his good offices also for the dukes of Ferrara and Urbino, considerable dissent erupted in the Venetian Senate. Besides the disagreements regarding the restitution of Ravenna and Cervia, there was discord about a proposed defensive league of Italian states with Charles V and his brother Ferdinand. The emperor pressed for the league, but the Venetians hesitated to enter it for fear of provoking the Turks, who had only recently lifted the siege of Vienna and were still at war with the Habsburgs.^[264] In the Senate the relations of Venice with the emperor, Francis I, and the Turks were hotly discussed.^[265] To Contarini's annoyance, some senators leaked the content of the debates to the papal nuncio in Venice, who promptly wrote to Clement VII. Thus the pope was sometimes informed of what was going on in Venice before Contarini himself received official letters. Other potential problems for Contarini were caused by senators like Alvise Gradenigo and Girolamo Pesaro, who proposed that Venice send an ambassador to the Turks to apologize for treating for peace with the emperor and explain that she did so only because otherwise she would remain isolated, all other Italian states having agreed to peace. Alvise Mocenigo, who frequently opposed Contarini, this time rose in his support. He declared that if Charles V heard that such an ambassador was sent, the peace negotiations would certainly suffer a setback.^[266] His view prevailed, and Contarini's labors were made easier.

On 23 December the peace treaty of Bologna was concluded, and by the twenty-eighth the news had reached Venice, causing great joy in the whole city.^[267] On New Year's Day 1530 the treaty was solemnly proclaimed in the cathedral of San Petronio in Bologna. Venice, besides having to return to the pope Ravenna and Cervia, and to the emperor Trani, Monopoli, and other towns in southern Italy, was also constrained to join a defensive league that included Charles V, Ferdinand of Austria, Clement VII, and the duke of Milan.^[268] The Venetians

[263] Ibid., 217.

[264] ASV, Senato, Delib. Secreta, Reg. 53 (1528/29), 26 Nov. 1529, fols. 264v-265r.

[265] Alvise Mocenigo delivered a long and clever anti-French speech; see Albèri, Relazioni , 2d ser., 3:195-96.

[266] Ibid., 211-12.

[267] Ducali , 28 Dec. 1529; and ASV, Senato, Delib. Secreta, Reg. 53 (1528/29), fols. 282v-283r. The Senate swore to uphold the treaty on January 11; see fol. 293r-v.

[268] For the provisions of the treaty, see ASV, Senato, Delib. Secreta, Reg. 53 (1528/29), fols. 265r-267r; and Albèri, Relazioni , 2d ser., 3:217-18.

elected four ambassadors for the ceremonial mission to congratulate both pope and emperor on the peace.^[269] Clement VII's intimation that he wished to receive formal obeisance from Venice provoked a long debate in the Senate, including a lengthy speech by the anti-papal Alvise Mocenigo.^[270] Regrettably, the sources do not tell us whether Mocenigo was elected as one of the four ambassadors because of his speech or in spite of it.^[271] Contarini was instructed to remain in Bologna for the emperor's coronation on 24 February; thereupon his request to be relieved of his post was granted, with Antonio Soriano elected to succeed him.^[272] After the splendid ceremonies of the imperial coronation, described in detail by his brother-in-law Matteo Dandolo,^[273] Contarini finally returned to Venice.

On 4 March he made the customary final report on his mission before the Senate. A short summary, not written until at least five years later, is all that survives.^[274] In it he briefly discusses the pope and his advisors, the emperor and his advisors, and the duke of Milan. There is nothing not contained in his dispatches, and one looks in vain for any personal reflection on the diplomatic background of the Peace of Bologna. One of the few noteworthy phrases concerns Clement VII, whose attitude to church reform Contarini sums up pithily: "He manifests his desire to see the abuses of the Holy Church curbed, but nevertheless he does nothing to put any such idea into practice, nor does he decide to issue any regulations."^[275] Contarini's perfunctory summary is no substitute for the full report, which was described as "very specific but contained nothing superfluous; it was unanimously praised by the whole Senate, which listened to it most attentively for more than two hours."^[276]

[269] ASV, Senato, Delib. Secreta, Reg. 53 (1528/29), 29 Dec. 1529, fol. 286v.

[270] Albèri, Relazioni , 2d ser., 3:231-34.

[271] The other ambassadors were Marco Dandolo, Alvise Gradenigo, and Lorenzo Bragadin. Their commission is in ASV, Senato, Delib. Secreta, Reg. 53 (1528/29), fols. 294v-295r, with a characteristic touch at the end: Juan Dolfin was sent along to super- vise expenses and make a daily accounting.

[272] Ibid., fol. 289r-v.

[273] Sanuto, Diarii 52:628-38, 639-79, gives other descriptions of the coronation and associated festivities.

[274] Albèri, Relazioni , 2d ser., 3:259-74. The summary was written after Pope Paul III's election in 1534 (260). Albèri mistakenly reports Sanuto as dating Contarini's speech to 7 March and saying that it lasted three hours; Sanuto, Diarii 53:16, says two hours.

[275] Albèri, Relazioni , 2d ser., 3:265.

[276] Ibid., 247. Niccolò da Ponte summarized twenty-two years later what Contarini said, basing himself on letters he had written to his father in 1530. His recapitulation omits details that would flesh out Contarini's report.

For Venice, the peace provided a welcome breathing spell after the war and the expenses of the unsuccessful alliance against Charles V. But it also underlined her political decline, which had begun during the War of the League of Cambrai. Venice was increasingly forced to perceive herself as a small state whose fate was, if not determined, at least decisively influenced by the great European monarchies. For Contarini personally, the peace was the culmination of twenty months of patient and determined work. While he did not achieve his main objective, the retention of Ravenna and Cervia in Venetian hands, he did contribute to making the situation of the northern Italian states easier than it would have been had the Spanish established themselves in Milan at that point. The embassy had also given him insight into the affairs of the church, stimulating his reflections on its structure and the nature of the papacy. At the papal court he had become a well-known figure, among others to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who as Pope Paul III was to appoint him cardinal. Contarini had also won the respect of Charles V and his advisors; it was Charles who requested Contarini's presence as papal legate at the Diet of Regensburg eleven years later.

The most immediate impact of Contarini's success and prestige was on his career in the service of the state. On 31 December 1529 he was elected in absentia by the Senate savio grande (or savio del consiglio ), a member of the committee of six that constituted one of the highest levels of the Venetian government.^[277] Because he was still in Bologna, a supplementary motion was passed to elect another savio while Contarini was on his diplomatic mission but to give him the first vacant position on the committee after his return.^[278] His status was further enhanced by a letter to the Senate from the Mantuan ambassador to Bologna, Giovanni Battista Malatesta, who praised Contarini as an outstanding emissary who would be greatly missed at the papal court; "it is impossible," he declared, "to express in what a praiseworthy manner, giving satisfaction to all, he behaved during his embassy."^[279]

Yet Contarini also had enemies among his peers, most notably Francesco Foscari, who managed to invoke a procedural technicality to

[277] The six savii del consiglio (or savii grandi ), together with five savii di terraferma (in charge of mainland affairs) and five savii agli ordini (in charge of naval affairs), formed the consulta , which was a part of the pien collegio , the initiative and executive body of the government. See Appendix 2. For Contarini's election, see Sanuto, Diarii 52:401; and Albèri, Relazioni , 2d ser., 3:237.

[278] Sanuto, Diarii 52:448.

[279] Ibid., 478.

prevent the ambassador from keeping the emperor's parting present of 1,500 gold ducats. Though the doge urged the Senate to grant Contarini the money, and a motion was made to award it to him "in recompense for the expenses he incurred, and in recognition of his praiseworthy work," the necessary four-fifths of votes could not be mustered. That Contarini's pride was hurt can be seen from his unwillingness to have the matter voted on again. Even a motion to grant him one-half the sum was defeated, and Contarini had to hand over his gift to the treasury.^[280]

More humiliating for Contarini was a sharp attack on him on 11 March by the same Francesco Foscari for having signed the peace treaty of Bologna without noticing that it contained a phrase against the Turks. After Contarini explained that the offending words were inserted owing to an oversight of his secretary Antonio Mazzaruolo, the heads of the Council of Ten proposed sending instructions to the new ambassador, Antonio Soriano, to have the phrase removed. The Venetian government was unwilling to antagonize the Turks in any way, but neither the doge nor most of the collegio thought this was a crucial matter. Piero Mocenigo and then Foscari, however, turned it into a major issue; the latter moved that Contarini be handed over to the public prosecutors for investigation and trial, "as such a great disorder demands," since he had not followed his instructions exactly. Contarini's brother Tommaso came to his defense, "shouting that if his brother did wrong he should be punished, but first he must be heard; he is without guilt!" Others thought the same, even Contarini's old enemy Alvise Mocenigo, who defended him in this instance, and Foscari's motion was defeated.^[281] This bitter epilogue to Contarini's

[280] This episode shows that although Contarini was generally wall liked, he had enemies among the Venetian nobles. Francesco Foscari, in 1530 one of the ducal councillors, seems to have felt a strong personal hostility toward Contarini. Knowing that the Contarini family had paid all the expenses of the embassy to Clement VII, he still opposed even the motion to let Contarini keep the 1,500 ducats. When the motion he opposed was put to the vote he invoked the absence of Alvise Gradenigo, one of the four ceremonial ambassadors to the emperor, as the reason no final decision should be taken He insisted that senators be reminded of legislation forbidding gifts to ambassadors and managed to sway enough senators so that the motion lost. See ibid., 53:16, 17, 19; ASV, Senato Terra, Reg. 26 (1530/31), fols. lv, 2r-v; Albèri, Relazioni , 2d ser., 3:249-50. Other nobles in high government positions were more likely to oppose Contarini on specific issues, for example the pro-imperial Alvise Mocenigo, Girolamo Pesaro, Pietro Mocenigo, and Lunardo Emo; but at times they attacked him personally as well; see Sanuto, Diarii 53:24, 126; 56:667, among other instances.

[281] Sanuto, Diarii 53:24-25; ASV, Senato, Delib. Secreta, Reg. 54 (1530/31), fols. 6r-v, 7r; Albèri, Relazioni , 2d ser., 3:251-53.

embassy reveals not only the divisions among the ruling elite, but also Venice's keen sensitivity to the Turkish danger in its political calculations^[282] and the extreme circumspection with which it approached any issue involving the Ottoman Empire.^[283]

In the Inner Councils of Venice

The five years following the return from the embassy to Clement VII are the least-known portion of Contarini's career. In Franz Dittrich's 880-page biography, the period from March 1530 to May 1535 receives only a single short paragraph, and for his compilation of Contarini's Regesten comprising 407 pages the same scholar found only material enough from these five years to fill not quite two pages.^[284] Several factors help to explain the neglect of this crucial epoch in Contarini's career. One is the scattered nature of the documentation, almost all of it archival, which his biographer did not know or to which he did not have access. Even more significant is the perspective of most scholars writing on Contarini after Dittrich. For them he was primarily the cardinal and advocate of church reform, not the Venetian statesman.^[285] But the two cannot be separated, for a remarkable continuity ran through Contarini's life. As churchman he regularly drew on

[282] For a thorough study, see Paolo Preto, Venezia e i Turchi (Florence: Sansoni, 1975).

[283] See, for example, the eloquent response given to Gian Matteo Giberti, sent to Venice by Pope Clement VII to ascertain the Venetian attitude toward the Turks. Giberti was given to understand the need for extreme caution, since Venice had the Turks as her neighbors; ASV, Senato, Delib. Secreta, Reg. 54 (1530/31), fol. 105r-v. However, some Venetians saw the Turks as a useful counterpoise to the power of Charles V in Italy; see Contarini's dispatch from Bologna, 17 Feb. 1530, in ASV, Capi del Consiglio dei X, Lettere di ambasciatori, busta 22 (Roma, 1515-38) (incorrectly dated in Reg ., 48 [no. 143]). Through an ambassador the Turks applied pressure on Venice in 1529 not to sign a peace or enter into a league with the emperor; see G. Romano, Cronaca del soggiorno di Carlo V in Italia (Milan, 1892), 158-59.

[284] Even in the one paragraph he devotes to this five-year period Dittrich confuses our Contarini with a namesake, Gasparo Contarini qu. Francesco Alvise, despite Cicogna's note in Inscrizioni 2:227. Rawdon Brown also confuses the careers of the two men, in CSPV 3:xiv.

[285] Important exceptions are the discussions of Contarini's secular thought by Felix Gilbert, both in "Religion and Politics" and in "Gasparo Contarini as a Venetian Gendeman," paper delivered at the XVIII International Congress of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 1983; and the essays by Gigliola Fragnito in Gasparo Contarini: un magistrato veneziano .

the experience he had acquired in Venetian politics, and in his theoretical considerations he united the secular and ecclesiastical spheres.

The period of Contarini's participation in the highest levels of the Venetian government began with his assumption of the office of savio grande on 1 April 1530.^[286] A term of office in the Council of Ten, which began in September 1530 and continued through August 1531,^[287] followed by another from September 1533 to August 1534,^[288] showed that he had entered the inner circle of the political elite. Until his elevation to the cardinalate in 1535 he continued to hold important offices both successively and simultaneously. He was one of the three capi , or heads, of the Council of Ten for October and December 1530, March and June 1531, October and December 1533, and March 1534,^[289] and he also served five times as one of the council's inquisitors.^[290] Two yearlong terms as one of the doge's six councillors

[286] See note 277 above. Contarini held that office twice more, in 1532 and 1534; see Sanuto, Diarii 55:308; and ASV, Segretario alle voci, Elezioni dei Pregadi, Reg. 1531-54, fols. lv, 26v.

[287] ASV, Consiglio dei X, Comuni, Reg. 1530, fol. 78; and Sanuto, Diarii 53:483.

[288] ASV, Consiglio dei X, Reg. 1533, fol. 109v. Between his two terms on the Council of Ten, Contarini was a substitute for members in cases where they could not vote because of a conflict of interest: thus in September 1531 (ASV, Capi del Consiglio dei X, Criminali, busta 7 [1531-34]), in August 1532 (ibid., Reg. 4 [1525-34], fol. 128v), in October and December 1532 (ibid., fols. 131v, 133r). In July 1533 he was elected to a replacement position on the Council often until the next regular election; see Sanuto, Diarii 57:520.

[289] For October 1530, see ASV, Consiglio dei X, Secreta, Reg. 3 (1529-32), fols. 73v-74r; Capi del Consiglio dei X, Lettere, filza no. 30; and Sanuto, Diarii 54:5. For December 1530: ibid., 143; Consiglio dei X, Comuni, Reg. 1530, fol. 103r; Consiglio dei X, Criminali, Reg. 4 (1525-34), fol. 88r. For March 1531: ibid., fol. 95v; Consiglio dei X, Comuni, Reg. 1531, repeatedly in entries for that month; Sanuto, Diarii 54:318. For June 1531: ibid., 454; Consiglio dei X, Comuni, Reg. 1531, repeatedly listed. For October 1533: Capi del Consiglio dei X, Criminali, busta 7 (1531-34); Consiglio dei X, Secreta, Reg. 4 (1533-39), fol. 21v; Consiglio dei X, Comuni, Reg. 1533, fol. 109v. For December 1533: ibid., fol. 135r and ff.; Consiglio dei X, Criminali, Reg. 4 (15251-34), fol. 154r. For March 1534: ibid., fol. 159v; Consiglio dei X, Comuni, Reg. 1534, fol. 2v and ff.

[290] For Contarini's terms as inquisitor of the Council often for January 1531, see ASV, Capi del Consiglio dei X, Criminali, busta 6 (1525-30); Consiglio dei X, Criminali, Reg. 4 (1525-34), fol. 90v. For April 1531: ibid., fol. 97r; Capi del Consiglio dei X, Criminali, busta 7 (1531-34). For July 1531: ibid.; Consiglio dei X, Criminali, Reg. 4 (1525-34), fol. 101v. For November 1533: ibid., fol. 153r; Capi del Consiglio dei X, Criminali, busta 7 (1531-34), repeated entries. For January 1534: Consiglio dei X, Criminali, Reg. 4 (1525-34), fol. 155v. The inquisitor concerned himself in the broadest sense with the welfare of the state, and his charge remained different from that of officials of the later inquisition into religious matters; see Grendler, Roman Inquisition , chap. 1; Rinaldo Fulin, "Gl'inquisitori dei Dieci," Archivio veneto 1 (1871): 1-64, 298-313; 2 (1871): 357-91.

increased his prestige further.^[291] He continued to be elected to divers other posts as well: he was one of the supervisors of finances;^[292] one of the three officials in charge of the University of Padua;^[293] deputy public prosecutor (vice avogador di comun );^[294] member of the collegio delle acque , the board that planned and supervised Venice's perennial war against the sea;^[295] and supervisor of artillery supplies and distribution.^[296] Nor was the diplomatic ability, he had shown at the imperial and papal courts forgotten by his peers. When Charles V passed through Friuli in the fall of 1532, Contarini was elected to be one of the four ceremonial orators who met the emperor in the name of Venice and paid him the customary respects.^[297] Likewise, following the election of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese to the papacy in the fall of 1534, Contarini was chosen as one of eight Venetian orators to congratulate the new Pope Paul III.^[298]

Contarini had now risen through almost all the stages of the Venetian cursus honorum , and between 1530 and 1535 was part of "an elite which, in practice, held the reins of government in its hands."^[299] But while it is possible to list the offices he held, it is much more diffi-

[291] ASV, Segretario alle voci, Elezioni del Maggior Consiglio, Reg. 1529-40, fols. lv-2r. The terms to which he was elected ran from 1 June 1532 to 31 May 1533, and 1 February 1535 to 31 January 1536. After he became cardinal in May 1535, and therefore could not complete his second term, a successor was chosen; see ibid., fol. 2r.

[292] Revisore delle casse ; see ASV, Consiglio dei X, Comuni, Reg. 1530, fol. 78r. Sanuto liked Contarini personally and obviously felt at ease with him (see, for example, his account of how the two of them went together in a boat to watch the palace of Giorgio Corner burn [Diarii 56:753]). Yet this did not prevent him from making a biting comment after Contarini and Andrea Trevisan were elected to the above positions: "They are not going to do anything, since neither of them is capable of examining accounts or books" (54:12).

[293] From March 1531 until September 1533 Contarini was one of the riformatori dello Studio di Padova ; see ASV, Senato Terra, Reg. 26 (1530-31) and 27 (1532-33), passim; Sanuto, Diarii 54:178.

[294] Sanuto, Diarii 55:380 .

[295] Ibid, 341.

[296] Provveditore sopra le artellarie ; see ASV, Consiglio dei X, Comuni, Reg. 1533, fol. 109v. He held the office from November 1533 until 22 April 1534; see ibid., Reg. 1534, fol. 20v.

[297] Contarini could not go on this mission because Marc'Antonio Contarini was ambassador to Charles V and the law forbade more than one man from any one family on the same legation; see Sanuto, Diarii 57:39.

[298] ASV, Segretario alle voci, Elezioni dei Pregadi, Reg. 1, fol. 26v. Contarini was elected on 19 October but did not go on the embassy.

[299] Gactano Cozzi, "Authority and Law in Renaissance Venice," in Hale (ed.), Renaissance Venice , 298. Felix Gilbert's essay in the same volume, "Venice in the Crisis of the League of Cambrai" (reprinted in his History: Choice and Commitment [Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1977], 269-91), argues that the War of the League of Cambrai completed the formation of a bloc of rich nobles who held high office: "The institutions of Venice were not changed by the war but in these critical years the final step was made in establishing as rulers of Venice a small, closely united group, which kept in its hands all decisions about the life of the inhabitants and the policy of the Republic" (290).

cult to determine his political stance, for he acted through and within committees and groups. Still, the policies with which he agreed, the measures for which he voted, and his few recorded personal statements enable us to get at least a sense of his views.

Most important is his support of the growing power of the Council of Ten in the years following the Peace of Bologna, an evolution that was to culminate in the 1570s.^[300] During Contarini's first term as a member of the council, indeed while he was one of its three heads in March 1531, the Council of Ten took a remarkable step to extend its power over the Venetian noble class by passing a law that prohibited more than eight of its male members, unless related, from meeting together in a private house.^[301] While the prevention of political plots was no doubt its main motive, the council acted here as a legislative body that arrogated sweeping authority to itself. It tightened its own internal discipline as well by decreeing that any member absent for three weeks or any head absent for one week would be replaced; Contarini himself had to receive permission to go to his country villa for two weeks.^[302]

As a capo , in December 1530 Contarini supported prior censorship by the Council of Ten of letters to be shown to the Senate,^[303] thus agreeing that at times the council should be a decision-making body superior to the Senate, virtually exercising the functions of a princeps .^[304] "The Council of Ten has supreme authority among Venetians,"^[305] Contarini wrote in his treatise on the Venetian government, completed during these years of his political service.^[306] While affirming that "the entire task of governing the Republic belongs to the Senate,"^[307] he was realistic enough to see that the Council of Ten had extended its

[300] For the Council of Ten in this period, see the magisterial pages of Cozzi, "Authority and Law," 305-9, and especially the section entitled "Il Consiglio dei X e l'autorità suprema' (1530-83)" in his Repubblica di Venezia e stati italiani: politica e giustizia dal secolo XVI al secolo XVIII (Turin: Einaudi, 1982), 145-73.

[301] ASV, Consiglio dei X, Comuni, Reg. 1531, fol. 13r.

[302] Cozzi, "Il Consiglio dei X," in Repubblica di Venezia , 151; and Sanuto, Diarii 54:372.

[303] ASV, Consiglio dei X, Secreta, Reg. 3, fols. 79r, 104v, 106r.

[304] Cozzi, "Authority and the Law," 306, quoting Domenico Morosini.

[305] "De magistratibus et republica Venetorum," in Opera , 295.

[306] Felix Gilbert, "The Date of the Composition of Contarini's and Giannotti's Books on Venice," Studies in the Renaissance 14 (1967): 172-84.

[307] "De magistratibus et republica Venetorum," in Opera , 292.

authority in recent years, a development for which he, too, was partly responsible. During his first term as a member the council decreed that it would resume its authority over the elections of the savii alle acque after having delegated it to the Senate sixteen years earlier. Thus it reasserted control over a most important magistracy, of which Contarini was a member in 1532, a magistracy empowered to issue broad regulations to protect the city against the ever-encroaching water. Soon the council added another key office to its competence by taking over the elections of the magistrates in charge of grain supplies.^[308] Also while Contarini was one of its capi the council tangled with the Quarantia criminal , a law court that sought to reclaim from the Ten its traditional prerogative concerning appointments to lesser bureaucratic posts, something akin to what we should now call patronage. From this controversy it became clear that the Council of Ten aspired to control of the entire bureaucracy.^[309]

Contarini's support for the council's growing power meant that despite his description of the Senate as the heart of Venetian government he actually endorsed a strict hierarchy that confined supreme executive authority to a small elite of thirty-two men: the Council of Ten, its advisory board (zonta ) of fifteen, the doge, and his six councillors. Contarini's stand shows that he prized efficiency and order in the day-to-day workings of the government and did not fear that the Council of Ten might become tyrannical. In practice, therefore, he supported a ruling group of thirty-two at the expense of the two hundred and more senators, and therefore a marked tilt in the constitutional balance.

The theoretical picture of a static harmony between the Senate and the Council often that he painted in his treatise must be set alongside the much more dynamic conception he actually held—and put into practice—as a member of the inner circle of Venetian statesmen. A significant example of his real view occurred in December 1533 when the council, with Contarini as one of its heads, declared that only it, in association with its zonta , could interpret, alter, or grant exemptions from its own laws. The reason was clearly stated: "to prevent problems that ensue as a result of interpretations of the laws of this council, so that no oversubtle ingenuity will find new forms or means to break

[308] On the election of three savii sopra le ague , see Cozzi, "Il Consiglio dei X," in Repubblica di Venezia , 150; and ASV, Consiglio dei X, Comuni, Reg. 1530, fols. 108v-109v.

[309] Cozzi, "Il Consiglio dei X," in Repubblica di Venezia , 151.

these laws in indirect ways."^[310] Similarly, the Ten set themselves above the avogadori di comun , the public prosecutors and attorneys, by forbidding them under any circumstances to propose measures to the Quarantia criminal for remitting or abbreviating sentences of banishment.^[311] Further examples were the council's creation of new magistracies in 1537 and 1539, as well as the conclusion of a peace with the Turks in 1540 following secret negotiations of which the Senate was not informed.^[312] Although these measures date from the time after Contarini became a cardinal, nevertheless, the evidence suggests that had he continued to exercise his political offices he would have approved these developments.

His years as a member of the Venetian ruling elite exposed Contarini to a wide variety of issues and problems. In dealing with them daily he not only gained insight into almost all aspects of the government, but he also gathered formidable political experience. As one examines the routine business of the Council of Ten during Contarini's years in its service, one notices the large number of letters directed to Venetian rectors and podestà in the mainland cities. The majority deal with economic matters, commerce, and directives to Venetian officials; others deal with benefices, individual petitions, or licenses and permits of all sorts, ranging from permission to cut wood in certain forests to granting Pietro Bembo access to official documents in order to prepare for his task as official historiographer of the Republic.^[313] Contarini came into contact with criminal cases of the most varied kind, involving murder, violence, rape, peculation, theft, counterfeiting, and bearing concealed arms.^[314] He had to deal with regulating confraternities and, more important, the problems of convents, where disorders repeatedly occurred. As a head of the Ten in December 1530 he

[310] ASV, Consiglio dei X, Comuni, Reg. 1533, fol. 135r: "Inconvenienti che seguono in le interpretacione de le parte prese per questo cons.o che per sotilitia de inzegni non vengino ritrovate nove forme, et modi per vie indirette de contravenire a ditto parte."

[311] ASV, Consiglio dei X, Comuni, Reg. 1553, fol. 143v. See also Cozzi, "Authority and Law," 306-9, for a discussion of the conflicts between the Council of Ten and the Avogaria di Comun.

[312] Cozzi, "Authority and Law," 153, 155.

[313] ASV, Capi del Consiglio dei X, Lettere, Filza 30, includes a large number of letters on these subjects. The grant of access for Bembo is dated 18 December 1530, a month when Contarini was one of the heads. On Bembo as historian of Venice, see Franco Gaeta, "Storiografia, coscienza nazionale e politica culturale nella Venezia del Rinascimento," in Arnaldi and Stocchi (eds.), Storia della cultura veneta 3(1):85ff.

[314] Contarini's two terms on the Council often are within the time frame of the cases in ASV, Consiglio dei X, Criminali, Reg. 4.

supported the election of three nobles to supervise convents and assure their good order.^[315] Ironically, one of the chief troublemakers in the convent of Corpus Domini was a sister Felicita Contarini, and Contarini himself with two other officials was sent to investigate her convent in February 1533.^[316] They apparently did not succeed in settling the controversies, for Sister Felicita and her convent continue to appear in the documents of the Council of Ten for the remainder of that year and into the next,^[317] providing a vivid illustration of the difficulties that faced officials trying to regulate religious houses, or control their own refractory relatives.

Another recurring problem confronting the Council of Ten was how to ensure adequate supplies of wheat in Venetian territories. Contarini participated in the efforts to prevent speculation and hoarding and in the many attempts to supervise the grain trade. His name appears, for example, as a head of the council in a letter to the podestà of Verona, ordering that anyone caught exporting wheat from the Venetian state should be hanged.^[318] Since shortages of grain could lead to popular unrest, the Council often closely monitored the commodity's supply and distribution in the interests of maintaining good order, and its documents show the great importance attached to this matter.

These same documents also now and then give us a glimpse of seemingly trivial incidents that nevertheless could have serious consequences for Venice. One such incident occurred in December 1530, when it came to the council's attention that a certain Florentine merchant, one Francesco Corboli, had made a bet that Charles V would

[315] ASV, Consiglio dei X, Comuni, Reg. 1530, fols. 82v-83r. This measure was reiterated in 1533; see ibid., Reg. 1533, fols. 116v-117r, again during a month when Contarini was one of the heads. For conditions in convents of nuns during the earlier decades of the sixteenth century, see Pio Paschini, "I monasteri femminili in Italia nel Cinquecento," in Problemi di vita religiosa in Italia nel Cinquecento , 42-60; Gabriella Zarri, "Monasteri femminili e città (secoli XV-XVIII)," in Storia d'Italia, Annali 9: La chiesa e il potere politico dal medioevo all'età contemporanea , ed. Giorgio Chittolini and Giovanni Miccoli (Turin: Einaudi, 1986), 357-429. Innocenzo Giuliani, "Genesi e primo secolo di vita del Magistrato sopra monasteri (Venezia, 1519-1620)," Venezie francescane 28 (1961): 42-68, 106-69, thinks that the committee of three to supervise convents became a permanent magistracy already in 1528.

[316] Sanuto, Diarii 57:494.

[317] ASV, Consiglio dei X, Secreta, Reg. 4, fols. 22r, 25v-26r, 27r, 29v, 49r.

[318] This letter reaffirmed a law of the Council often of 18 July 1501; see ASV, Consiglio dei X, Comuni, Reg. 1534, fol. 6r-v. In the same source there is frequent mention of the wheat supply and related matters while Contarini was on the council; ibid., Reg. 1530 and 1533. For wheat prices, see Gigi Corazzol, Fitti e livelli di grano: un'aspetto del credito rurale nel Veneto del '500 (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1980).

not be alive one year hence. The emperor's ambassador to Venice was furious and insisted on speaking to the doge. Contarini's diplomatic skill was called upon to soothe the ambassador. The Venetian government was anxious to preserve good relations with Charles V and certainly did not want to seem to condone conspiracies against his life. Even though it turned out that Corboli was merely betting with another Florentine according to their habit and that the matter had no political implications, Corboli was apprehended and had to post high bail. The Venetian ambassador to the Spanish court was instructed to explain the whole affair to the emperor in order to clear the Republic of any suspicion of harboring his enemies.^[319]

On certain issues the records enable us to see clearly Contarini's personal position. He was, for instance, consistent in advocating a cautious and moderate attitude toward the Turks, giving them no grounds for complaint against Venice^[320] but also careful not to bend too far in their direction.^[321] Similarly, his experience of European rulers had made him chary of Venetian involvement in their affairs or plans. He steadily advocated peace as a necessity for Venice, and in 1533 he strenuously opposed a possible new league for the defense of Italy; he made "a wise speech that changed [the minds of] many senators," according to Sanuto, whereas his opponent Sebastiano Giustiniani "spoke badly."^[322]

The conception of peace as an absolute good was the cornerstone of Contarini's generally dovish position in foreign policy. At the same time, he never favored surrendering what he considered legitimate Venetian rights for the sake of peace, as can be seen from the stand he took on matters involving the relations of Venice with the papacy. His branch of the Contarini did not belong to the papalisti , the families who because their members held important ecclesiastical benefices supported policies favorable to the Roman court. He was not programmatically either pro-papal or anti-papal but sought to judge issues on their merits. At the very beginning of his term as savio del consiglio , in

[319] Sanuto, Diarii 54:183, 184; ASV, Consiglio dei X, Secreta, Reg. 3, fols. 81r-v, 82r.

[320] While Contarini was a head of the Council often, in March 1531, instructions were issued that in Venetian territories the pope's orders to bishops and heads of orders to preach against the Turks should not be carried out; ASV, Consiglio dei X, Secreta, Reg. 3, fol. 86r-v. Contarini agreed to the sending of presents to the Turkish governor of Bosnia in order to keep the Turks on the borders of Dalmatia well disposed toward Venice: ibid., fols. 75v-76r.

[321] Sanuto, Diarii 53:150, 159; 55:373; 56:667.

[322] Ibid., 57:430.

April 1530, he crossed swords with the consistently anti-papal Alvise Mocenigo over Pope Clement VII's right to make appointments to benefices in Venetian territory. At issue was Clement VII's appointment of an admittedly good prelate from a Venetian family, Jacomo Coco, to the bishopric of Corfu. When Mocenigo objected, Contarini replied that Venice should not irritate the pope, whom he had persuaded not to insert a clause insisting formally on his rights of appointment by the assurance that the Signoria would take account of the pope's wishes. This provoked an outburst from Mocenigo, who maintained that Contarini had no fight to promise anything and turned on him with the sarcastic question, "Messer Gasparo, perhaps you would like to be pope and nobleman, like Pope Clement?"^[323] To Mocenigo a jurisdictional principle was involved, whereas Contarini in this case was primarily the practical diplomat interested in good relations with the pope and willing to compromise in a matter where a suitable Venetian had been appointed and Venice stood to lose nothing by acceding to the pope's choice.

In instances involving significant change in the relations between church and state, however, Contarini was not at all willing to compromise. In October 1530, for example, when he was one of its heads, the Council of Ten had to deal with a jurisdictional issue involving the patriarch of Venice, Girolamo Querini. The latter had obtained a papal brief excommunicating members of the clergy who appealed to the government to support the old custom of election of parish priests. The Council of Ten instructed Venice's ambassador in Rome, Antonio Soriano, to explain carefully the Venetian custom to the pope and to obtain a revocation of the papal brief.^[324] Simultaneously, Contarini was deputed together With a colleague to speak with the patriarch, who proved adamant.^[325] Contarini was equally so, presenting the views of the Venetian government. On this occasion Clement VII did issue a bull recognizing the Venetian system of election of the parish clergy, as the government had requested. But in June 1531, again at a time when Contarini was a head of the Council often, the patriarch refused to recognize the election of the prior of the hospital of San Lorenzo,

[323] Ibid., 53:125-26. For Coco's career, see Anna Foa, DBI 22:537-39; Giuseppe Alberigo, I vescovi italiani al Concilio di Trento (1545-1547 ) (Florence: Sansoni, 1959), 54-56, 71-72,351-52,438.

[324] ASV, Consiglio dei X, Secreta, Reg. 3, fols. 73v-74r, 83v-84v. See also the brief summary of the issues in Prodi, "Structure and Organization," 419-20, and pertinent bibliography in 428nn.59, 62.

[325] Sanuto, Diarii 54:36.

appointing his own man instead. This time the council firmly ordered the patriarch's appointee to renounce his post immediately and instructed the Venetian ambassador to report events to the pope. Furthermore, all priorates of hospitals were declared to be lay matters, and on 10 June the Council of Ten confirmed that no one might accept appointment to a Venetian church unless elected by its chapter, specifically referring to the papal bull approving this practice.^[326] In this dispute over jurisdictional rights attached to the Venetian church Contarini unequivocally supported the government's defense of tradition against the encroachments of the patriarch.

But he never espoused the position of those who championed Venetian jurisdictional fights at all costs, as can be seen in the 1534 Senate debate concerning a forced loan from the clergy. Sebastiano Foscarini argued that imposing such a burden without any consultation was entirely within the sphere of the state's jurisdiction. His supporters in the Senate agreed that the pope need not be consulted, since he was to be obeyed only "in materia fidei et sacramentorum." Girolamo Aleandro, the papal nuncio in Venice, ascribed to Contarini's influence the eventual decision to petition the pope first.^[327] Here again Contarini's diplomatic skills were brought into play to make the loan, which was inevitable anyway, more acceptable to the touchy Clement VII by not seeming to slight his authority. Contarini had a clear sense of when to take a stand and when to compromise, as well as a grasp of what each issue involved for the Venetian government. He was fair-minded and moderate, intent whenever possible on securing peace.

Different kinds of issues confronted Contarini in yet another of his offices, as one of the three riformatori dello studio di Padova . In this office, which he held from early 1531 to September 1533, he shared responsibility for the supervision and regulation of the only university in Venetian territory.^[328] He participated in numerous decisions regarding

[326] ASV, Consiglio dei X, Secreta, Reg. 3, fol. 89r-v.

[327] Franco Gaeta, ed., Nunziature di Venezia , vol. 1:12 marzo 1533-14 agosto 1535 (Rome: Istituto Storico per l'Etá Moderna e Contemporanea, 1958), 210 (letter 77). Contarini was on the Council often at the time of this dispute.

[328] See Desroussilles, "L'Università di Padova," 634-39, for a succinct account of the role played by the riformatori in university affairs during the 1530s. His statement that after 1519 "no trace of new elections [of the riformatori ] can be found until 1532" (634-35) should be corrected. Contarini was elected on 15 December 1530, together with Marino Zorzi; see Sanuto, Diarii 54:178. From this entry it is clear that there had been a previous election and that the terms of two members of the committee were completed: "Fu fatto scrutinio di do Riformatori dil Studio di Padoa, in luogo di sier Sebastian Foscarini el dottor et sier Lorenzo Bragadin, hanno compido li soi anni." The third member, whose term had not yet expired, was Marco Minio. Contarini's name appears for the first time as a riformatore dello Studio di Padova on 3 May 1531 in ASV, Senato Terra, Reg. 26, fol. 109v. Desroussille's erroneous citation to Sanuto at 635n.249 should also be corrected. It refers to an entry of 29 September 1530 in "vol. XLIX, col. 577," whereas that volume goes only from 1 October 1528 to 28 February 1529.

faculty appointments and salaries, which showed a remarkable range from a low of fifty florins a year to a high of one thousand florins for the illustrious law professor Mariano Sozzini, whom the riformatori were anxious to keep at Padua.^[329] In general they were working toward reestablishing good order at the university, where enrollment had declined because of the wars in the second and third decades of the sixteenth century.^[330] Restoration of order involved curbing violence among students, an issue of particular concern to the Council of Ten, and a prohibition against carrying arms, which the podestà at Padua was expected to enforce. Rowdiness could be a prelude to sedition, and the Ten were determined to nip such displays in the bud. Thus they handed down a sentence of five years' banishment to Capodistria for a student from Vicenza who had publicly deplored that "so many noble gentlemen of Padua, Vicenza, and Treviso are subject to these [Venetian] boatmen."^[331] Contarini favored tightening discipline regarding student dress, behavior, and institutional organization, as seen in the revision of the statutes first of the arts faculty and later of the law faculty, which came before the riformatori in 1531 and 1532, respectively.^[332] During these years the Council of Ten strengthened its authority over the university, but the government remained careful not to alienate the students from other parts of Europe and continued to listen to their concerns and complaints.^[333] Contarini's combination of diplomatic ability and concern for Venetian institutions stood him in good stead while he was one of the riformatori .

He certainly was not a programmatic conservative who unquestioningly supported whatever already existed. At times he was willing to bend the law, as in the case of one Angelo Gabriel, elected as an avogador di comun but unable to take up the office because of illness. Contarini joined several senators in moving that the position be reserved for Gabriel notwithstanding laws of 1471 and 1481 prohibiting that

[329] ASV, Senato Terra, Reg. 26, fol. 110.

[330] For figures see Desroussilles, "L'Università di Padova," 631.

[331] Ibid., 637.

[332] ASV, Senato Terra, Reg. 26, fols. 195r, 223r; Sanuto, Diarii 55:106,433-34.

[333] For example, when French students complained that the Piedmontese had preempted their nation (or organization), the two groups were separated: ASV, Senato Terra, Reg. 26, fol. 110r.

practice. However, Zuan Francesco Mocenigo, one of the avogadori and a strict constructionist, demanded that the text of the old laws be read, and the vote in the Great Council went overwhelmingly against the motion Contarini had supported.^[334] In this instance he ranged himself with those taking the liberal view, being willing to adapt the law to circumstances. In other instances, though, he espoused a conservative position. While a ducal councillor, for example, he supported a long motion requiting strict and harsh punishment for theft or misuse of public money. Sanuto, among others, spoke against the motion, although he admired Contarini. When the motion did not come to a vote but was sent back to committee for further study, Sanuto expressed great personal satisfaction.^[335]

A little vignette recounted by Sanuto aptly summarizes Contarini's conception of a Venetian noble's obligations in the political service of the state. After a night and morning of continuous snowfall, only three ducal councillors appeared for a scheduled meeting; one of them was Contarini.^[336] Undaunted by the unusual weather that kept even the doge away, Contarini put his duties first with the sort of devotion ideally expected of his class. His career from 1530 to 1535 was that of a securely established member of the governing elite, who dealt confidently with the many and varied issues that came before the councils and committees on which he sat. He had sought public office avidly and was an ambitious man who regarded such service an honor for himself and his family. His brothers supported his efforts from the time he first tried to win a post, and they continued their financial subsidies through two costly embassies. Several eventually held government offices themselves,^[337] as did his brothers-in-law Matteo Dandolo and Matteo Vitturi.

Contarini was above all a pragmatic politician whose aim was to resolve conflict, keep peace, and contribute to the proper functioning of the form of government he considered best: that of a well-run republic. His admiration for Venice was genuine. Not only his treatise

[334] Sanuto, Diarii 57:411.

[335] Sanuto took the whole matter much to heart, considering the motion too sweeping and himself as defender of his class. When the motion was not voted on he wrote, "Et fo grandissimo honor mio" (ibid., 395).

[336] Ibid., 301.

[337] Notably his younger brother Tommaso, who had a long and distinguished government career; see Derosas, "Contarini, Tommaso," in DBI 28:300-5. Sec also ASV, Segretario alle voci, Elezioni del Maggior Consiglio, Reg. 1529-40, fols. 17v, 18r, 21v, 22r-v, 23r, 24v, 25r, 58v, 59r, for offices held by his brothers Vincenzo and Federigo.

on the state but also his private letters and dispatches show the depth of his devotion to the state. But he was also a realistic observer of European politics on whom the "lesson of events" was not lost. By the time of the peace negotiations at Bologna he knew how little scope for maneuver Venice had in actuality, and he adapted himself to the changed circumstances. His vast experience of day-to-day government affairs in the years following, his understanding of the internal and external problems Venice faced, and his ability to deal with men all made him a seasoned statesman.

When the news of his appointment to the college of cardinals reached Venice on a Sunday in May 1535, he was standing by the ballot box in the hall of the Great Council. Even amid the commotion and excitement that followed, Alvise Mocenigo, who had so often opposed Contarini, was heard to call loudly from his seat, which he could not easily leave because of his gout: "These priests have robbed us of the foremost gentleman our city has."^[338] Friends and opponents alike knew that it was no inexperienced outsider who now entered the court of Rome, but a highly finished diplomat, a statesman, and above all, a Venetian gentleman.

[338] Beccadelli, "Vita," 21.