Archival Records

Archival Records

As this book aims to explore the way Venice’s intelligence organization, originating in the Doge’s palace, expanded across Europe, the Mediterranean, Anatolia, and even Northern Africa, the paperchase for this book has been transnational and multilingual.

The bulk of the research was conducted in the Venetian state archives, focusing on the voluminous repository of the Council of Ten’s and State Inquisitors’ ‘secret’ documents. 

These included the exhaustive correspondence between these two institutions and their formal diplomatic representatives, such as Venetian ambassadors, governors, consuls, as well as men—alas, in nearly all cases, they were men—in positions of power, whose responsibilities were intrinsically interlinked with the security of the Venetian state (lettere secrete, lettere dei rettori e di altre cariche; dispacci ambasciatori) and the Ten’s ‘secret’ deliberations (deliberazioni secrete). 

Since it was imperative to understand how other key players on the political and diplomatic scene of early modern Europe saw Venice’s intelligence pursuits, archival research in Venice was supplemented by documentary explorations conducted in Spain’s imperial archives (Simancas), particularly focusing on the archival series papeles de estado, which contain the communication between the ambassadors of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire to Venice and their monarchs, especially Charles V and Philip II. 

Similarly, consultation of the archival series segreteria di stato in the Archivio Segreto Vaticano in Rome, which comprises the correspondence between the papal representative in Venice (the nuncio) and the Holy See, provided a fresh vista on how the Catholic Church perceived the systematic organization of Venice’s secret service. 

The repository of State Papers relating to Venice stored in London’s National Archives (Kew) also furnished meaningful supplementary material on Venice’s intelligence pursuits. Importantly, documentation from non-Italian archives not only shed light on how Venice’s intelligence operations were viewed by key actors in the European diplomacy, but also offered invaluable descriptions of the wider political, economic, and diplomatic landscape in which Venice’s intelligence operations evolved in the sixteenth century, at a time of political, economic, and religious turbulence in Europe.

 For this reason, documents from different European archives are utilized in a comparative manner, rather than in isolation, as historiography has hitherto tended to do. The book analyses Venice’s systematic pursuits in her effort to maintain her commercial-maritime and technological-industrial primacy within this competitive international context. The archival series consulted for this book are the following: 

Archivio di Stato, 

Florence Pratica 

Segreta Archivio di Stato, Venice 

Archivio Grimani Barbarigo, buste 

Capi del Consiglio di Dieci: 

Dispacci Ambasciatori 

Lettere dei Rettori e di Altre Cariche 

Lettere Secrete 

Licenze per visitare ambasciatori e personaggi esteri 

Miscellania 

Racordi 

Cinque Savi alla Mercanzia, Nuova Serie, buste 

Consiglio di Dieci 

Deliberazioni Comuni, Registri 

Deliberazioni Criminali, Registri 

Deliberazioni Miste, Registri 

Deliberazioni Secrete, Filze 

Deliberazioni Secrete, Registri 

Deliberazioni Secretissime, Registri 

Inquisitori di Stato 

Materie Miste e Notabili 

Notarile Atti 

Quarantia Criminal 

Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Rome 

     Segreteria di Stato, Venezia 

Archivo General, Simancas 

     Papeles de Estado 

Biblioteca Museo Correr, Venice 

     Manoscritti Donà delle Rose 

Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice 

     Manoscritti Italiani (Classe VII) 

National Archives, London 

State Papers (TNA, SP) 9 (Williamson Collection) 

State Papers (TNA, SP) 97 (Turkey) 

State Papers (TNA, SP) 99 (Venice) 

National Maritime Museum, London 

    Admiralty Collection, Navy Board, In-letters and orders