Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T02:44:37.009Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Fabius Maximus in Venice: Doge Andrea Gritti, the War of Cambrai, and the Rise of Habsburg Hegemony, 1509-1530*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Robert Finlay*
Affiliation:
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

Abstract

As a consequence of its dismal experience in the War of Cambrai (1509-1517), the Venetian Republic adopted a military policy of avoiding battlefield encounters. As a commander in the war and as doge of Venice after 1523, Andrea Gritti was the foremost proponent of this strategy, earning for himself the appellation of "Fabius Maximus," the Roman general who opposed Hannibal by delay and defense in the Second Punic War. In the 1520s, the Republic aspired to play the role of a great power — or at least that of an independent, balancing force between France and the Spanish-Habsburg Empire; but its refusal to commit its troops to battle fatally weakened the political coalitions opposing Charles V and thereby significantly contributed to the rise of Habsburg hegemony in Italy. A major step toward Charles V's triumph was the infamous Sack of Rome in 1527, a calamity for which the Fabian policy of Venice bears some responsibility.

Type
Studies
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

The ideas in this paper grew out of a cordial debate with Elisabeth G. Gleason on the role of Venice in the Italian Wars; I am gready indebted for her encouragement and criticism. The following abbreviations are used in the notes: CSP-Spain — Calendar of State Papers, England and Spain, Relating to the Negotiations between England and Spain, Preserved in the Archives at Simancas and Elsewhere. CSP-Venice — Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts existingin the Archives and Collections of Venice and in other Libraries of Northern Italy, 1520-1526.

References

Ariosto, Ludovico. 1898. Orlando Furioso. Ed. Casella, Giacinto. Florence.Google Scholar
Barbarigo, Nicolò. 1793. Vita di Andrea Gritti doge di Venezia. Venice.Google Scholar
Barbara, Daniele. Storia veneziana dall'anno 1512 al 1515. 1843-1844. Ed. T. Gar. Archivio storico italiano, vol. 7. Florence.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Alvin H. 1994. “The strategy of a warrior-state: Rome and the wars against Carthage, 264-201 B.C.” In The making of strategy: Rulers, states, and war, ed. Murray, Williamson, Knox, MacGregor, and Berstein, Alvin, 5684. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Biadene, Susanna, ed. 1990. Titian, Prince of Painters. Exhibition catalogue, New York.Google Scholar
Borgia, Hieronijmi. Historiae de bellis italicus ab anno 1494 ad 1541 libri. Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice, cod. lat. X 98 (3506).Google Scholar
Bouwsma, William J. 1968. Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty: Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter Reformation. Berkely and Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Brandi, Karl. 1939. The Emperor Charles V. Trans. C. V. Wedgwood. London.Google Scholar
Brown, Patricia Fortini. 1988. Venetian Narrative Painting in the Age of Carpaccio. New Haven.Google Scholar
Brown, Patricia Fortini. Calendar of State Papers, England and Spain, Relating to the Negotiations between England and Spain, Preserved in the Archives at Simancas and Elsewhere. 1862-1895. Ed. Bergenroth, G. A., de Gayangos, P., Hume, M. A. S., Tyler Clondon, R.. 12 vols. London.Google Scholar
Brown, Patricia Fortini. Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts existing in the Archives and Collections of Venice and in other Libraries of Northern Italy, 1520-1526. 1864-1873. Ed. Brown, Rawdon, Bentinck, C., and Brown, H.. 9 vols. London.Google Scholar
Canestrini, G. and Desjardins, A.. 1859- 1886. Négociations diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane. 6 vols. Paris.Google Scholar
Carroll, Linda L. 1992.“Giorgione's Tempest: Astrology Is in the Eyes of the Beholder.” In Reconsidering the Renaissance, ed. Mario A. Di Cesare. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 93. 124-40. Binghamton.Google Scholar
Castiglione, Baldesar. 1959. The Book of the Courtier. Trans. Singleton, Charles S.. New York.Google Scholar
Cellini, Benvenuto. 1956. The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini. Trans. George Bull. New York.Google Scholar
Cervelli, Innocenzo. 1974. Machiavelli e la crisi dello stato veneziano. Naples.Google Scholar
Chabod, Federico.1958. “Venezia nella politica italiana ed europea del Cinquecento.” In La civilta veneziana del Rinascimento, 2955. Florence.Google Scholar
Chambers, D. S. 1970. The Imperial Age of Venice, 1380-1580. London.Google Scholar
Chastel, André 1983. The Sack of Rome, 1527. Trans. Beth Archer. Princeton.Google Scholar
Cochrane, Eric. 1981. Historians and Historiography in the Italian Renaissance. Chicago.Google Scholar
Cozzi, Gaetano. 1973.“Authority and the Law in Renaissance Venice.” In Renaissance Venice, ed. Hale, J. R., 293345. Totowa.Google Scholar
Cozzi, Gaetano. 1980.“La politica del diritto repubblica di Venezia.” In Stato, societa e giustizia nella repubblica veneta (sec. XV-XWII), 2 vols., ed. Cozzi, Gaetano, 1:122-52. Rome.Google Scholar
Dalla Santa, Giuseppe. 1903. La Lega di Cambrai e gli avvenimenti dell'anno 1509 descritti da un mercante veneziano contemporaneo. Venice.Google Scholar
Da Mosto, Andrea. 1966. I dogi di Venezia nella vita pubblica e privata. Milan.Google Scholar
Da Porto, Luigi. 1857. Lettere storiche dall'anno 1509 al 1528, ed. Bressan, Bartolommeo. Florence.Google Scholar
Davis, James Cushman. 1974. “Shipping and Spying in the Early Career of a Venetian Doge, 1496-1502.” Studi veneziani 16:97108.Google Scholar
De Cadenas y Vicent, Vicente. 1974. El Saco de Roma de 1527 for el ejercito de Carlos V. Madrid.Google Scholar
Erasmus, Desiderius. 1991. Adagia. Trans. R. A. B. Mynors. In Collected Works of Erasmus, vols. 31-33. Toronto.Google Scholar
Finlay, Robert. 1976. “Venice, the Po Expedition, and the End of the League of Cambrai, 1509-1510.” Studies in Modern European History and Culture 2:3772.Google Scholar
Finlay, Robert. 1978. “Politics and the Family in Renaissance Venice: The Election of Doge Andrea Gritti.” Studi veneziani 2:97117.Google Scholar
Finlay, Robert. 1980. Politics in Renaissance Venice. New Brunswick.Google Scholar
Finlay, Robert. 1982. “The Foundation of the Ghetto: Venice, the Jews, and the War of the League of Cambrai.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 126:2:140-54.Google Scholar
Finlay, Robert. 1999a. “The Myth of Venice in Guicciardini's History of Italy: Senate Orations on Princes and the Republic.” In Medieval and Renaissance Venice, ed. Kittell, Ellen E. and Madden, Thomas F., 294326. Urbana and Chicago.Google Scholar
Finlay, Robert. 1999b. “The Immortal Republic: The Myth of Venice during the Italian Wars (1494-1530).” The Sixteenth Century Journal 30:931-44.Google Scholar
Firpo, Massimo. 1990. Il Sacco di Roma: tra profezia, propaganda politica e riforma religiosa. Cagliari.Google Scholar
Fischer, G. 1908. Die Schlacht bei Novara (6 June 1513). Berlin.Google Scholar
Foscari, Antonio, and Manfredo Tafuri. 1983. L'armonia e i conflitti. La chiesa di San Francisco delta Vigna nella Venezia del 500. Turin.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Felix. 1965. Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-century Florence. Princeton.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Felix. 1967. “The Date of the Composition of Contarini's and Giannotti's Books on Venice.” Studies in the Renaissance 14:172-84.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Felix. 1977a. “Bernardo Rucellai and the Orti Oricellari: A Study on the Origin of Modern Political Thought.” In History: Choice and Commitment, 215-46. Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Felix. 1977b. “Venetian Diplomacy Before Pavia: From Reality to Myth.” In History: Choice and Commitment, 295321. Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Felix. 1980. The Pope, His Banker, and Venice. Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Giono, Jean. 1963. Le Disastre de Pavie: 24 fhrier 1525. Paris.Google Scholar
Giovio, Paolo. 1581. Delle istorie del suo tempo. Trans. Domenichi, Ludovico. Venice.Google Scholar
Giovio, Paolo. 1931. Le vite del Gran Capitano e del Marchese di Pescara. Trans. Ludovico Domenichi, ed. Panigada, Costantino. Bari.Google Scholar
Giovio, Paolo. 1956-1958. Pauli Iovii Opera, vols. 1-2: Epistularum. Ed. Ferrero, Giuseppe Guido. Rome.Google Scholar
Giovio, Paolo. 1972. Pauli Iovii Opera, vol. 8: Elogia. Ed. Meregazzi, Renzo. Rome.Google Scholar
Giustiniani, Antonio. “Orazione fatta in occasione della Lega di Cambray.” Museo Civico Correr, Venice, MS. Cod. Cicogna, 1537.Google Scholar
Gleason, Elisabeth G. 1993. Gasparo Contarini: Venice, Rome, and Reform. Berkeley and Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Gouwens, Kenneth. 1997. “Discourses of Vulnerability: Pietro Alcionio's Orations on the Sack of Rome.” Renaissance Quarterly 50.1:3877.Google Scholar
Gregorovius, Ferdinand. 1894-1902. History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages. Trans. Hamilton, Ann. 8 vols, in 13. London.Google Scholar
Grubb, James S. 1986. “When Myths Lose Power: Four Decades of Venetian Historiography.” The Journal of Modern History 58:4394.Google Scholar
Guicciardini, Francesco.1857-1867. Opere inedite, ed. Giuseppe, Canestrini. 10 vols. Florence.Google Scholar
Guicciardini, Francesco. 1929. Storia d'ltalia. Ed. Panigada, Costantino. 5 vols. Bari.Google Scholar
Guicciardini, Francesco. 1965a. Maxims and Reflections of a Renaissance Statesman ('Ricordi’). Trans. Domandi, Marco. New York.Google Scholar
Guicciardini, Francesco. 1965b. Considerations on the ‘Discourses’ of Machiavelli. In Selected Writings, ed. Cecil Grayson, trans. Grayson, Margaret. London.Google Scholar
Guicciardini, Luigi. 1993. The Sack of Rome. Ed. and trans. McGregor, James H.. New York.Google Scholar
Hale, J. R. 1979. “Renaissance armies and political control: the Venetian proveditorial system, 1509-29.” Journal of Italian History 2(1):1131.Google Scholar
Hook, Judith. 1972a. The Sack of Rome, 1527. London.Google Scholar
Hook, Judith. 1972b. “Clement VII, the Colonna and Charles V: A study of the political instability of Italy in the second and third decades of the sixteenth century.” European Studies Review 2:281-99.Google Scholar
Hook, Judith. 1973. “The destruction of the new ‘Italia': Venice and the papacy in collision.” Italian Studies 28:1030.Google Scholar
Humfrey, Peter. 1993. The Altarpiece in Renaissance Venice. New Haven.Google Scholar
Jardine, Lisa, and Anthony Grafton. 1990. “'Studied for Action': How Gabriel Harvey Read his Livy.” Past and Present 129:3078.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Paul H. D. 1986. “The storm of war: the Paduan key to Giorgione's Tempesta.” Art History 9:4:405-35.Google Scholar
King, Margaret L. 1986. Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician Dominance. Princeton.Google Scholar
Lagomaggiore, Carlo. 1904. “VIstoria Viniziani di M. Pietro Bembo.” Nuovo Archivio Veneto 7:530.Google Scholar
Lanz, Karl, ed. 1844-1846. Correspondent des Kaisers Karl V. 3 vols. Leipzig.Google Scholar
Lenci, A. 1974. “L'assedio di Padova del 1509: questioni militari e implicazioni urbanistiche nella strategia difensiva veneziana all'indomani di Agnadello.” Bollettino del Museo Civico di Padova 63:123-55.Google Scholar
Lenzi, M. L. “Fanti e cavalieri nelle prime guerre d'ltalia (1494-1527).” Ricerche Storiche 7:1 (1977) : 7-92 , 7:2 (1978):359415.Google Scholar
Libby, Lester J. 1975. “The Reconquest of Padua in 1509 according to the Diary of Girolamo Priuli.” Renaissance Quarterly 28(3):323-31.Google Scholar
Livy. Trans. Foster, B. O.. 1926-59. 13 vols. London.Google Scholar
Longhurst, John E., ed. 1952. Alfonso de Vaults and the Sack of Rome: Dialogue of Lactantcio and an Archdeacon. Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Luciani, Vincenzo. 1936. Francesco Guicciardini and His European Reputation. New York.Google Scholar
Luzio, Alessandro. 1911. “I preliminari della Lega di Cambrai concordati a Milano ed a Mantova.” Archivio storico lombardo 38:245310.Google Scholar
Machiavelli, Niccolò. 1961. Lettere, ed. Gaeta, Franco. Milan.Google Scholar
Luzio, Alessandro. 1964. Legazioni e commissarie, ed. Bertelli, Sergio. 3 vols. Milan.Google Scholar
Luzio, Alessandro. 1965. Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others, trans. Gilbert, Allan. 3 vols. Durham, NC.Google Scholar
Luzio, Alessandro. 1975. The Discourses of Niccolb Machiavelli, trans. Walker, Leslie J.. 2 vols. Reprint London.Google Scholar
Luzio, Alessandro. 1977. The Prince. Ed. and trans. Adams, Robert M.. New York.Google Scholar
Mallett, M. E. and Hale, J. R.. 1984. The Military Organization of a Renaissance State: Venice, c. 1400 to 1617- Cambridge.Google Scholar
Mayer, C.-A. and Bentley-Cranch, D.. 1994. Florimond Rohertet (?-1527), Homme d'état français. Paris. Michiel, Marcantonio. Diarii. Museo Civico Correr, Venice, MS. Cod. Cicogna, 2848.Google Scholar
Muir, Edward. 1984. “Manifestazioni ecerimonie nella Venezia di Andrea Gritti.” In ‘Renovatio Urbis': Venezia nell'eta di Andrea Gritti (1523-1538), ed. Tafuri, Manfredo, 5977. Rome.Google Scholar
Norwich, John Julius. A History of Venice. New York, 1982.Google Scholar
Oman, Charles. 1937. A History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century. New York.Google Scholar
Oppel, John W. 1974. “Peace vs. liberty in the Quattrocento: Poggio, Guarino, and the Scipio-Caesar controversy.” The Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 4(2):221-66.Google Scholar
Paruta, Paolo. 1943. Discorsi Politici. Ed. Candeloro, Giorgio. 2 vols. Bologna.Google Scholar
Passero, Carlo. 1957. Francia Spagna Impero a Brescia, 1509-1516. Brescia.Google Scholar
Pastor, Ludwig. 1898-1953. The History of the Popes. Trans. F. I. Antrobes et al., ed. Kerr, Ralph Francis. 40 vols. London.Google Scholar
Perry, Marilyn. 1978. “Cardinal Domenico Grimani's Legacy of Ancient Art to Venice.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 41:215-44.Google Scholar
Phillips, Mark. 1977. Francesco Guicciardini: The Historians Craft. Toronto.Google Scholar
Pieri, Piero. 1952. Il Rinascimento e la crisi militare italiana. Turin.Google Scholar
Plutarch's Lives. 1904. Trans. Stewart, Aubrey and Long, George. 4 vols. London.Google Scholar
Polybius, . 1979. The Rise of the Roman Empire. Trans. Scott-Kilvert, Ian. New York.Google Scholar
Priuli, Girolamo. 1912-1938. I Diarii di Girolamo Priuli. Ed. Arturo Segre (vol. 1) and Roberto Cessi (vols. 2 and 4). Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, vol. 24, pt. 3. Bologna.Google Scholar
Priuli, Girolamo. Diarii. Museo Civico Correr, Venice, MSS. Prov. Div., 252-c, 4 vols.Google Scholar
Puppi, Lionello. 1984. “Iconografia di Andrea Gritti.” In ‘Renovatio Urbis': Venezia nell'età di Andrea Gritti (1523- 1538), ed. Tafuri, Manfredo, 216-35. Rome.Google Scholar
Puppi, Lionello. 1987. “La ‘Consegna dell'anello al doge': Anatomia di un dipinto.” In Paris Bordon e ilsuo tempo: Atti delconvegno internazionale di studi, Treviso, 28-30 ottobre 1985, 95-108. Treviso.Google Scholar
Ramat, Raffaello. 1953. Il Guicciardini e la tragedia d'ltalia. Florence.Google Scholar
Ridolfi, Roberto. 1963. The Life of Niccolb Machiavelli. Trans. Grayson, Cecil. Chicago.Google Scholar
Ridolfi, Roberto. 1968. The Life of Francesco Guicciardini. Trans. Grayson, Cecil. New York.Google Scholar
Rubinstein, Nicolai. 1973. “Italian reactions to Terraferma expansion in the fifteenth century.” In Renaissance Venice, ed. Hale, J. R., 197217. Totowa.Google Scholar
Sansovino, Francesco. 1663. Venetia citta nobilissima et singolare. Ed. Martinioni, Giustiniano. Venice.Google Scholar
Santalena, Antonio. 1896. Veneti e Imperiali: Treviso al tempo della lega di Cambray. Venice.Google Scholar
Sanuto, Marino. 1879-1903. I Diarii di Marino Sanuto. Ed. Fulin, Rinaldo et al. 58 vols. Venice.Google Scholar
Segarizzi, Arnaldo, ed. 1912-16. Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al Senato. 3 vols. Bari.Google Scholar
Seneca, Federico. 1967. “Venezia, Pequilibrio politico e la crisi della ‘liberta’ d'ltalia.” Critica Storica 6(4):453-69.Google Scholar
Setton, Kenneth M. 1976-84. The Papacy and the Levant. 4 vols. Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Simeoni, Luigi. 1950. Le signorie. 2 vols. Milan.Google Scholar
Sinding-Larsen, S. 1974. Christ in the Council Hall: Studies in the Religious Iconography of the Venetian Republic. Rome.Google Scholar
Tafuri, Manfredo. 1984. “'Renovatio urbis Venetiarum': il problema storiografico.” In ‘Renovatio Urbis': Venezia nell'eta di Andrea Gritti (1523-1538). Ed. Tafuri, Manfredo, 955. Rome.Google Scholar
Tafuri, Manfredo. 1989. Venice and the Renaissance. Trans. Levine, Jessica. Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Taylor, F. L. 1921. The Art of War in Italy, 1494-1529. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Usteri, Emil. 1974. Marignano: Die Schickalsjahre 1515/1516 im Blickfeld der Historischen Quellen. Zurich.Google Scholar
Vettori, Francesco. 1848. Sommario della storia d'ltalia dal 1511 al 1527. Archivio storico italiano, vol. 6. Florence.Google Scholar
Wiesflecker, Hermann. 1981. Kaiser Maximilian I. Das Reich, Òsterreich und Europa an der Wende zur Neuzeit. 5 vols. Vienna.Google Scholar
Wolters, Wolfgang. 1983. Der Bilderschmuck des Dogenpalastes. Untersuchungen zur Selhstdarstellung der Republik Venedig im 16. Jahrhundert. Wiesbaden.Google Scholar
Zanetti, P. 1891. “L'assedio di Padova del 1509 in correlazione alia guerra combattuta nel Veneto dal maggio all'ottobre.” Nuovo Archivio Veneto 2:5168.Google Scholar
Zimmermann, T. C. Price. 1995. Paolo Giovio: The Historian and the Crisis of Sixteenth-Century Italy. Princeton.Google Scholar