From Civic History to Myth

In 1177, Pope Alexander III and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa are said to have reconciled in Venice, thanks to the mediation of Doge Sebastiano Ziani. Whether civic legend or historical truth, this episode – the “Peace of Venice” – quickly became one of the city’s defining stories, woven into rituals, monuments, literature, and historiography.

This book explores how this legend was retold, reimagined, and celebrated during the fourteenth century, when Venice faced new challenges at home and abroad. Chroniclers, poets, illuminators, and painters all reshaped the legend, creating a network of texts and images that reflected the city’s political ambitions. From Bonincontro dei Bovi’s Latin chronicle to its first volgarizzamento (Venezia, ASVe, Miscellanea codici I, s. v., 216), from San Nicolò’s lost fresco cycles to the richest illuminated manuscript (Venezia, Biblioteca del Museo Correr, 1497), from Castellano da Bassano’s Poema to the Doge’s Palace, the “Peace of Venice” reveals the multilayered portrait of the Serenissima – its artists, notaries, patrons, political figures, and diplomatic stakes.

Bringing together literature, art history, and philology, this study traces how history gives rise to myth, and how myth, in turn, reinforces and reshapes history, evolving in step with the changing needs of the present.