Ordering Customs: Ethnographic Thought in Early Modern Venice

With Ordering Customs, historian Kathryn Taylor adds to the growing literature on global exchange and ethnographic knowledge in early modern Europe by holding up sixteenth-century Venice as an exemplary case study of the era’s impulse to observe, study, organize, and circulate reports of faraway locales. Taylor asserts that Venice, as a communications hub, major maritime power in the eastern Mediterranean, and pioneer in diplomatic matters, was uniquely situated to serve as a broker of ethnographic information. Indeed, Taylors locates Venice’s prominence in gathering and disseminating ethnographic information foremost in its sophisticated diplomatic structures. Venetian ambassadors, she maintains, spread precious accounts on the rites, customs, and cultural traditions of the European states and Ottoman Empire to a diverse readership comprised of travel writers, gentleman scholars, and, most noticeably, other diplomats. She is careful to note that the ambassadors in her study never used the term ethnography, yet they displayed an interest in the customs and religious practices of the places where they were stationed that very much resembled nineteenth-century ethnographers with their sense of curiosity that was often in the service of state interests.Much of Taylor’s book (chapters 2 and 3) explores the role that ethnographic reporting played in Venetian diplomacy. As is well-known to modern students of diplomatic history, Venice was the first European government to establish resident embassies in other countries, and soon developed a reputation for its sophisticated diplomatic machinery. In addition to these developments, upon their return to Venice, the resident ambassadors of the Venetian state were expected to give a relazione (report) before the Senate. This report was later submitted in a written form and housed in the state archives. These relazioni primarily focused on state matters—military strength, economic vigor, and court politics—but Taylor finds that, beginning in the mid-sixteenth-century, ambassadors began adding increasingly more ethnographic details in their reports to the government. She cogently argues that they saw their observations on customs and rites as complementing rather than detracting from their political assessments. For example, Venetian ambassadors in England and the Holy Roman Empire frequently discussed Protestant rites and beliefs as part of their analysis of the internal stability of these religiously divided states. Likewise, the balio of Constantinople judged the diverse ethnic and religious mosaic of the Ottoman Empire as a potential weakness even as they described the ceremonial rites and folkways of its people. Increasingly, Taylor maintains, the relazioni became a literary genre and tool for political and social advancement for ambitious Venetian nobles. By the mid-seventeenth century, the reports had lost their values as conveyors of ethnographic information since they were often based on other travel accounts, both fictive and real. This coincided with the loss of prestige of the relazioni as other European powers began to rely more and more on their own embassies for ethnographic information. This was especially prominent for the Ottoman Empire as England and Holland both established their own embassies in Istanbul in the first decades of the seventeenth century.In addition to the relazioni, Taylor investigates other forms of printed and manuscript writings that conveyed ethnographic reportage deemed important to the state. Among these were accounts by merchants, explorers, and adventurers, such as the traveler Ludovico de Varthema, who had ventured to India, China, and other regions where Venice did not have a diplomatic presence. In essence, these travelers served as unofficial eyes of the Venetian state, providing not only economic and political information, but also ethnographic observations. Closer to home, the state often made use of the travel journals of young noblemen and cittadini originari (members of the legally-defined civic class) who accompanied the more experienced ambassadors on their embassies in Europe and the Ottoman Empire. These travel journals were not required, but the state nevertheless valued their utility both as preparation for young nobles for government service and for their observations on local customs and rites. Taylor convincingly demonstrates the utility of these travel journals, which were often preserved in the state archives in the same section as the relazioni.In chapter 4, Taylor attempts to show how the relazioni and other ethnographic materials valuable to the Venetian government were read. Although she refers to potential readers as “early modern Venetians,” in reality her study focuses on the governing elite of the city, thereby revealing that reading ethnographic literature was essentially the purview of its nobility, cittadini originari, and upper-middle class. A difficult task, Taylor admirably traces reading habits of this rarefied body of gentlemen and the reception of ethnographic works through a variety of means: annotations, indices, and other structural aspects of books; the circulation of manuscripts, primarily the relazioni; and the establishment of libraries by private individuals that concentrated on ethnographic materials. Much of this chapter also focuses on the Venetian government’s attempt to guard the relazioni from dissemination beyond the city and its promotion of their reading as training for young noblemen for future diplomatic service, once again demonstrating the state’s appreciation of the utility of ethnographic information.In the last chapter, Taylor continues her argument of the utility of ethnographic reporting to reasons of the state by looking at how the Venetian government utilized this knowledge in regulating disputes over food preparation and dress between Levantine Jews and Christians in the Ghetto and in the creation of the Fondaco dei Turchi in 1621. In the rest of chapter, she extends her argument on the ubiquity of ethnographic thought by examining the trials of conversos and moriscos found in the records of the Venetian Inquisition. Analyzing a handful of trials, Taylor argues that in denouncing conversos and moriscos for apostasy or serving as witnesses in these trials, everyday Venetians had a conception of ethnography. Yet, these denunciations and testimonies, as anyone familiar with the inquisition archives of Venice, Malta, Spain, and other Italian cities can attest, were commonplace, as Christians closely watched their neighbors for non-compliances of Catholic dietary restrictions and rites. Rather than a kind of ethnography, rooted in curiosity and interest like the relazioni of ambassadors and diaries of elite travelers, the trials reflected neighborhood tensions and fears of the other. Needless to say, this section of Taylor’s book could be further developed with a rigorous investigation of inquisitorial materials.Nevertheless, this is an extremely significant work that recognizes the centrality of ethnography to Venetian diplomacy. Taylor’s originality is to show how ethnography worked in early modern Venice and its diplomatic machinery rather than using the relazioni and other ambassadorial documents to demonstrate attitudes toward other Europeans and the Ottoman Turks. Ordering Customs thus makes important contributions to the study of diplomatic history and cultural exchange. Although her work focuses on Europe as a whole, many of her examples prominently feature Venice’s relations with the Ottoman Empire and should interest scholars of both states as well as Mediterraneanists in general.