Giovanni Dario's Scripted Legacies: Textual Self-Presentation in Renaissance Venice

ABSTRACT: This article builds on growing critical interest in the Cretan-Venetian ducal secretary, polyglot diplomat, confraternity warden, businessman, and palace builder Giovanni Dario ( c . 1414–1494), arguing that Dario's corpus of late texts has a common thread unique among Venetian civil servants of the Quattrocento: compulsive self-memorialization. It offers a selection of this written evidence, presented philologically and dissected critically for the first time, with accompanying translations and illustrations. These primary sources are: an adroit dispatch from the Levant; a crowd-pleasing letter from an Ottoman camp; an inscription on his palazzo mythologizing Venice and himself; and a will ensuring his legacy.