Venezia e l’Oriente: note su recenti letture

Si analizza la struttura e la metodologia di alcuni volumi recentemente usciti che trattano dei rapporti tra Venezia e l'Oriente inserendoli sullo sfondo della storiografia esistente su questo argomento.

This paper takes into consideration five historical works about Venice and the Islamic world that have been published, in these last years, by young scholars at the beginning of their career. They deal with a Venetian consul in Egypt at the beginning of the Burji Mamluk period (Georg Christ), Venetian trade in the Levant in the second half of the 18thc. (Erica Ianiro), Venetian slaves' ransom in the Modern period (Andrea Pelizza), persons who lived crossing the border between Venice and the Ottoman Empire by chance or by profession (Natalie Rothman) and a Venetian trade tariff dated 1482 (Alessio Sopracasa). After a short summary for each work, the paper analyses these books under different aspects: the use of sources and literature, methodology, mistakes, misprints and oversights, stressing the different approaches used by the authors and their peculiar fields of research. The discussion is placed on the wider background of recent and past historiography interested in East-West relations during the Modern Age.