Heretics, Prostitutes, and Merchants: The Venetian Empire

Between 1200-1600, Venice created a powerful empire at the boundary between East and West that controlled much of the Mediterranean, with a merchant society that allowed social groups, religions, and ethnicities to coexist. Topics include the features of Venetian society, the relationship between center and periphery, order and disorder, orthodoxy and heresy, the role of politics, art, and culture in the Venetian Renaissance, and the empire's decline as a political power and reinvention as a tourist site and living museum.