I do not suppose there is any magical thing in any fairyland to compare with the Record Book, on the pages of which are constantly being printed a record of every event that happens in any part of the world, at exactly the moment it happens. And the records are always truthful, although sometimes they do not give as many details as one could wish. L. Frank Baum, Glinda of Oz

Most historians concerned with the role played by the Renaissance Venetian system of resident ambassadors on the overall development of modern European diplomacy rely on two types of documents for their evidence. In the more favored position are the final reports, or relazione, presented by the ambassador to the Venetian Senate at the end of his mission, which related quantities of factual data concerning the economy, government, geography, or social customs of the foreign country. In a less favored position are the regular dispatches sent out by the resident ambassador, which related the immediate events, gossip, public information, and private speculation that took place in the observed foreign court. While the relazione are often admired for the valuable information they contain, the dispatches are criticized as useless recitations of gossip and intrigue. Scholars examining Venetian diplomacy are faced with reconciling the seemingly well-informed ambassadors of the relazione with the gossip-mongering authors of the regular dispatches. Given this split personality of the written evidence, it is not surprising that the content of these documents is used to both support and deny the efficiency, and often the nascent modernity, of the Venetian system of resident ambassadors. One clear difference not yet studied between these two types of documents, affecting both their content and their intended use as diplomatic communications, is the manner in which each physically arrived in Venice. While relazione were delivered by the ambassador, in person, before the Senate, the dispatches were sent by messenger and could take three weeks or longer to reach their destination. In his well-known study of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Mediterranean world, Ferdinand Braudel added the delays of travel and communication to his list of the structural features of that world: "An understanding of the importance of distance leads one to view in a fresh light the problems of administration in sixteenth-century empires."[1] The type of information that might be considered useful to include in the dispatches was also limited by these communication delays: most factual news would be stale by the time it reached Venice and precise orders sent in reply by the Senate would be outdated by the time they were returned. Gossip, suppositions, and rumors, however, could help describe the slowly changing atmosphere in which the community of the foreign court operated. Such a description was not nearly so sensitive to the limitations of time and distance as a more precise chronicle of facts and events. By first situating the documents in their physical world and determining the restraints time and distance may have placed on their contents, and then examining the details of their narratives to understand what information the ambassadors were communicating, we can begin to develop a theory of Venetian diplomacy in which the sixteenth-century Republic, though not yet a modern state, operated effectively in a world of international politics still based on an older model of personal interactions and relationships between rulers.

Given the well-organized Venetian bureaucracy of the sixteenth century, the chatty nature of the dispatches has consistently posed a problem of historical explanation. For authors concerned with the development of modern diplomacy, the style and content of the dispatches and the relazione can be used to either prove or disprove the increasing modern efficiency of the Venetian state. On one side, Garrett Mattingly defends the gossipy content of the ambassadorial dispatches. The resident ambassador was not sent out to negotiate but to observe and to report any politically useful information. "Inevitably," Mattingly dryly comments, "a great deal of worthless stuff got into these long daily screeds."[2] However, Mattingly suggests, this plethora of information was politically useful. The minister receiving these letters could analyze and compare dispatches from all over the Mediterranean and discover important developments which the resident ambassador was unable to see. Though positive in his interpretation of the overall value of ambassadorial reports, Mattingly still seems surprised by their gossipy or old-fashioned nature. He reflects that Renaissance politicians must have been not only excessively anxious about the activities of their counterparts in foreign courts but also insatiably hungry for mere gossip.[3]

Charles H. Carter, on the other hand, considers the low factual content of the dispatches as evidence of the inefficiency of the Venetian system, despite its high degree of organization. For Carter the dispatches are simply an example of the fundamental problems he finds in the structure of Venetian diplomacy. Because the resident ambassadors rotated to different courts every few years, he argues, they were unable to develop a solid network of informants. In addition, the low status of the Venetian Republic in the feudal hierarchy of European states kept the ambassadors from gaining the personal access to people of power they needed to discover sensitive data. These two factors, inherent in the Venetian system, kept the ambassadors from collecting the type of information that would be useful to a developing modern state. While Carter acknowledges the organization of Venetian diplomacy and notes the quantity of information that resident ambassadors reported, the low quality of the information in the dispatches, combined with the repetitive and stylized nature of the relazione, shows, in his view, the ineffectiveness of the Venetian system.[4]

Even for historians more concerned with defending or denying the myth of Venice than discovering the birth of the modern state, the content of the dispatches has proved a conundrum. Horatio Brown, a nineteenth-century supporter of the myth of Venice, saw the excessive quantity of dispatches as a sign of the decline of the Republic. The dispatches acted as a substitute for the military force that Venice did not possess in the seventeenth century.[5] In contrast, Donald Queller, a practiced twentieth-century debunker of historical myths, argues that though the system of choosing and deploying ambassadors was riddled with cheating and greed, and the ambassadors themselves were not the selfless servants of the state they are often made out to be,[6] the dispatches and, in particular, the relazione these men produced underline the overall quality of the Venetian diplomatic system.[7]

Though each of these historians puts relazione and dispatches to different uses as historical documents, the two forms of diplomatic communication are often viewed as functioning in similar ways in the world of Renaissance Venetian diplomacy. Because the roles played by these two types of documents in conveying information are seldom differentiated, the distinctive features of the dispatches are overlooked. Even in the most flattering of the above analyses, the dispatches are viewed as the ugly siblings of the relazione. Mattingly, surprised by their low-brow nature, struggles to put them in a positive light in his analysis, while Queller concludes that, though useful, they simply are not as spectacular as the relazione. What is not appreciated is the value of mere gossip in creating, for Renaissance politicians, a unique view of their world of international politics, in which personal relationships between rulers was still the preferred means of developing policy.[8] While the unreliability of international communication limited the kind of news that would be useful to include in dispatches, the necessity to provide a substitute for personal contact between rulers dictated that descriptive or narrative information be reported.

To give an idea of how these narrative descriptions were developed, and the new perspective such a reading can reveal about the functioning of sixteenth century Venetian diplomacy, this essay will examine in detail dispatches from Paris, Brussels, and Rome in the six-month period between November 1557 and May 1558, as selected and translated by Horatio Brown in the British Calendar of State Papers. Horatio Brown, a late-nineteenth-century expatriate British historian, was particularly interested in translating documents relating to English history. He presents the documents in chronological order, with all sections originally in code also translated but picked out by italics in the printed text. Though such a collection poses its own historiographical and linguistic problems, for the purposes of this paper the documents presented and translated by Brown are useful. They provide enough information to give an idea of how Venetian ambassadors layered daily narratives to create a thick description of the ambience and personalities at each foreign court.

The prominent international threat during the six-month period examined here was the possibility of war between the French king, Henry II, and the Spanish king, Philip II. Each ruler was seeking a strategic upper hand before open hostilities broke out. Philip searched for funds to support his army, desperately mortgaging lands and revenues, and finally turning for help to his wife, Queen Mary of England. Henry designed a range of schemes to bolster his own military and diplomatic leverage, from proposing a marriage between his son and the young Queen Mary of Scotland to holding Pope Pius IV's grandnephews as unofficial hostages. In Rome, Pope Pius was losing hope in his attempts to promote peace between the two kings, but he continued to pursue his own agenda of bolstering the dignity of the Catholic Church and forwarding the interests of his family. In January 1558, the French took the towns of Calais and St. Quentin, discomfiting both England and Spain. The Venetian dispatches reveal a frenzy of gossip and supposition focused around each courts' preparations for possible war.

Limitations on the speed of communication played an important role in these events. After discussing what these limitations were and how they functioned as a factor of international politics in the Venetian dispatches, this essay will demonstrate how ambassadors attempted to get around such restraints. They recounted twists of intrigue and local crises like a long-running soap opera, in order to create a kind of personality profile of the observed foreign court. Instead of relaying time-sensitive news, ambassadors writing from courts in Rome, Paris, and Brussels included information illustrating the character of princes and prominent ministers, as well as describing the peculiar interests of the foreign courts, in such a way as to evoke a personal experience of each court. In their letters, these ambassadors layered descriptions, narratives, and overheard gossip to build up a thick description of the atmosphere within the foreign court, through which the Doge and Senate, with the help of the ambassador on the spot, could guide the interests of Venice.

A detailed examination of the contents of Venetian ambassadorial dispatches from November 1557 to May 1558, clearly shows an awareness of the limits of communication time. Throughout the letters of Bernardo Navagero, Giovanni Michiel, and Michiel Surian, Venetian ambassadors to Rome, Paris, and Brussels, respectively, run stories and examples of post communications gone awry. These cautionary tales emphasize the strengths of the kind of loose information the ambassadors usually included in their dispatches while pointing out the dangers of relying too heavily on the timely arrival of orders or news. For instance, on 4 November 1557, Michiel Surian wrote to the Doge complaining of a late letter from Venice and describing the damage to Venetian prestige the delay had almost caused.

This day a Spanish gentleman consigned to me a letter, written by your Serenity on the 29th of August, with two commissions, one, that I was to congratulate the King on the victory under St. Quentin; the other, that I was again to urge him to make peace with the Pope. The perusal of this letter caused me very great regret, because your Serenity's order, which at the time was of importance, and so greatly desired and expected by me, might in the ordinary course have arrived in 10 to 12 days at the farthest.[9]

Though Surian hurried to Philip II to tender the Doge's congratulations, the damage had already been done and talk was circulating around the court that Venice did not seem to relish Philip's victory. Philip had already received news from his ambassador in Venice, however, and knew the Doge's sentiments; though the court might suspect Venice's motives, Philip, luckily, kept his own council.

Carter criticizes the Venetian diplomatic system because the ambassadors did not provide the kind of factual information a modern state would need to function in the international world. The slowness of communications, though, precluded such information being easily available to states in the sixteenth century. Venetian ambassadors did what they could to alleviate the problems that might arise if their dispatches were delayed or lost by providing information that remained fresh and useful whenever it arrived. Even in the short letter from Michiel Surian chiding the Doge about the delay of his letter, the ambassador included very little data or solid information. Though he mentioned the dates of a few past letters he primarily told a short story that illustrated the characters of the wise king and the gossipy court. In the introduction to his letter, Surian set a stage on which his little tale could unfold. He regretted the late arrival of the letter from Venice and reminded his audience of a letter he had recently sent out describing the warning he had received for not seeming to relish Philip's victory. From this starting point, Surian developed his narrative. The threat to the Doge's reputation had increased as gossip began to circulate about the motivations behind Surian's disregard of protocol. Surian's suspense, which had been growing, was relieved by the arrival of the Doge's letter. Public speculation ceased when he hurried to congratulate the returning king. As it turned out, Philip had paid no attention to the court gossip since his own ambassador at Venice had already informed him of the Doge's mind.

In Surian's letter we do not find out who warned him about the court's suspicions or what words he exchanged with Philip. Instead, emphasis is on the unfolding story of intrigue. The first warning received by Surian, which he had spoken of in a previous letter, was important enough to bear repeating, yet the place Philip had been visiting, if it ever had been mentioned before, was not important enough to include in this dispatch. What was emphasized was a narrative that illustrated Surian's precarious position at the court in Brussels, while painting a picture of local influences on the opinions of the court and on Philip's mind. If some people within the court were quick to attack the Doge's motives, Surian showed, Philip was better provided with information and was more likely to make allowances in favor of the Republic. Emphasizing the importance of this story, Surian put only that part of his letter into code. Unlike some details he might have included, Surian's tale of suspicion and forgiveness would be as fresh and informative when it arrived two or three weeks later in Venice as when he wrote it in Brussels; the "facts" of the story-the characters of Philip and his court-would not have changed greatly in the elapsed time. From this information, the Doge would have an idea of where the Republic stood in both Philip's estimation and in the estimation of the court.

Variations in post time were the rule in the sixteenth century; while average ideal times were hoped for they could not be relied upon. And, Braudel notes, those average speeds did not change in Europe between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries.[10] Kurt Treptow, studying the Venice-to-Constantinople route, comes to the same conclusion about changes in the overall speed of post communications in the sixteenth century.[11] In Braudel's maps showing average post times for the beginning of the sixteenth century, the end of the seventeenth century, and the middle of the eighteenth century, he shows that travel times remained much the same for over three centuries. It took just over a fortnight for a letter to travel from Brussels to Venice and under a week to travel from Brussels to London. Average speeds from Paris to Venice were just under three weeks, and from Rome to Venice a letter took less than a week.[12] Treptow agrees with these times, estimating twelve days as the average time for a letter to travel from Paris to Venice.[13] The letters translated in the Calendar of State Papers for the six months between November 1557 and April 1558, for which both the departure and the arrival dates are mentioned, easily fall within these journey lengths. A letter sent in January 1558 from Brussels to Rome took fifteen days to arrive, a second sent in March took about ten days, and a third sent in February took about twenty days. This winter average falls within Braudel's estimates. Not too surprisingly, the shortest journey in these months was on the route from Brussels to London. In good weather two letters arrived in two days each, while in bad weather two letters took a full six days each to arrive. The average for the winter post ran about four days from Brussels to London, again within Braudel's figures.

When detailed information was needed quickly, express messengers attempted to beat the regular postal journey lengths. Braudel tells of one company offering a four-day delivery between Venice and Nuremberg, though the regular post, making good time, might take eight days for the same route.[14] Of course, these express deliveries came at a higher price than the regular post. While Treptow reports that the regular Montenegrin messengers hired to carry letters overland to Constantinople might earn more than the average soldier,[15] Braudel says that express messengers could earn more than the annual salary of a university professor in Padua or Salamanca.[16]

Even express messengers, though, could not always overcome the limitations that distance placed on the usefulness of factual information, or even remedy the problems that might arise from misdirected communications. In a series of dispatches from Michiel Surian in Brussels and Giovanni Michiel in Paris, a story unfolds in which the papal legate in Paris, in deciding too quickly to use the express post, succeeded in undermining several months of his own peace negotiations between Philip II and Henry II. As the story develops in the dispatches, it is clear that the Venetian ambassadors-following the gossip, scandals, hatreds, petty intrigues, and ever-changing alliances featured in the day-to-day talk and confidences of the courtiers surrounding the two kings-had a better grasp of the political situations in each court than did the two papal legates who were actively negotiating peace for Pius IV. By relying on scanty factual information and outdated communications, Cardinal Triulzi, the legate in Paris, was unaware of the state of negotiations in Brussels or the political intrigues within Philip's court. In their dispatches, Surian and Michiel recount the bumblings of their papal counterparts to the Doge and Senate in Venice.

Cardinal Caraffa, posted in Brussels, and Cardinal Triulzi, sent to Paris, had been negotiating for several months with Philip and Henry in the hopes that the two kings would agree to a peace. Since the fall of St. Quentin, however, the two cardinals had gotten no further than determining that both rulers were agreeable to the idea of peace. In the first half of March 1558, Triulzi took the next step in the peace process and proposed to Henry and his most influential advisor, the Cardinal of Lorraine, that a conference between the two kings or their representatives should take place to discuss terms.[17] Though at first resistant to the idea, both Henry and his cardinal finally agreed to Triulzi's suggestion. Then, following more negotiations, King Henry allowed Triulzi to send an auditor, his eyes and ears, to Brussels to convince Philip of the merits of the proposed conference. The auditor, who left on 13 or 14 March, was given orders by Triulzi:

should he no longer find Cardinal Caraffa there (the Cardinal of Lorraine having said again yesterday that he was to depart on the 8th) he was to address himself to the Nuncio [the permanent papal representative at the court], who will have remained there. Should King Philip likewise be content, as from the signs given is to be hoped, they might then treat about the persons to be sent, and the time and place, so that terms may easily be made when the conference is agreed to.[18]

On 22 March, Michiel wrote again to Venice commenting that no word had yet been received from the auditor but that a second courier had been sent out, following the first, with an updated set of orders. Should the auditor not find the nuncio or the cardinal in Brussels, this second message said, he was to return to Paris immediately.[19] While the auditor arrived, express, in Brussels on the evening of the nineteenth, no mention is made of the second messenger catching up to him with the more detailed orders.[20]

Upon his arrival, the auditor discovered that both Cardinal Caraffa and the nuncio, the Bishop of Terracina, had already departed. Finding neither of his two contacts, the auditor visited Don Ruy Gomez and presented his commission. What he was not aware of, and what Surian had been keeping the Doge abreast of, was that Gomez was no longer in favor at the court. Since the arrival of the Duke of Alva in January, Surian had been reporting faithfully on gossip and observed actions that clearly showed Gomez's declining status. In a letter from the end of February, Surian recounted in code that the king and his council stood in awe of the Duke of Alva and that talk was whispered around court that Gomez might retire to Spain and renounce politics.[21] Moreover, the Duke of Alva had replaced Caraffa as the primary peace negotiator at Philip's court. This affront, which drove the cardinal to tears of anger, was an important reason for Caraffa leaving Brussels.[22]

Surian outlined the character of the influential Alva in an account of a meeting he had with the duke. On orders from the Doge, he had gone to the duke to congratulate him on news about the possible peace negotiations. In return for these congratulations, however, Surian was subjected to a surprising anti-French tirade which he dutifully recounted in code for the Senate:

He spoke at great length about the nature of Frenchmen, and said that they have no right to any state, and that whatever they acquire they choose it all to be theirs, by right; that they annex to the crown all that they take, so that when the occasion comes for restoring, they may excuse themselves; . . . That it is manifest that the French do not wish for peace, nor would they keep it if they had it, because they are always intent on occupying what belongs to others. . . . His Excellency continued, that the King of France cannot be trusted, and that he now appears inclined towards peace because he has many deficiencies; . . . so he will now talk of peace, to put this King to sleep, and have time to recruit himself, and when recruited he will immediately give rise to some occasion for making war, or will indeed make it without waiting for the occasion, as the French by nature desire nothing but war.[24]

While the papal legates may have had an idea of Alva's character from his time in Rome, Triulzi's auditor clearly did not understand the duke's newly developed importance or, more importantly, Gomez's declining influence in the council. By 24 March, Gomez had advised the auditor to put his commission in writing and present it before the council.[25]

Given the character sketches already developed in Surian's dispatches, the reactions that the auditor received to his proposal for a peace conference were not surprising. While Philip, who appears in the dispatches as a man who asked advice but made his own decisions, personally gave a noncommittal answer to the auditor's proposal for a conference, his council, which was more strongly under the influence of the Duke of Alva, gave a suitably stuffy reply. To the proposal for a conference they gave no answer, since the auditor's mission had really not been addressed to them but to the departed Cardinal Caraffa. In addition, they decided not to allow the auditor to return to Paris across the French border, but, if he wanted to follow Caraffa to Italy, they would give him a letter to the cardinal explaining the whole affair.[26]

Because of the continuous reports sent to Venice by Surian, the Senate was not only aware of the new influence Alva had on the council and court in general, but it also had an idea of how the duke's mind worked and in what light he viewed the French king's intentions. The Pope's representatives did not have the same grasp of this new state of affairs in Brussels, and they chose exactly the wrong approach for carrying through their business.[27] By sending his auditor express to Brussels, Triulzi almost guaranteed that any changes in his orders would arrive too late to be useful, even if also sent express, and thus placed the whole affair under the threat of failure from the start. As it happened, the crucial order-that the auditor was to speak to no one but Cardinal Caraffa or the Bishop of Terracina-was entrusted to a messenger who either never arrived or was delayed.

The type of information reported by a Venetian ambassador provided a background from which his audience could make decisions informed by an almost personal knowledge of the slowly shifting character and situations of the foreign court. When all Triulzi may have known was that Cardinal Caraffa might leave Brussels on 8 March, the Doge and Senate of Venice had been following the gossipy details, emotional outbursts, and changing alliances that clearly showed the direction in which the relationships between both Alva and Gomez, and Alva and Caraffa, were heading. For instance, by witnessing through the words of Surian the cold reception given to the Duke of Alva by Don Ruy Gomez when the former arrived in Brussels, and the anticipation with which the court awaited the duke's arrival, they understood the rivalry that existed between the two.[28] By following the February gossip about Gomez's lack of visitors and his possible retirement to Spain, they were aware of his declining status at the court.[29] Similarly, after being privy to Cardinal Caraffa's emotional confidences about how his honor had been offended when the Pope revealed his mission to the Duke of Alva in December, the personal insult he had suffered when the duke did not show up for several promised visits in January, and the affront he had received when the peace negotiations had been transferred to the duke at the beginning of February, the Venetian Senate understood the duke's growing influence and could infer how the auditor's proposal might be received by a council heavily influenced by Alva.[30]

Though apparently unorganized in presentation, some news in these regular dispatches was clearly more important than other news. One way to determine what news was of particular importance to the Senate in Venice is to compare the kind of information translated into code, a safeguard against sticky-fingered thieves and spies, with the kind recounted openly. Public information and news of international events was seldom put into code, but the accounts of gossip, rumors, and confidences that illustrated local concerns and interests were always given that added protection. For instance, before the fall of Calais, Michiel and his predecessor, Giacomo Soranzo, consistently reported on recent French troop movements. Information from public reports, usually placed at the beginning of the letter, was not in code, while less reliable but more interesting information was invariably coded. Suppositions and suspicions circulating at the court as to where the troops were heading, which troops were loyal, or whether Henry would carry on a winter campaign all demanded extra secrecy.[31] With this information, the Venetian Senate could see the particular interest the French court took in the course of the war. In Brussels, on the other hand, the details of Philip's troop movements were secondary to the real news concerning Philip's quest for funds. The kinds of numbers found in code in Surian's letters are more often the figures of the loans that Philip and his court hoped to raise than supposed troop sizes.[32] The differences in what information appeared in code reflected the particular subjects of gossip at each court. In Brussels, then, unlike in France, the interest of the court focused more on the practical aspects of administration than on the unpredictable events of war. In Rome, the focus of the papal court was different again. In Navagero's dispatches, the discussions he recounts in code outline an overriding interest in the fortunes of the Caraffa family. The fate of the Pope's grandnephews, held as unofficial hostages by Henry, was a constant concern in the confidences Navagero and his secretary received. The fortunes of the Duke of Paliano, nephew of the Pope and father of one of the captive boys, also figured prominently in speculations of the cardinals and ambassadors in the papal court.

In addition to describing local interests and events and the characters of individual princes and ministers, ambassadorial dispatches created a sense of the personality of each court. Like witnesses to a crime, each court had its own perspective and interpretation of international events. The gossipy nature of the information the ambassadors collected, and their reliance on anonymous sources or the confidences of favorite informants, while destroying any sense of impartiality for a modern reader, emphasized the character traits that guided the interests and actions of individual communities. In the winter of 1557-58, the war between Henry II and Philip II was of concern to all European states, but each court had its own view of the events surrounding the war. The regional crises that developed around these unique perspectives became topics of local court gossip and speculation. By concentrating on the probable, possible, or imagined details of these crises, rather than recounting only the facts of main international events, Ambassadors Surian, Michiel, and Navagero captured a sense of the personalities of each court community.

To develop a personality profile of the French court, Giovanni Michiel contrasted public information with private speculation. His letters were full of publicly known details of French troop movements throughout the winter of 1557, contrasted with and elaborated by coded accounts of gossip and confidential speculations. Two matters, seemingly unrelated to the peace talks or the war, caught the imagination of the French court during these winter months: the negotiations taking place between Pope Pius IV and Henry II for the return of the Pope's grandnephews, and the upcoming marriage between the Dauphin and Mary of Scotland. Michiel's letters paint a picture of a community occupied by speculation about the future. For example, the de Guises, a family of rising influence at court, had their hopes set on the match between the Dauphin and Mary. Mary's mother, the Regent of Scotland, was also a de Guise and the marriage could bring an increase in prestige to the family. In fact, Surian relays the rumor that the Cardinal of Lorraine, Mary's uncle and one of the king's favored advisors, hoped to rush the marriage through by Christmas, despite the youth of the two children. The Constable of France, Anne de Montmorency, a rival of the Cardinal of Lorraine, had been against the marriage, but as a captive of Philip he could no longer interfere. The French king was also hopeful of the match because an alliance with Scotland would give him added troops and a foothold on the British island.[33]

Henry maneuvered for power and prestige in the same way as his ministers. In the matter concerning the grandnephews of the Pope, Henry was seeking time and influence. By holding the boys as unofficial hostages, he was able to maintain some influence over the Pope and thus over the peace negotiations being carried out by the Pope's representatives. Michiel, after detailing the situation as it stood in France, recounted in code that "the person who is charged to take them back told me that although the King will make a show of not wishing to detain them, yet from one impediment or another their departure will be delayed, at least until his most Christian Majesty knows what has been negotiated at Brussels by Cardinal Caraffa."[34] Henry was skilled at developing opportunities. He set the stage for a possible war in England, an indirect threat to Philip, by marrying his son to the Queen of Scotland, and toyed with a threat to the Pope when he delayed the departure of his Pius' grandnephews. This propensity for speculative ventures was the modus operandi of his court. While his top advisors maneuvered against each other in a contest of influence and power, and he maneuvered on the international stage in a similar manner, Henry's court discussed the possible outcomes of all the intrigues.

To describe the personality of Philip's court, Surian focused on relaying information about the common subjects of official and unofficial talk: he detailed Philip's search for funds to pay his army in the days before the fall of Calais, he recited the day-to-day developments of Caraffa's negotiations as they were recounted to him by the cardinal himself, and he relayed any gossip concerning the background or interactions of the ministers and courtiers. The personality of the Spanish court that Surian discovered was one of slow practicality, where the concern of the king and his council lay more in maintaining and defending their existing powers than in laying the groundwork for possible future expansion.

The talk that Surian recounted did not dwell on possibilities dependent on the theoretical outcome of events. For example, Surian's informants were little concerned with the activities of Philip's wife, Queen Mary of England. Surian made only a mention of the rumor of Mary's pregnancy, imparted to him by Philip's representative in England, the Count of Feria. He hid this tidbit deep in a coded letter more concerned with speculation about the strengths and weaknesses of towns threatened by the French, news of Feria's money-raising mission to Mary's court, and suspicions that Henry was masterminding intrigues and rebellions in England.[35] Finding funds and defending Philip's possessions were of greater interest to Feria than speculation about the future unification of England and Spain under the rule of an unborn child, and Surian's letter reflected his informant's emphasis. Similarly, Surian's sources barely mentioned the resignation of Charles V and the crowning of his brother, Ferdinand I, as Holy Roman Emperor. Surian repeated, in code, a short discussion he had with Philip about the new powers the king might acquire in Italy. Philip dismissed Surian's speculation, saying that "he has no other authority in Italy than what he derives from the States possessed by him there, and that he does not wish for it."[36] Like his ministers, Philip was not interested in idle speculation about possible futures.

The most engaging news in Brussels was concerned with the survival and defense of Philip's kingdom. Insuring trustworthy sources of state revenue and a lasting peace with Henry were of first importance to Philip and his council. Surian recounted in detail Philip's hopes for raising money, as well as the actual state of the crown's finances. In November 1557, for instance, Surian outlined Philip's attempt to finance more loans:

It has been projected to make a loan thus, that his Majesty's ancient creditors who have no fixed security, on supplying him at present with other sums, are within a certain time to be repaid what they now disburse, and with as much more besides, on account of their old credits. . . . On these terms it would be easy to raise a large sum of money, but it is not easy to find assignments as security for the contractors, all the King's revenues being mortgaged.[37]

Though Philip turned to the Low Countries in search of a loan, the amount the Diet granted him was below his expectations and a few months later he was still hopefully waiting for a larger grant.[38] In the meantime, the happy news arrived that the English Parliament had given the Queen money and troops to send to Philip's aid.[39] This practical interest of the Spanish king and his court was further emphasized by Surian in an analysis of the reasons for which Philip might want peace with France. Surian heard, on good authority, "that his Majesty and all the chief members of the Council are much inclined towards it, for the reasons assigned by me, of want of money, and of the necessity for the King to go to Spain."[40]

Even in these negotiations, Philip and his council methodically considered all the practical approaches they could take. Though he was ostensibly working for peace through the papal legates, Philip eventually turned the process over to the Duke of Alva. By April, however, the council had begun to explore suggestions that the constable of France, Anne de Montmorency, a captive of the Spanish since the fall of St. Quentin, might be able to intercede with Henry.[41] On 16 April, Don Ruy Gomez, who was back in favor, spoke with the constable but determined that Montmorency's involvement was impractical. The Spanish would have to release the constable and run the risk of losing his large ransom.[42]

The ponderous slowness of the decision-making processes in Philip's government was a constant source of confidential complaints in the ear of the ambassador. In March 1558, Surian wrote that all decisions waited for the return of the Duke of Alva.[43] In April, Don Ruy Gomez' secretary complained that everything seemed to be done to slow down the peace process, despite the obvious threat from French troops.[44] This slowness reflected the methodical nature of authority in Brussels. Even Philip could not form an idea spontaneously but had first to gather advice from his council.[45] The character of the Spanish court came through in Surian's letters as slow and reflective, with a practical concern for strengthening and protecting the existing kingdom.

From Rome, Navagero's letters reveal a papal court whose primary concern was with the changing fortunes of the Caraffa family. Pope Pius IV, a Caraffa by birth, oversaw the activities of his relatives but tried to balance his concern for family honor with his passion for papal dignity. The court, however, was far more interested in the developments of his family affairs than in the expansion of papal authority or the enforcement of the Inquisition. The Pope's two nephews, the Cardinal Caraffa and the Duke of Paliano, were intricately involved in the complicated web of international relationships which had formed around the war and possible peace between France and Spain. This blending of the family's affairs with international events can be seen in the negotiations between Cardinal Caraffa and Philip. It was common knowledge at Rome that Cardinal Caraffa was in Brussels to negotiate in the names of his brothers for certain feudal lands under Philip's control, particularly the state of Paliano, as well as to discuss the peace between Henry and Philip. Navagero's letters detail constant speculation among the cardinals and foreign ambassadors in Rome about the outcome of this family affair. The Cardinal Santafiora suggested to Navagero that the Pope would be forced to give up Paliano.[46] In the same vein, the Cardinal Fano speculated to Navagero's secretary about the compensation the various members of the Caraffa family could expect from Philip in return for Paliano.[47] Meanwhile, the Pope expressed his interest in the matter in a letter to Cardinal Caraffa about which Navagero was informed. In this letter, the Pope told the cardinal to do everything he could to keep Paliano in the family, but if Philip would not comply, to act to maintain the papal dignity and the family honor.[48] In Navagero's letters, it is clear that the interest of the court was riveted by these negotiations, but in the end none of the ambassador's confidants knew the amount of the offered settlement the cardinal refused.

In gossip at the papal court, the peace negotiations were also overshadowed by discussions concerning the return of the Pope's grandnephews. Navagero received several confidences from the Duke of Paliano which, despite their speculative and emotional content, he reported to the Senate.[49] From Navagero's dispatches it is easy to see that the feeling at the papal court towards the French was negative. The duke spoke angrily, for instance, of the Cardinal of Lorraine's note in which the cardinal cited the negotiations in Brussels as the reason for the boys' detention. The cardinal had not even tried to politely dissemble, but had rudely stated Henry's true reasons for holding the boys, the duke complained.[50] The Pope, for his part, did what he could to avoid receiving the French ambassador.[51]

Even the social scandals recounted by Navagero reflected Caraffa family concerns. In December, a famous Spanish courtesan, Isabella de Luna, fled Rome accompanied by a girl named Pandora. The girl's mother had accused Isabella of prostituting her daughter. The Pope sent the Duke of Paliano after the fugitives and they were quickly brought back to Rome. Navagero told the Senate the entire story:

The arrest of these courtesans causes much comment; for it is notorious that Cardinal Caraffa and Marquis Montebello had close intercourse with them; and the Duke of Paliano has been heard to say that he regrets having been compelled to execute this arrest, because he would not wish the world to believe he had done it for any design of his own.[52]

The Pope, though a Caraffa himself, had broader concerns than immediate family matters. He told Navagero that he wanted to fight the sins of the Reformation after peace had been made between Henry and Philip.[53] In January 1558 he instituted a new ceremony to celebrate the founding of the See of Rome by St. Peter, since, he argued, the Lutherans denied that Peter had ever been at Rome.[54] Overall the personality of the papal court reflected the personality and interests of the Caraffa family. The Pope was concerned both with the dignity of the papacy and the honor of his family. The stories and gossip that Navagero recounted for the Doge and Senate illustrated these peculiarities of the court in Rome.

Besides giving an impression of the native personality of each European court, the dispatches also provide a description of how each of those courts understood the personalities of other European courts. In turn, secondhand descriptions could be compared with another ambassador's firsthand observations. For instance, accounts given by Surian about how the Spanish saw the French could be compared with Michiel's more immediate observations of the French court. The Doge and Senate received a greater breadth of immediate impressions and a more subtle description of international relations and reactions with this bifocal vision. Still, it was a lopsided picture: the accounts of views held by one foreign court about another often embodied generalizations or overstatements, very different from the detailed descriptions provided to the Doge and Senate of directly observed courts. So, the overall impression that comes through in Surian's letters from Brussels was that the Spanish, on the receiving end of what they perceived as French aggression, viewed Henry as the untrustworthy leader of a war-hungry nation.[55] At the same time, Michiel's letters give a more sophisticated explication of the French character. Because Henry developed his policies with an eye to future prospects, he was always ready to take advantage of new developments. This could mean attacking Calais at an opportune moment despite impending peace talks, or detaining the Pope's grandnephews on the chance they might prove useful hostages. Henry's court reflected this gambling attitude. The Cardinal of Lorraine moved quickly to promote the marriage between his niece and the Dauphin once his rival, the constable, was captive and could not interfere. While Spanish observers might only see the activities of the cardinal and the king, members of the French court had discussed and considered all the subtle influences that directed French policy. They understood the advantages Henry would gain in his relationship with Spain and England when he had taken Calais, and they could discuss the increasing good fortune of the de Guise family. The Venetian Senate was given not only a view of French action and reason, but also a view of Spanish reaction and interpretation.

Similarly, in Rome, members of the papal court saw Philip as greedy and concerned only with finding new sources of income.[56] But here also the letters of the resident ambassador provided a wider perspective. By recounting everything he heard regarding Philip's finances, Surian built up a picture not only of the reality of the situation, but also of the general sentiments about it at the court. Clearly Philip lacked funds, but his seeming obsession with raising money appeared more the methodical activity of a worried administrator than the grasping of a greedy ruler. By staying close to local gossip, Venetian dispatches brought readers into the atmosphere of discussion and decision-making at a foreign court; they gave a clearer picture of the characters and motivations involved in creating state policy than mere observation of events would have provided; and they permitted the Venetians to see how other countries viewed each other.

A detailed rereading of the Venetian dispatches is needed to fully understand their place in the world of Renaissance diplomacy. Few historians have approached these documents with an approach receptive to their possible values and uses. While some scholars have begun with a prejudice against Venice in general, most simply regard the more exhaustive relazione as better records through which to trace the diplomatic practices of the Republic. This approach fails to take into account the differences of intent, construction, and delivery that governed the content of the two types of documents. In addition, it also fails to acknowledge the obvious commitment of time and money that went into writing and transporting the almost daily dispatches. While Donald Queller makes it clear that the Republic did all it could to cut down on ambassadorial expenses,[57] supporting the constant stream of letters coming into Venice from resident ambassadors abroad was an expensive undertaking. It seems logical, then, to search the documents for information the Republic might have deemed worth such an investment rather than to dismiss them as the tedious productions of gossip-mongering bureaucrats. While Garrett Mattingly comes closest to developing a theory of the use of the dispatches, he dismisses their overall importance in the immediate world of Renaissance politics, as well as in the historical development of modern diplomacy. Like other historians, he focuses on the unusual and spectacular relazione, presented at the end of a diplomatic assignment, rather than on the documents that provided information for the day-to-day political decisions of the Doge and Senate and which guided Venetian activity on the international stage. The organized summations of the relazione constitute tidy records of sixteenth-century Venice's knowledge of other countries, but the messy, subjective details of the dispatches give a more satisfying picture of the intricate unfolding of international events.

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Elizabeth Carman is completing a master's degree in history at SFSU in Spring 1997, majoring in late antiquity and the early middle ages. Her research interests include how people of this time period constructed and perceived their worlds. She earned a bachelor of arts in history from the University of California, Davis, in 1986.

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1. Ferdinand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, vol. 1 (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1972), 371.

2. Garrett Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy (London, 1962), 111.

3. Ibid., 110-13.

4. Charles H. Carter, "The Ambassadors of Early Modern Europe," in Charles H. Carter, ed., From the Renaissance to the Counter-Reformation: Essays in Honor of Garrett Mattingly (New York, 1965), 278-80.

5. Brian Pullan, "Horatio Brown, John Addington Symonds and the History of Venice," in David S. Chambers, Cecil H. Clough, and Michael E. Mallett, eds., War, Culture, and Society in Renaissance Venice: Essays in Honor of John Hale (London, 1993), 213-35.

6. Donald Queller, Early Venetian Legislation on Ambassadors, (Geneva, 1966).

7. Donald Queller, "The Development of Ambassadorial Relazioni," in John Hale, ed., Renaissance Venice (Great Britian, 1973), 174-78.

8. William Roosen, "Early Modern Diplomatic Ceremonial: A Systems Approach," in The Journal of Modern History 52 (1980): 452-76.

9. Rawdon Brown, ed., Calendar of State Papers-Venetian, Vol. VI, Part III, 1557-1558 (London, 1884), no. 1073.

10. Braudel, 360-71.

11. Kurt W. Treptow, "Distance and Communications in Southeastern Europe, 1593-1612," in East European Quarterly 24 (1991): 475-82.

12. Braudel, 366-67.

13. Treptow, 480.

14. Braudel, 365.

15. Treptow, 478.

16. Braudel, 368.

17. Brown, no. 1195.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid., no. 1202.

20. Ibid., no. 1201.

21. Ibid., no. 1174.

22. Ibid., nos.1120, 1152, 1166, 1199.

24. Ibid., no.1204.

25. Ibid., no. 1203.

26. Ibid., no. 1205.

27. As can be seen by their assumptions that all the signs were favorable to the conference; Ibid., no. 1195.

28. Ibid., nos. 1142, 1149, 1152.

29. Ibid., no. 1174.

30. Ibid., nos. 1120, 1152, 1166.

31. Ibid., nos. 1082, 1085, 1087, 1089, 1094.

32. Ibid., no. 1091.

33. Ibid., no. 1079.

34. Ibid., no. 1108. The Cardinal of Lorraine was rumored to have sent the papal nuncio a secret note expressing similar sentiments (no. 1121). This note was sent, and ended up in the hands of the Duke of Paliano who, in great distress, showed it to Bernardo Novagero (no. 1132).

35. Ibid., no. 1142.

36. Ibid., no. 1200.

37. Ibid., no. 1091.

38. Ibid., nos. 1149, 1168.

39. Ibid., no. 1168.

40. Ibid., no. 1080.

41. Ibid., no. 1167.

42. Ibid., nos. 1214, 1215.

43. Ibid., no.1179.

44. Ibid., no. 1214.

45. Ibid., no. 1168.

46. Ibid., nos. 1163, 1156.

47. Ibid., no. 1143.

48. Ibid., no. 1163.

49. Ibid., nos. 1132, 1160, 1197.

50. Ibid., no. 1132.

51. Ibid., no. 1102.

52. Ibid., no. 1117.

53. Ibid., no. 1162.

54. Ibid., no. 1143.

55. Ibid., no. 1204

56. Ibid., no. 1183.

57. Queller, Early Venetian Legislation.