The present paper examines the city of Venice in the early modern period as a case study, exploring the manner in which its identity is shaped by the continuous interplay between visual and textual representations. Furthermore, it analyses the dynamic relationship between land, water, and time as they are manifested in Venice. The study utilises a range of sources, including sixteenth-century maps, bird’s-eye views, and literary accounts of the lagoon, to explore the conceptualisation of the city as an unstable, shifting organism, the form of which is inseparable from the movement that shapes it. In Venice, the lagoon functions as a boundary, a unifying element, and a generative void. This spatial condition was consistently translated into images and narratives of oscillation, permeability, and cyclical temporality in early modern representations. By analysing cartographies of the lagoon in conjunction with contemporary diaries, historiographical texts, and descriptive writings, the paper traces how urban knowledge circulated through two registers: the measurable space of maps, which sought to stabilise the city’s form, and the literary voice, which instead suspended time and framed Venice as an experiential landscape that was ever-renewed. These sources reveal how motion – including tidal, conceptual and perceptual movements – became a structural principle for understanding the city. Furthermore, the paper argues that the early modern imaginary of Venice was constructed through relational forms of representation that negotiated absence and presence, full and void, land and water. The paper posits that Venice offers a privileged case for examining “imagined cartographies” and “cities along waterbodies” within a connected Mediterranean history. Its representations do not merely document a location, but rather articulate a political and symbolic order in which necessity (ananke) anchors the city to its environment while shaping its narrative identity. The present study contributes to the understanding of how early modern cities were mapped, described, and imagined as fluid spaces defined by both physical and conceptual motion by situating cartographic and textual portrayals within a broader framework.
Textual and Visual Forms of Urban Knowledge in the Venetian Lagoon / Sposato, A.R.. - (2026). (EAUH 2026 Conference. City Networks in Europe and Beyond. SESSION 32. Urban Histories in Motion. Cartographic, Artistic, and Historiographical Representations of the City within Early Modern Intellectual Networks (coordinators: Fernando Loffredo, Ida Mauro, Tanja Michalsky). Slot V (chair: Tanja Michalsky-Bibliotheca Hertziana. Max Planck Institute for Art History): Cartographic and Artistic Representations of the City (II). Barcelona ).
Textual and Visual Forms of Urban Knowledge in the Venetian Lagoon
Andrea Romano Sposato
2026
Abstract
The present paper examines the city of Venice in the early modern period as a case study, exploring the manner in which its identity is shaped by the continuous interplay between visual and textual representations. Furthermore, it analyses the dynamic relationship between land, water, and time as they are manifested in Venice. The study utilises a range of sources, including sixteenth-century maps, bird’s-eye views, and literary accounts of the lagoon, to explore the conceptualisation of the city as an unstable, shifting organism, the form of which is inseparable from the movement that shapes it. In Venice, the lagoon functions as a boundary, a unifying element, and a generative void. This spatial condition was consistently translated into images and narratives of oscillation, permeability, and cyclical temporality in early modern representations. By analysing cartographies of the lagoon in conjunction with contemporary diaries, historiographical texts, and descriptive writings, the paper traces how urban knowledge circulated through two registers: the measurable space of maps, which sought to stabilise the city’s form, and the literary voice, which instead suspended time and framed Venice as an experiential landscape that was ever-renewed. These sources reveal how motion – including tidal, conceptual and perceptual movements – became a structural principle for understanding the city. Furthermore, the paper argues that the early modern imaginary of Venice was constructed through relational forms of representation that negotiated absence and presence, full and void, land and water. The paper posits that Venice offers a privileged case for examining “imagined cartographies” and “cities along waterbodies” within a connected Mediterranean history. Its representations do not merely document a location, but rather articulate a political and symbolic order in which necessity (ananke) anchors the city to its environment while shaping its narrative identity. The present study contributes to the understanding of how early modern cities were mapped, described, and imagined as fluid spaces defined by both physical and conceptual motion by situating cartographic and textual portrayals within a broader framework.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
