Research Catalog

The birth of the despot : Venice and the Sublime Porte

Title: The birth of the despot : Venice and the Sublime Porte / Lucette Valensi ; translated by Arthur Denner.
Author: Valensi, Lucette.
Publication: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 1993.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Use in library	DR479.I8 V3513 1993	Off-site

Details

Description

119 pages; 21 cm

Summary

"In an elegant and graceful account of the transformation of European attitudes toward the Ottoman empire during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Lucette Valensi follows the genealogy of the concept of Oriental despotism. The Birth of the Despot examines a crucial moment in the long and ambiguous encounter between the Christian and Islamic worlds: the period after the fall of Constantinople to the Turks, when Venice's pursuit of its commercial and maritime interests brought two powerful protagonists - Venice and the Sublime Porte - face to face. First published in French in 1987, the book is now made available to English readers in Arthur Denner's fluent translation." "Vivaldi's oratorio Juditha Triumphans, in which Judith liberates her besieged town by killing the Turk Holofernes, serves as the organizing metaphor in Valensi's study of how Venice's perceptions of its eastern rival changed. Drawing on the reports that Venice's ambassadors to Constantinople delivered in person before the senate and the doge, the author reflects on the tumultuous events both outside and inside Europe which shaped the continent's political consciousness. Valensi shows how Venice's initial admiration for the sultan and his orderly empire - an admiration reflected in writers as late as Machiavelli - metamorphosed into revulsion at a monstrous tyrant who was to become the model of Montesquieu's Oriental despot."--Jacket.

Uniform Title

Venise et la Sublime Porte. English

Alternative Title

Venise et la Sublime Porte.

Subject

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Judith -- Holofernes -- In the Heart of the Seraglio -- Prophecy of Daniel -- Chorus -- "Greater tyranny the world has never seen or imagined" -- At the Sublime Porte -- Abduction from the Seraglio -- Finale.

ISBN

0801424801
9780801424809
9780801475436
0801475430

LCCN

93001352

OCLC

ocm28028625
28028625
SCSB-2005022

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library