Marin Sanudo on Brescia: Caterina Cornaro’s 1497 Entry and Glimpses into the Life and Politics of a Renaissance Border Town

Neher, Gabriele

Abstract

In 1497, Caterina Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus, visited the city of Brescia. Ostensibly, Cornaro was on a family visit, attending to the confinement of her sister-in-law. This article argues that Cornaro’s much publicised visit to Brescia, celebrated in a series of magnif icent spectacles and tournaments, served rather a different purpose, and made Brescia the location for complex diplomatic discussions between the Republic of Venice and the Duchy of Milan. Brescia was a key military outpost of the Venetian Republic in the 1490s. Straddling Venice’s border with Milan, it was uniquely suited to play host to a military peace summit and it became the stage for a celebrated joust, the subject of Floriano Ferramola’s A Tournament (1511, Victoria & Albert Museum, London). The splendour of the joust, and the attention paid to Caterina Cornaro’s visit, is also captured by Marin Sanudo the Younger, who provides a vivid account of the spectacle.

Citation

Neher, G. (2019). Marin Sanudo on Brescia: Caterina Cornaro’s 1497 Entry and Glimpses into the Life and Politics of a Renaissance Border Town. In G. Neher, & H. Butters (Eds.), . Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press

• Publication Date: Nov 26, 2019
• Deposit Date: Jan 29, 2021
• Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
• Pages: 227-240
• Series Title: Renaissance history, art and culture
• ISBN: 9789089647474
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5274328
• Publisher URL: https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789089647474/warfare-and-politics