Protest in the Piazza: Contested space in early modern Venice

This chapter takes a spatial approach to contestation in Venice, focusing on locations of protest. As the political and religious heart of the city, Piazza San Marco was the central space for governmental ritual. Public celebrations of republican values, underlining the state’s durability despite the mortality of its doges, focused heavily on the Piazza. Historians have come to see these celebrations as forming the cornerstone of a shared Venetian identity and contributing to popular acceptance of patrician rule. Yet the Piazza was not only a space for civic ritual or for executions, markets, games, and animal baiting; it was also a space where popular protests and riots took place. This chapter examines moments of contestation in the Piazza and beyond, as well as the measures taken by the authorities to preserve or restore order. It argues that, although formally excluded from politics, ordinary Venetians used and appropriated space to make themselves heard and to influence and shape Venetian politics