Venice as the Polity of Mercy

Richard Mackenney’s book has the goal of restoring the popolo (common people) of Venice to their rightful place in the history of the Venetian Republic. The author shares this enterprise with several scholars currently researching the lagoon city. But whereas others are seeking to undermine the mythic idea of a contented and quiescent popolo by examining popular resistance to the regime, Mackenney excavates an autonomous popular sphere in which the artisans and working people of Venice lived their lives largely uninvolved with, and undisturbed by, the ruling patrician regime. In the city’s many guilds and confraternities (known in Venice as scuole), the popolo found an outlet for their ‘energy’ (p. 7) and forged a synthesis of their economic, political and religious lives, one that focused on the ‘shared value system’ (p. 188) of mercy. These corporate organisations were the ‘institutional infrastructure’ (p. 189) that contributed to the longevity and

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