From Royal Hôtel to Street Brawls: The Location, Personnel and Public Problems of the Venetian Embassy in Seventeenth-Century Paris
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/LEGATIO.2017.03Keywords
Venice, Foscarini, France, Pisani, secretary, valets, coachmenAbstract
Where histories of Venetian diplomatic success in France have long drawn on the ambassadors’ dispacci and relazioni, these are only just beginning to be used to explore the personalities of the ambassadors themselves. In contrast, this article will use French notarial and legal records to investigate the daily lives of the ambassador and his staff in seventeenth century Paris. In particular, it will examine documents attesting to the turbulent life of the Hôtel de Venise, and its boisterous staff and servants. Apart from their official presence at Versailles, little has been done to establish where the ambassadors lived in Paris, and with whom they had contact. This article first shows the mobility of the official hôtel, but also points to simultaneous lodgings being held by the ambassadors, suggesting an official and a private life. This also illustrates the ambassadors in contact with the Parisian elite, beyond the court. It then outlines how the French archival record points to which were the most visible household officers, and traces their appearance in legal and business transactions. It demonstrates a distinct corps of Italian officers, and French domestiques, all of whom represented Venice in Paris, and had contact with Parisians. While these servants eased the ambassadors’ existence in France, they also created problems for them. Indeed, some servants were more likely to make trouble than others. In situations where the ambassadors’ servants breached the peace, or were themselves menaced by the French, who was ultimately responsible for the good behaviour of the embassy?
References
Archival Sources
Venice, Archivio di Stato di Venezia
Ambasciata in Francia 4
Collegio, Lettere Principi 30
Consiglio di Dieci, Deliberazioni, Secrete fz. 29
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France
Intendance des Menus-Plaisirs et Affaires de la Chambre du Roi
Recueil de modes, 7 vols (Paris, 1750), IV, fol. 208, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/ btv1b105296325 (accessed: 23 October 2016)
Manuscrits Italiens (MS IT), Dispacci Sagredo
Paris, Archives Nationales de France (AN)
MC/ET: Notaires de Paris
I/220
VIII/847
XVIII/147
XIX/438
XXI/280
XXXV/256
LXII/48
CVI
CXXII/1571–1575
Série O: Maison du roi sous l’Ancien Régime
/3, 6, 43, 44
Série Y: Châtelet de Paris Insinuations
, 173–77, 178–80, 181–83, 188
Printed Primary Sources
Description des Magnifique et Feux de Joye Faits à Paris le 28 Juillet 1649 par l’Illustrissime et Excellentissime Monsieur l’Ambassadeur de Venise (Paris: Antoine Estienne, 1649)
Madame de Sevigné, La Lettre de l’Incendie, 20 February 1671: http://eprimaire.free.fr/contes/sevigne/l61.html (accessed : 10 October 2016)
Ordre de l’Entrée Publique à Paris de Son Excellence Monseigneur le Chevalier Mocenigo Ambassadeur Ordinaire de la République de Venise Qui se Fera Dimanche Vingt-Neuf Septembre (Paris: Bellyer, 1754)
Secondary Works
Babelon, Jean-Pierre, ‘La Maison du Bourgeois Gentilhomme: L’Hôtel Salé, 5, Rue de Thorigny, à Paris’, Revue de l’Art, 68, no. 1 (1985), 7–34
Baschet, Armand, Les Archives de Venise: Histoire de la Chancellerie Secrète: Le Sénat, le Cabinet des Ministres, le Conseil des Dix et les Inquisiteurs d’Etat dans Leurs Rapports avec la France (Paris: Plon, 1870)
Bély, Lucien, ‘L’ambassade et ses immunités chez les juristes de la langue française (XVII–XVIIIe siècle)’, Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome, 119, no. 1 (2007), 17–29
Benzoni, Gino, ‘Ranke’s Favorite Source: The Relazioni of the Venetian Ambassadors’, The Courier, 22 (1987), 11–26
Chadych, Danielle, Le Marais: Évolution d’un Paysage Urbain (Paris: Parigramme, 2014)
Comisso, Giovanni, Les Ambassadeurs Vénitiens (Paris: Le Promeneur, 1989)
Dover, Paul M., ‘The Economic Predicament of Italian Renaissance Ambassadors’, Journal of Early Modern History, 12 (2008), 137–67
Droste, Heiko, ‘Sending a Letter between Amsterdam and Stockholm: A Matter of Trust and Precautions’, in Your Humble Servant: Agents in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Hans Cools, Marika Keblusek and Badeloch Noldus (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2006), pp. 135–48
Dumont, Jean, and Jean Rousset de Missy, eds, Le Ceremonial Diplomatique des Cours de l’Europe, 2 vols (Janssons: Amsterdam, 1739), I
Duplomb, Charles, L’Hôtel de la Reine Marguerite Première Femme de Henri IV (Paris: Léon Willem, 1881)
Fedele, Dante, ‘The Renewal of Early-Modern Scholarship on the Ambassador Pierre Ayrault on Diplomatic Immunity’, Journal of the History of International Law, 18 (2016), 449–68, pre peer-reviewed version
Firpo, Luigi, Relazioni degli Ambasciatori Veneti al Senato, Francia (1600–1656), series II, 14 vols (Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1965–1996), VI (1975)
———, Relazioni degli Ambasciatori Veneti al Senato, Francia (1659–1792), series II, 14 vols (Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1965–1996), VII (1975)
Fletcher, Catherine, ‘“Furnished with Gentlemen”: The Ambassador’s House in Sixteenth-Century Italy’, Renaissance Studies, 24 (2010), 518–35
———, and Jennifer Mara DeSilva, ‘Italian Ambassadorial Networks in Early Modern Europe – An Introduction’, Journal of Early Modern History, 14 (2010), 505–12
———, Diplomacy in Renaissance Rome: The Rise of the Resident Ambassador (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015)
Frey, Linda S., and Marsha L. Frey, The History of Diplomatic Immunity (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999)
Frigo, Daniela, ‘Ambasciatori, Ambasciata e Immunità Diplomatiche nella Letteratura Politica Italiana (Secc. XVII–XVIII)’, Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome, 119, no. 1 (2007), 31–50
Grady, Alex, Le Marais (Paris: Le Passage, 2002)
Hillairet, Jacques, Évocation du Vieux Paris, 3 vols (Paris: Editions du Minuit, 1951–1954), I (1952)
Hunt, John M., ‘Carriages, Violence and Masculinity in Early Modern Rome’, I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, 17 (2014), 176–96
Kaplan, Benjamin J., ‘Diplomacy and Domestic Devotion: Embassy Chapels and the Toleration of Religious Dissent in Early Modern Europe’, Journal of Early Modern History, 6 (2002), 341–61
Keblusek, Marika, ‘Introduction: Profiling the Modern Agent’, in Your Humble Servant: Agents in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Hans Cools, Marika Keblusek and Badeloch Noldus (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2006), pp. 9–16
Maral, Alexandre, La Chapelle Royale de Versailles sous Louis XIV: Cérémonial, Liturgie et Musique (Mardagae: Wavre, 2002)
Netzloff, Mark, ‘The Ambassador’s Household: Sir Henry Wotton, Domesticity, and Diplomatic Writing’, in Diplomacy and Early Modern Culture, ed. by Robyn Adams and Rosanna Cox (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 155–71
Petitfils, Jean-Christian, L’Assassinat d’Henri IV (Paris: Perrin, 2009)
Picquet, Maurice, Paris sous Louis XIV (Paris: Mansi & Co, [n.d.]) Pillorget, René, Les Premiers Bourbons 1594–1661 (Paris: Hachette, 1988)
Poumarède, Géraud, ‘Ambassade’ et ‘Ambassadeur’ dans les Dictionnaires Français et Italiens (XVIe–XIXe Siècle), Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome, 119, no. 1 (2007), 7–16
Queller, Donald E., Early Venetian Legislation on Ambassadors (Geneva: Droz, 1966)
Romano, Dennis, Housecraft and Statecraft: Domestic Service in Renaissance Venice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1996)
Santarelli, Daniele, ‘Itinerari di Ambasciatori Veneziani alla Corte di Carlo V’, Medioevo Adriatico, (2008), 121–52
Tessier, Alessandre, ‘Des Carrosses Qui en Cachent d’Autres: Lord Denzil Holles à Paris, 1663–1666’, in L’ Incident Diplomatique XVIe–XVIIe Siècles, ed. by Lucien Bély and Géraud Poumarède (Paris: Pedone, 2010), pp. 197–240
Viennot, Eliane, Marguerite de Valois “La Reine Margot” (Paris: Perrin, 2005)
Vivo, Filippo de, ‘How to Read Venetian Relazioni’, Renaissance and Reformation, 34 (2011), 25–59
Walton, Guy, ‘Ambassadorial Gifts: An Overview of Published Material’, The Court Historian, 14, no. 2 (2009), 189–98
Wicquefort, Abraham de, L’Ambassadeur et Ses Fonctions, 2 vols (Amsterdam: Janssons a Waesberg, 1730)
Zago, Roberto, ‘Foscarini, Antonio’, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 85 vols (Rome: Treccani, 1960–2016), XLIX [n.d.], http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/ antonio-foscarini_(Dizionario-Biografico), (accessed: 16 October 2016)
Zannini, Andrea, ‘Economic and Social Aspects of the Crisis of Venetian Diplomacy’, in Politics and Diplomacy in Early Modern Italy: The Structure of Diplomatic Practice, 1450–1800, ed. by Daniela Frigo (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 109–46
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
Stats
Number of views and downloads: 315
Number of citations: 0