Publisher's Synopsis
The Tombs of the Doges of Venice examines a series of funerary monuments created in the late middle ages and early modern period. Providing close analysis of seven tombs commissioned over a 150-year era, Debra Pincus identifies these works as important political statements that closely identify the ducal office with 'the two Venices' - the huge commercial empire and Italian commune, focused on both East and West. Previously examined only in formal terms, the tombs document the transition from medieval ideas of theological statecraft to the proto-humanist conceptualization of the state that is characteristic of the early modern era. Pincus' study systematically demonstrates how the Venetian doges used visual imagery as the vehicle for important political statements, with the scholar-doge Andrea Dandolo emerging as particularly skilled in the manipulation of the rhetorical power of tomb display.
