Introduction: Renaissance humanism and the Venetian empire

The articles gathered in this special issue explore the connection between two major historical phenomena of the fifteenth century: the tremendous diffusion of the humanist movement and the triumphal expansion of the Venetian empire in the Eastern Mediterranean and northern Italy. By focusing on the interactions between the political, social and intellectual conjunctures and by adopting a large‐scale perspective at the culturally diverse territories under Venetian rule, the special issue approaches the Venetian state as an interconnected space of scholarly exchange defined by a common but polymorphous political culture. This introduction places the special issue in the context of new approaches in the historiography on Renaissance humanism and the early modern Venetian state. It advances an understanding of Venetian humanism as an imperial phenomenon and highlights the seminal role it played in the establishment of the Venetian political order in the fifteenth century and its influence well into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.