3 Review(s)

Published in 1856-7, this fascinating collection of Latin and Greek source material on the politics and economy of the Republic of Venice includes charters, treaties and official letters, focusing particularly on relations between Venice and Constantinople. The editors were Gottlieb Tafel (1787-1860), a pioneering Byzantinist who retired from his chair at Tuebingen in 1846, and Georg Thomas (1817-87), Professor of Classical Philology at Munich. The preface announces their plan to cover the ninth to the fifteenth centuries. However, only three volumes, containing material to 1299, appeared at that time. Thomas returned to the project in later life and two further volumes covering 1300-1454 appeared with a different publisher as Diplomatarium Veneto-Levantinum (also reissued in this series). Volume 1, covering the years from 814 to 1205, documents the rise of Venice as an economic power and the political background to the infamous Fourth Crusade.