UNA CULTURA GEOPOLITICA LAGUNARE: I SAPERI GEOGRAFICI, MILITARI E POLITICI DELL’ACCADEMIA VENEZIANA

Abstract

Lagoon geopolitical culture: Geographical, military and political knowledge at the Accademia Veneziana. – In 1558, the newly founded Accademia Veneziana, established and directed by patrician Federico Badoer upon his return from his embassy to Charles V and Philip II, conceived a monumental encyclopaedic programme of printed publications in all branches of knowledge: the Somma delle opere che in tutte le scienze et arti più nobili et in varie lingue ha da mandare in luce l’Academia Venetiana. Among all these “works in all the most noble sciences and arts”, those dealing with geographical and political topics occupy a unique position, quite new for the time. In this setting, which was eminently Venetian but oriented towards Europe and the world, took shape for the first time the project of a “reason of state”, conceived as a (geo)political science, i.e. inseparably geographical, military and political.