author
Marino Sanudo
1466–1536
A keen-eyed witness to Renaissance Venice, this diarist and historian left one of the richest firsthand records of political and daily life in the republic. His pages preserve the bustle, intrigue, and public rituals of a city at the height of its power.
1 Audiobook
La spedizione di Carlo VIII in Italia
by Marino Sanudo
About the author
Born in Venice on May 22, 1466, Marino Sanudo the Younger grew up in a patrician family but faced financial difficulties after being orphaned young. Even so, he became deeply involved in the civic and political world of Venice and devoted himself to recording it with unusual persistence.
He is best known for the Diarii, a vast diary covering the years 1496 to 1533. Written from the viewpoint of an informed insider, it captures government debates, diplomatic news, ceremonies, rumors, and everyday details, making it one of the great sources for understanding Venice in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.
Sanudo died in Venice on April 4, 1536. Today he is remembered less as a literary stylist than as an extraordinarily attentive observer whose writing preserved the living texture of Renaissance history.