ABSTRACT
The recent appearance of several studies of Venice during the last centuries of its independent existence provides an opportunity for the renewed examination of the complex problem of its decline. The factors, both external and internal, responsible for the change in Venice's position from that of the leading emporium in the Mediterranean to one of a comparatively minor regional port have been well illustrated in the symposium dedicated to the analysis of the aspects and causes of Venetian decline in the seventeenth century,l as well as in the brilliantly compact study of Venetian industry and commerce in the same period by Domenico Sella.2 The effect of this decline on the relations of the Dominante with its Terraferma, as the Venetian aristocracy increasingly transferred its capital from commerce to investment in the land, forms the subject of a further group of studies by Daniele BeltramiY3 which, although not yet complete, has already thrown so much new light on a subject hitherto little understood either in its dimensions
1 Aspetti e cause della decadeny economica vene~iana nelsecolo X V I I , Atti del Convegno 27 giugno - 2 luglio 1957 (Venice-Rome, 1961).
