ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the specifically Venetian strain of a common Italian tradition of street singing, which relies for its agency upon an identifiable repertory of familiar rhetorical tropes. Most of the Venetian printing shops, whether dealing in engraved prints or in printed books, were to be found along the Merceria, and around the Rialto bridge. To a considerable extent, the medium of print provided the main conduit through which Venetians were informed of such events as they occurred, and it was partly through print that they were memorialized and mythologized for posterity. The tradition of printed texts recounting the events of famous wars and battles begins at the very outset of the history of print with the fall of Constantinople, and was well established by the time of Lepanto. The rituals of public entertainment constitute an important part of politics, being in effect a symbolic statement about the Venetian social order.
