Dennis Romano. The Likeness of Venice: A Life of Doge Francesco Foscari 1373–1457. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. 2007. Pp. xxvi, 468. $35.00

Extract

Francesco Foscari is among the handful of Venetian doges whose name is still remembered. Lord Byron's play “The Two Foscari” and Giuseppe Verdi's opera “I due Foscari” made the tragedy of the doge and his son Jacopo known to a wider audience, as have canvases by nineteenth-century Romantic painters. For historians Foscari has remained a controversial figure who defies an agreed-upon characterization.

Dennis Romano's new biography of Foscari goes far beyond previous attempts to present a plausible portrait of a complicated man. The title is a reminder that the doge was the personification of the republic and its imago, thus more than its political head. Romano has tried to “restore Foscari to the full complexity of his life and times” rather than to “reduce him and his reign to a solitary theme” (p. xxiv), and he succeeds. Romano begins by presenting Foscari's early entrance into political life and his climb up the ladder of offices, aided by his remarkable oratorical ability, political acumen, and influential family members. In the absence of autobiographical material, the author examines a mass of pertinent documents like voting records in an effort to describe his subject's modus operandi in maneuvering the Venetian political system. Foscari built alliances, made deals, and above all relied on a network of relatives and friends long before his election as doge in 1423. But his successes in getting supporters appointed to offices earned him a reputation for corruption, as Romano makes clear.