The Reception of Ancient Egypt in Venice, 1400-1800: Travelers, Adventurers, and Collectors

This book examines for the first time how ancient Egypt is reflected in early modern Venetian sources. As a center of the printing industry, Venice was an important hub for the accumulation and dissemination of direct information on the Near East and the Levant. Therefore, ancient Egypt played a significant role in the cultural memory of Venice due to the lagoon city’s religious and mercantile orientation towards the East. The book explores how the acquisition, selection, and interpretation of Egyptian objects took shape in Venice, and which actors were involved in the circulation of knowledge about ancient Egypt. Venice can be used as a lens through which to understand the reception of ancient Egypt in the early modern period. Meaningful and partly unpublished sources from primarily Italian archives highlight the visual imagination of ancient Egypt and its lexicographical codification. The author draws upon these sources to examine the Venetian image of ancient Egypt in the early modern period and the epistemic change that accompanied it.