Book Review: “Inventing the World” by Meredith F. Small

Inventing the World by Meredith F. Small

I found this book maddening.  It’s a great topic.  I mean, Venice is the most romantic city on Earth, and it has a really interesting history, full of all sorts of firsts and onlys.  And Small gives us ample footnotes, which makes me happy.

On the other hand, I shy away from things with titles about “Inventing X” or “Transforming Y” or, especially, “Western Civilization”.  Ick!  And Small’s theme is all the things that were invented in Venice, up to and including global capitalism.  Sigh.

I get it.  Small loves Venice and spends as much time there as she can.  So she has turned her scholarly attentions to the history and culture of her favorite place. 

But the book reads like a thinly disguised tourist guide.  In this book, if it’s something you like, Small’s here to tell you it came from Venice.  Food!  Music!  Book stores! Freedom!  Science! Banks! Factories!  Money! Patents!

And that thing called the Renaissance?  In this book, it came from Venice.

Venice invented it all.

It’s maddening.

A lot of these things weren’t so much invented in Venice as popularized and/or disseminated from there.  That’s important and interesting, but being a major import / export center and having an important university is not quite the same thing as “inventing” everything.

In a lot of cases, the “firsts” were based on the scholarly metric, the first published record.  Since Venice was a key center for publishing books in Europe for many centuries, many things were first published in Venice or by Venetians.  Own the presses and you can get credit for what you print.

So, it takes some effort to sift through the “first mentions” from the truly innovative developments.  The Republic of Venice definitely had a unique politic structure.  No one else ever did it quite like the Serenissima.  This included a unique militarized external trade system and relatively tolerant and supportive culture.   Venice pioneered a lot of what we recognize as state capitalism, often centuries before other parts of Europe took up the practices. 

And there is a wealth of interesting oddities.

At one point, the University at Padua (Venetian territory) would not let citizens be professors. A policy of forced import of talent is interesting, and certainly created a remarkable institution.

And, of course, there is plenty left out.  Small has a surprisingly positive spin on Venice’s notorious role in the crusades. She sees Venice as providing necessary infrastructure and expertise to the brave Crusaders (for money). Others see it as extortion, and a immoral subversion of a holy enterprise, which was diverted by Venetian interests to sack the Christian city of Constantinople. This was one of the darkest episodes in European history, and it is barely mentioned.

You wouldn’t know it from this book, but Venice has been a cultural backwater for centuries, long before the official demise of the Republic and absorption into the Italian state. 

The appendix has a list of 200 some “Venetian inventions”. Less than 20 are from the last 300 years. It’s been over for a long time.

The growth of states and global empires overshadowed the power and wealth of Venice’s city state. The industrial revolution turned Venice into a tourist attraction.

For that matter, the capitalism that Venice “invented” and rode to regional power 800 years ago does not seem so wonderful these days.  A republic of 500 or so rich families is not what we would consider ideal these days.  And even Small mentions the brutal inequity of the Venetian economy.  Venice also “invented” exploitation of poor and disenfranchised people. They also traded in slaves.

Unfortunately, Venice is currently “inventing” the end stages of this global capitalism.  The city is dying from a combination of tourism and environmental change. Today’s city is unsustainable, and many efforts to “save” it may end up only preserving it in amber, as a watery Kandor on the Adriatic. 

Small applauds the efforts of actual residents, who are striving to sustain and update a living city.   These efforts face long odds in the face of piles of outside money, swarms of gormless visitors, and relentless water.   It is a also a battle for the soul of Venice.  The city has always been about money, and always relatively open to outsiders.  Can Venice put up fences to turn away tourism, and still be Venice?

Small even wonders,  What should Venice be?  Is there any reason for Venice to exist at all?  I dunno.  I’ll be just as sad to see it gone, but, as she notes, all great cities fade away eventually.  Maybe it is Venice’s time.

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1. Meredith F. Small, Inventing the World: Venice and the Transformation of Western Civilization, New York, Pegasus, 2020.

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