This study aims to make available to the scholarly community an important corpus of diplomatic correspondence relating to Venetian history in the late 17th century. It also hopes to promote further investigation of the letters by providing an accurate text, in-depth commentary, and a contextual study of patronage as a framework for understanding the documents.The 330 letters presented here were sent from Venice to Hanover in 1669-79, and should be understood in the context of the strong political and cultural ties between the Guelph Dukes of Brunswick and the Venetian Republic. They were written during the reign of the Hanoverian Johann Friedrich of Brunswick-Lüneburg, who succeeded to the duchy in 1665 and continued the long-estabilished political alliance with Venice as well as developing a personal affinity with the city.
The main authors of the letters were four members of the immediate entourage of Johann Friedrich (from here onwards: JF): his diplomatic resident and secretary in Venice, Francesco Maria Massi, wrote the majority of them (210); most of the remainder were written by the Venetian patrician and opera librettist Pietro Dolfin, the prominent lawyer, historian and liberttist Nicolò Beregan, and the composer and courtler Antonio Sartorio.As Hanover's secretary in Venice, Massi was charged with providing weekly dispatches, with inside information on all Venetian affairs as well as running commentary on the city's social and cultural life. The well constructed prose of these descriptions and the vivid imagery used by Massi (who was a gifted writer), leave the impression that one of the aims of the correspondance was to bring the experience of Venice to life for JF, as if he were there (the rethorical concept of ante oculos). Infact, by employing a full-time secretary the Hanoverians were also acquiring a permanent window onto the city, even when they were not there in person: this proximity to the Serenissima was an aspiration shared by many of Europe's elites.