Writers

Compared to other Italian cities, literacy rates in Venice were high, although on the whole readers and the state were more interested in practical books than poetry. Petrarch left much of his library to the Serenissima, which promptly misplaced it. Although the 14th-century Travels of Marco Polo brim with marvels, the book is also very down to earth. Venetians could (and did) read Marco for tips on what to buy and sell in faraway lands.

Gutenberg had his first movable-type printing press running by 1450, but Venice, sniffing a money making opportunity, became the first place to print and sell books like any other commodity (it was also the first place to commercially manufacture spectacles, so people could read them). The Senate issued its first licence to print in 1469, announcing: 'This peculiar invention of our time...is in every way to be fostered and advanced.'