Sixteenth-Century Renaissance Utopianism: Conceptions of Ideal and Virtuous Governments in Gasparo Contarini's Treatise on Venice and Thomas More's Utopia

In the early sixteenth century, humanists involved in their states' government imagined an alternative society as a form of political philosophy, inventing a genre of literature that became known as "utopian" after the most prominent example, Thomas More's Utopia. One of More's acquaintances, Venetian Gasparo Contarini, wrote a treatise about his native city in the 1520s that resembles other utopian works in content, form, and function. Both of these works speak to similar concerns these counsellors had about their respective states, as well as contemporary conceptions of ideal governments and virtuous citizenship. Their texts were likely intended to inspire rulers and their fellow citizens to active reformation of society and greater civic virtue. A tension between whether this ideal society could be attained, or was impossible, can be seen in these two works, as Contarini disingenuously argues it already existed in Venice. While Utopia has been the subject of extensive scholarship, there has been little analysis of Contarini's De magistratibus within the study of Renaissance utopian writing. A comparison between these two texts illustrates that Contarini's purportedly accurate description of the workings of Venice's government follows many of the genre conventions, humanist values, and aspirations of other contemporary utopian writing.