enetian
representatives in foreign Courts, and the Relazioni, or reports which
ambassadors read before the Senate upon their return from abroad.
Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of this series; and the value of the
Relazioni at least has been fully recognized. Yet it should be borne in
mind that the Relazioni are only a part of the series, and that, taken
alone and isolated from the dispatches, they lose much of their value.
For we must not forget that the Relazioni were drawn up on more or less
conventional lines; the headings, under which the report was to fall,
were indicated by the Government, and were invariable; and, further, the
home-coming ambassador handed his report to his successor, who
frequently used it as a basis in drawing up his own. The result is that,
except in the descriptions of Court life, and in the sketches of
prominent characters, the Relazioni are apt to repeat themselves. But,
taken with the dispatches, which arrived almost daily, they form the
most varied, brilliant, and minute gallery of national portraits that
the world possesses. The reports and dispatches were made by men whose
whole political training had rendered them the acutest of observers, and
they were presented to critics who were filled with the keenest
curiosity, and were accustomed to demand full and precise information.
Not a detail is omitted as unimportant; the diurnal gossip of the Court,
the daily movements of the sovereign and his favourites; are all
recorded with impartial and unerring observation. The relation of the
Dispacci to the Relazioni is the relation of the study to the picture.
The Relazioni are the large canvas upon which the whole nation is
broadly depicted, the Dispacci are the patient and minute studies upon
which the excellence of the picture depends. The majority of the
Venetian Relazioni between the years 1492 and 1699 have been published;
the earlier part by Signor Alberi, and the later by Signori Barozzi and
Berchet. The eighteenth century still remains to be worked out. In the
series of Relazioni and Dispacci, Great Britain occupies a comparatively
small space. While France, Germany, and Constantinople, each give five
volumes of reports, England gives one only, dating from 1531 to 1763. Of
dispatches from England there are 139 volumes in all; while from
Constantinople we have 242, from France 276, from Milan, 230, and from
Germany 202.

Previous to the year 1603, when the regular series of dispatches