Venetians and Greeks - The Defense of Corfù	4/5
	Andrea Marmora, loyal subject
	The relationship between Venetian and subject populations was not marked just by rejection of the dominant authority, violent disobedience, and indifference. Printed in Venice in 1672, Andrea Marmora's 'Delle Historia di Corfù descritta da Andrea Marmora nobile corcirese' ('Of the history of Corfù described by Andrea Marmora noble of Corfù') is the most successful intellectual attempt to demonstrate the links between Greek-Byzantine and Venetian civilisation. Historical reflection served here to legitimise a local ruling class, which identified its own reason for existence in the popular literary genre of historical memoirs, and in its bonds of loyalty with the Serenissima . It is certainly no coincidence that the author is a member of a family from the industrious urban bourgeoisie who had recently joined the ranks of the Corfù nobility. Marmora here demonstrates how the ruinous conclusion of the war for Candia had transformed Corfù  into the new capital of the Venetian Levant. The frontispiece is marked by a subtle allegorical game. Below the array of saints, the Byzantine Emperor Emanuele Commeno is placed to the left of the title; Germanicus, adopted son of the Emperor Tiberius, to the right. The former is placed above the old fortress, almost as if to protect it, while the latter rises over the new fortress. Corfù stands between the two, and therefore commands a central position between the Latin West and the Greek East.
		4/5
	Viaggio virtuale tra le fonti storiche veneziane Rotta: Venezia e il Levante (sec XV - sec XVIII) © 1996 by the VENIVA consortium