Historical Studies Seminar The Genesis of Resolutions: with the Best Intentions, the Worst Intentions, and Beyond All Intentions
As usual, the Historical Studies Seminar organised by the Institute of the History of the Venetian State and Society is spread over five half days – from 15 to 17 May 2017 – dedicated to five different aspects of the overall theme, that is “resolutions”. The seminar will explore the mixture of the said and the unsaid, or the explicit statement and potholed background in decision-making. The is where raison d’état – especially in the 16th and 17th centuries, when it was spelled out and unhesitatingly theorised – demands the feigning of convictions and concealing of real thoughts nurtured in private, at times with no clear boundary between good and evil, or even truth and falsehood. Given this situation, the seminar may find itself moving between
cases of extraordinary and ordinary ambiguity.