"Venice’s Secret Service" – with Ioanna Iordanou

SpyCast

Education, News, History

4.4 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 27 June 2023

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Summary Ioanna Iordanou (Twitter; LinkedIn) joins Andrew (Twitter; LinkedIn) to discuss Venice’s Secret Service. Her research on “centralized intelligence” during the Italian Renaissance has secured her two entries in Guiness World Records! What You’ll Learn Intelligence The origins of centralized intelligence “The Council of Ten” - Venice’s spy chiefs “The Inquisitors of the State” - Venice’s counterintelligence body Venetian power in the Eastern Mediterranean Reflections The rise and fall of empires The relationship between geography and power And much, much more … *EXTENDED SHOW NOTES & FULL TRANSCRIPT HERE* Quotes of the Week “Considering some of the most significant challenges we face right now, such as disease, we just got over a global pandemic or migration or trade or climate change or cybersecurity, all these issues do not stop at the borders like any early modern spies, they cross borders. So even reflecting on how people dealt with these things in the past might help us make better political, social, economic decisions.” – Ioanna Iordanou. Resources SURFACE SKIM *Headline Resource Venice’s Secret Service: Organizing Intelligence in the Renaissance, Ioanna Iordanou (Oxford University Press, 2014) *SpyCasts* Espionage and the Two Queens with Kent Tiernan (2023) The Counterintelligence Chief with FBI Assistant Director Alan Kohler (2023) The Lion and the Fox – Civil War Spy vs. Spy with Alexander Rose (2023) Keeping Secrets/Disclosing Secrets with Spy Chief turned DG of Australia’s National Archives David Fricker (2022) *Beginner Resources* A Brief Overview of Renaissance History, Art in Context (2023) [Short article] Profile of a City: Venice, Renaissance Italy (2012) [Short article] Brief History of the Renaissance in 5 Minutes, 5 Minutes (2022) [YouTube video] *EXTENDED SHOW NOTES & FULL TRANSCRIPT HERE* DEEPER DIVE Books Inventing the World: Venice and the Transformation of Western Civilization, M. F. Small (Pegasus Books, 2020) City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas, R. Crowley (Random House, 2013) A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance, W. Manchester (Little, Brown and Company, 1993) Primary Sources The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, Internet Archive (1907) The de’Barbari Map (View of Venice), Cartography Venice Project Center (1500) Letter of Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini to Lord Cardinal Firmanus, Carleton College (1453) The Shorter Annals of Venice, Carleton College (ca. 13th century) Primary Collections Venetian Diplomatic Agents in England, British History Online (1202-1509) *Wildcard Resource* Browse the art of Titian, an artist whose work was used as a form of payment for spies and intelligence gatherers in Venice. Not a bad paycheck! *EXTENDED SHOW NOTES & FULL TRANSCRIPT HERE*

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the CyberWire Network, powered by N2K.
0:11.0	Welcome to Spycast.
0:15.0	The official podcast of the International Spy Museum.
0:19.0	I'm your host, Dr. Andrew Hammond, the museum's historian and curator.
0:24.0	Each week, we explore some aspect of the world of intelligence and espionage.
0:28.0	It's past, it's present, or it's future.
0:32.0	Coming up next on Spycast.
0:35.0	The primary spies of the Venetians used were the most and exceptional men
0:40.0	thrown into the most exceptional circumstances.
0:43.0	But in most cases, we don't know who they are.
0:45.0	There's just a name, and that's it, because they were not important.
0:47.0	They were primarily banish criminals who offered to become spies
0:51.0	just to get a revocation of the banishment in the sun cast.
0:58.0	This week on Spycast, we journey back to Renaissance Italy.
1:07.0	Yes, the time of the art-loving house of Medici and Florence,
1:11.0	the dastardly Borgia family in Rome, Galileo, Michelangelo, Machiavelli,
1:18.0	and of course Leonardo da Vinci.
1:21.0	What we travel there to talk about Venice's secret service.
1:27.0	This week's guest makes the case for Venice's secret service
1:30.0	to be the first centralized intelligence service in the world,
1:35.0	something that is traditionally thought to come along around the time of World War I.
1:40.0	After many years conducting research in different countries,
	...

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