The P iacevoli N otti of G iambattista C asali: diplomats and fairy tales in early modern I taly

Published at V enice between 1551 and 1553, G iovanfrancesco S traparola's collection of fairy tales, novelle, riddles and madrigals, L e piacevoli notti , proved a E uropean best‐seller. In the collection's loose framing narrative, set during carnival in 1530s V enice, the first tale of the final night is recounted by E nglish ambassador to V enice, G iambattista C asali ( c .1494/95–1536). S traparola's frametale has been read chiefly to illuminate the fairy tales; this article employs it to trace a set of elite Venetian social institutions and networks into which C asali successfully interpolated himself over the course of his 1526–35 embassy. C asali's initially unlikely inclusion in the P iacevoli notti demonstrates the immense practical significance of those networks to his diplomatic credibility and efficacy. Crucial to C asali's diplomatic career was his building up of political credit through informal sociability and through brokering cultural patronage between V enice, his native cities of B ologna and R ome, and the courts of M antua, E ngland, or H ungary. In highlighting the value of informal sociability for R enaissance diplomats such as C asali, the article contributes to calls for a broader conception of politics in the historiography of early modern diplomacy.