1. Biography of Suriano
He was born in Venice in 1570 into a non-patrician family, known as the cittadini.1 Citizens played an important role in administration of the Venetian Republic. Together with his three brothers, he was educated to take up position as a civil servant or secretary. In 1594, he married with Lucia Marcello di Gerolamo, who was a patrician.
I am able to reconstruct most of his diplomatic career before his arrival in The Hague thanks to a document he sent to the Serenissima from The Hague on 16 October 1619. In the letter, he complained about the lack of payment for his services and the enclosed document was meant to prove his long and devoted service to the Venetian State.2
He entered into administrative service in 1601 and left his home city for the first time in 1603 as a secretary of Francesco Giustiniano and Ottaviano Bon, the two Provveditori sopra li beni comunali. The following year he joined Agostino Nani to Rome. This mission was the start of his work in the Venetian diplomatic service: accompanying important members of Venetian nobility on their diplomatic assignments as a secretary. He served as a secretary To Priuli in Paris (1606-1607), London (1608-1611), Rome (1611-1614) and Zurich (1615-1616). He travelled from Zurich at the end of June 1616 to The Hague. From August 1616 to July 1623, he stayed in The Hague as the Venetian diplomatic agent.3
Upon his return to Venice, he was nominated as secretary to the Provedditore generale di Terraferma. Two years later, he was sent as secretary to London, but he was quickly sent to The Hague again (1626-1627). After one year in The Hague, the States General honoured him and allowed him to represent half of a golden lion in family crest.4
In 1629, he became secretary of the Council of Ten, one of the most important governing bodies of the Venetian Republic. He kept this post until his death in 1635.5
2. Earlier editions
In 1883 the historical society published a selection of Suriano’s letters 1616-1618 together with a Dutch translations.6 Pieter Jan Blok highlighted the relevance of Suriano’s letters in his publication of the Venetian Relazione, the famous reports written by Venetian ambassadors at the end of a diplomatic mission.7 Blok must have inspired his student Pieter Geyl to conduct research on Suriano for his doctoral dissertation. No further attempts were undertaken to publish an edition of Suriano’s letters.
3. Current edition
The edition includes the 725 letters sent by Christofforo Suriano to Venice and kept in the Archivio di Stato di Venezia in the archival series of ambassadorial dispatches.8 His letters are preserved in chronological order (from 1616 to 1623) in eleven filze (files).
A unique feature of this edition is the inclusion of all the different documents bound together in these filze. These documents can be separated into two main categories.
In the filze, attachments can precede the letter in which the documents had been originally enclosed. In this case, the textual order has been preserved and the attachments are transcribed before the respective letter. This means that when you click on a specific letter, you might see several attachment before the main letter.
The letters and all these attachments are fully searchable. Each letter has an English summary written by Dr. Nina Lamal. The aim of the summaries is to provide an overview of the most important topics covered by Suriano in his letter. To see all the summaries, preform an empty search in the search box on the website of the edition.
The individuals mentioned in his letters have been identified as much as possible and a brief biography is provided. For more information about this identification process, please consult the about page.
4. Future updates
In the next couple of months, the aim is to expand the edition with additional material I have found in different European archives. This material includes Suriano’s surviving letters sent to the Inquisitori di Stato as well as letters sent to other (Venetian and foreign) ambassadors.
Written by Nina Lamal, October 2024