Аннотация:There is a pressing need to document Monteverdi’s Venetian period (1613–43) in greater depth. This task has long been impeded, however, by our haphazard grasp of the specific complexities of Venetian socio-cultural and musical contexts. By looking beyond St Mark's Basilica, the present article uncovers brief archival records often overlooked by music historians. These new documents may not add much to the known facts of Monteverdi’s biography, but they do cast significant new light on the vast network of social relationships that Monteverdi developed during his Venetian years with fellow musicians and with higher-ranked patrons, not least in secular spheres and in the world of early ‘public’ opera.
