These editions of reports sent back by Venetian ambassadors to the Great Council of the Republic in the sixteenth century were edited by Eugenio Albèri (1807-78) and published between 1839 and 1863. As Albèri notes in his preface, a law of 1296 decreed that all embassies and legations should submit a written report to the Council at the end of their mission, and the surviving records provide an invaluable resource for both political and economic historians. The fifteen volumes are divided into three series, on relations with European states outside Italy; with other Italian states; and with the Ottoman Empire. Volume 10 (Volume 4 of the second series), published in 1857, contains reports of embassies to Rome between 1560 and 1598, including the account by Melchiorre Michiel, ambassador extraordinary, of the enthronement of Pius IV, and a remarkable character-sketch of the Pope by Giacomo Soranzo in 1565.
