This conference aims to explore the dialogue between Venice and the centres of the Adriatic area from a specific perspective, that of the construction of the past. These are perhaps the two major lines of research on medieval Venice. Pursued by scholars of various fields and nationalities, they have proved crucial in describing the city's cultural profile and highlighting the characteristics of its artistic and literary production. In addressing two major research themes on Venice simultaneously, we would like to create a dialogue between specialists from various disciplines and also examine the validity of interdisciplinary approaches at the intersection of different cultural fields (textual and visual, material, historiographic). The chronological and geographical perspective chosen, which covers the late Middle Ages and the early modern age and focuses on the interaction between Venice and other centres in the Adriatic space (Ravenna and the late antique heritage, Constantinople, the courtly network of Northern Italy, the Venetian colonies such as Dubrovnik, Bolognese ars dictaminis models), seems to be essential. It will indeed enable us to describe how the past is used to stage multiple, co-existing, even competing representational strategies and to explore the mechanism of memory and recognition through which, when looking at artefacts or reading texts staging Venetian past, beholders are reminded of the shared values this past embodies.