Book excerpt: Throughout history, marriage has been used as a method of creating and strengthening bonds between society's ruling elites. Nowhere is this more apparent than in early modern Venice, where members of the urban patrician class looked to marital alliances to help maintain their position and social distinction in a fluid society. This book explores these social relationships and the ways in which they were mediated through the links created by marriage. It looks at the changing composition of the Venetian ruling elite during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, examining the complex relationship between the patrician class and the rest of society.