As the first mainland town that Venice acquired (1339–44), Treviso could claim to be the foundation of the Venetian Terraferma. And as Treviso's oldest lay religious institutions (emerging from the 1260 devotional movement), the confraternity and hospital of S. Maria dei Battuti could equally claim to be the foundation of the city's civic religion. In this work D'Andrea opens the archives to give us a vivid picture of how Trevisan men and women used their confraternal hospital to construct a holy city that fed, healed and educated its poor. Alert to social and political dimensions, he also explores how the confraternity and hospital figured in Treviso's relations with Venice. Much recent work has focused on institutional charity organised by confraternities within cities like Venice, Florence, Bologna or Rome. D'Andrea moves the discussion forward by detailing the many ways in which lay people employed their confraternities to address concerns beyond their city boundaries. Confraternities did not just organise charity or worship in Treviso – they were quasi-governmental agencies that were deeply involved in ongoing social and political negotiations with Venice. D'Andrea shows us that this was a two-way street. Tending its Trevisan sinews allowed Venice to exercise the muscle of a major land empire, and convinced Trevisans to remain loyal to the banner of St Mark. D'Andrea opens by setting the political and historical contexts for Treviso's incorporation into the Venetian empire before turning to consider how the confraternity of S. Maria dei Battuti operated as the city's chief body of social kinship, lay worship and religious education. He then turns to the hospital itself, and the range of medical and social services that it offered as the fulfilment in charity of spiritual doctrines. The book spans the critical period of Venice's relentless expansion eastward towards Milan, the sudden collapse in the assault of the Holy League in 1509–11, and the gradual reconstruction through the 1520s and '30s. Towns like Treviso returned to Venetian sovereignty in large part because Venice gave space for the exercise of civic priorities and values as these were expressed through local institutions. This lively and richly-documented study goes beyond social and religious themes and directly addresses some of the key political questions of the Renaissance: the relations of centre and periphery in the early modern state, the informal exercise of power in subject cities, the construction of social order through charity, medical care and popular religion, and the relation of lay and clerical elements in civic religion. It is necessary reading for those wanting to know what made the Renaissance city tick.