The Bravo (1831) takes place in early eighteenth-century Venice, when the "Serene Republic" had lost much of its glory, leaving its oligarchs struggling to hold on to their family wealth by manipulating the government and people through secret councils and a figure-head doge. In 1844, Cooper called it "in spirit, the most American book I ever wrote" because of its depiction of the masses duped by demagoguery and the attempts of Congress to rein in...