How could early modern Venice, a city renowned for its political freedom and social harmony, also have become a centre of religious dissent and inquisitorial repression? To answer this question, the author of this treatise develops an innovative approach that deftly connects social and cultural history. It offers a vivid re-creation of the social and cultural worlds of the Venetian heretics - those men and women who articulated their hopes for religious and political reform and whose ideologies ranged from evangelical to anabaptist and even millenarian positions. In exploring the connections between religious beliefs and social experience, it describes Renaissance urban life in a manner that should interest students and scholars involved in anthropological, religious and historical studies.