These editions of reports sent back by Venetian ambassadors to the Great Council of the Republic in the sixteenth century were edited by Eugenio Albèri (1807–78) and published between 1839 and 1863. As Albèri notes in his preface, a law of 1296 decreed that all embassies and legations should submit a written report to the Council at the end of their mission, and the surviving records provide an invaluable resource for both political and economic historians. The fifteen volumes are divided into three series, on relations with European states outside Italy; with other Italian states; and with the Ottoman Empire. Volume 14 (Volume 6 of the first series), published in 1862, contains reports dating from 1507 to 1596, mostly about relations with 'Germania', the Holy Roman Empire, from the time of Maximilian I to the diplomatic manoeuvring over the succession to the throne of Poland in the 1580s.