I mostly developed this understanding of Venice by studying particular cases. I can point out to the life of Gasparo Contarini, which is the subject of this book https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520305700/gasparo-contarini to understand the psichology of the patricians. There are also quite a few insights in the works of the fellow of the Warwick university, which are now synthesized in this book about the Italian wars, http://encore.lib.warwick.ac.uk/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2806678

There's also this seminar, which comes with an extremely good reading lists - I particularly praise the works of rospocher, who teach in Milan and who enlightened me with the early nationalism of the reinassance, special mention to his work about Julius II https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/students/modules/hi985/topics/venice_war_and_public_opinion/

All those books are academy-grade, which means that they require of a bit of understanding of the historical jargon. But anyone can read them, they are not as obscure as German philosophy. Obviously, when the Warwick group point to the early Italian nationalism with skepticism, you should take for granted that there was, indeed, a strong ethnonationalism in Italy at that point of the history.