These editions of reports sent back by Venetian ambassadors to the Great Council of the Republic in the sixteenth century were edited by Eugenio Alberi (1807-78) and published between 1839 and 1863. As Alberi 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 4 (Volume 2 of the first series), published in 1840, contains various reports, dating from 1525 to 1558, on the diplomacy of the Emperor Charles V, Venetian relations with France and with the papacy, and the state of England in the last year of Mary I's reign.