The role of the Venetian republic in the history of intellectual property is not well known although the innovations which were later codified into law by the British Crown, and which are usually regarded as heralding the age of intellectual property, were first developed a century before in Venice. This article explores these precursors to the more commonplace understanding of the origins of intellectual property law, and draws some parallels between the current debates about property in knowledge and the time of its first formal emergence some 500 years ago.