The article highlights the convergence between the invention of humanist rhetoric and Venetian continental expansion, through the study of the eulogies addressed to the rectors in the Terraferma in the first half of the 15th century. The imitation of classical models, in particular of Cicero’s first letter to his brother Quintus, served to promote a representation of the Venetian rule as ‘republican’, i.e. held by virtuous patricians. Such a discourse directly participated not only to the legitimation of Venetian imperialism, but also to the definition of a political contract with the elites of the conquered territories, guaranteeing a moral and cultural framework to the exercise of power.