SOCIAL LIFE: VENICE

Two Courtesans: Vittore Carpaccio

Carpaccio’s painting

•Two women

•Without occupation

•Ambiguity of identity

Mansueti Miracle on the Bridge of San Lio

Detail: women in the background

Mansueti’s portrayal of women

•In this painting we get a sense of the lives of women in Renaissance Venice

•In the background

•Intimacy of the campo life

•Connections and associations

What you are working towards• This outcome leads to Section C of the Exam,

which is an essay on Social Life. Therefore you are going to be called on to display your knowledge of the nature of the Venetian community and what the elements of this community were. You will have to evaluate the relative importance of these elements and how they affected the society; whether Venice was really a place of concord and harmony.

Study Design• The study design speaks of the distinct social

structures of each city state that are shaped by their economic and political bases

• The social hierarchies being reflected in aspects of the everyday life

• Social relationships are variously described as competitive, pragmatic or cooperative, typified by economic and political networks and rarely by ties of love and friendship

Political and economic bases

•This means you need to be clear about what kinds of work Venetian men and women did and how this work led to networks and connections

•The same applies to the political basis of the state.

•It is obvious that this was an important part of social identity in Venice

Nature of Social Relationships

•You have to be able to identify the nature of the social relationships that existed in Venice.

•Why and how did people meet and relate to one another?

•How do the terms social map, social hierarchy and social identity relate ?

Nature of Social Relationships

•The study design asks:•Were these social relationships

competitive,• pragmatic or cooperative,

•Were they typified by only by economic and political networks

• or by ties of love and friendship

Definitions

• It is important to know what the terms mean when you are writing an essay analysing the respective importance of the elements of social life.

Social HierarchiesThe Patricians

• Venice had three main castes or classes.• The Patriciate• Bartolus, a lawyer and political thinker said:

• Although they are few compared to the whole population of the city, they are many compared to those ruling in other cities, and because they are many, the people are not resentful of being governed by them. Also because they are many, they are not easily divided among themselves; moreover, many of them are men of moderate wealth, who are always a stabilising force in a city.

The Cittadini

• Originari (hereditary) or de intus (granted)

• The position of the cittadini was summed up in 1509 by the Doge Loredan : “We bear the name, and you the prizes; we the leaves and you the fruit.”

The Plebians/Popolani

•The third caste made up 90% of the population

•Gary Wills says it was not simply an economic distinction.

•These were the mass of people who had ‘no special privileges or status’.

Social Integration

•What were the networks and associations of Venetians that bound them together as a community

Social Connections and Networks•Within the intimate spaces like the parish

and the campo social connections could be formed that transcended both wealth and class

•If San Marco, Rialto, and the city's streets and canals were essentially male locales, then there were other urban spaces that Venetians commonly associated with women.

The Geography: the map of the Six Sestieri

Friendships between Patrician Women

•Networks of noble women formed around parishes and households, both female spaces, provided another thread in ‘the complex web of associations’ (Romano) that bound the Patriciate together

Nature of these female connections

•You need to be able to identify whether these relationships were

•competitive,• pragmatic •or cooperative,

Female Bonds

•While the closest bonds developed between women of equal status, parishes were the site of associations and friendships between women of different classes.

Relationships between patrician and popolani women•These occurred most frequently within

the household and the parish

Households

•No where were the contacts between patrician and popolani women as frequent or as intimate as in the household

•Patrician women and wet nurses•Patrician women and slaves•Romano argues that a common concern

for children helped to create close ties between patrician women and their servants

The Parish

•This provided another sphere for female interaction

•Shared participation in the rituals of religion

•Physical proximity created relationships that were more likely to cross class lines

The Parish Church of Santa Maria Formosa

Patrician Women’s Wills

•These documents show us the networks of clientage that these women developed.

•These wills provide primary sources•1336 Maria Orio of Santa Trinitata left

money to her servant Caterina•Cecelia Loredan freed her slave Vittore in

her will •Patrician women not only remembered

their own servants but also those of their neighbours in their wills

Social Map

• It is helpful to think of the cramped nature of the Republic and the way the Venetians organised their city to allow for the activities that they regarded as important.

• F C Lane speaks of the urban structure of Venice as “the parish communities …supplemented by zones with specialised functions which gave a unified life to the city as a whole”

Female Patronage

•Drawn together by shared spaces, duties and concern for each other, Venetian women of different status formed patron-client relationships

Female Network Participation in Ritual

• The close association of women with home and neighborhood found ritual expression in the festival of the Marie.

• it was a time when women took an active part in the ritual life of the city;

• further that they also used the occasion to renew social ties among themselves

The Campo•Along with the parish, the campo was an important location of social life.

•The limited space in Venice meant that Venetians were restricted in their choice of public arena and places of congregation.

•This was especially true of women

A typical Venetian campowith the Palazzo surrounding the square and the well in the centre

Female Patronage

•Women in the Scuole

•Casa delle Zitelle

Control of Prostitutes and Urban Poor

•The social map has shown us that Venice was made up of gendered spaces.

•The control of prostitution shows this in another light

Sumptuary Laws