What did it mean to be a nobleman or noblewoman in the Republic of Venice? What did it mean not to be noble?
This is not as simple as it sounds.
All people were absolutely not equal in the Republic of Venice.
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Transcript
The Republic of Venice was an aristocratic republic for most of its existence.
It was ruled, not by a single dynasty, but by a class of dynasties — the Venetian nobility.
For much of its history, this power was hereditary, but it wasn’t always so.
The nobility was never more than a few percent of the population, but they monopolised political power and controlled the state.
In a way, they were the state.
But they were just a few percent.
What about all the others? Who were they? How were they organised? What was their legal status? Who was allowed to do what?
This was much more complicated than in our modern societies.
In the Venetian Republic there were, besides the nobility, also citizens in various sub-categories, commoners, and those who didn’t really belong, but were there anyway, such as people from the mainland, foreigners and Jews.
Citizens and commoners were separate, and had different rights, duties and possibilities.
That is, citizens and commoners from the Dogado — the ancient lagoon heartland of the Venetian state.
People from the Venetian dominions — the Stato di Mar down the Adriatic Sea and in Greece, and the Stato di Terra on the mainland — did not have the same status as people from the Dogado. They were, in fact, a kind of foreigners.
Venice was a commercial and manufacturing centre, and there were many more or less resident foreigners, from the West and the East. Consequently, in Venice, there were Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, Muslims and Jews.
The Jews were on an entirely different track from all the others. Firstly, not all Jews were foreigners, but neither were they Venetians. There were resident Jews and there were foreign Jews, and different rules applied here too.
The word “Ghetto” is of Venetian origin, and shows that the Jewish population was numerous, resident and organised over centuries.
There were also, for many centuries, slaves in Venice.
In this episode, I’ll talk about the nobility, citizens, commoners, people from the dominions. Discussions of the Jewish population, foreigners and of slavery in Venice will be for other episodes.
Nobles
The Venetian nobility always had a problem of definition. It wasn’t, for many centuries, obvious who was noble, and who wasn’t.
In most other nations, the status of nobility was tied to ownership of large estates of agricultural land because farming was the main means of creation of wealth. This was at the basis of the medieval feudal system, and the reason why noble titles are usually of the form “Count of This Place” and “Duke of That Other Place.”
The Venetian nobility never had such titles, and their status wasn’t tied to ownership of landed estates, for the very basic reason, that in the lagoons there was very little land to own.
It is difficult to create a social and political hierarchy based on ownership of something which hardly exists, and which isn’t central to the creation of wealth.
Wealth in Venice was created by trade, not by agriculture. Therefore, the nobility was initially simply the wealthiest and most powerful merchant families within Venetian society.
However, the distinction between “very wealthy” and just “wealthy” is rather fuzzy, so where do you draw the line between “nobles” and “citizens.”
Nevertheless, the concept of nobility — as a political and economic elite — was there from the times of the Venetian proto-state.
Very early documents show a social, economic and political system of three levels: the Tribuni or Primates, the Mediocri and the Minimi.
So a basic system of the “firsts”, the “middlings” and the “inferiors.”
The word “noble” appears soon after, to distinguish the elite from the lower levels of society. Other words, like “Zentilhomo” / “Gentiluomo” (gentleman) and “Patrizio” (patrician) arrive much later.
Case Vecchie
Many legends appeared over time about the earliest noble families, and how they could be related to the later nobility.
Formally, the nobles were peers, but in practice there were various hierarchies which would make some families higher status than others.
Early chronicles indicate twelve families as the electors of the first doge in 697. This is almost certainly mythological, but the resulting terminology stuck. They’re generally referred to as the apostolic families.
For the curious, they are: Badoer, Barozzi, Contarini, Dandolo, Falier, Gradenigo-Dolfin, Memmo, Michiel, Morosini, Polani, Sanudo and Tiepolo.
Likewise, four other families of ancient origins were called the evangelic families. They’re the Bembo, Bragadin, Corner and Giustinian.
It is traditional to group all the noble families attested in Venice before the year 800 as the case vecchie — the old houses. They are the already mentioned, and about a dozen or so more.
A good deal of these families became extinct over the centuries, but others continued until the end of the Republic, and beyond.
The members of the case vecchie were called longhi — long — as in a long family line.
Case Nuove
The families accepted as nobles from 800 until 1297, when access to the Greater Council was ‘locked’, are called the case nuove — the new houses — and their members are curti — short.
A good dozen families were accepted into the Greater Council shortly after 1297, especially after the Bajamonte-Tiepolo conspiracy in 1310, and they are considered case nuove as well.
All in all, the case nuove were around 150 families.
The curti managed to dominate the longhi in Venetian politics for much of the 1400s and 1500s, when almost all the doges were “short”.
The fifteen or sixteen families of the case nuove who had a member elected doge, are also referred to as case ducali — the ducal houses.
Case Nuovissime
In the War of Chioggia (1379–1381) the Venetian state almost succumbed, and all possible resources were mobilised for the war effort. After the war, based on their contributions, thirty families were granted the status of “nobles.” They are normally called the case nuovissime — the very new houses.
Some of them had the same name of already existing noble families. Over the centuries, most families split up in different branches, all with the same family name, and very often some branches of a family were nobles, while others were citizens.
There is, in fact, a huge overlap of the lists of known noble families and known citizen families. A family name alone wasn’t always enough to communicate the status of the family.
Distinct families with the same name were often assigned informal nicknames. So we have the “Gradenigo di Santa Giustina” lived in the parish of Santa Giustina. The “Contarini della Porta di Ferro” had a particular cast iron gate on the canal side door of their palace, while the “Contarini del Bovolo_ had a unique spiral staircase, which is still a tourist attraction today.
Honorary nobility
The Republic of Venice sometimes conferred nobility on foreign aristocratic families, as a title of honour. Most often, these families never resided in Venice, and didn’t take part in Venetian matters of state.
Between two and three dozen such cases are known.
Among others, the Bentivoglio family from Bologna was granted this status in the late 1400s. Listeners of the Bianca Cappello episodes (number 10 and 11) might recognise the name as the family Bianca’s daughter Pellegrina was married into.
Some of these families were local nobility from the subject cities in the Venetian mainland dominions. Such a case is the Colleoni family from Bergamo, during the lifetime of Bartolomeo Colleoni, who is, to this day, remembered with a very rare statue in Venice.
Houses made by money
During the 1600s and 1700s, the period of relative decline in Venice, the nobility shrank as old noble families became extinct.
All it took for a family line to perish, is for the last male to have no legitimate heir. Since the title was not tied to a specific property, as in a feudal system, it didn’t pass to a cadet branch of the family, along with the land the title was associated with. There was no land. Instead, the line was extinguished.
The Republic of Venice fought some protracted and costly wars against the Ottoman Turks in the 1600s and early 1700s, over the Greek islands of Candia (Crete today) and Morea (the Peloponnese).
To replenish both the Republic’s coffers and the Greater Council, new families were admitted to the nobility for payment; hence the name give to this new group: case fatte per soldo — houses made by money.
The price was 100,000 ducats, which would be enough to buy a couple, or more, of palaces on the Grand Canal. The families which entered were therefore generally quite wealthy.
All in all, we’re talking of about 75 families for the War of Candia, and another almost fifty for the War of Morea. Few of these families distinguished themselves in the republic, but we do find the Manin family in the first group, whence came the last doge of the Republic, Ludovico Manin. In the second group was the Rezzonico family, whose magnificent palace on the Grand Canal is now a civic museum.
Wealth
While some status might be derived from the age of a lineage, in practical political matters they weren’t that important. The factional fights would often see families allied across these categories, and against each other within the groups.
What mattered far more, was the wealth of a noble family.
Even critical positions in the Republic of Venice were only remunerated with a symbolic pay, so noblemen had to possess sufficient wealth to cover the expenses of holding office.
In the later centuries, the important categories in the nobility were three: the “senatorial” families, the “judicial” families, and the Barnabotti.
The “senatorial” families were those who could afford to occupy the highest offices of the state, foremost the Senate, the Signoria, and the Council of Ten, but also as governors of subject cities on the mainland or territories in the sea state.
The “judicial” families had fewer means, and could at most aspire to positions in the courts and tribunals, up to the Quarantia, the highest court for cases not involving nobles.
The Barnabotti were so poor, they could only afford to hold the lowest positions in the republic. Many were so destitute they couldn’t feed their families or pay their rent.
The name Barnabotti refers to the area around San Barnaba, which was one of the cheapest areas in Venice to live in.
Citizens
The next most important group, after the nobility, were the citizens.
Citizens were persons who could document their association with the dogado, and who could prove a certain level of “civility.”
If the nobility was described by the word “noble”, the terms most often associated with citizens are “honest” and “decent.”
Citizens, too, were subdivided into several groups. The most important group of citizens were the “original citizens,” and within this group, the “order of the secretaries.”
Citizenship could be acquired, in limited forms, which were the groups of citizens de intus and de intus et extra.
By the way, did I mention earlier that this would get complicated? It will.
Original citizens
The “original citizens” were, conceptually, together with the nobility, the “real” Venetians. Like the nobility had “always” been there, so had the original citizens.
Also like the nobility, the group of original citizens was not clearly defined in the earliest centuries, but following the Locking of the Greater Council in 1297, the definition of nobility gradually got a legal form, and so did the definition of the original citizens.
The reason was that the two groups were closely bound together, by blood bonds, marriages, joint business dealings and within the offices of the republic.
The rules, which developed in the 1300s and 1400s, were that for a man to be recognised as an original citizen, he had to fulfil several criteria:
- he had to be a legitimate child;
- his father and grandfather had to be original citizens too;
- none of the three could engage in “mechanical arts”; and
- he had to be “honourable” and possess “civility”.
The first two clauses are self-explanatory. To be an original citizen, you had to be born an original citizen, for two generations back. Like with the nobility, birth was important.
The “mechanical arts” clause might sound odd to us, but we still use the term “liberal arts”, which is the complement. The distinction is a bit like between working with your hands, and working with your mind.
Original citizens could be merchants, bankers, shop-keepers, doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, notaries and the like. They could not be shoemakers, butchers, bakers and such. Those were mechanical arts.
Finally, they had to be honourable and have civility. Honourable meant living a life according to the dominant social norms: being legitimately married, not having a criminal record, not hanging out habitually with lower-class people.
Civility meant having a decent education, and a proper demeanour.
There was a good deal of elastic in such rules, which no doubt suited the elite quite well. They could include or exclude people from the category of original citizens easily.
Intermarriage between nobles and original citizens was always acceptable and allowed, and also common. Many families of original citizens were wealthy, also more than some of the nobility.
Marco Polo should be known to most. He lived in the late 1200s and early 1300s, a merchant, and an original citizen. He was quite wealthy, something we know because his testament has survived. His wife was a Badoer, from one of the most ancient “apostolic” noble families.
One of the most conspicuous palaces on the Grand Canal — which since the 1980s is famous for being haunted — was built in the late 1400s, by Giovanni Dario, whose name still adorns the façade. He was an original citizen. His daughter Marietta, and heiress to his substantial fortune, married a Barbaro — one of the “new houses” — from the neighbouring palace.
Such marriages between nobles and original citizens were common, and perfectly acceptable. The status of the children followed the father, so the daughters of Marco Polo were original citizens, and so was Marietta Dario, but her children were nobles because her husband was a nobleman.
Many positions within the Republic of Venice — non-political in nature — were reserved for the original citizens.
Let’s take an example.
There was no real police force in the Venetian Republic, but Venice had a rudimentary system of nightwatchmen and policing. For each sestiere, a nobleman with the title Signor de la notte (Lord of the night) was entrusted with maintaining law and order after dark. Under him, he had a group of helpers or enforcers, called zaffi. Only an original citizen could be a zaffo.
The position of zaffo exercised a bit of the power of the state, so the individuals occupying that role had to be trustworthy.
The ruling elite — the nobility — needed people they could trust to delegate the tasks they didn’t want to or couldn’t do themselves.
But who could they trust with such elements of state power?
This is the reason for the rule about being an original citizen for three generations: himself, the father and the forefather. Such a person could have no foreign close relations, and hence no dual loyalties. They could be trusted better than others to be loyal to the republic.
Such positions within the republic — reserved for original citizens — existed all the way up, almost to the very top, which leads us to the “order of the secretaries”.
The Order of the Secretaries
A peculiarity of the Republic of Venice was that appointments to most political positions were for quite short terms, usually a year (but it could vary), and that each office was headed by a small college, often of three noblemen (but that could vary too). Usually, office holders could not be re-elected.
This was in effect an elaborate power-sharing system, to avoid that political tension within the nobility deteriorated into physical violence.
It created a problem of continuity in the running of the state, that the “ministers” (for using a modern term) kept changing.
Each council, college, magistracy or procuratia therefore had a permanent secretary, who would organise the day-to-day business of that office.
This secretary couldn’t be a nobleman, so the positions as secretaries of all the main bodies of the state were reserved to the most respected and wealthiest original citizens.
This group was called the Order of the Secretaries.
They were, again to use a modern term, the heads of departments, that is, civil service.
Giovanni Dario — mentioned earlier — was the secretary of the Pregadi — the Venetian Senate. In that role, he negotiated a peace treaty with the Ottoman Turks, and was richly rewarded by both sides for his effort. He used the money to build the Ca’ Dario on the Grand Canal.
Citizen de intus and de intus et extra
Normally, original citizens were original citizens by birth. There was, however, a way of acquiring citizenship.
The office of the Provveditori de Comun had the authority to grant citizenship to deserving commoners and foreigners.
Granted citizenship came in two forms: de intus and de intus et extra.
The formal requirements were the same, except, of course, the rule of being born a citizen for two generations.
Both forms gave almost the same rights as the original citizens enjoyed, except access to the reserved positions within the republic, exactly because they weren’t citizens for several generations.
Acquired citizenship didn’t convey the same level of trust and loyalty as three generations of citizenship.
The two Latin terms mean “within” and “within and beyond”. The former granted the rights of citizenship only within the dogado, while the latter also granted protection to engage in overseas commerce as a Venetian citizen.
Citizenship acquired from above
A person could also acquire original citizenship from above.
If a nobleman, for some reason, was deprived of his status as noble, he would become an original citizen.
Glass-makers and Torcello
There were two rather particular exceptions to all these rules.
The glass-makers of Murano were all automatically original citizens, even if they engaged in “mechanical arts”. This is a testament to the economic importance of the glass industry, already in the Middle Ages, and the need to keep such artisans close, so they wouldn’t leave and take theirs skills with them, harming the Venetian economy.
Torcello was a much older city than Venice, but it was also mostly abandoned by the mid-1400s. As a kind of recognition of the seniority of Torcello over Venice, all residents of Torcello were considered original citizens.
Moving to Torcello could therefore be a shortcut to Venetian citizenship for those who weren’t otherwise eligible, to a point where it became a standing joke. A zentilomo de Torcelo — a gentleman from Torcello — became a euphemism for a person who tried to appear nobler than he actually was.
Commoners
The remainder of the born residents of the dogado were commoners. They were considered lower class.
If the word “noble” described the nobility, and “decent” and “honest” the citizen class, the words often used for commoners are “vile” and “inferior”.
I’m not sure those words, back then, were as value loaded as they are today.
“Vile”, in its original Latin meaning, was something of low value or something which could be bought, so conceivably a word higher class people could use about paid labourers or servants. Likewise, “inferior” also means “lower”, as in below something else.
These terms have probably acquired their negative connotations by being associated with poorer people, by richer people.
As is often the case, the values of the dominant become the dominant values.
The commoners mostly engaged in “mechanical arts”, or were labourers without any specific craft.
While many were poor, they didn’t have to be. A shoemaker, a baker, a weaver, who had business acumen, could build up a sizeable workshops with a skilled workforce, and become quite wealthy.
However, money wasn’t sufficient to become a citizen. No matter how affluent, as long as he engaged in “mechanical arts”, he wasn’t eligible, and, in fact, he never would be.
Moving upwards socially was very difficult, and, at best, took generations.
Many crafts were organised in Scuole — schools — which is the word the Venetians used for guilds. Such guilds were legally recognised, and often participated in public events, like the many official feasts and celebrations in the city, the funerals of doges and the reception of foreign dignitaries in the city.
Another place, where wealthy commoners could participate in higher society, was through the Scuole Grandi — the Great Schools — which were charities to assist the poor, the sick, the infirm and the unsupported, such as widows and orphans.
Many of these charities allowed membership across the classes, and a respected commoner could rise to the highest positions within. Interestingly, if anybody was excluded from membership of the Scuole Grandi, it was usually the nobility, who often had their own separate charities.
People from the states
Practically, everything discussed so far, only applied to people born in the dogado, which was the original territory of the Venetian state, stretching through the lagoons from Grado in the north to Carvarzere in the south.
In the 1200s, Venice acquired overseas territories — the Stato da Mar. Later, in the early 1400s, they were joined by the mainland dominion — the Stato di Terra.
The three parts — dogado, stato da mar and stato di terra — remained legally separate entities.
The relationship meant, however, that people arrived in Venice who weren’t Venetians, in the sense from the dogado, but who also weren’t from other countries.
Each of these other places had their own history, traditions, and established social order, and the Republic of Venice didn’t change that much.
This was especially the case for the main cities on the mainland. They had been small city states earlier, and they had their own social order, with nobility, citizens and lower classes in different ways.
In principle, people from the overseas territories and the subject cities on the mainland were foreigners in Venice and in the dogado. They could still come and go, largely without restrictions, but they didn’t have any particular rights.
They couldn’t engage in the sectors reserved for the citizens, whether original or not, and they couldn’t become members of the guilds, which excluded them from many crafts.
The republic did, however, make one major exception. The local aristocracies of the major cities on the mainland were given the status of original citizens in Venice.
These cities had often been semi-independent city states for centuries, under that same local aristocracy. The Republic of Venice therefore need to hold the local elite tight, and somehow make them stakeholders in the new Venetian rule.
The status as original citizens of Venice gave these local nobilities access to Venice, to overseas trade as Venetians, to many other lines of business in Venice, and, maybe more important, access to the social circles of the Venetian nobility.
The Venetian nobility and the original citizens were closely intertwined. They socialised freely between them, and they could legally intermarry.
By making the nobilities of the subject cities original citizens in Venice, numerous bonds were created, both legal, economic, social and family bonds. In this way, the conquered subject cities were bound closer to Venice.
Another exception, so to say, was the system of acquired citizenship, which offered skilled and educated people from the dominions outside the dogado a way to settle and exercise their craft in Venice.
Finale
This has already gone much too long, so a discussion of the conditions of foreigners, Jews and slaves must be for another time.
I’ve kind of lost track, but did I tell you already that it was complicated?
Why was it so complicated?
Because the system was never designed. There was no plan. Like with so many other things in the Venetian Republic, they made it up as they went. They adapted and corrected as conditions changes, but there was never a plan.
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