104 michael knapton
b. Rural Elites and Urban Aristocracies
Within provincial society, greater mobilization of rural resources for
defense needs coincided with cumulatively vast citizens’ purchases of
peasant land, which sapped rural communities’ taxable assets and gen-
erated considerable social tension.39 Though the Agnadello crisis had
not displaced civic aristocracies as Venice’s main partners in govern-
ment, this combination of circumstances was the primary stimulus to
the emergence of corpi territoriali representing the rural communities of
each province’s contado, which mostly achieved political efficacy between
the mid- and later 16th century and partly altered the balance of power
between contadi and cities, albeit without unhinging urban jurisdiction
in general.40 They paid primary though not exclusive attention to fiscal
matters and gradually obtained belated but significant changes: redistri-
bution between town, clergy, and country of direct tax due to Venice; the
cessation of taxable wealth’s migration between the tax lists and burdens
of these three groups as a result of changed ownership; contribution by
previously exempt city-dwellers, especially to military dues extraneous to
handling by state exchequers; and the passage from civic to contado offi-
cials of responsibility for assigning dues and collecting taxes.
Though most peasants’ living standards nonetheless worsened substan-
tially, the corpi territoriali both favored and benefitted from the rise of con-
tado political elites based primarily in small towns. These groups’ profile
was partly akin to that of urban elites (some indeed migrated to cities), in
the high incidence of jealous attachment to office and profit-taking from
it, and in the passage of much decision-making towards smaller bodies,
from single communities up to the contado level. But they acquired famil-
iarity with administrative and judicial procedure, exploiting the oppor-
tunities offered especially by recourse to authority in Venice—primarily
through judicial channels, but also e.g., via petitions—and cultivating
relations with the patriciate.
The overall scenario was complex and partly contradictory: town-
scapes were more intensely imbued with civic aristocracies’ individual
39 Corazzol, Fitti e livelli.
40 Michael Knapton, “Il Territorio Vicentino nello Stato veneto del ’500 e primo ’600:
nuovi equilibri politici e fiscali,” in Giorgio Cracco and Michael Knapton, eds., Dentro lo
“Stado italico.” Venezia e la Terraferma fra Quattro e Seicento (Trent, 1984), pp. 33–115; Ser-
gio Zamperetti, “I ‘sinedri dolosi.’ La formazione e lo sviluppo dei Corpi territoriali nello
Stato regionale veneto tra ’500 e ’600,” Rivista Storica Italiana 99 (1987), 269–320; Alessan-
dra Rossini, Le campagne bresciane nel Cinquecento. Territorio, fisco, società (Milan, 1994).