112 michael knapton
the Sindici Inquisitori or of functionaries linked to more ordinary magis-
tracies in the capital.
Nonetheless, mainland governors were often a supporting link in
information-gathering to support attempts by the government to reform
and modernize whole areas of policy. Such action was undertaken most
intensely between the 1750s and 1770s, but in the phases of debate and
decision about change by the councils of state, much of this preparatory
work was nullified by political stalemate. However, even preparatory work
for reform involved use of modern methods and instruments of govern-
ment, as happened, e.g., with the censuses (Anagrafi) periodically com-
piled from 1766 onwards, also largely intended as a premiss for rethinking
tax policy.
There were changes of approach and priorities in mainland government
between 1630 and 1797. As compared to the previous period, fortifications
featured less in defense organization, while for many decades commit-
ment to Ottoman wars was a priority for land forces, though their mobi-
lization to defend the terraferma again became a real need in the early
18th century.51 Mainly during that century, against a European background
of progressive changes in military organization, there were belated, partly
successful efforts to update army organization by introducing regiments
and special corps of artillery and engineers, new methods of recruitment,
and a military academy in Verona. But the overall military profile was
low, reflecting Venetian awareness of the terraferma’s defensive weak-
ness, especially after the Austrian Habsburgs had become the neighboring
power to the west as well as to the north and east. Low-profile neutral-
ity was served largely by diplomacy, which also scored some successes in
solving problems over mainland borders: thus the 1751 agreement to make
ecclesiastical and state boundaries coincide between Venetian Friuli and
neighboring Habsburg territory, ending pastoral claims over the latter by
the Patriarch of Aquileia.
Terraferma exchequers and their tax revenues, however, became, if any-
thing, a more fundamental concern.52 Public finance, in the specific form
51 Piero Del Negro, “La milizia,” in Storia di Venezia, vol. 7: La Venezia barocca, ed.
Benzoni and Cozzi, pp. 509–31; Luca Porto, Una piazzaforte in età moderna. Verona come
sistema fortezza (secc. XV–XVIII) (Milan, 2009).
52 Pezzolo, Una finanza; Pezzolo, “Stato, guerra e finanza”; Paolo Preto, “Le riforme,”
in Storia di Venezia, vol. 8 (1998): L’ultima fase della Serenissima, ed. Piero Del Negro and
Paolo Preto, pp. 83–142; Andrea Zannini, “La finanza pubblica: bilanci, fisco, moneta e
debito pubblico,” in Storia di Venezia, vol. 8: L’ultima fase della Serenissima, ed. Del Negro
and Preto, pp. 431–77.