the terraferma state 113
of terraferma tax policy, also affords a good example of how government
innovation stopped at most halfway. Before 1630, increases in mainland
tax revenue had derived largely from increased rates of existing indirect
levies and from new direct demands largely anchored to existing meth-
ods (the division of fixed sums between provinces, further subdivided via
estimo listing of different social groups’ taxable wealth). After 1630, Venice
extended to the terraferma direct taxes already paid by Venetians—the
campatico on real estate (1636) and tanse on business capital (1650)—but
despite what in principle were new criteria, eschewing predetermined
totals to be levied and dealing with taxpayers individually and directly
for purposes of assessment and payment, local terraferma bodies man-
aged to assert some measure of mediation as with estimo-based levies.
Likewise, the dazio macina (milling tax), extended from Venice to the
mainland stably from the early 18th century, quickly settled into the form
of a poll tax partly differentiated by wealth levels, unpopular and subject
to evasion and protest but also substantially influenced by the mediation
of local bodies, some of which shared it out via the estimo. When Venice
decided to unify the listing and assessment of wealth subject to direct
dues in the redecima of 1740, it did so only partially: the westernmost
provinces were excluded, and though declarations were gathered simul-
taneously from property owners in Venice and the rest of the mainland,
there remained a discrepancy in dues between tax-payers listed with the
capital and those listed with the provinces, and also between and within
single provinces. As to trade and related tax, despite partial improvements
over the decades, radical reform of customs and other indirect taxation
within the whole state was only decided in 1794, with uniform tariffs end-
ing exemptions and privileges.
There was still no homogeneously conceived policy for terraferma agri-
culture, and the most important changes concerned land ownership, viz.,
the continuing erosion of peasant property by citizens’ purchases, married
with further massive investment by Venetians in terraferma land.53 The
state’s alienation of about 90,000 hectares of common property previously
used by rural communities between 1647 and 1727 not only aided such
investment—about 39 per cent went to Venetian patricians—but also had
major social implications for communities long used to exploiting those
resources. These sales primarily concerned land in provinces between
Friuli and the Trevigiano—whereas in the Bresciano and Bergamasco,
53 Beltrami, La penetrazione economica; Barbacetto, “La più gelosa.”