the terraferma state 117
generally further reduced remaining mainland identity. There were only
23 terraferma noble families involved, some already more closely linked
to the state than most mainland aristocrats by a tradition of military
or other service. The majority were from Padua and Vicenza, physically
nearer Venice, while the leading families of the major cities of Verona
and Brescia were almost totally absent. Assimilation into the patriciate
proved relatively easier for the nobles, but all the newly admitted families
had a slow, gradual path towards access to important patrician offices,
even though the last doge of Venice—Lodovico Manin—was of a Friulan
family admitted at this time. Eloquent about the growing gap between
the Venetian patriciate and mainland elites during the later 18th century
is the fact that only 11 new families were admitted when access to the
patriciate was again made possible in 1776–88 with a view to attracting
40 terraferma noble families.
The overall political destiny of terraferma aristocracies in this period
needs further study, which would also provide more conclusive evidence
in favor of recognizing the decades either side of 1600 as a major turn-
ing point for their overall autonomy in relation to Venetian authority, as
mentioned above in connection with alterations in the working of penal
justice. The prestige of civic council membership was perhaps slower to
decline than were civic bodies’ scope for initiative and margins of auton-
omy in decision-making, though research on Verona suggests caution in
exaggerating this latter trend.60 Towards the end of the period, though
formal social hierarchy was not adjusted to take account of the “third
estate,” the lower profile of civic councils seems to have been partly coun-
ter-balanced, in terms of interest and active involvement in civic matters,
by at least some of the academies. During the 18th century, this already
long-running feature of the urban life of the elites partook of some of the
spirit of Enlightened culture—and such culture, both inside and beyond
the academies, could bring together nobles and “bourgeois.”61
However, despite Venetian restriction of their involvement in penal
justice, much of civic institutions’ control over ordinary urban and rural
administration remained intact, and the low profile of councils was at
least partly compensated by the power of generic executive bodies (dep-
utati and similar), access to which—as to other important posts—was
60 Porto, Una piazzaforte.
61 Venturi, Settecento Riformatore, vol. 5, part 2.