282 luciano pezzolo
The city represented a center of coordination in terms of an interregional
economic area. Here there were financial, shipping, commercial, and
manufacturing services; and it was here that the know-how, labor force,
and entrepreneurs of the terraferma came together. At the same time,
an analagous flow was directed towards various areas of the dominion.
Behind the spread of industrial activities in the terraferma, one can see
the capital of Venetian patricians: in the wool factory on Schio, in the
northern hinterland of Vicenza, for silk spinning wheels in hills of Treviso,
and for several paper factories.63 Similarly, nobles from the lagoon con-
cerned themselves with improving land production by investing in new
technologies.64 By now, the terraferma was assuming real importance,
even for the well-being of the Venetians. In the regional division of labor,
the capital demonstrated a marked vocation for the production of luxury
goods, while the centers of the hinterland dedicated themselves to less
prestigious industries.65 Can one thus speak of the formation of a regional
economy? In the present state of research, it is premature to give a defini-
tive answer. Undoubtedly a high degree of integration can be identified
in some sectors (the grain and financial markets); and even in the fis-
cal sector, the high barriers that had characterized the relations between
Venice and its subject provinces in the Renaissance were lowered slowly
over time. Yet the diaphragm that separated the city on the lagoon from
the rest of its state never gave way: a diaphragm that was perhaps more
cultural and ideological than economic but which, until recent times, also
has heavily conditioned the relative historiography. Only recently, in fact,
have we turned to consider the entire state (or better, the Italian terra-
ferma) in order to better understand the economy of Venice.
BibliographyPrimary Works
Naturally, the Archivio di Stato in Venice offers an enormous number of primary sources for
any research project, particularly for topics of economic history. Since a large part of the
documentation is subdivided according to the institutional structure of the government,
63 Ivo Mattozzi, “Intraprese produttive in Terraferma,” in Storia di Venezia, vol. 7 (1997):
La Venezia barocca, ed. Gino Benzoni and Gaetano Cozzi, pp. 435–79.
64 Georgelin, Venise, pp. 349–92; Gullino, “Venezia e le campagne,” in Storia di Vene-
zia, vol. 8 (1998): L’ultima fase della Serenissima, ed. Piero Del Negro and Paolo Preto,
pp. 651–702.
65 Salvatore Ciriacono, “Venise et ses villes. Structuration et déstructuration d’un mar-
ché régional, XVIe–XVIIIe siècle,” Revue historique 276 (1986), 287–307.