family and society 329
husband’s family to the widow, and this property could in turn become
part of her dowry in the event of remarriage.23
the Venetian patriciate’s successory practices in the early modern age
have been the subject of important scholarly endeavors, especially in the
case of studies focusing on single families. By contrast, those studies on
the patriciate in general which have clarified the particularity of fidei-
commissary practices have been carried out especially with reference to
demography, in an attempt to understand the reasons for, and modalities
of, the drop in participation in the Maggior Consiglio.24 Until the mid-
16th century, patrician families tended to form new branches, marriages
of sons were more frequent, and the family’s mercantile capital was dis-
tributed among sons. the reduction in mercantile opportunities and the
tendency to increase investment in real estate, phenomena that charac-
terized the 16th-century Venetian economy, led to a drastic limitation of
marriages in order to keep the family’s land holdings intact; however, this
did not necessarily translate into the introduction of privilege based on
primogeniture. Unlike noble classes elsewhere, the Venetian patriciate
tended to privilege the unit of sons grouped into a fraterna rather than a
single son in fidei-commissary succession, even though only one was des-
tined for marriage and legitimate reproduction. the Venetian originality
lies in the choice to join together a practice typical of landed nobility, the
fidei-commissum, with the tradition of a mercantile Republic, or rather the
egalitarian division of wealth. Sons had to live together and designate as
heirs the legitimate sons of the only brother chosen for marriage: these
forms of cohabitation stirred up surprise and admiration in the accounts
of foreign travelers even at the end of the 18th century. However, it was
especially the richest patrician families who followed this pattern, while
23 chojnacki, Women and Men; Jean-François chauvard, La circulation des biens à Venise.
Stratégies patrimoniales et marché immobilier (1600–1750) (Rome, 2005); anna Bellavitis and
isabelle chabot, “People and Property in Florence and Venice,” in marta ajmar-Wollheim
and Flora dennis, eds., At Home in Renaissance Italy (london, 2006), pp. 76–85.
24 James c. davis, A Venetian Family and its Fortune, 1500–1900 (Philadelphia, 1975);
Giuseppe Gullino, I Pisani dal Banco e Moretta. Storia di due famiglie veneziane in età
moderna e delle loro vicende patrimoniali tra 1705 e 1836 (Rome, 1984); Renzo derosas, “i
Querini Stampalia. Vicende patrimoniali dal cinque all’ottocento,” in Giorgio Busetto and
madile Gambier, eds., I Querini Stampalia. Un ritratto di famiglia nel Settecento veneziano
(Venice, 1987), pp. 43–87; Renzo derosas, “la crisi del patriziato come crisi del sistema
familiare: i Foscarini ai carmini nel secondo Settecento,” in Studi veneti offerti a Gaetano
Cozzi (Venice, 1992), pp. 309–31; laura casella, I Savorgnan. La famiglia e le opportunità del
potere (Rome, 2003); James c. davis, The Decline of the Venetian Nobility as a Ruling Class
(Baltimore, 1962); Hunecke, Il patriziato.