330 anna bellavitis
less wealthy patricians, at the end of the 18th century, had all their sons
marry, precisely in order to profit from the wives’ dowries.25
one of the most important consequences of the matrimonial system
described up to this point is the forced monachization of daughters. young
patrician men not destined for marriage found other solutions, from con-
cubinage to clandestine marriage with women from all social classes. By
contrast, for young women, the alternative to marriage was almost invari-
ably the convent, and only seldom some form of semi-lay spinsterhood
in the father’s home.26 limiting marriages also meant limiting births, and
indeed, at the end of the 18th century, the patriciate’s demographic crisis
was evident. From the beginning of the 16th century to the end of the 18th,
the percentage of patricians within the population declined from 8–10 per
cent to just over 2 per cent.27 in a social system in which the procreation
of legitimate offspring is considered almost a burden and a family obliga-
tion, yet at the same time a privilege reserved for few, a great degree of
discipline is required on the part of those involved. Such discipline must
be founded on shared values and ideals, in addition to a social consensus
that lies outside the limits of the patrician class. in the first decades of the
16th century, some wills of women belonging to the artisan class present
some interesting surprises. in the will she prepared on 3 February 1547,
chiaretta Bonassi, the pregnant wife of a jeweler, designated two execu-
tors: the magnifico messer Francesco Querini, and Polo, son of herself and
of Francesco. She appointed as heir Querina, daughter of herself and of
Francesco, along with another child of Francesco Querini, to whom she
was about to give birth. on 20 September 1548, Stella negro, the preg-
nant daughter of a “trousers’ cutter,” prepared a will, entrusting the son
or daughter who was about to be born to the “magnifico messere Piero
Gritti... for being his.”28 in their mothers’ intentions, these illegitimate
children were destined to be integrated into the patrician family and, for
25 Hunecke, Il patriziato; Francesca meneghetti casarin, “diseducazione patrizia, dised-
ucazione plebea: un dibattito nella Venezia del Settecento,” Studi veneziani, n.s. 18 (1989),
117–56.
26 Jutta Gisela Sperling, Convents and the Body Politic in Late Renaissance Venice (chi-
cago/london, 1999); mary laven, Virgins of Venice (london, 2002); Federica ambrosini,
“toward a Social History of Women in Venice from the Renaissance to the enlightment,”
in John martin and dennis Romano, eds., Venice Reconsidered (Baltimore/london, 2000),
pp. 420–53.
27 Beltrami, Storia della popolazione; Zannini, “Un censimento”; maria teresa todesco,
“andamento demografico della nobiltà veneziana allo specchio delle votazioni nel mag-
gior consiglio (1297–1797),” Ateneo Veneto 176 (1989), 119–64.
28 Bellavitis, Famille, p. 139.