332 anna bellavitis
a matter of demographic suicide than of political suicide. in most cases,
it was poor patricians who married outside of their social class and who
failed to register their marriages with the Avogaria di Comun, but when
a Foscarini ai carmini or a Savorgnan rebelled against tradition by mar-
rying lower-class women, perhaps even actresses or dancers, they ignited
scandal and disappointment, sometimes provoking action on the part of
the state’s major magistracies.32
Rebellion against family choices sometimes manifested itself even on
the part of young patrician women. in 1788, cattaruzza Grimani reported
to the Inquisitori di Stato “the tyrannical directions of my relatives,” appeal-
ing to the “powerful paternal authority of my most just prince.”33
The “Bourgeois” ClassesThe Uncertain Boundaries of the Class of Cittadini and Its Frustrations
Underneath the governing class, the social composition of that which
could be called the “bourgeoisie” was particularly diverse and mutable,
in Venice as elsewhere. defined by the exercise of honorable activities,
that is, non-manual trades, and by a certain degree of economic pros-
perity, the “bourgeois” classes in Venice overlapped only in part with the
juridical definition of cittadini. the latter title was a privilege conceded
to those who could demonstrate that they had resided and paid taxes in
the city for a certain number of years. additionally, it was a collection of
rights granted to those Venetians recognized as originari. indeed, there
were two types of citizenship privilege: “de intus tantum,” which could
be obtained after 15 years of residence and which authorized to “mercari
Venetiis”; and “de intus et extra,” which could be obtained after 25 years and
which permitted commerce with the levant, with the same duty exemp-
tions as Venetian cittadini originari. the extension, beginning in the 15th
century, of the privilege “de intus tantum” to citizens of the Republic’s
subject cities led to a progressive decrease in citizenship privileges, which
waned to a few cases per year. the candidates were, in the first case,
artisan-entrepreneurs who wished to trade in their own productions and,
32 cozzi, “Padri”; Hunecke, Il patriziato; derosas, “la crisi”; casella, I Savorgnan.
33 cited in tiziana Plebani, “Ragione di Stato e sentimenti nel Settecento,” in anna
Bellavitis, nadia maria Filippini, and tiziana Plebani, eds., Spazi, poteri, diritti delle donne
a Venezia in età moderna (Verona, 2012), pp. 117–34; cf. also ambrosini, “toward a Social
History”; and tiziana Plebani, “Socialità e protagonismo femminile nel secondo Sette-
cento,” in nadia maria Filippini, ed., Donne sulla scena pubblica. Società e politica in Veneto
tra Sette e Ottocento (milan, 2006), pp. 25–80.