336 anna bellavitis
these merchants’ daughters was to be confined to a convent, because
the mother’s dowry, which always played a role—even if not invariably
a major one—in the formation of the daughter’s dowry, remained frozen
in the capital of the fraterna. Such passionate defenses of daughters’ lib-
erties were in reality efforts aimed at preventing forced monachization,
which, in any case, was not an inconsequential task during such a period
of counter-reformation.39
Within the merchants’ logic, marriage was always a means to widen
one’s business contacts and even to form new commercial companies,
especially in the absence of sons. it was quite common at the time to
start a company with one’s son-in-law, and in this case, marriage contracts
closely resembled business charter contracts. in 1543, the soap-maker
ambrogio di Giacomo arranged a marriage between his legitimated natu-
ral daughter Bonetta and Francesco di Varisco. the contract included the
stipulation of a “union and company” between father-in-law and son-in-
law, “for the common benefit and ill, in equal parts.” legitimating natural
children or including them among ones successors was a way to ward off
the extinction not only of the family line but also of the commercial com-
pany. in 1568, a merchant named Zuan antonio Bianchini designated a
natural son as heir, specifying: “i declare that my Santa of this house is my
true wife, taken in praise of God... quite some time before the council of
trent.” However, by constraining the son of this union with his “lady of
this house” to remain under his brother’s authority until the rather excep-
tional age of 40 (usually such tutelage extended until 25 or 30 years of
age), this merchant implicitly seemed to concede the irregularity of his
son’s origins.40
a family’s destiny could also be entrusted to ones confraternity, which
in such a case played the role of “substitute family” to the fullest extent. in
1524, after designating as heirs a natural son of his brother and two neph-
ews, the merchant Girolamo Grifalconi ordered his descendants to adopt
young cittadini “of good family,” but in no event the children of patricians,
if they remained without heirs. Finally, he entrusted to the Scuola Grande
della Misericordia the task of choosing three youths to whom to entrust
the name and assets of the Grifalconi fraterna, in the event that in future
generations his descendants were unable to do so. at the end of the 18th
century, there still existed a Grifalconi fraterna, perhaps at some point
39 Bellavitis, Famille, pp. 169 et seqq.
40 Bellavitis, Identité, p. 238, and Famille, p. 149.