family and society 341
concentrations of manpower, even if it did not prevent episodes of orga-
nized rebellion and outright strikes. However, naturally, the artisan world
was not entirely organized into guilds, and conspicuously absent from
the guild system were many trades fundamental to the city, from sail-
ors to household servants and the greater part of the female workforce.
Social mobility within the popular classes was, however, a concrete pos-
sibility, and the boundaries between artisan and mercantile classes were
extremely faint, as demonstrated by the careers of those who aspired to
the privilege of citizenship described in their petitions to the Provveditori
di Comun in the 16th century.48
any generalization regarding family forms is just as impossible, even if
studies undertaken thus far demonstrate that, unlike patrician and richer
bourgeois families, artisan families were usually neolocal and nuclear,
which certainly does not constitute a surprise. at the same time, the
greater presence in peripheral and popular parishes of family units com-
prised of isolated individuals was in part a consequence of immigration
but can also be translated into the development of networks of mutual
support among neighbors, especially in the case of illness or old age, and
therefore in specific forms of sociability that differed from those present
in large families. the integration of young immigrants took place first and
foremost by means of apprenticeship and domestic service contracts, two
types of work relations that, while different in principle, often tended to
overlap. in some cases, the work or apprenticeship contracts of youths
and children even could transform into adoptions. on the whole, one can
conclude that families from the artisan and popular classes were marked
by geographic and interfamily mobility.49
Apprenticeship and Domestic Service
in some cases, medieval guild statutes specified the duration of apprentice-
ships or the minimum age to enter into the guild. For example, in the case
of masons, the apprenticeship period was seven years; in order to enter
into the glass-makers’ guild, the minimum age was 14 years; but in the 18th
century, in order to be a member of the shoemakers’ guild, one had to be
48 Zannini, “l’identità”; Giorgetta Bonfiglio dosio, “le arti cittadine,” in Storia di Vene-
zia, vol. 2: L’età del comune, ed. cracco and ortalli, pp. 577–625; Ugo tucci, “carriere popo-
lane e dinastie di mestiere,” in annalisa Guarducci, ed., Gerarchie economiche e gerarchie
sociali, secoli XII–XVIII (Florence, 1990), pp. 817–51; Bellavitis, Identité.
49 chojnacka, Working Women; Romano, Housecraft; elisabeth crouzet-Pavan, “Sopra le
acque salse.” Espace, pouvoir et société à Venise à la fin du Moyen Âge (Rome, 1992).