372 anne jacobson schutte
a priest and two witnesses, one of them a patrician; the groom furnished
the bride’s dowry. Early in 1514, Bernardino died. His will provided for his
wife, whom he urged not to remarry; their two sons, Tomaso and Fan-
tino, ages 13 and seven; and another son, an infant named Anzolo, whose
mother was Caterina’s younger sister. Bernardino’s death precipitated a
suit in the patriarchal court brought by his cousin Marco Dandolo against
Caterina. Aware that validity of his cousin’s marriage was indisputable,
he took the tack of casting aspersions on Caterina’s “vile” condition and
morals, aiming to deprive Tomaso and Fantino of the right to inherit and
ensure that they would never make their way into the patriciate. In April
1517, Patriarch Antonio Contarini issued a sentence affirming that Bernar-
dino and Caterina’s two sons were legitimate and therefore entitled to
inherit and ordering Marco to pay all court costs. In this particular battle
between patrician values and the ecclesiastical conception of marriage,
the Church and Bernardino’s survivors triumphed.72
Life Status: Widows, Widowers, and Lay Singles
Since historians of Venice and the Venetian Republic have paid little atten-
tion to layfolk without partners, this brief section draws almost entirely
on inference from other places. Elite widows had strong incentives not to
remarry. Doing so would almost certainly deprive them of their children,
whose late fathers’ families would take them in. As many husbands’ wills
made explicit, remarriage would reduce if not eliminate any inheritance
left to their spouses. And remarriage would make it virtually impossible
to recover their dowries, which would return to their natal families. For
elite widowers, the situation was quite different. Remarrying would bring
a substantial new dowry, the usufruct from which could enhance their
wealth. It might result in the birth of children, making it less likely that
the male line would die out, though also entailing additional expenditure
for daughters’ settlement in marriage or convents.
If the opportunity presented itself, non-elite widows had good reasons
to remarry. Not doing so might mean immediate or eventual destitution, as
well as prompting suspicion that they were engaging in illicit sexual rela-
tions and perhaps sorcery. Non-elite widowers with few or no domestic
72 Silvana Seidel Menchi, “Ritratto di famiglia in un interno: i Dandolo di San Moisè
(1514–1526),” in Robert A. Pierce and Silvana Seidel Menchi, eds., Ritratti. La dimensione
individuale nella storia (secoli XV–XX). Studi in onore di Anne Jacobson Schutte (Rome,
2009), pp. 99–125.