A Companion to Venetian History, 1400-1797

Charity and Confraternities

david d’andrea

for the Praise and Glory of almighty God

and the honor of this exalted republic.1

the mythical tranquility of the Venetian state was predicated on a network
of charitable institutions and lay religious brotherhoods that bound rich
and poor together. Venice’s system of charity reflected its unique political
history. Governed by an aristocratically controlled republic imbued with
a sense of divine mission, the republic molded charitable practices that
were common in other cities into distinctly Venetian institutions. Vene-
tian nobles pursued welfare policies that would please God and secure the
civic harmony of the well-ordered, Christian republic, and the regulation
of charitable activities was premised upon a basic principle: public mani-
festations of religious piety should serve the needs of the state.2 Medieval
confraternities developed according to this idea, and in the early mod-
ern period, a growing concern for public order and Catholic orthodoxy
reaffirmed these underlying principles. new charitable initiatives might
emerge, but no fundamental reorganization of these civic organizations
would occur until the end of the republic.

Glory and Honor: The Principles of Charity

the Venetian community, like other italian states, considered divine favor
to be a central reason for its peace and prosperity. the sacred and secular
motivations behind public policy were indistinguishable in the articulation

1 “Che ad laude et gloria dell’omnipotente dio et per honor di questa excelsa repub-
blica.. .” Quotation from 1528 Venetian poor law found in Marino sanuto, I diarii di Marino
Sanuto, ed. rinaldo fulin et al., 58 vols (Venice, 1879–1903), hereafter: sanuto, I Diarii.
decree can be found in vol. 47, cols 81–83; quotation in col. 81.
2 for a survey of medieval and early modern poverty, see Brian tierney, Medieval Poor
Law: A Sketch of Canonical Theory and Its Application in England (Berkeley, 1959); Michel
Mollat, The Poor in the Middle Ages, trans. arthur Goldhammer (new haven, 1986); Bronis-
law Geremek, Poverty: A History, trans. agnieszka Kolakowska (oxford, 1994); Brian Pullan,
Poverty and Charity: Europe, Italy, Venice, 1400–1700 (aldershot, 1994); and James Brodman,
Charity and Religion in Medieval Europe (Washington, d.C., 2009).