440 david d’andrea
and hospital of the Catecumeni, organized to support Jews, Muslims, and
Protestants in their conversion to Catholicism, indicates the support of
orthodox religious doctrine.58 another form of public charity to maintain
the social order was the creation of the accademia dei nobili, begun in
the 1620s to assist poor noble families in their education and training to
serve the state.59 By the 17th century, the Venetian nobility were focused
on maintaining their political and religious hegemony, not experimenting
with new welfare policies.
even with the clear political and economic decline of Venice and calls
to reform the centuries-old charitable institutions and confraternities,
major initiatives in the 17th and 18th centuries failed. Until the fall of the
republic in 1797 Venice relied upon the institutions created in the late
15th and early 16th centuries: the scuole grandi and piccole, the hospitals,
parochial confraternities for the poor, and the specialized institutions,
namely the hospices for ex-prostitutes (Zitelle, soccorso, Convertite, and
Penitenti), the confraternity of the santissimo Crocifisso di s. Bartolomeo
for poor prisoners, the Catecumeni, the accademia dei nobili, and the
national confraternities.60 no radical reorganization would occur until
Venice became part of the Kingdom of italy in 1805. it was only in the first
decades of the 19th century that the welfare reforms that had been imple-
mented across enlightenment europe finally came to Venice.61 in 1806
and 1807, all confraternities and charitable institutions were abolished.62
the last vestige of the Venetian confraternities were the parochial con-
fraternities of the santissimo sacramento. Centuries of semi-autonomous
confraternal activities and charitable associations were replaced by public
welfare, and most of the great cultural patrimonies of the scuole were sold,
abandoned, or demolished.
58 aikema and Meijers, Nel regno dei poveri, pp. 215–23.
59 Zenoni, Luigi, Per la storia della cultura in Venezia dal 1500 al 1797. L’Accademia dei
Nobili alla Giudecca (1619–1797), miscellanea di storia veneta, serie 3, vol. 9 (Venice, 1916).
60 Paolo Preto, “Le riforme,” in Storia di Venezia, vol. 8 (1998): L’ultima fase della Serenis-
sima, ed. Piero del negro and Paolo Preto, p. 130.
61 Giovanni scarabello, “La municipalità democratica,” in Benzoni and Menniti ippolito,
Storia di Venezia, vol. 8: L’ultima fase della Serenissima, ed. del negro and Preto, especially
pp. 320, 354 n. 93–94.
62 filiberto agostini, La riforma napoleonica della Chiesa nella repubblica e nel Regno
d’Italia 1802–14 (Vicenza, 1990).