education in the republic of venice 689
the Venetian state began to move toward Enlightenment educational
reforms by assaulting the regular clergy.42 citing the council of trent’s
discouragement of small monastic establishments, La Serenissima decided
to suppress small male and female convents. between 1769 and 1793 the
Venetian government closed hundreds of convents and seized their build-
ings and lands. it then sold the lands, over 11 million hectares, with the
state realizing about 6 million ducats. from 1766 to 1790 the number of
the regular clergy in the Republic fell from 7770 to 4625, a reduction of 40
per cent, and the number of the secular clergy fell from 22,307 to 20,274,
a decline of 9 per cent.43
the state justified its actions on the grounds that it needed money to
care for the destitute, to support the poorest of the secular clergy, and
to provide for the education of youth, especially patrician youth. a Sen-
ate decree of 1772 proclaimed that a sold foundation of studies formed
the future man and citizen who would govern the Republic well, an edu-
cational commonplace that originated in the 14th century or earlier and
was often expressed in the Renaissance.44 another reason was that the
Venetian Republic was deeply in debt. the seizure and sale of church
lands enabled the state to pay its creditors, who included nobles and
other wealthy Venetians, while the laymen who bought church proper-
ties at less than their value became members of the landed gentry. or else
they resold the lands at a profit. the Venetian state did pay subsistence
allowances to members of the regular clergy whose monasteries were
suppressed, it devoted more resources to poor relief, and it spent a tiny
fraction of the realized income on education. nevertheless, the Venetian
confiscation of church lands was an act of grand larceny. the italian and
foreign rulers of other italian states did the same in the late 18th century,
in the early 19th century, and again during unification.
42 the basic studies of the school reforms of the last thirty years of the 18th century
are Giuseppe Gullino, La politica scolastica veneziana nell’età delle riforme (Venice, 1973);
and Gullino, “Educazione, formazione, istruzione,” in Gino benzoni and antonio Menniti
ippolito, Storia di Venezia. Dalle origini alla caduta della Serenissima, 14 vols (Rome, 1992–
2002), vol. 8 (1998): L’ultima fase della Serenissima, ed. piero del negro and paolo preto,
pp. 745–99. although the information is the same, the former work offers more detail
and valuable documentary appendices. the latter work is broader in scope, condenses
key information, and adds Gullino’s tart observations. both are well documented. the
following account is based on both, although Gullino, “Educazione,” will be preferred
because it is more easily accessible.
43 Gullino, “Educazione,” p. 795 n. 27.
44 See Gullino, “Educazione,” p. 795 n. 28, for quotes from the Senate decree of
3 September 1772.