268 luciano pezzolo
was an increasing belief that agriculture could constitute an even nobler
activity than commerce.31 That does not mean, however, that the Vene-
tians abandoned commerce; it was only patrician merchant who became
far rarer. Replacing the patricians were Venetians whom we might con-
sider the “middle class,” but they were not the only ones. A myriad of more
modest figures with origins in the terraferma and Jews from both Venice
and its colonies conducted business under the flag of St Mark. It seems
as though the norm that limited overseas commerce to the patriciate and
other privileged citizens was overtaken by the contingencies of a more
complex and composite reality.32 Thus, the Venetian mercantile world
was transformed in its social components and, to a certain extent, in its
cultural ones. The city embraced new commercial protagonists by giving
them the possibility of freely conducting their business without any par-
ticular limits or constraints. Unlike what occurred in Danzig and Lubeck,33
Venice represented a favorable environment for foreign merchants, whose
property rights were fully guaranteed. It was likely this ability to attract
foreigners that allowed Venice to maintain an important role in the net-
work of information and relations that governed the international market,
and consequently retain the city’s mercantile character.
Commerce had in fact been transformed: growing difficulties in the
international markets brought about a narrowing of the Venetian social
groups participating in the sector, and the chances for financial gain now
offered themselves only to the shrewdest operators and those who could
call on a vast information network. The profits offered by long-distance
commerce were still high, but they were now reserved to a far smaller
group. Though a modest number of patricians continued to attend to
commercial affairs, it was the ruling class as a whole whose economic
foundations were truly transformed. The crucial question, then, regards
the relations between economic change and the decisions of economic
policy made by the patriciate. If it is true that the Senate was the “board
of directors” of the mercantile Republic, one must accurately analyze
the consequences of the spread of extensive landownership among the
31 Ugo Tucci, “The Psychology of the Venetian Merchant,” in John R. Hale, ed., Renais-
sance Venice (London, 1973), pp. 346–78.
32 Eric R. Dursteler, Venetians in Constantinople. Nation, Identity, and Coexistence in the
Early Modern Mediterranean (Baltimore, 2006), pp. 52–60.
33 Erik Lindberg, “Club Goods and Inefficient Institutions: Why Danzig and Lübeck
Failed in the Early Modern Period,” Economic History Review 62 (2009), 604–28.