family and society 343
in the mid-16th century, the patrician and knight Zuan maria memmo
offered very precise instructions in this regard, advising fathers to send
their sons to learn the trade in the houses of others, in part because “with-
out the paternal shadow” they would become “much better masters,” but
also concerned to entrust them to “humane men and not to cruel beasts”
capable of beating their young apprentices to the point of “killing them,
crippling them, or making them stupid and crazy.”52
depending on economic and demographic circumstances, laws estab-
lished the number of apprentices that each master could keep in his
house. For example, between June and July of 1582, a few years after the
plague, Paolo, a belt-maker, hired three female apprentices; he must not
have treated them well, for a year later, two of them had already run away
and the third was to run away in april 1584. children and youths did not
always live in the master’s house; at times, they went there only during
the day. Between June 1582 and September 1583, andriana, seamstress and
wife of a baker, hired three boys between the ages of six and 11 years and
four girls between the ages of nine and 13 years as apprentices. these very
young apprentices did not live in their mistress’s house, nor did she feed
them. in the sewing trades, apprentices were very young children of both
sexes, but in other trades, between the end of the 16th century and the
end of the 18th century, the most frequent age for males to enter into
the apprenticeship was around 14 years. For girls, at the end of the 16th
century, the most frequent age was 12 years.53 the age at the end of the
apprenticeship was, therefore, on average, between 19 and 20 years for
males and between 17 and 18 for females. We can thus consider this the
age at which these youths from the popular classes could begin to think
of marriage.
Home and Shop
to leave the master craftsman’s or employer’s house to “set up house”
on one’s own was no simple endeavor. it has been calculated that in the
52 Giovanni maria memmo, Dialogo del magnifico cavaliere messer Gio. Maria Memmo
(Venice, 1563), pp. 121–22. on escaping and workplace conflicts, cf. James e. Shaw, The Jus-
tice of Venice. Authorities and Liberties in the Urban Economy, 1550–1700 (oxford, 2006).
53 anna Bellavitis, “le travail des femmes dans les contrats d’apprentissage de la Gius-
tizia Vecchia (Venise, XVie siècle),” in isabelle chabot, Jerôme Hayez, and didier lett, eds.,
Le travail, les femmes et le quotidien (XIVe–XVIIIe siècle). Textes offerts à Christiane Klapisch-
Zuber (Paris, 2006), pp. 188, 192; Beltrami, La popolazione; Vianello, L’arte; Bellavitis,
“apprentissages”; anna Bellavitis and linda Guzzetti, eds., Donne, lavoro, economia a Vene-
zia e in Terraferma tra medioevo ed età moderna, special issue of Archivio Veneto, 3 (2012).