368 anne jacobson schutte
ninth time, she returned to the home of her natal family, where she died
in childbirth.56
The corpus of 460 letters exchanged between 1768 and 1773 by Cattina
Contarini Querini and her absent husband, Zanetto, reveals a much more
amicable union. Although Cattina twitted Zanetto at one point about gos-
sip circulating in Venice that he was amusing himself in Madrid “with a
certain diplomatic representative’s wife” (consolessa) and repeatedly com-
plained that his debts were causing her great embarrassment, they fre-
quently expressed their love for each other and longing for the day when
they could be together again.57 It is worth noting that although these
spouses employed the standard second person plural, voi, they called each
other by their first nicknames58—unlike Fiorenza and Antonio, who used
the more formal terms consorte and signora/e.59
Much evidence about both “regular” and “irregular” marriage in all
social strata comes from cause matrimoniali: records of litigation in
ecclesiastical courts aimed at enforcing unfulfilled promises of marriage,
challenging the validity of unions, and obtaining separation from unsatis-
factory spouses. Over the past 15 years, this body of sources has attracted
the attention of numerous scholars, whose work may be found in a four-
volume set of essays60 and many other publications. Studies of cause mat-
rimoniali from Venice and the Veneto, only a small sampling of which can
be provided here, show that except at the very bottom of the social scale,
family members usually played a decisive part in selecting their daughters’
spouses. Some docile young women followed their fathers’ wishes. In 1507,
for instance, the popolana Giovanna de Liberalis, while readily admitting
her attraction to Martino Cursio, reported having told her suitor that since
she had resolved to marry the man her father chose, he should formally
request her hand.61 Not infrequently, however, this practice clashed with
56 Paolin, Lettere familiari, pp. 35–36, 56, 18.
57 Bizzocchi, Cicisbei, pp. 135–47; quoted phrase at p. 137.
58 Bizzocchi, Cicisbei, p.135; Marzio Barbagli, Sotto lo stesso tetto. Mutamenti della
famiglia in Italia dal XV al XX secolo (Bologna, 1984), pp. 265–342.
59 Paolin, Lettere familiari.
60 See Silvana Seidel Menchi and Diego Quaglioni, eds: Coniugi nemici: La separazione
in Italia dal XII al XVIII secolo (Bologna, 2000); Matrimoni in dubbio: Unioni controverse e
nozze clandestine in Italia dal XIV al XVIII secolo (Bologna, 2001); Trasgressioni: Seduzione,
concubinato, adulterio, bigamia (XIV–XVIII secolo) (Bologna, 2004); and I tribunali del mat-
rimonio (secoli XV–XVIII) (Bologna, 2006).
61 Cecilia Cristellon, “ ‘Io voleva tuor quello che mio patre me daria.’ Autorità parentale
e scelte matrimoniali dei figli: Venezia XV e XVI secolo,” in Ida Fazio and Daniela Lombardi,
eds., Generazioni: legami di parentela tra passato e presente (Rome, 2006), pp. 205–21.