388 cecilia cristellon and silvana seidel menchi
reforms of Trent in the lagoon, a task to which he dedicated himself zeal-
ously. in particular, he insisted on the residential obligations for parish
priests and heads of collegial chapters (which, as we remember, were cho-
sen by the parishioners), subjected them to a thorough examination and
often denied nominees because of their inadequate preparation, to the
point of forcing the Holy see to intervene and invite him to moderation.21
With the constitutions of 1592, moreover, the patriarch entrusted the
preparation of the secular clergy to the city’s most learned regular clergy,
forcing the former on predetermined days to attend lessons concerning
the interpretation of scripture and the teaching of casi riservati—those
sins, that is, which could not be absolved in confession but had to be
referred instead to the bishop.22 Priuli also organized a school of Chris-
tian Doctrine in every parish and published a catechism that would long
remain in use in the patriarchate.
- The Relationship between Churchmen and the Faithful: Marriage,
a Crucial Indicator
The dialogue between the faithful and the men of the cloth—be they the
patriarch and his vicars, friars, or parish priests—and its changes pre- and
post-Trent can be analyzed most fruitfully with respect to the union of
matrimony, the control of which allowed the Church to access the most
intimate sphere of the individual and impact the formation and disso-
lution of the family, the most important connotative structure of social
life.23
With the affirmation of the sacramental nature of marriage—sanc-
tioned by the ecumenical Council of lyon in 1274—the Church had tried
to encourage a public and solemn conception of the event, particularly
through the decrees and blessing of the priest.24 in the 15th century and
21 Tramontin, “Venezia tra riforma cattolica e riforma protestante,” pp. 123–24.
22 Constitutiones et privilegia patriarchatus et cleri Venetiarum illustrissimi ac reveren-
dissimi D. D. Ioannis Trivisani iuris utriusque doctoris patriarci Venetiarum, Dalmatieque
primatis etc., iussu edita (Venetiis, 1658), n. 122, cap. iii.
23 Cecilia Cristellon, La carità e l’eros. Il matrimonio, la chiesa e i suoi giudici nella Vene-
zia del Rinascimento (1420–1545) (Bologna, 2010). for Venetian nuptial procedure after the
Council of Trent, see Daniela Hacke, Women, Sex and Marriage in Early Modern Venice
(Burlington, Vt., 2004); and Joanne M. ferraro, Marriage Wars in Late Renaissance Venice
(oxford, 2001).
24 for a synthesis of the construction of Christian marriage, see C. Donahue, Jr., Law,
Marriage, and Society in the Later Middle Ages. Arguments about Marriage in Five Courts
(Cambridge, 2007).