Self-Image and Governing Elites in Early-Modern Era. A Methodological Approach

Nova Mediaevalia Quellen und Studien zum europäischen Mittelalter

Band 2

Herausgegeben von Nikolaus Henkel und Jürgen Sarnowsky

V&R unipress

Sünje Prühlen / Lucie Kuhse / Jürgen Sarnowsky (Hg.)

Der Blick auf sich und die anderen

Selbst- und Fremdbild von Frauen und Männern in Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit

Festschrift für Klaus Arnold

Mit 34 Abbildungen

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Gedruckt mit Unterstützung der Departments Historisches Seminar und Phi-losophisches Seminar der Universität Hamburg und der Gesellschaft der Freunde und Förderer der Helmut-Schmidt-Universität/ Universität der Bun-deswehr Hamburg e.V.

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Inhalt

Geleitwort zum zweiten Band..........................................................................5

Vorwort............................................................................................................7

Abbildungen ..................................................................................................11

Abkürzungen..................................................................................................13

SÜNJE PRÜHLEN

Einleitung. Sehen und gesehen werden..........................................................15

JAN LOKERS

Irrungen und Wirrungen. Die Metamorphose der Archive und ihre Folgen für Archivare und historische Forschung...........................................23

BRITTA-JULIANE KRUSE

Eine Treppe in den Himmel bauen. Die Stiftungspraxis Lübecker Witwen in Text, Bild und Architektur ..........................................................39

STEFANIE RÜTHER

Zwischen Stand und Geschlecht. Weibliches Selbstverständnis im Spiegel lübeckischer Testamente des Spätmittelalters...................................67

MAIKE CLAUSSNITZER

Seet hyr dat spegel junck un olden (LTT 2). Hinweise auf das Selbstbild der Lübecker des 15. Jahrhunderts in Totentänzen und im Mysterienspiel................................................................................................95

MARKO LAMBERG

Expressions on Ethnic Self Concepts. Among Low-Status Finnish Immigrants in Early Modern Swedish Towns ............................................113

JOACHIM KRÜGER

Zwischen königlicher Burg und Armenkasten. Schicksale zweier Münzmeister im südwestlichen Ostseeraum am Übergang vom Mittelalter zur Frühen Neuzeit.....................................................................135

PETER GABRIELSSON

Bertram Veltberg – Richard Rodenborg – Peter Sommerland Drei Hamburger Schonenfahrer in der 2. Hälfte des 15. Jahrhunderts ........149

Inhalt

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CHRISTINA DEGGIM

»Geräuschlose Abenteuer«. Zu Selbstverständnis und Selbstdarstellung von Hafendienstleistern in Hamburg und Kopenhagen in Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit ............................................................................................. 191

KLAUS-J. LORENZEN-SCHMIDT

Das Testament des hamburgischen Protonotars Johannes Kloth vom 17. Januar 1538 ........................................................................................... 223

MARIE-LUISE HECKMANN

Zwischen Anspruch und Wirklichkeit… Die Selbstsicht der Führungsgruppe des Deutschen Ordens beim Ausbruch des Dreizehnjährigen Krieges..................................................... 237

HANS-WALTER STORK

Das Festtagsevangeliar des Hamburger Domes. Beobachtungen zu Cod. in scrinio 93 der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg.................... 265

DORIT RAINES

Self-Image and Governing Elites in Early-Modern Era A Methodological Approach....................................................................... 289

KARSTEN IGEL

»... und schal by der Lowen namen blyven«. Identität und Selbstdarstellung städtischer Führungsgruppen im spätmittelalterlichen Hanseraum im Spiegel ihrer Häuser und Höfe .......... 315

THOMAS WELLER

Städtisches Selbstverständnis und frühneuzeitliche Diplomatie Fremdes und Eigenes in den Berichten über die hansischen Gesandtschaften nach Moskau (1603) und Madrid (1606) ......................... 349

Schriftenverzeichnis von Klaus Arnold ...................................................... 379

Quellen und Literatur .................................................................................. 391

Register ....................................................................................................... 439

Autoren und Herausgeber ........................................................................... 449

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Abbildungen

Abb. 1: Fürbittetafel, Stiftung einer Witwe oder Begine.. .............................60

Abb. 2: Fassade von Warendorps Haus in der Hundestraße 9 .......................60

Abb. 3: Frontseite des Lübecker Haasenhofes...............................................61

Abb. 4: Hofansicht des Lübecker Haasenhofes mit den ehemaligen Wohnhäusern der Witwen und jungen Frauen...............................................61

Abb. 1: Hausmarke von Bertram Veltberg ..................................................189

Abb. 2: Hausmarke von Richard Rodenborg ...............................................189

Abb. 3: Hausmarke von Peter Sommerland.................................................189

Abb. 1: Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek (SUB), Cod. in scrin. 93: Vorderdeckel................................................................................280

Abb. 2: Versteigerungskatalog von 1784: Eintrag des Evangeliars.............281

Abb. 3: Hamburg, SUB, Cod. phil. 283: Kaufeintrag des Joachim Gödersen......................................................................................................281

Abb. 4: Elfenbein-Relief in der Stadt=Bibliothek zu Hamburg, Kupfertafel zu Petersens Beitrag, 1858........................................................282

Abb. 5: Hamburg, SUB, Cod. in scrin. 93: Schenkungseintrag fol. 13v ...............................................................................................................282

Abb. 6: Elfenbein auf dem Buchdeckel .......................................................283

Abb. 7: Zierstreifen auf dem Buchdeckel ....................................................283

Abb. 8: Trier, Domschatz, Ms. Nr. 70 / 141 / 126: Zierstreifen auf dem Vordereinband......................................................................................284

Abb. 9: Hamburg, SUB, Cod. in scrin. 93: Kanontafeln fol. 6v/7r..............284

Abb. 10: Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August-Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 576.2. Nov.: Evangelist Marcus, fol. 68v ....................................................285

Abbildungen

12

Abb. 11: Pommersfelden, Bibliothek Schönborn, Cod. 94: Evangelist Marcus, fol. 65v ........................................................................ 285

Abb. 12: Hamburg, SUB, Cod. in scrin. 93: Zierbuchstabe »L« auf fol. 14v ........................................................................................................ 286

Abb. 13: Hamburg, SUB, Cod. in scrin. 93: Zierbuchstabe »I« auf fol. 60v ........................................................................................................ 286

Abb. 14: Hamburg, SUB, Cod. in scrin. 93: Zierbuchstabe »Q« auf fol. 85r......................................................................................................... 287

Abb. 15: Hamburg, SUB, Cod. in scrin. 93: Reliquienverzeichnis (Beginn) auf fol. 167r.................................................................................. 287

Abb. 16: Hamburg, SUB, Cod. in scrin. 93: Reliquienverzeichnis (Schluß) auf fol. 167v ................................................................................. 288

Abb. 17: Hamburg, SUB, Cod. in scrin. 93: liturgische Texte für Prozessionen ............................................................................................... 288

Abb. 1: Karl Gruber: Idealrekonstruktion des mittelalterlichen Stralsund ..................................................................................................... 343

Abb. 2: Johannes Staude: Vogelschauansicht von Stralsund 1647. Bereich um den Neuen Markt und St. Marien............................................. 343

Abb. 3: Greifswald: Rekonstruktion des Traufenhauses Fischstraße 18 durch Dirk Brandt, André Lutze und Felix Schönrock............................... 344

Abb. 4: Greifswald: Rekonstruktion der Bebauungsstrukturen um 1400 auf Basis der Stadtbücher................................................................... 345

Abb. 5: Greifswald: Rekonstruktion der Markostseite durch Paul Suhr..... 346

Abb. 6: Greifswald: Markt 25, Wohnhaus der Familie von Lübeck ........... 346

Abb. 7: Greifswald: Stralsunder Bilderhandschrift von 1615 ..................... 347

Abb. 8: Osnabrück: Steinwerk Bierstraße 7 von Süden mit dem westlichen (Schau-) Giebel. Zustand im Jahr 2007..................................... 347

Abb. 9: Osnabrück: Querschnitt des Steinwerks Bierstraße 7..................... 348

Abb. 10: Osnabrück: Ostansicht des Ledenhofes mit Palas und siebengeschossigem Steinwerk ................................................................... 348

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Abkürzungen

Abb. Abbildung AHL Archiv der Hansestadt Lübeck AKS Archiwum Ksiąźąt Szczecińskich (Herzoglich Stettiner Archiv) AKW Archiwum Ksiąźąt Wołogoskich (Herzoglich Wolgaster Archiv) Anm. Anmerkung APS Archiwum Państwowe w Szczecinie (Staatsarchiv Stettin) Aufl. Auflage b beatus, -a, -um bb beati, -e, -a BCU Biblioteca Civica »Joppi«, Udine BNM Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana BO Berliner Osterspiel BrO Brandenburger Osterspiel DMF Danse Macabre des Femmes ebd. ebenda Ed. Editor ed. edited by fl Gulden fol. Folio GStA SPK Geheimes Staatsarchiv Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz HA Hauptabteilung HG Hansische Geschichtsblätter Hg. Herausgeber hg. herausgegeben von HS Handschrift Jb. Steinburg Steinburger Jahrbuch KR Kämmereirechnungen der Stadt Hamburg, hg. Karl KOPPMANN,

Bände 1-7, Hamburg 1869-1894 LBT Lübecker Buchtotentanz von 1489 LTT Lübecker Totentanz der Marienkirche von 1463 m Mark mnd. mittelniederdeutsch N.F. Neue Folge ND Nachdruck Nr. Nummer OBA Ordenbriefarchiv OF Ordensfoliant RB Friedrich STEGMÜLLER, Klaus REINHARDT: Repertorium biblicum

medii aevi, Madrid 1950-1980 Rep. Repositur RO Redentiner Osterspiel

Abkürzungen

14

s sanctus, -a, -um ss sancti, -e, -a ß Schilling SSK Schriften des Vereins für Schleswig-Holsteinische Kirchenge-

schichte StAH Staatsarchiv der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg STAPHORST Nicolaus STAPHORST, Historia ecclesiae Hamburgensis diplomati-

ca, das ist: Hamburgische Kirchen-Geschichte, Bände 1-4, Ham-burg 1723-1731

SUB Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky Tit. Titulus UBDK Urkundenbuch zur Kirchengeschichte Dithmarschens, besonders

im 16. Jahrhundert, hg. Claus ROHLFS, Kiel 1922 VB Das Visitationsbuch der Hamburger Kirchen 1505, 1521, 1525,

hg. Erich Keyser, bearb. Helga-Maria KÜHN, Hamburg 1970 vgl. vergleiche ZVHG Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte ZVLGA Zeitschrift des Vereins für Lübeckische Geschichte und Alter-

tumskunde

289

Dorit Raines Self-Image and Governing Elites in Early-Modern Era A Methodological Approach

The history of ruling elites, their identity, their self-image and the way in which they choose to justify their privileged position is one of the key ele-ments in the study of power mechanisms. Yet, in the evaluation of the forma-tion of early-modern ruling groups, seizing power is a far less interesting case study than the description of power-holding strategies in the longue durée. Political, social and economic factors are critical in constructing the back-ground of a socio-political group’s coming to power and its transformation into a ruling elite; identity building and self-image become vital when one wishes to understand the ways in which the group strived to conserve the political and/or social power it had acceded to.

Under the Ancien Régime, power was closely linked to hereditary social and political prerogatives. The ruling elite tended therefore to consider any other group critical of its professional performance as a challenge to its privi-leges and rights. In order to defend its position and justify its power the rul-ing group had to explore the boundaries of its cohesion and differentiate itself from other groups1. It needed therefore to define its identity through a set of criteria in order to confront them with those of its reference groups – the other ruling elites or the lower social groups striving to share power2. The vital components of the group’s identity: professional aptitude, social differ-entiation and qualitative distinction based on a legendary past and on heredi-tary or genetic qualities, were in fact the basis of its social cohesion. Yet, other forces were involved in defining the group’s identity: individual ambi-

1 Gaetano MOSCA, The Ruling Class, New York 1939, pp. 33, 60–65. 2 On reference groups, see: Muzafer SHERIF, Carolyn W. SHERIF, Reference Groups:

Exploration into Conformity and Deviation of Adolescents, New York 1964, p. 180, who suggest that a group may have more than one reference group; Muzafer SHERIF, The Concept of Reference Groups in Human Relations, in: Readings in Reference Group Theory and Research, ed. H. HAMAN, E. SINGER, New York 1968, pp. 84–94; Tamotsu SHIBUTANI, Reference Groups as Perspectives, in: ed. HAMAN, SINGER, Reading, pp. 103–113 (pp. 105–107), on the formation of an imaginary reference group, drawing on a legendary past; Harold H. KELLEY, Two Functions of Reference Groups, in: HAMAN, SINGER, Reading, pp. 77–83 (pp. 78–79); Ruth E. HARTLEY, Personal Characteristics and Acceptance of Secondary Groups as Reference Groups, in: HAMAN, SINGER, Reading, pp. 247–256 (p. 248).

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tion of its social components (either individual members or its basic social unit – the family)3 and a strong drive of inferior social groups to re-valuate their position on the social ladder4.

In this context, one of the key elements in the group’s relationship with power is its self-image, the natural product of its identity. It is the sum of the group members’ perception of the way its reference groups expect it to be or to behave. It is also an essential factor in establishing any attempt made by the group to reach and consolidate its social cohesion. The group develops its unique social language based on common interests and goals, and invents a series of social tools, usually written ones, in order to formulate a coercive ethos that considers the well-being of society as a primary goal. Additionally, it strives to establish lines of communication between its members through a social debate, extended at specific points to its reference groups.

The role of social debate in the formation of a group’s self-image is a vital one. Social debate can be defined as the exchange of views in order to create a dialogue between the social components of any society and formulate a consensus over social stratification. This debate may be explicit, or implicit, depending on the political consensus of the moment. Furthermore, the debate dominates the public scene according to the degree of social awareness: when the players are alert to social issues, the debate may become explicit, spelling out social claims; when the degree of awareness is low or a consensus over social stratification is detected, social debate may tend to be more implicit, touching only upon overt points of controversy, rather than challenging the whole system5.

In the course of this on-going social debate, the ruling group’s self-image translates the components of its identity into social values through a dynamic and continuing comparison process with other realities6. The outcome is the formation of a cluster of qualitative exempla or »virtues« that the group con-siders to be exclusively its own. The group then proceeds to project exter-nally these qualities in an exaggerated manner in order to underline its essen-

3 Dorit RAINES, La famiglia e la storia del cognome: una microstoria nella longue

durée, in: Annali di storia moderna e contemporanea 11 (2005), pp. 337–360. 4 Karl MANNHEIM, A few Concrete Examples concerning the Sociological Nature of

Human Valuations, in: Essays on Sociology and Social Psychology, ed. Paul KE-

CSKEMETI, London 1969, pp. 231–242. 5 Dorit RAINES, Social Debate and Harmful Publication: the Family Chronicles of

the Venetian Patriciate (eleventh-eighteenth Centuries), in: Textes – matériels de lecture – lecture: Formes de présentation et d’appropriation des médias imprimés au début de l’époque moderne. Lektüre und populäre Lesestoffe 1500 bis 1900, Sémi-naire tenu à Monte Verità, Ascona, 2–7 novembre 2003, ed. Roger CHARTIER, Alfred MESSERLI, Basel 2007, pp. 281–311 (in print).

6 Milton ROKEACH, Beliefs, Attitudes and Values. A Theory of Organization and Change, San Francisco, Washington D.C., London 1972, p. 124.

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tial social and political role as well as its cohesion. This exaggerated self-presentation usually follows the basic narrative plot of the group, already expressed in the course of the ever-going social debate7.

As already observed, self-image plays a key role in the ruling group’s co-hesion. It may help shape its distinction from other social groups. It also contributes to enhance the individual member’s sense of belonging. The interplay between collective distinction and individual belonging is indeed the most vital and active part in the formation of the group’s self-image but also in the latter’s slow evolution. The reference groups serving here as a mirror image, may undergo in the course of time social changes or radical political transformations, that in turn influence and redefine the governing elite’s attitude toward them: if a reference group loses or acquires social appeal due to a re-valuation of its social stratification, the governing elite would proceed to a comparison between its values and those of the other group, in order to update its position8. It may decide at this point to distin-guish itself from the group previously object of admiration and example of imitation, or it would aspire to counterpoise this group’s newly acquired social status. Its identity would therefore remain intact, as no internal social movements occur. Yet, its self-image would inevitably be influenced by the re-valuation of the reference groups, and therefore subject to a redefinition in some of its components.

The group’s self-image has an important role in creating a set of rules for the individual members, in order to create a demarcation line between an accepted, even if borderline, behavior and an untolerated one which may lead to social punishment9. Yet, if the self-image is too rigid and does not accept small changes intended as a necessary update, it may find itself detached more and more from reality. This situation leads to the creation of one of two scenarios10:

7 Erving GOFFMAN, La mise en scène dans la vie quotidienne, 1: La présentation de

soi, Paris 1973. 8 John C. TURNER, Social Comparison and Social Identity: Some Prospects for

Intergroup Behaviour, in: European Journal of Social Psychology 5 (1975), pp. 5–34 (p. 9).

9 We may apply to self-image the distinction made by Jean-Claude DECHAMPS between a »de facto identity« and an »imaginary identity«. The de facto self-image is the self-perception applied to social relations, and the imaginary self-image will be the ideal to which the group members aspire. See: Jean-Claude DECHAMPS, So-cial Identity and Relations of Power between Groups, in: Social Identity and Inter-group Relations, ed. H. TAJFEL, Cambridge 1982, pp. 85–98 (p. 90); Stephen REI-

CHER, The Determination of Collective Behavior, in: TAJFEL, Social Identity, pp. 41–83 (p. 57).

10 See the three possible reactions to the ›interfering messages‹, analyzed by BOULD-

ING: 1. no change occurring in the image; 2. a slight, yet irrelevant, change is de-

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1. the birth of an additional self-image – a part of the group’s members may integrate some new elements, without challenging the basic components of the group’s self-image in an attempt to distinguish themselves, while re-maining loyal to the group’s cohesion11:

2. the birth of an alternative self-image – a part of the group does not ac-cept the current self-image and in turn creates a non official one, which an-swers more adequately its expectations. This radical choice means that these members believe that their social distinction is more important than the group’s cohesion. Such, for example is the case, when in the long run, the ruling group’s composition remains unchanged and without any possibility of social regeneration. With time, some components of the group may lose the ability to sustain their social position as duly expected of them. The remain-ing richest part may then proceed to consider themselves as different from their social class members, and will no longer identify themselves with the basic elements of the group’s identity. Consequently, self-presentation and self-image would cease to follow a common pattern, meaning that the ruling group’s cohesion no longer exists. At this point we may expect either a power reshuffle by the socio-economically strongest part of the governing elite, or, in case the social and political privileges are juridical interlinked, a strong opposition to any proposal of reform that might have socially reinvigorated the ruling group or at least, politically reflected the existing social situation in order to reestablish a new balance of power between the group’s components. The outcome of this change may lead to the division of the group’s self-image into two distinct ones, drawing on the common factors previously expressed by all members, underlying some and omitting others in order to reflect each group’s claim to power and exclusive rights.

This brief description of the place self-image may occupy in the governing elite’s socio-political behavior leads us to a further consideration, namely that self-image plays a central role in the decision-making process of any ruling group. In fact, with time, self-image may become the element that conditions political action. If the ruling group’s self-image tends to be expressed in rigid terms, linking together the basic components of the group’s raison d’être and

tected; 3. a radical change: Kenneth BOULDING, The Image, Michigan 1956, pp. 7–8; Miles HEWSTONE, J.M.F. JASPERS, Intergroup Relations and Attribution Proc-esses, in: TAJFEL, Social Identity, pp. 99–133 (pp. 99, 118–121), present the theory of »self-attribution«, where behavior and mostly the reaction towards others is ex-plained through »defensive attribution«, which minimizes the threats one is ex-posed to. Following this logic, the governing elite may choose to adopt a causal explanation to the events that had exposed its professional incompetence.

11 REICHER, Collective Behavior, p. 68, believes that in order to face a new reality, the group should create a new social identity. I think that the Venetian patriciate case study, and furthermore, any case regarding other ruling groups, demonstrates the contrary: the group will do anything to barricade behind its old beliefs.


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more importantly, creating an indissoluble bond between the State’s survival and its governing elite’s existence, this ›aristocratic‹ mind set may bring about a strong mental resistance to any proposed change in the delicate socio-political balance (such as, for example, an economic enhancement to some industries or crafts, or the development of an urban/landed area rather than another; decisions that may render some lower classes or a part of the gov-erning class itself richer and therefore susceptible to claim further social or political privileges). The governing elite eventually risks by its consistent stubbornness and short eye sighting becoming an obstacle rather than a re-source to the State.

In order to better understand power-conservation mechanisms, three basic elements of the group’s self-image should be taken into consideration: the »molding« element that allows the group to define its social role and create a civic ethos; the »identification« element, in search of a place in the social network, that examines the group’s perception of its social status and creates a social ethos, and the »hierarchic« element that underlines the group’s social distinction from others and confronts it with its reference groups12.

The role of the governing elite in society being its raison d’être assigns to the »molding« element a key role in the group’s social agenda. The group must stress the importance of its professional contribution to society in order to justify its power, but at the same time it must ask its members to sacrifice their well-being for their group’s unity and cohesion. The weakening or diminution in importance of the »molding« element and the rise in impor-tance of the »identification« one, which establishes a dialogue with the gov-erning elite’s reference groups, means either a shift in the group’s social aims, or a difficulty to reconcile reality with society’s professional expecta-tions of the group. The ruling group would adopt this new element as a com-ponent of its self-image in order to define its place in the midst of the intri-cate social network.

The predominance of the »identification« element, meaning the definition of the group’s relationship with a social (ethnic or national) or a political entity (State), will always be accompanied by the »hierarchic« element, which shapes the group’s claims for qualitative distinction. This latter ele-ment may be regarded as the dynamic factor of the group’s self-image, as it tends to redefine itself according to the other reference groups’ self-image and social claims. In fact, the ruling group is constantly examining its basic social postulates through the self-image’s »hierarchic« element: the attribu-tion of a specific place on the social ladder for each of the other groups, al-

12 The first two have already been identified by Luc BOLTANSKI, Les cadres. La

formation d’un groupe social, Paris 1982, p. 57.

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lows slight adjustments in the ruling group’s social behaviour in case it feels its distinction is at peril13.

Moreover, as the governing elite constantly considers its reference groups through a process of social comparison, it may be that at a certain point the scholar may detect the burgeoning of a »meta self-image«, which takes in consideration only the common factors shared by all groups, while ignoring the specific traits of each governing elite. This situation may create an »inter-ference«, as it is no longer possible to consider the ruling group and its documentary textual production as a system of its own. The »meta self-image« may sometimes »import« notions otherwise incompatible with the group’s mentality, but that it may adapt in the process of social comparison with its reference groups. The scholar may at this point consider the opportu-nity of discussing the ruling group’s mirror image – the reflection of the group’s perception of other reference groups and their set of social values14.

In order to explore the way elite groups elaborated the justification of their power and privileges in early-modern era, the Venetian patriciate may serve as an interesting case study. This ruling group has succeeded to become as of 1297, with the »Closing« of the Great Council, a socially-closed group due to a long legislative process that linked hereditary social privileges to political ones. The formation of a caste-like governing elite and its hold of power for five centuries without any political challenge, allows the historian a pro-sopographical approach and a more accurate data collection. Moreover, the fact that Venice had never been subject until 1797 to foreign occupation, thus conserving intact all public and private records, makes it an interesting his-

13 Gerard LEMAINE, Joseph KASTERSZTEIN, Bernard PERSONNSZ, Social Differentia-

tion, in: Differentiation between Social Groups – Studies in the Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, ed. H. TAJFEL, London 1978, pp. 269–300 (pp. 286, 295), believe that the identity of a group can be established only through a comparison process. Yet, they add, sometimes the comparison with other groups may threat its identity and lead to a social differentiation rather than to group cohesion. Louise H. KIDDER, Mary STEWART, The Psychology of Intergroup Relations: Conflict and Consciousness, New York 1975, pp. 30–31, argue that similarity is an element that reinforces self-esteem, because it does not enhance an inferiority complex by the group. Serge MOSCOVICI, Geneviève PAICHELER, Social Comparison and Social Recognition: Two Complementary processes of identification, in: TAJFEL, Differ-entiation between Social Groups, pp. 251–266 (pp. 252–255), believe that parallel to the social comparison process, exists another one: that of social acceptance, where the group seeks the consensus of others for its particularity. This second process is clearly applicable to the Venetian patriciate and its relationship with other European nobilities.

14 See the application of this theory to the context of a conflict, in: Robert K. WHITE, Images in the Context of International Conflict, in: International Behavior, Social-Psychological Analysis, ed. H.C. KELMAN, New York 1965, pp. 238–276, p. 255.


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torical laboratory where long social and collective mental processes can be empirically observed and described.

The Venetian patriciate’s self-image had undergone an evolution in the course of the eleventh-eighteenth centuries and in particular in the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries – a period characterized by the triumph of the Venetian myth and the beginning of the Venetian empire’s economic and political decline, and consequently, of its ruling group. It will be argued that self-image helps to explain important questions of Venetian political and social history, namely, it enables a further investigation into the elements that cre-ated the myth of Venice and an understanding of the reason of the ruling group’s long survival, the longest in European history.

The study of any social group’s self-image presents a challenge to the scholar. Self-image cannot be directly detected, nor is it consciously ex-pressed by members of the group (otherwise, it should be considered as self-presentation15). It is usually communicated through either sublimation, ma-nipulation or in a spontaneous way, and is visible through behavior, gestures, images, words. Yet, these manifestations are the result of an elaborate mechanism devised to mitigate the endemic contradictions of the collective person. Moreover, whereas behavior and gestures do not leave any memora-ble trace, words and images, if registered unconsciously and spontaneously and transmitted through memorizing techniques, are the self-image’s only existing evidence.

Usually, the right research methodology regarding governing elites’ self-image would be the constitution of questionnaires submitted to chosen mem-bers in order to evaluate the basic components of the group’s self-image and proceed to unveil their formation and evolution process16. However, the self-image of a long-time extinct social group does not benefit from this kind of a direct sociological approach. Questionnaires cannot be submitted to the group’s long-gone members, nor can the scholar detect representative case studies able to shed light on the group’s self-image, as we deal with a variety of cases that cannot be studied using deductive or inductive logic.

The only solution left to the historian is the study of the group’s self-image through a taxonomical approach applied to the documentation pro-duced by the group itself as a functional sociological testimony. The scholar may proceed then to the registration of all spontaneous textual manifesta-tions, and their classification in genres. In a second moment, he may uncover 15 Erving Goffman will probably speak of the creation of a »façade«, in the case of

the Venetian historiography which constitutes a conscious presentation of a selec-tion of facts: GOFFMAN, La mise en scène, p. 29.

16 Yet, as already observed by Besançon, »the generations of the past […] can never be brought to the consulting room«. Alain BESANÇON, Psychoanalysis: auxiliary science or historical method?, in: Journal of Contemporary History 3: 2 (1968), pp. 149–162 (p. 161).

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the self-image’s components through the study of the group’s classifying methods or structures17.

A ruling group whose social identity is clearly defined may produce with time all kind of textual manifestations which concern individual or network relationships, individual-group interrelations or a dialogue between the po-litical authority and the social group’s members. These texts may be literary, didactic, informative, discursive, and even quantitative in character. The scholar’s task is to proceed to the constitution of different corpus, each repre-sentative, comprehensive and homogeneous at the same time18, and eventu-ally to the classification of all textual manifestations of each corpus, accord-ing to its particular nature. The result of this method is the constitution of a general map of the self-image’s functional elements, their place in the overall picture and the evolution they undergo with time.

In fact, what is suggested here is the substitution of the above-mentioned sociological questionnaires by the formation of a database (as, for example, »the Social Identity Inventory« proposed by Zavalloni in order to detect in the »free associations« expressed by the group’s members, the definition of their reference group/s)19. Our working hypothesis is that every human ac-tion, behavior or verbal expression has a structural logic which unveils the contents of a group’s identity: certain descriptive categories recurrently used or applied serve as sociological indicators to its formulation20. Consequently, if the text is taxonomic and comparative in nature, it is possible to elaborate its basic components into a sort of a questionnaire, structured according to the reference categories expressed in the text. These categories, the indicator of the group’s continuing social re-valuation process, are called by us »taxi-

17 See the »recoding« techniques in Marisa ZAVALLONI, Social Identity and the Re-

coding of Reality: its Relevance for Cross-Cultural Psychology, in: International Journal of Psychology 10 (1975), pp. 197–217 (pp. 203–215). An interesting way of »recoding« the Western European medieval civilization through its vocabulary is proposed by J. BATANY, P. CONTAMINE, B. GUENÉE, J. LE GOFF, Plan pour l’étude historique du vocabulaire social de l’Occident médiéval, in: Ordres et classes, colloquès d’histoire sociale, Saint-Cloud, 24–25 mai 1967, hg. C.E. LA-

BROUSSE, Paris 1973, pp. 87–91. 18 This model has already been proposed by Greimas, but it can well be applied here.

See: Algirdas Julien GREIMAS, Sémantique structurale, Paris 1986, pp. 142–145. 19 Marisa ZAVALLONI, Cognitive Processes and Social Identity through Focused

Introspection, in: European Journal of Social Psychology 1 (1971), pp. 235–260. 20 «[...] la langue qui est ainsi l’émanation irréductible du soi le plus profond dans

chaque individu est en même temps une réalité supraindividuelle et coextensive à la collectivité tout entière«: Émile BENVENISTE, Problèmes de linguistique géné-rale, 2, Paris 1974, pp. 98–99.


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nomes«21: they are neutral in character, and it is their inclusion or exclusion which reveals the self-image’s basic components. Their content serves other purposes: it is a vital part of the evaluation-by-comparison process where every social actor witnesses his position hierarchically placed on the social ladder.

The documents that constitute the »self-image database« are, as already been indicated, distributed according to their nature, authors’ intentions, structural similarity, and potential contribution. The outcome is the formation of documentary topoi that constitute together the history of the group’s iden-tity. Each topos will be allocated its space according to the research’s de-clared historical time length, and its diachronic duration will contribute to establish the descriptive value it holds in the corpus.22 The decoding of each topos must take into account as first priority the documents’ stylistic and morphologic differences. It is therefore necessary to proceed to the consid-eration of each cluster of documents as a »field marker« according to its contents and potential importance to the study of self-image: if we deal with »family books«, the field marker can be identified as »the family self-image« or as »the family’s genealogical memory«, or even as »the accumulative social capital by distinguished family members«. The decision depends on the documents’ ability to provide answers to the requested topic and in the field marker’s relationship to the other elements constituting the group’s self-image.

In the course of the decoding process, a case might present where different types of documents, either in content or in style, may be classified together into a corpus. Although presenting structural dissimilarities, the field marker’s task is to unite them under one roof, due to a common character shared by all and essential to the consideration of the group’s self-image. Such is the case, for example, of the study dedicated to the place held by titles in the Venetian Republic. The relevant sources for the task are, on the one hand, the patrician tombstone inscriptions as an expression of the group’s self-image according to the patrician family’s point of view, and on the other hand, in a professional context, the titles included on the frontispiece of the

21 Zavalloni uses the concept of »free associations« or »cognitive categories« in

order to define the »objective identity attributes«. Yet, she does not contemplate an eventual use of these »free associations« in an overall taxonomical expression. She does, however, carefully distinguish between »categories« (i.e. the »taxinomes«) and the »traits« (i.e. the evaluation of each category). ZAVALLONI, Cognitive Pro-cesses, p. 258. Cf. On »recoding« of reality and the »indexical properties of dis-course«, ZAVALLONI, Social Identity, p. 213. Claude Lévi-Strauss refers to »con-stant elements«, or enounces, defined by their recurrence and place in the text: Claude LÉVI-STRAUSS, Anthropologie structurale deux, Paris, 1996, pp.143–144.

22 On the diachronic duration according to the structures’ hierarchical layers, see: GREIMAS, Sémantique structurale, p. 150.

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eulogies and panegyrics published in honor of different Venetian magistrates. Evidently, these two documentary types are structurally very different, yet their field marker (or the question asked): »the use of titles« simplifies the elaboration of data, very specific in this case, and therefore easy to extract.

The next stage is data extraction which uses at first a quantitative logic: to each element is attributed a fixed value (0-1), denoting its absence or pres-ence in the document (and in the latter case it will be treated as a taxinome). In case of its presence, the element can be processed using a qualitative ap-proach which takes into consideration its contents. All extracted data will be registered in the corresponding corpus in either a chronological or a thematic order. At this point the scholar is able to start considering the elaborated data in a more ample context and draw his conclusions.

An case drawn from Venetian history will better exemplify the decoding process and the data extraction gathered into different corpus.

The Venetian society was immigrant in character. After the settlement of the first inhabitants on the lagoon islands in the course of the fifth century, there had been in the centuries to follow a constant flow of newcomers of different ethnic groups into the city23. The recurrent social mobility and the changes in social valuation, although part of an assimilation process, existed parallel to the ethnic memory each community of immigrants had still cher-ished. The different communities kept their records in a sort of chronicles, called Annales minores, usually revised and annotated by the community’s religious authorities (i.e. in a monastery or a church that served as the com-munity’s meeting point)24. The Annales contained among other details the list of the families, members of the community, with specific reference to the leading ones (distinguished by the ›tribune‹ title) or to those who first set foot in Rivoalto (the central zone of today’s Venice, where the first settlement took place). The weakening of historical memory, intermarriages between

23 Andrea CASTAGNETTI, Insediamenti e ›populi‹, in: Storia di Venezia dalle origini

alla caduta della Serenissima, 1: Origini-Età ducale, ed. G. CRACCO et al., Rome 1992, pp. 577–612; Wladimiro DORIGO, Venezia Origini. Ipotesi e ricerche sulla formazione della città, 1, Milan 1983, pp. 212–242; Carlo CIPOLLA, Ricerche sulle tradizioni intorno alle antiche immigrazioni nella laguna, in: Archivio Veneto, n.s. 31 (1886), pp. 423–442; Roberto CESSI, Venezia ducale, 1: Duca e popolo, Vene-zia 1963, pp. 4–18; Ernesto SESTAN, La composizione etnica della società in rap-porto allo svolgimento della civiltà in Italia nel secolo VII, in: Centro Italiano di studi sull’alto Medioevo, Caratteri del secolo VII in Occidente, 2, Spoleto 1958, pp. 649–677.

24 Dorit RAINES, L’invention du mythe aristocratique. L’image de soi du patriciat vénitien au temps de la Sérénissime, Venedig 2006, S 373–378; RAINES, Alle ori-gini dell’archivio politico del patriziato: la cronaca ›di consultazione‹ veneziana nei secoli XIV–XV, in: Archivio Veneto, V/150 (1998), pp. 5–57; Michael MCCORMICK, Les annales du haut Moyen Âge, Turnhout 1975, pp. 15–16.


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different ethnic groups, shared economic interests, common political goals, all these factors contributed to a slow ›melting pot‹ process of different ethnic groups into a socially united community whose new identity imposed a fu-sion of rituals and traditions25.

The evolving political and social situation in Venice in the course of the twelfth century and the immigrant nature of its society rendered the family lists contained in the old chronicles a valuable departure point for both politi-cal cohesion and social distinction. The slowly-shaping ruling elite’s desire was to avoid social strife, but it strived at the same time to create a scale of measurable factors in order to distinguish old families from newcomers as a part of a social stratification process. This could have been achieved through the transformation of the family lists into small descriptive units: »Bagi qui appellati sunt Benati, tribuni ante fuerunt, sed protervi de voluntate ac sapi-entes, et ecclesias edificaverunt«. This typical chronicle of an old tribal fam-ily is clearly taxonomical in character. It contains taxinomes such as: the original tribal name (indicating the family’s degree of antiquity), the present family name, offices and titles, family qualities or vices (demonstrating the family’s capability of a successful integration into the political elite network-ing and urban tissue), the church it had built (to underline the family’s long-time territorial claims in a specific zone). This family’s ›identity card‹ made of classifying social categories enabled the reader to immediately locate it on the scale of social and political importance. Thus, the outcome of this list was a ›map‹ of all the social forces operating within the ruling group, socially stratifying them with the help of these factors, yet without explicitly indicat-ing each family’s social status (a fact that could have caused social strife).

As the family chronicles were collective in character – all the governing families were duly included in them – they can serve as a base for data ex-traction: each taxinome will first be evaluated for its presence or absence and then for its contents. Moreover, as family chronicles were subject to an on-going updating throughout the ages, the scholar can confront the taxinomes included in different chronicle databases in order to register the changes undergone in their inclusion and discover the abandonment of some of the self-image’s factors and the adoption of new ones.

Naturally, not all documentary types can undergo such a taxonomical treatment. Sometimes this method may reveal its limits. Such, for example, is the case of the Venetian official historiography, with its abundant praises and hyperboles or other treatises’ use of parables and metaphors. This genre, considered the literary expression of political ideas and myths, was destined

25 See some of the ancient Venetian Annales minores published in: Giovanni MONTI-

COLO (Ed.), Cronache veneziane antichissime (Fonti per la storia d’Italia, 9), Rome 1890.

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to the collectivity26 and not merely to the ruling group. It is therefore impos-sible to codify it, due to a lack of recurrent semantic elements. The only pos-sibility the scholar has of using these works in order to gauge self-image is to distinguish between texts which can be treated taxonomically and compara-tively, and those whose conceptual character may yield a more broader con-text to the study of self-image, as is the case of these Venetian histo-riographic and literary texts.

In this context one should also note that as a ruling elite may act both as a social and as a political group, its self-image is clearly not that of a political authority but that of a socio-political group. The relevant documentary mate-rial sought by the historian in order to describe the group’s self-image is therefore not that of public nature and bureaucratic production (which can be considered as the reflection of the political authority’s self-image), but rather the documentation produced in the social sphere and in a private context – namely, by its basic social unit – the family.

What kind of documents can be used in order to elaborate the necessary data for the study of the governing elite’s self-image? Evidently, every ruling group will produce its own material based on its tradition and socio-political necessities. Yet, I believe that presenting the Venetian case may reveal use-ful, as scholars studying other governing elites may find some similarities both in the constitution of genres, as well as in their contents.

The documentary material largely used in the case of the Venetian patrici-ate is that of a political and social nature belonging to the patrician families’ private archives27. This material reflects in fact the different facets of the on-going social debate. Not only did this debate define the social rules of the political game, but it also delineated the constant changes in the group’s attitudes and values. The group was therefore in need of a different channel of expression that respected its basic anxiety for maintaining the exchange of views confined either to the community in question or to a limited public outside.

The Venetian political culture greatly influenced these private archives by the creation of a »satellite« culture: drawing on public documents, the patri-

26 Ralph M. STOGDILL, Individual Behavior and Group – a Theory: The Experimental

Evidence, New York 1959, p. 21, remarks that the group members usually tend to define their group in terms of individuals than of abstract structures.

27 On the Venetian private archives, see Dorit RAINES, L’archivio familiare strumen-to di formazione politica del patriziato veneziano, in: Accademie e biblioteche d’Italia 4 (1996), pp. 5–38; RAINES, L’arte di ben informarsi. Carriera politica e pratiche documentarie nell’archivio familiare di patrizi veneziani: I Molin di San Pantalon, in: Archivi nobiliari e domestici. Conservazione, metodologie di riordino e prospettive di ricerca storica. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Udine 14–15 maggio 1998, ed. R. NAVARRINI, L. CASELLA, Udine 2000, pp. 173–196.


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cians elaborated political and social data for their own use, in an ever-going re-valuation process. This material is composed of all sorts of genres: chroni-cles, heraldic chronicles, genealogical trees and research studies, sociometric lists quantitatively measuring the Venetian magistrates’ professional per-formance28, high magistrates’ commemorative orations, as well as panegyrics and eulogies written in their praises at the end of office, etc. These docu-ments, coupled with other sources, such as Venetian official and unofficial historiographical production, enable us by their taxonomical approach a serial elaboration, thus obtaining empirical results, based upon textually-quantitative databases.

It will be worthwhile to delineate in some detail the material used in order to describe the Venetian patriciate’s self-image and its evolution through the ages.

The political chronicles – These chronicles constituted a widely circulated genre in the middle Ages, heavily drawn on the ›universal history‹ genre. The chronicles were structured as a chronological narration of a set of events centred on the figure of the ruler29. In the course of the fourteenth century the genre split into two types: the historical chronicles, set as a long and detailed narration of events (chronica extensa), and the short format (chronica bre-vis), more informative in type and ideal as a quick-reference tool30. The quick-reference Venetian chronicle had become then in the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries a sort of political archives of the ruling elite. It contained all important information needed in order to participate in the political life: an abridged form of the Venetian history following the lives of the doges. Its sophisticated structure, drawing on medieval Scholastic ›compilatio‹ and ›ordinatio‹ practices, divided the historical narration into time units marked by each doge’s ruling period and provided it with an articulated page layout devised for quick access to the information: rubrication, page heads, chapter heads, catchwords, ›litterae notabiliores‹, blue and red paraphs, occasional

28 On sociometry, see: Jacob L. MORENO, Sociometry, Experimental Method and the

Science of Society. An Approach to a New Political Orientation, New York 1951. 29 Bernard GUENNEE, Histoire et culture historique dans l’Occident médiéval, Paris

1980, pp. 203–204. ›Chronicle‹ meant in the Middle Ages a chronological set of events whereas history meant an elaboration of a story. The difference was the ar-rangement of events – chronological or thematic. Cf. Howard BLOCH, Étymologie et généalogie. Une anthropologie littéraire du Moyen Âge français, Paris 1989, pp. 50–51; on the universal history concept originating both in the Greco-Roman world with its perception of history as a succession of empires, and in the biblical approach to history as a genealogical succession.

30 Ester PASTORELLI (Ed.), Andreae Danduli Chronica brevis, in: Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 12, pt. I, fasc. 4, 19392; PASTORELLI (Ed.), Andreae Danduli Chronica extensa, in: Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 12, pt. I, 19392.

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marginal decoration31. It was only logical that lists of all sorts would be added to this informative type of chronicle: the list of doges, of the procura-tors of Saint Mark, offices and office-holders and the patrician families. Be-side the usefulness of the attached lists, the chronicles themselves serve as a true mirror of the patrician changing mentalities and social definitions throughout the ages.

The heraldic chronicles – the small narrative portraits of patrician families became in the middle of the fourteenth century an autonomous list, added at the end of the quick-reference chronicle and nominated Proles nobilium Ve-netorum32. The novelty of this autonomous unit was both in its compilers’ identity and in its innovative textual morphology. The compilers were not professional scribes, but mostly patricians whose interest in the historical narration and in communicating social and political messages, turned them into ›improvised‹ scribes. The patrician scribe used the script medium to express his view and consequently, discuss it with other intellectuals, among them many Venetian patricians, as part of a diffused practice in pre-humanistic and humanistic period33. The outcome was the formation of a ›discussion group‹ within the governing elite itself, whose primary aim was to promote an overall social consensus, but at the same time establish implicit norms for social stratification within the group.

The outcome of the data elaboration reveals the way in which the Ve-netian patriciate constantly manipulated different ethnic historical narrations in order to create a unified version of the formation of Venetian society. It eliminated quite completely the immigrant nature of Venetian primitive soci-ety, claiming for a selected group of families social and political preeminence by ancestral rights. Moreover, this careful historiographical manipulation created a hierarchy within the patriciate itself: twenty-four families were

31 Dorit RAINES, Alle origini dell’archivio politico del patriziato, pp. 5–57 (p. 22). Cf.

Malcolm B. PARKES, The Influence of the Concepts of Ordinatio and Compilatio on the Development of the Book, in: Scribes, Scripts and Readers. Studies in the Communication, Presentation and Dissemination of Medieval Texts, ed. Malcolm B. PARKES, London, Rio Grande 1991, pp. 35–69.

32 The first chronicle, edited between 1355 and 1357 by an anonymous, is at Biblio-teca Nazionale Marciana (BNM), Cod. Marc. Lat. X, 36a (=3326). The other chronicle, edited by Pietro Giustinian in 1357 is in Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF), Cod. Lat. 5877 (autograph of Pietro Giustinian). See: Antonio CA-

RILE, Note di cronachistica veneziana: Piero Giustinian e Nicolò Trevisan«, in: Studi Veneziani, 9 (1967), pp. 103–126 (pp. 110–118); RAINES, Alle origini dell’archivio politico del patriziato, pp. 24–26; Roberto CESSI, Fanny BENNATO

(Ed.): Venetiarum Historia vulgo Petro Iustiniano iustiniani filio adiudicata, Veni-ce 1964, pp. xvii–xviii, esp. note 15.

33 For an example to a community of readers, see. G.D. HOBSON, ›Et Amicorum‹, in: The Library V/4 (1949), pp. 87–99.


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considered to be the »founders« of the lagoon-city, while the others argued for ancient rights by claiming to descend from the maritime tribunes.

As previously noted, the novelty of the autonomous family lists laid mainly in their structure. These chronicles, drawing on the medieval lists rather than on the historical linear narration, were structured as a ›database‹, and composed of easily removable small informative units. They were there-fore an easy target for every kind of textual manipulation. At the same time, they constituted the real interesting part of the genre and the cause of its long-established success and survival. The structure of each family’s portrait made of the same medieval taxonomical categories with the addition of new ones34, turned in fact into an experimental ground: it could have been manipulated by omitting, adding or changing a category without damaging the basic textual structure. The nature of the chronicle’s transmission – a written copy – fa-voured the practice of textual rearrangement. As the texts grew more and more discursive in nature, due to information added with time, various narra-tive layers could have been detected within the text. This fact enhanced the reediting/rearranging/manipulating practices, as still a phrase or two could have been unnoticeably added or removed. By the first half of the seven-teenth century, due to the abandon of a re-valuation process focused on the maritime tribune title and the shift to claims based on legendary ancestral privileges, the popularity of these lists waned. However, as of 1646, with the aggregation of 125 families into the Venetian patriciate (a process continued until 1718), the genre was renewed in order to tell the story of the newcomers and stimulate a social debate regarding their potential social assimilation into the Venetian patriciate.

The collective genealogies – this documentary genre makes his debut in the sixteenth century, rather late, if we consider the Florentine genealogies, already existent toward mid-fourteenth century. Moreover, its uniqueness lies in the fact that it was collective – all patrician families were included; one may rarely find until the second half of the seventeenth century a single fam-ily genealogy or ›family memory books‹ (libri di ricordanze) similar to the Tuscan ones described by Christiane Klapisch-Zuber35. The collective nature of these genealogies was not circumstantial: they pursued the same logic that had led the family chronicles’ authors to edit them collectively – the republi-

34 The new added taxonomical categories were: city of origin, tribune title, arrival

date to Venice, profession or offices, economic situation. RAINES, L’invention du mythe aristocratique, pp. 403–427.

35 Christiane KLAPISCH-ZUBER, La maison et le nom. Stratégies et rituels dans l’Italie de la Renaissance, Paris 1990, pp. 22–28; Michel NASSIET, Parenté, noblesse et états dynastiques, XVe–XVIe siècles, Paris 2000, pp. 31–33. On the connection between genealogy and mythology, see: Christian MAUREL, Les Bailleul: Cons-truction généalogique et développement de l’État moderne, in: Annales. E.S.C. 4 (1991), pp. 807–826 (pp. 811–812).

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can principle of equality between all governing families of the Venetian pa-triciate in order to maintain the pax venetiana, achieved after factional strife before and after the ›Closing‹ of the Great Council in 1297.

Descending from those who were allowed participation in the 1297 ›Clos-ing‹ meant a clear socio-political claim of privileges and rights36. Yet, socio-political claims for participation in power could only be processed through the family. A sophisticated bureaucratic legislation ensured as from the end of the thirteenth century the dependency of the individual patrician member’s social status on his family37. It also reiterated the collective nature of the governing elite and decreed that all personal data was to be registered and elaborated by the State machinery rather than by the families themselves. This decision led to the establishment in 1414, 1506 and 1526 of a number of registers, namely of marriages and births, kept by the State Attorneys (Avogaria di Comun) in order to control the postulate’s right of access to the Great Council: he had to descend from a patrician father and from a mother whose ancestors had not exercised any mechanical art38.

In fact, the Venetian governing elite pretended from each family a careful management of its human resources in order to perpetuate its own lineage, but at the same time, to contribute to the endogamic nature of the whole group39. It proceeded therefore to encourage a State policy of official registra-tion of births and marriages. In doing so, it effectively controlled the fami-lies’ social and political strategy: in order to gain political influence it forced family members to get elected to administrative and command, often money-consuming, offices, but election depended on the creation of social network-

36 See: Jack GOODY, Famiglia e matrimonio in Europa. Origine e sviluppi dei modelli

familiari dell’Occidente, Mailand 1984, p. 276, for the difference between a single, even if large, household claiming descent from a common ancestor (corresponding to the Venetian casata or gens) and those organized in parallel households, claim-ing all a common ancestral origin (corresponding to the Venetian colonnello).

37 For the juridical process which linked political legitimating to civil legitimacy, see: Victor CRESCENZI, Esse de Maiori Consilio. Legittimità civile e legittimazione politica nella Repubblica di Venezia (secc. XIII–XVI) (Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, Nuovi studi storici, n. 34), Rome 1996, pp. 7–9, 343–345, 264–369.

38 The opening of the register forced the magistrates in charge of keeping it to de-velop a series of documentary tools in order to verify the candidate’s civil status. Stanley CHOJNACKI, La formazione della nobiltà dopo la Serrata, in: Storia di Ve-nezia, 3: La formazione dello Stato patrizio, Rome 1997, pp. 641–725 (p. 652). The term »genealogy« was probably used in an official document for the first time in 1389. Ibidem, p. 705.

39 James C. DAVIS, A Venetian Family and Its Fortune 1500–1900: The Donà and the Conservation of their Wealth, Philadelphia 1975; Volker HUNECKE, Il patriziato veneziano alla fine della Repubblica, 1646–1797. Demografia, famiglia, ménage, Rome 1997, pp. 251–262.


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ing through matrimonial alliances, leading therefore to a more and more endogamic behavior40.

We can consider therefore the Venetian genealogies as a State matter41. They were drawn thanks to the pioneering work of a patrician named Marco Barbaro (1511–1570)42, who used primarily the public records. Barbaro de-cided to draw for each casata (the large family) a tree, showing the eventual ramifications into single households (rami). He preceded the tree by a short history of the family’s origins (drawing on the Venetian chronicles), its past illustrious members and a coat of arms. The genealogy treated only the fam-ily’s male members, adding their birth and death dates, and sometimes even-tual titles or prestigious offices43.

40 Stanley CHOJNACKI, Identity and Ideology in Renaissance Venice. The Third

Serrata, in: Venice Reconsidered – The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State. 1297–1797, ed. J. MARTIN, D. ROMANO, Baltimore, London 2000, pp. 263–294; CRESCENZI, Esse de Maiori Consilio; HUNECKE, Il patriziato veneziano, pp. 25–26, Oliver T. DOMZALSKI, Politische Karrieren und Machtverteilung im vene-zianischen Adel (1646–1797), Sigmaringen 1996. See also: Frederic C. LANE, The Enlargement of the Great Council of Venice, in: Florilegium Historiale: Essays Presented to Wallace K. Ferguson, ed. J.G. ROWE, W.H. STOCKDALE, Toronto 1971, pp. 236–274; Stanley CHOJNACKI, In Search of the Venetian Patriciate: Families and Factions in the Fourteenth Century, in: Renaissance Venice, ed. J. HALE, London 1973, pp. 47–90 (pp. 52–58); Margarete MERORES, Der grosse Rat von Venedig und die sogenannte Serrata vom Jahre 1297, in: Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 21 (1928), pp. 33–113; Gerhard ROSCH, Der ve-nezianische Adel bis zur Schliessung des Grossen Rats. Zur Genese einer Füh-rungsschicht, Sigmaringen 1989, pp. 174–175.

41 In fact, contemporary genealogical studies, especially published ones, were differ-ent in their approach from the Venetian genealogical culture. The sixteenth-century Italian genealogical culture was partly imaginative and mythological in character (as exemplified by the work of the Paduan count Zabarella) or a blunt at-tempt to falsify documents (as amply done by the famous Alfonso Ciccarelli). See: Roberto BIZZOCCHI, Genealogie incredibili. Scritti di storia nell’Europa moderna, Bologna 1995, pp. 189–219; BIZZOCCHI, La culture généalogique dans l’Italie du seizième siècle, in: Annales. E.S.C. 4 (1991), pp. 789–806; Girolamo TIRSBOSCHI, Riflessioni su gli scrittori genealogici, Padova nella Stamperia del Seminario 1789, pp. 7–8.

42 The eighteenth-century doge and letterato Marco Foscarini correctly pointed to Marco Barbaro as the founder of the Venetian genealogical culture. Marco FOSCA-

RINI, Della letteratura veneziana ed altri scritti intorno ad essa, Venezia, 1854, re-ed. Bologna 1976, p. 201.

43 Barbaro’s graphic approach to genealogy is also interesting. Probably influenced by French genealogical trees, he chose the simplest design: a line drawn between two names. He also maximized the page layout, by drawing a horizontal tree, spreading both on the verso and recto, as in Greek pagination. See his work in:

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In the course of the seventeenth century the genealogies began to witness a female presence: names of daughters and wives were added as a part of an overall evaluation of the female position in the intricate socio-political game44. With the increasing endogamic practices of the Venetian patriciate, every matrimonial contract was indeed the outcome of political calculation, economic opportunities and social preeminence of the respective families. As a result, the registration of the wife’s family name onto the genealogical tree was a sign of the spouse family’s political alliances and power45. Genealogi-cal trees became then a political tool. Some began to devise a new sort of genealogical approach: the ›ego-familial‹ tree prepared by specialists. At the center was the family member who had requested the research work, with at least three preceding generations and naturally his own lineage. Each time a female member was mentioned (either as spouse to a family member or as a family member married in another family), her family’s genealogical tree was drawn as well. This political tool permitted patricians to calculate the number of their political lobby’s potential members during office-holders’ elections in the Great Council46. However, it marked the passage from a mere social concept intended to underline the Venetian patriciate as an ancient nobility that carefully maintained its caste-like purity by endogamic strate-gies, into a more political approach that penalized the poorer part of the gov-erning class, therefore creating two distinct socio-political groups within it and de facto abolishing the group’s cohesion.

Panegyrics and eulogies of Venetian magistrates – the family chroni-cles, the heraldic documentation, the Venetian genealogies had all the same departure point: the family, Venetian society’s basic social and political unit. But the governing class’ members acted also in their own as magistrates and had therefore to be valued according to a »ranking system« that would reflect both their civic ethical ideology and their executive performance in service.

ONB, Cod. Foscarini Lat., n. 6155, cc. 42v-43r. Cf. for various genealogical de-signs: KLAPISCH-ZUBER, L’ombre des ancêtres, pp. 92–94 and illustration n. 12.

44 It was Marco Barbaro who first recognized the importance of annotating female names in a special registry dedicated to marriages. He was also the author of Le nozze patrizie (The patrician marriages), where he registered all matrimonies of patrician families, with special reference to the spouse’s ancestors. Another patri-cian who in 1529 registers all patrician marriages from 1400 to 1533 is Girolamo Loredan. See his work in: BNM, Cod. Marc. It. VII, 538 (=7734), c. 1: »Su questo libro sarano notà tute le noze de tuti li zintilomeni de Veneixia, principia del M.CCC«.

45 Dorit RAINES, Lodovico Manin, la rete dei sostenitori e la politica del broglio nel Settecento, in: Al servizio dell’»amatissima patria«. Le Memorie di Lodovico Ma-nin e la gestione del potere nel Settecento veneziano, ed. Dorit RAINES, Venezia 1997, pp. 121–165.

46 RAINES, L’invention du mythe aristocratique, pp. 523–537.


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They had created a celebrative literature that served both as a scale to meas-ure each member’s performance, and as a sort of a ›tacit persuasion‹ tool to enhance other members to sacrifice time, money, talents and even life at the service of the Republic.

Pierre Bourdieu has already noted the importance of creating an ethical evaluation system within a governing elite and its contribution to power con-servation tactics. He proposed in his study of the French administrative elite, called »the State nobility«, the use of panegyrics, commemorative orations and all kind of celebrative discourse as a source for the study of the creation of the group’s ethical evaluation system. Through those documentary sources, Bourdieu claimed, it was possible to understand how the group ethos – its shared goal and credo, were translated into detailed ethical norms to be applied for each member’s behavior47.

In fact, the Venetian documentation does yield such kind of sources. The sixteenth century witnessed the appearance of different genres where the Venetian magistrate, i.e., a single patrician, was discussed and praised. One of these genres, destined to a huge popularity until the fall of the Republic in 1797, is the panegyric genre, composed at the departure of the Podestà (civil governor) or the Capitano (military governor) from the Mainland city they had commanded for several years at the orders of the Venetian Republic48. The City Council usually promulgated a decree and charged the local acad-emy with the task. An academy member was chosen to hold the speech on behalf of the whole community on the magistrate’s departure day. At the same time, the patrician himself and, in some rare occasions, the academy, paid for the publication of the panegyric (4 to 8 pages) in about a hundred copies, to be distributed among the magistrate’s friends and allies49.

47 Pierre BOURDIEU, La noblesse d’État. Grandes écoles et esprit de corps, Paris

1989, p. 68. 48 See: Giuseppe DEL TORRE, Venezia e la terraferma dopo la guerra di Cambrai.

Fiscalità e amministrazione (1515–1530), Milano 1986, pp. 223–232, who demon-strates that the Venetian patriciate had not bothered to verify the candidates’ preparation, especially regarding local problems, for the offices of Podestà and Captain. Cf.: Angelo VENTURA, Nobiltà e popolo nella società veneta del ‘400 e ‘500, Rome, Bari, 1964, pp. 45, 440–454.

49 On this practice, see: Claudia DI FILIPPO BAREGGI, Il mestiere di scrivere. Lavoro intellettuale e mercato librario a Venezia nel Cinquecento, Rome 1988, p. 269f., with the example of the academician Gerolamo Ruscelli (1504–1566 or 1569). Another example is of the last Venetian doge, Lodovico Manin, who sponsored the panegyrics written in his honor, on the occasion of his election in 1763 to the of-fice of procurator of Saint Mark. See: Dorit RAINES, La famiglia Manin e la cultura libraria tra Friuli e Venezia nel ‘700, Udine 1997, pp. 55–72; Biblioteca Civica »Joppi«, Udine (BCU), Cod. Manin 1548, doc. n. 27, 29.

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The panegyrics played a fundamental role in the diffusion of the image the Venetian patriciate wanted to present of itself as a professional and a citizen-caring governing elite. Their appearance is to be linked to a general shift occurring in Venetian political philosophy in the years following the conclu-sion of the League of Cambrai’s episode and the signing of the Treaty of Bologne (1529–1530). The Venetian governing class had still to make an overall reevaluation of its poor performance in 1509 when most of its Mainland territories had fallen into the hands of its enemies with truly shock-ing rapidity. The result was a reassessment of the role of the single magistrate within a framework of the group’s decision-making process. The first patri-cian to spell out the new ideology was the prominent politician, the cardinal Gasparo Contarini in its known work La Republica e i magistrati di Vinegia (1544)50. Contarini depicted in his book the magistrate as the incarnation of republican virtue and as a representative of the governing elite’s collective wisdom. A year before Contarini’s publication, while the cardinal had almost finished writing his book, appeared the first panegyric written in praise of a Venetian magistrate51. It was not a coincidence. The Venetian patriciate had decided to seek other forms of ›tacit persuasion‹ in order to call its members to duty. And although the Venetian authorities did not seem keen to encour-age personal praises to magistrates in order not to create social competition or a cult of personality, they eventually had to recognize the panegyrics as a useful propagandistic tool. Following this first panegyric, we count today about six-hundred of them published in the years 1543–169952.

The panegyrics presented all a similar structure: they were based on the patrician’s life as an example of an ideal republican magistrate. They first 50 On Contarini, see: Gigliola FRAGNITO, Gasparo Contarini. Un magistrato venezia-

no al servizio della cristianità, Florence 1988. 51 According to the lists drawn by Cicogna and Soranzo: Emmanuele Antonio CICO-

GNA, Saggio di Bibliografia veneziana, Venedig 1847; Girolamo SORANZO, Bi-bliografia veneziana, in aggiunta e continuazione del »Saggio« di Emmanuele An-tonio Cicogna, Venice 1885; the first published panegyric was by Giovanni Battista FRUMENTARIO, Oratio ad Aloysium Bragadenum Forijulii Praetorem, Udi-ne par Natolino 1543. It is possible that after a decree promulgated in 1541, in which all celebrations of the entrance and departure of Venetian magistrates to or of the Mainland cities were strictly forbidden, the only form of celebration left was the panegyric, regarded as a praise to the wisdom of the entire governing elite. On the 1541 decree, see: Giulio BISTORT, Il Magistrato alle Pompe nella Republica di Venezia. Studio storico, Venice 1912, p. 278, citing from Archivio di Stato, Vene-zia (ASV), Pompe, b. 21, February 16, 1540 more veneto (i.e. 1541).

52 Taking the bibliographical works of Cicogna and Soranzoo o as a departure point, I counted 507 panegyrics and 83 praising poems published between 1543 and 1699. Regarding the procurators of Saint Mark, the first published work mentioned by CICOGNA: Paulini Fabii Carmen in profectione Jacobi Foscareni D. Marci pro-curatoris et classis venetae imperatoris, Venetiis 1594, in 4°.


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described the magistrate’s family history going back to its ancient origins and acquired privileges in the course of Venetian history. They then reverted to the patrician as a young man, describing its education and the examples taught by elderly family members, as a stimulus to excel and surpass the renown acquired by famous ancestors. The third part included a consideration of Plato’s cardinal virtues (prudence, temperance, fortitude and justice) as exemplified by the magistrate’s deeds throughout his career53. Their impor-tance in yielding us accurate information regarding the expectations the Ve-netian patriciate had of its members, both in social and political terms, the fact that they cover a long period of time which describes the evolution un-dergone in the evaluation of each component and its role in the overall pro-fessional assessment, and their structure that enables data extraction accord-ing to recurrent semantic fields, make them an ideal documentary source for the study of the evolution of the Venetian governing elite’s self-image.

Doges’ commemorative orations – likewise, the doges’ commemorative orations, may also serve as a useful source to the study of the desired virtues required from a magistrate. Even though the Venetian governing elite con-stantly refused in the name of republican spirit, to honor the magistrate as a person, the only exception was represented by the highest political rank – the doge.

The doge’s coronations as well as funeral were considered a State matter, although his burial was strictly a personal, or better, a family affair54. In the course of the funeral and the ceremonies linked to the transition period, the commemoration service held at the SS. Giovanni and Paolo basilica, was considered a highly important moment in the Venetian patriciate’s self-presentation. The oration, usually pronounced by a talented young patrician, had also a didactic function in the diffusion of the ethical code of behavior suitable for a Venetian magistrate.

Again, Bourdieu’s keen observation is pertinent to our case study: »The group’s last judgment regarding one of its members through the intermediary

53 RAINES, L’invention du mythe aristocratique, pp. 193–236, 256–268. 54 See: Edward MUIR, The Doge as Primus Inter Pares: Interregnum Rites in Early

Sixteenth-Century Venice, in: Essays Presented to Myron P. Gilmore, 1, ed. S. BERTELLI, G. RAMAKUO, Florence 1978, pp. 145–160, esp. p. 147; Alberto TE-

NENTI, Stato: Un’idea, una logica. Dal comune italiano all’assolutismo francese, Bologna 1987, pp. 214–216; Edward MUIR, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice, Princeton 1981, pp. 268–269; Gino Benzoni considers the transition period as a moment of tension between the patrician quest for continuity and the people’s de-sire of novelty. This is the reason why the Venetian patriciate did not celebrate the deceased ruler. The rapidity with which power passed from one ruler to the other was the main concern of the ruling class; see: Gino BENZONI, A proposito del doge, in: I Dogi, ed. Gino BENZONI, Milano 1982, pp. 45–72, esp. p. 56.

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of a chosen spokesman […] is always the result of a collective effort«55. The control exerted on the ›symbolic accumulated capital‹, represented in the doge’s life story, is managed by the group which entrusts one of his mem-bers, capable of expressing these ideas, with the charge of pronouncing the commemorative oration.

The doges’ commemorative orations had all a similar structure that com-municated the different facets of the patrician life. They all started with prais-ing the republican system as the best possible form of government. They then discussed the ancient origin of the doge’s family and its role in the long his-tory of the Venetian Republic. This part that demonstrated the loyalty, the sacrifice and the courage of the family members had a double function: it exhorted each member to imitate his ancestors and contribute to the »accu-mulative social capital« of the family; yet, at the same time, each of the members enjoyed this social capital in the course of his career. The third part was dedicated to the doge as a public magistrate, with special attention to his professional and personal qualities as a mirror of republican virtue56. In fact, the oration’s thematic structure was an ideological one. It set a hierarchy of importance between three different categories: form of government, family, and magistrate, thus concluding that the doge, the representative of the gov-erning elite, had reached this achievement due to a combination of the repub-lican virtuous system, his family’s renown and his own personal qualities.

Sociometric lists of the Venetian magistrates’ performance – these lists, existing only in manuscript form, constitute the »ranking system« of the Venetian patriciate as applied to different careers and cursus honorom. They represent the group’s evaluation of each of its magistrate’s ability to perform his task. They were edited by different (anonymous) members of the govern-ing class and enjoyed quite a circulation among the patricians, a fact that may well contribute to their consideration as a scribal publication57. Their purpose was twofold: the ideal virtues elaborated from the ancient Roman model and updated in a series of publications58, and a selection of a number of high

55 BOURDIEU, La noblesse d’État, p. 64, note 7. 56 See: Orazioni, Elogi e Vite scritte de letterati Veneti Patrizj in lode di Dogi, ed

altri illustri soggetti, Venezia: dalla tipografia Pepoliana 1795. On the panegyrics, see: Maria Luisa DOGLIO, La letteratura ufficiale e l’oratoria celebrativa, in: Storia della cultura veneta. 4/I: Il Seicento, ed. G. ARNALDI, M. PASTORE STOCCHI, Vi-cenza 1983, pp. 163–187.

57 On scribal publication, see: Harold LOVE, Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England, Oxford 1993; Françoise WEIL, La fonction du manuscrit par rapport à l’imprimé, in: De bonne main. La communication manuscrite au XVIIIe siècle, ed. François MOREAU, Paris, Oxford 1993, pp. 17–27; David MCKITTERICK, Print, Manuscript and the Search for Order, 1450–1830, Cambridge 2003, pp. 15–17, 47.

58 RAINES, L’invention du mythe aristocratique, pp. 199–208.


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magistrates (usually a hundred). The focus was less on the image of an ideal magistrate (already expressed in the panegyric production and the doges’ commemorative oration), but rather the application of ideal virtues to reality, as well as the birth of the idea of »excellence« or meritocracy and its evolu-tion through the centuries59.

Tombstone inscriptions – unlike the above documentary genres, the tombstone inscriptions did not constitute a part of the Venetian private ar-chives, nor were they put onto paper. Yet, the inscription text decided by the deceased’s relatives is no less revealing than any other source as to the self-image of his entire reference group. The inscription contains usually other than the name of the deceased person, his dates of birth and death, along with his titles, sometimes his most recent rank or office and a brief summary of his virtues. It is therefore subject to a taxonomical data extraction according to the semantic fields that comprise the inscription.

However, the problem is to find a sufficient number able to present both thematic and historical continuity and cover the period treated by the research study. As far as Venetian history is concerned, in the nineteenth century, Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna, a Venetian scholar, had managed to transcribe most of the tombstone inscriptions before a part of them had disappeared in the course of the demolition of a number of Venetian monasteries and grave-yards. They constitute a corpus of thousands of inscriptions, described in six volumes, serving as a base for our study.

Naturally, as already been pointed out, some documentary genres cannot be treated in a taxonomic or comparative manner. These genres, as for exam-ple, the Venetian official and semi-official historiography, should be re-garded exclusively for their argumentation and the narrative presentation of the entire text. What they mostly convey to us is the governing elite’s politi-cal argumentation, or rather, apology, regarding its professional performance.

Having identified the major genres that may serve as different corpus for the research study on the governing elite’s self-image, the scholar has now to extract data to be inserted in predetermined thematic clusters. In other words, all genres, that constitute the Venetian political »satellite« culture, are taxo-nomically elaborated into specific data bases, according to their initial field marker. Thus, in the case of Venetian history, the outcome was the constitu-tion of data bases regarding among others, the presumed identity of Venice’s founding fathers, the name of the most ancient families as a claim for a higher social status within the ruling group, the period considered by most patricians to be the »golden age« of Venice, the ideal virtues different magis-trates should possess, titles and other honorific attributes the patricians were entitled to and their compatibility with republican ideology, the figure of the Venetian hero, the idea of personal success and of failure in Venetian society,

59 Ibidem, pp. 83–99, 238–245.

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the patrician consideration of the ideal family unit and its role in the social and political spheres, the patrician ranking system and the evaluation of the ›social capital‹ of different careers, the patrician judgment of their group performance in times of crisis.

Yet, describing the governing elite’s self-image requires more than a static picture depicted at a certain point of time. The group’s self-image evolves, slowly but constantly, and the scholar has to note the small and almost invisi-ble changes. In order to correctly use the data stored in the different corpus, the scholar has to take into consideration the basic tensions that the socio-political system created by the governing elite may produce. In the case of the Venetian patriciate one may detect such three dialectic structural poles: 1. the tension between the idea of republican equality and the State ideology

whose basic departure point was hierarchical due to its need of governing territories and people;

2. the tension between the group cohesion and the disgregating family ten-dency to social and political distinction;

3. the tension between the collective interest and the single member’s desires and expectations. Taking into account also these structural tensions, it was possible to de-

scribe the Venetian patriciate’s self-image in a more dynamic way, register-ing all the smallest yet significant changes that occurred within it. The out-come is a more subtle consideration of the way self-image acts, reacts and transforms.

As this article has shown, a historical ruling group’s self-image does not rely only on its political rights and by extension, on its professional aptitude. In fact, self-image acts autonomously when the social existence of the group is concerned. The Venetian patriciate’s self-image helped the diligent con-struction of the group’s »esprit de corps« as well as its ideology based on the indivisible linkage between the ruling group, the form of government and the homeland (patriciate-Republic-Venice). This linkage is the key to our under-standing of the continuous and stubborn rejection of the Venetian patriciate of all solutions and reforms intended to help the Venetian empire regenerate. The Venetian patricians could not conceive the existence of Venice without their rule and with a form of government different from the republican one. Their self-image that considered their class an integral part of Venice blocked any proposition of an alternative solution, such for example, the integration of the mainland nobility in order to overcome an increasing demographic crisis or the creation of two sorts of nobility: one functional and linked to office (noblesse de robe) and the other a hereditary one (noblesse de race). These propositions were in contrast with the Venetian myth that underlined the patriciate’s role as an integral part of the republican system.

We witness then a halt in the evolution of the Venetian patriciate’s self-image regarding a possible political transformation. Yet, social regeneration


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revealed to be impossible, and moreover, the cause of a divorce between the patriciate’s self-image and self-presentation. In fact, as we shall see, the rul-ing group’s cohesion ceased to exist, and with it, its justification of power.

Toward the second half of the seventeenth century, a group of families, the richest and most influential ones, could not tolerate the re-valuation of the newcomers. It also revealed its rejection to being put on the same scale with the poorest part of the patriciate. This new patrician social distinction meant deserting the inner-class social debate in order to attain new and more valid interlocutors. It aimed to create a new discussion community challenging old social paradigms and proposing new ones. The influential families set on inventing origins which went beyond the foundation of Venice into the re-mote times of the Roman Empire. They clearly preferred a more commonly shared criterion as a basis for discussion (the Roman origins were an all-European subject) to the more ›provincial‹ and local one (the foundation of Venice and the tribune title).

This ›alternative self-image‹ was meant to present the old patrician fami-lies, especially the most ancient and distinguished among them, to the Euro-pean nobility and discuss a possibility of establishing a new social valuation system based on ancient and illustrious descent, rather than on feudal rights. Inner social debate had become obsolete according to the old patrician fami-lies who could not afford being put on the same social scale with the new-comers.

By using the control power it had over accessibility to the specific infor-mation, the old patrician families gained a bargaining advantage60. They hurriedly published ›their‹ version and curtailed any flow of information that may have challenged their assertions. The old families, an organized group with a long-standing social as well as information-control tradition, no longer believed in social debate as a channel of communication mainly because they refused to recognize the newcomers as their equal partners. Those ›princely‹ families were no longer interested in the old chronicles’ potential output. These chronicles, structured as a memory ›database‹, and the new ones cre-ated in order to tell the story of the newcomers could still be practicable as a channel of social communication that in the long run would have probably invented even for the new families illustrious origins. By creating its version, the old patriciate deliberately blocked any attempt to ease the social pressure and shifted its participation from the closed-circle community it had been accustomed to, to that »invisible and immaterial tribunal«61, made up by a

60 Alfred KUHN, The Study of Society. A Multidisciplinary Approach, London 1966,

pp. 371–373, on »intellectual power« and its depending on access to means of communication and an audience.

61 Roger CHARTIER, Culture écrite et société. L’ordre des livres (XIVe–XVIIIe siècle), Paris 1996, p. 22.

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vast and dispersed community of readers, believed to be its real discussion group: the European nobility. The shift symbolized the end of the republican spirit until then the pride of the Venetian patriciate, and marked the begin-ning of a new era where class solidarity was no longer a primary goal.

Self-Image and Governing Elites in Early-Modern Era. A Methodological Approach

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