Peasants and Soldiers: The Management of the Venetian Military Structure in the Mainland Dominion Between the 16th and 17th Centuries

Citation preview

Peasants and Soldiers

Early-modern Venice is predominantly remembered as a maritime power, yet historians have become increasingly interested in its political and military aspirations within the Italian mainland. Adding to the growing literature on this subject, Giulio Ongaro’s book addresses the practical management of the Venetian military apparatus in this period. Focusing on two provinces – Vicenza and Brescia – he interrogates a broad spectrum of primary source documents produced by these rural communities that illuminate Venetian military activities between the mid-sixteenth century and the end of the War of Candia in 1670. From the production of the saltpeter, the construction of the fortresses, the supplying and the training of the rural militia and the quartering of troops, this book shows how essential military activities were managed and overseen at the local level. In so doing, this book demonstrates how local autonomy over the management of Venetian military apparatus – particularly from an economic point of view – did not necessarily conflict with wider, ongoing processes of state building or towards the centralisation of particular public functions. Indeed, the state appeared to encourage local élites (initially urban, then rural) to take a leading role in overseeing the localised management of military tasks. The result was a system that both supported the resilience of the local economy (both public and private) and strengthened and improved the Republic’s military assets, allowing it to remain the only Italian state free from the domination of European monarchies. Giulio Ongaro is an Adjunct Professor of Economic History at the University of Verona.

Peasants and Soldiers The management of the Venetian military structure in the Mainland Dominion between the 16th and 17th centuries

Giulio Ongaro

First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 Giulio Ongaro The right of Giulio Ongaro to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data [CIP data] ISBN: 978-1-472-48885-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-29975-4 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by codeMantra

Ai miei nonni

Contents

List of maps List of figures and tables List of abbreviations List of currencies Foreword Acknowledgements Introduction

ix xi xiii xv xvii xxiii 1

Part I

Venetian military structure

19

1 Military costs and rural public economy 21 2 Construction of the military structure 39 3 The changing character of military costs 66 4 War, demographics and markets 97 Part II

Management

107

5 Redistribution 109 6 Recipients 141 7 Containment of costs 153

viii Contents Part III

A republic among monarchies

171

8 Venice and the European military structures 173 Conclusions 217 Index

227

List of maps

1.1 The Republic of Venice and the provinces of Vicenza and Brescia. 22 1.2 The province of Vicenza and the communities analysed. 22 1.3 The province of Brescia and the communities analysed. 26 2.1 Main fortresses in the Republic of Venice (at the beginning of the 17th century). 43 2.2 Saltpeter storehouses in the province of Brescia (at the beginning of the 17th century). 50 2.3 Saltpeter storehouses in the province of Vicenza (at the beginning of the 17th century). 52 3.1 The “transit area” of the troops. 74 4.1 The involvement of Friuli’s communities in the market blockade during the War of Gradisca (1615−1617). 101

List of figures and tables

Figures 1.1 Index-based trend of general expenditure in undeflated lire for Tremosine, Bedizzole, Schio and Durlo 1592−1653 (100 = average value in the years 1600−1610). 27 1.2 Index-based trend of general expenditure in undeflated lire for Schio and Durlo 1565−1668 (100 = average value in the years 1600−1610). 28 1.3 Index-based trend of general expenditure in deflated lire for Schio and Durlo 1565−1668 (100 = average value in the years 1600−1610). 28 1.4 Trend of general expenditure for Tremosine and Bedizzole, undeflated lire (1553−1656). 29 1.5 Trend of general expenditure for Tremosine and Bedizzole, deflated lire (1553−1656). 29 1.6 Index-based trend of military expenditure in lire for Schio and Durlo 1565−1665 (100 = average value in the years 1604−1611). 30 1.7 Trend of general expenses and military expenses in Tremosine in lire (1550−1668). 31 1.8 General expenditure of Bedizzole in deflated lire (1550−1656). 31 1.9 Percentage of military expenditure in the general balance sheet of Schio (1557−1665). 32 2.1 Expenses for sappers and fortresses in Schio, undeflated lire (1557−1582/1604−1610). 44 2.2 Military expenditure and cost of oarsmen in Schio, undeflated lire (1557−1610). 53 2.3 Military expenditure and cost of oarsmen in Durlo, undeflated lire (1565−1582). 54 2.4 Trend of the general expenditure in Bedizzole, deflated lire (1555−1585). 56 2.5 General expenditure of Schio, undeflated lire (1568−1604). 59

xii  List of figures and tables 2.6 Trend of general expenditure in Durlo, deflated lire (1565−1608). 60 3.1 Trend of general expenditure and military expenditure in Magrè, deflated lire (1626−1654). 66 3.2 Trend of saltpetre expenditure in Schio, undeflated lire (1557−1665). 67 3.3 Trend of expenditure for lodgements in Schio, undeflated lire (1557−1665). 69 3.4 Expenditure on militiamen in Durlo, undeflated lire (1565−1647). 75

Tables 2.1 Requests for oarsmen and sappers for the fleet to the communities of the province of Vicenza (1551−1570) 55 2.2 Revenue from direct taxation (ducats) 60 5.1 Loans incurred by the community of Bedizzole (1624−1670) 117

List of abbreviations Published sources

ORB

RLS

RPD

RRV RRSP RRB

Ordinationi et regole dell’Illustrissimo et Eccellentissimo Sig. Geronimo Venier, Capitano di Brescia, et suo Distretto. Formate, et stabilite con l’autorità dell’Eccellentissimo Senato. Per il buon governo de Comuni, et estintione de debiti Censuarii, c’hanno li detti Comuni del Territorio, et delle Valli Bresciane, Brescia, Per gli Sabbi, Stampatori Camerali, 1645 Raccolta di leggi sindicali, ed altri decreti, e proclami promulgati per la Città, e Territorio di Vicenza ristampati con privilegio concesso dall’Eccellentissimo Senato, Tomo primo, in Vicenza, per Giambattista Vendramini Mosca, 1762 Raccolta di Privilegi, Ducali, Giudizi, Terminazioni, e decreti pubblici sopra varie materie giurisdizionali, civili, criminali, ed economiche concernenti la città, e provincia di Brescia, dalle stampe di Gian Battista Bossino, Brescia, 1732 Relazioni dei rettori veneti in terraferma, edited by the Istituto di storia economica dell’Universita di Trieste, Milano, Giuffrè, 1976, Vol. VII, Podesteria e Capitanato di Vicenza Relazioni dei rettori veneti in terraferma, edited by the Istituto di storia economica dell’Universita di Trieste, Milano, Giuffrè, 1978, Vol. X, Provveditorato di Salò, Provveditorato di Peschiera Relazioni dei rettori veneti in terraferma, edited by the Istituto di storia economica dell’Universita di Trieste, Milano, Giuffrè, 1978, Vol. XI, Podesteria e Capitanato di Brescia

Archives State and Provincial Archives ASVe State Archive of Venice ASBs State Archive of Brescia ASVi State Archive of Vicenza BCB Urban Library of Vicenza ‘Bertoliana’

xiv  List of abbreviations Municipal Archives in the province of Vicenza ACSV Municipal Archive of San Vito di Leguzzano ACSc Municipal Archive of Schio ACDu Archive of the former Municipality of Durlo ACMa Municipal Archive of Malo ACMo Municipal Archive of Montecchio Maggiore ACMg Archive of the former Municipality of Magrè ACVa Municipal Archive of Valdagno Municipal Archives in the province of Brescia ACGa Municipal Archive of Gavardo ACBe Municipal Archive of Bedizzole ACMd Archive of the former Municipality of Maderno AVCa Archive of the Community of Valcamonica ACLe Municipal Archive of Leno ACTr Municipal Archive of Tremosine

List of currencies

The currency referred to most frequently in this book will be the Venetian lira di piccoli, an account currency that was also used in the province of Vicenza. Its sub-division was as follows: 1 lira = 20 soldi = 240 denari Significant sums were usually expressed as ducato di conto (which since 1517 had been a distinct currency from the real gold ducat, the zecchino). The value of the ducato di conto in respect of the Venetian lira was: 1 ducato di conto = 6 Venetian lire di piccoli and 4 soldi In the province of Brescia (with the exception of the Camonica Valley), the currency was usually not the lira di piccoli but the lira planetta. The lira planetta was divided similarly into soldi and denari but its value was half that of the lira di piccoli. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the value of the ducato di conto in respect of the lira planetta – with minimal oscillations – was as follows: 1 ducato di conto = 3 lire planette and 2 soldi To facilitate comparison between the provinces of Brescia and Vicenza, all monetary values expressed in the book are in the form of the Venetian lire di piccoli. In the original source material, some of these values were in lire planette but they have been converted. Sources: Mueller, Reinhold C. 1997. “The Venetian Money Market: Banks, Panics, and the Public Debt, 1200−1500”. In Money and Banking in M ­ edieval and Renaissance Venice, edited by Frederic C. Lane, and Reinhold C. ­Mueller. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press; Mozzato, Andrea, and Mueller, Reinhold C. 2000. “Prezzi e Monete nella Vacchetta di T ­ iberio Tinelli”. In Libretto dei Conti del Pittore Tiberio Tinelli (1618−1633), edited by ­Bianca Lanfranchi Strina. Venice: Fonti per la Storia di Venezia; P ­ egrari, ­Maurizio. 2014. “Le Reti del Credito e della Finanza dalla Repubblica di V ­ enezia all’Unità”. In Moneta, Credito e Finanza a Brescia dal Medioevo all’Età ­Contemporanea, edited by Maurizio Pegrari, 267−394. Brescia: Morcelliana.

Foreword

In relation to much scholarship by American and British Venetianists, both recent and less so, this book by Giulio Ongaro addresses issues that may seem off-centre: defence organisation focusing more on the army than the navy; the Republic’s mainland dominion and its subject communities rather than the capital city and ruling patriciate; Venetian state development in a period – c. 1550 to 1670 – commonly associated with the at least incipient political decline of the Republic; rural instead of urban society (even in highly urbanized northeast Italy only about 20 per cent of the population then lived in cities). Ongaro also defies the banal but long recurrent supposition that the history of Venice lends itself badly to comparison, and moreover bases a substantial part of his comparative analysis on ­research investigating other parts of the Italian peninsula in the same late- or post-Renaissance phase, again thematically off track for most American and British historians. These first sentences purposely emphasize real aspects of divergence ­between Anglophone and Italian scholarship on early modern Italy, in which until very recently the language used for publication has often been part of a more general diversity also affecting the object, purpose and methodology of the research undertaken. The language of academic publication now makes an ever greater difference to readership, and with increasing frequency Italian scholars are seeking to both narrow the language gap and build cultural bridges between different approaches to research. A  ­particularly significant instance is the systematic multi-author survey, ­almost entirely by Italian historians, published as The Italian Renaissance State (Gamberini and Lazzarini 2012), while an example specific to Venice, seeking to inform Anglophone colleagues about research diverging from their accustomed vision of things Venetian, is At the Centre of the Old World. Trade and Manufacturing in Venice and the Venetian Mainland, 1400−1800 (Lanaro 2006): a focused essay collection drawing attention to economic history not specific to the capital, to the Renaissance period or to maritime commerce. In recent years there have indeed been signs of rapprochement among historians of Venice, as a quick comparison of two survey volumes in

xviii Foreword English shows. In their introductory review of research subsequent to the early 1970s, the editors of the largely American Venice Reconsidered. The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297−1797 (2000) noted that “As a corollary to their civic humanist emphasis, American scholars, with very few exceptions, have been concerned, at least until recently, with the capital city only”, and that “alongside the rather triumphalist history of the Venetian Republic celebrated primarily by American scholars, Italian scholars in the postwar period have looked harder at the realities of Venice as a regional state” (Martin and Romano 2000, 6−7). But their volume devoted almost no space to discussing those realities, remaining heavily focused on the city-state and only partly opening up to the post-Renaissance period. Differences in research priorities are less evident, however, in the more internationally authored A Companion to Venetian History, 1400−1797 (Dursteler 2013), where overall coverage of the centuries is more even and the dominions feature more respectably, even though many of the theme-focused essays deal just with Venice itself. Among British and American Venetianists’ post-2000 monographs, moreover, off-center in terms partly similar to Ongaro’s book is Karl Appuhn’s A Forest on the Sea. Environmental Expertise in Renaissance Venice (Appuhn 2009), which investigates Venice’s management of dominion forests in the Italian mainland and Istria up until the eighteenth century (though use of the term ‘Renaissance’ in its title provides staider readers’ preconceptions with at least residual reassurance). While Appuhn’s themes are indeed largely environmental, so also targeting a vital concern of today’s world, the major military use of the forestry resources in which he is concerned remains a secondary feature of his book, in contrast with Ongaro’s overall primary focus on defence-related issues. Such issues feature only marginally and indirectly in the two survey volumes mentioned above, although there is an overview of research on the army by Pietro Del Negro in the very recent Il Commonwealth veneziano tra 1204 e la fine della Repubblica (Del Negro 2015) – more an essay collection than a systematic review of the political working of the state, but with international authorship and broad spatial and chronological coverage. This weakish interest in military matters by Anglophone Venetian scholars in recent decades at least partly reflects the high quality of research by predecessors working between the mid- and late-twentieth century: Frederic C. Lane for the navy, among others, and John Hale and Michael Mallett, in a class of their own for the army especially with their joint monograph The Military Organization of a Renaissance State: Venice, c. 1400 to 1617 (Mallett and Hale 1984)1. War is a notoriously evergreen subject in early modern European research and scholarly discussion, and the excellence of the Mallett-Hale volume on Venice indeed sets high standards of both technical competence and breadth of vision for fellow historians investigating other European states, in the context of studies focusing on the binomium ‘war and society’ as they

Foreword  xix developed from the 1970s onwards. But in the subsequent shift in ­focus of broader scholarly discussion of war towards the notion of ­European fiscal military states, largely redirecting the older ‘military revolution’ ­debate, there has been something of a reversion to historiographical commonplaces marginalizing warfare as an element in the development of early modern Italian states: war was significantly a very neglected theme, unlike e.g. ­inter-state relations and public finance, in the important 1993 Chicago congress on The Origins of the State in Italy, 14th−16th ­C enturies, which brought together Italian and Anglophone historians (Kirshner 1995)2 . The relationship between warfare and the state was however ­already a substantial component of Hale’s and Mallett’s work, and themes broadly related to the fiscal military debate have been discussed more recently for the R ­ epublic of Venice by Luciano Pezzolo, equally attentive to military, political, fiscal and economic features3. Albeit not exclusively so, Pezzolo’s research perspective has been largely macro, and the novelty of Ongaro’s approach resides in his thorough exploration of the implications of state policy choices in matters of defence for rural society in Venice’s Terraferma dominion, with sensitive attention to the way in which village and smaller town communities and their population interacted with those choices. His analysis is conducted ‘from within’ rather than ‘from below’, and the Venetian state emerges from it in all the complexity of its ongoing construction of relationships between constituent parts, where negotiation, mediation, reciprocity and participation involving a multitude of actors are shown to be quite as important – e.g. in the protection of public and private wealth, in the redistribution of burdens – as the decisions taken by the Senate in Venice or Venetian authorities’ general capacity to exert constraint (a factor whose general relevance for these themes Ongaro rightly emphasises). This overall approach to the inner working of the state is also present among the essays in the volume Il Commonwealth veneziano …, mentioned above, and at least partly related to ideas developed in Filippo De Vivo’s Information and Communication in Venice: Rethinking Early Modern Politics (De Vivo 2007), especially in the recognition of a broader sphere of involvement in the Venetian system of politics and government than the patrician élite and its places of debate and decision-making4. Ongaro’s work presents itself in a lucid and ordered fashion, despite the sophistication of the analysis, and only a few more words are needed here. Worth emphasising is the originality of the primary research conducted on a seldomly consulted typology of archival sources, concerning thirteen villages and smaller towns in the Bresciano and Vicentino. First, because of the practical difficulties overcome in discovering and accessing them (I, too, am interested in the Vicentine mountain village of Durlo, and the pair of us were nearly affected with chilblains while serially photographing seventeenth-century account books in situ during the winter). But far more important is the full exploitation of this material in a perspective

xx Foreword complementary to the view represented in sources produced by Venetian government institutions. Ongaro is thus able to identify the real impact of defence demands on rural communities, anyway subject to qualitative and quantitative change over time; to analyse the room for initiative and capacity for manoeuver shown by the communities and their economic and political élites (also particularly influential in the intermediary rural institutions, or Corpi Territoriali), as well as the incidence of conflict with Venetian demands; and to grasp the implication of this mobile partnership for relationships and dynamics in the broader working of the Venetian state. The Republic’s palpable subsequent decline, especially in the last decades of the eighteenth century, should not blind us to its relative efficacy in managing military structures and, more broadly, in governing the mainland dominion during the post-Renaissance phase, as Ongaro clearly demonstrates. His final, comparative chapter, as well as helping lay the ghost of the uniqueness of the history of the Venetian state’s functioning, engages strongly and lucidly with recent scholarship for much of Europe concerned with the complex relationship between military needs and society, the economy and state development. Michael Knapton Università di Udine

Notes 1. Lane’s publications are listed in Lane 1987. Hale’s publications are listed in Chambers, Clough and Mallett 1993. Mallett’s main publications are available online at www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/people/staff_index/mallett/. 2. The same neglect is if anything more evident in the fuller Italian edition of the acts of the same conference (Chittolini, Molho and Schiera 1994). 3. Pezzolo’s publications are available online at www.unive.it/data/5115/5590142/ pubb_anno. See especially Pezzolo 2007. 4. A subsequent Italian edition is substantially enhanced (De Vivo 2012).

Bibliography Appuhn, Karl. 2009. A forest on the sea: Environmental expertise in Renaissance Venice. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Chambers, David S., Cecil H. Clough, and Mallett Michael E., eds. 1993. War, culture and society in Renaissance Venice. Essays in Honour of John Hale. ­London: The Hambledon Press. Chittolini, Giorgio, Anthony Molho, and Pierangelo Schiera, eds. 1994. Origini dello Stato. Processi di formazione statale in Italia fra medioevo ed età moderna. Bologna: Il Mulino. De Vivo, Filippo. 2007. Information and communication in Venice: Rethinking early modern politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. De Vivo, Filippo. 2012. Patrizi, informatori, barbieri. Politica e comunicazione a Venezia tra Cinque e Seicento. Milan: Feltrinelli.

Foreword  xxi Del Negro, Piero. 2015. “L’esercito e le milizie”. In Il Commonwealth veneziano tra 1204 e la fine della Repubblica. Identità e peculiarità. Gherardo Ortalli, Oliver Jens Schmitt and Ermanno Orlando (eds.). Venice: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti. 473−394. Dursteler, Eric, ed. 2013. A companion to Venetian history, 1400−1797. Leiden-­ Boston: Brill. Gamberini, Andrea and Isabella Lazzarini, eds. 2012. The Italian Renaissance state. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kirshner, Julius, ed. 1995. The origins of the state in Italy. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Lanaro, Paola, ed. 2006. At the centre of the old world. Trade and manufacturing in Venice and the Venetian mainland 1400−1800. Toronto: Toronto University Press. Lane, Frederic C. 1987. Studies in Venetian social and economic history. ­E dited with preface, bibliography and index by Benjamin G. Kohl and Reinhold C. ­Mueller. London: Ashgate. Mallett, Michael, and John R. Hale. 1984. The military organization of a Renaissance state: Venice, c. 1400 to 1617. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Martin, John, and Dennis Romano, eds. 2000. Venice reconsidered. The history and civilization of an Italian city-state, 1297−1797. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Pezzolo, Luciano. 2007. “Stato, guerra e finanza nella Repubblica di Venezia fra medioevo e prima età moderna”. In Mediterraneo in armi (sec. XV−XVIII). Rossella Cancila (ed.). Palermo: Quaderni di Mediterranea. 67−112.

Acknowledgements

This book is the result of three years of intensive research in the Venetian archives. It has its origins in my doctorate research in economic history at the University of Verona, during which a variety of challenges tested my skills. That I successfully met these challenges is testament to the guidance and support offered by my supervisors, Professors Renzo Sabbatini and Luca Mocarelli. Equally important was the pleasure and privilege of working with other experts in the field, including Professors Edoardo Demo, ­M ichael Knapton, Luciano Pezzolo and Reinhold C. Mueller. The four months I was fortunate enough to spend with distinguished ­scholars such as Professors Robert Davis and Geoffrey Parker at the History ­Department of Ohio State University was wonderful from both a professional and ­personal ­perspective. Colleagues and friends who advised me on the text at various points were generous in sharing their time and their insights, particularly Andrea Caracausi, Matteo Di Tullio, Alessandro Buono, ­Enrico ­Valseriati, Roberto Bragaggia, Andrea Savio, Stefania Montemezzo, ­Fabrizio C ­ ostantini and Simone Signaroli. A special acknowledgement is due to the archivists, municipal employees and volunteers who facilitated my consultation of local archives; without their unstinting efforts – which often went above and beyond work duties – this research would not have been possible. To these people as well as to my family and to my partner, I offer my heartfelt thanks; much of the credit for the work that follows is rightly theirs.

Introduction

Were it within the reach of humane brain to prescribe Rules for fixing a Society and Succession of peeple under the same Species of Goverment as long as the World lasts, the Republic of Venice were the fittest pattern on Earth both for direction and imitation. Howell, James, A Survay of the Signorie of Venice, of her admired ­policy, and method of government, & c. with a cohortation to all Christian princes to resent her dangerous condition at present, London, Printed for Richard Lowndes at the White Lion in S. Pauls Churchyard, 1651, p. 1

Thus begins James Howell’s Survey of the Signorie of Venice. His tone places the work squarely in a long tradition of writing that contributed to the ‘Myth of Venice’. The longevity of the Republic – at the end of the 1600s it was the only Italian state that was largely immune to inter­ference from the leading European powers – impressed the observer from the other side of the Channel. The cohesion of its territorial lands inspired widespread admiration, although its maritime and overseas possessions eventually came under unsustainable pressure. Its defence of the Stato da Mar against the Ottoman advance was dogged but ultimately unsuccessful (Arbel 2013). A period of volatility under the Cambrai League (1508−1516) temporarily undermined the stability of the Stato da Terra, but thereafter its boundaries remained intact for nearly three centuries. The aim of this book might be considered analogous to Howell’s objective: its purpose is to explain the longevity of the Venetian state. It considers whether a state model was responsible for this success and whether such a model could be useful in parsing the historiographical debate on the birth of the so-called ‘modern state’. These topics are admittedly vast. The particular focus here will be an economic analysis of the management of the Venetian military structure in the Mainland Dominion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. While a Venetian case study might provide generalisable theoretical starting points for other European areas, critical elements of the R ­ epublic have not been subject to sustained and comprehensive scrutiny. Rarely considered

2 Introduction to date, for example, is the polyhedral characterisation of the ‘military’, as well as its implications at the provincial and community levels. There are two specific issues that need to be addressed: there is a dearth of ­research on the Venetian military structure; moreover, those studies that have been conducted adopted almost exclusively a state-centric point of view. This applies to both John Hale’s volume (Hale 1990)1, which focused on the mili­ tary structure, and to the research conducted by Luciano Pezzolo (­Pezzolo 1990), which examined the interaction between fiscal and military dyna­ mics. These books, from different perspectives, attempted to outline the functioning of the Venetian fiscal and military structure, but both relied on official sources produced by the Venetian bureaucracy. Hale identified his primary site of investigation as the State Archive of Venice (Hale 1990, 9). But what the state saw and what the state documented does not provide a complete record of the dynamics of the management of the military structure. Pezzolo, in a previous article, admitted the following: It would be very difficult to identify the majority of the expenses due to the military structure supported by the rural communities in the state balances and at the provincial level: It is not always possible to recognise the lodging of troops, the supply of victuals, abuses and acts of violence committed by the soldiers by only analysing the accounting figures of the state financial administration, that therefore … do not show the real weight, financial and otherwise, sustained by the subjects in order to manage the military structure. (Pezzolo 1985, 390) The point here is not to call into question the effectiveness of Hale or ­Pezzolo’s research, because they form the fundamental basis from which this research will proceed. However, to build on these works and to go beyond what they have achieved, it is necessary to adopt an improved methodology. To fully examine the functioning of the Venetian military structure and the construction of relationships between the state and the subjects in this field, official documents must be complemented by other material – namely, the records left behind by the other participants in these relationships. Nonstate actors were not silent partners and we must consider their voices. It is not possible to understand the interaction between central offices and subjects if we do not recognise the subject communities and their experiences. Such interactions are a fundamental element in the dynamics that underlie the development of a ‘modern’ state. With the exception of some local studies (Povolo 1981; 1985; 1989), this research process has rarely been applied to the Republic of Venice, but it has been utilized with significant success in cases where the focus lies beyond the Venetian boundaries. Prominent examples include the work of Antoine Follain and Gilbert Larguier (Follain 2000; Follain and Larguier 2005; Larguier 2008) on the French countryside, even if aimed to investigate the fiscal structure and not the military

Introduction  3 one, and the projects supported by the Centre for English Local History in Leicester. Lombard historiography has adopted this methodology in recent years, providing interesting starting points for mediating between a ‘structural’ approach and a ‘local’ one and including the study of communities in the broader context of state dynamics (Di Tullio 20112; Colombo 2005, 2008; Buono 2009). From this perspective, the community does not represent (and it should not represent) a counterbalance to the excessive attention that historians paid to state dynamics, but it becomes a complementary and essential part of them. Theoretically at least, such a methodology makes it possible to go beyond the community-state contrast (well summarised in the frequent use of the binomial centre – periphery3) in order to achieve a dialogic analysis that is free of prejudices and ‘ideological’ causes. The Venetian studies – military and other – often lacked this ability to identify the ‘glocal’ dimension (Di Tullio 2011, 17) of the analysis. In other words, it failed to refer to the community as a field of study that could provide either a classic template or an exception to a standard model; it did not allow for an understanding of the dynamics, which formed the fundamental structure of the state. The analysis of local dimensions through cross dynamics rather than a sectorial analysis is a peculiarity that characterises the majority of the military and fiscal historiography of recent decades, ­especially Lombard and Piedmontese literature. Another fundamental point that Di Tullio stressed in the introduction to his book (Di ­Tullio 2011, 13) is the diminished value of research based essentially on the study of communities as ‘institutions’. On the contrary, the interest lies precisely in the analysis of the internal and external dynamics that involved the groups and the people who constituted the communities themselves. The question of the management of resources in the pursuit of conserving the status quo (with respect to the underlying structures rather than merely concerning the protagonists) is an issue that remains significant even when the focus shifts from social and credit dynamics – as prioritised by Matteo Di Tullio – to the fiscal and military concerns that underpin this study. This approach was long absent from Venetian historiography, despite the important international debate regarding the rural élites and their role in the distribution of land, in the credit market and in the management of common properties (Van Bavel, Hoyle and Brakensiek, 2010; Schofield and Lambrecht 2009; Aparisi Romero and Royo Pérez 2014; Curtis 2014). The intrinsic stratification of the prerogatives that characterised the Italian states under the ancient régime implied that communities (and the Corpi Territoriali in the Venetian area4) played a fundamental role in the mediation between the state and the individual. They acted as the ‘base cell of the complex military system of the state, the ones that managed it daily, as in war as in peace’ (Di Tullio 2011, 19). This structure had obvious consequences on local financial dynamics; how the internal network of the communities performed this role is fully elucidated by the authors referred to above.

4 Introduction The distinction between ordinary and extraordinary expenses is another methodological component that emerges as part of this altered attitude to the problem; researchers should show particular cognisance of communal perceptions of financial demands rather than concentrating on the expense alone. The inversion of the characterising perspective of the analysis facili­ tates an understanding, for example, through the procedures of tax collection and of the interaction between burdens and local economy. This interaction can create traumas, or conversely, they can strengthen bonds. A tax can be considered ordinary or extraordinary depending on the perception of it; the perception, in turn, can be deduced from the procedures of collecting – especially if the community had to apply extraordinary taxations – and from the terminology used in the local sources. Clearly, this attention to the ‘localities’5 that characterise contemporary Lombard and Piedmontese historiography – with young scholars leading the way – provides an impetus for reconceptualising and re-energising Venetian studies. The importance of reiterate and re-emphasise does not mean that traditional ‘panoramic views’ should be abandoned; we need both a general approach and a more specific analysis. Research and analysis must be multi-layered and include all levels of complex institutional organi­ sation, from the community to the state. Lombard historiography has followed this route and is extremely ­dynamic in this field of studies, with numerous studies in recent years on the functioning of the fiscal and military structure of the Duchy of Milan. The books and articles of Alessandro Buono (Buono 2009), Mario Rizzo (Rizzo 2001; 2008; 2011) and Davide Maffi (Maffi 1999; 2000; 2002; 2007) can be considered – albeit with some obvious distinctions and peculiarities – the Lombard counterpart to Hale’s book on Venice. Therefore, one of the cornerstones of the analysis will be the role played by communities and the dynamics that connected them with public ­authorities. Furthermore, this perspective leads to more nuanced routes of exploration. When Hale and Pezzolo discussed the Venetian military structure, they referred exclusively to mercenaries, militiamen, ­producers of saltpetre, oarsmen and sappers. These ‘military workers’, however, should not be considered in isolation. Other relevant professional figures must be considered if a comprehensive image is to be presented. In this book, I want to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the ­renewed debate – especially that conducted by Dutch scholars – on military labor (­Lucassen and Zürker 1998; Zürker 2013). David Parrott’s work (­Parrott 2012) is criti­cal here. Adopting this approach allows us to consider previously ­ignored entrepreneurs, manual labourers, merchants and real estate owners. The aim is to move away from a general description of the organi­sation of the Venetian army in order to analyse its operation at the local level and point out the related dynamics of power that emerge within the state. As a consequence, the role played by these economic agents is e­ ssential to achieve a more rounded understanding of the functioning of the army and of the wider society because these roles were often held by the most important rural families.

Introduction  5 If we accept that the economy is one of the most important forces directing the actions of individuals, social classes, communities and even states, a full analysis of the creation and functioning of the relationships between these strands of society must include an initial understanding of how the military affected the private and the public economies (the local economy and the state economy). Historians have moved away from the assertion that the war was automatically a ‘destructive’6 element from an economic point of view; in this sense, Enrico Stumpo provides an effective summary: What is war in the end? A favourable or unfavourable circumstance.… If we consider it a means it can be used usefully or badly, it can be productive or unproductive, expensive or inexpensive, holy or diabolic, cruel or not, noble or ignoble. It remains, in any case, a circumstance and it is rather strange that it is considered one of the most important causes of the decline or decadence of a country. (Stumpo 1986, 381) The debate that arose around the economic consequences of the Thirty Years War in the German territories, even if obsolete, is emblematic of the complexity that characterises this topic (Rabb 1962; Kamen 1968). ­Depending on the area of interest, war – and more generally the management of the military structure – produced different economic results, positives and negatives. Similarly, these characters should not be considered dichotomous or all-encompassing and the effects change when the subjects considered in the analysis change. I offer a banal example to clarify this assertion: in any society, it is predictable that a merchant of weapons bene­ fited from military escalation, while simultaneously, a peasant who was forced to lodge troop in his own house and bear their abuses did not. However, there were situations – that will be presented in the book – in which entrepreneurs suffered during war, while certain peasants earned significant amounts from the same calamity. Clearly, no simple assertion holds true in all circumstances and an analysis of the practices of management of the military has to consider this complexity. With respect to the public economy, the military was often a problem, presenting costs that weighed (in some cases as a deciding factor) on the balances of states, Corpi Territoriali and communities. In the matter of the private eco­nomy, the problem was even more complex; as we wrote, burdens, earnings and protection strategies were often blended and they were barely distinguishable. The core concept of this research is precisely that the interaction between these necessities, problems and opportunities produced practices that involved local and state actors and ultimately generated the emergence of the state. Much recent historiography has adopted this particular perspective, as a result of considerations and theories about the so-called ‘modern state’ that gradually linked the economic element to the traditional concept elabo­rated

6 Introduction by Max Weber of ‘monopoly of the violence’. The identification of the fundamental elements that allowed the public authority to maintain the territorial cohesion and the functioning of the state structure is the theme of the analysis operated, in addition to Max Weber, by other scholars like Charles Tilly, Frederic Lane and Jan Glete. In the theory of Weber, as is known, the answer should be found in the role played by a new social class of technicians coming from the countryside; the state used these ‘new-men’ to build up a modern bureaucratic structure, balancing and in the long run substituting the old aristocracy (Weber 1968, 943−6). In Weber, the importance of the military as a propulsive field for the construction of the ‘modern state’ is clear, particularly in relation to the necessity of elaboration of a system of control over the subjects and resources of a territory. This role, as played by the military, represented the basis for a number of theories linked to the so-called ‘Military Revolution’. The role played by the military as propulsive field for the construction of the ‘modern state’ a­ pplies to both the ­Roberts’ version (Roberts 1956), which linked the growth of the ‘modern state’ to the diffusion of firearms and new military tactics, and to the bestknown elaboration, that by Geoffrey Parker (Parker 1976), who stressed the centrality of the introduction of the trace italienne. ­Jeremy Black discussed these theories (Black 1991) from a military point of view, but beyond these critiques, other suggestions enriched the ‘military revolution theory’ over the years. Questions have even been raised about the ­validity of the connection between new military needs and the development of a ‘modern’ bureaucratic structure, and various scholars have re-­emphasised economic elements in the evolution of early modern European states. ­David Parrott, in his recent and innovative book, is very clear on this issue, stating that ‘the “military revolution” thesis was the child of “war and state formation” arguments’ (Parrott 2012, 14). In regard to bureaucratic centralisation as an indicator of modernity, Parrott asserts the following: The development and subsequent evolution of military enterprise lies at the heart of the formation of the military-fiscal state, for it represents a vital and enduring set of mechanisms by which European rulers could achieve a more extensive and effective mobilization of private resources than would otherwise have been possible from their own fiscal and administrative capacities. (Parrott 2012, 316) This theory is linked in a certain way to the tradition of the ‘economic-­ military’ theories on the growth of the ‘modern state’, starting from the concept of protection rent conceived by Lane (Lane 1979) and including the binomial capital-coercion proposed by Tilly (Tilly 1990). If Parrott limited his analysis to the structuring of armies in the sixteenth and s­ eventeenth centuries, without any substantial effort to reach a theorisation on the growth of the ‘modern states’, Jan Glete goes further. In his book War and

Introduction  7 state in early modern Europe, Glete measured correlations between military needs and economic dynamics, identifying the economic arena as the core of the legitimation process of the state. This research agrees with Glete’s findings, but broadens the focus to the problem of coercion, in a­ ddition to legitimation. It is important to consider both these elements while also looking at the mediation between the needs of the state and its subjects, in particular between their respective economic needs. In the books of Lane, Tilly and Parrott, the contrast between state and subjects, capital and coercion, public and private is perhaps too sharply drawn. Glete’s book is more moderate but a tendency to reshape the coercive role of the state is still present, likely to counterbalance a traditional historiography that for a long time has considered it the only target of analysis. The Venetian case study, with its particular characteristics, is important because it allows discussion of these positions, going beyond these contradistinctions and showing that coercion and legitimation are concepts often not easily distinguishable. The Republic of Venice, as it was commonly known, was unusually successful in its longevity, the construction of a ‘modern’ (and in many respects ‘coercive’) military structure and its enviable territorial compactness. This success was based on concomitant pragmatism and a fluidity and versatility in the practices of construction of the state. In brief, it is an emblematic case, which produces a possible answer to the ‘dichotomic’ perspective I referred to above (if Lane centred his theory on the Venetian case study). This case clearly demonstrates the necessity to include analysis of this area in the debate concerning the growth of the ‘modern state’, considering that until now Venice played a marginal role in it. Considering both standard works of military history (Roberts, Parker, Black, Parrott and others), and theories on the birth of the ‘modern state’ (especially Weber, Tilly and Glete), it is definitely clear that the Republic of Venice has not been accorded the proper attention. This absence is due to the complexity of the Venetian case study (a unique case but capable of producing generalisable elements) and because of the absence of research on these topics within Venetian historio­ graphy, which is why it is important to fill these gaps. To analyse the practical management of the army means to analyse one of the pillars that guaranteed the maintenance of the state; such an analysis must consider the needs of the state, the difficulties in facing them and the solutions adopted. Beyond this, the military is a very interesting field of research in order to observe the presence of the state in a territory and the implications of this presence on the social dynamics of the subjects, in addition to the effects on the public and private economies. Concentration on the sources produced by cities and rural communities permits a move away from an exclusive focus on Venetian officials and facilitates an in-depth look at those who engage everyday with producers of saltpeter and weapons, ­militiamen and corazze (the cavalry). With this kind of approach, it is possible to shine a new and more complete light on the management of the Venetian military structure and highlight the role played by local

8 Introduction élites in the development and characterisation of the Venetian state. In particular, between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the rural élites were ­increasingly involved in the functioning of the Venetian state, especially after the birth of the Corpi Territoriali in the middle of the sixteenth century. The following elements can therefore summarise the fundamental framework of the entire research; we should consider them linked into a causal relationship but with mutual influences. These elements are: the military needs of the state (which changed between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries); the social and – especially – economic implications on the territory of these needs; the interaction between local and state needs that led to the construction of power and economic relations within the state. The aim of the research is to demonstrate that the practices linked to the management of the military structure were the result of a continuous mediation, negotiation and, in a certain way, convergence of interests ­between logistical, economic and management needs of the state and local pressures (especially linked to the protection of public and private wealth and the redistribution of burdens). It is no coincidence that these practices changed from province to province or even within each area from community to community. They responded to changes in Venetian military needs and according to the specific characteristics and necessities of the subject territories. Consequently, we only want to draw a model for the Venetian state insofar as the extreme ductility of the Venetian military structure can be considered a model. The problems were often similar in each territory, ­being linked to the management of the diverse fields of the military, as much as the purposes of the state (the efficiency of the army and the protection, as much as possible, of local needs). The solutions varied, but gene­rally carried an underlying forma mentis that remained almost the same in the diverse provinces considered here, regarding both state intervention and the actions of the subject élites. The ‘modernity’ of the Venetian state can be found exactly in this ability to guarantee the efficiency of the mili­tary structure involving the urban and – especially – rural élites in its management, sometimes through coercive practices but mainly through an economic involvement. This assertion is true of the military structure, but it can be extended to the other fields that constituted the state – the tax system, the grain supply and so on. We decided to analyse this specific field in order to reach two goals: to fill the historiographical gap on this topic and to base the analysis of the construction of the Venetian state on the study of an emblematic field because of its ‘modernity’ in the problems posed and in the solutions proposed. How can this kind of analysis of the Republic of Venice produce an ­interpretative model that can be useful to other European countries? The research aims to show that the solutions acted out were certainly different in each European state. Therefore, we do not want to propose generalisable models, as some scholars did in the past – bureaucratic centralisation versus

Introduction  9 appeal to the private entrepreneurs, and so on. The aim is to show that it is less important to fixate on the solutions proposed, looking for a debatable commonality in the process of construction of an unreal model of ‘modern state’, and more important to prioritise the problems and especially the approaches chosen. At both the local and state levels, these elements can be more generalisable. The solutions selected could be different, temporary and functional in each state – and within each state – whereas the fundamental problems (especially the economic ones, but also the d ­ emographic, social and political ones) and the essence of the state intervention were common and interlocking elements, especially when considering recourse to mediation and dialogue. Before proceeding with the description of the chapters in this book, we want to focus briefly on the definition of the field of research. The expression ‘military structure’ is used to refer to all the elements that in rural areas were in some way linked with the operation and the practical utilisation of the Venetian army. The first development of concern in this regard was the construction of the fortresses that characterised the Stato da Terra, especially during the second half of the sixteenth century. As was happening in other parts of Europe between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, modern buildings that met the standards of the trace italienne (Parker 1976, Duffy 1979) replaced medieval fortresses in the Republic of Venice. This process meant that the rural areas were directly involved in furnishing the capital, raw materials and men, producing an effort that increased progressively from the 1520s until the final construction (between 1590 and some point in the first decade of the following century) of the fortress of Palmanova in Friuli (Pezzolo 1990, 140−4; Hale 1990, 271). In this opening stage (which we will call the ‘structuring’ stage of the Venetian military system), the ­demand for the modernisation of the fortresses was coupled with the strong involvement of the countryside in the erection and in the maintenance of the structures used for the production of saltpeter, especially during the 1580s (Panciera 2005, 2006). In this case, too, rural communities had to provide money for the construction of the tezze (covered places) and houses for saltpeter producers and to assure their maintenance. Furthermore, they had to hire contractors who provided carts, wood, furniture and the pasture for sheep to graze and fertilise the saltpeter’s terrainis. The structuring of the rural militia, the so-called cernide, was another field in which rural communities were massively involved during the sixteenth century, both from a material point of view (to procure men and weapons) and from a management perspective (January and Knapton 2007, 81−3; Hale 1990, 188−208; Pezzolo 1983; Perini 1995). Many ­scholars consider the construction of a numerically substantial subject army a Venetian ­peculiarity, compared with the persistence of the enrollment of mercenaries7; the numerically substantial subject army implied that rural communities had to provide the weapons and ensure the training and compensation of the soldiers. They had to enrol the men, buy and maintain the harquebuses, the muskets, the

10 Introduction pikes and the cuirasses; moreover, the peasants had to buy the fields for the ­reviews and the training of the troops and pay them, in addition to providing the lodgings of officials. During the seventeenth century, the military needs of the Republic of Venice changed, with important consequences that we will underline in the book. This process was linked to a consequent change of the burdens that the communities supported; the organising stage of the military structure gave way to another stage in which new costs related to more intensive ­deployment of the army in the field added to the normal costs of maintenance of weapons and structures. In this period, the most important cost afflicting the countryside was the lodging of the mercenary troops that Venice recruited almost constantly during the first half of the century, because of the conflicts in which the Republic was more or less continuously involved8. Although the Venetian authorities displayed a greater interest in this problem than in the previous century, most of the burdens – managerial, logistical and financial – were still transferred to the rural communities of the subject provinces. The peasants had to find the structures (public and private) appropriate for the lodging of the soldiers a quartiero (quartered) and in transit, and furnish them with wood, straw and furniture. Other military costs typical of the seventeenth century were the employment of the peasants on the battlefield, on land and at sea. The structuring of the cernide was accomplished during the second decade of the seventeenth century, with the establishment of the border militia. Simultaneously, these kinds of troops were employed both in battle (mainly during the War of ­Gradisca) and in garrison fortresses; however, they were particularly ­employed for garrison fortresses in place of the mercenary troops who were deployed on the frontline. In this case, the monetary and management burdens reverted to the rural communities. Finally, the seventeenth century for Venice was the century of the War of Candia. Between 1645 and 1669, the Republic withstood an exhausting siege on the Greek island against the forces of the Porte, with an unheard-of profusion of capitals and men. Oarsmen and sappers departed without intermission from the Mainland Dominion in a desperate attempt to stop the Ottoman advance in the ­Dominio da Mar. For rural Venetian communities, this meant an extremely onerous tribute in terms of men and money, which affected relations with the state authorities. In order to arrive at these conclusions, the book is structured in three parts. Part I (chapters 1−4) concentrates on the structuring of the Venetian military system during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially concerning cost management. The role played by the rural élites within the Venetian state at this stage suggested focusing the analysis on rural communities, examining their role in the management of the military structure. We have considered two provinces, Vicenza and Brescia, and some sample communities (Maps 1.1, 1.2, 1.3) that are indicative of the various military needs of the Republic and at the same time of the typologies of

Introduction  11 rural aggregates that characterised the Mainland Dominion. The analysis will show that, as we anticipated, we can identify two main stages, corresponding to specific military needs of the Serenissima, each with particular economic, logistic and management consequences for the communities. In the first stage – dated approximately between the middle of the sixteenth century and 1620 – there was a structuring of the Venetian military system according to the criteria that were typical of the Military Revolution. The elements that characterised this period were the construction of fortresses, an increase in the production of gunpowder and the establishment of the cernide; all of these elements had specific consequences on the balance of communities. An analysis of the books of expenditures of the rural communities and of the documents produced by the community councils, the Corpi Territoriali and the Venetian officials shows that there was a certain uniformity in the military burdens in the two provinces considered. The investments were particularly and almost constantly high to underpin military structures and buy large amounts of firearms. The second stage (dated indicatively between 1620 and 1670) was in contrast characterised by a reduction of these structural costs and an increase in proper military expenses, which meant greater differentiation of the burdens between the various provinces of the Mainland Dominion, in addition to different ­impacts of the burdens themselves on local balances from year to year and from community to community – taking into account the ‘sixteenth century crisis’ that hit, among others, the Serenissima. The second part (chapters 5−7) engages the problem of the management of these costs and, more broadly, of the military structure; the aim is to demonstrate how the different needs underlined in the previous chapter can be associated with different kinds of management (both from a chronological point of view and from a geographical one) that were applicable to specific necessities. We will underline the role played by the rural élites in the management of the military structure, through the activity of the Corpi Territoriali and the role played by rural merchants and entrepreneurs. ­A nother approach concerning the problems caused by the military will emerge from this original line of inquiry: specifically, we will try to understand the effects of the military structure on the local public eco­ nomy, especially in relation to the debt that the rural communities incurred during the first half of the seventeenth century. Subsequently, we will f­ ocus on the effects of the military on the distinct dynamics of rural demo­graphy, food and trade. This analysis will provide the means to understand how the interaction between military needs and the consequences of the l­ocal management of the military structure produced the practices and the ­relationships between centre and periphery, which were able to define the appearance of the ‘modern’ Venetian state. The third part (Chapter 8) aims to integrate the Venetian case study into the broader European framework, through a comparison with various states (Spain, France, Dutch Republic, the Ottoman Empire, the ancient

12 Introduction Italian States and German territories). The aim is first to validate the t­ heory proposed for the Republic of Venice. To achieve this goal, I will follow the same steps covered in the analysis of the military structure in the previous chapters: this means identification and comparison of the specific military needs in the various states; analysis of their effects on the social and economic dynamics of the subject territories; and elaboration of theoretical principles that can be generalised. One of the fundamental aims of the book and especially of this chapter is to underline the necessity of a strong change in the perspective of the analysis on these topics. Traditionally, scholars tried to evaluate the degree to which private and public elements, state authorities and subjects contributed respectively to the historical evolution of the state (that is usually considered a teleological process towards the nation-state of the nineteenth century). In our opinion, the goal should not be the identification of a winner on the way to modernity. At the same time, achieving this aim does not mean that we have to deny the changes, the problems and the tensions. It means that it is necessary to try to understand the dialogue dynamics within states, between different participants – not always situated in well-defined geographical and politi­cal areas – therefore, underlining how the outcomes produced were the results of open processes. In this sense, the role played by the subject élites was not in competition with the state authority, but often the joint actions of these specific players produced what the documents attest. This interaction is frequently described in conflicting terms, but often went beyond the dispute and ended – more or less consciously – not only with a compromise between different interests (the state and the local ones), but with proper meetings of interests, especially economic interests.

Notes 1. The edition of John Hale’s book referred to is the Italian translation of the second part of the volume he edited with Michael Mallett in 1984 (Mallett and Hale 1984). 2. Di Tullio’s book has been recently translated in an English version (Di Tullio 2014). 3. On the complexity underlying the use of this terminology in the Italian historio­ graphical debate, see Elena Fasano Guarini (Fasano Guarini 1994, 147−76). The author considers especially the limits attached to the concepts of center and periphery in the context of the origin of the ‘modern state’. 4. The Corpi Territorial were representative rural institutions that, in a period of progressive imbalance of powers between cities and rural areas, acted as new symbols of the state in the Mainland Dominion (Del Torre 1986, Zamperetti 1987). There are analogous cases in the other Italian states, especially in the Duchy of Milan (Chittolini 1979). 5. Angelo Torre (Torre 2011, 2011b) proposed an interesting reflection on the complexity of meanings included in this term, although I have some doubts about his extremely ‘anthropologic’ perspective. There is always the risk of analyzing exclusively ‘peripheral powers without Princes’, a risk that is clearly pointed out by Elena Fasano Guarini (Fasano Guarini 1978, 40).

Introduction  13 6. This thinking is evident in the argument of Chris and Charles Tilly; according to them, the ‘military’ cannot be considered a labour force because, from a Marxist point of view, it does not add any value to any good. On the contrary, it reduces the value (Chris and Charles Tilly 1998, 23). 7. Sweden is an analogous case (Glete 2002, 201−6), because of the prominence of subject troops compared with the number of mercenary ones. 8. During the seventeenth century, the Republic of Venice fought in the War of Gradisca (1615−1617) against the Archdukes of Austria, in the Valtellina uprising (1620−1626), in the War of Mantuan Succession (1627−1631) and in the First War of Castro (1641−1644).

Bibliography Arbel, Benjamin. 2013. “Venice’s Maritime Empire in the early modern period”. In A companion to Venetian history, 1400−1797. Eric R. Dursteler (ed,). ­L eiden-Boston: Brill. 125−254. Black, Jeremy. 1991. A military revolution? Military change and European society 1550−1800. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press International. Bragaggia, Roberto. 2003. “Il Corpo Territoriale Bellunese nel ’500−’600”. Studi Veneziani, 45: 43−90. Buono, Alessandro. 2009. Esercito, istituzioni, territorio: alloggiamenti militari e case herme nello Stato di Milano (sec. XVI e XVII). Florence: Firenze University Press. Chittolini, Giorgio. 1979. La Formazione dello Stato Regionale e le Istituzioni del Contado. Secoli XIV−XV. Turin: Einaudi. Colombo, Emanuele. 2005. Il contado di Vigevano e la Forza di una Comunità: la Provincia e Gambolò nel Seicento. Vigevano: Arkèdizioni. Colombo, Emanuele. 2008. Giochi di Luoghi. Il Territorio Lombardo nel ­Seicento. Milan: Franco Angeli. Curtis, Daniel R. 2014. Coping with crisis: The resilience and vulnerability of pre-industrial settlements. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited. Dattero, Alessandra, and Stefano Levati, ed. 2006. Militari in Età Moderna: la Centralità di un Tema di Confine: Milano, 20 Giugno 2004. Milan: Cisalpino. Del Torre, Giuseppe. 1986. Venezia e la Terraferma dopo la Guerra di Cambrai: Fiscalità e Amministrazione 1515−1530. Milan: Franco Angeli. Di Tullio, Matteo. 2011. La Ricchezza delle Comunità. Guerra, Risorse, Cooperazione nella Geradadda del Cinquecento. Venice: Marsilio (English version: Di Tullio, Matteo. 2014. The wealth of communities. War, resources and cooperation in Renaissance Lombardy. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited. Donati, Claudio, ed. 2006. Alle Frontiere della Lombardia. Politica, Guerra e Religione nell’Età Moderna. Milan: Franco Angeli. Duffy, Christopher. 1979. Siege warfare. The fortress in the early modern world 1494−1660. London and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Dursteler, Eric R., ed. 2013. A companion to Venetian history, 1400−1797. ­L eiden-Boston: Brill. Fasano Guarini, Elena, ed. 1978. Potere e Società negli Stati Regionali del ’500 e ’600. Bologna: Il Mulino. Fasano Guarini, Elena. 1994. “Centro e Periferia, Accentramento e Particolarismo: Dicotomia o Sostanza degli Stati in Età Moderna?”. In Origini dello Stato.

14 Introduction Processi di Formazione Statale in Italia fra Medioevo ed Età Moderna. Giorgio Chittolini, Anthony Molho, and Pierangelo Schiera (eds.). Bologna: il Mulino. 147−76. Favaretto, Lorena. 1998. L’Istituzione Informale. Il Territorio Padovano dal Quattrocento al Cinquecento. Milan: Unicopli. Follain, Antoine, ed. 2000. L‘Argent des Villages du XIIIe au XVIIIe Siècle: Comptabilités Paroissiales et Communales, Fiscalité Locale: Actes du Colloque d ­ ’Angers (30−31 Octobre 1998). Rennes: Association d‘histoire des sociétés rurales. Follain, Antoine, and Gilbert Larguier, ed. 2005. L’Impôt des Campagnes: Fragile Fondement de l‘État dit Moderne, XVe−XVIIIe Siècle: Colloque Tenu à Bercy les 2 et 3 Décembre 2002. Paris: Comité pour l‘histoire économique et financiòre de la France. Glete, Jan. 2002. War and state in early modern Europe. Spain, the Dutch Republic and Sweden as fiscal-military states, 1500−1660. London-New York: Routledge. Hale, John R. 1990. L’Organizzazione Militare di Venezia nel ’500. Rome: Jouvence. January Peter, and Michael Knapton. 2007. “The demands made on Venetian ­Terraferma Society for Defence in the early seventeenth century”. Ateneo Veneto CXCIV: 25−115. Kamen, Henry. 1968. “the economic and social consequences of the Thirty Years’ War”. Past & Present 39: 44−61. Knapton, Michael. 1981b. “I Rapporti Fiscali tra Venezia e la Terraferma: il Caso Padovano nel Secondo ’400”. Archivio Veneto CXVII (5): 5−65. Knapton, Michael. 1982. “Il fisco nello Stato Veneziano di Terraferma tra ’300 e ’500: la Politica delle Entrate”. In Il Sistema Fiscale Veneto. Problemi e Aspetti, XV−XVIII Secolo. Giorgio Borelli, Paola Lanaro, and Francesco Vecchiato (eds.). Verona: Libreria Universitaria. 15−57. Knapton, Michael. 1984b. “Per la Storia del Dominio Veneziano nel Trentino durante il ’400: l‘Annessione e l’Inquadramento Politico-Istituzionale”. In ­Dentro lo “Stado Italico”. Venezia e la Terraferma fra Quattro e Seicento. Giorgio Cracco and Michael Knapton (eds.). Trento: Gruppo Culturale Civis. 183−209. Knapton, Michael. 1989. “Il Sistema Fiscale nello Stato di Terraferma, Secoli XIV–XVIII. Cenni Generali”. In Venezia e la terraferma. Economia e società. Giuseppe del Torre (ed.). Bergamo: Comune di Bergamo. 9−30. Knapton, Michael. 1995. “La Finanza Pubblica”. In Storia di Venezia, volume II. L’età del Comune. Giorgio Cracco and Gherardo Ortalli (eds.). Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana. 371−407. Knapton, Michael. 1997. “La Dinamica delle Finanze Pubbliche”. In  Storia di Venezia, volume III. La Formazione dello Stato Patrizio. Girolamo Arnaldi, Giorgio Cracco, and Alberto Tenenti (eds.). Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana. 475−528. Knapton, Michael. 1998. “Il Controllo Contabile nello “Stato da Terra” della Repubblica Veneta: Norme, Comportamenti e Problemi a Padova verso fine ’400”. In Metamorfosi del Controllo Contabile nello Stato Veneziano. Stefano Zambon (ed.). Bologna: Il Mulino. 107−48. Knapton, Michael. 2010. “Le Campagne Trevigiane: i Frutti di una Ricerca”. Società e Storia 130: 771−800. Knapton, Michael, ed. 2013. Storia di Creazzo. Dal Mille al 1818. Vicenza: Edizioni Mediafactory.

Introduction  15 Labanca, Nicola, ed. 2011. Storie di Guerre ed Eserciti: gli Studi Italiani di Storia Militare negli Ultimi Venticinque Anni. Milan: Unicopli. Lane, Frederic C. 1979. Profits from power. Readings in protection rent and ­violence-controlling enterprises. Albany: State University of New York Press. Larguier, Gilbert, ed. 2008. Les Communautes et l’Argent: Fiscalitè et Finances Municipales en Languedoc, Roussillon et Andorre, XVe−XVIIIe Siecle: 2[es] Journées d‘Histoire du Droit et des Institutions de l’Université de Perpignan Via Domitia [27 janvier 2006]. Perpignan: Presses Universitaires de Perpignan. Lavarda, Sergio. 2007. “L’Anima del Corpo Politico. Sul Fisco Veneto del Seicento”. Studi Veneziani LIII:75−107. Lucassen, Jan, and Erik J. Zürcher. 1998. “Conscription as military labour: The historical context”. International Review of Social History 43:405−19. Maccà, Gaetano. 1813. Storia del Territorio Vicentino. Caldogno: Gio. Battista Menegatti. Maffi, Davide. 1999. “Alloggiamenti Militari e Comunità Locali: Pavia e il suo Contado nel ’600”. Annali di Storia Pavese 27:325−38. Maffi, Davide. 2000. “Guerra ed Economia: Spese Belliche ed Appaltatori Militari nella Lombardia Spagnola (1635−1660)”. Storia Economica III:489−527. Maffi, Davide. 2002. “L’Amministrazione della Finanza Militare nella Lombardia Spagnola: i Veedores e i Contadores dell’Esercito (1536−1700)”. Storia Econo­ mica V:51−106. Maffi, Davide. 2007. Il Baluardo della Corona: Guerra, Esercito, Finanze e Società nella Lombardia Seicentesca, 1630−1660. Grassina, Bagno a Ripoli: Le ­Monnier Università. Maifreda, Germano. 2002. Rappresentanze Rurali e Proprietà Contadina. Il Caso Veronese tra Sei e Settecento. Milan: Franco Angeli. Mallett, Michael. 1989. L’Organizzazione Militare di Venezia nel ’400. Rome: Jouvence. Mallett, Michael, and John R. Hale. 1984. The Military Organisation of a Renaissance State: Venice from 1400 to 1617. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ongaro, Giulio. 2008. Località Minori, Centri Urbani e Venezia dagli Albori del Dominium Veneciarum alla Metà del XVI Secolo: il Caso di Schio ­nell’Ambito del Vincentini Districtus. Bachelor’s degree thesis. Supervisor: Prof. S. ­Zamperetti. Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, A.A. 2007/2008. Ongaro, Giulio. 2011. Pro Bono et Utilitate Comunis Scledi. Equilibri Familiari e Magistrature Comunali a Schio tra il XV e il XVI Secolo. Master’s degree thesis. Supervisor: Prof. S. Zamperetti. Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, A.A. 2010−2011. Panciera, Walter. 2005. Il Governo delle Artiglierie: Tecnologia Bellica e Istituzioni Veneziane nel Secondo Cinquecento. Milan: Franco Angeli. Panciera, Walter. 2006. “Produzione e Conservazione della Polvere da Sparo nel XVI secolo: il Caso Veneziano”. In Militari in Età Moderna. La Centralità di un Tema di Confine. Alessandra Dattero and Stefano Levati (eds.). Milan: ­Cisalpino. 63−82. Parker, Geoffrey. 1976. “The ‘military revolution’, 1560−1660: A myth?”. The Journal of Modern History 48 (2):195−214. Parrott, David. 2012. The business of war. Military enterprise and military revolution in early modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

16 Introduction Pederzani, Ivana. 1992. Venezia e lo “Stado de Terraferma”. Il Governo delle Comunità nel Territorio Bergamasco (secc. XV−XVIII). Milan: Vita e Pensiero. Perini, Sergio. 1995. “Le Milizie della Terraferma Veneta verso la Metà del ­S eicento”. Studi Veneziani XXIX:193−208. Pezzolo, Luciano. 1983. “L’Archibugio e l’Aratro. Considerazioni e Problemi per una Storia delle Milizie Rurali Venete nei Secoli XVI−XVII”. Studi Veneziani VII:59−80. Pezzolo, Luciano. 1990. L’Oro dello Stato. Società, Finanza e Fisco nella Repubblica Veneta del Secondo ’500. Venice: Il Cardo. Pezzolo, Luciano. 2003. Il Fisco dei Veneziani. Finanza Pubblica ed Economia tra XV e XVII Secolo. Sommacampagna: Cierre. Pezzolo, Luciano. 2003. La Storiografia più Recente sulla Finanza Italiana dell’Età Moderna. Rivista di storia finanziaria 10:33−77. Pezzolo, Luciano. 2006. “La Rivoluzione Militare: una Prospettiva Italiana 1400−1700”. In Militari in Età Moderna. La Centralità di un Tema di Confine. Alessandra Dattero and Stefano Levati (eds.). Milan: Cisalpino. 15−62. Pezzolo, Luciano. 2009. “The Organisation of Warfare and the Military Milieu in the Republic of Venice”. In Andrea Palladio and the Architecture of Battle with the Unpublished Edition of Polibius’s Histories. Guido Beltramini (ed.). Venice: Marsilio. 238−51. Povolo, Claudio, ed. 1981. Lisiera: Immagini, Documenti e Problemi per la Storia di una Comunità Veneta: Strutture, Congiunture, Episodi. Lisiera: Parrocchia. Povolo, Claudio, ed. 1985. Dueville: Storia di una Comunità del Passato. Vicenza: Neri Pozza. Povolo, Claudio, ed. 1989. Bolzano Vicentino: Dimensione del Sociale e Vita Economica in un Villaggio della Pianura Vicentina (Secoli XIV−XIX). Bolzano Vicentino: Comune di Bolzano Vicentino. Rabb, Theodore K. 1962. “The effects of the Thirty Years’ War on the German economy”. The Journal of Modern History 34 (1):40−51. Rizzo, Mario. 2001. Alloggiamenti Militari e Riforme Fiscali nella Lombardia Spagnola fra Cinque e Seicento. Milan: Unicopli. Rizzo, Mario. 2008. “La Maggiore et più Sentita Gravezza, che si Provi in Questo Stato». Oneri Militari, Politica Fiscale e Corpi Contribuenti. La Lombardia Spagnola (1550−1620)”. In La Fiscalità nell’Economia Europea secc. XIII−XVIII. Simonetta Cavaciocchi (ed.). Florence: Firenze University Press. 881−95. Rizzo, Mario. 2011. “Armi di Lombardia. Lo Stato di Milano e le Forniture ­B elliche agli Asburgo di Spagna tra Cinque e Seicento”. Quaderni-Mediterranea. Ricerche Storiche 1:317−44. Roberts, Michael. 1956. The Military Revolution, 1560–1660, an inaugural lecture delivered before the Queen’s University of Belfast. Belfast: M. Boyd. Roberts, Michael. 1967. Essays in Swedish history. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Rogers, Clifford J. 1995. The military revolution debate: Readings on the military transformation of early modern Europe. Boulder: Westview Press. Aparisi Romero, Frederic, and Vicent Royo Pérez, eds. 2014. Beyond lord and peasants: Rural elites and economic differentiation in pre-Modern Europe. Valencia: Universidad De Valencia, Servicio De Publicaciones. Schofield, Phillipp R. and Thijs Lambrecht, eds. 2009. Credit and the rural e­ conomy in north-western Europe, c. 1200−c. 1850. Turnhout: Brepols.

Introduction  17 Stumpo, Enrico. 1986. “Guerra ed Economia: Spese e Guadagni Militari nel Piemonte del Seicento”. Studi Storici A. 27 (2):371−95. Tilly, Charles. 1975. “Reflections on the history of European state-making”. In The formation of national states in western Europe. Charles Tilly (ed.). Princeton: Princeton University Press. 3−83. Tilly, Charles. 1990. Coercion, capital, and European states, AD 990−1992. Oxford: Blackwell. Tilly, Chris, and Charles Tilly. 1998. Work under capitalism. Boulder: Westview Press. Torre, Angelo. 2011. Luoghi: la Produzione di Località in Età Moderna e Contemporanea. Rome: Donzelli. Torre, Angelo. 2011b. “Comunità e località”. In Microstoria: a Venticinque Anni da L’eredità Immateriale. Paola Lanaro (ed.). Milan: Franco Angeli. 25−57. Van Bavel, Bas, Richard W. Hoyle, and Stefan Brakensiek, eds. 2010. Social relations: Property and power. Turnhout: Brepols. Weber, Max. 1968. Economy and society. An outline of interpretive sociology. Guenther Roth and Ckus Wittich (eds.). New York: Bedminster Press. Weber, Max. 1994. La Politica come Professione. Carlo Donolo (ed.). Milan: Edizioni Anabasi. Zamperetti, Sergio. 1987. “I “‘Sinedri Dolosi’: la Formazione e lo Sviluppo dei Corpi Territoriali nello Stato Regionale Veneto tra ’500 e ’600”. Rivista Storica Italiana. A. 99, f. 2: 269−320. Zürcher, Erik. 2013. Fighting for a living: A comparative history of military labour 1500−2000. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Part I

Venetian military structure

1 Military costs and rural public economy

The analysis of the military structure of a state usually involves the ­characterisation and quantification of specific military issues, including the structure of the army, the management of lodgings, the provision of supplies and the purchase of weaponry. The aim of this book is to analyse the interaction between military structures and rural communities in the broader context of the Venetian state building process; therefore, the organisation of the text will be atypical, reflecting the unique focus of the study. The fundamental objective is to establish how the evolution of the military wing of the state, with all its varied needs, affected the economic structure of the communities under review. The outcome of contact between the central state and regional communities was not uniform across time and space. Calculating the economic effect of the Venetian military organisation on local economies, public and private, facilitates an understanding of the formation of both central and local management procedures, as well as the role played by private entrepreneurs in the management of the army. Such an assessment must be undertaken at multiple levels. This chapter will initially outline the relative scale of military expenses in the context of the general balance sheet of communities over extended periods. The following chapters will conduct as forensic an analysis as possible of the composition of the costs involved and their long-term evolution. The interaction between these elements will help us understand the internal logic and external workings that shaped military expenses and dictated their effects on local finances. The changing pattern of military costs – and their respective influence in each province – can be considered as reflective of the changes in the Venetian state military structures. It was not only military concerns that affected local management dynamics in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries but also communal and regional circumstances very often produced their own specific problems and solutions. Indeed, the provinces examined in this work display a variety of geographic, demographic, economic and institutional characteristics. The province of V ­ icenza, and the communities of the piedmont area in particular (Maps 1.1, 1.2), were located in close proximity to the imperial territories of the bishop of Trento1. In the turbulent years of the War of

22  Venetian military structure

Map 1.1  The Republic of Venice and the provinces of Vicenza and Brescia.

Map 1.2  The province of Vicenza and the communities analysed.

the League of Cambrai (1508−1516), the conflict had significant social and economic consequences in this mountainous terrain. The area experienced a prolonged period of peace thereafter but its boundary position meant that its rural communities maintained a prominent involvement in border control, especially in the seventeenth century.

Military costs and rural public economy  23 The years of the Congress of Rovereto in 1605 (Bellabarba 1999; ­ izzeghello 1999, 2008, 2009; Pitteri 2006; Bianchi 2009; Panciera 2009, P 2009b; Lavarda 2009), the Valtellina uprising in 1620−1626 (Giussani 1940; Andretta 2000, 45−70; Borromeo 1998; Ongaro 2016) and the War of Mantuan Succession in 1627−1631 (Parrott 1997) were exceptionally tense. The territories of Trento never presented an imminent threat, so the communities in the northwestern part of the province escaped the pressures of billeting a huge number of troops. The province of Brescia (Maps 1.1, 1.3) experienced war and peace in significantly different times compared with the province of Vicenza, primarily because of its strategic position. The Camonica Valley was one of the most important thoroughfares for the Valtellina, so during the 1620s the incessant movement of troops, artillery and wagons resounded in the valley (Ongaro 2016). Brescia bordered the Duchy of Milan, Mantua and the territory of Trento. Therefore, from the time of the Venetian conquest in 1426, it was crucial to the defence of the entire Mainland Dominion. In 1517, during the Italian Wars, Brescia accommodated 1,026 of the 5,016 cavalrymen lodged in the Terraferma (20 per cent). The associated cost was 4,617 lire monthly, 50 per cent more that the amount paid by the province of Padua or by the Magnificent Patria of Friuli (Rossini 1994, 218). In the following decades and centuries, Brescia maintained this role (Montanari 2005, 7) so that its economy not only had to cater to accommodate the lodging of troops but also the building and maintenance of fortresses as Asola and Orzinuovi. An issue common to Vicenza and Brescia was that those communities closest to the borders attained special privileges, such as the Valleys in ­Brescia and the Riviera of Salò or the tableland of Asiago in Vicenza. The economic structures and internal markets of the two provinces were also quite different. In Vicenza, the economy of the lowlands was mainly agrarian while the presence of urban landowners meant that the associated form of employment was usually casual ‘farm hand’ labouring, especially near the city. Despite the problems related to water regulation (Demo 2013), the land was usually productive enough to feed the population of the province. Vicenza experienced considerable population growth during the ­sixteenth century, and substantial social and institutional changes followed. Agricultural production expanded and the breeding of cavalieri (silkworms) increased, as did the presence of mulberries, boosting the earnings of the peasantry (­B eltrami 1961; Zannini 2010; Pezzolo 2011). The situation was reversed in the piedmont area, where the economy thrived on the basis of diversity. Smaller communities maintained a largely agrarian structure through the sixteenth century whereas densely populated piedmont communities had established prosperous manufacturing activities in the fifteenth century – based largely around wool – which continued to grow in the sixteenth century. The production of clothes was complemented by similarly profitable trading activity. Some rural communities – ­including Arzignano, Schio, Valdagno and Marostica – became productive

24  Venetian military structure centres that were strong enough to compete with urban guilds (Demo 2001, 2004, 2013, 2013b; Vianello 2004, 2008). In addition to manufacturing and trading activities, there were a variety of mining enterprises. The territory of Arzignano was home to some poor quality iron mines but quarries of a parti­cularly esteemed marble. The lack of suitable infrastructure for transport impeded the industry in places like Chiampo, Crespadoro and Durlo to the extent that mining could not become a serious economic contributor to the valley (Preto 1981b, 108−9). In the mountains of Valle dei Conti, Valle dei Signori, Schio, S­ antorso and Piovene, the mining of iron and noble metals, including gold and especially silver, was common in the fifteenth century. From the beginning of the sixteenth century, the emphasis turned to the extraction of the more modest kaolin (Vergani 1989). The wealthiest families in rural piedmont concentrated much of their energy on landed property, but they were also interested in manufacturing and commercialism. This had important consequences for local social and economic dynamics and, in the sixteenth century, the institutional assets of the Corpo Territoriale, as well as on military expenses. The province of Brescia had similar traits, with a polarisation of agriculture and manufacturing that, for obvious geographical reasons, followed the division between plains and mountains. Unlike Vicenza’s piedmont, wool production was not central to the rural economy of Brescia. Each distinct geographical zone, even within provinces, depended on a different specialisation. The fact that wool production was crucial to the city of ­Brescia emphasises this point. The agrarian plain remained largely isolated from the secondary and tertiary sectors (Rossini 1994, 151), even if there was an analogous deve­ lopment of specific crops (mulberry and flax) to meet the manufacturing demands of the city (Berengo 1975, XLII). The valleys (Camonica, Trompia and Sabbia) were characterised by a ‘huge fragmentation of the landed property and by the presence of vast areas of common properties, an essentially subsistence farming that produced grain, legumes and chestnuts able to satisfy the internal needs for four months per annum’ (Franzoni 1991, 155). The abundant availability of iron compensated for this pressure on the supply of land, allowing the development of profitable extracting and manufacturing activities (Baraldi-Calegari 1991; Belfanti 1999, 1999b; Vergani 2003; Sella 2009). The importance of this sector for the economy of the valleys – and for the Venetian economy generally – is confirmed by the incessant references made to it by Venetian officials. Workers from Brescia were much sought after in other areas of the Italian peninsula and in other European states because they were especially skilled in iron-related jobs (Baraldi-Calegari 1991). Further evidence of the sector’s importance is to be found in the controls exerted over iron production and commerce; exportation was prohibited and specialised fondaci (warehouses) were constructed for iron and the crossbars for harquebuses and muskets (RRB, 189, 190, 257).

Military costs and rural public economy  25 Moving east, grain was extremely scarce in the Riviera of Salò and harvests were marginal. Many scholars have demonstrated that the grain production of the Riviera fed its inhabitants for only three months per annum (Zalin 1983, 329−34; Paris 2007, 16−18), because the cultivable land was concentrated solely in the lowest part of the territory. That is why 30 per cent of the population lived in the Riviera’s lowlands during the ­sixteenth century (Paris 2007, 13). The enormous prosperity of the Riviera came from other economic sectors, including fishing (Lanaro 1983; Paris 2007, 19) and commercial activities; Lake Garda (particularly the village of ­Desenzano) was an important commercial junction with the imperial territories. Other important activities were lemon and olive oil production and manufacturing, especially paper mills (Mattozzi 1995; 2001). The diverse characteristics of the two provinces naturally affected the relationship between the state’s military system and their respective local economies in different ways. The communities in the two provinces were also quite distinct. In Vicenza (Map 1.2), Schio was head of a large ­Vicariato (an administrative circumscription) with 900 fuochi 2 and a flourishing commercial and manufacturing economy (Mantese 1955; Demo 2004; Clerici 2004; Vianello 2004). Durlo, on the other hand, was a typical example of a mountain community consisting of an aggregation of four housing units. Sheep farming and the exploitation of woods and collective pastures were the main economic drivers, as well as a limited clothes production sector (Caliaro 1954; Preto 1981). The population was low, with just 200 fuochi in 1585 and only 160 from 1607 and in subsequent decades. The community of Magrè, as was the case with San Vito di Leguzzano and Malo, had mixed characteristics. While located in the piedmont area, it did not benefit from the economic and political weight of Schio, despite being part of its Vicariato. Likewise, Bedizzole and Tremosine (Map 1.3) in the province of Brescia reflected the differences between Schio and Durlo. Both were located at Lake Garda but they had clear differences. Bedizzole was a very important village of the southern Quadra di campagna 3 (Country Quadra), one of the wealthiest and most populated on the Riviera (Spada 1979), while Tremosine belonged to the northern Quadra di montagna (Mountain Quadra). ­Tremosine was smaller with respect to economy and population, and it was orga­ nised like Durlo, as an aggregate of many small localities (Pellizzari and Bendinoni 2011). Therefore, the differing characteristics of the communities meant that their corresponding balance sheets displayed analogous differences, primarily ‘quantitative’ differences. The annual average total expenses of Durlo were approximately 1,000 lire, while Schio’s expenses were ten times higher. In Brescia, Tremosine spent approximately 4,000 lire ­annually  – although this figure occasionally reached 12,000−14,000 lire in the ­seventeenth century – while the expenditure of Bedizzole was usually double that of Tremosine in the sixteenth century. There were also ‘qualitative’

26  Venetian military structure

Map 1.3  The province of Brescia and the communities analysed.

differences, especially in Vicenza. In terms of military outlay, payments for single militiamen, oarsmen or sappers, as well as contributions to the Corpo Territoriale or the Riviera, are identifiable in the balance sheets of Durlo and Tremosine (each province had its own rural institution known as the Corpo Territoriale. In Brescia, in addition to the Corpo Territoriale, the Riviera administered the communities of Lake Garda, performing the same functions as the Corpo Territoriale). The evidence from Schio and Bedizzole points also to the organisation of saltpeter production, the management of the local cernide (units of militiamen), the purchase and the maintenance of weapons and the contracts for the fortresses. Despite these important differences, the analysis of general and military expenditures demonstrates that there were also common trends.

Military costs and rural public economy  27

GENERAL EXPENDITURE (AVERAGE 1600–1610 = 100)

Tremosine

Bedizzole

Schio

Durlo

300 250 200 150 100 50 1653

1613

1612

1611

1610

1609

1608

1607

1605

1604

1603

1602

1601

1600

1598

1597

1595

1593

1592

0

YEARS

Figure 1.1  I ndex-based trend of general expenditure in undeflated lire for Tremosine, Bedizzole, Schio and Durlo 1592−1653 (100 = average value in the years 1600−1610) Sources: ACDu, Resoconti 1533–1575; Resoconti 1576–1599; Resoconti 1601–1634; Resoconti 1635–1678; ACSc, bb. 36–53; ACBe, b. 17; b. 19, fasc. 1; b. 19, reg. 2; b. 20, reg. 1; b. 21, reg. 2; b. 22, reg. 1; b. 23, reg. 2; b. 30 reg. 2; b. 30, reg. 3; b. 31, reg. 1; b. 31, reg. 2; ACTr, bb. 34, 45, 53.

The data collected in the books of expenditures of Vicenza and Brescia allow for interesting comparisons in terms of the impact of military expenses on communities in the long run. A lack of extant sources for certain years means that general comparison is possible only for the periods 1592−1613 and 1653−1670 (Figure 1.1); for other eras, partial comparisons have been possible for a limited number of communities4. The picture emerging from the chart needs some clarification: the respective trends of expenses are similar, marked as they are by stability until the first decade of the seventeenth century and a sharp mid-century increase due to rapid inflation of the lira. Analysing the two provinces separately changes the picture (Figures 1.2 and 1.3), especially when deflation and the real value of the currencyare considered. (Figures 1.4 and 1.5). The evidence from Vicenza shows that as well as a general increase in expenses in the first half of the seventeenth century, Durlo was more prone than Schio to spikes in costs. In the upcoming pages, we will see how these sudden increases were linked to military commitments; involvement with the military had a more visible impact on communities with restricted balance sheets. The nature of the data suggests that such increases should raise some doubts about the equity of the distribution of burdens within the Corpo Territoriale. It is certainly true that the payment of a single oarsman disguises itself in the dozens of thousands of lire spent by the community of Schio in the mid-seventeenth century. However, it be equally true that the demand for military resources in Durlo, in human and monetary terms, should not be all that different to the demand in Schio, despite the different economic potential of the two communities.

28  Venetian military structure SCHIO

400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0

1565 1568 1570 1580 1582 1592 1595 1598 1601 1603 1605 1608 1610 1612 1624 1626 1628 1630 1632 1638 1640 1644 1653 1660 1662 1664 1668

GEENRAL EXPENDITURE (Average 1600–1610 = 100)

DURLO 450

YEARS

Figure 1.2  I ndex-based trend of general expenditure in undeflated lire for Schio and Durlo 1565−1668 (100 = average value in the years 1600−1610).

Sources: ACDu, Resoconti 1533–1575; Resoconti 1576–1599; Resoconti 1601– 1634; Resoconti 1635–1678; ACSc, bb. 36–53.

SCHIO

250 200 150 100 50 0

1565 1568 1570 1580 1582 1592 1595 1598 1601 1603 1605 1608 1610 1612 1624 1626 1628 1630 1632 1638 1640 1644 1653 1660 1662 1664 1668

GENERAL EXPENDITURE (Average 1600–1610 = 100)

DURLO 300

YEARS

Figure 1.3  I ndex-based trend of general expenditure in deflated lire for Schio and Durlo 1565−1668 (100 = average value in the years 1600−1610).

Note: Data deflated based on the gold value of the lira de piccoli as in Mueller 1997, 624. Sources: ACDu, Resoconti 1533–1575; Resoconti 1576–1599; Resoconti 1601–1634; Resoconti 1635–1678; ACSc, bb. 36–53.

When considering deflation, seventeenth-century increases in expenses are significantly reduced in relative terms. There are definite points at which increased expenses correspond directly with increased military action on the part of the Republic of Venice, and this topic will be subject to in-depth analysis. However, considering the depletion of the lira, it is evident that the financial difficulties experienced by these rural communities can be only partially attributed to an increase in expenses. Shifting our attention to the province of Brescia, in the context of the books of expenditure of T ­ remosine and Bedizzole, the picture emerging has superficially similar characteristics but is underwritten by fundamental difference (Figures 1.4 and 1.5).

Military costs and rural public economy  29 TREMOSINE

BEDIZZOLE

GENERAL EXPENDITURE (lire)

25000 20000 15000 10000 5000 0

1553 1555 1557 1592 1594 1596 1598 1600 1602 1604 1606 1608 1610 1612 1614 1616 1653 1655

YEARS

Figure 1.4  Trend of general expenditure for Tremosine and Bedizzole, undeflated lire (1553−1656). Sources: ACBe, b. 17; b. 19, fasc. 1; b. 19, reg. 2; b. 20, reg. 1; b. 21, reg. 2; b. 22, reg. 1; b. 23, reg. 2; b. 30 reg. 2; b. 30, reg. 3; b. 31, reg. 1; b. 31, reg. 2; ACTr, bb. 34, 45, 53.

TREMOSINE

1553 1554 1555 1556 1557 1558 1592 1593 1594 1595 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600 1601 1602 1603 1604 1605 1606 1607 1608 1609 1610 1611 1612 1613 1614 1615 1616 1652 1653 1654 1655 1656

GENERAL EXPENDITURE (lire)

BEDIZZOLE 10000 9000 8000 7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0

YEARS

Figure 1.5  Trend of general expenditure for Tremosine and Bedizzole, deflated lire (1553−1656).

Sources: ACBe, b. 17; b. 19, fasc. 1; b. 19, reg. 2; b. 20, reg. 1; b. 21, reg. 2; b. 22, reg. 1; b. 23, reg. 2; b. 30 reg. 2; b. 30, reg. 3; b. 31, reg. 1; b. 31, reg. 2; ACTr, bb. 34, 45, 53.

It is also necessary to apply deflationary calculations to this ­seventeenthcentury model. Both graphs, however, show a greater tendency to increased expenditure in Brescia than Vicenza in the period between the mid-1500s and the mid-1600s, which cannot be ascribed to inflation. In this context, it is enlightening to compare the position of military spending in the general balance sheet of the communities (Figure 1.6). In the Vicenzan villages, it is the level of disparity rather than overlap between the two patterns that is most striking. The correlation coefficients between the data of Durlo and Schio confirm this assertion; it is 0.54 with

30  Venetian military structure SCHIO

DURLO

MILITARY EXPENSES (Average 1604–1611 = 100)

400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 1565 1568 1570 1580 1582 1605 1608 1610 1612 1624 1626 1628 1630 1632 1638 1640 1644 1660 1662 1664

YEARS

Figure 1.6  I ndex-based trend of military expenditure in lire for Schio and Durlo 1565−1665 (100 = average value in the years 1604−1611).

Sources: ACDu, Resoconti 1533–1575; Resoconti 1576–1599; Resoconti 1601–1634; Resoconti 1635–1678; ACSc, bb. 36–53.

regard to the general balance sheet, while it is only 0.34 for military expenses. As assumed above, the differences are due to the asymmetry of the two communities; the diversity of Schio’s expenses led to a more regular pattern because the absence of one specific cost was often compensated for by the presence of another. In Durlo, the demand for sappers, oarsmen and so on produced very different effects. They produced peaks that coincide perfectly with those highlighted in the analysis of the general expenses. A  prime example is the peak year of 1658, when the Chiampo valley – where Durlo is located – participated along with other territories in the defence of Christianity. With that one exception, the seventeenth century was characterised by a general reduction of military costs. The situation in Brescia was even more complex. In Tremosine, the pressure exerted on the local balance sheet by military expenses was quite low (Figure 1.7). The increase in general expenditure during the decades of the War of Candia (1645−1669) does not seem to be linked with the trend of military expenses; they remain extremely low throughout the seventeenth century, thanks to the exemptions enjoyed by the Quadra di montagna. Despitethis, we can assume that the increase in general expenditure could be linked to a corresponding increase in the amounts that this small community paid to the Magnifica Patria and the Republic. The surviving documents do not specify the characterisation of these payments, but they are probably linked to increased fiscal pressure and an expectation of ‘donations’ due to the ongoing war. As for the trend of military expenses in Bedizzole, the local documents do not shed light on individual payments, so it was not possible to produce a chart with these values. Nonetheless, it is still useful to observe the trend of general expenditure in this community, including the period 1620−1640 (Figure 1.8) that has been excluded from the previous comparative chart (Figure 1.1).

Military costs and rural public economy  31 military expenses

general expenses

25000

LIRE

20000 15000 10000 5000 0

YEARS

Figure 1.7  Trend of general expenses and military expenses in Tremosine in lire (1550−1668). Sources: ACTr, bb. 34, 45, 53.

35000

deflated LIRE

30000 25000 20000 15000 10000

0

1550 1553 1556 1559 1562 1565 1568 1571 1574 1577 1580 1583 1586 1589 1592 1595 1598 1601 1604 1607 1610 1613 1616 1619 1622 1625 1628 1631 1634 1638 1641 1644 1647 1650 1653 1656

5000

YEARS

Figure 1.8  General expenditure of Bedizzole in deflated lire (1550−1656).

Sources: ACBe, b. 17; b. 19, fasc. 1; b. 19, reg. 2; b. 20, reg. 1; b. 21, reg. 2; b. 22, reg. 1; b. 23, reg. 2; b. 30 reg. 2; b. 30, reg. 3; b. 31, reg. 1; b. 31, reg. 2.

Even though it has not been possible to identify the amount of military expenditure, it is clear that expenses peak in 1624, during the 1630s and just after the beginning of the War of Candia, i.e. in periods of enormous military commitments. With the exception of the case study of Bedizzole, the general trend of local expenditure in the provinces of Brescia and ­Vicenza suggests that the role played by increased expenses in the crisis of local finances in the seventeenth century should not be overestimated. Equally, the role played by military costs in affecting general expenditures seems to be linked to specific variables that change from community to community; it is clear, however, that the military dimension was important everywhere bar Tremosine. Comparison of the percentages of military costs in the general balance sheet of Schio confirms this assertion (Figure 1.9).

PERCENTAGE (%)

32  Venetian military structure 50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

YEARS

Figure 1.9  Percentage of military expenditure in the general balance sheet of Schio (1557−1665). Sources: ACSc, bb. 36–53.

There was an equivalent situation in Durlo: military expenditure s­ ettled at 20 per cent of general expenditure in the second half of the sixteenth century, with peaks of 35 per cent during the War of Cyprus (1570−1573), decreasing to 7 per cent in the seventeenth century. The presence or the absence of an ongoing war is, predictably, a fundamental variable in defining these trends5, but there are other vital factors. In 1558−1559, the Republic of Venice was enjoying a period of peace; however, despite this situation, military expenditure in Schio was at 40 per cent (approximately 4,000 lire) of the total balance sheet; the causes are different in this instance. Looking at the books of expenditures and putting aside for the moment the War of Cyprus (Arbel 2013), the sixteenth century involved a military system under construction, a military machine being organised and a period of adjustment. This process existed side-by-side with a dynamic and variable local fiscal system, one that was still based around community management of military burdens and taxes. The sudden dec­rease in military expenditure in the first decade of the seventeenth century was due not only to the absence of ongoing wars but also to the concomitant increase of tax payments to the Republic (Knapton 1981, 404) and, especially, to the Corpo Territoriale. This means that a part of the military costs was not of communal competence anymore; rather, the officials of the provincial institution managed the military expenses and collected the amounts through an increased provincial direct taxation. The Fabbriche di Legnago (Building of Legnago tax) is an important example of this kind of practice. It was a tax dedicated to the modernisation of the Venetian fortresses (Mallett and Hale 1984, 409−28; Pezzolo 1990, 57; Campagnaro 2002). It was paid directly by the community of Schio and other communities until 1609, after which point its logistics became unclear and payment ceased. The tax endured for at least another decade (Pezzolo 1990, 242, 330), so its disappearance from community

Military costs and rural public economy  33 ledgers could be linked to its incorporation in provincial payments. Schio paid approximately 1,140 lire in this form of tax at the beginning of the seventeenth century, while Durlo paid only a fraction of that, 50 lire; when these sums are incorporated under military expenditure instead of general expenditure, the trend of both categories of expenditure aligns more closely to those of previous years. Essentially, the tax continued to be paid, but it was considered as a general rather than a specific military expense. Therefore, this is an emblematic example of the period of adjustment of the fiscal dynamics within the Corpo Territoriale, not only in the relationship between the community and the Corpo Territoriale but also in the relationship with the city. Quoting Michael Knapton, Between the second half of the Sixteenth century and the beginning of the following one … the Corpo Territoriale developed its activity of imposition, collection and management of taxes … achieving, in the end, the substantial autonomy from the urban institutions … Around 1630 … we are allowed to say that the Corpo Territoriale accomplished a great removal of the urban institutions from their competences on the fiscal organisation of the countryside. (Knapton 1984, 38−38) Moreover, in that early part of the seventeenth century, cities were asked to contribute more handsomely to military costs, especially with regard to the tassa delle genti d’arme – the ‘warlord tax’ (Knapton 1984, 70−2). This process resulted in a reduction in the burden borne by the peasantry. These developments were accompanied by the simultaneous expansion of military structures whereas payments to oarsmen had been the only directly war-related cost in the sixteenth century. The expenditures on militiamen, saltpeter and fortresses were always linked to the creation of basic structures, the purchase of weapons and the training of men. In conclusion, this chapter illustrates that increases in local expenditure in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries cannot be attri­ buted solely to inflation, even if it played a very important role. Increased expenditure was not a universal phenomenon. In cases of increased expenditure, military costs (strictly understood) were not the main cause. The nature of contributions to military costs evolved partly into a form of state taxation managed by provincial rural institutions. An additional qualification is that the different geographical location and economic and institutional structures of the two provinces affected the weight of their respective military burdens; furthermore, the dimension of communities within the provinces and the range of their balance sheets determined the local impact of the military burden.

Notes 1. All references to ‘piedmont’ with lowercase ‘p’ relate not to the region Piedmont in the north-west of Italy but to mountainous areas. So, ‘piedmont’ is not a specific village but a type of landscape or territory.

34  Venetian military structure 2. The fuochi (fires) were units of demographic measurement, equivalent approxi­ mately to one family consisting of six members. 3. The Quadre were very unique administrative units in the province of Brescia, a sort of intermediary institution between the Corpo Territoriale (that had a provincial dimension) and the communities (Rossini 1994). 4. The sums described as ‘undeflated’ have been analysed as they appeared in the documents, without deflating them. In some figures, the values listed in the source material have been modified according to the real value of the money in the period, calculated against the intrinsic value of gold/silver. 5. The 1607 data provided by Michael Knapton for the small community of ­Lisiera and for the province of Vicenza generally confirm the relationship bet­ ween absence of ongoing wars and the limited effect of the military costs in the overall balance sheet of the communities (Knapton 1981, 400). In that year military expenditure amounted to 4.1 per cent of the general expenditure of Lisiera, reaching 5.6 per cent for the whole province. The Lisiera’s figures differ significantly from Schio (9.4 per cent) and Durlo (9.8 per cent).

Bibliography Andretta, Stefano. 2000. La Repubblica Inquieta: Venezia nel Seicento tra Italia ed Europa. Rome: Carocci. Arbel, Benjamin. 2013. “Venice’s maritime empire in the early modern period”. In  A Companion to Venetian History, 1400−1797. Eric R. Dursteler (ed.). ­L eiden-Boston: Brill. 125−54. Baraldi, Enzo, and Manlio Calegari. 1991. “Fornaderi” Bresciani (XV−XVII sec.)”. In Dal Basso Fuoco all’Altoforno. Atti del I simposio Valle Camonica, 1988, La Siderurgia nell’Antichità. Ninina Cuomo di Caprio and Carlo Simoni (eds.). Brescia: Grafo. 127−45. Bauce, Federico. 2005. Economia e società ad Arzignano alla fine del Medioevo. Master’s degree thesis. Supervisor: R. C. Mueller, Università Ca’ Foscari di ­Venezia, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, A.A. 2004/2005. Bauce, Federico. 2009. Crescita e declino economico in una città di Antico Regime. Il caso di Brescia tra la fine del Quattrocento e la seconda metà del Cinquecento. PhD thesis in economic history (XXII° cicle), Università degli studi di Verona. Supervisors: Maurizio Pegrari and Edoardo Demo. Belfanti, Carlo Marco. 1999. “Ferro e Lana, Seta e Cotone. Manifatture e I­ ndustrie Lungo il Corso dell’Oglio (sec. XVI−XIX)”. In Rive e Rivali. Il Fiume Oglio e il suo Territorio. Carla Boroni, Sergio Onger, and Maurizio Pegrari (eds.). ­Roccafranca: La compagnia della stampa. 227−38. Belfanti, Carlo Marco. 1999b. “Una Catena di Mestieri. La Filiera delle Armi nel Bresciano (Secoli XVI−XVIII)”. In Corporazioni e Gruppi Professionali ­nell’Italia Moderna. Alberto Guenzi, Paola Massa, and Angelo Moioli (eds.). Milano: Franco Angeli. 404−20. Bellabarba, Marco. 1999. “Giurisdizione e comunità: Folgaria contro Lastebasse. Un caso di conflitto confinario fra Impero asburgico e Repubblica di Venezia (XVII−XVIII secolo)”. In Sistemi di Potere e poteri delle istituzioni: teorie e pratiche dello Stato nell’Europa mediterranea con speciale riferimento all’area adriatica in età moderna. Koper: Znanstveno-raziskovalno sredisce Republike Slovenije. 233−56.

Military costs and rural public economy  35 Beltrami, Daniele. 1961. Forze di Lavoro e Proprietà Fondiarie nelle Campagne Venete dei Secoli XVI e XVIII. Venice-Rome: Istituto per la collaborazione culturale. Berengo, Marino. 1975. “Introduzione”. In Tarello, Camillo. Ricordo d’agricoltura. Marino Berengo (ed.). Turin: Einaudi. Bianchi, Francesco. 2009. “Una Società di Montagna in una Terra di Confine: l’Altopiano dei Sette Comuni Vicentini nel Primo Cinquecento”. In Questioni di Confine e Terre di Frontiera in Area Veneta. Secoli XVI−XVIII. Walter Panciera (ed.). Milan: Franco Angeli. 19−88. Borelli, Giorgio. 1983. “Una Civiltà Lacuale in Età Preindustriale: Alcuni Problemi Economico-Sociali”. In Un lago, una civiltà, il Garda, Vol. II. Giorgio Borelli (ed.). Verona: Fiorini. 191−232. Borelli, Giorgio, ed. 1983b. Un lago, una civiltà, il Garda, Vol. II. Verona: Fiorini. Boroni, Carla, Sergio Onger, and Maurizio Pegrari, eds. 1999. Rive e Rivali. Il Fiume Oglio e il suo Territorio. Roccafranca: La compagnia della stampa. Borromeo, Agostino. 1998. La Valtellina crocevia dell’Europa: Politica e religione nell’età della Guerra dei Trent’anni. Milano: Mondadori. Caliaro, Luigi. 1954. Il Comune di Durlo. Storia di una Villa Vicentina dal Secolo XIV al Secolo XIX. Vicenza: Rumor. Campagnaro, Marina. 2002. La Costruzione delle Fortezze di Legnago e Porto nel Cinquecento. Verona: Anabasi. Carlotto, Natasha L. 1989. “I Passipaga. Profilo dei Cittadini del Contado ­Vicentino nel XV Secolo”. In Storia di Vicenza, III/1. L’età della Repubblica Veneta (1404–1797). 320−34. Castagnetti, Andrea. 1983. “Le Comunità della Regione Gardense fra Potere Centrale, Governi Cittadini e Autonomie nel Medioevo (Secoli VIII−XIV)”. In Un lago, una civiltà, il Garda. Giorgio Borelli (ed.). Verona: Fiorini. 31−114. Clerici, Luca. 2004. “Fiere e Mercati: Geo-Economia degli Scambi nel Medioevo e in Età Moderna”. In L’industria Vicentina dal Medioevo ad Oggi. Giovanni Luigi Fontana (ed.). Vicenza: CLEUP. 127−86. Cocco, Felice, Scorzato, Emanuela, Mantese, Giovanni, Dall’Olmo, Angela, and Gasparella, Renato. 1979. Malo e il suo Monte. Storie e Vita di due Comunità. Vicenza: Amministrazione Comunale di Malo. Cogo, Mariangela. 1999. Malo. Il Volto e l’Anima. Schio: Amministrazione Comunale di Malo. Demo, Edoardo. 2001. L’Anima della Città: l’Industria Tessile a Verona e Vicenza: 1400−1550. Milan: Unicopli. Demo, Edoardo. 2004. Le Manifatture tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna. In L’Industria Vicentina dal Medioevo ad Oggi. Giovanni Luigi Fontana (ed.). Vicenza: CLEUP. 21−126. Demo, Edoardo. 2013. “Manifattura vs Agricoltura: la Difficile Gestione delle ­Acque nella Pedemontana Veneta della Prima Età Moderna”. In Quando Manca il Pane. Origini e Cause della Scarsità delle Risorse Alimentari in Età Moderna e Contemporanea. Luca Mocarelli (ed.). Bologna: Il Mulino. 19−34. Demo, Edoardo. 2013b. “Industry and Production in the Venetian Terraferma (15th–18th Centuries)”. In A Companion to Venetian History, 1400−1797. Eric R. Dursteler (ed.). Leiden-Boston: Brill. 291−318.

36  Venetian military structure Domenicetti, Rodomonte. 1580. Descrizione della Riviera del Benaco. Piercarlo Belotti, Gianfranco Ligasacchi, and Giuseppe Scarazzini (eds.). Ateneo di Salò: Associazione il sommolago. Franzoni, Oliviero. 1991. “La Ferrarezza Camuna in Epoca Veneta”. In Dal Basso Fuoco all’Altoforno. Atti del I simposio Valle Camonica, 1988, La Siderurgia nell’Antichità. Ninina Cuomo di Caprio and Carlo Simoni (eds.). Brescia: Grafo. 153−73. Fornasa, Silvano. 2001. La Valle dell’Agno in Età Moderna. Valdagno: Comune di Valdagno. Fornasa, Silvano. 2013. “Creazzo in Età Moderna: Economia, Società, Politica”. In Storia di Creazzo. Dal Mille al 1818. Michael Knapton (ed.). Vicenza: Edizioni Mediafactory. Giussani, Antonio. 1940. La Rivoluzione Valtellinese del 19 luglio 1620. Milan: Giuffrè. Grubb, James S. 1989. “Comune Privilegiato e Comune dei Privilegiati”. In Storia di Vicenza, III/1. L’età della Repubblica Veneta (1404–1797). Alberto Broglio and Lellia Cracco Ruggini (eds.) Vicenza: Neri Pozza. 45−65. Knapton, Michael. 1981. “L’Organizzazione Fiscale di Base nello Stato Veneziano: Estimi e Obblighi Fiscali a Lisiera fra ‘500 e ‘600”. In Lisiera: Immagini, Documenti e Problemi per la Storia di una Comunità Veneta: Strutture, Congiunture, Episodi. Claudio Povolo (ed.). Lisiera: Parrocchia. 377−418. Knapton, Michael. 1984. “Il Territorio Vicentino nello Stato Veneto del ‘500 e Primo ‘600: Nuovi Equilibri Politici e Fiscali”. In Dentro lo “Stado Italico”. Venezia e la Terraferma fra Quattro e Seicento. Giorgio Cracco, and Michael Knapton (eds.). Trento: Gruppo Culturale Civis. 33−115. Lanaro, Paola. 1983. “La Pesca sul Garda in Età Moderna: Aspetti Giuridici, ­Sociali ed Economici”. In Un lago, una Civiltà, il Garda. Giorgio Borelli (ed.). Verona: Fiorini. 295−326. Lavarda, Sergio. 2009. “‘Il Primo Confin Contentioso’. Le Montagne tra Astico e Posina in Età Moderna”. In Questioni di Confine e Terre di Frontiera in Area Veneta. Secoli XVI−XVIII. Walter Panciera (ed.). Milan: Franco Angeli. 117−46. Mallett, Michael, and Hale, John R. 1984. The military organisation of a Renaissance state: Venice from 1400 to 1617. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mantese, Giovanni. 1955. Storia di Schio. Vicenza: Neri Pozza. Mattozzi, Ivo. 1995. “Il Distretto Cartario dello Stato Veneziano: Lavoro e ­Produzione nella Valle del Toscolano dal XIV al XVIII Secolo”. In Cartai e Stampatori a Toscolano: Vicende, Uomini, Paesaggi di una Tradizione Produttiva. Carlo Simoni (ed.). Brescia: Grafo. 23−65. Mattozzi, Ivo. 2001. “Le Cartiere nello Stato Veneziano: una Storia tra Strutture e Congiunture (1450−1797)”. In Mulini da Carta. Le Cartiere dell’Alto Garda. Tini e Torchi tra Trento e Venezia. Mauro Grazioli, Ivo Mattozzi and Ennio Sandal (eds.). Verona: Cartiere Fedrigoni. 97−161. Montanari, Daniele. 2005. Quelle Terre al di là del Mincio. Brescia e il Contado in Età Veneta. Brescia: Grafo. Ongaro, Giulio. 2016. “L’Impatto Economico nell’Alta Valcamonica della ­Campagna Franco-Veneta di Valtellina”. In I Cannoni di Guspessa. Edolo, Cortenedolo e Mu alle Soglie della Guerra dei Trent’Anni (1624−1625). Simone

Military costs and rural public economy  37 Signaroli and Giulio Ongaro (eds.). Breno: Servizio Archivistico Comprensoriale di Valcamonica. 19−31. Onger, Sergio, ed. 2007. Il Mercato del Lago. Desenzano del Garda in Età Moderna e Contemporanea. Brescia: Grafo. Panciera, Walter, ed. 2009. Questioni di Confine e Terre di Frontiera in Area ­Veneta. Secoli XVI−XVIII. Milan: Franco Angeli. Panciera, Walter. 2009b. “Il Confine tra Veneto e Tirolo nella Parte Orientale dell’Altopiano di Asiago tra il XVI e il XVIII Secolo”. In Questioni di Confine e Terre di Frontiera in Area Veneta. Secoli XVI−XVIII. Walter Panciera (ed.). Milan: Franco Angeli. 147−80. Paris, Ivan. 2007. “Economia e Mercato nell’Area Gardesana negli Ultimi Cinque Secoli. Il Caso di Desenzano”. In Il Mercato del Lago. Desenzano del Garda in Età Moderna e Contemporanea. Sergio Onger (ed.). Brescia: Grafo. 13−14. Parrott, David. 1997. The Mantuan succession, 1627−1631: A sovereignty dispute in early modern Europe. English Historical Review cxii:20−65. Pastore, Alessandro. 1994. “Domanda e Offerta di Cambiamento Religioso in un’Area di Frontiera: la Valtellina fra Cinquecento e Seicento”. Archivio Storico Ticinese 115 (June):17−28. Pastore, Alessandro. 1995. “Riti di Violenza Popolare negli Scontri di Religione in Valtellina”. In Cultura d’Élite e Cultura Popolare nell’Arco Alpino fra Cinque e Seicento. Ottavio Besomi and Carlo Caruso (eds.). Basel-Boston-Berlin: Birkhauser. 57−79. Pegrari, Maurizio. 1999. “Gli Uomini e le Acque alla Periferia della Serenissima: il Territorio Bresciano tra Appartenenza e Fedeltà (sec. XV−XVIII)”. In Rive e ­rivali. Il fiume Oglio e il suo territorio. Carla Boroni, Sergio Onger, and M ­ aurizio Pegrari (eds.). Roccafranca: La compagnia della stampa. 201−13. Pellizzari, Giovanni, and Ivan Bendinoni. 2011. Ai Confini della Magnifica Patria: gli Altopiani Settentrionali. Tremosine: Ateneo di Salò. Pezzolo, Luciano. 1990. L’Oro dello Stato. Società, Finanza e Fisco nella Repubblica Veneta del Secondo ’500. Venice: Il Cardo. Pezzolo, Luciano. 2011. La Storia Agraria Veneta. Risultati, Ipotesi e Prospettive. Archivio Veneto 142:79−110. Pitteri, Mauro. 2006. “I Confini della Repubblica di Venezia. Linee Generali di Poli­tica Confinaria (1554−1786)”. In Alle Frontiere della Lombardia. Politica, Guerra e Religione nell’Età Moderna. Claudio Donati (ed.). Milan: Franco ­A ngeli. 259−88. Pizzeghello, Jacopo. 1999. “Tra Salvaguardia del ‘Publico’ ed Aspirazioni P ­ ersonali: Carriera del Provveditore ai Confini Francesco Caldogno”. Studi Veneziani XXXVII:123−62. Pizzeghello, Jacopo. 2008. L’Onesto Accomodamento. Il Congresso di Rovereto del 1605 e il Confine Veneto sulle Montagne Vicentine. Padua: Il Prato. Pizzeghello, Jacopo. 2009. “Delimitare dal Centro. Nicolò Contarini e il Confine Montano Vicentino al Congresso di Rovereto del 1605”. In Questioni di Confine e Terre di Frontiera in Area Veneta. Secoli XVI−XVIII. Walter Panciera (ed.). Milan: Franco Angeli. 89−116. Preto, Paolo. 1981. La Valle del Chiampo: Vita civile ed Economica in Età ­Moderna e Contemporanea. Vicenza: Neri Pozza.

38  Venetian military structure Preto, Paolo. 1981b. “La Valle del Chiampo nell’Età della Repubblica di Venezia (1404−1797)”. In La Valle del Chiampo: Vita Civile ed Economica in Età Moderna e Contemporanea. Paolo Preto (ed.). Vicenza: Neri Pozza. 31−133. Rossini, Alessandra. 1994. Le Campagne Bresciane nel Cinquecento. Territorio, Fisco, Società. Milan: Franco Angeli. Savio, Andrea. 2016. “Vicenza. Da Cambrai alla guerra dei Trent’anni”. In ­Storia dell’archiettura nel Veneto – Il Cinquecento. Donata Battilotti, Guido ­B eltramini, Edoardo Demo, Walter Panciera (eds.). Venice: Marsilio. 155−9. Sella, Domenico. 2009. “The Iron Industry in Italy, 1500−1650”. In Trade and Industry in Early Modern Italy. Domenico Sella (ed.). Burlington: Ashgate. 91−105. Spada, Emilio. 1979. Bedizzole: Antichità Romane e Nuovo Studio Storico. ­Brescia: Queriniana. Varanini, Gian Maria. 1988. “Vicenza nel Trecento. Istituzioni, Classe Dirigente, Economia (1312−1404)”. In Storia di Vicenza, v. 2, L’Età Medievale. Vicenza: Neri Pozza. 139−245. Ventura, Angelo. 1970. “Considerazioni sull’Agricoltura Veneta e sull’Accumulazione Originaria del Capitale nei Secoli XVI e XVII”. In Agricoltura e sviluppo del capitalismo, Atti del Convegno. Rome: Istituto Gramsci. 675−722. Ventura, Angelo. 1993. Nobiltà e Popolo nella Società Veneta del Quattrocento e Cinquecento. Milan: Unicopli. Vergani, Raffaello. 1989. “Miniere e Metalli nell’Alto Vicentino”. In Storia di ­Vicenza, III/1. L’Età della Repubblica Veneta (1404–1797). Franco Barbieri and Paolo Preto (eds.). Vicenza: Neri Pozza. 301−17. Vergani, Raffaello. 2003. “Lavoro e Lavoratori nelle Miniere Venete dei Secoli XV e XVI”. In Miniere e Società nella Montagna del Passato. Alpi Venete, secoli XIII−XIX. Raffaello Vergani (ed.). Sommacampagna: Cierre. 121−36. Vianello, Francesco. 2004. Seta Fine e Panni Grossi: Manifatture e Commerci nel Vicentino, 1570−1700. Milan: Franco Angeli. Vianello, Francesco. 2008. “Acque e Irrigazione tra Bacchiglione e Astico”. In Il Bacchiglione. Francesco Selmin and Claudio Grandis (eds.). Verona: Cierre. Zalin, Giovanni. 1983. “Tra Serre, Opifici e Fucine. Le Tipiche Attività di ­Produzione e di Trasformazione nella Riviera Benacense, Sec. XV−XVIII”. In Un Lago, una Civiltà, il Garda. Giorgio Borelli (ed.). Verona: Fiorini. 329−74. Zamperetti, Sergio. 1981. “Per una Storia delle Istituzioni Rurali nella ­Terraferma Veneta: Il Contado Vicentino nei Secoli XVI e XVII”.  In Stato, Società e ­Giustizia nella Repubblica veneta (secc. XV−XVIII). Gaetano Cozzi (ed.). Rome: Jouvence. 61−131. Zamperetti, Sergio. 1981b. “Aspetti e Problemi delle Comunità del Territorio ­Vicentino durante il XVI Secolo nell’Ambito dei Rapporti Citta-Contado nello Stato Regionale Veneto”. In Lisiera: Immagini, Documenti e Problemi per la Storia di una Comunità Veneta: Strutture, Congiunture, Episodi. Claudio ­Povolo (ed.). Lisiera: Parrocchia. 503−32. Zamperetti, Sergio. 1989. “Poteri Locali e Governo Centrale in una Città Suddita d’Antico Regime dal dopo Cambrai al Primo Seicento”. In Storia di Vicenza, vol. III/I. L’età della Repubblica Veneta (1404–1797). Vicenza: Neri Pozza. 67−113. Zannini, Andrea. 2010. Sempre più Agricola, Sempre più Regionale. L’Economia della Repubblica di Venezia da Agnadello al Lombardo Veneto (1509−1817). ­Ateneo Veneto CXCVII (terza serie 9/I):137−71.

2 Construction of the military structure

The data configured and analysed in Chapter 1 underlined the ­important changes in the nature of the involvement of rural communities in the management of the Venetian military structure during the sixteenth and ­seventeenth centuries, shedding new light on the state’s changing military needs and costs, which differed from province to province. To analyse the evolution of the Venetian military apparatus, its management in the Mainland Dominion and the interaction between state and local needs (especially in economic terms), it is important to understand the character of the changes. This chapter will concentrate on changes that occurred during the sixteenth century. Unsurprisingly, conditions of war affected the trend of military costs in this century; apart from the particularly expensive defence of the Dominio da Mar against the Ottoman Empire in the 1570s, the second half of the sixteenth century generally was a period of quiet in the military affairs of the Republic. If we attempt to establish a definite chronology, it is accurate to suggest that until about the War of Gradisca in 1615 the military foundation of the Republic was under construction (Hale 1990). Looking at the province of Vicenza, as at the province of Brescia, military expenses revolved around the enrolment and the equipment of the rural militia, the payment of labourers sent to build fortresses, the erection of saltpetre storehouses and the payment of oarsmen for the War of Cyprus. An analysis of the nature of the costs incurred in the diverse provinces requires independent explorations of each cost.

Rural militia The organisation and the management of the cernide was one of the ­recurrent sources of military expenses. The origin of this overhead was the manner of the rural militia management by the Venetian body politic, but the evolution of this typology of outlay was also affected by local influences. By the mid-point of the sixteenth century, the cernide were progressing steadily (Pezzolo 1983; Mallett and Hale 1984, 350−66; January and Knapton 2007, 81−3)1, which required a strong economic contribution to the purchasing of weapons2 and the organisation of frequent

40  Venetian military structure exercises, often with an inter-provincial element. As much as 50 per cent of the military expenditure of Schio between 1557 and 1558 was due to the maintenance of the cernide. The majority of this was based on sending representatives to reviews in various communities in the province of Vicenza, as well as in other places outside the province. In April 1557, the community paid 279 lire (plus an additional 280 lire and 10 soldi a few days later) to the militiamen for six days of reviewing at Isola della Scala, in the province of Verona. A second review in Isola della Scala the following October cost a­ nother 567 lire3. Overall arrangements were much the same for a number of years thereafter but with the exception of ‘general reviews’ in Vicenza, the reviews of the cernide ‘del Pe’ de Monte’ (‘of the piedmont area’) took place almost exclusively between Schio and Thiene. Consequently, costs were reduced by 50 per cent. Sending the militiamen from Schio to Thiene  – a neighbouring community – cost approximately 100 lire, including the maintenance of the reviewing field. These figures were only a fraction of what it cost to run reviews in Isola della Scala, for which training had to be more centralised and coordinated. Documents produced by the community of Durlo confirm this shift in review practices in the 1570s4. Unrelated to the stabilisation of the training, there was an increase of costs linked to the purchase of cuirasses and weapons in the 1570s and 1580s. The compartita per corsaletti (‘partition for the cuirasses’) became a regular item of expenditure in the books of Durlo and Schio; 89 lire in 1557, 97 lire in 1570, increasing to 408 lire in 15825. If the militiamen received a part of their equipment from the Corpo Territoriale (limited to the cuirass and other articles of clothing), each community was expected to repair, substitute and purchase new weapons when the ranks swelled. Between 1557 and 1560, the Vicenza militia expanded from 1,875 to 2,400; between 1559 and 1599, the Corpo Territoriale – both the institution itself and each constituent community of the province – spent a total of approximately 67,000 lire on weapons for the cernide 6 . The purchase of weapons is the second item of expenditure – after the reviews – which fluctuated widely in the second half of the sixteenth century, especially when it came to the creation of the cernide di rispetto in the 1570s (Hale 1990, 200−1; January and Knapton 2007, 84−7), which was an auxiliary unit, a sort of reservist unit, but it still required training, weapons and armour. The introduction of this military innovation to the organisation of the cernide took a decade to manifest itself fully in local balance sheets; only in the 1580s did the enrolment of new soldiers lead to an increase in the purchase of weapons. In 1582, the Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza bought new morioni (helmets), while a few years earlier, in 1580, Schio spent 425 lire to enrol 13 soldati novi (new soldiers), bring them to Vicenza and equip them with harquebuses7. In Durlo, too, from 1582 onward four soldiers di rispetto appeared on the balance sheet, accompanied by four ordinary militiamen8. The rearrangement of the rural militia produced – at least in Schio – the occasion for the replacement of existing weapons in the 1580s. In 1580,

Construction of the military structure  41 13 new militiamen were inaugurated and the community bought 35 new harquebuses. The purchasing of harquebuses became a regular feature in the following years. In 1582, for example, ten new harquebuses bressani (from Brescia) were purchased, while between 1585 and 1586, there was widespread substitution of the old public harquebuses and pikes with new ones9. These measures, adopted at both the local and provincial levels, led to a general renewal of armours and weapons before the end of the 1580s, thanks to a corresponding evolution of war techniques. An inventory preserved in the archive of Schio and dated 1588 confirms this assertion; it catalogues the cuirasses, helmets, bends and gloves owned by the Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza, specifying the ‘old’ pieces, which were few. These dynamics were not exclusive to Vicenza. There are similar examples in the province of Brescia; e.g. in Gavardo, in 1578, 1582 and 1583, the community council issued similar provisions, likewise Bedizzole, where documents refer specifically to weapons pro militibus de novo admissis (‘for the soldiers just enlisted’)10. Maderno underwent the same process of change while the Camonica Valley was a dozen years ahead of their counterparts. Between the end of 1560 and the beginning of 1561, the Valley bought 150 new harquebuses and seven new muskets11. These examples do not mean that the upgrading of pikes, harquebuses, muskets and so on was confined to these years. The books of expenditure of Schio, Durlo, Tremosine, Bedizzole and single payments in Malo, Gavardo and Camonica Valley show that dozens of lire (in the biggest communities) were set aside annually for such payments. Nevertheless, the data discussed here demonstrate that the 1580s were characterised by a strong economic commitment in this area, that it involved the local and provincial levels of the military structure, and that it was part of a project aiming towards complete organisational and logistic renewal. The cost of weapons and armours was a fundamental variable in defining the effect of the burdens linked to the rural militia on the total military expenditure, which is why local expenditures could substantially increase in times of structural changes (1570s−1580s). In addition to ‘ordinary’ expenditure – represented by review payments, the reparation of weapons and so on – there were ­occasional ‘extraordinary’ expenditures, in which demands from the Corpo Territoriale played a crucial role. In this sense, the creation in 1618 of a new component of the rural militia in the piedmont area of Vicenza – one that we will examine subsequently – affected substantially local finances. Other costs linked to the rural militia were the maintenance of review fields, the captain’s quarters, the standard-bearer’s insignia and, for the host community, the duty to lodge soldiers coming from bordering areas for reviews. In addition to reviews and training, there was the question of the ­effective use of militiamen on the battlefield. The War of Gradisca (Vigato 1994; Gaddi-Zannini 2008; Gaddi 2012) represented the occasion of the most extensive use of rural soldiers in the field and as garrison members in

42  Venetian military structure fortresses, but there were other similar situations in the sixteenth century. In July 1566, for example, Venice ordered Vicenza to send 300 men to the capital ‘to serve where necessary’, while in January 1569, 250 militiamen were requested as a garrison for Cyprus. A year later, the Captain of Vicenza asked for another 300 soldiers of the cernide to send to Zara (1,000 were conscripted in the whole of the Terraferma), but a countermanding order was issued shortly thereafter12 . These incidents refer to ­Vicenza – even if the orders I referred to above were directed to the whole of the Terraferma – but similar episodes applied to Brescia; for example, in March 1567, the community of Leno sent 30 soldiers to man the fortress of Asola13. The value and usefulness of this component of the Venetian army should, therefore, be reconsidered; their role was important in both the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In both the 1500s and 1600s, the militiamen also guarded mountain villages and passes (Pezzolo 1983, 70). In the 1560s, a legal dispute arose in Vicenza between Schio, San Vito di Leguzzano, Malo and Thiene because of the division of guard duties that called for protecting the the Pian delle Fugazze and Borcola passes, which bordered the imperial territories14. The dispute was a symptom of latent conflicts but it also showed how the employment of rural soldiers, especially against smuggling, was constant and extended. In Brescia, the militiamen of Camonica Valley, Gavardo, Bedizzole and Maderno were put to similar use (Ongaro 2016b). Finally, the most direct link between rural militia and local finances was the tax exemption enjoyed by the militiamen and their relatives (Pezzolo 1983, 71). There were regular legal disputes between communities and militiamen on this topic; it is difficult to estimate how much these exemptions affected local balance sheets, even if the frequency of conflicts suggests that there was something serious at stake. This tax exemption enjoyed by the militiamen was yet another area in which the creation of a new rural militia at the start of the seventeenth century impinged on local finances and, in this case, provoked ongoing legal disputes.

Sappers and fortresses As was happening in other European areas (Roberts 1956; Parker 1976, 1988; Duffy 1979) during the sixteenth century – especially during the second half of the century – the Republic of Venice invested an enormous amount of money in the modernisation of fortresses (Map 2.1). The building of Legnago began early in the century and resulted in the introduction of the eponymous tax in 1528 (Campagnaro 2002). Work started in the other cities of the Mainland Dominion soon after: Verona (Hale 1990, 269), Peschiera del Garda (Pezzolo 1990, 139; Hale 1990, 269) and ­B ergamo all followed suit, while 1593 saw the start of building work on Palmanova (Pezzolo 1990, 140−4; Hale 1990, 271). The medieval walls of Vicenza remained, for the most part, untouched. In the 1630s, the

Construction of the military structure  43

Map 2.1  M ain fortresses in the Republic of Venice (at the beginning of the 17th century).

Republic modernised some parts of the defence system of the city through the construction of a fortress on Monte Berico, a nearby hill. This spate of building clearly explains the frequent appearance of construction-related expenses in community documents in the second half of the sixteenth century. They usually consisted of requests for monetary contributions, along with requests for men, with amounts varying from building site to building site. In contrast to the other items of expenditure listed in these pages, these building expenses appear more or less exclusively in the sixteenth century, disappearing almost entirely thereafter, which does not mean that interventions in fortresses were not carried out in the seventeenth century. In May and June 1633, the communities of the province of Brescia sent men to work at the city fortress, while men were sent to Montichiari for the same reason in 1633 and again in 163715. However, only small maintenance works were involved on these occasions, requiring just a small, local workforce. The impressive fortress building and modernisation, which involved all the Mainland Dominion in the second half of the sixteenth century, was of quite a different order. Since the mid-sixteenth century, the province of Vicenza was involved in the excavation of the fosses16 of V ­ erona; in March 1549, the Captain of the city communicated to the Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza the portion – 1,498 – of pertiche (measurement unit) for the province, which was then divided among the communities17. In the following decades, this item was the most frequent expenditure linked to fortresses. It was representative of the work on building sites until it was overtaken in the 1590s by the considerable economic and human resources committed to initiating the works of Palmanova. From September 1549, the building site of Peschiera worked hand-in-hand with that of Verona; 212

44  Venetian military structure sappers were conscripted from the province of Vicenza on this occasion18. Between September and November 1549, the first men reached Peschiera, while workers from some communities – such as Schio and Thiene – were delayed19. Such requests continued, at least for the short term. On 13 May 1550, Giuseppe da Chiuppano was sent from Schio to Peschiera to accomplish ‘operas ad fabricam opidi Pischeriae’. His salary was apparently somewhat higher – ‘marculis sexdecem per quaquae opera’ – than the common 15 soldi per day sapper salary20. There is no proof that workers from Brescia assisted in the building at Verona, although geographical proximity makes it likely that they did participate. There is no such doubt about their work at Peschiera, however. Maderno sent sappers to Peschiera in September 1549 and again in February and April 1550. In December, the same community sent also some ‘barcaroli’ (boatmen) to the fortress21. Nineteen sappers came from Gavardo in September of the same year, and many diggers from the Camonica Valley contributed to the same building site between 1549 and 157022 . Turning our attention back to the province of Vicenza, between 1558 and 1571 the volume of requests coming from the Republic was linked to the excavation of the fosses of Verona. The level of economic commitment involved is evident from the rate of investment in fortresses by Schio between the middle of the sixteenth century and the start of the seventeenth century (Figure 2.1). It is clear that 1562 saw a great increase in expenditure, which can be ascribed to a particularly intense phase of work in Verona. Meetings between the agents of the Corpo Territoriale were frequent, as they travelled to Verona to calculate their portion of the pertiche and to discuss payments with the Captain of the city. This situation was 13 years after the start of building in Verona, demonstrating that Venetian officials struggled to apply their orders and that the 800 700 600 LIRE

500 400 300 200 100 0

YEARS

Figure 2.1  E xpenses for sappers and fortresses in Schio, undeflated lire (1557−1582/1604−1610). Sources: ACSc, bb. 36–53.

Construction of the military structure  45 fortress of Verona was strategically important. This case is unusual because of the particular interest shown by community agents and officials of the Corpo Territoriale (only in the construction of Palmanova did a similar scenario emerge elsewhere). In the years that followed, a very different situation emerged in Bergamo, where the involvement of the local institution was limited to the sending of sappers and payments. The exceptional circumstances in Verona eventually reverted to something more similar to the situation in Bergamo. Vicenza was involved in work on the fosses of Bergamo from the 1580s. In January 1580, Schio sent seven sappers, on a monthly salary of six ducats each. From October 1586 the number of sappers increased to 1623. Even though Schio was contributing to two building sites simultaneously (from 1581, the community also had to pay arrears on the fortress originally constructed at Padua between 1515 and 151924), overall costs were less than they had been during work at Verona, which had involved several building sites. Brescia was also involved in modernising the defensive structures of Bergamo. The archive of the Camonica Valley holds the ‘Libro dei guastatori’ (book of sappers) sent to the capital of the neighbouring province. The book, which is dated 1586, details the names of the sappers, divided by village provenance, the payment they received and the price of picks and shovels that the communities had to provide25. In 1561, 67 men left the Riviera of Salò for Bergamo; as well as the increased participation of the Riviera in the building at Bergamo, it is interesting to note that payments were made directly to the Venetian Treasury in Salò. The payment of sappers going from Maderno to Bergamo provides a case in point. The scarcity of volunteers forced the communities to provide increased wages as an incentive26. In September and October of the same year, Leno sent three groups of 16 to 1827. There is evidence, then, that building at Bergamo began prior to the 1580s but it seems that provi­ nces, which were at a greater distance, such as Vicenza and the Valleys, only became involved after 20 years of activity. Indeed, as early as 1561, there was the conscription of 1,000 sappers and 200 ‘spezzamonti’ (miners) from Brescia (Rossini 1994, 246; Hale 1990, 270; Pezzolo 1990, 139−40). Two conclusions can be drawn at this point: first, the communities supplied workers independently, without intervention by a middleman; ­second, initial distinctions in the demands placed on the communities with respect to exemptions and privileges eventually dissipated – the Riviera of Salò and the Valleys in the province of Brescia, along with the tableland of Asiago in the province of Vicenza, sent their quota of sappers in due course. These two factors played a part in shaping military expenditure and will be analysed in the following pages. The construction work at Palmanova differs from that at Peschiera, ­Verona and Bergamo in that there was less involvement of peasants from the other provinces. For example, the communities of Schio, Malo, Leno and Gavardo tried to subcontract their ration of work. In March 1596, Schio complained of a shortage of labourers to send to sites but given that there

46  Venetian military structure was criticism of eight of their sappers who fled Palmanova in ­December, there is little likelihood that the demands on the village were eased 28. In 1595 the community council of Leno decided to send an agent to ­Palmanova to subcontract 500 paces of fosses that the village was expected to contribute to building work29. The contract was signed the following month but must not have been fulfilled because in December 1595 the ­Captain of Brescia ordered sappers from Leno to the site. The Camonica Valley sent specialist miners to Palma from the beginning of work there30. In 1595 the Valley sent 95 sappers – out of a total of 1,400 Brescian workers. It is unclear if Gavardo sent workers, but members of that community did pay a ‘nova compartita … ad excavationes fociarum Palme’ in 160031. The isolated ­Tremosine also participated in the construction of the new fortress, meaning that every territory in the Mainland Dominion – including the most privileged – were involved in this building project (Pellizzari and Bendinoni 2011, 125). Unfortunately, it is not easy to precisely quantify the cost of the construction of Palmanova or to directly link items of community expenditure to the project. The nature of the sources we are working with is the first stumbling block; Schio’s books of expenditure, for example, are incomplete for the 1590s, Magrè’s books deal only with the seventeenth century and Bedizzole’s books are very generalised. The exact composition of expenses is also difficult to decipher because often a single invoice of expenditure included payment of sappers, fees for officials arranging subcontracting and costs borne by the Corpi Territoriali before being shared among the provinces. The inability to clearly analyse these expenses is not so relevant for our analysis because the costs borne by the communities for the construction of Palmanova – in spite of being certainly substantial – did not cause significant peaks in community spending (i.e. community spending remained high, but without significant modifications). Furthermore, it is important to underline that the construction of new fortresses and the modernisation of existing buildings were undertaken almost exclusively in the second half of the sixteenth century. The books of expenditure of Durlo confirm as much, given that the last cost incurred in relation to Palmanova was the deployment of sappers during the first phase of the work. Again, notably, after 1599, there was no indication of direct payments for Palmanova in the local balance sheets – probably because they were incorporated under generalised categories adopted by the Corpo Territoriale32 . This situation was similar to the one regarding the cernide. From 1599, however, community workers were no longer paid by their own village but by the relevant provincial institution. The cost of fortress building seemed to be a function of size rather than the number of sites. The words of a petition sent in 1602 to the Doge from the province of Vicenza are quite evocative in this regard: Our contribution to the fortress of Palmanova has been 100,000 ducats so far and we have also been contributing to the excavation of the

Construction of the military structure  47 fosses of Verona, Peschiera and Bergamo, when provinces like Polesine, Padua and Treviso were exempted … other work undertaken by us cost 200,000 ducats, not to mention 35,000 ducats of ordinary taxes33. These kinds of costs decreased in the seventeenth century, with the exception of the protracted work at Palmanova and the repairs to the walls of Vicenza in the 1630s. The enormous commitments of the previous century no longer existed, however. Superficially at least, the two provinces heretofore scrutinised most closely in this research seemed to experience an analogous involvement – even if the chronology was not always simultaneous – in the modernisation of the defensive underpinning of the Republic of Venice. However, there is an important difference between them: their respective attitudes to small fortresses in specific rural communities. In Vicenza, with the exception of the castles of Lonigo and Marostica, the Almost Serene did not tolerate the presence of local defensive structures. Brescia’s border position allowed rural communities to maintain their castles through the seventeenth century. In the local balance sheets, the maintenance of castles in the province of Brescia meant the presence of adjunctive costs for the maintenance of walls, towers, gates and drawbridges, periodically objects of conservative interventions. There was a castle in both Leno and Maderno, where the community council supported numerous projects between 1573 and 161134. Unsurprisingly, given its importance as a corridor between the Grison and German territories, the Camonica Valley also had many defensive structures; in March 1545, the Republic ordered that they should be catalogued and reviewed35. Similarly, Bedizzole had its own castle, which was renovated on many occasions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, on one occasion in response to a direct order by the Captain of the Riviera of Salò, which is clear proof that the Venetian officials paid attention to the maintenance of the defensive structures in this area36. The associated costs were minor in comparison to the construction of fortresses like Peschiera or Palmanova – in the case of Bedizzole, only a few dozen lire were involved. Nonetheless, the associated costs for the maintenance of the local small defensive structures in the province of ­Brescia were a symptom of the greater military immersion in the area. They were also accumulative burdens, to be aggregated with the other costs discussed above.

Saltpetre production In sixteenth-century warfare, artillery played a crucial role; therefore, the production of saltpetre – the basic element of gunpowder – was one of the main challenges faced by governments of the time (Panciera 2005, 2006). The categorisation of the costs linked to the production of saltpetre was of a different character to previous military enterprises, mainly due to the ‘itinerant’ nature of production itself. Therefore, while it is certainly

48  Venetian military structure important to evaluate the overall costs involved, the specific details are crucial to understanding the full process. These costs included both payments within a community – for carters, storehouses and producers’ lodgings – and payments to external communities. Refunds to communities where production occurred took two forms; they could be paid directly from one community to another, but they were more likely to be managed by the Corpi Territoriali. There are copious records relating to saltpetre expenditure in Vicenza but local balance sheets, even when taken together, cannot provide an entirely accurate account of the financial perspective of the production process. Furthermore, judging them on their own merits would produce the illusion that these costs remained within the communities when that was simply not the case. As with the other costs that concern us, saltpetre was subject to irregular trends, thanks to the concentration of production in specific places at specific times. The provision of accommodation for the producer and the construction of storage facilities, or lack thereof, were other important variables that must be factored into the equation. The second half of the sixteenth century seems to have been a particularly important period in the evolution of the saltpetre production business. In January 1602, the peasants of Vicenza, in their petition to the Doge, wrote that ‘eight storehouses for the saltpetre producer’ were recently constructed in the countryside37. Similar dynamics were at work in Brescia where communities were heavily involved in the construction of structures facilitating saltpetre production in the fifty years between 1560 and 1610. Just as military foundations involving the cernide and fortresses were put in place in the sixteenth century, the saltpetre production system was constructed at the same time. The archive of the Corpo Territoriale is home to detailed records of the allocation of the costs between the rural communities of Vicenza from 1559 to 1612. The vast sum of 260,000 lire was spent in the years between 1559 and 1598 alone38 – this was due to a combination of the necessity to construct from scratch eight structures required by the Republic for the storing of saltpetre and its provision throughout the state’s territory, along with the necessity to meet additional requests coming directly from saltpetre producers. The eight tezzoni (storehouses) in the province of Vicenza were almost certainly located in Malo, Schio, Valdagno, Arzignano, Thiene, Sandrigo, Marostica and Camisano (Map 2.3); this is the picture that emerges from the contract between the Republic and the saltpetre producer Cesare Tibaldo in 162639. These structures were built between 1559 and 1590, with most of the work done at the end of the 1570s through the 1580s. In June 1586, the Corpo Territoriale asked the Captain of Vicenza for the license to build the eighth tezzone, while the other seven were ‘already built’40. The distribution of costs as reported in the archive of the rural institution confirms this request; in May 1579, a ducal order reminded the agents of the Corpo Territoriale of the order to make eight storehouses and stressed that ‘it is our will that with

Construction of the military structure  49 these good times the storehouses should be done as soon as possible’41. In the following years, the pattern of payments attests to the application of the Doge’s will. In A ­ ugust 1580, the Corpo Territoriale bought a site in Malo on which to build a home for the saltpetre producer. The house and warehouse were erected between October and December. In Marostica, there was a payment in 1582 for ‘the rent payed [by Marostica] for keeping the terrain covered in the years 1580−1581’, meaning that their storehouse had not yet been built. In Thiene, the land for the house and the storehouse was purchased in 1581. Work on the storage facility commenced in August 1582 and finished 12 months later. Between May and June 1583, the house was built and the site was subcontracted. Work started in ­Camisano in ­November 1583, when the Corpo Territoriale lent 50 ducats to the community ‘to fix a place for the saltpetre producer’. Another 50 ducats were forthcoming in February 1584 ‘for the storehouse that is being built in that place’. Schio’s turn came in 1585. The pattern was similar, with the purchase of land between February and March followed by communal construction of the house. In November 1585, building started at Sandrigo. There is little specific evidence for Arzignano and Valdagno. Valdagno, however, was probably the eighth tezzone to be completed in 1586, because the final production infrastructure constructed in that year was located in the ‘Dresseno valley’ – known today as the valley of Trissino, where Valdagno is situated42 . With the exception of Valdagno, all the other building projects began in the first half of the 1580s, although work continued through the 1590s and even into the first decade of the seventeenth century. The final stage of the project involved mainly adjustments of roofs, burner boilers and locks. These were small jobs, then, but constant sources of expenditure. Sources from Brescia are not as revealing but they provide enough information to construct a chronology of developments. In 1581, an agreement was struck between the Treasury of the community of Leno and the agents of the Quadra of Manerbio for the subdivision of the 500 ducats needed for the building of the local storehouse43. In 1584, the inhabitants of Leno claimed to ‘have paid obedience to the order of September 13, 1583 about the making of the storehouse for the saltpetre in that land’; construction was to take place between February and the end of April 1584. The total paid for repairing the house where the saltpetre producer was lodged and for constructing the storehouse was 4,850 lire44. The Bedizzole local council had issued orders about the construction of saltpetre infrastructure in the 1570s. In 1575, the community elected two officials to oversee the overhaul of a building in the Bertoletto quarter, near the Chiese river, ‘per comodo salmitrarii per faciendo salmistrium’45. In 1578, the council approved a resolution ‘per construendo porticum habilem per faciendo salmistrium’ in the same place46. Also in 1578, with an eye to accommodating salt­petre producers, the Captain of Brescia ordered that existing rural tezzoni should be repaired, and new ones should be built. He sent a

50  Venetian military structure detailed list to the communities. This list allows for the enumeration of the storehouses in the province. The picture emerging is of Brescia being more involved than Vicenza in saltpetre production. By 1578 there were tezzoni – some admittedly incomplete or in need of repair – in Chiari, Cossirano, ­Travagliato, Mairano, Bagnolo, Manerbio, Leno, ­P ralboino, Quinzano d’Oglio, Gambara, Calvisano, Carpenedolo, Casalnovo, C ­ astenedolo, ­Calcinato, ­Montechiaro, Ghedi, Lonato and Rovato. New tezzoni were to be built in Orzi Vecchi and Orzi Nuovi, Pavone del Mella, Pontevigo, Verola, Gussago, Palazzolo and Iseo47 (Map 2.2). The Camonica Valley, too, was involved in saltpetre production; after complaints from the producer in Cemmo in September 1589, the Republic demanded the construction of a new tezzone in the area in 159048.

Map 2.2  Saltpeter storehouses in the province of Brescia (at the beginning of the 17th century).

Construction of the military structure  51 The timing of the construction of houses and storehouses in the p ­ rovinces of Brescia and Vicenza (1570−1590) followed closely on the heels of increased contracts between the Almost Serene and the saltpetre producers for the exploitation of the various provinces of the Mainland Dominion. According to the chronology pieced together by Walter Panciera, between the 1560s and early 1570s – in conjunction with the increased requests for gunpowder for the wars against the Ottomans – storehouses were built in the main cities of the Mainland Dominion. The earliest were near the Dogado (the coastline area), followed by those in Vicenza, Brescia and Verona, while the valleys of Brescia brought up the rear (Panciera 2005, 100−10). The heaviest concentration of buildings seems to have been in Brescia (Panciera 2005, 110). Panciera listed 28 storehouses in 1584, but there was an intention to increase that number; in a letter to the Senate in 1624, the Captain of Brescia, Marc’Antonio Correr, wrote that there were 32 tezzoni, ‘all … in very good conditions’49. It is important to point out, however, that even if there were only supposed to be eight storehouses in the province of Vicenza, contemporary documents show that there were actually a good number of additional tezzoni and that they were illicitly acquired by saltpetre producers. A petition, undated but with a reference to Valerio da Valle, the saltpetre producer from the mid-1570s (Panciera 2005, 109), sent by the Corpo Territoriale affirmed that even if seven of the eight storehouses had been built (making it likely that the date was at some point between the ducal order of 1579 and the request for the eighth storehouse in 1586), it seems nonetheless that Di Valle does not work under the storehouses built for this purpose by our loyal [peasants] at huge cost … but at the moment they are working in the Valle dei Conti and dei Signori outside the storehouses, issuing penal warrants against the poor peasants in order to make them build another storehouse to cover this terrain and produce the saltpetre50. This is not an isolated example. The payments show a proliferation of more or less stable storehouses during this period. In Vicenza, in addition to the eight structures listed above, the Corpo Territoriale paid the rent for the saltpetre producer in Lonigo in 1578 and a decade later carried out repairs on other accommodation. In 1576, 1580 and 1592, the same institution paid for work on a house and storehouse in Brendola. Houses and storehouses were also built in Sossano (between 1583 and 1585), M ­ ontebello (in 1585), Noventa (between 1587 and 1590), Cornedo, and Nanto (­between 1588 and 1597)51 (Map 2.3). The number of such buildings in Brescia remained higher than in ­Vicenza but the gap narrowed rather than widened over time. Apart from the costs involved in building the houses and storehouses required for the production of saltpetre in the Mainland Dominion in the second half of the sixteenth

52  Venetian military structure

Map 2.3  Saltpeter storehouses in the province of Vicenza (at the beginning of the 17th century).

century, there were a range of associated expenditures that included transport and fuel, as well as the cost of enriching the terrains with sheep urine, and that were fairly uniform in nature across the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These items of expenditure were covered in payments to the Corpi Territoriali, which often assumed responsibility for them. It is difficult to quantify these burdens with any great precision. Although we cannot quantify exactly the amounts of these costs (fuel, carts and so on), we can be sure, however, that the communities spent less for these costs compared to the amount they spent for the construction of houses and storehouses. The regularity and uniformity of these costs are a crucial element in a long-term comparative analysis. As a side-effect of saltpetre production, each community experienced its own unique problems. For example, the communities of the lowlands of Brescia complained about repercussions for their sheep farmers. According to a ducal order of 1580, each producer was entitled to 200 sheep and extensive grazing rights on public and private lands, all in the name of the ‘public good’ (Vergani 1991, 309). The communities of Leno, Palazzolo and Carpenedolo took numerous legal actions between 1580 and the mid-1600s, even though the Captain of Brescia intervened on many occasions to compensate for the damage caused by the sheep52 . Bedizzole experienced the same problems. In March 1614, four men were elected by the local council to survey sheep pastures and to make claims

Construction of the military structure  53 where necessary against shepherds that worked for saltpetre producers. Little changed, however, and in February 1622, the council was again confronted by the problem of sheep used by the saltpetre producer for grazing purposes causing damage to both private and public properties53. Agriculture in the Camonica Valley was based on pastoral farming, which actually benefited from saltpetre production; however, the mining sector suffered badly because of saltpetre excavations. In 1565, the inhabi­ tants of the Valley convinced the Republic to temporarily suspend the salt­ petre production agreement because of ‘the losses inflicted on our Loyals [the inhabitants] in the iron industry’54. The Republic was also undoubtedly concerned about a loss in excise duties on the exportation of iron.

The Oarsmen In the 1570s, the war against the Ottoman Empire required a strong contribution from rural Venetian communities (Lane 1973, 369−74, 409−11; ­Pezzolo 2007; Arbel 2013). In addition to monetary commitment – b ­ etween 1570 and 1575 an extraordinary subsidy of 50,000 ducats was imposed on the Mainland Dominion – the most arduous demand was the provision of men for the Venetian galleys (Lo Basso 2003, 33−176; Girardi 2005; ­January and Knapton 2007, 100−2). A state of war would be expected to lead to an increase in community expenditure and this is confirmed by an analysis of the ledger books (Figures 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4). Data show that, at least in the case of Schio, there were occasionally wide annual variations in payments to oarsmen – 1,278 lire in 1558, for instance, but only 69 lire in 1559. Beyond the immediate circumstances that dictated the level of demand for oarsmen, the peasants were required to be on call as reserve seamen – this was an ongoing rather than temporary or emergency

LIRE

military expenditure

oarsmen expenditure

8000 7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0

YEARS

Figure 2.2  M ilitary expenditure and cost of oarsmen in Schio, undeflated lire (1557−1610). Sources: ACSc, bb. 36–53.

54  Venetian military structure military expenditure

oarsmen expenditure

300 250

LIRE

200 150 100 50 0 1565 1566 1567 1568 1569 1570 1571 1572 1573 1574 1575 1576 1577 1578 1579 1580 1581 1582 YEARS

Figure 2.3  M ilitary expenditure and cost of oarsmen in Durlo, undeflated lire (1565−1582). Sources: ACDu, Resoconti 1533–1575; Resoconti 1576–1599.

state of affairs (Table 2.1). They had to be constantly ready to protect the Dominio da Mar (Sea Domain) or, at least, to attend reviews in order to demonstrate their vigilance. The effect of increased requests for additional seamen in time of war should not be underestimated and had long-term ramifications. The salary for the boarding period, according to the books of expenditure of Schio, indicate that oarsmen received a two ducat monthly salary in 1570, to which the community had to contribute. Schio paid 288 lire in February 1570, 1,055 lire (in two payments for two months for 44 oarsmen) in March, 465 lire in April (for 25 oarsmen for two months), 650 lire in three payments in June and 485 lire for 60 men for one month in ­August55. Payments, then, were irregular and illustrate that the local ­Treasury could not always fulfil its responsibilities. In September 1574 – one year after the end of the War of Cyprus – a public notary of Schio listed the amounts paid and owed to the oarsmen of the community, speci­f ying that ‘many have to be paid’. His overall summation was that three years of war cost Schio 12,738 lire, approximately the total balance sheet of an entire year. This does not mean that debts were reneged on. On the contrary, October 1574 saw the resumption of payments to oarsmen or, if they did not return from the war, to wives, sons or brothers. Most payments had been completed by the summer of 1575 and they stopped at the end of the year. At that point, the oarsmen were no longer creditors of the community, and the community itself had become a creditor of the other villages of its Vicariato. Nonetheless, in 1580, Schio still owed some money on items relating to the 1570−1573 period56. There was an analogous situation in Durlo; after paying out 237 lire in 1570−1571, the community stalled on payments until the concluding stages of the War in 157457. Similar dyna­ mics were at play in Malo, even if legal settlement of payment disputes was

Construction of the military structure  55 more common there. The communal archive contains all the injunctions taken by the Captain of Vicenza to ensure that the community compensated wives and sons during the absence of their husbands and fathers58. Delays in payment were facilitated by the fact that many oarsmen did not belong to the community, but were replacements for the luckier peasants from Malo. Substituting outsiders for locals was a very common practice and in the case of Malo, it was ratified in local law. In May 1578, the local council resolved that ‘given the will to preserve the health of the people of this village who are ordered to go to the galleys’ (because the Republic of Venice ordered people from the countryside to serve as oarsmen in the galleys), ‘they will be found in the name and with the money of the community where they can be found’, meaning outside the community. This was not a new practice but from now on, external recruits would be paid from the public purse, ‘with public revenues and goods of the community’59. Thus, Malo used its common resources and properties to protect its citizens from the military demands of the Republic. Vicenzan tableland, Asiago, adopted similar techniques to safeguard its own, reimbursing locals who hired substitutes to take their places in the galleys (Girardi 2005, 144). Paperwork on the oarsmen of Malo ceased at this point and did not re-appear until 1649, when the War of Candia prevented recourse to substitutes (Pezzolo 1981, 429). The involvement of the communities of Schio, Malo and Durlo should be situated in the broader context of requests for rural Vicenzan men to participate in war in the second half of the sixteenth century, especially the War of Cyprus (Table 2.1). Table 2.1  Requests for oarsmen and sappers for the fleet to the communities of the province of Vicenza (1551−1570) Date 1551 April 1551 May 1552 March 1552 April 1558 February 1558 March 1565 March 1566 July 1566 August 1568 June 1569 January 1570 March 1570 April 1570 July 1570 November 1571 January

Oarsmen 120 60 160 246 140 129 165 250 250 360 270 370 460 50

Sappers

183 85 55

Sources: ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3753, fasc. 9, cc. 9 v.–29 r.

56  Venetian military structure

10000 9000 8000 7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0

1555 1556 1557 1558 1559 1560 1561 1562 1563 1564 1565 1566 1567 1568 1569 1570 1571 1572 1573 1574 1575 1576 1577 1578 1579 1580 1581 1582 1583 1584 1585

delfated LIRE

Unfortunately, we have no total data for the following years but figures in local records reflect the intensified military efforts that are referred to in official Venetian reports. In his report of September 1570, the Captain of Vicenza, Francesco Da Pesaro, wrote that at the beginning of his mandate there were 1,100 oarsmen in the province. All were at war, along with 80 reservists who were on standby (RRV, 57−8). Some years later, in 1581, Captain Dardi Bembo noted that there were still 1,100 full-time oarsmen in Vicenza but that 3,000 more had been called to the colours (RRV, 72), given the consequences of the war with the Ottomans. The situation in Brescia was very similar (Pasero 1953). Tremosine’s books of expenditure stop in 1558 and restart in 1592, so it is not possible to evaluate the effect of the War of Cyprus on the local balance sheet. Instead, the books of expenditure of Bedizzole (Figure 2.4) can be used to confirm the dominant dynamics in the province of Vicenza. The graph shows that expenditure peaked in 1572 and 1573, at 8,838 lire and 7,024 lire, respectively, compared to an average of 4,600 lire in the previous years. The minutes of the local council make it clear that supplying oarsmen to Venice was consistently at the top of the agenda in 1572 and 157360. There are no extant books of expenditure for other communities in Brescia but it is safe to assume that their situations were analogous to that of Bedizzole – especially in light of the routine reaction of the Republic in times of threat and the loss of privileges routinely enjoyed by certain areas. When the Republic called, Bedizzole sent its men. Maderno and the Camonica Valley did likewise61. The Brescian lowlands also contributed during the second half of the sixteenth century; in August 1566, rural ­Brescia sent 450 oarsmen, while Leno and Ghedi sent 10 each. In June 1568, another 670 peasants joined their compatriots in the galleys. April 1570 saw another 366 sappers added to the ranks and 70 more arrived in August. Finally, in July 1571, Leno’s archive tells us, 450 more oarsmen

YEARS

Figure 2.4  Trend of the general expenditure in Bedizzole, deflated lire (1555−1585). Sources: ACBe, b. 17; b. 19, fasc. 1; b. 19, reg. 2; b. 20, reg. 1; b. 21, reg. 2; b. 22, reg. 1; b. 23, reg. 2; b. 30 reg. 2; b. 30, reg. 3; b. 31, reg. 1; b. 31, reg. 2.

Construction of the military structure  57 were recruited to equip 15 galleys62 . A petition sent by the rural communities of Brescia to the Republic in 1573 reported that the province had offered 3,000 oarsmen to Venice during the course of the war, at a cost of more than 180,000 ducats – and that was before four subsidies of 6,000 ducats each were taken into account (Rossini 1994, 180). The provision of oarsmen to the Republic differed from other items of expenditure in that it was more immediately and directly war-related than other sixteenth-century costs, involved enormous sums and assumed an exigent character. Furthermore, all provinces, including the areas that enjoyed exemptions in other respects, were treated equally with regard to the demands made on them for oarsmen, and the asso­ciated costs were a fixture in local balance sheets for a prolonged period. This type of expenditure, for the most part, characterised the s­ eventeenth century, when ‘organisational’ and ‘logistical’ costs were limited to the maintenance of weapons and structures, while the shadow of war loomed ever larger.

Crisis of the 1590s Before concentrating on the seventeenth century, it is useful to consider the crisis of the 1590s as a microcosm that displayed some of the principles of the wider economic problems of the century. Our interest here is in evaluating how these particular military costs affected local economies at a time of intense difficulties. This approach may help us understand how different management methods curtailed or exacerbated short-term damage. From around 1590, Europe experienced an economic and demographic crisis that left a lasting mark on its development (Clark 1985). The particular situation of the Republic of Venice affected the way in which it reacted to the crisis and in which the economic vicissitudes filtered down to the provincial villages. The crisis of the 1590s was essentially a food crisis, caused by adverse weather conditions featuring a significant decrease in temperatures – this phenomenon became known as the ‘Little Ice Age’ (Le Roy Ladurie 1967). Sixteenth-century Europe was undergoing a popu­lation explosion, so a crisis was inevitable. Poor harvests combined with financial instability in central and northern Italy (Cipolla 2002, 325−411). The result was a decline in living standards and economic disequilibrium in the state, province and village. Italian historiography is polarised on this topic. Guido Alfani, for example, asserts that the agricultural crisis of 1590−1593, Far from being … a sort of anticipation of the crisis of the following ­century … it should rather be considered the conclusion of a ­centuries-old cycle, the moment when some typical sixteenth century problems came to a solution. Only as it ‘closes’ a phase, it ‘prepared’ the following one. (Alfani 2010, 205)

58  Venetian military structure The analysis that established the importance of this phenomenon (Alfani 2010, 96−108; Malanima 2003) was based on the Malthusian notion of crises – especially food crises – as elements facilitating demographic compensation and economic renovation. Other analyses take a different approach, emphasising the importance of the chain reaction caused by importation of food on local and state finances (Davidson 1985, 158−65; Corazzol 1986); the local communities would incur debts while the state would suffer a balance of trade deficit and loss of tax revenue. In this context, identifying the extent to which military costs affected – negatively or positively – the already critical status of local finances is not an easy task. A number of guiding principles form the basis of our investigation. First, it is undeniable that a state of war has a negative influence on the economy and the demographic balance of a specific area. It is difficult to establish exactly how much worse the situation was in the 1590s compared to previous decades, especially when dealing with estimates. According to Thompson, The army of Flanders was no larger than in the 1570s. […] Queen ­Elizabeth never had an army anything like as large as that of Henry VIII in 1544. War was, however, different in kind. In the first place, war became global in its implications […]. The administrative tasks and skills required of governments, the commercial links and the industrial involvement necessary, were of an entirely new order. (Thompson 1985, 261−3) The effect of military structures on a local economy should, therefore, be analysed with reference to the particular situation that characterises the area under review, the presence or absence of war and so on. It is particularly important to analyse the military politics and associated tax policies of the state. Increasing state taxes in response to decreasing duty revenues can create local problems. In the case of Venice, the absence of war was of considerable economic and financial benefit. In other parts of Europe, however, war could be beneficial in that it was an incentive to the production of arms. Again, as Davidson pointed out: The production of weapons and armour in Gardone Val Trompia and Milan was stimulated by warfare elsewhere on the continent. […] By the end of the sixteenth century, the Spanish government in Lombardy devoted up to 90 per cent of its expenditure to the military […]. Spending on fortifications also rose: by 1602 Venice disbursed more than five times as much as it had in the 1520s. (Davidson 1985, 162) This excerpt illuminates another preoccupation of the Venetian Mainland Dominion, the construction of fortresses – particularly Palmanova, where building started exactly in 1593. It remains unclear whether or not this enterprise was primarily responsible for the debts accrued by some communities at the beginning of the seventeenth century.

Construction of the military structure  59 30000 25000

LIRE

20000 15000 10000 5000 0 1568 1569 1570 1571 1580 1581 1582 1591 1592 1593 1595 1597 1598 1600 1601 1602 1603 1604 YEARS

Figure 2.5  General expenditure of Schio, undeflated lire (1568−1604). Sources: ACSc, bb. 36–53.

The gap in the primary sources detailing the financial life of Schio at the end of the sixteenth century makes it awkward to calculate the percentage of military costs in total community expenditure, but the final balances of the community collectors allow for some reasonable estimates to be made (Figure 2.5). Between 1592 and 1602, community expenditure increased dramatically. The pattern was similar in several other areas of the Mainland Dominion, such as in Valpolicella in the province of Verona (Pezzolo 1987, 308). It was not universal, however. Therefore, the role of increased military costs cannot be pinpointed with total accuracy. The data from Tremosine (Figures 1.4 and 1.5) show an increase in expenditures analogous to that in Schio, but the books of expenditure of Durlo (Figure 2.6) and Bedizzole draw a completely different picture. In these communities, the balance sheets remained almost perfectly stable at the end of the sixteenth century. In the communities where there was an increase in expenditures, the beginning of the Palmanova project and the consequent need to supply sappers constituted almost certainly a factor in causing increased costs. However, it does not explain the rate of increase in certain areas. The building of Palmanova was an important task, yet this was not the first time that rural communities had to meet such requirements. Looking at documents originating in Brescia and Vicenza, most of the costs involved were unexceptional – the payment of militiamen, saltpetre producers, and so on. Therefore, as we examine the relationship between military needs and local economic difficulties, the link does not seem to be one of cause and effect. In fact, the exchange seems to have worked also in precisely the opposite manner: military costs aggravate local conditions, but also local shortcomings undermined military structures. As the legal records demonstrate, rural communities were simply not able to pay their share. The cases of Malo and Leno support this argument. In 1596 and 1598, respectively, private and public goods were seized to pay the villages’ dues to Palmanova63.

60  Venetian military structure Table 2.2  Revenue from direct taxation (ducats) Decade 1550–1559 1560–1569 1570–1579 1580–1589 1590–1599 1600–1609 Total revenue 196.500

193.500

407.400

285.400

310.000

243.000

Source: Pezzolo 1990, 331.

So, while military expenditure did not help the rural economies, it did not cause their collapse. It was but one of a series of contributory factors, including legal fees and the maintenance of streets, bridges and churches. The tax linked directly with the military structure must also be considered (Table 2.2), but its impact was not decisive either way. Luciano ­Pezzolo calculated the annual average of the direct taxation in ducats (­Pezzolo 1990, 331). It is clear that the 20,000 ducats the Mainland Dominion was asked to contribute towards the construction of Palmanova caused increased tax pressure in the 1590s. However, it is just as clear that the pressure had been greater in the 1570s when the Ottoman conflict led to the imposition of a subsidy of 50,000 ducats. The data from Durlo (Figure 2.6) confirm this assertion: there was a minor increase in expenditure at the end of the 1590s due to the construction of Palmanova. There had been greater increases of this nature previously and this was just one element in a crisis caused and prolonged by other elements. In some areas, this crisis mutated quickly from being a predicament of ‘personal’ finances to a collapse of public ones. Additionally, the increased expenditure of the late sixteenth century paled in comparison with the havoc wrought by inflation in the seventeenth century. In this context, it was from the outbreak of the War of Gradisca that military costs weighed most heavily on local finances.

1200 1000

LIRE

800 600 400 200 0 1565 1567 1569 1571 1573 1575 1577 1579 1581 1583 1585 1587 1589 1591 1593 1595 1597 1599 1601 1603 1605 1608

YEARS

Figure 2.6  Trend of general expenditure in Durlo, deflated lire (1565−1608).

Sources: ACDu, Resoconti 1533–1575; Resoconti 1576–1599; Resoconti 1601–1634.

Construction of the military structure  61 Another issue that emerges from these pages and that will be very important in our analysis is that the assembly of the military structure – from an economic point of view – presented itself almost continuously and uniformly on local balance sheets in the sixteenth century, without “emergency” peaks. This means that communities could face these burdens in a more structured manner than was possible in the following century; moreover, military investment – as we will see in the next chapters – could present a great opportunity for local economic actors. Looking at even the most critical moment of the second half of the sixteenth century, it is clear that military expenses were not the cause of the crisis of the 1590s and were not alone in contributing to it. A very different scenario emerged in the early decades of the seventeenth century.

Notes 1. Many state orders concerning the rural militia (for example, the detailed orders of 1558) are preserved in ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3753, fasc. 9; ASVe, Compilazione delle leggi, Serie I, b. 30, fos. 177 r.−183 v. In 1558 there were 150,000 rural militia men in total, 2,500 in the province of Brescia and 1,875 in the province of Vicenza (Ibid, fos. 337 r.−339 v.). 2. In 1559, the community of Schio spent approximately 940 lire to buy corsaletti (cuirasses). This was partly independently financed, and partly covered by the Corpo Territoriale (ACSc, b. 35, fasc. 101, spese ed entrate 1556−1561). 3. ACSc, b. 35, fasc. 101, fos. 56 v., 60 r., 94 r., 95 v.−96 r. The other communities in the province of Vicenza, too, had to send their men to Verona, according to the books of expenditure of Durlo (ACDu, Resoconti n. 1, pagamenti 1533−1575, fol. 111 r.). 4. ACDu, resoconti n.1, pagamenti 1533−1575, fol. 111 r. 5. ACSc, b. 35, fasc. 101, fol. 70 v.; b. 37, fasc. 103, fol. 289 r.; b. 38, fasc. 104, fos. 228 r. e 262 v. 6. BCB, Archivio Torre, b. 222, fasc. 2, fos. 65 r.−66 r.; b. 234, fasc. 3, fol. 29 r.; b. 240, fasc.1, fos.117 r.−118 v.; ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3753, fasc. 9, fos. 75 r.-v. 7. ACSc, b. 38, fasc. 104, fol. 64 v. 8. ACDu, resoconti n. 2, pagamenti 1576−1599, fol. 26 r. 9. ACSc, b. 6, fasc. 7, fos. 230 v.−231 r., 235 r., 242 r., 244 v.−245 r.; b. 38, fasc. 104, fol. 228 v. 10. ACGa, b. 35, fos. 48 v.−49 r., 51 v., 52 v., 57 v.; b. 36, fos. 29 r., 32 r., 34 v., 58 r.; b. 37 cc. 24 r., 26 r., 49 r.; ACBe, b. 3 reg. 1, fol. 222 v. 11. ACMd, Provvedimenti 1571−1577, fos. 72 v. −73 r. and 76 v.−77 r.-v.; Provvedimenti 1583 −1585, fos. 5 r. and 74 r.−v.; AVCa, b. 32 fasc. 1, fos. 270 r. −276 r. 12. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3753, fasc. 9, fos. 79 r.−v., 80 v.−82 v.; RRV, 53. 13. ACLe, mazzo XXIX, n. 6, fol. 83. 14. In ACMa, Provvedimenti 1551−1570; ACSc, pergamene 37, 47 and b. 4 fos. 241 r.−v.; ACSV, b. 4/VII; b. 4/IX. 15. ACGa, b. 57, fos. 31 r.−32 v., 34 v.−38 v.; ACLe, mazzo XXXIII, n. 1, fol. 45 v.; mazzo XXXIII, n. 10, fos. 45 v.−46 r. 16. A fossa is a type of moat. 17. BCB, Archivio Torre, b. 162, fasc. 9.

62  Venetian military structure 8. Ibid. 1 19. Ibid. 20. ACSc, b. 4, fasc. 5, fos. 108 r.−v., 116 v.; BCB, Archivio Torre, b. 162, fasc. 9, fos. 43 r.−v. 21. ACMa, Provvedimenti 1549−1554, fos. 14 r., 49 r., 53 v., 58 v., 93 v.−94 r., 159 r. 22. ACGa, b. 24, fol. 54 v.; AVCa, b. 32, fasc. 1. 23. ACSc, b. 6, fasc. 7, fos. 131 r., 262 v. 24. ACSc, b. 38, fasc. 104, fol. 194 r.; ACMa, Processi IV. 25. AVCa, b. 26, fasc. 8. 26. ACMa, Provvedimenti 1561−1564, fos. 24 v.−25 r., 26 v.−27 r., 29 r., 34 r., 36 r.−v., 39 r. 27. ACLe, mazzo XXX, n. 20, fos. 11 r.−v. 28. ACSc, b. 7, fasc. 8, fos. 46 v., 82 v. 29. ACLe, mazzo XXX, n. 15, fos. 36 r.−37 r.; Rossini 1994, 246−9. 30. AVCa, b. 53, fasc. 13, fos. 12 r.−13 v.; b. 149, fasc. 8, fol. 99 r. 31. ACGa, b. 44, fos. 40 v.−41 r. 32. ACDu, resoconti n. 2, 1576−1599, fos. 69 r.−70 r., 74 r.−v., 77 r.−v., 82 r., 83 v.−84 r.,86 v., 89 v. 33. BCB, Archivio Torre, b. 160, fasc. 15, fos. 35 v.−36 r.; Hale 1990, 281. 34. ACLe, mazzo XXX, n. 12; ACMd, Provvedimenti 1571−1577, fos. 113 v.−114 r., 217 v.−218 v.; Provvedimenti 1583−1585, fol. 10 r.; Provvedimenti 1610−1615, fol. 77 v.; Registro 1612−1689, fol. 225 r. 35. AVC, b. 75, fasc. 7. 36. ACBe, b. 3, reg. 1, fos. 11 r., 114 v.−116 r., 146 v.−147 r., 207 r., 208 r., 210 v.; b. 3, reg. 2, fos. 79 r., 102 r., 264 v.; b. 19, reg. 1, fol. 232 v.; b. 4, reg, 2, fos. 43 r.−v., 132 v.; b. 20, reg. 1, fos. 90 v., 214 v. 37. BCB, Archivio Torre, b. 160, fasc. 15, fol. 36 r. 38. BCB, Archivio Torre, b. 234, fasc. 3, fol. 28 v. 39. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3705, fasc. 4, fos. 32 r.−34 r. 40. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3707, fasc. 9, fol. 21 r. 41. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3756, fol. 14 r. 42. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3707, fasc. 9, fol. 21 r.; b. 3756, fos. 62 r.−63 v., 66 r. 67 v., 72 r.−74 v., 76 r.−81 v., 82 r.−v., 84 r.−v., 89 r.−90 v.; 92 r.−94 v., 96 r.−97 v., 188 v.; ACMa, Processi 1582−1594. 43. ACLe, mazzo XV, n. 9, fol. 7 r. 4 4. ACLe, mazzo XV, n. 9, fos. 28 r.−v. 45. ACBe, b. 3, reg. 1, fol. 98 r. 46. ACBe, b. 3, reg. 1, fol. 199 v. 47. AVCa, b. 147, fasc. 6, fos. 28 r.−36 r.; ACLe, mazzo XX, n. 36, fos. 14 v.−19 v. 48. AVCa, b. 147, fasc. 6, fos. 159 r.−160 r. 49. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 25, 14 June 1624. 50. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3705, fasc. 6, fol. 9 r. 51. Ibid, b. 3756, fos. 29 r.−v., 64 r.−65 v., 68 r.−70 r., 81 r.−v., 83 r.−v., 86 r.−88 v., 91 r.−v., 95 r.−v., 102 r. −v., 105 r.−v., 167 v., 169 r.−v., 181 r., 211 r.−212 v., 232 r., 237 r., 238 r., 286 v.−289 v., 267 r.−269 v., 276 r., 313 r.−v., 451 v., 468 r. 52. ACLe, mazzo XX, n. 7, fos. 26 r.−29 v., 36 r.; n. 8, cc. 13 r.−18 v.; n. 11, cc. 9 r.−12 r., 64 r., 65 r.−v., 115 r., 127 r.−v. 53. ACBe, b. 3, reg. 2, fol. 196 r., b. 4, reg. 1, fol. 70 v. 54. AVCa, b. 23, fasc. 19, fos. 126 r.−127 r. 55. ACSc, b. 37, fasc. 103. 56. ACSc, b. 68, fasc. 284. 57. ACDu, resoconti n.1, 1533−1575, fos. 22 r.−25 r., 27 r.−30 v., 44 r., 46 v.−47 r.

Construction of the military structure  63 8. ACMa, Provvedimenti 1551−1570; Provvedimenti 1571−1584. 5 59. ACMa, Processi 1570−1582. 60. ACBe, b. 3, reg. 1, fos. 75 r., 76 v., 84 r., 85 v. 61. ACMd, Provvedimenti 1567−1570, fos. 174 v.−175 r.; Provvedimenti 1571−1577, fos. 16 r., 64 v., 69 r.-v.; AVCa, b. 149, fasc. 8, fos. 285 r.−287 r. 62. ACLe, mazzo XXX, n. 20, fos. 1 r.−8 r. 63. ACLe, mazzo XX.

Bibliography Alfani, Guido. 2010. Il Grand Tour dei Cavalieri dell’Apocalisse. L’Italia del “lungo Cinquecento” (1494−1629). Venice: Marsilio. Alfani, Guido. 2013. Calamities and the economy in Renaissance Italy. The grand tour of the horsemen of the apocalypse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Arbel, Benjamin. 2013. “Venice’s maritime empire in the early modern period”. In A companion to Venetian history, 1400−1797. Eric R. Dursteler (ed.), ­L eiden-Boston: Brill. 125−254. Campagnaro, Marina. 2002. La Costruzione delle Fortezze di Legnago e Porto nel Cinquecento. Verona, Anabasi. Cipolla, Carlo M. 2002. Storia Economica dell’Europa Pre-Industriale. Bologna: Il Mulino (first published in 1974). Clark, Peter, ed. 1985. The European crisis of the 1590s. Essays in comparative history. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. Concina, Ennio. 1982. Le Trionfanti et Invittissime Armate Venete: le Milizie della Serenissima dal XVI al XVIII Secolo. Venice: Filippi. Concina, Ennio. 1983. La Macchina Territoriale: La Progettazione della Difesa nel Cinquecento Veneto. Rome-Bari: Laterza. Concina, Ennio. 1984. L’Arsenale della Repubblica di Venezia. Milan: Electa. Corazzol, Gigi. 1986. Livelli Stipulati a Venezia nel 1591: Studio Storico. Pisa: Giardini editori e stampatori. Davidson, Nicholas S. 1985. “Northern Italy in the 1590s”. In The European crisis of the 1590s. Essays in comparative history. Peter Clark (ed.). London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. 157−76. Duffy, Christopher. 1979. Siege warfare. The fortress in the early modern world 1494−1660. London and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Gaddi, Mauro. 2012. “La Guerra di Gradisca”. Le armi di San Marco, Quaderno della Società Italiana di Storia Militare 2012:85−110. Gaddi, Mauro, and Andrea Zannini, eds. 2008. Venezia non è da Guerra: l’Isontino, la Società Friulana e la Serenissima nella Guerra di Gradisca (1615−17). Udine: Forum. Girardi, Elisabetta. 2005. Marinai di Montagna. La Leva da Mar nei Sette Comuni durante la Guerra di Cipro. Archivio Veneto V, CLXV:139−79. Hale, John R. 1990. L’Organizzazione Militare di Venezia nel ’500. Rome: Jouvence. January Peter, and Michael Knapton. 2007. The demands made on Venetian ­Terraferma Society for Defence in the early seventeenth century. Ateneo Veneto CXCIV:25−115. Lane, Frederic C. 1973. Venice, a maritime republic. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

64  Venetian military structure Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. 1967. Histoire du Climat Depuis l’An Mil. Paris: Flammarion (Italian version: Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. 1982. Tempo di Festa, Tempo di Carestia. Storia del Clima dall’Anno Mille. Torino: Einaudi). Lo Basso, Luca. 2003. Uomini da Remo: Galee e Galeotti del Mediterraneo in Età Moderna. Milan: Selene. Lo Basso, Luca. 2004. Il Mestiere del Remo nell’Armata Sottile Veneziana: Coscrizione, Debito, Pena e Schiavitù (sec. XVI−XVIII). Studi Veneziani XLVIII:105−89. Malanima, Paolo. 2003. Uomini, Risorse, Tecniche nell’Economia Europea dal X al XIX Secolo. Milan: Mondadori. Mallett, Michael, and John R. Hale, 1984. The military organisation of a Renaissance state: Venice from 1400 to 1617. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ongaro, Giulio. 2016b. “‘Valermi del Brazzo de i Soldati delle Cernide’: Milizie Rurali Venete e Controllo del Territorio tra XVI e XVII Secolo”. In Tra Polizie e Controllo del Territorio: alla Ricerca delle Discontinuità, Atti del Convegno, Abbiategrasso 11−13 settembre 2013. Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. In press. Panciera, Walter. 2005. Il Governo delle Artiglierie: Tecnologia Bellica e Istituzioni Veneziane nel Secondo Cinquecento. Milan: Franco Angeli. Panciera, Walter. 2006. “Produzione e Conservazione della Polvere da Sparo nel XVI secolo: il Caso Veneziano”. In Militari in Età Moderna. La Centralità di un Tema di Confine. Alessandra Dattero, and Stefano Levati (eds.). Milan: ­Cisalpino. 63−82. Parker, Geoffrey. 1976. The “Military Revolution,” 1560−1660: A myth?. The Journal of Modern History 48 (2)(June):195−214. Parker, Geoffrey. 1988. The military revolution: Military innovation and the rise of the west, 1500−1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pasero, Carlo. 1953. La Partecipazione Bresciana alla Guerra di Cipro e alla ­Battaglia di Lepanto (1570−1573). Commentari per l’Ateneo di Brescia per l’anno 1953. Pellizzari, Giovanni, and Ivan Bendinoni. 2011. Ai Confini della Magnifica Patria: gli Altopiani Settentrionali. Tremosine: Ateneo di Salò. Pezzolo, Luciano. 1981. “Milizie e Contadini nelle Campagne Vicentine (Lisiera nel ’500 e ’600)”. In Lisiera: Immagini, Documenti e Problemi per la Storia di una Comunità Veneta: Strutture, Congiunture, Episodi. Claudio Povolo (ed.). Lisiera: Parrocchia. 419−34. Pezzolo, Luciano. 1983. L’Archibugio e l’Aratro. Considerazioni e Problemi per una Storia delle Milizie Rurali Venete nei Secoli XVI−XVII. Studi Veneziani VII:59−80. Pezzolo, Luciano. 1987. “Istituzioni e Amministrazione in Valpolicella nel Cinquecento e primo Seicento”. In La Valpolicella nella Prima Età Moderna, 1500−1630. Gan Maria Varanini (ed.). Verona: Centro di documentazione per la storia della Valpolicella. 249−316. Pezzolo, Luciano. 1990. L’Oro dello Stato. Società, Finanza e Fisco nella Repubblica Veneta del Secondo ’500. Venice: Il Cardo. Pezzolo, Luciano. 2007. “Stato, Guerra e Finanza nella Repubblica di Venezia fra Medioevo e Prima Età Moderna”. In Mediterraneo in Armi (sec. XV−XVIII). Rossella Cancila (ed.). Palermo: Quaderni di Mediterranea. 67−112. Roberts, Michael. 1956. The military revolution, 1560–1660, an inaugural lecture delivered before the Queen’s University of Belfast. Belfast: M. Boyd.

Construction of the military structure  65 Rossini, Alessandra. 1994. Le Campagne Bresciane nel Cinquecento. Territorio, Fisco, Società. Milan: Franco Angeli. Thompson, I. A. A. 1985. “The impact of war”. In The European crisis of the 1590s. Essays in comparative history. Peter Clark (ed.). London: George ­A llen & Unwin Ltd. 261−284. Vergani, Raffaello. 1991. “Le Materie Prime”. In Storia di Venezia, Vol. XII, Il Mare. Alberto Tenenti and Ugo Tucci (eds.). Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana. 285−312. Vigato, Mauro. 1994. La Guerra Veneto-Arciducale di Gradisca (1615−1617). Ce fastu?, Rivista della Società Filologica Friulana “Graziadio I. Ascoli” LXX (2):193−232.

3 The changing character of military costs

The data compiled and illustrated in the first chapter present a particularly clear picture of the relationship between local finances and military costs in the seventeenth century. In this chapter, we will compare and contrast the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, concentrating specifically on changes in the character of military costs. This comparison will allow us to establish – in the next chapter – why there was a concomitant change in how those costs were managed, at both the local and state levels. The general expenditure of rural communities increased very little, albeit with heightened peaks in the 1620s and 1630s and during the War of Candia (1645−1669). There was a stabilisation, then, if not a reduction, of military requests, the impact of which was gradual and localised, rather than uniform. It affected different parts of the Mainland Dominion at different points during the wars (when the impact of costs was accentuated) and in different ways. The graph below, based in this instance on data collected from the books of expenditure of Magrè (Figure 3.1), confirms this hypothesis.

military expenditure

1626 1627 1628 1629 1630 1631 1632 1633 1634 1635 1636 1637 1638 1639 1640 1641 1642 1643 1644 1645 1646 1647 1648 1649 1650 1651 1652 1653 1654

LIRE

general expenditure 5000 4500 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0

YEARS

Figure 3.1  Trend of general expenditure and military expenditure in Magrè, deflated lire (1626−1654). Sources: ACMg, b. 4, fasc. 7, 8, 10, 11.

The changing character of military costs  67 As stated previously, the reduction of military expenditure was due mainly to the fact that some items, which had been regarded as military costs, were reconstituted as general payments to the Corpi Territoriali, but this is not enough to explain the overall decrease in military payments. In fact, we can once again assume that the cause-effect relationship was turned on its head in this instance. The management of a sophisticated and efficient military system could have led to a centralisation of competences, requiring less direct involvement of communities than had been necessary before its maturation. Even though the management of militiamen remained a permanent expense in local balance sheets, because of reviews and weapons maintenance, the costs of saltpetre tezzoni construction and fortress modernisation disappeared from the expenditure books. While the development of the cernide occurred principally in the second half of the sixteenth century, there were still some commitments in this context in the seventeenth century. Francesco Rossi identified the years between 1617 and 1630 as a point at which communities in Brescia purchased a considerable amount of weapons, probably because of the increased presence of musketeers in military units (Rossi 1969, 175; Perini 1995; Pedretti 2006). A few years later, much the same happened in Vicenza. Schio undertook a series of measures to facilitate the purchase of new muskets between 1635 and 16401; in 1635, a decade after musketeers had become more prominent in rural militia, 50 muskets were still required to fully equip the Pedemonte. As for saltpetre, the costs of production, facility maintenance and transport all remained, but they were always contained costs and, more importantly, could be redistributed at the local level. Figure 3.2 illustrates the trend of saltpetre expenditure in Schio, which was broadly representative of the situation in most communities.

2500

LIRE

2000 1500 1000 500 0 YEARS

Figure 3.2  Trend of saltpetre expenditure in Schio, undeflated lire (1557−1665). Sources: ACSc, bb. 36–53.

68  Venetian military structure Linking the fall and the redefinition of saltpetre expenditure to the parallel removal of sapper and fortress-related payments from the balance sheets, it is easy to understand the reduction of military expenditures in this period in both Vicenza and Brescia. There were, of course, complicating elements; if the maritime wars of the sixteenth century involved rural communities in a fairly direct fashion, the land wars of the Almost Serene in the first half of the seventeenth century affected rural centres in a different manner. The seventeenth century was marked by a military commitment that can be compared only with the tumultuous year of the Italian Wars. From 1615 to 1670, there were five conflicts of different intensities. Taken together, they posed a concrete risk of territorial losses and forced a reconsideration of the role of the Mainland Dominion. Namely, the War of Gradisca (1615−1617), the Valtellina uprising (1620−1626), the War of Mantuan Succession (1629−1630), the first War of Castro (1641−1644), with the direct involvement of the Republic of Venice from 1643, and the War of Candia dominated events. The War of Candia war, lasting nearly a quarter of the century, from 1645 to 1669, had serious implications for the economic and fiscal systems of the Veneto. The effects of this situation of ‘permanent war’ on rural communities can be summarised in three fields. First, tax pressure skyrocketed – especially during the protracted War of Candia (Pezzolo 1985, 392−4) – because of the increased fiscal needs of the Republic and because of the attendant demographic strain on the communities. While it may not be possible to calculate exactly the extent of the correlation between military expenditure, state needs and local expenditure, the tripartite relationship was undoubtedly a close one. The second and the third fields concern the direct involvement of rural communities in the Venetian military structure: they had to send men to war; and they had to accommodate troops. The lodging of troops in transit or a quartiero (quartering), contrary to what was happening in other parts of the Italian peninsula (Rizzo 1987, 2001; Maffi 1999; Buono 2009), was not a common presence in sixteenth-century expenditure books, at least not in Vicenza. This does not mean that there was no economic contribution from the communities of the province to the lodgement costs borne by other areas, however. There was a level of participation – difficult to quantify – in the general payments to the Corpo Territoriale, but no direct involvement of significance in the accommodation of troops until the seventeenth century. The data from Schio (Figure 3.3) show the difference between the two centuries. The documents of Durlo, San Vito di Leguzzano and Malo confirm the data from Schio, given the absence of references to the lodging of troops until 1610. The typologies of lodgements were different, dictated as they were by the category of troops involved and, most importantly, their purpose in Vicenza. Often, they were small groups of soldiers, frequently cappelletti (light Croatian cavalry), tasked with countering bandits. The preponderance of these outlaws increased dramatically from the sixteenth

The changing character of military costs  69 2500

LIRE

2000 1500 1000 500 0 YEARS

Figure 3.3  Trend of expenditure for lodgements in Schio, undeflated lire (1557−1665). Sources: ACSc, bb. 36–53.

to the seventeenth centuries, when they seemed to infest the mountains of the province. The catalyst for their expansion was the general economic decline allied to the black market possibilities presented by the war and food shortages (Ortalli 1986; Povolo 2011). The seriousness of the problem impelled the Venetian government to send the Provveditori Inquisitori in place of the Sindaci Inquisitori to address the banditry between 1590 and 1619 (Melchiorre 2013, 233−77). Far more numerous and ‘invasive’ for the economy and the social serenity of the communities were the groups of corazze (cavalry) that passed through on the way to theatres of war. Even in isolated Durlo, there were cappelletti from Vicenza, as well as some Corsican soldiers, between 1603 and 1608 and again between 1623 and 16262 . These periods were crucial with respect to borders, initially for defining the boundary line, and later for waging war against the Emperor in Valtellina. Even if the lodgement of cappelletti, Corsican or Albanian soldiers and rural cavalry (the campagnoli) could affect the life of communities by their very presence, they rarely made a negative economic impression. Apart from housing larger groups designed to hunt bandits, the communities usually had to spend only a few dozen lire on quartering military personnel. Durlo spent 23 lire in 1603, and 30 lire in both 1604 and 1605; Schio spent 113 lire in 1612 and 1,087 lire in 1624, of which the communities of the Vicariato reimbursed 568 lire. Between 1659 and 1665, the same community payed 1,258 lire for the lodgement of troops, which may or may not have been reimbursed – we do not have evidence either way. The low numbers involved meant that officers could often be accommodated separately from private families; i.e. they could be lodged in taverns, as in Schio in 16103. When it came to the lodgement of the entire cavalry companies, the economic commitment required was of a totally different order. The guidelines

70  Venetian military structure for the lodging of cavalry issued in 1621 by Andrea Paruta, Provveditore Generale in Terraferma, clearly demonstrate that this was a new problem that had not been legislated for previously. As far back as 1536, neighbouring Spanish Lombardy had established the Mensuale to guarantee the payment of troops, and communities were forced to maintain public storehouses for provisions. The Republic of Venice was almost a century behind its neighbours in regulating the lodgement of troops. The Venetian authorities were conscious of the rapidity of the emergence of the problem of troop lodgement between the first and the second decades of the seventeenth century, as well as its scale. The Sindaci Inquisitori, in their petition to the Senate in 1621, addressed the absence of accommodation for soldiers in the fortresses of Legnago, Peschiera and Asola, writing that the situation was intolerable and would only get worse in the coming years as the numbers increased to perhaps 1,500 whereas in the past there had been only a few hundred (Melchiorre 2013, 311). In the Ordini, Provveditore, Paruta made a clear analysis of the problems linked to the lodgement of troops. The nature of the positioning of troops meant that there would be inequalities in the burden placed on communities. If this was a difficult issue to resolve – as measures adopted in the State of Milan demonstrate – there were more pressing issues. Primary among them was the trouble caused to the communities when ‘due to the lack of houses or money, they cannot immediately provide for the needs of the soldiers, and they have to incur debt at great cost’4. In response, Paruta ordered that soldiers could not demand more that they were entitled to, producing a list of services for officials, and utensils and feed for animals that the communities were obliged to provide. Beyond the quantification of what had to be furnished, it is interesting to note that Paruta’s orders encapsulated the fundamental issues that characterised the community’s role in rural lodgements, that is, lack of preparation, lack of facilities and the accumulation of debt. The northern part of the province of Vicenza seems to have been involved in the lodging of troops on two occasions, first in 1625−1626, then – and in a more significant way – between 1630 and 1633. Schio’s records permit a very clear economic and social reconstruction of the two episodes. In 1625−1626, the community spent 3,404 lire on the lodgement of troops, partly reimbursed by the Corpo Territoriale; the high cost was due to the purchase of wax, pallets5, sawhorses for beds, pails, hay, meals and officers’ expenses, in addition to reparations to private houses and stables involved in the enterprise6. The fact that houses needed work even before the lodging of troops suggests that they might have been previously unoccupied buildings that had to be rented privately, especially those where the landlord belonged to one of the wealthier families in the community7. Similar dynamics were present also in the second tranche of lodgements, between 1630 and 1633, but there were significant differences. The range of the commitment was doubled, both chronologically and economically;

The changing character of military costs  71 contingents of Corazze stayed in Schio for four years, at a total cost of 5,519 lire. Analysis of this expenditure reveals that the bulk of spending was accounted for by the same items as in previous years: hay, sawhorses, pallets, restorative work on houses and rents. Again, the tavern was called on to lodge troops, even if it was primarily the families of Schio who took on this responsibility8. Two elements combined to aggravate the burden and cost of lodging troops at this time: the damage to property caused by soldiers and the plague. The famous plague described in the romance of Alessandro Manzoni raged between 1630 and 1631 in the rural areas of the province of Vicenza, with important demographic, economic and social consequences. According to Guido Alfani, the uniqueness of the plague of 1630 was exactly its ‘ruralness’. The equal envelopment of cities and countryside made the plague a distinctive point in the demographic and economic history of the Italian peninsula (Alfani 2010, 267; Ulvioni 1989). Communities were confronted on one side by a dramatic fall in their productive and contributory capabilities, because of the rapid increase of the mortality rate, and on the other side, the maintenance of the leper hospitals and the care of the ill were elements that burdened the local economy. Looking at Schio, it was not by chance that the community incurred numerous debts. In 1630, Schio spent 11,841 lire on the maintenance of the local leper hospital, of which 2,513 lire were borrowed from private sources and from the treasurer of the local church of the Holy Trinity. The following year the cost of running the hospital decreased, but the need to borrow remained: Gian Pietro Bologna lent 200 lire and another 500 lire came from other families. These sums were required for the maintenance of the leper hospital, but in 1631, the community spent an extra 2,000 lire to purchase wheat to support the sick and supplement agricultural production, which had also suffered because of the plague9. It is interesting to note that while the increased spending in Schio may have been justified in this context, a different set of circumstances prevailed in Durlo. Its isolated position partially protected the community from the plague, while the transfer of infected individuals to lowland leper hospitals partially relieved the community of the burden of their care. Adding the costs of the plague to the constant exertion of lodging troops, it is easy to imagine the result. Ill soldiers could not leave the community and bloated the number of patients in the leper hospital. Furthermore, the foreign provenance of the soldiers seems to have constituted a problem, given their numerous attempts to escape and the consequent need to pay for guards. In late 1630, Schio sent an agent to Venice with a petition to ‘relieve the community from the reception of foreign soldiers in the leper hospital’10. This situation also had a negative impact on the conduct of the quartered troops. Unlike previous years, requests for reimbursement of the cost of damage caused by soldiers increased, especially in 1632. In March 1632,

72  Venetian military structure the council of Schio appointed a collection officer to catalogue damage, while in December, because of additional lodgements of corazze, the community paid 628 lire to private families as compensation for damage11. Lodgements continued the following year but without such difficulties. The case of Schio, while it may not be widely representative due to its geographical position, is indicative of some of the problems that existed between the rural communities and the state, and which also arose in Durlo, Malo and San Vito di Leguzzano. In these communities, too, the lodgement of troops seems to become a common practice only during the seventeenth century; in the opening years of the century, it was mainly cappelletti against the bandits that were involved, but in the 1620s and 1630s, this involvement graduated to full companies of cavalry. The considerable increase in the number of troops lodged in the province of Vicenza was out of proportion to the situation in the province of Brescia. Thanks to the position of Brescia on the borders, the troops were regularly lodged there from the sixteenth century, especially in the communities of the lowlands (Bedizzole, Gavardo and Leno), but also in Camonica Valley12 , and this practice increased dramatically in the seventeenth century. The trend of the general expenditure of Bedizzole (Figure 1.8 in this volume) between 1550 and 1656 shows that the 16,000 lire spent in 1656 was quite a low sum compared to the amounts paid in the 1620s, 1630s and 1650. This phenomenon is not observed in isolated Tremosine, but associates Bedizzole, with Leno, another community in the low plain, and the Camonica Valley. The peaks of expenditure are linked with three moments of particular military commitment; between 1620 and 1626, the involvement of Venice in the conflict in Valtellina converted the Camonica Valley into a military corridor for the theatre of war and, as a consequence, the communities of the plain were involved in the lodgement of troops moving to the Valley. In Schio, the peak of outlay on the lodgement of troops occurred in the same window, reaching 2,000 lire. In the seventeenth century, the community of Bedizzole ordinarily spent between 1,000 and 2,000 lire on the lodging of soldiers, but in 1625, this amount increased to 20,072 lire. A year later, the figure was still high, at 16,866 lire. Thereafter, the amount decreased for a spell, only to peak once again. In 1628, the threat that presaged the War of Mantuan Succession (1627−1631) caused the Republic to increase the volume of troops stationed in Brescia. In 1628, Bedizzole spent 7,994 lire on lodging military personnel, 9,616 lire the following year and 23,864 lire in 1630. In this case, too, as for Schio, the problems linked to troop lodgement and the plague overlapped and exacerbated each other. In December 1659 – almost thirty years later – the council of Bedizzole had to send agents in front of the Inquisitore Generale in Terraferma to seek the reimbursement of the cost of lodging seven companies of corazze ‘during the plague’13. After this period, this type of expenditure normalised.

The changing character of military costs  73 The exceptional nature of the case of Bedizzole – and broadly of the plain communities, due to their ‘transit’ position14 – does not mean that the conflict did not have economic consequences for other areas. In 1628−29, geographically isolated Tremosine hosted companies of cappelletti and Corsican soldiers15 surveying mountain passes to the imperial territories. This duty was not necessarily arduous, however, given that the passes, as Marco Dandolo said, ‘are very arduous because streets in many places are restricted and nearly in a precipice, so the soldiers of the cernide can impede any hostile attempt’ (RRSP, 130). Furthermore, the Camonica Valley makes for a curious case-study during this period. Troops, sappers, carts and artillery, with predictable consequences for civil life and the local economy (Ongaro 2016), constantly crossed the Valley in the 1620s as it facilitated entry to the Valtellina. In 1620 alone, the Valley spent 137,380 lire on items of military expenditure. Between July 1625 and January 1626 – so in the last six months of war – transit lodgements alone cost the Valley 3,505 lire, while 31,890 lire was spent on the transportation of military equipment. That is before taking into account the cost of quartered troops, military service and the commandeering of livestock16. In summary, there were significant differences in the military burdens placed on the two provinces. Whereas the sixteenth century had seen a nearly uniform distribution of military costs across the Mainland Dominion, the geographical position of the province of Brescia meant a greater presence of troops there in the seventeenth century. With the greater number of troops came increases in costs, in some cases – Bedizzole and the Camonica Valley being the most glaring examples – very significant increases. The convergence of soldiers in specific areas should not be linked exclusively to proximity to borders; it is possible to identify areas where the movement of troops was concentrated in each province (Map 3.1). That is why the Venetian Senate had already intervened in 1613 to get the Northern Quadre of the Riviera of Salò to share the costs borne by the Southern Quadre17. Due to the importance of the issue and the need to redistribute equally the lodging of troops and associated costs, this provision was just one of many that were issued by the Republic of Venice in the first decades of the seventeenth century. In September 1603, for example, the Senate declared that to alleviate the burdens of specific communities, the cappelletti ‘should not be lodged together in a single place, but they should be divided and lodged in many communities, with a reasonable amount for each place’, an order that was reiterated in June 163418. As in the province of Brescia, some rural Vicenzan communities were primarily involved in the transit of troops because of their position on the Padua-Verona route, which was one section of the route that connected Udine to Brescia (Map 3.1). The statistics compiled by Luciano Pezzolo (Pezzolo 1981, 433) on the lodgement of troops in Camisano and Lisiera are clear proof of this. Documents in the archive of the Corpo Territoriale

74  Venetian military structure

Map 3.1  The “transit area” of the troops.

of Vicenza also confirm this assertion; the communities cited in relationship with troop lodgements in the seventeenth century are all located in that area. In February 1604, Grisignano di Zocco asked to be reimbursed by the Corpo Territoriale because of the costs incurred in the lodging of transit troops; other indications come from housing contracts – as in Montebello in 1616 – or from more explicit lodging requests. The majority – dated 1629 – concerned Montecchio Maggiore, Creazzo, Montebello and Montorso19; they are very interesting because they detail the number of soldiers to be lodged, the typology of the company, the duration of the lodgement, and the structures used by the communities to host them. If it is true that the piedmont area of the province of Vicenza was marginally involved in increasing lodgement costs in the seventeenth century, it is not possible to say the same of the low plain of the province, as the lists of costs preserved in the archive of the Corpo Territoriale attest20. These long lists, usually of many years’ duration, concerned the internal redistribution of costs within the province, as an October 1621 provision directed to the low plain makes clear21. The positive outcome of these attempts should be demonstrated, given that in 1638−1639 the Corpo Territoriale was still discussing how to redistribute the costs borne by the plain communities at the beginning of the 1620s22 . The presence of a ‘transit area’ is also extensively demonstrated by the documents preserved in the State Archive of Padua. In the 1620s, the local Corpo Territoriale and the communities drafted many registers of costs and provisions for purchasing utensils or for renting houses for the transit companies. The next destination of the troops is listed, usually Vicenza or Verona 23. Before a more in-depth analysis of these documents is conducted in the next chapter, it is important to

The changing character of military costs  75 emphasise that specific areas were more heavily involved in lodging troops than others, which had consequences for local economies. In addition to lodgements, another feature of the involvement of the Mainland provinces in the Venetian military structure in the seventeenth century was the direct employment of men in land wars, and the renewed use of peasants in the galleys or as sappers during the War of Candia (Redolfi 1986; Eickhoff 1991; Ortalli 1997; Arbel 2013). Remaining in the province of Vicenza, Schio’s books of expenditure are unfortunately incomplete for the years of the War of Gradisca (1615−1617) but Durlo’s documents show spending on militiamen between 1565 and 1647 (Figure 3.4), and present a good starting point for the analysis. Expenditure peaked in 1601 (117 lire), 1617 (126 lire), 1625 (114 lire) and 1629 (113 lire). Looking at annual expenditure on a case-by-case basis, only in 1625 were reviews the primary cause of increased spending – there were a number of extraordinarily expensive reviews during the year; in every other instance, the increases were due to increased deployments of militiamen. In 1601, the community paid 44 lire to Nicola de Grandi and Michele di Zanconato when they joined the garrison at Orzinuovi and, in the same year, the community contributed to the costs incurred by the Corpo Territoriale in transporting ammunition to Brescia24. The Captain of Vicenza, Federico Foscari, noted that 1601 saw 1,200 militiamen from rural Vicenza deployed to Brescia (RRV, 127−8). In 1617, the scale of activity was even greater, and not just in economic terms, but in human terms in particular. The War of Gradisca was in its concluding stages and the number of rural militia engaged on the battlefield was enormous. Durlo sent two soldiers ‘to the war in Istria’. One of them, Cristiano Caliaro, ‘was about to go to war but he was saved’. The other,

140 120

LIRE

100 80 60 40 20 1565 1568 1571 1574 1577 1580 1583 1586 1589 1592 1595 1598 1601 1604 1608 1611 1614 1617 1620 1623 1626 1629 1632 1635 1638 1641 1644 1647

0

YEARS

Figure 3.4  Expenditure on militiamen in Durlo, undeflated lire (1565−1647).

Sources: ACDu, Resoconti 1533–1575; Resoconti 1576–1599; Resoconti 1601–1634; Resoconti 1635–1678.

76  Venetian military structure Antonio Carlassarre, fought effectively on the Friuli front. Other fronts of the conflict to which men were sent have received scant attention, including the western front. In 1617, another Durlo man, Bartolomeo Lovato, served in Custoza, in the province of Verona, after he had encountered Cristiano Caliaro in the Venetian army camp. Nicolò Pasquale, however, was equipped with a harquebus before being sent to the ‘war in Crema’, at another spot on the state’s western border. Along with Cristiano Caliaro and Bartolomeo Lovato, Nicolò dal Grande and Piero de Zordani were sent to Vicenza to serve under the Captain of the city, but there is no further reference to them in the documents. It is interesting to note that a small community such as Durlo sent six soldiers to serve the Republic, even if they did not all reach the front. Durlo still carried the same burden a decade later and, during the War of Mantuan Succession in 1629, three militiamen entered the service of the Almost Serene Prince25. While Durlo participated actively in the land wars of the seventeenth century, then, as did, for example, the community of Montecchio Maggiore26, it is interesting to note that the records of Schio, Malo, Valdagno and San Vito di Leguzzano provide no such examples. References to the deployment of militiamen to battlefield, garrison or even just to Vicenza in anticipation of further action are conspicuous by their absence. Given that such commitments always left a trace in the archives, it seems reasonable to suggest that the burden of responsibility was not shared equally. It seems likely that while financial contributions were divided more or less equally, only some communities were pressed into sending men, in this case the smallest communities. The records suggest as much, but definitive proof is elusive. In any case, the reality may have been more complex. The piedmont area, for instance, did not send men to the war in Friuli, but its role as a bastion against potential attacks was further entrenched (Hale 1990, 206−7). The Milizia del Pe de Monte (‘piedmont rural militia’) was established by Francesco Querini, Captain of Vicenza, in 1618. Its ranks contained 800 horseback harquebusiers and 6,200 infantrymen. Eight Vicenzan noblemen were to command eight companies and protect the border against possible raids27. Captain Querini made it clear that there were three typologies of militiamen (ordinary militiamen, militiamen di rispetto and piedmont militiamen) and that the distinctions between them were crucial. He wrote that during his visits to the countryside to inspect the militia, he would have to strike the names of the deceased from the list as well as remove from the ranks those men who were unfit for military service. To guarantee the quality of the militia, however, he would need to go further: he would identify which men were most suited to which wing of the militia; ‘I will recruit the most capable with weapons as militia di rispetto, and I will make a separate list of the less capable and use them for the defence of the local area, while the pick of them will join the cavalry’. The urban superintendents were Alfonso Capra, Guido Ferramosca, Lodovico Thiene, Scipione Chiericati, Ascanio Conte, Girolamo Trissino, Coriolano Porto and Antonio Trento.

The changing character of military costs  77 It should be pointed out that the first soldiers were enlisted in the Milizia del Pe de Monte in 1615−1616. The Captain of Vicenza, Girolamo Mocenigo, wrote that ‘in order to deal with possible invasions … I enlisted in this part of the piedmont area 4,600 men from sixteen to fifty years old. … In addition to their own weapons they received 350 muskets and 550 harquebuses from Brescia … paid for by the communities’ (RRV, 237−8). On 24 February 1615 (more Veneto), the Senate ordered Mocenigo to tell Alfonso Capra to contact the Provveditore Generale in Terraferma who would ‘appoint him as colonel of 1,200 infantrymen of the rural militia’28. There were many initial problems concerning the purchase of the weapons, but after a few years the new militia was fully established and subordinated to the orders of the Provveditore ai Confini, Francesco Caldogno29, as was the rural militia of the tableland of Asiago, which had been raised at the same time (RRV, 220). The entrustment border control to rural militias seems to have been a common practice in the opening decades of the seventeenth century, in Vicenza and elsewhere30. In the province of Brescia, rather than the establishment of an identical rural militia, the communities were asked to survey the mountain passes – especially in the area of the Rivera of Salò, which bordered the Counts of Lodrone. Between December 1615 and February 1616, the Captain of Brescia distributed weapons to the communities of the Riviera31, and documents attesting to the use of men for the patrol of the borders are preserved in many communities32 . Analogous orders were sent to other provinces of the Mainland Dominion. For example, in Crema, the Senate ordered the local Captain to Ortonga Tadini – a local nobleman – to appoint him to the command of 1,200 militiamen33; the Tadini order was nearly identical to the Alfonso Capra order. In Belluno, another bordering province, the distribution of weapons was not extensive, but following a request from the Provveditore of Cadore Morosini, the Senate ordered the Podestà and Captain of Belluno to send 200 militiamen to the border34. The Corpo Territoriale of Brescia and the Riviera of Salò were actively involved in directing the role of the rural militia of the western provinces in the War of Gradisca. The letters of the Captains of Brescia refer to rural soldiers being sent to garrison the fortresses of Asola, Pontevigo, Orzinuovi and Rocca d’Anfo, as well as to the Friuli front35. By July 1616, 1,200 men had already been sent to Friuli and 400 of them had died in battle or succumbed to disease36. As mercenaries who originally manned fortresses were sent to the frontline – they had a better fighting reputation than militiamen – they were replaced by conscripts from the rural communities. This practice was common in the province of Brescia because of the proximity of the fortresses. Between December 1617 and March 1618, Maderno sent three militiamen ‘for public service’37, and Bedizzole also ordered soldiers to Brescia in November 161738. The community of Gavardo purchased weapons for the men conscripted for Gradisca and the fortress of Asola in 1617−1618, while militiamen were sent to the province

78  Venetian military structure of Polesine more than two decades later, in 164339. The Gavardo-Polesine example shows that requests for men from the provincial communities of Brescia did not cease at the end of the War of Gradisca, but persisted in the following years, as they did in the province of Vicenza. As well as the case of Gavardo, after the War of Gradisca, the service of men from the plain, the Riviera and the Valleys seems to have been concentrated in the years of the War of Mantuan Succession, certainly as far as sappers were concerned. In March 1629, the Captain of Brescia ordered the community of Maderno to prepare men and animals for the army40. The Camonica Valley received the same order the following June and a few years later, in 1633, the Valley had to send men to Mantua41, as did Gavardo42 . The Valley and Gavardo usually provided sappers. As for militiamen, it appears that Tremosine and the Camonica Valley – the northern areas of the province – were not involved in sending men to the fortresses or to the front line. As in the province of Vicenza, the strategic role played by these areas may well have persuaded the Venetian officials to exempt them from this duty. The words of the Provveditore of the Riviera, Giustiniano Badoer, in a letter dated November 1617, are emblematic: he alerted the Senate that the sending of 300 or 400 soldiers from the Riviera to Gradisca would produce a ‘great debilitation of the defence and of the surveillance of the area’43. The involvement of such communities in the War of Candia (1645−1669) was more extensive, whereby all of the rural centres and provinces contributed both men and means to the defence of the Stato da Mar, with important consequences on the local finances. The paper trail left behind by the communities of the northern part of the province of Vicenza allows us to track the trend of state requests between 1645 and 1668. Some of these requests were common for all of the communities – the biggest and the smallest – while others had different trajectories from area to area. On 3 December 1645, the council of Schio discussed the printed order of the Captain of Vicenza, Ordering the sending of ten oarsmen [from Schio alone], and another one [to be jointly sponsored by Schio, Magrè and Thiene], before the 20th of this month, because of the ongoing war against the Turks. There should be elected four agents in order to implement this order44. We know that Magrè went on to pay 151 lire to Schio – itself, in turn, a debtor to the Corpo Territoriale – on 14 June 164645. This payment was probably a contribution because of the 200 oarsmen provided by the countryside of Vicenza earlier that year (Lo Basso 2004; Girardi 2009, 18). The same order reached Durlo, too, delivered by an official of the records office of Vicenza. Consequently, Durlo sent a man to Valdagno, with an in advance payment of 316 lire46. The payment of the oarsmen or of their families was a common practice; in the case of Schio, the local council fixed

The changing character of military costs  79 the amount at one scudo (approximately four lire) each47. The practice was for the oarsmen to be paid and then accompanied to Vicenza, where a certificate of departure was issued. This procedure meant additional costs for the communities; in the case of Durlo, between 1645 and 1646, the community spent 382 lire on a single oarsman, 70 lire of which was due to the procedures of accompanying the man to the city’s Captain. This amount was quite significant, at almost 20 per cent of the total amount. Similarly, in 1647, the Dean of Durlo spent 50 lire travelling to Chiampo, Arzignano, Vicenza and San Pietro Mussolino to address unspecified issues regarding the community’s single oarsman48. After 1645−1646, the greatest commitment demanded of the communities was in 1649−1650. A request for oarsmen reached Schio in January 164949 and immediately the community appointed the Major and the Dean to find the men. Durlo also sent oarsmen during 1649, at a cost of 572 lire, receiving assistance on this occasion from the neighbouring community of Nogarole. In the following years, the province of Vicenza continued to send men; in 1658, Durlo spent 277 lire on an oarsman sent at the end of the previous year50, while Schio sent four men at a cost of 576 lire – plus 194 lire of administrative costs51. The most onerous year was probably 1668, given that costs for both oarsmen and sappers had to be covered from this point (Girardi 2009, 23). Records from rural Vicenza give no indication that this was the case previously. A ducal order dated 30 January 1668, preserved in the community archive of Schio, underlines the crucial role played by this element of the army: ‘the use of the sappers in the construction of the fortresses made possible the defense of Candia’. The Doge ordered 2,000 more sappers from around the Mainland Dominion, 220 from the province of Vicenza. The order established that when the sappers are delivered … they will receive a salary of five ducats as a gift and another part as a gift when they come back, and they will receive five ducats monthly during their service. At the boarding they will receive ten ducats for two months in advance and … the usual portion of cookies … After they come back from the service they will enjoy the exemption from personal taxes for ten years as from the grain taxes … and they will be allowed to bring the long harquebus around the countryside52 . The generous terms of the order give a clear indication of how difficult it was to enrol men. It is likely that the promises of fiscal exemptions and weapons allowance represented larger incentives to enlistment than ideological motivations. We do not have the books of expenditure for Schio for that year, so we do not know how much the community spent on sending men, but we have more detailed information about Malo, San Vito di Leguzzano and Durlo. In March 1668 – two months after the ducal order above – Malo sent six sappers, at a cost of 2,839 lire and 10 soldi.

80  Venetian military structure The community did not know how to raise the money, given the prohibition introduced by urban officials on the imposition of taxes for that purpose53. Also in March 1668, San Vito di Leguzzano sent one man, from Piovene Rocchette, another community in the northern part of the province. Before departure, he received 60 ducats, a cloak and a shovel54. The following November, the province of Vicenza was given until 12 January 1669 to send another 46 oarsmen; the communities of the tableland of Asiago had to send four men55. Local sources do not allow for a precise calculation of the costs associated with this request, with the exception of Durlo; we know that the community spent 211 lire on sappers and 146 lire on oarsmen – with 20 lire of administrative costs56. The total costs were approximately 377 lire, a considerable amount in the context of the community’s total expenditure of 2,000 lire in 1668 – nearly 20 per cent in fact. During the War of Candia, the communities of Brescia also experienced an important increase in expenditure. It was clearly linked to the defence of the Stato da Mar. The councils of the communities of the province issued many provisions for the sending of sappers and oarsmen; the Venetian authorities, however, changed their previous regulations and now prohibited the transfer of money as an alternative to the provision of men. There was a pressing need for oarsmen and it was difficult to find them57. The provision of men from the province of Brescia followed the same chronology as that of the province of Vicenza, remaining constant for the duration of the war58. The Mainland Dominion, Brescia included, equipped 17 galleys in 164859. In 1651, the province of Brescia sent 2,400 men. The Camonica Valley retained the certificates of payment of the men sent in the following years (1665, 1666, 1667 and 1669)60. These documents do not pinpoint the chronology of the process exactly, because the payments were often made after departure or after return, but they do at least reveal the frequency and the number of men mobilized to serve in the Armata. The documents produced by the communities of Gavardo, Maderno61 and Tremosine (Pellizzari and Bendinoni 2011, 125, 128) facilitate the same type of research. As in the province of Vicenza, in addition to oarsmen, the communities of the province of Brescia had to send sappers for Candia. They were in some cases mere diggers, in other cases the Republic specifically requested professionals from the mines of the Valleys, the so-called spezzamonti ­(Vergani 2002). It was not the first time that the Republic asked for such specific ­labourers to use them on the battlefield or to build fortresses. Such a request to the province of Brescia for Palmanova has already been discussed, but ten spezzamonti were sent from the province of Vicenza, too – from Piovene Rocchette to be precise – during the War of Cyprus62. During the War of Candia, the requests involved only specific areas of the province of Brescia; between September 1648 and January 1649, there was a busy correspondence between Giovanni Moro, Captain of Brescia and the Senate because of the need to ‘find men that work in the iron mines in these mountains, to send them to dig mines in Candia’. ‘These mountains’ were the Camonica

The changing character of military costs  81 and Trompia Valleys, but we do not know if the need was fulfilled63. Information about the sending of sappers was located in the archives of Maderno, Bedizzole64 and Tremosine (Pellizzari and Bendinoni 2011, 125). In summary, contemporary records show that in the seventeenth century, there was an increase of the ‘direct’ military involvement of the ­rural communities, both of the province of Brescia and of the province of Vicenza, with militiamen, sappers and oarsmen being sent to the battlefield. In addition, there was an increase – especially in defined periods – of the number of troops to lodge. This increased involvement took different forms in different areas. Border communities sent less militiamen to the fortresses or to the front line, which was compensated for by the role played by the cernide in the defence of borders. The province of Brescia, for its part, seems to have been more involved in the quartering of troops because of its geographical position; there were additional differences regarding the lodging of soldiers within the provinces. Lodgings were obviously concentrated in areas that the troops traversed. Therefore, even if there was a general increase in the presence of troops in the Mainland Dominion, the economic weight of the lodgement continually fell back on the communities located on the Udine – Padua – Verona – Brescia route and more broadly on the communities of the low plain of the province of Brescia. In some areas – as in the piedmont area of the province of Vicenza – military expenses almost disappeared in the seventeenth century, because of the vanishing of the ‘structural’ costs of the previous century. In other areas, there were important peaks of expenditure at specific points, with important consequences for local finances because of their cost and because of their emergency character.

Plague, debts, war In a stimulating book published a few years ago, Guido Alfani referred to three of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (those symbolising plague, famine and war) in order to analyse the ‘Long sixteenth century’ and its ­effects on cities and countryside, using essentially demographic data ­(Alfani 2010). Beyond the evocative effect of the biblical metaphor, the ­research of Alfani is an interesting and rare example of a joint study of these topics, although many scholars have approached one or another of them in isolation – and often from a national or global perspective (Hobsbawm 1954; Romano 1962; Parker and Smith 1988; Ulvioni 1989; Malanima 1998; Parker 2013). Such an analysis goes beyond the aim of this book, but I think it is appropriate, in order to understand the structuring of the Venetian military apparatus and its economic effect on rural communities, to make a brief digression to discuss links between these topics and military developments. In the following pages, plague, famine and war will be considered alongside the problem of debts, which affected many Venetian communities in the seventeenth century.

82  Venetian military structure Because of the structure of the research, war – and more broadly the ‘military’ element – will be the central theme of the treatise. On the relationship between war and famine, it is difficult to make generalisations. From a geographical point of view, it is risky to propose common paths for states and regions, but it is also inadequate to emphasise only negative factors in the relationship between military issues and food-related issues. Given these preconditions, it is nonetheless undeniable that if there was a situation of serious food scarcity in a specific area, the need to feed troops in addition to the local inhabitants could be a real problem. Similarly, if local finances were under particular pressure because of military burdens, the purchase of foodstuffs could lead to an escalation of debts and loss of common properties. In May 1615, a period of important military commitment, the community of Montecchio Maggiore decided to borrow 600 ducats to purchase food for its poorest members65. The Camonica Valley and the province of Brescia more generally were emblematic examples of such a problem during the War of Valtellina. As early as April 1622, the Valley was seeking to borrow funds from the Captain of Brescia because its inhabitants ‘have nothing to eat, the most part of them nourish themselves with grass and other poor foods that give no nutrition’66. The Captain of Brescia was rather hesitant to grant the loan, because Venetian law was quite restrictive in this area, so he decided for a public distribution of mille, not only in the Camonica Valley but throughout the entire province. The Podestà of Brescia, in another letter of 6 July, was quite clear in defining the causes of this food shortage: ‘the old [wheat] is already finished and it is impossible to find new wheat because of the storms that swept the countryside and because of the volume of soldiers’67. In summary, adverse weather conditions and excessive military presence added up to food shortages. The connection between these elements is confirmed by another letter of an earlier era and which is so pertinent that it should be quoted here almost in its entirety: the General Paruta wrote us [the Senate] a letter saying that he is going to send a part of the army here [to the province of Brescia]. We want to communicate to Your Serenity [the Doge] that the city and the countryside are lacking grain at the moment, such as not happened since 1591 … so, if the Excellency Paruta wants to station many companies of corazze in this territory, they would not be able to feed themselves without adequate measures. The situation was aggravated by the fact that because of the war in Valtellina, the mountain passes to the German territories were closed, impeding the outward flow of the German soldiers ending their contracts with the Republic. The consequence was that the Camonica Valley,

The changing character of military costs  83 because of the closing of the passes is by now full of discharged soldiers. There are a mass of them in the land and in the houses in a status of extreme poverty, without money and almost starved to death and they do not know where to go … and the amount grows day by day. Public measures were also implemented to try to resolve the situation – in this case, the distribution of 10−12 pieces of bread to each soldier in return for returning to German territories through the Tonale pass. Many of them refused the offer, however, instead setting out for the low plain of Brescia where, according to Provveditore Francesco Gradenigo, bread was more valuable than money because ‘in those villages the famine is extraordinary and is not possible to find bread for any price without enormous difficulties’. Therefore, there was a clear link between war and famine that was not due to the destruction of crops by soldiers or the reduction of the work force to meet military needs. As well as the fact that conscription of militiamen and sappers was not so extensive as to depopulate the countryside, it appears that the Venetian authorities attempted to respect the agricultural cycle. In April 1647, for example, the Provveditori of Orzinuovi required 100 men to garrison the fortress, but he obtained only 60 soldiers and he was obliged to discharge them in June ‘in order to take care of the important needs of the country’68. Naturally, the problem of food shortage was at its most acute at times when population pressure increased. From Horseman to Horseman, the interaction between plague and war was another element dictating demographic dynamics – and economic and social trends also – in seventeenth-century Europe, including the Venetian Mainland Dominion. The spread of the epidemic was in line with the dynamics of human movement; from this point of view, the transit of troops and the transfer of evacuated individuals were important causes of the transmission of the plague from one state to another, just as they had communicated the disease from one province to another within the Republic. Moreover, as we saw in the case of Schio, the presence of sick soldiers was an ancillary cost for the host community. However, if the movement of foreign soldiers was fairly manageable, the supervision of rural militiamen was far more complex. Paolo Ulvioni argued that the escape of rural soldiers from the Venetian camp in the province of Verona was one of the main causes of the spread of the plague in the province of Vicenza (Ulvioni 1989, 180) and the words of Giovanni Grimani, Podestà of Vicenza in 1630, support this hypothesis. Starting in July 1630, the Podestà sent a steady stream of letters to the Senate to keep the Republic abreast of the situation regarding discharged militiamen who wished to return home, even though the border between the provinces of Verona and Vicenza had been closed in a final attempt to stop the spread of the plague. The situation was quite fraught, as armed militiamen stated that ‘if they have to stay around without salary, and without a means of supporting themselves, they are determined to force their way to the province of

84  Venetian military structure Vicenza in ranks, without thinking about the consequences, rather than starving to death’69. The militiamen departed, fled Verona and soon arrived in Monte Magrè, near Schio, after travelling through mountain roads to avoid health guards. The Captain of Vicenza, Giovanni Giustinian, happened to be in Malo at the time for a review of the cernide, and he ordered the piedmont militia to prepare themselves to confront the fugitives. There was also the fear that members of the local community would offer help to those suspected of being infected because of social or family ties. In the middle of July 1630, the plague started to spread from Arzignano and Montecchio Maggiore and the problem of the militiamen from Verona had not been resolved. Squadrons of cappelletti patrolled the territory, seeking to arrest returning soldiers; a number were found in the woods near Montecchio Maggiore and Lonigo at the end of the month. The Captain and the Podestà of Vicenza arranged the construction of specific leper hospitals to allow returning militiamen to be quarantined – this approach was realistic given that they would come home whether or not such measures were in place. In September 1630, four leper hospitals were built for this purpose, one near Schio, one in Cereda, one in Marostica and one in Lonigo, although the plague was already rampant throughout the province70. The province of Brescia experienced similar problems. The Podestà of the city of Brescia, Agostino Bembo, wrote that ‘the territory for some time remained healthy, but in the end many militiamen escaped from the city and entering their houses brought with them the plague, and in a short time the infection was spread everywhere’ (RRB, 346). This sequence of events is an interesting example of how plague and war could interact: it should be recognised, however, that the relationship was not just a one-way street; while the military machine could be a factor in spreading plague, plague itself could affect the functioning of the military structure. High mortality rates, for example, resulted in a shortage of men in the ranks of the cernide. This was the case in the province of Brescia; in 1631, Captain Alvise Mocenigo wrote that ‘many soldiers of the cernide died because of the plague, so they should be substituted’. In the same year, Lorenzo Donà, Provveditore of the Camonica Valley, wrote to the Senate that ‘the rural militia in the Valley is quite diminished because of the infection’71. We can hypothesise that a similar situation occurred in the province of Vicenza, but there are no reports from the city Captains for these years, so it is not possible to confirm the theory. As for the cernide, the production of saltpetre was also affected by the plague. In March 1631, Alvise Mocenigo, the Captain of Brescia, wrote to the Senate that ‘in the carnage that the plague has wrought, most of the producers of saltpetre and their workers have died’. A similar report was submitted a few months later by the Captain of the Riviera of Salò, Girolamo Priuli. The six producers operating in the province of Brescia died and only one employee survived (named Andrea Bonomo in the Quadra of Gussago). This meant that production contracts needed to be assigned again72 .

The changing character of military costs  85 Finally, the problem of debts is even more interesting from an economic point of view: to what extent did military expenditure force communities to turn to the credit market and to sell their common properties? How accurate is it to suggest that debts were widespread throughout the Mainland Dominion – at least in the two provinces concerned – in the first half of the seventeenth century? Of course, resort to credit does not automatically imply economic difficulties; on the contrary, as long as the debt is consolidated, it could be a useful instrument to avoid problems. It also assumes the existence of capital used for the loans, and where there is capital, there are wealth pockets. These problems are very complex and require a dedicated study; for the moment, I will make some conditional remarks and present a number of hypotheses. The general increase in the needs of the state, in addition to food and manufacturing crises, all contributed to an upsurge in local expenditure which – according to the literature – led, in turn, to more frequent resort to the credit market in the seventeenth century. This development was widespread in the Italian peninsula (Tabacchi 2007; Bulgarelli 2012; Giuli 2013) and across Europe, one important upshot of which was the occasional loss of common land that was placed as collaterals against debts. In the opening years of the sixteenth century, the Podestà of Brescia, Giovanni Da Lezze, wrote in his Catastico (a fiscal survey) that in the 163 communities within the province of Brescia, in 97 ‘the communities and their inhabitants have almost no goods of their own, for they are all owned by citizens and religious of Brescia’ – creditors were usually drawn from these groups (Corazzol 1979; Ferraro 1983; Belotti 1993). Furthermore, common properties were ‘located in the best and in the more fertile part of the province’. Of 163 communities, 97 were completely stripped of property by urban creditors, 35 were ‘miserable’ (nearly all of the community property had fallen into the hands of urban proprietors), 15 were ‘mediocre’ and only 16 retained at least as much of their private and public property as city landlords had acquired (Da Lezze 1973, vol. II, 16−17). To what degree and in what fashion did military burdens affect this process of depletion within the communities? Certainly, this economic impasse had various causes that cannot all be attributed to increased military costs. Nevertheless, we must admit that in the context of a general crisis, requests from the Republic for financial and human resources carried the potential of being harmful to the rural economy. The Venetian authorities themselves underscored this relationship. In 1615, Marco Barbarigo, Provveditore of Salò, reported to the Senate that ‘just as they say, all the communities … are deep in debt because of the extraordinary taxes’ (RRSP, 77). A few years earlier, in 1611, Antonio Lando, the former Captain of Brescia, wrote that ‘the Corpo Territoriale [of Brescia] is 12,368 ducats in debt to the Treasury for the building of Orzinuovi … and some communities have to take out loans in order to pay the ordinary taxes’ (RRB, 210). These are but two of many possible examples, and from the opening years of the seventeenth century, nearly all

86  Venetian military structure of the reports to the Senate of the Venetian officers told a similar tale about the province of Brescia. The records indicate that in the last decade of the sixteenth century, requests to the Corpo Territoriale for contributions to the fortress of Palmanova changed significantly, in quantitative and qualitative terms. Using the commons as collateral, Brescia’s Corpo Territoriale received a loan of 10,000 ducats at an interest rate of 6 per cent for building at Palmanova (Rossini 1994, 246−7). The Da Lezze Catastico calculated the amount spent by the Corpo Territoriale on the fortress as 2,000 ducats, while the Camonica Valley spent 3,000 lire on sappers (Da Lezze 1973, vol. I, 21; vol. III, 258). The sources provide only partial proof here. The community of Leno was seized by the Captain of Brescia in January 1596 because of debts relating to the fosses of Palmanova73, while the other archives of the province reveal no signs of specific economic difficulties. The situation changed radically at the turn of the century, however. Documents preserved in the archive of the communities of Brescia show a general increase in debts, and military costs are often identified as the cause. In July 1617, the War of Gradisca was still ongoing; the Gavardo community council approved the purchase of a huge cache of weapons, pawning the commons to pay for it74. In January of the following year, the community of Bedizzole borrowed 200 scudi (approximately 800 lire) to lodge a company of soldiers; another loan was taken out by Bedizzole in November 1622 and another one again in November 1624 ‘given that in this period of war we have to lodge many soldiers … so we have to buy and make utensils and other things needed for the troops’. In addition to the cost of lodging troops, the community of the low Riviera also had to purchase weapons; in February 1618, the community got a loan of 800 lire to pay for the weapons of the border patrol militia75. These are but a few of many potential examples but they are sufficient to demonstrate that while increased military expenses were not the sole reason the communities accrued debt and had to sacrifice their common land, they were certainly a factor in magnifying the communities’ economic difficulties in the seventeenth century. Other reports by the Venetian authorities in Brescia provide additional confirmation and highlight the importance of the connection between lodgements and debts; in 1625, Marcantonio Correr referred to the situation during the war in Valtellina: ‘the debt of the plain alone reached more than 300,000 scudi [around 1,200,000 lire] with an annual interest rate of around 20,000 scudi [around 80,000 lire]’. The Sindaci Inquisitori in Terraferma addressed the same issue in the same year and offered the same analysis. In their 1621 report, they wrote that ‘the city [of Brescia] and the countryside with the Valleys and adjunct places have debts of 700,000 ducats’, and comparable circumstances prevailed in the province of Verona. It is interesting to note that the Venetian officials underlined that ‘the debts have been taken out in the last six or seven years, where before debts were rare, but from 1601 onward the Mainland Dominion has been burdened with continuous lodgments and transit of troops’ (RRB, 274).

The changing character of military costs  87 More specifically, the Sindaci Inquisitori wrote that the ‘Camonica Valley in the first four months of the war in Valtellina … spent 22,000 ducats on the lodgment of troops’ (Melchiorre 2013, 303). Even more explicit was the report of Alvise Vallaresso in 1628. The former Captain of Brescia wrote that ‘there are two causes of the expenses and of the embezzlements; the legal disputes and the lodgment of troops’ (RRB, 306). According to Vallaresso, the latter was primarily responsible for increased spending, loans and loss of property. The Venetian authorities in the city of Brescia emphasised the role played by the ineffective administration of the communities. In 1615, Maffio Michiel, Captain of Brescia, informed the Senate that the community of Lonato had debts of 40,000 lire, because of the collapse of the incomes generated by the private use of common properties by the wealthiest families76. The situation was similar in Montichiari, where ‘the Doctor Tracano, man of the community, and now agent of the Corpo Territoriale in the city [of Brescia]’ used public finances for a private legal dispute in Salò. The Captain of Brescia underlined that In this war [of Gradisca], this loyal Corpo Territoriale [of Brescia] spent 15,000 ducats annually for the lodgment of Generals and soldiers and the transport of ammunitions and other things, in addition to the costs borne by each community, around 5,000 ducats yearly … and the money comes mainly from the public goods of the communities, so that if the incomes are used for private interests … they will not be able to pay their taxes and meet the state’s needs, having no other money77. Between March and May 1616, there was a similar situation in Asola, where the community was in debt to a Jewish banker from Lonato for a ‘huge amount’, at interest rates between 18 per cent and 30 per cent. The community could not repay the loan in the time agreed because of ‘the costs of the state needs’78 and so it pleaded that the repayment deadline be extended by two years and the interest rate decreased to 7 per cent. In this case, too, the commons were pawned to conduct legal proceedings against the banker in front of the Venetian tribunal of the Avogaria di Comun. The loss of the commons only exacerbated an already difficult situation. These examples concern the plain area of the countryside of Brescia, but in the Valleys, the situation was similar, even in the context of the greater vulnerability associated with poor agrarian production. As mentioned above, the Valleys had to petition for a loan to purchase food between April and August 1622. On that occasion, the Captain of Brescia wrote that there was a large amount [more than 200,000 ducats] of ‘debts incurred because of litigation and embezzlement, in time of famine … and there is no little damage done by the division of common property among private hands’79. Thus, community incomes were gradually eroded by private use of the commons by the wealthiest individuals within the communities. In conjunction with

88  Venetian military structure falling rental income, there was a proportional increase in local direct taxation; the wealthiest rural families could deliberately prompt this process also – it was a policy choice on their part rather than an inevitable effect of increased state financial need. For example, in March 1624, Andrea Dolfin, Captain of the Riviera of Salò, wrote to the Senate that during the prosecution of many legal disputes between the communities and local families, it became almost routine to impose the number and the type of taxes that [the local wealthiest families] want, some month [they impose taxes] of 600 scudi [around 2,400 lire] each, at other times even more … and the consequence is that the prisons are always full of poor peasants, imprisoned for the public debts of their community80. The communities incurred debts to cover the costs of private litigation, then lost the ability to meet the economic requests of the Republic, with the end result being the imprisonment of ‘poor peasants’ who had no role in the collapse of public finances rather than community Deputies. The connection between debt and increasing military costs is evident from the measures taken by the Venetian authorities and from, for example, the words of the Captain of Brescia Marcantonio Correr. In August 1624, he wrote that he was not able to collect the 173,000 lire of debts owed by the territory of Brescia for the lodgement of cavalry, even though it had been divided into segments81. Coming back to the Camonica Valley, in January 1625, the community of Ponte di Legno petitioned the Captain because the Major embezzled rental income from the commons – they were forced to ask for the payment of consecutive years of rent82 . Still in the Valley, there were other complaints between 1648 and 164983; the first is very revealing because it detailed many accusations of embezzlement in the Valley during the first half of the seventeenth century, even if they were not all truthful. Continuous appeals to the Venetian tribunals suggest a chronic phenomenon, by now insolvable by local means. The other side of this coin is proof of the interest of the state in this topic. Venetian sources are full of provisions that evince the copious legislative activity of the Senate on this topic in the seventeenth century, all designed to limit the debts incurred by the communities84, guarantee application of the law85, and oversee the fulfilment of authorised debts in the agreed time86. Gianpietro Belotti wrote that in the first years of the seventeenth century, Venice intervened to freeze interest rates on community debts, although the credit market might have produced this result independently anyway. However, the documents in the Venetian State Archive show that measures of a related nature were introduced earlier, even if they were aimed at private rather than public credit, and had limited geographical scope. In February 1554, for example, the Senate approved a measure to freeze the 6 per cent

The changing character of military costs  89 interest rate on debts incurred by the inhabitants of Valdobbiadene after 1520; in 1587, this measure was extended to Bassano and applied to debts incurred after 155187. These measures concerned the private credit market and were of a very different character to those of the following century; but the point stands that the Venetian authorities were already intervening in the credit market of the Mainland Dominion in the sixteenth century. The aim remained the safeguarding of local wealth, as synonymous of contributory capability, and in the seventeenth century, this principle was enshrined in writing in the measures prescribed for the ‘good management’ of communities. The State intervened to solve what its officials identified as the main problem for local finances, namely, bad administration, linked with the runaway growth of interest rates on the back of increased demand for credit. The officials also recognised that another important cause was the huge burden of military expenses imposed by the Republic in the seventeenth century. This set of examples referred exclusively to the province of Brescia; we must also scrutinise the situation in the province of Vicenza. Initially, it seems that the situation was analogous, given that in 1611, the Corpo Territoriale complained that the level of debt was discouraging anyone from accepting the role of Treasurer in rural communities88. In subsequent years, the situation did not improve and the debts incurred at the community level began to impact the general Treasury of the Corpo Territoriale. In the archive of this institution, there is a list of the debts of the Treasury between 1613 and 1619; it is interesting to note that even in times of peace, there was an annual loss of 3,000−5,000 lire, while during the War of Gradisca – and in 1618 – the debt level of the Treasury was 20,000 lire, four to five times more89. The reports of the Venetian officials seem to confirm the troubling effects of debt on the communities of the province of Vicenza. In 1623, Francesco Malipiero wrote to the Senate that ‘many communities have been oppressed by a huge amount of debts for a few years now and some of them reduced into poverty … and they say it is because of the taxes’. Malipiero had a different opinion, however, writing that this happened due to the bad management of the communities and to the extortionate practices engaged in year after year by some families, depleting the incomes of the communities and the money coming from the local taxes. I reported on this chaos in the first months of my charge, showing the alienations and the usurpations of the commons. Malipiero went on to insist that The community of Sandrigo, formerly one of the wealthiest of the province … sold the commons for around 10,000 ducats, and without regard to the regulations of the city of Vicenza and of the state. (RRV, 294)

90  Venetian military structure Malipiero wrote that the solution was to return the illegally sold properties to the rightful ownership of the community, and it seems that this advice may have been followed and proven to be effective, given that reports on community debts thereafter were not as negative in content and tone (RRV, 335, 376, 380, 403−5, 415, 435). What is more, the archives of the communities of the province of Vicenza reveal no evidence of a situation as perilous as that in the province of Brescia. This does not mean that the province was free of the phenomenon of debts – for example, there are no archives for the communities in troop transit areas – but it is reasonable to suggest that the absence of documents means that the level of debts in the communities of the province of Vicenza was not as serious as in Brescia. Whatever the extent of debt, it is clear that flawed community management was a real issue. Commons were sold in Sandrigo, as above, and there was also the rebellion of Arzignano in 1655, when the ‘poor’ took the local castle and claimed an equal share of income from the common properties (Tagliaferri 1978; Preto 1981b, 55−6). There is additional evidence of major differences between the two provinces; the communities of Brescia resorted nearly exclusively to private (often urban) capital for loans at times of their greatest military and fiscal commitments. In contrast, in the province of Vicenza, the Corpo Territoriale seemed to play an active role as intermediary between the communities and the urban Monte di Pietà (pawnshop). I have identified two instances in which there was widespread resort to credit in rural Vicenza. In 1646 and again in 1657, on both occasions because of the sending of oarsmen to Candia, the Corpo Territoriale – after the authorisation of the Doge – borrowed 19,500 ducats and 90,000 ducats, respectively, and distributed the money to the communities. Regarding the first loan, it was not possible to quantify exactly how much money each community received, because community council receipts preserved in the archive of the Corpo Territoriale do not report the exact amount. In any case, many of them referred to collecting the money from Monte di Pietà90. This practice persisted for a number of years. Between 1661 and 1667, the Corpo Territoriale deposited money on various occasions in the Monte di Pietà, ‘as payment for the debt of the oarsmen of 1660’, proving that on these occasions also, the rural institution mediated between the communities and the credit source91. However, the importance of this role did not exclude recourse by single communities to the private credit market but, as anticipated, this happened less frequently and much later than in the province of Brescia. In 1669, again because of a request for oarsmen for Candia, the Republic allowed the communities of Montecchio Maggiore, Lonigo, Thiene, Schio, Arzignano, Malo, Sandrigo and San Vito di Leguzzano to borrow money by pawning common properties; Thiene turned to the capital of the Countess Paola Porto92 . In 1671, Montecchio Maggiore requested authorisation for another loan and in 1709, it obtained permission for an additional loan of 10,000 ducats93.

The changing character of military costs  91 In summary, we can say that the link between war and the Venetian military machine more generally, plague, famine and debt is clear, even if it was not as one-directional in terms of cause and effect as might have been assumed. Soldiers – mercenaries or rural militiamen – could be one of the causes for spreading an infection, but at the same time, the plague could be a factor in aggravating the social and economic effects of the military presence, especially the lodgement of troops. Similarly, war could put pressure on food supplies because of the additional mouths to feed in a given area, but the same soldiers could also suffer food shortages due to other causes. The situation regarding debts was even more complex. Certainly, increased military expenditure in certain areas from the end of the sixteenth century can be considered one of the causes of the crisis in local finances at the beginning of the seventeenth century. However, some areas of the Mainland Dominion were able to react quite well compared to others and to reach the mid-seventeenth century without relying massively on the credit market – especially the urban credit market. The case of Bedizzole and, more broadly, of the plain of Brescia, as well as the Camonica Valley, show clearly that where there was a considerable increase in debt, it was due mainly to the strategic position of the area and to the consequent sudden and significant increase of military burdens. Legal cases, trials and usurpation of common properties – with consequent decreases of community income – were certainly part of this process. However, it is interesting to note that while the phenomenon was quite generalised – in the provinces of both Vicenza and Brescia – in some areas, the ‘mismanagement’ did not lead to unsustainable debts. Even if the greater institutional fragmentation of the countryside of Brescia (Rossini 1994) might well have meant different outcomes in different contexts – the role played in the credit market by the Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza might have had a similar influence there – the crucial element in both cases was probably military expenditure. In conclusion, we can say that the nature of military costs changed substantially in the seventeenth century; ‘structural’ costs were no longer a factor, even though maintenance costs for weapons, buildings and so on remained. However, the previous investments in fortresses and storehouses were substituted by real ‘military’ spending on oarsmen, soldiers and the lodgement of troops, which meant more unstable costs that caused high peaks of expenditure in specific years and in specific areas. This is the second important change that occurred in the seventeenth century; military costs assumed a more pronounced geographical character. Not only did lodgements affect one province more than another or some communities more than others in the same province, requests for militiamen did likewise. We saw, for example, that border communities did not send the same number of men to the frontline as others, because of the necessity of border patrols. These new categories of expenditure caused new difficulties for local finances, especially in areas where the burdens were heavier. In the

92  Venetian military structure previous chapter, we demonstrated that military costs did not cause the crisis of the 1590s; looking now at the relationship between war and debts in the seventeenth century, we can see that lodgements, in particular, played a fundamental role in causing and exacerbating the debt phenomenon. As for the plague, its relationship with war was not one-directional but it forced the state and rural communities to confront these new problems by changing their methods of managing military costs. They had to develop strategies to limit and distribute burdens, whether those burdens were directly or only obliquely related to the military.

Notes 1. ACSc, b. 8, fasc. 9, fos. 172 r., 191 v., 218 r., 219 v.-221 r., 222 v., 227 v., 229 v., 259 r. 2. ACDu, Resoconti n.3, 1601−1634, fos. 10 r.−v.; 13 r.; 16 r.; 26 v., 80 r.; 83 r.; 91 v. 3. ACSc, b. 40, fasc. 106, fol. 133 r. 4. ACSV, b. 1−II. 5. With the word ‘pallet’, we mean a straw mattress generally used by the soldiers. 6. ACSc, b. 42, fasc. 108, fos. 65 r.−75 r. 7. ACSc, b. 42, fasc. 108, fol. 66 r. 8. ACSc, b. 8, fasc. 9, fol. 126 r. 9. ACSc, b. 42, fasc. 108, fos. 158 v., 164 v., 213 r., 215 r.−v., 288 v. 10. ACSc, b. 42, fasc. 108, fos. 150 r., 152 v. 11. ACSc, b. 42, fasc. 108, fos. 289 v., 319 r. 12. ACBe, b. 3, reg. 1, fol. 267 v.; ACGa, b. 24, fos. 50 r.−51 r.; b. 28, fol. 30 v.; b. 32, fol. 27 r.; b. 38, fol. 45 r.; b. 39, fos. 13 r.−14 r.; b. 42, fol. 10 v.; b. 43, fos. 30 r., 37 v.; ACLe, mazzo XXXIII, n. 8, fos. 1 r.−v., 9 r.−10 v.; mazzo XV, n. 9, fol. 3 r.; AVC, b. 32, fasc. 1, fol. 333 r. 13. ACBe, b. 4, reg. 2, fol. 91 r. 14. ACLe, mazzo XXXIII, n. 10; ACGv, b. 52, fol. 45 r. 15. ACTr, Ordinamenti, b.12, fos. 296 v. and 398 r. 16. AVCa, b.182, fasc.8, fol. 246 v.; b. 180, fasc. 8, fos. 254 r.−258 r. 17. ASVe, Compilazione delle leggi, Serie I, b. 335, fol. 108 r. 18. ASVe, Compilazione delle leggi, Serie I, b. 31, fos. 434 r.−435 v.; b. 214, fos. 183 r.−188 r. 19. Ibid, b. 3753, fasc. 1, fos. 3 v.−76 r. 20. BCB, Archivio Torre, b. 212, fasc. 6; b. 227, fasc. 7; b. 231, fasc. 4−5. 21. Ibid, b. 215, fasc. 4. 22. Ibid, b. 215, fasc. 3. 23. ASPd, Milizie, b. 33, fasc. 52–4. 24. ACDu, Resoconti n. 3, 1601−1634, fos. 2 r.−3 r. 25. ACDu, Resoconti n. 3, 1601−1634, fos. 59 v., 60 r., 103 r. 26. ACMo, b. 1, fos. 112 r.−v. 27. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Vicenza e Vicentino, b. 11, 3 January, 31 January, 12 March and 2 April 1618. 28. ASVe, Senato, Terra, filza 216, 24 February 1615. 29. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Vicenza e Vicentino, b. 16, 3 June, 19 June 1626 and 28 January 1627. 30. It is interesting to note that a similar rural militia, with the same competence, was established simultaneously in the Imperial territories of the Bishop of Trento. Between 1615 and 1617, the Captains of Brescia wrote to the Senate

The changing character of military costs  93 that the Imperials distributed weapons to the peasants, and that the Emperor ‘had been thinking about an enrollment of the militiamen in the Trento region for years’ (ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 15, 30 May, 3 June, 6 June, 7 June, 12 June, 22 July, 30 September, 24 October 1615 and 6 January 1616; b. 16, 5 March, 20 April, 7 May 1616; b. 17, 17 May, 20 September, 3 November 1617). 31. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 15, 12 December, 16 December, 24 December, 28 December, 30 December 1615, and 4 January, 9 January, 12 January, 16 January, 20 January, 27 January 1616. 32. ACMd, Provvedimenti 1615−1620, fos. 70 r.−v.; registro 1612−1689, fol. 49 r.; Pellizzari and Bendinoni 2011, 125−9. 33. ASVe, Senato, Terra, filza 216, 24 February 1615. 34. Ibid, 31 December 1615. 35. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 16, 9, 17, 22, 26, 27, 30 March, 2 and 7 April, 14 May, 6 and 12 June, 13 and 16 July, 3 August, 8 and 10 September, 22 November and 28 December 1616; b. 17, 3 November 1617. 36. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 16, 13 July 1616. 37. ACMd, Provvedimenti 1615−1620, fos. 132 v., 149 r. 38. ACBe, b. 3, reg. 2, fol. 265 r. 39. ACGa, b. 50, fos. 12 v.−13 v., 29 r.−v.; b. 51, fos. 28 v., 42 r., 64 v.; b. 64, fol. 130 r. 40. ACMd, Registro 1612−1689, fol. 49 v. 41. AVCa, b. 53, fasc. 13, fol. 14 r.; b. 58, fasc. 1, fos. 414 r.−502 r., 504 r.−512 r.; b. 180, fasc. 10, fol. 137 r. 42. ACGa, b. 57, fos. 31 r. −v., 33 v., 34 v., 36 r., 38 v., 46 r. 43. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 17, 3 November 1617. 4 4. ACSc, b. 9, fasc. 10, fol. 130 r. 45. ACMg, b. 4, fasc. 10. 46. ACDu, resoconti n. 4, 1635−1678, fos. 31 r.−v. 47. ACSc, b. 9, fasc. 10, fol. 138 r. 48. ACDu, resoconti n. 4, 1635−1678, fos. 65 v. and 67 r.−v. 49. ACSc, b. 9, fasc. 10, fol. 230 v.; Girardi 2009, 20. 50. ACDu, resoconti n. 4, 1635−1678, fos. 41 r., 42 v., 45 r.−v., 69 v., 70 v.; Girardi 2009, 23. 51. ACSc, b. 45, fasc. 111, fos. 10 v., 11 v., 12 r.−v., 13 r., 16 r., 17 v. and 21 v. 52. ACSc, b. 5, fasc. 6, fol. 162 v. 53. ACMa, Provvedimenti 1668−1670. 54. ACSV, b. 4−IX. 55. ACSV, b. 6. 56. ACDu, resoconti n. 4, 1635−1678, fol. 113 r.−114 v. 57. ACMd, Registro 1612−1685, fol. 226 r.; AVCa, b. 165, fasc. 1, fol. 636 r. 58. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 50, 4 and 21 June, 1 July, 12 November 1648 and 4, 21 and 25 February 1649. 59. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, 11 January 1648. 60. AVCa, b. 44, fasc. 7; b. 84, fasc. 10, fos. 410 r.−411 r. 61. ACGa, b. 67, fos. 50 v., 52 v., 55 r.−56 r., 63 v.; ACMd, Registro 1612−1689, fol. 226 r. 62. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3753, fasc. 9, fol. 25 v. 63. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 50, 30 September and 3 December 1648 and 21 January 1649.

94  Venetian military structure 64. ACMd, Registro 1612−1689, fol. 244 r.; ACBe, b. 1, reg. 3, fos. 4 v.−6 r. and b. 4, reg. 2, fos. 264 v.−266 r. 65. ACMo, b. 1, fos. 80 v.−81 r. 66. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 23, 20 April 1622; Ongaro 2016. 67. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 23, 11 and 25 May 1622. The following quotations are from letters dated 12 June and 6 and 27 December 1622. 68. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 49, 25 April, 20 May, 26 June. Another example is dated 1532 and concerns the sappers from the province of Vicenza who were sent back home to help with the harvest (Pezzolo 1981, 430). Other examples in Ongaro 2016. 69. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Vicenza e Vicentino, b. 18, 1 July 1630. 70. Ibid, 2, 11, 13, 20, 22, 31 July, 10, 11, 14, 30 August and 10, 16 and 22 September 1630. 71. RRB, 357; ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 33, 28 May 1631. 72. Ibid, 24, and 26 March, 12 July and 15 September 1631. 73. ACLe, mazzo XX, n. 15. 74. ACGa, b. 51, fos. 43 v.−44 r. 75. ACBe, b. 3, reg. 2, fos. 273 v., 278 v.−279 v.; b. 4, reg. 1, fos. 96 r.−98 r., 146 v.−147 v. 76. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 15, 19 March 1615. On the elitist management of the commons by the wealthiest families of the communities in the Republic of Venice, see also Ongaro 2016c. 77. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 15, 29 July 1615. 78. Ibid, b. 16, 16 March 1616. 79. Ibid, b. 23, 20 April 1622. 80. Ibid, b. 25, 16 March 1624. 81. Ibid, 24 August 1624. 82. Ibid, 17 January 1625. 83. Ibid, b. 50, 26 November 1648 and 17 February 1649. 84. ASVe, Compilazione leggi, serie I, b. 143, fos. 1026 r.−v. 85. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 33, 11, 20, 22, 25 March, 6 April, 10 May, 9 July 1631. 86. ASVe, Compilazione leggi, Serie I, b. 143, fos. 1055 r.−v. 87. Ibid, b. 126, fos. 567 r., 595 r. 88. BCB, Archivio Torre, b. 208, fasc. 2. 89. Ibid, fasc. 4. 90. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3713, fasc. 5, fos. 5 r.−57 v.; fasc. 6, fos. 1 r., 5 r.−7 v. 91. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3727, fasc. 1. 92. ASMo, b. 8, fasc. 93. Ibid, pergamena 22 and pergamena 23.

Bibliography Alfani, Guido. 2010. Il Grand Tour dei Cavalieri dell’Apocalisse. L’Italia del «lungo Cinquecento» (1494−1629). Venice: Marsilio. Arbel, Benjamin. 2013. “Venice’s maritime empire in the early modern period”. In A companion to Venetian history, 1400−1797. Eric R. Dursteler (ed.). Leiden-Boston: Brill. 125−254.

The changing character of military costs  95 Belotti, Gianpietro. 1993. “Censi e Livelli: le Strutture del Credito Fondiario in Epoca Veneziana”. In Cultura, Arte ed Artisti in Franciacorta: Seconda Biennale di Franciacorta, atti del Convegno. Gerardo Brentegnani and Clara Stella (eds.). Brescia: La Rosa. 43−108. Bulgarelli, Alessandra. 2012. La Finanza Locale Sotto Tutela: Regia Corte e Comunità nel Regno di Napoli (secolo XVII). Vol. I. Venice: Marsilio. Buono, Alessandro. 2009. Esercito, istituzioni, territorio: alloggiamenti militari e case herme nello Stato di Milano (sec. XVI e XVII). Florence: Firenze University Press. Corazzol, Gigi. 1979. Fitti e Livelli a Grano: un Aspetto del Credito Rurale nel Veneto del ’500. Milan: Franco Angeli. Da Lezze, Giovanni. 1973. Il Catastico Bresciano di Giovanni da Lezze (1609−1610) nell’Esemplare Queriniano. Vol. 2. Brescia: F. Apollonio. Eickhoff, Ekkehard. 1991. Venezia, Vienna e i Turchi. Milano: Rusconi. Ferraro, Joanne M. 1983. Feudal-patrician investments in the Bresciano and the politics of the Estimo, 1426−1641. Studi Veneziani VII: 31−57. Girardi, Elisabetta. 2009. “I Sette Comuni e la Guerra di Candia (1645−1669). Archivio Veneto VI, CLXXII:139−79. Giuli, Matteo. 2013. Il Governo di Ogni Giorno. L’Amministrazione Quotidiana in uno Stato di Antico Regime. Rome: École française de Rome. Hobsbawm, Eric J. 1954. The general crisis of the European economy in the 17th century. Past & Present 5:33−53. Lo Basso, Luca. 2004. Il Mestiere del Remo nell’Armata Sottile Veneziana: Coscrizione, Debito, Pena e Schiavitù (sec. XVI−XVIII). Studi Veneziani XLVIII:105−105. Maffi, Davide. 1999. Alloggiamenti Militari e Comunità Locali: Pavia e il suo Contado nel ’600. Annali di Storia Pavese 27:325−38. Malanima, Paolo. 1998. Crisi e Riconversione nell’Italia del Seicento. Milan: Mondadori. Melchiorre, Matteo. 2013. Conoscere per Governare. Le Relazioni dei Sindaci Inquisitori in Terraferma (1543−1626). Udine: Forum. Ongaro, Giulio. 2016. “L’Impatto Economico nell’Alta Valcamonica della Campagna Franco-Veneta di Valtellina”. In I Cannoni di Guspessa. Edolo, Cortenedolo e Mu alle Soglie della Guerra dei Trent’Anni (1624−1625). Simone Signaroli and Giulio Ongaro (eds.). Breno: Servizio Archivistico Comprensoriale di Valcamonica. 19−31. Ongaro, Giulio. 2016c. Il problema della contabilità delle proprietà collettive nella Repubblica di Venezia tra XVI e XVII secolo: alcuni esempi nel contado vicentino. Studi Storici Luigi Simeoni LXVI:43−54. Ortalli, Gherardo, ed. 1986. Bande armati, Banditi, Banditismo e Repressione di Giustizia negli Stati Europei di Antico Regime. Rome: Jouvence. Ortalli, Gherardo, ed. 1997. Venezia e Creta. Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Iraklion-Chanià, 30 settembre – 5 ottobre 1997. Venezia: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti. Parker, Geoffrey. 2013. Global crisis. War, climate change and catastrophe in the seventeenth century. Yale: Yale University Press. Parker, Geoffrey, and Lesley M. Smith, eds. 1988. La Crisi Generale del XVII Secolo. Genoa: ECIG – Edizioni Culturali Internazionali Genova. (The general crisis of the seventeenth century. London: Routledge. 1978.).

96  Venetian military structure Pedretti, Sara. 2006. “Ai Confini Occidentali dello Stato di Milano: l’Impiego delle Milizie Rurali nelle Guerre del Seicento”. In Alle frontiere della Lombardia. Politica, Guerra e Religione nell’Età Moderna. Claudio Donati (ed.). Milan: Franco Angeli. 177−200. Pellizzari, Giovanni, and Ivan Bendinoni. 2011. Ai Confini della Magnifica Patria: gli Altopiani Settentrionali. Tremosine: Ateneo di Salò. Perini, Sergio. 1995. Le Milizie della Terraferma Veneta verso la Metà del Seicento. Studi Veneziani XXIX:193−208. Pezzolo, Luciano. 1981. “Milizie e Contadini nelle Campagne Vicentine (Lisiera nel ‘500 e ‘600)”. In Lisiera: Immagini, Documenti e Problemi per la Storia di una Comunità Veneta: Strutture, Congiunture, Episodi. Claudio Povolo (ed.). Lisiera: Parrocchia. 419−34. Pezzolo, Luciano. 1985. “Dal Contado alla Comunità: Finanze e Prelievo Fiscale nel Vicentino (secoli XVI−XVIII)”. In Dueville: Storia di una Comunità del Passato. Claudio Povolo (ed.). Vicenza: Neri Pozza. 381−428. Povolo, Claudio. 2011. Zanzanù: il Bandito del Lago (1576−1617). Tignale: Comune di Tignale. Preto, Paolo. 1981b. “La Valle del Chiampo nell’Età della Repubblica di Venezia (1404−1797)”. In La Valle del Chiampo: Vita Civile ed Economica in Età Moderna e Contemporanea. Paolo Preto (ed.). Vicenza: Neri Pozza. 31−133. Redolfi, Maddalena (ed.). 1986. Venezia e la difesa del Levante. Da Lepanto a Candia (1570−1670). Venezia: Arsenale. Rizzo, Mario. 1987. “Militari e Civili nello Stato di Milano durante la Seconda Metà del Cinquecento. In Tema di Alloggiamenti Militari”. Clio XXIII:563−596. Rizzo, Mario. 2001. Alloggiamenti Militari e Riforme Fiscali nella Lombardia Spagnola fra Cinque e Seicento. Milan: Unicopli. Romano, Ruggero. 1962. Tra XVI e XVII Secolo. Una Crisi Economica: 1619−1622. Rivista Storica Italiana LXXIV, III:480−531. Rossi, Francesco. 1969. “Le Armature da Munizione e l’Organizzazione delle Cernide nel Bresciano”. Archivio Storico Lombardo, S. IX, 96, VIII:169−169. Rossini, Alessandra. 1994. Le Campagne Bresciane nel Cinquecento. Territorio, Fisco, Società. Milan: Franco Angeli. Tabacchi, Stefano. 2007. Il Buon Governo. Le Finanze Locali nello Stato della Chiesa (sec. XVI−XVIII). Rome: Viella. Tagliaferri, Amelio. 1983. “L’Organizzazione Politica e Amministrativa delle Comunità Lacuali in Età Moderna”. In Un Lago, una Civiltà, il Garda. Giorgio Borelli (ed.). Verona: Fiorini. 161−88. Ulvioni, Paolo. 1989. Il Gran Castigo di Dio: Carestia ed Epidemie a Venezia e nella Terraferma, 1628−1632. Milan: Franco Angeli. Vergani, Raffaello. 2002. Tra la Miniera e la Guerra: Minatori Veneti a Candia (1648−1669). Archivio Veneto 159 (s. 5):5−17.

4 War, demographics and markets

Before concluding this overview of the burdens imposed on rural communities as part of the management of the Venetian military apparatus and the spin-off effects of these charges on the social and economic dynamics of the countryside, there are two additional topics that require scrutiny. One is the role played by war, requests for men and the lodging of troops in defining demographic dynamics and the other is the role these elements played in shaping the market. Focusing on these issues allows us to understand the different approaches towards managing the military organisation by local and state authorities in the two provinces – and around the Mainland Dominion as a whole. The primary aims of this book are to underline the relationship between the evolution of the Venetian military framework and the evolution of associated economic burdens and their consequent effects on local public and private economies, but secondary considerations help to illuminate specific state and local methods of military management. An analysis of demographic dynamics (in terms of manpower and consumer numbers) and market forces is vital to understanding the interplay between military structures and the private economy. They could well have had a significant impact on military management techniques. The effects of war on rural demographic trends is a complex topic (Cipolla 2002, 179−95; Alfani 2010, 211−58) that we cannot engage extensively in this book; it is necessary to delineate the relevant research parameters, however. The limited involvement of the Republic of Venice in the European wars during the second half of the sixteenth century meant that the movement of people from combat zones at that time was not of a volume that had weighty demographic effects. This situation changed significantly in the seventeenth century, however. In May 1636, for example, Provveditore Molino of the Camonica Valley ordered the community leaders to evacuate any refugees from the Valtellina still present in the territory. The measure involved compiling specific lists with the description of refugees who were given a week to pass over the border or to scatter themselves in the plain of Brescia1. The War of Gradisca, on the other side of the state, could have produced similar dynamics, with families escaping from the front line, but probably not to an extent that had a major bearing on regional demographic trends.

98  Venetian military structure A more significant dynamic seems to have been the problem of emigration from the Republic to avoid military burdens or to escape war-induced and state-imposed economic restrictions. These two push factors motivating people – especially people from Brescia according to contemporary sources – to seek their fortune under alternative rulers correlate to two distinct demographic groups. Highly specialised workers viewed emigration as an economic opportunity; another faction involved a broad cross-section of men, often peasants but also unskilled miners, who simply wanted to avoid military service. There are many accounts of this group. During the enrolment of miners from the Camonica Valley for Candia, a Venetian officer wrote: rather than reach the sea and abandon their sons and houses, they [the miners] will choose exile and they will go to work in the State of Milan, in Genoa or in Germany, with important consequences for the Valley and for duties, because if the extraction of the iron stops, the furnaces and the forges cannot work 2 . Venice was wary of the threat of interruption to the Valley’s productive system, and the likely consequences for the state economy. Mining was ‘migrant’ work, involving an enormous movement of the industry’s workforce around the Italian peninsula and abroad (Ludwig and Vergani 1994), so Venice did not wish to further incentivise this process. The same difficulty emerged when the Republic turned its attention from miners to oarsmen but it had an extra dimension, not being confined to the Camonica Valley. Moreover, Venetian officials were reactive rather than proactive in trying to deal with the oarsmen dilemma. In February 1649, Giovanni Moro wrote from Brescia to the Senate that the most recent request for oarsmen Could certainly produce important disorders, with the escape of the subjects, who prefer to leave their houses and families rather than go to sea … we saw last June after the first orders, many of them escaped, especially now that in the province of Cremona, destroyed by the war, they can find refuge and work3. Some months later, the worries of Moro were realised, given that many men Perhaps attracted by the promises of the inhabitants of Cremona, which because of recent adversities needs men for cultivating the land, they forgot their natural duty and escaped with their families to live and get residence in the same province of Cremona4. The Senate ordered border communities to prevent escape attempts, implemented measures to seize the properties of the runaways and considered methods of imposing its will on its subjects who were already abroad.

War, demographics and markets  99 Those who had fled were not a homogeneous set. The peasants favoured the bordering territory of Cremona, where they knew work was plentiful. Venice recognised that the preferred destinations of the miners were ‘the State of Milan, Genoa and Germany’, places known to constantly require manpower for their mining industry (Baraldi and Calegari 1991). The second migratory group was formed by specialised workers who escaped from the Republic in search of more profitable employment rather than to avoid enlistment. Among this group were the smelters and arms producers of Brescia. This economic cohort – for better or worse – was heavily impacted by military developments, and limitations on production and exportation often prompted the artisans from the Valleys to move abroad in search of greater commercial freedom. On 3 January 1616, Maffio Michiel wrote to the Senate that he had already issued some orders, in response to the invitation issued by the Governor of Milan to the gunmakers of Brescia, welcoming them to his territory. The Captain of Brescia ordered that ‘they must not leave this city, their homeland, under pain of death, their goods will be seized and their families will suffer if they take this decision’5. These restrictions on movement seem to have been imposed on gunmakers only, because of the importance of the state monopoly on guns, especially in the context of the diffusion of new technologies. It was not only their movement that was controlled but also the form of their output. At the end of 1616, Dusin Dusino, a native of Vestone in the Sabbia Valley but then employed in a forge in the mountains of Pistoia (Tuscany), made a request to the Captain of Brescia to recruit some masters from provincial Brescia. The Captain agreed on condition that ‘they have to produce only certain kinds of metal ware’, such as horseshoes, carts, carriages, nails and agricultural instruments6. Some years earlier, in 1611, Antonio Lando expressed the same worry to the Senate when reporting on the tendency of specialised workers to abscond from their positions. Because the military demands from the Arsenal had lessened, ‘the capital that was in circulation is now fixed, so idle masters consider emigrating elsewhere’ (RRB, 212). Despite the measures taken by the state, the drain of masters continued apace and became standard practice, so that in February 1625, at a point of strained military relations, the Captain of Brescia, Marcantonio Correr, informed the Senate that he was conceding many licenses for weapons exportation to neighbouring states. His rationale was that a blanket ban on exports would simply provoke further emigration among producers, especially to Milan and Parma, where the distributions of weapons to peasants tasked with border patrols led to increased demand, higher prices and larger profits7. The situation was prolonged. In 1621, Lorenzo Capello, former Captain of Brescia, had described the unsatisfactory situation in the Trompia Valley to the Senate, from where many

100  Venetian military structure go to work in other states, given the institution of four forges in the province of Piacenza, one in the province of Genoa and two in Tuscany, one in Tivoli and one in the State of Milan named Intra. In all there are masters from Gardone [Trompia Valley] that produce many barrels. (RRB, 257) The attempt of Correr to secure the labour of masters through a mix of prohibitions, promises and ‘safe-conducts’ seems to have been replicated by his successor, Andrea da Lezze. Reporting to the Senate, de Lezze wrote that many of the masters from Gardone had fled to Milan and Genoa to work in the forges of those cities. According to Da Lezze, his measures were providential; he fervently opposed such emigration, stating: ‘I stopped them, [and what is] more … I secured the return of some who had already fled, including one without who the forge of Genoa cannot work’ (RRB, 238). These dynamics clearly had a demographic dimension but their importance goes beyond that. They carried significant economic-strategic value, intersecting as they did with the need of the state to control the trade in military products. The effects of battlefield and galley casualties were purely demographic. Some examples of the death rate within the cernide during the War of Gradisca (approximately 33 per cent) have been reported previously, but these variables are difficult to calculate on the basis of the available data. The reports of Venetian officials suggested that the effect on the demographic balance of rural communities was not as dramatic as in the province of Cremona, for example. Analysis of the interaction between war, military needs and the market can be divided into two parts. We must look at the effects of increased demand or, alternatively, restricted production and trade of specific products. We must also consider the effect of the imposition of central state control over markets in defined geographical areas during war. Such episodes were sporadic but extremely interesting. One of the few such cases identifiable in the Mainland Dominion involved Friuli during the years of the War of Gradisca; it is understandable that the Friuli’s case is one of the few such cases identifiable in the Mainland Dominion. Similar practices were followed in Candia. On 5 January 1616, the Provveditore Generale in Terraferma, Pietro Barbarigo, while in Udine to supervise the war against the Archdukes, issued non-negotiable directions to the inhabitants of several communities in the region of Friuli concerned (Map 4.1). Without exception, nobody could sell, or exchange, use as payment, or in any other way trade, … in any quantity small or large … horse fodder, barley, legumes, hay, straw, small or big animals, used for agricultural purposes or for any other, carts and horses that they own, without a specific order and our license. Without it no one can sell or divest himself of even a small amount of these products, rather he has to use them for his own subsistence and that of his family, house and lands8.

War, demographics and markets  101

Map 4.1  T he involvement of Friuli’s communities in the market blockade during the War of Gradisca (1615−1617).

To implement the order, the Provveditore established penalties for both sellers and buyers, hampering the local agricultural market almost completely. Map eight highlights communities involved in the order; it was not possible to identify ten of them, most likely because of name changes in the interim, but plotting them in this fashion remains useful. The location of the communities is indicative of Barbarigo’s aim and was selected to facilitate his plan. One of the two lines drawn on the map indicates the main axes of troop movements (from west to east and east to west); it was the line that connected Treviso to Gradisca, through the fortress of Palmanova. The eastern line unites the border communities. Therefore, in various ways, all of the communities were involved in the transit of troops that needed consistent logistical and supply support. That is why the public authorities decided to control food, carts and animals in the area, in order to use them for the needs of the army; we do not know how long this measure continued, but it represents a clear example of an ‘artificial’ block being imposed on the market for military purposes. Because of the absence of other situations of war within the boundaries of the Republic, Barbarigo’s intervention was exceptional in the Venetian Mainland Dominion in that period. More common was the introduction of limitations, as anticipated, on the production and exportation of military products and the exportation of raw materials, especially iron. The province of Brescia was not the only area where such activities were located (Sella 2000; 2009; Colli 2000; Vergani 2001; Lorenzini 2008), equally important were areas like the province of Bergamo or the Canale del Ferro in

102  Venetian military structure Friuli. However, given that this research focused primarily on the provinces of Vicenza and Brescia, I will analyse examples from the Camonica and Trompia Valleys. The production and commerce of iron were affected by two main factors. Primary among these was the excise policy of the Republic, especially in the market of Pisogne in the Camonica Valley, where the iron was sold. Excise policy could be designed to produce greater revenues or to stimulate local manufacturing. The second factor was the level of demand from the armament producers of Brescia and the Arsenal; when there was increased demand for weapons and armour, the production of iron of the Camonica Valley was subject to the will of the state, protecting military production and depriving rival powers of raw materials. The importance of the Venetian excise policy is fully illustrated by records in the archive of Breno (Camonica Valley)9 and by the words of Captain Girolamo Morosini. In October 1566, Morosini reported to the Senate that in order to counterbalance an increase in the cost of iron production caused by a scarcity of coal, and a consequent decrease in exports, ‘we do not have to apply any new tax, but indeed to give some benefit for the conservation and the maintenance of these people’ (RRB, 87); in other words, to incentivise the commerce of iron. Antonio Mocenigo took the opposite view in 1619, writing that in order to reinvigorate the production of barrels for muskets, it would be useful to ‘put a higher [duty] on the raw iron coming from the Valleys, because … if iron exports will be more expensive thanks to the duty, iron will remain in the country and it could be worked’ (RRB, 243). An interesting account about iron from the Camonica Valley is included in a February 1625 letter from Captain Antonio Correr to the Senate. The captain remembered that in 1618 – so one year before Mocenigo’s proposal – a duty of two and a half soldi per lira sold was proposed ‘in order to make exporting more difficult’. The duty was on fine iron plates, object of another duty in 1606, while exporting big iron plates was forbidden. According to Correr, the duty was halved after a petition from the merchants of the Valley before it was completely lifted in 162110. However, the role played by duties in affecting production should not be overestimated. According to Michael Knapton, if it is reasonable to attribute damaging effects to the mess of duties on the commercial flows … the industry was certainly affected by other problems, such as the greater competitiveness on the export markets of concurrent products and the progressive scarcity of wood as a substitute for coal. (Knapton 1988, 65; Cipolla 1965, 33−4; Sella 2009, 101) It is interesting to note that on various occasions thereafter, certain military events prompted the Venetian authorities to intervene in an effort to either

War, demographics and markets  103 prohibit or incentivise iron exports, especially to the State of Milan. In 1569, due to the conflict against the Turks, the Podestà of Brescia, Antonio Bragadin, had proposed to the Senate the suspension of raw iron exports to the State of Milan, not in order to limit the military potential of the bordering state but to limit the emigration of specialised workers that are better paid [there] then in Brescia, but in the State of Milan they have no iron mines, so they have to buy it in Brescia, for the manufacture of helmets and armours, and then they have masters diverted from the province of Brescia undertake the work. (RRB, 110) There was a pressing need to guarantee a constant stream of weapons production in the province to supply the Arsenal during the War of Cyprus. In 1572, Captain Domenico Priuli prohibited iron exports; the fear of reduced weapons production induced the Senate to ask Priuli to forbid all iron exports, not just those concerning military matters directly, although the prohibition was not actually extended in the end (RRB, 114). In the opening decades of the seventeenth century, during the War of Gradisca, the war in Valtellina and the War of Mantuan Succession, there were many provisions introduced to regulate iron exports. Between March and April 1615, iron exports from the Camonica Valley were briefly prohibited before the ban was quickly lifted11, while in 1626, the sale of iron plates came under central control once again. In this case, there was no specific prohibition of sales to other states, but Pisogne was obliged to consign 20 bales of plates to weapons producers in Brescia every week – 15 bales of large plates and five bales of small plates – at a fixed price. The remaining iron could be managed by the merchants in whatever fashion they wished (RRB, 286). Iron export policy was heavily criticised in 1591 by the Sindaci Inquisitori Zen, Falier and Da Molin, who clearly underlined the twin threats associated with it. They identified the purchase of iron by the State of Milan in the province of Bergamo as the ‘cause of much private and public damage, particularly in terms of duties’. What was more, according to the Inquisitori, exports caused emigration, not only of workers, but also of the ‘merchants [who] all go [to the State of Milan] to supply them’ (Melchiorre 2013, 194). Naturally, similar measures were taken concerning the production of weapons and armour. The aim was twofold: to guarantee the supply of the Arsenal and to avoid arming rival powers. These fundamental aims had to be reconciled with the necessity to provide continuing work for local masters; otherwise, they would be attracted to other work opportunities abroad. The state’s response to this challenge was the foundation of the Fondaco (storehouse) for harquebus barrels in Brescia at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The aim of the Venetian authorities was to safeguard contractual continuity for the masters of Gardone (Trompia Valley), simultaneously centralising the distribution of production under the supervision of the Captain of the city.

104  Venetian military structure The exporting of the barrels, according to the reports of the Captains and Podestà, was mediated by the Fondaco for the rest of the century, it ‘being prohibited for the masters to sell war barrels to others than the Fondaco’ (RRB, 190−1, 212, 229, 256, 363, 422, 449; Pezzolo 1990, 163−4). Every type of weapon and ammunition came under the remit of this order, including the balls produced for artillery and weapons in the Camonica Valley. The Venetian authorities displayed flexibility when it suited them, however. In 1572, for example, permission was granted for the exportation of a ‘huge amount of arms’ to ‘the Catholic Majesty and other confederates of the Republic’, given their alliance with Venice against the Turks (RRB, 115). Similarly, in June 1616, 3,000 units of armour and 3,000 muskets were sold to the Duke of Savoy while other equipment was sent to Modena around the same time, as the Hapsburgs were a common enemy. An analogous request from the King of France could not be accommodated because resources were stretched and there was a fear of being exposed in a time of direct military commitment12 . When peace arrived again in the late 1620s, the removal of iron duties was accompanied by the granting of more licenses for the exportation of weapons to merchants in Parma, Genoa and England13. While the sale of weapons to the Duke of Parma seems eminently reasonable, the sale of weapons to Genoa in the era of the war in Valtellina seems less logical, given its wellknown affinity to Spain. It can probably be explained by the need to concede some ‘windows of exportation’ to local masters to avoid the collapse of the production system. So, the policies that subordinated market dynamics to the strategic military needs of the Almost Serene also had to maintain the activity of this productive sector, or its specialised work force would emigrate when internal demand diminished. The emigration of the specialised work force had to be avoided as it would produce drastic effects on production capacity when the Arsenal came calling for helmets, armour and muskets. The evidence presented here partially refutes the claims of Davidson about the positive effect of war on the Venetian arms market (Davidson 1985, 162). The reality was that war with bordering states could lead to limitations on exports, although it could also present opportunities: for instance, if better-off peasants had to invest in iron production, there was a likelihood that the investment would be profitable in the long term. For example, in February 1624, the Major and the Deputies of the Camonica Valley asked for permission to sell 10,000 artillery balls abroad as partial compensation for the losses suffered during the war in Valtellina. Their justification was as follows: Given the introduction of a huge amount of money at that time [to increase production for the war], and the number of buildings prepared and masters called … now, at what should be a period of success, when the investors should recoup the huge amounts spent at the beginning [internal demand has diminished]14.

War, demographics and markets  105 The desire to maintain a certain continuity in production and in demand led to the establishment of the Fondaco and spurred Venetian officials to ask the Senate to order armour, weapons and ammunition in an effort to improve the lot of local producers. Similarly, export licenses were approved as soon as peace became a reality. In conclusion, this brief analysis demonstrates that the state’s military requirements had to contend with other local dynamics, in the arena of the private just as much as the public economy. This tallies with the findings of previous chapters. The uncontrolled imposition of military burdens could provoke emigration from the Republic, especially as a means of avoiding enlistment as oarsmen or sappers. However, emigration could also be linked to military production; state requests for weapons, artillery and so on were an important incentive to some manufacturing sectors – such as the iron district of the Valleys of Brescia – but it could be a double-edged sword. State intervention in production could penalise merchants and artisans, forcing them to emigrate to other territories; this emigration could potentially lead to both the improvement of enemy military manufacturing and the restriction of Venetian military productive capacity in times of war. This is to say nothing of the complex issue of excise policy. In summary, managing the military system meant that in addition to containing the problems linked to the effects of military costs on the local public economy, both Venetian authorities and local representatives also had to cater to the needs of private individuals.

Notes 1. AVCa, b. 165, fasc. 1, 23 May 1636. 2. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 50, 21 January 1649. Additional letters with the same theme were dated 30 September and 3 December 1648. 3. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 50, 4 February 1649. 4. Ibid, 16 April 1649. 5. Ibid, b. 15, 3 January 1616. 6. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 16, 6 and 29 November 1616. 7. Ibid, b. 25, 13 February 1625. 8. ASVe, Compilazione delle leggi, Serie I, b. 32, fos. 121 r.−v. 9. AVCa, b. 8, fasc. 4, fos. 225 r.−227 r.; b. 26, fasc. 8, fos. 113 r.−114 r.; b. 70, fasc. 2, fos. 2 r.−4 r.; b. 149, fasc. 9, fos. 14 r.−15 v.; b. 180, fasc. 24, fol. 60 r.; b. 180, fasc. 25, fos. 1 r.−14 v. 10. AVCa, b. 180, fasc. 24, fol. 7 r.; ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 25, 26 February 1625. 11. AVCa, b. 26, fasc. 8, fol. 114 r. 12. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 16, 4 and 15 June, 21 and 31 August, 30 September 1616. 13. Ibid, b. 25, 4 and 14 September 1624. 14. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 25, 2 March 1624; Ongaro 2016.

106  Venetian military structure

Bibliography Alfani, Guido. 2010. Il Grand Tour dei Cavalieri dell’Apocalisse. L’Italia del «lungo Cinquecento» (1494−1629). Venice: Marsilio. Baraldi, Enzo and Manlio Calegari. 1991. “Fornaderi” Bresciani (XV−XVII sec.)”. In Dal Basso Fuoco all’Altoforno. Atti del I simposio Valle Camonica, 1988, La Siderurgia nell’Antichità. Ninina Cuomo di Caprio and Carlo Simoni (eds.). Brescia: Grafo. 127−45. Cipolla, Carlo M. 1965. Vele e Cannoni. Bologna: Il Mulino. Cipolla, Carlo M. 2002. Storia Economica dell’Europa Pre-Industriale. Bologna: Il Mulino (first published in 1974). Colli, Andrea. 2000. “L’Attività Siderurgica nel Territorio Bergamasco in Età Moderna”. In Storia Economica e Sociale di Bergamo, Il tempo della Serenissima, Vol. 3, Un Seicento in controtendenza. Bergamo: Fondazione per la storia economica e sociale di Bergamo. 179−215. Davidson, Nicholas S. 1985. “Northern Italy in the 1590s”. In The European crisis of the 1590s. Essays in comparative history. Peter Clark (ed.). London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. 157−76. Knapton, Michael. 1988. “Cenni sulle Strutture Fiscali nel Bresciano nella Prima Metà del Settecento”. In La Società Bresciana e l’Opera di Giacomo Ceruti. Maurizio Pegrari (ed.). Brescia: Comune di Brescia. 53−104. Lorenzini, Claudio. 2008. “Di Paolo Biancone e degli Altri. Mercanti, Reti Commerciali e Risorse fra Valcanale e Canale del Ferro tra la fine del Cinquecento e il primo Seicento”. In Interessi e Regole. Operatori e Istituzioni nel Commercio Transalpino in Età Moderna (Secoli XVI−XIX). Andrea Bonoldi, Aandrea Leonardi, and Katia Occhi (eds.). Bologna: Il Mulino. 231−58. Ludwig, Karl-Heinz, and Raffaello Vergani. 1994. “Mobilität und Migrationen der Bergleute vom 13. bis zum 17. Jahrhundert. Mobilità e Migrazioni dei Minatori (XIII−XVII Secolo)”. In Le Migrazioni in Europa. Secc. XIII−XVIII. Atti della venticinquesima Settimana di studi, 3−8 maggio 199. Simonetta Cavaciocchi (ed.). Firenze: Le Monnier. 593−622. Ongaro, Giulio. 2016. “L’Impatto Economico nell’Alta Valcamonica della Campagna Franco-Veneta di Valtellina”. In I Cannoni di Guspessa. Edolo, Cortenedolo e Mu alle Soglie della Guerra dei Trent’Anni (1624−1625). Simone Signaroli and Giulio Ongaro (eds.). Breno: Servizio Archivistico Comprensoriale di Valcamonica. 19−31. Pezzolo, Luciano. 1990. L’Oro dello Stato. Società, Finanza e Fisco nella Repubblica Veneta del Secondo ’500. Venice: Il Cardo. Sella, Domenico. 2000. “Le Attività Manifatturiere nelle Valli Bergamasche”. In Storia Economica e Sociale di Bergamo, Il tempo della Serenissima, Vol. 3, Un Seicento in Controtendenza. Bergamo: Fondazione per la storia economica e sociale di Bergamo. 83−97. Sella, Domenico. 2009. “The Iron Industry in Italy, 1500−1650”. In Trade and Industry in Early Modern Italy. Domenico Sella (ed.). Burlington: Ashgate. 91−105. Vergani, Raffaello. 2001. “La Produzione del Ferro nell’Area Veneta Alpina (Secoli XII−XVI). Un Bilancio Provvisorio”. In La Sidérurgie Alpine en Italie (XIIe− XVIIe siécle). Philippe Brauenstein (ed.). Rome : Ecole Française de Rome. 71−90.

Part II

Management

5 Redistribution

Au: Page ref. ok?

In this second part of the book, the focus will be on the management of the Venetian military framework, with particular consideration devoted to elements identified in the previous chapters, namely, the military needs of the Republic and the effects of the military structure on local economy and society. Many years have passed since Enrico Stumpo proposed a discussion about the relationship between war and economy, using seventeenth-century Piedmont as a case study (Stumpo 1986). This idea was almost unique in the Italian historiographical debate and little work has been done in this area in the meantime. Stumpo pondered how best to explain Piedmontese economic growth in that century, despite the long period of war experienced by the region. The presupposition that the conflicts were entirely negative in economic terms was based on a moral judgement rather than academic or scientific methodology and it influenced many disciplines, not least economics. Until recently, for instance, labour history did not recognise military labour as real work because, from a Marxist point of view, it reduced rather than added value to goods (Tilly Chris and Tilly Charles 1998, 23). The classification of military labour has only been modernised thanks to current research of Amsterdam’s International Institute of Social History (Zürcher 2013). Coming back to Stumpo’s analysis, he aimed basically to define war, as in the quotation on page 7 of the introduction of this book: war cannot be considered a priori economically unproductive. Adopting this perspective, to evaluate more clearly the economic effects of war and of the Venetian military structure, it is essential, according to Stumpo, to analyse the distribution of military costs. The level of correlation between provenance of payments and destination of expenditure must be calculated before the redistribution methods are assessed. At that point, it should be possible to conduct a fairly accurate analysis of the effects of war in a specific area. An increased concentration of troops in a province, an intense commitment to military contributions, the provision of lodgements or the purchase of weapons do not necessarily take a negative toll on a local economic system. This is certainly the case when burdens are equally divided and when the contribution involves investment in the local

110 Management territory and local retention of the sums invested (Calcagno 2011). In this section, I will reassess the costs itemised in the first three chapters and analyse them from the point of view of the redistribution of the payments; in instances where the financial support and the services that the communities were obliged to provide turned out to be profitable for them, we should seek to understand the nature of the process and identify who benefited. In fact, turning obligation into profit was a central plank of the management system of the Venetian military organisation. In the first part of the chapter, I will trace the geography of redistribution, detailing insofar as possible how much of the money spent by the communities remained in the local economic system and how much made its way to other rural communities, to cities, or even to other provinces of the Mainland Dominion. The evolving pattern of military spending, as identified in Chapters 2 and 3, clearly affected the pathways of cost redistribution, even if some fields of expenditure maintained a specific geographical template through the centuries. The credit market must be included in the analysis: we saw that in certain areas – especially in the province of Brescia – debts were strictly linked to military costs, so identifying the background of actors in the credit market could shed light on the management of military burdens as well as on the problem of debt. When the geographical pattern of costs has been clarified, I will try to identify the specific recipients of payments; whether the recipients are single labourers, merchants, contractors, lenders and so on. The interaction between the fiscal and military needs of the Republic, the geography of redistribution and the intermediaries involved can reveal how the culture of cost control manifested itself. The immediate aim is to pinpoint how communities attempted to avoid particular costs or at least limit their exposure to those costs, and then to establish how communities sought to recoup money spent by taking advantage of military investment. The other part of the equation involves the measures taken by the Almost Serene – especially in the early decades of the seventeenth century – to protect the finances and contributory capability of rural communities. He followed the Italian and European trend of introducing state policies to facilitate the ‘good management’ of local communities. The previous chapters demonstrated that the economic commitment expected of the Mainland Dominion, including the countryside, was quite substantial and was crucial in times of crisis. Community balance sheets show that a majority of expenditure (approximately 66 per cent) found its way to the Venetian Treasury or was spent in loco to cover Venetian military needs. Proceeding by concentric circles, from the state to the local dimension, a number of questions must be answered: where were the thousands of ducats collected by rural agents and Venetian officers spent? How much remained within the borders of the Republic and what was the trajectory of these vast sums of money? According to Pezzolo, ‘the majority of the money collected by the Treasury remained within the borders of the

Redistribution  111 Republic’, which seemingly applied to both tax revenues (direct and indirect) and particularly to local expenditure (Pezzolo 1990, 148). The state played a role of ‘inventor of internal demand, through requests for man power, goods and services’ (Pezzolo 1990, 161). This mechanism guaranteed that the money collected by the Venetian Treasuries of the cities was immediately redistributed around rural territories and that money was relocated from the capital to the Mainland. The construction of fortresses in the second half of the sixteenth century illustrates the point; Hale wrote that the Republic incurred many debts to finance the building sites (45,000 ducats during the first phase of works in Bergamo alone), and the money was spent in the territories of the Mainland Dominion, representing income for the areas involved (Hale 1990, 338−9). These funds were directed to specific areas, even if – in the case of the fortresses – the involvement of workers from other areas of the Mainland Dominion theoretically led to even wider redistribution. Generally, we can affirm that military spending flooded into border areas, where the lodgement of troops, the equipping of the militia and the construction of the fortresses required combined economic input from the communities, Corpi Territoriali and state. Looking beyond the basic method of redistribution at the provincial and community levels, it becomes apparent that other elements are at play; the mode of redistribution depended on the amount involved. ‘Smaller’ costs – such as saltpetre transport, militia wages, standard supplies for troops – could be easily managed by each community, not requiring major capital investment. However, when fortresses or new saltpetre stores were built, and there were also large numbers of troops to be supplied in the area, it meant that the context was very different. The scale of these projects often led to major contractors being hired from the cities. The redistribution of military expenditure did not automatically flow to communities when lesser amounts were involved and to border areas and cities when figures increased. As highlighted previously, there were many different costs for communities – some strictly local, others with a wider range – and they changed from one century to the next. At the start of the sixteenth century, until the War of Gradisca, military expenditure focused on configuring the military apparatus: building fortresses, purchasing weapons for the militia and constructing saltpetre stores. In addition, the peasantry were occasionally asked to take up arms and stand in for periodical reviews, although this service was more regularly accessed during the War of Cyprus (Hale 1990, 197; January and Knapton 2007, 83). During both the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the costs which fell on the communities in association with fortress construction were clearly directed to the areas where the building site was located. This applied particularly to payments dedicated exclusively to the building site, but also to payments to sappers – although payments to sappers should probably not be considered a ‘local’ cost. There are two sides to this coin: on one side, if payment was made before the sapper left home

112 Management or when he came back, the money could remain within the local economic circuit; on the other side, part of the payment could easily be spent by the labourers on the building site. The same principle applies to militiamen sent to reviews, but the situation with oarsmen was more complex. The records show that payments to oarsmen from the communities were additional payments; the oarsman often left this extra income to his family, to guarantee its subsistence during his absence. Antonio di Giuseppe Lucchin, in his December 1645 contract with the community of Malo, asked that 50 of the 100 ducats coming to him be reserved for his family. Similarly, a year later, when the community paid 310 lire to Matteo Gussan for his service in the galleys, it went directly to his father, Domenico Gussan1. Between March and August 1572, in Bedizzole, Andrea and Paolo de Bersani collected the salary of their brother, who was aboard a Venetian galley, while in November, Bartolomeo Fantono received his son Bertolino’s pay while he, too, was away on a galley2 . There are many such examples in the records of the community of Malo, and we will refer to them as appropriate. Another major source of expenditure in the second half of the sixteenth century was the construction of saltpetre production infrastructure. As was the case with fortress construction, payments relating to saltpetre industry construction were directed to the location of the building sites. While labourers were probably local, it does not necessarily follow that contractors and suppliers were also local. When the Corpo Territoriale built a house for the saltpetre producer in Thiene in 1584, the contract was eventually won by Antonio Cecchetto, a local construction worker, but only after two auctions had failed to attract bids3. However, a few years earlier, in 1581, Benedetto di Martini, an inhabitant of Malo, undertook the construction of Thiene’s storehouse. The same di Martini built the storehouse in Cornedo in 1588 and supplied the roof tiles for the restoration of Malo’s storehouse in 15924. Malo was an important centre of production of bricks and cotto tiles so it is not as if di Martini enjoyed a monopoly position or privileged access to the materials that he supplied. It was not by chance, for example, that whenever Magrè needed roof tiles or bricks, especially during the construction of its bell tower in the 1640s, the community bought them in Malo5. Records covering the erection of saltpetre infrastructure in the province of Vicenza in the 1580s and 1590s frequently refer to merchants who supplied the building sites with wood and other materials. These merchants were from the wealthiest communities of the province or from the city. The case of Malo, however, generates a starting point for debating another topic: the geographical character of the specialised production services offered by contractors and merchants. The production of arms provides clear examples of what was involved. Arms production was another item that characterised expenditure in the sixteenth century, at least until the war of Gradisca, because of the development of the cernide. In the forty years between 1580 and 1620, rural communities in both provinces regularly purchased weapons and armours and made payments directly to Brescia.

Redistribution  113 This situation is not surprising, given the profile of the industries of Brescia and the fact they ‘were able to cope with Venetian and foreign demand’ (Pezzolo 1990, 161; Hale 1990, 228). In Vicenza, the Corpo Territoriale usually made purchases, whereas in the province of Brescia each community acquired its own weapons6. This was probably due to geographical proximity, but also because the centralisation capacity of Brescia’s Corpo Territoriale was not as great as that of Vicenza’s. This contradicts the claim of Alessandra Rossini that ‘it was the Corpo Territoriale and not each community that purchased the arms and maintained the rural militia’ (Rossini 1994, 261). Rossini alluded to a document dated 1579, produced by the Corpo Territoriale, in which the costs for reviews, weapons and salaries for the officials of the cernide were listed. However, the fact that the costs were divided within the province does not mean that the costs were managed directly by the rural representative institution. It cannot be stated definitively that the Corpo Territoriale never purchased arms for the peasants of the province – for example, in the years of the War of Gradisca, it was the Captain of the city himself who ordered the distribution of weapons. What we do have are numerous examples of single communities purchasing or repairing weapons, and acting completely autonomously. The same can be said regarding payments to militiamen and to officers for their duty at reviews and service in war. The situation was reversed in the province of Vicenza, where from the sixteenth century there were various common purchases of arms, mediated by the Corpo Territoriale. That institution’s archive holds many lists compiled between 1557 and 1599, which make it abundantly clear that it was the Corpo Territoriale that bought the arms, then divided the responsibility for the bill between the communities7. Local records, demonstrating that the Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza was already a respected intermediary in the mid-sixteenth century, at least in this field, corroborate this process. Nonetheless, individual communities retained the right to independently substitute or at least collect the arms purchased by the Corpo Territoriale. In October 1561, for example, Giuseppe Canneti, ‘agent for the rural militia of the Vicariato’ of Schio, travelled to Brescia in order to ‘collect twenty nine pieces of armor divided into six bales for the rural militia’, even if the cost was included in a joint payment by all the communities of the province8. In the seventeenth century, this centralisation of competences in Vicenza’s Corpo Territoriale was fixed in law, but with some alterations. The period of large-scale purchasing had passed, with the exception of the formation of the piedmont militia (at which point the Corpo Territoriale again distributed the muskets contributed by the Republic), so the responsibility to substitute faulty or lost weapons fell back on the communities. However, there was a legal obligation that the restoration or purchase of these arms be conducted through provincial gunsmiths who were contracted with the Corpo Territoriale. This system probably resulted in savings on the weapons but it restricted local autonomy. In 1609, then, when Matteo and Paolo

114 Management Stecco’s contract (first agreed in 1603) was renewed for seven years, the notary stipulated that ‘the communities are obliged to buy harquebuses, muskets and other weapons from the Stecchi and not in other places’ and that the contractors have to sell the products ‘at the price established in the contract’. In contracts signed in 1618 and 1635, the formula remained the same; the prices of muskets, flasks, chords and poles for weapons were fixed and the communities were obliged to buy exclusively from the new contractors9. The production of clothes was another field of specialised manufacturing that could benefit from military investment. Significant orders for uniforms were typical of the eighteenth century, but there are examples of such dynamics beginning to emerge in the sixteenth century. During the Italian Wars, for example, when the community of Schio was required to send soldiers to the Republic, the local council provided them with red uniforms, paid for by the community. The uniforms were supplied by local producers including Gianpietro Toaldo, Marco Grandi, Francesco Pericoli, Barnaba Stefanini and many others, all members of the wealthiest local families10. Therefore, items requiring specialised production – like bricks, clothes and weapons – show how the direction taken by military expenditure could be linked not only to the localisation of building sites or conflicts, but also to the typology of the merchandise required. The archive of Leno, in the low plain of Brescia, provided further information about the provenance of the shepherds who were contracted to fertilise saltpetre producing land with their herds. In the previous chapter, sheep farming was identified as one of the most important economic activities, in the Camonica Valley (second only perhaps to the mining industry). So, it is not surprising that the majority of sheep-saltpetre contractors listed in Leno’s records came from the Camonica Valley. For example, in December 1599, Rocco di Coati from Vian sued the community of Leno because he was not awarded access to pastures. In 1636, Leno signed a contract with Andrea Marchionni, another sheepherder from the Camonica Valley. From 1606, the communities of Brescia were obliged not only to furnish pastures for sheep but also 200 animals for each storehouse (Vergani 1991, 309). The volume of contracts was so high because it was the community itself that was charged with providing sheep to use in the saltpetre production process. Another sheepherder from the Camonica Valley, Giacomo Racizza, signed a contract to provide Leno’s sheep on 7 October 1669, although there were a few local herders who grazed sheep as part of the saltpetre industry during this period11. However, it is clear that in another atypical case of ‘geographical specialization’, the majority of sheepherders came from the Valley. Having analysed the ‘structural’ costs of the sixteenth century in the provinces of Brescia and Vicenza and underlined the varying routes of military expenditure, we have seen how some minor elements were directly redistributed within the communities. The most considerable tranches of expenditure, however, followed different trajectories because of the

Redistribution  115 localisation of building sites, the geographical specialisation of production and so on. In the seventeenth century, some dynamics remained the same, whereas others changed. Troop lodgements were the most important expenditure in the seventeenth century; in this case, too, the money went to the communities where the soldiers were lodged. The rural villages in the provinces of Vicenza and Brescia, in addition to receiving payments from other areas of the Mainland Dominion, spent huge amounts of money for this purpose – we have already looked at such cases from Bedizzole, the Camonica Valley and the lowlands of Vicenza. These costs were rightly shared with the other communities in each province and, from the time of the Paruta orders in 1621, with the other provinces in the Mainland Dominion. Having identified this trajectory, predictable and all as it was, we must recognise that there was no assumption that payments made in a certain area would remain within the local economic circuit. With regard to the renting of houses for the lodgement of troops, we will see that local élites were often the key players in negotiations over who provide the accommodation. The situation regarding supplies was more complex. In this case, too, there were wealthy peasants who supplied the troops with hay, straw, furniture, bed sheets and firewood, but urban merchants and artisans came into play when larger contracts were at stake. The province of Padua is an exemplar here, with a significant cohort of urban merchants stipulating contracts with the Corpo Territoriale to supply the soldiers. As for other military costs – fortress construction, saltpetre production, militia pay – we have also previously seen that the seventeenth century was characterised by the vanishing of ‘structural’ costs. Payments made by the communities were used to cover reviews of the cernide, sending oarsmen to the galleys, the reimbursement of charters and wood suppliers, and the acquisition of land for saltpetre, in addition to routine maintenance of local fortresses in the case of the province of Brescia. Theoretically, all the money spent on these items remained within the communities. However, the shape of cernide weapons contracts and saltpetre warehouse maintenance contracts in the province of Vicenza suggests that the Corpo Territoriale occasionally employed its organisational capability in an effort to limit costs (even in instances of minor investments) by taking recourse to provincial contracts and restricting the redistributive autonomy of communities. The question of credit must also be elucidated before moving on to evaluate the division of burdens between bodies and identifying the beneficiaries of military expenditure. Their centrality in affecting the ability of communities to sustain military burdens – especially in the seventeenth century – means it is imperative to characterise the phenomenon of debt and equally important to analyse its geography. Differentiating between the forms of debt (e.g. floating, funded, short- or long-term debt can be symptoms of various economic issues) might reveal something about the economic capabilities of the communities; however, what is equally important is charting the geographical

116 Management distribution of debts (and loans). A common theme in the historiography of this subject has been the fact that benefits have accrued to urban areas in the form of interest and land. Here, we will reconsider that relationship, considering especially the importance of the rural credit market. There is broad agreement among historians that when communities sought out fresh finance, they looked not to the food market but to the risky loan market, which was controlled by wealthy citizens who would not hesitate to seize rural properties (Pezzolo 1985, 396). Pezzolo’s findings were in the context of the province of Vicenza, but Belotti and Ferraro made the same case about Brescia. Since the fifteenth century, according to Belotti, besides micro-credit supplied in rural settings by wealthy families or by confraternities, the credit market was controlled by ‘­citizens  – ­nobles or bourgeoisies – with properties in the communities .… The citizens ­monopolized the credit market’. These included the noble families of Brescia, namely, Martinengo, Averoldi and Gambara (Belotti 1993, 46−7; Ferraro 1983, 39−41; 1984, 174−75). In addition to these families, Jewish lenders were also involved in the market, as in the case of Lonato (Belotti 1993, 50). The most interesting element in the equation, however, is the link between land grabbing and loans that allowed citizens to penetrate the countrysides of Vicenza and Brescia. So, the interest on loans, in the shape of properties ceded as warranty or payment, made its way to the city of Brescia or to Salò when dealing with the Riviera. There, it ended up in the pockets of urban families or religious institutions (Ferraro 1983, 41). In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, religious institutions ‘were real banks, their liquidity coming from bequests, donations, liturgical services, rents from rural and urban properties and collection of interest on loans’ (Cattini 1982, 342). These dynamics were common to the whole Italian Peninsula (Cattini 1984; Di Tullio 2013). However, there were some cases in the Mainland Dominion of local actors – or at least, actors less interested in acquiring rural properties – who could occasionally cater for the credit needs of communities. In the previous chapters, I referred to the mediation of the Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza with the local Monte di Pietà, but even more remarkable is the recourse to rural confraternities. In Bedizzole, the ‘food fund’ (Monte della munizione) managed food provision in situations of famine, but there are many references in contemporary documents to instances in which the Confraternity of Disciplinati and the Univerisità dei Poveri (Poor Group) financed the purchase of hay for billeted soldiers, while the School of the Holy Sacrament gave a loan to the community in 166112 . In Schio, the situation was similar, with recourse made to the Church of the Holy Trinity for the maintenance of the leper hospital during the plague of the 1630s13. In addition to local institutions (ecclesiastic or not), the families of rural élites could engage in money-lending, allowing a redistribution of wealth within the community. Table 5.1 shows the loans incurred by the community of Bedizzole between 1624 and 1670 (with a few cases falling outside

Redistribution  117 this period). Clearly, the wealthiest families in the communities played a very important role, which leads us to a discussion of the monopoly of the credit market by urban families.

Table 5.1  Loans incurred by the community of Bedizzole (1624−1670) Lender

Origin

Francesco Albergino Sigismondo Polis Lazarini Tiburzio Zecco Lazarini Pietro Olivo Stefano Rodolfo Andrea Zanetto de Zanetti Francesco Zecco Orazio Zecco Erculano Calcinando Giacomo Lazarino Francesco Manerba Josef Jacomino Francesco Manerba (then Fra Benedetto Fusaro di San Pietro) Fra Benedetto Fusaro di San Pietro Cesare Poncarale (noble) Nuns of San Benedetto Pietro Olivo Commissaria Morsilica (?) Gioseph Jacomini Scipione Zecco Priests of Santa Giustina Stefano Rodolfo Erculano Calcinando Gian Battista Belotto Geronimo Fantono Antonio Manno Incurable Hospital (Contraternity) Heirs of Bartolomeo Monselice Fra Benedetto Fusaro di San Pietro Gioseffo Giacomini Cristoforo Gallo Abbot Alessandro Roveglia Gian Antonio Belotto Gian Battista Bianchini

Salò Brescia Salò Bedizzole Salò Bedizzole Salò Bedizzole Bedizzole Toscolano Salò Salò Brescia Brescia

Capital (lire)

Duration of the loan

2980 6000

1577–… 1608–… 1618–… 3000–1000–2000 1620–1622 2000 1622–… 2000 1622–1637 800 1624–1645 1600 1625–1639 2000 1625–1643 1600 1625–1649 1200 1626–1646 14256 1626–1627 12200 1627–1632 2000 1628–1642 12200 1633–1635 2000

1633–1654

8000 10200 2000 4000 2000 2000 1600 800 1200 4840 1600 9400

1637 1637–1644 1638–1659 1639–1647 1643–1654 1644–1661 1646 1646–1672 1647–1660 1650–1653 1650–1670 1651–1655 1655–…

Maderno (?) 12000 Brescia 2000

1655 1655–1659

Salò Brescia (?)

1655–1660 …–1664 1657–1667 1658–1671 1660–1668

Brescia Salò Bedizzole Maderno Salò Bedizzole Salò Toscolano Sulzano Bedizzole Salò Brescia

Bedizzole Bedizzole (?)

2000 9400 3000 1000 8000

(Continued)

118 Management Lender

Origin

Alessandro Olivo Scipione Zecco Gioseffo Giacomini School of the Holy Sacrament Erculano Calcinando or the Community of Salò Cristoforo Gallo and heirs Gian Battista Belotto Gian Battista Belotto Marco Lando (bought from Gioseffo Giacomini) Abbott Alessandro Roveglia Nuns of San Benedetto Zecchi

Bedizzole Bedizzole Salò Bedizzole Toscolano/ Salò Brescia (?) Sulzano Sulzano Bedizzole Salò Bedizzole

Capital (lire)

Duration of the loan

2000 2000 2000 400 1200

1660–1675 1661–1669 1661 1661–1673 1661–1669

5000 4840 4840 2000

1664–1669 1664–1665 1666–1671 1667–1678

3000

1668–1674 1668–… 1669–1673

2000

Sources: ACBe, b. 1, reg. 3, fol. 31 r.; b. 3, reg. 2, fos. 96 v.-97 r., 287 r.; b. 4, reg. 1, fos. 64 v.-65 r.; b. 4, reg. 2, fos. 40 r.-v., 279 v., 282 v.; b. 19, fasc. 1, fos. 11 v., 13 v.; b. 27, fasc. 1, fos. 2 r.-72 r.; b. 3, reg. 1, fol. 178 r.

These data highlight the role played by Salò and the wealthiest communities of the Rivera (including Toscolano and Maderno) as sources for loans, but also the economic weight of some families in Bedizzole, such as the Olivos and Zeccos, as well as local institutions (School of the Holy Sacrament). Bedizzole was not an isolated case in the province of Brescia; in 1649, Tremosine, for example, resorted to a loan financed by the local School of the Holy Sacrament (Pellizzari and Bendinoni 2011, 228). Despite this, the role played by urban families was preeminent – at least in the province of Brescia. The frequency of recourse to the credit market was not as high in the province of Vicenza – and this affected the resilience of rural public finances.

The Mainland Dominion Before conducting an in-depth analysis of the actors involved in the management of military costs, it is worthwhile to study the practical mechanisms that regulated redistribution. These mechanisms were occasionally at odds with one another. This is another step in composing a comprehensive picture of the management of the Venetian military structure. I have already identified some redistribution trajectories, linked mainly to the military needs of the Republic and to local capacities to deal with them. However, these ‘implicit’ forces were accompanied by practices, conflicts, legislatives interventions and dialogic dynamics between bodies that affected the distribution of expenses and, consequently, of incomes. Referring to the Chiampo valley in the province of Vicenza and to its involvement in

Redistribution  119 the wars of the Almost Serene, Preto described Arzignano as an ‘involved spectator’. This involvement was exclusively economic – largely due to increased direct taxation – and revolved around contributing oarsmen, sappers and militiamen. Waging war was a memory of the years of Cambrai; between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, ‘the territory of the Chiampo valley had no involvement in military operations’ (Preto 1981b, 37). This description can be extended to the majority of the Mainland Dominion, with the exception of the Friuli during the years of the War of Gradisca and – in some respects – the western provinces (Brescia and Bergamo) at the beginning of the seventeenth century. As for the sharing of costs and associated conflicts, peace meant – at least in the sixteenth century – the almost total absence of huge ‘emergency’ military expenses concentrated in specific areas. Military costs could be better shared and, so, produced less conflicts. The case of the War of Gradisca is a valid example to use in proving this assertion; when in a very short period a large volume of men, means, provisions and money had to reach a specific war front – especially one where the economy was already in difficulty – it was not possible to mediate, evaluate and organise a fair distribution of burdens and the area of Friuli inevitably suffered the consequences. When the ‘emergency’ element of the situation was removed, however, even when considerable costs were involved in specific areas, rationalisation of contributions and their reasonable division became possible. In the second half of the sixteenth century, the character of military expenditure – as demonstrated in the previous chapters – led to an almost equal involvement of the Mainland Dominion in the organisation of the cernide (Hale 1990, 194) or in the construction of infrastructure necessary for saltpetre production (Panciera 2005, 104−11). Other costs, in contrast, had a specific geographical character, weighing – at least initially – only on specific areas. Just think about the presence of troops in the province of Brescia and their absence from the province of Vicenza, or fortress building sites (Hale 1990, 281−4). The opportunity to rationally divide the costs of the new fortresses according to the trace italienne made possible the first systematic involvement of more provinces in the division of monetary and personnel burdens. In the sixteenth century, the management of lodgements remained quite fragmented, linked to a collective responsibility only within each province. From this perspective, the seventeenth century was the turning point, the peak of a process that – along with the ascent of the rural representative institutions and the Venetian politics of equal distribution – ended in the sweeping away of ancient privileges and autonomies. It was not only changes in troop lodgements – following the Paruta orders of 1621 – that aimed to secure the involvement of the entire Mainland Dominion; a wider sense that responsibility for military burdens should be a collective enterprise was demonstrated by the temporary but significant provision of the Provveditore Generale Erizzo in 1629. The Provveditore ordered that all costs linked to the army (carts, sappers, lodgements and

120 Management so on) had to be divided between all of the provinces in the Mainland Dominion, according to the percentages of the fiscal division of the Subsidy (January and Knapton 2007, 109). What impact did this have on social relations? With the exception of a few resounding cases, the first consequence was that the Republic of Venice was spared the violence that scarred urban and rural Europe in the mid-seventeenth century – which was partly a reaction to increasing taxation (Galasso 1970; Parker 2013, 561−85). This could be taken as a valid indicator of efficient Venetian management of military costs, including taxes. If we accept this correlation, we can understand how the Almost Serene avoided widespread unrest and why conflicts were localised and outbreaks of violence were limited. While such an assertion would be somewhat naïve, it is undeniable that in the dialogic mechanisms between ‘center’ and ‘periphery’, based on compromise of interests, the normative and management responses of the public authorities to growing fiscal and military needs were (even if sometimes tardy, unhelpful or clumsily applied) in a certain way functional in the maintenance of internal peace and the protection of communal wealth. There were many causative elements: the removal of the contributory separation of certain areas; adjustment of urban-rural relationships (including the involvement of the Corpi Territoriali in military and fiscal tasks); increased attention to local balance sheets and the credit market; and the monetisation of contributions. All of these processes, with specific peculiarities, intertwined in the sixteenth century before coming to fruition in the seventeenth century (Knapton 1988, 69). As suggested, freedom from real war emergencies in the Mainland Dominion facilitated this process. It is important to highlight, however, that the system was flawed and fragile as well as functional. Even where measures designed to guarantee a fair distribution of burdens between the provinces – and between groups within the provinces – were introduced, implementation was often far from smooth. The failure to adjust lodgement tax rates until the mid-seventeenth century is emblematic of these problems. Similarly problematic was continuous litigation around lodgements. Typically designed to delay payment rather than reduce burdens, it made the application of regulations extremely difficult (Rossini 1994, 78). In addition to moments of real conflict, other complications also undermined the efficacy of burden redistribution. Foremost among these was the reimbursement system. Nearly all payments linked to the military apparatus were based on loans, advance payments or subsequent refunds. The system generally worked at three levels: when the Republic was in the role of debtor, it offered tax deductions; when the Corpi Territoriali were in debt to the communities, they settled accounts through subdivision; the third element usually involved communities that owed individuals peasants for labour or for military service. Cernide equipment, saltpetre facilities, fortress building materials and transport costs – in brief, any and all services – were rarely paid for in advance; payments were nearly always made after the fact, sometimes with notable delay. When the rural economy

Redistribution  121 was not exposed to unusual stresses, the system worked. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, however, when the delay in reimbursements was combined with other burdens and with a crisis in local finances, the interaction between these elements had a negative impact on local economies and forced some communities to resort to the credit market. The problematic nature of this system is evident at all levels: in 1613, the waiting time for reimbursement of extortionate expenses relating to soldiers was approximately five years (Hale 1987, 202). At the community level, the situation was at least as bad, if not worse. In July 1638, the Venetian Captain gave the Camonica Valley five days to pay the 13,000 lire tron due for carts and lodgements from the years of the War of Mantuan Succession. However, a few years earlier (in 1635, 1636 and 1637), the same Valley demanded the reimbursement of expenses incurred during the Valtellina uprising ten years previously14. Bedizzole faced the same problems and between 1662 and 1667, the community took proceedings against the Riviera over a debt of 6,000 scudi spent lodging soldiers in the 1630s15. In the province of Vicenza, episodes of this nature did not emerge between institutions (valleys, Corpo Territoriale or communities) so much as internally within single communities. I referred above to the oarsmen of Malo and to problems linked to their payment. There were similar cases in Schio at the end of the War of Cyprus. In March 1575 – two years after the end of the war – the notary of the community made a ‘list of the oarsmen that want to be paid from their departure from Schio to the end of their service’. In October of the previous year, all oarsmen from Schio had received payment, but probably only partial payment16. These few but significant examples confirm my statement that the numerous instances of delayed payments all occurred during moments of military emergency (War of Cyprus, War of Mantuan Succession, Valtellina uprising). The system showed cracks when it was exposed to unusual complexities or pressures and which could interfere with payments and reimbursements. It is not by chance that the highest volume of complaints on this matter came from the province of Brescia, where in comparison to elsewhere, disproportionate demands were placed on the communities in times of military tension with bordering states. In the province of Vicenza, the volume of cases was not as significant, apart from in Schio and Malo (which in any case involved smaller sums and shorter delays). There was also the case of Grisignano di Zocco, referred to in Chapter 3. However, these examples only confirm the link between problems in payments and military emergencies. The general situation in the province of Vicenza, however, shows that in absence of emergency costs, the refund system could work quite well, especially when the Corpo Territoriale was the guarantor of loans and advance payments – as in the case of the construction of saltpetre warehouses. Furthermore, the correlation between military emergency, fissures in the refund system and communities incurring debt is clear. This is certainly not an exclusively Venetian characteristic; even in other areas of the Italian peninsula, the

122 Management same problems existed regarding the division of burdens between the provinces and bodies (Buono 2009, 39−40), but it is interesting to note that in the Mainland Dominion, the pattern of problems differed from province to province. Despite these problems in the division of burdens between areas of the Mainland Dominion, we did not find evidence of conflicts or legal disputes between the provinces. Petitions or complaints were directed to Venice and references in the archives of the Corpi Territoriali to other provinces generally concerned pleas for favourable treatment or exemptions, perhaps based on previous arrangements. However, latent conflicts lurked within each province, between countryside and city, and between exempted and non-privileged areas.

Rural communities, cities and privileged areas The relationship between peasants and citizens was probably the most explicit aspect of the conflicts within the Mainland Dominion. It was so pervasive and extended that it has been analysed almost exhaustingly. It was sometimes considered in the historiography to be the driving force of development in the regional states in central-northern Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (Chittolini 1979; Knapton 1992, 2013b). Many conflicts can be summarised as either tax-related or military-related. The privileges enjoyed by citizens after the ‘conquest’ of the countryside in the period of the Signorie, confirmed in the treaties of submission with Venice and with the construction of the Mainland Dominion, established that specific burdens – such as the lodgement of troops, the sending of sappers and so on – would fall almost exclusively on the countryside. This does not mean that the cities were exempt from the transit or lodging of troops (January and Knapton 2007, 32−7); the garrisons were located inside the walls of the cities, while until 1621 rural communities had to lodge troops, whether they were in transit or quartered (Porto 2009). As for taxes, in addition to exemptions from specific taxes (such as the warlord tax, from which all cities except Brescia were exempt), citizens enjoyed privileges relating to whether goods would be allocated city or rural tax rates and they also had a role in the election of tax collectors. The first cracks in the scheme of privileges became visible in the sixteenth century, especially in relation to taxes. All of the provinces experienced a series of relevant changes: the estimi (tax surveys) started closing; the properties of citizens in the countryside were recognised from the end of the century; and responsibility for tax collection was assigned to the Corpi Territoriali; the net effect at the beginning of the seventeenth century was that the ancient predominance of the cities over the countryside (at least from a fiscal point of view) was reduced. We have seen that there was a similar process of redistribution of the burden of military costs, culminating in the relocation quartered troops to the cities from 1621.

Redistribution  123 In reality, the evolution of the relationship between cities and countryside varied somewhat from this linear process. The contour of developments in the seventeenth century (which were generally favourable to the countryside compared to the previous century) was dictated by a pattern of incessant litigation, followed by negotiations, followed by verdicts being ignored. Neither was there unity of development between provinces. While in the province of Vicenza the opposition between city and countryside was quite clear and sharp, in the province of Brescia the greater administrative fragmentation of the province – with the presence of the Quadre, the separated areas of the Valleys and the Riviera of Salò (Rossini 1994) – produced more conflicts within the territory and undermined the power of the Corpo Territoriale vis-à-vis the city. I suggest that the delays in the reform of the tax surveys and the difficulties experienced by rural élites in conducting disputes against the city, as identified by Alessandra Rossini (Rossini 1994, 117, 190−1), were not caused solely by the differences in wealth between rural families (and rural communities). In the province of Vicenza, these differences certainly applied but the gains attendant to the solution of disputes with the city encouraged peasants to band together. Amid the administrative chaos of the province of Brescia, however, the limited power of the Corpo Territoriale and the contrasting interests of juridically separated and fiscally privileged areas actually made the city an appealing destination for rural élites. Despite having to overcome challenges from many of its constituent areas, the Corpo Territoriale of Brescia did make progress towards the equal division of tax and military burdens, albeit at a slower pace than elsewhere (Rossini 1994, 198, 293). The perseverance and success of the Corpo Territoriale of Brescia in ‘opposing the city and defending its administration against urban abuses’ (Treccani degli Alfieri 1964, 385) should be not be underestimated. Even in light of this important difference between the two provinces (Brescia and Vicenza), it is interesting to note that they suffered broadly the same problems in relation to the management of military costs. One of the primary fields of contrast between cities and countryside was – given the importance of the expenditure – the issue of contributions to the modernisation of fortresses. In the province of Vicenza, this tension emerged at the end of the sixteenth century, when the Corpo Territoriale achieved a position of relevance and, simultaneously, local finances showed the first signs of the difficulties that in the seventeenth century would lead to petitions for the city to carry its share of the burden. The debates centred around the construction of Palmanova; only rural communities had to supply labourers, but the citizens with rural properties had to contribute to the payments. When the Republic requested 50,400 ducats for the building site in December 1593, it was established that ‘only individuals paying city-rate taxes on goods and properties have to contribute directly; individuals who pay only personal tax to the city are regarded as contributing to the building site in other ways’. In January of the

124 Management following year, Vicenza’s Council of 150 responded that the sum required was excessive and proposed to pay 12,000 ducats. The problem lingered, and nearly five years later, in November 1598, the Venetian magistrate of Pregadi reiterated the Venetian officials of Vicenza that citizens with properties in the countryside would need to contribute17. Tensions surrounding the financing of the building site of Legnago took on a slightly different hue. The ‘Legnago tax’, as it was known, eventually became a real direct tax, weighing on the countryside of Vicenza, Verona, Padua, Treviso and Rovigo (Pezzolo 1990, 57). That is probably why the rural communities of the province of Vicenza asked the Republic to involve the city in the payment of the tax. In November 1604, the first request was made to oblige citizens with countryside properties to contribute to the Legnago tax. At this point, however, the peasants did not appear to benefit, given that in May 1606 there was another similar request, specifying that the citizens’ contribution requested was due to the fact that – according to another provision issued for Treviso – the Legnago tax should be considered a tax on properties and not a personal tax. We know that in this case again the peasants did not benefit and the response was favourable to the citizens, but the Corpo Territoriale did not give up; in May 1608, the Doge sent another negative response to a petition from the rural institution and the same institution sent additional petitions in 1657 and 165918. This tax was not imposed in the province of Brescia and there are no traces of any involvement of the citizens in contributing to fortresses. Certainly, consultation of the archive of the Corpo Territoriale could possibly bring to light some analogous cases, but the fact that the community archives contain documents concerning a variety of other kinds of disputes – but not fortress contributions – lends legitimacy to the idea that there were no disputes like the one over Legnago. This may have been due to what we have already seen was the less combative attitude of the rural representative institution of the province. Another topic of conflict was the lodgement of troops; cities tried to maintain their exemptions for extended periods, often in the face of an increasing number of state provisions directing their involvement. These conflicts started with the lodgement of light cavalry (cappelletti) with police tasks. Between 1589 and 1627, a dispute between the city and the countryside of Vicenza about this kind of cavalry produced a large volume of correspondence in the shape of petitions, resolutions of the Senate and ducal letters. It is immediately clear that the quartering of cappelletti was the responsibility of the city. The words of Doge Pasquale Cicogna – and a similar provision issued for Brescia in 1587 – were quite clear: ‘the city has to provide [for the imminent arrival of a company of light cavalry] all items typically required for their lodging, and the countryside is not to be troubled’. Despite the words of the Doge, little changed and in March 1619, the Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza sent a petition to Venice, criticising the fact that the city sent cappelletti to quarter in the countryside. The city justified

Redistribution  125 this action to the Republic on the basis that its citizens were already lodging heavy cavalry. After ten days, the Doge accepted the petition, but a year later the city returned to Venice with another request to lodge the light cavalry in the countryside19. The Paruta orders of 1621, ratifying the definitive involvement of the cities in the lodgement of troops, should theoretically have stopped this kind of dispute, but they did not. They referred to the lodgement of mercenary troops (heavy cavalry, foot soldiers and so on) but they did not cast light on the problem of the cappelletti. In 1622, the Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza again requested that the city furnish the provisions for the light cavalry quartered in the countryside, and another such request was sent (after the city sent receipts demonstrating its compliance) in 1624. A crossfire of petitions, sentences and appeals ensued until May 1627, when the Senate ruled – in a seemingly definitive manner – on the side of the Corpo Territoriale. The city’s reasons for wishing to avoid this responsibility were indicative of the extreme fragility of the system of division of burdens. The petition submitted by the citizens in 1624 stated clearly that the city refused to provide the provisions because when a company reached the city, ‘it stays without a specific order issued by the Senate, contrary to public deliberations’20. The law detailed that the city had to lodge the companies specifically sent for lodgement there, so the lack of a specific order opened the way for disputes and appeals. Even where the law was more unambiguous – on the involvement of both cities and countryside in the ‘lodgment of cavalry’, for example – disputes still arose. Between 1635 and 1638, the Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza wrote to Venice (and the city did the same) regarding this topic, and railed against the companies’ lodgement in the countryside that they addressed to the city and regarding outstanding payments, and argued that that the Senate had to reaffirm the obligations inherent under the Paruta orders and ensure their application 21. The circumstances in the province of Vicenza, as outlined here, were replicated in the western provinces. Turning now to Brescia and to the letter sent by the city in July 1624 asking that troops entering the province would be assigned to the countryside, given the presence of the relevant facilities (it is again important to underline that this is after the Paruta orders). This example is far from the only indication of continuing problems. In August 1558, a state provision reminded the citizens of Brescia to pay the warlord tax, despite the protests of the city’s lawyers. Just as controversial was the question of citizens’ countryside houses. The results of the sixteenthcentury petitions are not known, but in July 1631, ‘working citizens’ were required to assist in providing for a company of heavy cavalry under a Captain Rasponi who was quartered in Leno22 . Neither in Vicenza nor Brescia provinces was the provision of carts for army service – especially in the years of the War of Gradisca – or requests for sappers and oarsmen particular causes for dispute. On many occasions, both peasants and citizens were required to contribute23 but this contribution

126 Management did not lead to reticence or attempts to load the burden on the other party. A more problematic issue in the province of Brescia was the cost of saltpetre production24 but protests were also restrained and usually aimed only to reiterate established orders. These examples show clearly that the two rural institutions had different capabilities. Petitions in the province of Vicenza focused on the division of burdens between bodies, whereas lodgements, saltpetre production and fortress construction were not as contentious in the province of Brescia. Disputes in the provincial Brescia revolved primarily around citizens with properties in the countryside (Rossini 1994, 155−7), underlining again the differing characters of the two rural institutions. A common problem afflicting both provinces was that of the chiusure (in Brescia) or colture (in Vicenza). In the province of Brescia, this term referred to the suburban country area, where the inhabitants ‘even if peasants, were subject to the urban institutions’ and contributed along with the citizens in the payment of city taxes (Rossini 1994, 47). They did not have to pay taxes to the rural institution. The term colture had the same meaning in the province of Vicenza, where suburban dwellers were satisfied with the arrangement whereby they paid taxes to the city but peasants and rural dwellers did not (Knapton 1984, 96). The disputes between the Corpo Territoriale and the Colture in the province of Vicenza were nearly the same as those between the countryside and the city; the primary area of conflict was fortress contributions, especially for Palmanova. In February 1600, the Colture turned to the Senate, asking for the revocation of an order of the previous August demanding contributions towards the excavation of the fosses of the new fortress. Venice favoured the peasants, confirming the order; the delegates of the Colture accepted the burden, but emphasised that ‘we are not joined with the countryside and we do not contribute with it, because we are separate, and joined with the city’. The peasants accepted this position. At this point, the Colture’s tactics were designed to delay the implementation of conscription for as long as possible; in August 1600, after the protests of Pasqualino Pasqualin (Povolo 2010), delegate of the Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza, a ducal letter solicited sappers25. In spite of the outcome of this dispute, the problem recurred in April 1601. The Corpo Territoriale argued that the sappers from the Colture should be counted as part of the 770 men demanded of the countryside, while the suburban area cited the autonomy conferred on it by the Venetian provisions. In this case, too, the outcome was favourable to the countryside26. The problem persisted in the following years: in August 1602, the Captain of Vicenza requested an inventory of all men between the ages of 15 and 50 years living in the Colture, as well as all carts, animals and fields, in order to divide the sappers with the countryside27. Moreover, in 1607, the former Captain of Vicenza, Vincenzo Pisani, wrote that the Corpo Territoriale engaged in a prolonged debate [with the Colture] on the excavation of the fosses of Palmanova, because [the Colture]

Redistribution  127 claimed to be exempt due to a contribution of 300 ducats made with the city; finally, in order to relieve both parties of the exorbitant costs [of the litigation] I stopped the dispute … ordering the Colture to contribute along with the countryside to the colonica part of the work but recognizing that their contribution to the dominicale was covered by the 300 ducats paid with Vicenza. (RRV, 175; Knapton 1984, 96) This proposed solution is interesting; contributions were to be based on either properties (dominicale) or the work of the inhabitants (colonica), but it did not settle matters and the dispute continued for at least another decade. In 1617, Captain Marc’Antonio Barbarigo wrote that the Colture had a considerable amount of debt because of the ‘money spent in the excavation of the fosses of Palma and … in eternal litigation’ and that it was only thanks to his intervention ‘they finally paid to the countryside the sum they owed and extinguished all the debts’ (RRV, 214; Knapton 1984). There were analogous problems even when the Republic asked for carts for the army during the War of Gradisca, but these played out over three fronts. In May 1616, the Senate ordered the Captain of Vicenza to secure carts from both the city and the countryside for use by the troops moving from Cervignano (in Friuli) to Padua. The Venetian officials received the same instruction in regard to Treviso, Padua and Rovigo. In September of the same year, the delegates of the Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza emphasised their speedy compliance to the Captain, comparing it to the tardiness of the city. 1n 1617, the Colture joined the dispute. The suburban communities claimed that they supplied their own carts, but that the city had not. Both the city and the Colture submitted details to Venice. In October, the Captain convened all parties but there was no resolution until May 1618. When the military emergency ended, Venice withdrew all requests and dismissed all complaints, without ruling on the alleged failings of the city (according to the Colture) and the Colture (according to the Corpo Territoriale). This non-decision can be considered one of the causes of another dispute that started in 1620 and again involved the Colture and the city of Vicenza. Suburban carters claimed that they had provided 23,000 lire worth of services to citizens and peasants in 1616 and the Captain confirmed this claim. In February 1621, a direction was made to reimburse this sum to the Colture but the dispute dragged on until September 1623, ending with a ruling favourable to the Corpo Territoriale and unfavourable to the citizens28. As this dispute ended, others began: between 1624 and 1626, there were conflicts over the transport of weapons and luggage of troops moving from Vicenza, in the direction of the Lombardy; during the War of Mantuan Succession, in 1626, the problem of the division of the carts between city, Colture and Corpo Territoriale reared its head again29. These disputes are indicative of a latent conflict between the bodies that composed the province of Vicenza. There were similar proceedings in the provinces of Padua and Treviso, corroborating the diffusion of

128 Management this phenomenon around the Mainland Dominion. Looking at the province of Brescia, the overall situation was similar, even if the specific context and scale – the less combative nature of the rural representative institution was again a factor here. In May 1582, because of a petition sent by the Corpo Territoriale of Brescia, the Doge ruled that the onus on peasants to transport wood and supplies to the 27 countryside saltpetre stores should be matched by an imposition on the Colture to furnish urban saltpetre producers. Unexpectedly, it seems that the Chiusure did not appeal the ruling, but instead engaged in internal wrangling. In October 1586, another ducal edict sent to the Captain of Brescia aimed to stop a conflict over saltpetre costs between suburban artisans and farmers30. As in other cases, all of the inhabitants were expected to participate. Other conflicts occurred between the Corpi Territoriali and areas that were distinct in an administrative and juridical sense, including the Valleys of Brescia, the Riviera of Salò and the tableland of Asiago in the province of Vicenza. As for the cities, exemptions and privileges granted and confirmed by Venice in the second half of the fifteenth century – with the creation of the Mainland Dominion – were gradually reshaped to respond to the new fiscal and military needs of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. ‘Exempt and not exempt’, ‘privileged and not privileged’ became common formulas in orders relating to fortress contributions, saltpetre stores or conscripts for the army and the fleet. Progress towards equal distribution of burdens – due to contingent needs rather than any egalitarian instinct – was clear and rather incisive, as illustrated in previous chapters, but it did not occur without protests by the areas that had previously enjoyed fiscal privileges (Zamperetti 1991). The same dynamics applied to the involvement of cities in troop lodgements in the seventeenth century; attempts to avoid burdens or delay their imposition through legal action were common even in privileged areas. The Vicenzan region that most zealously protected its autonomy was the tableland of Asiago, even if other communities enjoyed specific exemptions. In February 1567, the delegates of the Corpo Territoriale complained to the Heads of the Council of Ten that many communities – tenaciously retaining their privileges – refused to ‘contribute to public services, including the building site of Verona, subsidies, and the recruiting of militiamen and oarsmen’. Nearly forty years had passed since the introduction of the Ordinary Subsidy tax (1529); in spite of this, there still were – according to the peasants – pockets of resistance to its payment, as well as to fortress and personnel contributions. The Council of Ten intervened, as predictable, in favour of the rural institution, reaffirming the privileged areas’ obligation to contribute. Despite this reprimand, the problem remained unresolved and in March 1572, a new letter was sent to the Heads of the Council of Ten, specifying the names of the communities: ‘the delegates … of the seven communities [of the Asiago tableland] request the revocation of orders previously received, attaching relevant exemptions’31. The letters referred to concerned the enrolment of

Redistribution  129 oarsmen for the War of Cyprus, while the ‘exemptions’ dated to 1404. The inhabitants of the tableland of Asiago were given the option – as were those of the Camonica Valley and other privileged areas – of offering money instead of men. They did not necessarily have to supply personnel, but they had to contribute in some fashion (Girardi 2005, 139−41, 143−4). The issue of oarsmen became less contentious but the disputes continued, centred on the involvement of privileged areas in fortress contributions, especially for Bergamo. However, it was not only the seven communities of Asiago that enjoyed specific exemptions in the province of Vicenza but also other communities. For example, in September 1580, the delegates of the Corpo Territoriale successfully petitioned the Senate to revoke the privileges conceded to the community of Poiana Maggiore (in the low plain of Vicenza), referring specifically to the formula ‘exempt and not exempt’. Asiago tableland delegates in Venice called into question this formula a few years later, in November 1582. They assumed, given their privileges, that the simple formula ‘exempt and not exempt’ or ‘privileged and not privileged’ was not enough to secure their automatic involvement in the division of military burdens, because they were not part of the Corpo Territoriale; they wanted a ‘specific mention’32 . The Corpo Territoriale responded with a substantial defence; twenty pages were dedicated to a meticulous analysis of the motivations of the inhabitants of Asiago, their privileges and their supposed separation, together with a transcription of ducal orders issued between 1532 and 1548 that evidenced the previous involvement of the tableland in burdens imposed on the countryside. To these were added similar orders recently sent from the Doge to Venetian officers in Verona, Brescia and Bergamo, showing that the other privileged areas of the Mainland Dominion (for whom the privileges enjoyed were even more important than was the case for Asiago) experienced the same treatment33. Beyond the outcome of the dispute, it is interesting to note the level of detail of the exchanges and the level of expertise displayed by the contending factions. The Corpo Territoriale attempted to focus the discussions on the redistribution of burdens, a process germane to the entire Mainland Dominion at the end of the sixteenth century. This strategy stressed the issues that are still emphasised by researchers today. The range of involvement of the separated areas was highlighted by references that the Corpi Territoriali made to ducal orders issued for close and distant provinces – the archives of Brescia, by way of comparison, did not turn up any copies of documents relating to Vicenza, Verona, Padua or Treviso. Meanwhile, the tactics that the Republic employed to loosen attachments to old exemptions (increasing tax pressure and new military requirements) were echoed in the petitions sent by the Corpi Territoriali. This does not mean, of course, that privileged areas did not offer resistance. In January 1586, the seven resilient communities of Asiago sought the revocation of a previous ruling favourable to the peasants. In 1588, however, the Ten Savi of the Senate reaffirmed what had been established three years earlier34.

130 Management These disputes, while eventually concerning all taxes and contributions, were prompted by the demands for labourers for the fosses of Bergamo. The fortresses of Palmanova and Verona assumed this problematic mantle in later years. In these cases, too, despite the legal resistance of the Asiago communities, the Republic’s orders made their involvement inevitable35, and so it proved during the Wars of Gradisca, Mantua and Candia. The inhabitants of Asiago protested vigorously36 but their involvement in the division of military burdens could not be denied by this stage. The importance of the action of the Corpo Territoriale in achieving this goal is particularly clear in the context of the province of Vicenza, where city-countryside dualism was disrupted only by the tableland of Asiago. We must consider that the progressive involvement of the inhabitants of Asiago in the military structure of the Republic at the beginning of the seventeenth century was due, on the one hand, to specific military needs and, on the other hand, to efforts to build ‘a sort of connection between government and privileged, a particular connection that contributed to the development of the principle of consent within the state’ (Pezzolo 1985b, 291). It is just as interesting to observe the evolution of these dynamics in the province of Brescia, where the fragmentation of the territory and the presence of privileged areas created a very different dynamic. Contrary to the case of Vicenza, there was no simple city – countryside dichotomy (Ferraro 1983, 32, 43; 1984, 160, 168). According to Alessandra Rossini, the situation was complicated by fact that the communities heading up the Corpo Territoriale sometimes e­ njoyed exemptions (for example, Chiari or Ghedi). While it is not accurate to describe the rural institution as an ‘instrument to support the privileged areas’, ‘the case of Brescia … does not fully confirm the thesis that the Corpi Territoriali were absolute rivals of the privileged areas’ ­(Rossini 1994, 283−94). Which, then, were the disputes that did pit the Corpo ­Territoriale of Brescia against the privileged areas of the province? Given the lack of opportunity to ­peruse the documents in the archive of the institution, we must be satisfied with the partial answer forthcoming from sources in the archives of the rural communities. In this case, too, from the 1570s, there was a contrast between the peasants and the ‘exempted, privileged and separated’, because in spite of the orders of 1561, they refused to contribute to the building site of Bergamo. The complaint of the peasants – and the response of the Venetian authorities – was dated 1576. Two years later, in 1578, the treasurer of the Corpo Territoriale listed the payments made by the exempted and privileged37. These problems did not affect only the Valleys and the Riviera, the separated areas par excellence, but also – according to Rossini – the plain communities that enjoyed specific exemptions. Between August and November 1581, a contrast in contributions to Bergamo fortress between the Corpo Territoriale and the community of Pontevigo became evident. This contrast was based on the four-year exemption enjoyed by the fortified village of the low plain of Brescia38. Once again, the Heads of the Council of Ten

Redistribution  131 established that ‘the community and men of Pontevigo have to contribute … [because] everybody has to contribute without exception, the exempt and non-exempt, the privileged and the non-privileged’. In the seventeenth century, the main arena of distinction became the lodgement of troops and, more broadly, the division of costs linked to the army. Analysis of the disputes on this topic helps us to understand the conflicts between the Corpo Territoriale of Brescia and the separated areas. In September 1616, the rural institution turned once more to the Senate, denouncing the failure to apply orders – issued in the previous February – establishing that the exempted and privileged had to contribute to the expenses ‘for the current war’ because, as in the case of the tableland of Asiago, exempted communities demanded a specific mention by name rather than accept inclusion under a generic formula, indicating that all communities, ‘exempt and not exempt’, had to pay their share. The reaction of the Venetian institution, as it was to the same petition from the province of Vicenza, aimed to solve this normative glitch by establishing that the ‘exempt and not exempt’ formula should apply even to those demanding a specific mention by name39. Contrary to the situation prevailing in the province of Vicenza in the seventeenth century, the military involvement of the separated areas in the province of Brescia – particularly of the Camonica Valley – was sometimes greater than that of the countryside; this element complicated the division of burdens. The Vicenzan Corpo Territoriale bore all burdens initially before trying to discharge part of them on a separated area. The Brescian situation was somewhat more complex – the Corpo Territoriale did not assume all the burden and separated areas (such as the tableland of Asiago) could even sometimes be faced with a greater share of the burden than the institution. During the War of Gradisca and especially during the Valtellina uprising, the Camonica valley had reason to discuss the division of burdens with the Venetian authorities. At the end of 1624, a proposed agreement between the Valley and the Corpo Territoriale intimated that ‘the countryside will pay part of the costs that the Camonica Valley incurred from 7 May 1615 onward’, but at the same time the Valley ‘will contribute to the same costs incurred by the Corpo Territoriale and other separated areas from that date on and that arrangement will hold in the future if the separated areas are involved’40. The settlement suggested that the Valley should cover 10 per cent of expenditure, even though the participation of the Riviera was still to be confirmed. Therefore, it is not possible to talk about a real conflict between the Corpo Territoriale and separated areas, in the sense of unilateral pressure being imposed by the rural institution on each separated area in respect of the division of burdens. The fragmentation of the province of Brescia meant that many entities could debate at an equal level, and the roles of debtor and creditor could sometimes be inverted. In January 1627, the Camonica Valley asked the Senate to intervene in the implementation of the agreement of 1624, because the Corpo Territoriale

132 Management tried to manipulate the agreement so that it received reimbursements – reimbursements not due to the inhabitants of the Valley – for costs incurred before 1581, while delaying any outward payments41. The dispute went on at least until 1640, with incessant and apparently unsuccessful appeals from the Camonica Valley to the Venetian authorities in pursuit of its rights as set out in the agreement42 . Therefore, according to Rossini, it was not only the presence of privileges and privileged communities within the Corpo Territoriale of Brescia that undermined unity of opposition to exemptions; the significant involvement of the separated areas in the military needs of the Republic meant that in many cases the privileged themselves asked for a more equal distribution of burdens, thereby provoking the ire of the countryside.

Redistribution within the communities Having established concentric circles around the forces that directed military expenditure, the management of the military structure and conflicts over the management of military costs, it is now necessary to analyse the conflict between communities within the same provinces and, within individual communities and the conflict among members of the rural society. In the preceding pages, we identified differences between the provinces of Brescia and Vicenza, but on the community level, the specificity and the limited geographical range of these forces make it difficult to identify common characteristics or dynamics that are present in one area but not in another. However, despite a variety of differences, contemporary records do reveal areas of commonality. The reasons for this commonality are varied: first, communities and the individual members of communities were engaged in similar processes. Primary among these was the closing of local councils43 and the emergence at the local level of a rural bourgeoisie in the sixteenth century. This group managed local offices and common properties on an almost autonomous basis (Preto 1981b, 45−50; Knapton 1988, 73; Rossini 1994, 55). Another common characteristic was the presence within communities of individuals who enjoyed fiscal exemptions, such as militiamen (Pezzolo 1985b, 291). At the Corpo Territoriale level, despite the presence of important privileged communities in the province of Brescia (and their almost total absence in the territory of Vicenza), there were similar dynamics. Particularly important in this regard was the closing of rural institutions, which tended to marginalise the smaller communities or, at least, to funnel them into factions led by the wealthier and bigger communities (Knapton 1984, 78; Rossini 1994, 115). The marginalisation of the smaller communities does not mean that they were completely prevented from expressing their own will or opposing the choices of the bigger communities; these kinds of disputes did occur, and they were accompanied by conflicts between the communities that competed for leadership of the Corpo Territoriale44. Disputes concerning military burdens followed

Redistribution  133 the trends and chronological pattern outlined heretofore in this chapter. In the sixteenth century, tensions between communities in the territory of Vicenza were usually linked to the construction of fortresses. For example, on several occasions, the community of Malo sought the assistance of the Venetian authorities in enforcing payment from smaller communities within its administrative limits. In 1598, the communities of Torreselle, Ignago, Castelnovo and Priabona received orders to pay their contributions for Palmanova, after Malo wrote to the Captain of Vicenza in February45. In the seventeenth century, the most common source of trouble was troop lodgements. I referred previously to the case of Grisignano, which in 1604 turned to the Venetian authorities in order to obtain compensation for the costs of lodgements. These costs were high because of its position on transit routes. It was not only communities that bore the majority of the lodgement burden that clashed with the Corpo Territoriale; between March and June 1622, for example, the community of San Vito di Leguzzano and the Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza quarrelled over the lodgement of 40 soldiers coming from Brescia46. These examples refer exclusively to the province of Vicenza because the archives of the communities of Brescia did not contain records on these topics. Judging by the historiography of this subject, it is problematic to assume that these kinds of conflicts did not happen in the province of Brescia; while it seems reasonable to suggest that the fragility of the rural institution and the constant need to cater to both privileged areas and the city limited the emergence of internal conflicts, this is a hypothesis that is very difficult to prove. Just as plausible would be the hypothesis that the presence of intermediary structures between the communities and the Corpo Territoriale, namely, the Quadre, could have redirected internal conflicts into other councils and that efforts at resolution were successful enough to eliminate the need for recourse to the central rural institution or to the Venetian authorities. Beyond these hypotheses, the examples reported above were selected to demonstrate that latent conflict was present not only in the broader Mainland Dominion but also within the provinces and the Corpi Territoriali. Enhancing our focus, in both the province of Vicenza and the province of Brescia, there were equivalent conflicts within the communities themselves. Disputes over the exemptions enjoyed by militiamen were the most common. Payments to militiamen for periodical reviews and the maintenance of weapons were other specific areas of conflict. These problems were less frequent in the province of Vicenza than Brescia, probably because of the greater centralisation – and, therefore, control – of the management of weapons by the Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza. In 1624, the delegate of the Camonica Valley sent an order to the communities of the valley establishing that militiamen had to maintain their own weapons and repair or replace the weapons if they were responsible for damage. As often happened, the results of this policy were disappointing

134 Management to its creators. In November 1636, another order was issued; given the frequently poor functioning or even the absence of weapons during reviews, community delegates were expected to supervise the maintenance of muskets, harquebuses and pikes47. However, maintenance issues aside, the main problem – incentivised and facilitated by the absence of centralised management – was the ­appropriation of weapons by militiamen. In April 1583, for example, the council of the community of Bedizzole decided to issue legal proceedings against former militiamen because ‘they do not want to give the pikes back’48. In August 1618, the community of Maderno decided to stop its litigation against ‘many that received weapons, including harquebuses and muskets  … owned by the community’ and did not want to return them. Instead, the militiamen would have to pay face value for the weapons49. The community of Gavardo faced the same problems and in June 1583, the local council prohibited the purchase of weapons from militiamen50. As mentioned previously, another problem with militiamen was that even when they were paid, it did not guarantee their participation in reviews. For example, in Maderno in March 1575, the local council complained that ‘militiamen … that received their salary … do not care … to go to the review in Lonato’ and so it was ordered that they had ‘to give back the money they received’51. As with the conflicts between communities, I do not want to concentrate on the diffusion of the problem, even if the recurrence of these disputes allows us to suppose a certain scale of phenomenon. Instead, what I want to demonstrate here is the plurality of fields of conflict that existed between militiamen and communities, and extended beyond the issue of tax exemption. These varied conflicts can be considered one of the factors that led to the appointment of delegates charged with representing the interests of militiamen during disputes with the communities. In Schio in August 1609, the delegates were elected by the soldiers to defend their rights in a legal contest over exemptions. Similar elections took place again in July 1639 for the very same reason52 . This last case is particularly interesting because the documents show in great detail how the election of the delegates took place, and that the results and positions were not just provisional. The militiamen met in the house of the public notary, who certified the election of Giovanni Pellizzari, Vincenzo Scorlon and Giovan Antonio Chimentello as ‘agents, envoys, attorneys and defenders’ empowered to ‘appear in their [the soldiers] name in front of any magistrate, … the Captain of the city if needed, judge, Vicario of Schio, and wherever needed’53. Schio was not a one-off; in Gavardo, too, in December 1586, during a general council of the community a militiaman took the floor, and made clear that he was speaking ‘in the name of all the other militiamen’54. Interestingly, in Maderno, the same individual fulfilled the roles of militia emissary and community consul. In September 1614, acting in his capacity as militia emissary and speaking to community council, he ‘acknowledged the militia’s participation in the agreement and the obligation established between the

Redistribution  135 two parties in the previous year’55. The examples from Gavardo and Maderno do not indicate the formalisation of the position as in the case of Schio, but they are nevertheless indicative of the fact that militiamen formed an almost autonomous category, capable of formulating their own policy before engaging with community councils and Venetian officials. This section requires pause for reflection on several points. First, the broad range of issues pertinent to the division and equitable redistribution of military burdens has been highlighted. Military costs were distributed – and redistributed – not only on the basis of the military needs or the institutional, economic or geographical characteristics of an area. Instead, these trajectories were affected by a latent conflict underlying the relationship between Corpi Territoriali, cities, separated areas and communities. Only rarely were entire provinces dragged into opposition against each other due to the ill-functioning distribution system. The fields of contrast involved were varied. They were occasionally common to the two provinces and sometimes concerned details linked to the particular social and institutional characteristics of the two areas. In the province of Vicenza, the situation seems more straightforward in terms of the relationship between Corpo Territoriale and city, and in terms of contrasts with the separated areas. The growth of rural institutions between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries accompanied and facilitated the redistribution of burdens and the progressive involvement in that process of the city and the separated areas. With regard to fortress construction, troop lodgement and sapper and oarsmen recruitment, the Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza became extremely efficient in vigorously opposing urban exemptions and was successful in securing the removal of the last vestiges of fiscal autonomy and juridical independence enjoyed by the tableland of Asiago. In the province of Brescia, the situation was far more fragmented and complex. The rural institution was just one of a variety of forces in the field, which meant that it had to be more flexible in its dealings with the city, the Valleys and the other separated areas. The Corpo Territoriale itself was at the mercy of its irregular composition to an extent, with more influence allocated to the separated elements than was the case in the province of Vicenza. This characteristic affected the nature of the conflicts in this province, both with regard to the city-countryside dynamic and to the conflicts between the Corpo Territoriale and the separated areas. Urban privileges (especially those relating to the division of fiscal duties and military burdens) inspired less opposition from the rural institution, which concentrated on involving the urban owners of countryside properties in the payment of taxes and contributions. The fragility of the Corpo Territoriale of Brescia – which hindered its development and delayed the achievement of policy aims – was due to many factors. Chief among these were the various fronts of conflict opened with the city, the Valleys, the Riviera, and so on, and the strong economic disparities between the communities that composed the countryside. This weakened the position of the institution in

136 Management respect of both the city and the privileged areas. Nevertheless, the countryside enjoyed some positive outcomes from disputes with the Valleys and the Riviera over the payment of military burdens. Such successes should be attributed more to the will of the Venetian authorities than to the efforts of the Corpo Territoriale, however. The overall situation, then, was unlike that in the province of Vicenza, where there were clear and uncomplicated conflicts between the rural institution and small pockets of privileges, isolated and destined to crumble away. In the province of Brescia, the Valleys and the Riviera were interlocutors with strong bargaining power that affected the relationships within the province. On occasion, the separated areas sought a fairer distribution of burdens. A problem shared by both provinces was that of the suburban area and its fiscal status. Uncertainty surrounded the status of the inhabitants of the Chiusure/Colture. Were they citizens or peasants? In a period of sharply increasing taxes and contributions, this problem assumed great importance. The suburban areas were caught up in disputes with the Corpo Territoriale, the cities, and internally, with their own inhabitants. The provisional solution proposed by Venetian officials – in both provinces – was to link the status of the inhabitants to their work and properties. Contemporary documents indicate (but further research is needed to confirm this hypothesis) that day labourers and agricultural workers generally should be considered as peasants – thus, they would be liable for ‘property’ contributions in the countryside section of the suburb. Artisans and the owners of goods would be considered citizens, at least from a fiscal point of view, and would pay ‘personal’ contributions to the city. It is easy to imagine the tension that such a distinction could provoke within and outside the suburban area, especially in light of the extremely dubious nature of the definitions. Based on the conflicts exposed in this chapter, it is possible to generalise conclusions that might be applicable to provinces beyond Brescia and Vicenza. The foremost issue is the attitude that the rural institutions developed around the process of egalitarian burden distribution. The peasantry’s recourse to ducal orders or provisions issued for other provinces, and their references – explicit or implicit – to the fundamental motivations expressed by the Venetian authorities themselves demonstrate that they were keenly aware of the necessity to find allies inside the Venetian offices. It is likewise significant that cities and separated areas – such as the tableland of Asiago or the Camonica Valley – still attempted to maintain an individual relationship with the Republic in the seventeenth century. In terms of bearing their share of military burdens, their struggle to retain a unique position rather than come under a generic ‘exempt and not exempt’ or ‘privileged and not privileged’ formula eventually failed. The state-subject relationships that were established at the time of conquest and that brought many advantages to the conquered areas – were no longer adequate in a new era of Venetian politics. A move towards egalitarian distribution of burdens could only be frustrated by rules designed to facilitate inequality. The new form of

Redistribution  137 politics, understood and driven by the Corpi Territoriali, was founded on a departure from contributory specificity in response to new military and fiscal needs.

Notes 1. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3727, fasc. 1. 2. ACBe, b. 3, reg. 1, fos. 75 r., 84 r., 85 v. 3. ACMa, Provvedimenti 1571−1584. 4. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3756, fos. 72 r., 104 r.−v, 285 r. 5. ACMg, b.4, fasc.8, fol. 1 v.; b. 4, fasc. 10, fos. 41 r.−v., 44 r., 90 r.; b. 4, fasc. 11, fol. 193 v. 6. ACBe, b. 1, reg. 2, fos. 14 v.−15 r.; ACGa, b. 31, fol. 25 r.; b. 36, fol. 29 r.; b. 52, fol. 62 v.; AVCa, b. 32, fasc. 1, fos. 274 r.−275 r.; ACMd, Provisiones 1610−1615, fol. 104 v. 7. BCB, Archivio Torre, b. 240, fasc. 1, fos. 117 r.−118 v. 8. ACSc, b. 5, fasc. 6, fol. 1 v.; b. 36, fos. 13 r., 25 r., 29 v., 77 r. 9. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3763, fasc. 1, fos. 1 r., 4 r.−5 v., 7 v. −8 r. 10. ACSc, b. 33, fasc. 98, fos. 221 r., 223 r. −224 r., 225 r., 228 r.−v., 231 v. −232 r. 11. ACLe, mazzo XX, n. 7, fol. 36 r.; n. 11, fos. 97 r.−98 v., 105 r., 111 r.−v; n. 29, fos. 20 r.−21 v. 12. ACBe, b. 19, reg. 1, fos. 358 v., 363 v. 13. ACSc, b. 42, fasc. 108, fol. 158 v. 14. AVCa, b. 14 fasc. 1.2, b. 165 fasc. 1 fos. 318 r.−321 r., b. 165 fasc. 3 fos. 270 r.−271 v. and b. 182 fasc. 8 fos. 140 r., 142 r.−143 r. 15. ACBe, b. 4 reg. 2 fos. 180 v.−182 r. 16. ACSc, b. 68, fasc. 284. 17. BCB, Archivio Torre, b. 162, fasc. 11, fos. 10 r.−17 r. 18. BCB, Archivio Torre, b. 234, fasc. 1, fos. 41 r.−43 r.; b. 160, fasc. 15, fos. 38 r.−52 r. 19. BCB, Archivio Torre, b. 231, fasc. 13, cc. 1 r.−2 v., 9 r.−11 v. 20. Ibid, fos. 18 r.−37 v. 21. Ibid, b. 215, fasc. 3, fos. 1 r.−11 v. 22. ACLe, mazzo XV, n. 7, fos. 1 r.−v., 4 r., 9 r.; mazzo XXXIII, n. 10, fol. 62 v. 23. BCB, Archivio Torre, b. 209, fasc. 7, fos. 1 r.−5 r.; b. 222, fasc. 9, fos. 1 r.−11 r.; ACLe, mazzo XXXIII, n. 10, fos. 54 v., 58 r.−59 r., 62 r.−v., 65 v.−66 v., 67 v.−69 v., 71 r.−72 r. 24. ACLe, mazzo XV, n. 9, fos. 6 r.−v., 8 r. 25. BCB, Archivio Torre, b. 222, fasc. 7, fos. 26 r.−29 r. 26. Ibid, fos. 30 r.−31 r. 27. ACMa, Processi 1600−1615. 28. BCB, Archivio Torre, b. 222, fasc. 5, fos. 4 r.−19 v.; fasc. 6, fos. 2 r.−4 r., 6 r.−7 v.; fasc. 7, fos. 32 r.−42 r., 49 r.−50 v. 29. Ibid, b. 222, fasc. 6, fos. 13 r.−27 r. 30. ACLe, mazzo XV, n. 9, fos. 25 r.−v., 27 r.−v. 31. ACSc, b. 73, fasc. 341. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. BCB, Archivio Torre, b. 231, fasc. 1, fos. 18 r., 25 r.−27 r. 35. Ibid, b. 231, fasc. 2, fos. 2 r.−4 r. 36. Ibid, fos. 17 r.−18 r. 37. ACSc, b. 73, fasc. 341, 14 July 1576 and 9 June 1578. 38. Ibid, 5 August 1581 and 13 November 1581.

138 Management 39. AVCa, b. 180, fasc. 1, fos. 91 r.−93 r. 40. AVCa, b. 165, fasc. 3, fos. 95 r.−96 r. 41. Ibid, fos. 264 r.−265 v.; AVCa, b. 143, fasc. 5, fos. 88 r.−v. 42. AVCa, b. 165, fasc. 3, fos. 138 r.−v., 147 r., 148 r., 149 r.−v., 262 r., 266 r.−v., 268 r., 270 r.−271 v.; b. 180, fasc. 10, fos. 68 r., 308 r.−309 v. 43. Communities often had several councils. A general council included all heads of households, while one or more high councils included only representatives of the most important families. 4 4. ACMa, Processi 1563−1569, fos. 1 r.−41 v.; Provvedimenti 1551−1570; BCB, Archivio Torre, b. 217, fasc. 7, fos. 26 r.−v. 45. ACMa, Provvedimenti 1585−1630. 46. ACSV, b. 1−II, fos. 17 r.−18 v., 21 r.−23 v., 28 r.−29 r. 47. AVCa, b. 16, fasc. 1; b. 38, fasc. 5, fol. 133 r. 48. ACBe, b. 3, reg. 1, fol. 263 r. 49. ACMd, Provvedimenti 1615−1620, fos. 192 v.−193 r. 50. ACGa, b. 37, fol. 29 v. 51. ACMd, Provvedimenti 1571−1577, fos. 171 r.−v. 52. ACSc, b. 68, fasc. 286, fos. 36 r.−37 r. 53. Ibid, b. 69, fasc. 296, fos. 29 r.−v. 54. ACGa, b. 40, fol. 48 r. 55. ACMd, Provvedimenti 1610−1615, fol. 326 v.

Bibliography Belotti, Gianpietro. 1993. “Censi e Livelli: le Strutture del Credito Fondiario in Epoca Veneziana”. In Cultura, Arte ed Artisti in Franciacorta: Seconda Biennale di Franciacorta, atti del Convegno. Gerardo Brentegnani and Clara Stella (eds.). Brescia: La Rosa. 43−108. Buono, Alessandro. 2009. Esercito, istituzioni, territorio: alloggiamenti militari e case herme nello Stato di Milano (sec. XVI e XVII). Florence: Firenze University Press. Calcagno, Paolo. 2011. “La puerta a la mar”. Il marchesato del Finale nel sistema imperiale spagnolo, 1571−1713. Rome: Viella. Cattini, Marco. 1982. “Per la Storia Economica e Sociale del Sei-Settecento Bresciano”. In Cultura, Religione e Politica nell’Età di Angelo Maria Querini. Maurizio Pegrari and Gino Benzoni (eds.). Brescia:Morcelliana. 335−43. Cattini, Marco. 1984. I Contadini di San Felice: Metamorfosi di un Mondo Rurale nell’Emilia dell’Età Moderna. Turin: Einaudi. Chittolini, Giorgio. 1979. La Formazione dello Stato Regionale e le Istituzioni del Contado. Secoli XIV−XV. Turin: Einaudi. Di Tullio, Matteo. 2013. “La Gestione del Patrimonio Fondiario della Misericordia e delle Quattro Marie in Età Moderna. Un’Analisi di Lungo Periodo”. In Il Paese dell’Acqua. I Luoghi Pii Elemosinieri di Milano e le loro Terre: un Itinerario nel Paesaggio dal Medioevo ai Nostri Giorni. Lucia Aiello, Marco Bascapè, and Sergio Reborà (eds.). Como: Nodo Libri. 47−63. Ferraro, Joanne M. 1983. “Feudal-Patrician Investments in the Bresciano and the Politics of the Estimo, 1426−1641. Studi Veneziani VII:31−57. Ferraro, Joanne M. 1984. “Proprietà Terriera e Potere nello Stato Veneto: la Nobiltà Bresciana del ’400− ’500”. In Dentro lo “Stado Italico”. Venezia e la Terraferma fra Quattro e Seicento. Giorgio Cracco and Michael Knapton (eds.). Trento: Gruppo Culturale Civis. 159−82.

Redistribution  139 Galasso, Giuseppe. 1970. Le Rivolte Contadine nell’Europa del Secolo XVII. Napoli: Libreria Scientifica Editrice. Girardi, Elisabetta. 2005. “Marinai di Montagna. La Leva da Mar nei Sette Comuni durante la Guerra di Cipro”. Archivio Veneto, V, CLXV:139−79. Hale, John R. 1985. War and society in Renaissance Europe, 1450−1620. Leicester: Leicester University Press. Hale, John R. 1987. Guerra e Società nell’Europa del Rinascimento. Rome-Bari: Laterza. Hale, John R. 1990. L’Organizzazione Militare di Venezia nel ’500. Rome: Jouvence. January Peter, and Knapton, Michael. 2007. “The demands made on Venetian Terraferma Society for Defence in the early seventeenth century”. Ateneo Veneto CXCIV:25−115. Knapton, Michael. 1984. “Il Territorio Vicentino nello Stato Veneto del ’500 e Primo '600: Nuovi Equilibri Politici e Fiscali”. In “Dentro lo Stado Italico”. Venezia e la Terraferma fra Quattro e Seicento. Giorgio Cracco and Michael Knapton (eds.). Trento: Gruppo Culturale Civis. 33−115. Knapton, Michael. 1988. “Cenni sulle Strutture Fiscali nel Bresciano nella Prima Metà del Settecento”. In La Società Bresciana e l’Opera di Giacomo Ceruti. Maurizio Pegrari (ed.). Brescia: Comune di Brescia. 53−104. Knapton, Michael. 1992. “Tra Dominante e Dominio (1517−1630)”. In Storia d’Italia, XII, La Repubblica di Venezia nell’età moderna, II, Dal 1517 alla fine della Repubblica. Gaetano Cozzi, Michael Knapton, and Giovanni Scarabello (eds.). Turin: UTET. 203−325. Knapton, Michael. 2013b. “The Terraferma state”. In A companion to Venetian history, 1400−1797. Eric R. Dursteler (ed.). Leiden-Boston: Brill. 85−124. Panciera, Walter. 2005. Il Governo delle Artiglierie: Tecnologia Bellica e Istituzioni Veneziane nel Secondo Cinquecento. Milan: Franco Angeli. Parker, Geoffrey. 2013. Global crisis. War, climate change and catastrophe in the seventeenth century. New Haven: Yale University Press. Pellizzari, Giovanni, and Ivan Bendinoni. 2011. Ai Confini della Magnifica Patria: gli Altopiani Settentrionali. Tremosine: Ateneo di Salò. Pezzolo, Luciano. 1985. “Dal Contado alla Comunità: Finanze e Prelievo Fiscale nel Vicentino (secoli XVI−XVIII)”. In Dueville: Storia di una Comunità del Passato. Claudio Povolo (ed.). Vicenza: Neri Pozza. 381−428. Pezzolo, Luciano. 1985b. “Una Fonte Privilegiata d’Indagine: l’Estimo Comunale”. In Bolzano Vicentino: Dimensioni del Sociale e Vita Economica in un Villaggio della Pianura Vicentina (Secoli XIV−XIX). Claudio Povolo (ed.). Bolzano Vicentino: Comune di Bolzano Vicentino. 279−305. Pezzolo, Luciano. 1990. L’Oro dello Stato. Società, Finanza e Fisco nella Repubblica Veneta del Secondo ’500. Venice: Il Cardo. Porto, Luca. 2009. Una Piazzaforte in Età Moderna. Verona come Sistema Fortezza (secc. XV−XVIII). Milan: Franco Angeli. Povolo, Claudio. 2010. L’Uomo che Pretendeva l’Onore. Storia di Bortolamio Pasqualin da Malo (1502v1591). Venice: Marsilio. Preto, Paolo. 1981b. “La Valle del Chiampo nell’Età della Repubblica di Venezia (1404−1797)”. In La Valle del Chiampo: Vita Civile ed Economica in Età Moderna e Contemporanea. Paolo Preto (ed.). Vicenza: Neri Pozza. 31−133. Rossini, Alessandra. 1994. Le Campagne Bresciane nel Cinquecento. Territorio, Fisco, Società. Milan: Franco Angeli.

140 Management Stumpo, Enrico. 1986. “Guerra ed Economia: Spese e Guadagni Militari nel Piemonte del Seicento”. Studi Storici A. 27 (n. 2, April−June):371−95. Tilly, Chris, and Charles Tilly. 1998. Work under Capitalism. Boulder: Westview Press. Treccani degli Alfieri, Giovanni, ed. 1964. Storia di Brescia, Vol. III, La dominazione veneta (1576−1797). Brescia: Morcelliana. Vergani, Raffaello. 1991. “Le Materie Prime”. In Storia di Venezia, Vol. XII, Il Mare. Alberto Tenenti and Ugo Tucci (eds.). 285v312. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana. Zamperetti, Sergio. 1991. I Piccoli Principi: Signorie Locali, Feudi e Comunità Soggette nello Stato Regionale Veneto dall’Espansione Territoriale ai Primi Decenni del ’600. Venice: Il Cardo. Zürcher, Erik-Jan. 2013. Fighting for a living: A comparative history of military labour 1500−2000. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

6 Recipients

The preceding chapters have analysed the forces that affected the varying trajectories of military expenditure. We must now turn to another important problem: identifying the economic actors who benefited from these payments. The importance of participating privately in military systems and in assuring the functioning of an army is widely acknowledged (Parrott 2012). Therefore, in addition to the components of the system elucidated heretofore, the role played by the beneficiaries of military expenditure should be considered one of the most important elements comprising the Venetian military structure. Starting with the expenditure that remained within individual local communities’ economic circuits (as identified in Chapter 5), records show that various figures, including oarsmen, sappers and militiamen, received a payment for their service. Usually, they were members of the ‘lower-middle class’ (inasmuch as such a class existed or can be distinguished), and with the exception of militia officers, they did not belong to families sitting on the high council of the community. This reflected the fact that remuneration for these services lagged behind the demands they placed on those involved, and did not account for the likelihood of injury or death on the battlefield (Pezzolo 1981, 427; 1990, 169). The same assumption can be made with respect to other occasional labourers, e.g. saltpetre cart drivers, saltpetre storehouse repairmen and troop luggage transporters. These were all paid services, but they were not highly paid or of significant economic relevance in a wider sense. Thus, they were the preserve of minor figures, recruited according to their availability or specialisation. Military-related work could constitute a major opportunity for such labourers: the most fortunate beneficiaries included construction workers employed for building houses and warehouses for the saltpetre industry, and gunsmiths located in rural population centres who periodically repaired harquebuses, pikes and muskets for militiamen. The extremely high frequency, for example, of references to Schio gunsmith Antonio Guarnier in the archives of Magrè and Schio is a clear indication of how important military commissions could be for this part of the labour market. The fact that the commissions were limited to repairs and did not extend to purchased weapons means that the province-wide contract

142 Management offered by the Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza to a city gunsmith during this period was binding for communities and penalised small local artisans and merchants. In the province of Brescia, the proximity of weapons production centres meant that there were a limited number of such facilities but when the communities needed to repair a weapon, they brought it directly to the producer. When in September 1584 the community of Maderno needed to readjust harquebuses, they were sent to Brescia. In September 1611, Maderno’s weapons were sent to Salò to be cleaned, but for more complex works some years later, Salo’s ‘master of rifles’ invited the men of Maderno to bring their weapons to Gardone, in the Trompia Valley1. These were relatively minor expenses, but we have already seen that the communities – as well as the Corpi Territoriali and the state – made some payments that were substantial. Large contracts were obviously an enticing prospect for investors who had the money and the influence to win them. A prime example was troop lodgement: in the seventeenth century, especially in areas heavily involved in the transit or quartering of troops, communities often used specific buildings for lodging soldiers. This practice aimed to reduce the burden on peasants by utilising public structures, but at periods of intense military commitment, communities were forced to lease private houses and stables. Lease contracts were issued to peasants who had enough property to be able to put some at the disposal of the community. Many rural families earned important sums from such contracts, which was not a peculiarity of the Republic of Venice, given the presence of proto-barracks in the Spanish Lombardy (Buono 2009), in the Marquisate of Finale Ligure (Calcagno 2011), for example, or in the Kingdom of Sicily (Favarò 2010). Supplying hay and wood to the troops was another important enterprise because of the scale of resources involved; again, the main beneficiaries were the rural families who sat on the communities’ high councils. In Bedizzole, for example, between 1625 and 1639 – the period of the most acute military commitment because of the Valtellina uprising and the Mantuan War – the community spent 79,128 lire on lodging troops. This amount excluded the sums given directly to the troops, according to Venetian orders. The majority of this money remained within the local economic circuit; of the 79,128 lire, only 2,996 lire (3.8 per cent) were paid to foreign merchants. Furthermore, payments to external agents (such as the merchants of Brescia or Salò) rarely played a role in the important purchases, i.e. of products for the troops, especially hay and wood, and typically amounted to adding minor quantities, i.e. of products (especially hay and wood), to supplies already sourced locally. So, the remaining 96.2 per cent of the sum was spent within the community, with 123 families sharing the proceeds. It is important to note, however, that not all of the families received the same share; many labourers (carters, construction workers and so on) received only scraps. A careful examination of the records reveals that nearly 25 per cent of the entire sum

Recipients  143 (almost 18,000 lire) went to only two people, while ten families received 65 per cent of the total (49,794 lire). These figures indicate clearly that even if all of the community was involved in the redistribution of the payments, the majority of the profit was concentrated in the hands of just a few families. Unsurprisingly, the families that benefited the most were those whose members often held the offices of community Treasurer, Quadra councilor (in Salò) or, at the very least, local councilor. Just to give some examples, the main recipient of the military expenditure was Giovan Battista Ferrario; Bedizzole’s books of expenditure make it clear that he was repeatedly Treasurer of the community, auditor in 1630 and 1631 and Deputy for Charity in 1636. Geronimo and Flaminio Maresino were second and third in terms of sums received. Geronimo was Major in 1628 and auditor in 1630 while Flaminio was auditor in 1631 and Deputy for Charity in 1632. The other names near the top of the list enjoyed similar credentials and often held the most prestigious positions in the community. Another fascinating line of inquiry involved tracing the investments pursued by these families. For example, Giovan Battista Ferrario earned 10,436 lire almost entirely by selling hay for the soldiers, while the same work earned Giulio Bozzola 4,000 lire. There are many analogous cases among the top earners, indicating that the hay trade was even more profitable than renting houses. The same point applies to the wood supply trade, both with regard to boards for use in building and larger quantities of ‘big wood’, probably for use as fuel. Geronimo and Flaminio Maresino, for example, earned 7,520 lire selling wood, as well as some hay, with Geronimo again the chief beneficiary. We can assume that families specialised in certain types of investment but not to the extent that they concentrated exclusively on one activity. Property leasing was one such activity. Giacomo Antonio Ragusio, for example, leased his houses in the main square of Bedizzole for 11 consecutive years, from 1625 to 1636, earning approximately 300 lire per year. This figure increased if the houses suffered damage. Other ‘specialisations’ were followed rigidly and were perhaps more predictable, as in the cases of merchants from Brescia, Salò or Desenzano or the case of the community innkeeper, Giorgio di Andrea Zecco, who was regularly paid for the lodgement of soldiers in transit. Otherwise, the patterns of investment were usually diversified; the leasing of stables and houses would often be accompanied by the leasing of bed sheets, pallets and furniture or the selling of hay and wood. The uniqueness of the case of Bedizzole does not detract from its importance. Remaining in the province of Brescia, similar dynamics were at play in Tremosine. When, in 1627, some light horsemen had to be lodged in Vesio – one of the hamlets in the community – Domenico Filengo leased his house. Domenico belonged to a family with a medium-to-high cadastral evaluation and the income from the house rental was not enormously significant for him (only 48 lire). However, it is interesting to note that in this

144 Management case, too, as in Bedizzole, the cadastral surveys of 1599 and 1644 tell us that the Filengos owned more houses than there were members of the family. So, it is likely that they had houses to lease for this purpose (Pellizzari and Bendinoni 2011, 127). The situation in the province of Vicenza was largely analogous to that in the province of Brescia, albeit with some additional complicating factors. When a competition to lease a house to light cavalry in transit was announced in Montecchio Maggiore in April 1617, the winner of the 112 lire monthly contract was Messer Vincenzo di Gianbattista Cegan, a member of a family that sat in the community’s Council of 402 . In Schio, the situation was comparable; 80 families earned 6,914 lire from quartering cavalry between 1626 and 16333. However, as in the case of Bedizzole, the majority of them received only small sums for limited services (between 1 and 10 lire), while a handful of families earned considerable amounts. The four highest earners garnered 30 per cent of the total (2,169 lire), while the first ten took 50 per cent (3,509 lire). These proportions differed in Bedizzole; the comparatively narrower range of lodgements and the reduced number of men to supply limited the number of families involved and the scale of investment. Whereas in Bedizzole, Gian Battista Ferrario earned more than 10,000 lire supplying the troops – that amount is much more of the entire expenditure of Schio during seven years of lodgements – the busiest family in Schio, the Nicolettis, earned ‘only’ 740 lire. Even in this case, however, those earning the highest sums belonged to the most prominent families in the community; namely, the Nicolettis, Cannetis, Zambonis (a Zamboni was Major of the community during the period of the lodgements), Grandes, Cappellaros, Tamburinis (a Tamburini was Major in 1632) and Toaldos. Again, some families ‘specialised’ in supplies: all of the families cited leased houses to soldiers and furnished meals, but while, for example, the Cappellaros and Nicolettis conducted only this activity, other families specialised in specific products. The Canneti family, for example, concentrated nearly exclusively on selling wood for the building of the barracks, as did the Zambonis and Tamburinis. The Toaldo family, for their part, sold mainly hay and straw, as did the Grandes, albeit on a lesser scale. Clearly, the system functioned much like it did in Bedizzole, even if its scale was different. There was one other important difference between the two cases, which might contradict popular perceptions. Vicenza’s provincial archive contains far more references to urban nobles holding rural properties than its counterpart in the province of Brescia, even though nobles probably held more property in rural Brescia than they did in rural Vicenza. In Bedizzole, there is no evidence of urban owners providing houses for troop lodgement, despite the pronounced presence of Brescian nobles in the countryside (Rossini 1994). Conversely, there are many such examples for the province of Vicenza. In Schio, one of the houses rented for the heavy cavalry in 1631 was owned by Count Alvise Schio4. This phenomenon is

Recipients  145 even more evident in the low plains. In Camisano Vicentino, for example, during the transit of light cavalry in 1629, the community rented the houses of Count Luigi Capra and Count Sartorio Thiene, as well as of the Ghelino family in Magrè. In Montecchio Maggiore, too, the 1617 troop lodgement contract won by Cegan had previously been awarded to Count Nicola Gualdo, before being rescinded5. The presence of noble Vicenzan families, however, does not nullify the role played by rural families; the availability of infrastructure and, capital, combined with the powerful advantage of local knowledge, allowed the families of the rural élite to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the lodgement of troops. The communities did not manage all of the major expenditures autonomously, however, and the money associated with externally controlled spending could not be redistributed within the community. We have seen that the Corpo Territoriale, especially that of Vicenza, often adopted an advisory or even executive stance when it came to community management of military burdens. The institution acted as the reference point for contracts concerning property leases, the supply of furniture, hay and straw, and the construction of houses and stores for saltpetre producers. When this happened, the significance of the contracts and the scale of the associated investments became too onerous for non-specialists or part-timers and started to attract interest from outside the community. In these circumstances, the interested parties, especially merchants, often came from the city. The case of the Antenovo family is emblematic; in November 1590, the Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza made a payment to ‘Battista gunsmith’6, and in the following years, his name (Battista Antenovo) regularly appeared in the documents of the rural institution in relation to the maintenance of the rural militia’s weapons, in addition to his annual salary from the Corpo Territoriale. Since the formation of the rural militia, the rural institution had to pay a gunsmith for the maintenance of weapons and cuirasses. In April 1593, the Senate reminded the peasants of Vicenza that ‘the gunsmiths have to control all the weapons of the cernide twice a year. They must be paid 20 soldi by the communities for armor, as per the order of 24 May 1564’7. Thus, Battista Antenovo was paid in 1597, 1598 and 1600; in 1618, in addition to his weapons maintenance contract, he went on to win the contract for weapons sales, which had been the preserve of the Stecchi family since 1603. When Battista died, this five-year sales contract was taken over by his sons, Giovan Battista and Giacomo. This family pattern was common and the brothers’ contract was renewed in 16428. The element of continuity in the awarding of contracts facilitated the development of trust between an artisan/merchant and the rural institution. Of course, this practice was not solely a prerogative of the province of Vicenza and of the weapons market. In June 1637, for example, the Corpo Territoriale of Padua subcontracted the supply of hay for the transit cavalry, signing a six-month contract with an urban merchant, Giuliano Breo

146 Management and his son Francesco. Twenty years later, in June 1655, Francesco himself won the new contract, in this case for five years, and undertook all the risks linked to the work9. The turn to urban merchants, as anticipated, was not unusual: in the province of Brescia, for example, the community of Bedizzole relied on many occasions on the services of Delio Palazzolo, a wool blanket and pallet merchant from Brescia10. Moreover, in the province of Padua, it was common for urban Jewish merchants to win contracts to supply utensils and beds for soldiers. The community of Montagnana’s expenses for 1619 included payment to a Jewish merchant for the ‘leasing of beds and other things for the soldiers’; in 1625, there were two payments to a merchant named Isacco who was identified as a ‘Jew’, for ‘various items provided for the soldiers’, while in the same year, in the same province, the community of Monselice rented one ‘furnished’ bed for a company lieutenant from an individual named Emmanuel and another from an individual named Mosè, both of whom were Jews11. These purchases seem to have been occasional, but the following year, in October 1626, there were two other payments from the Corpo Territoriale to two Jewish inhabitants of the ghetto of Padua ‘for the leasing of items for the soldiers, including … blankets … pallets … a furnished bed’. The amount of the payment was quite significant, as happened also in the following years; in November 1649, Mosè Cattelan presented the rural institution with the bill for utensils provided to soldiers lodged in the countryside, while in 1655, a Jew named Salomone billed the Corpo Territoriale for textiles he supplied to troops, as did Michele di Aronne, who sold tablecloths, bedsheets and carpets12. It was not only urban nobles and Jewish merchants with whom the Corpo Territoriale traded; the Corpi Territoriali engaged these urban agents, as well as sizeable rural merchants, to lodge troops and provide military supplies. The case most readily identified related to the commerce of wood: in August 1619, the community of Montagnana turned to Maria de Zolo, ‘merchant of wood in this territory’, to buy material for the construction of the barracks13, and many other cases related to the construction of saltpetre facilities in the province of Vicenza. In April 1587, Tullio Torniero was paid by the Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza for ‘planks, beams and other materials provided for the construction [of the saltpetre store] in Brendola’14. In 1598, he sold the same items for use in the construction of the store in Thiene. In January and July 1603, June 1608 and February 1609, documents referred to him as a ‘wood merchant’ in connection with supplies of that material. In September 1607, the rural institution paid for planks and beams received from Alessandro Torniero; we do not know if he was a relation of Tullio15. In any case, during this period, the Corpo Territoriale paid Tullio Torniero and Alessandro Torniero a total of 4,066 lire, with most of it going to Tullio. The receipts of the Corpo Territoriale name another wood merchant, Andrea Riese from Bassano, showing that the countryside was also home to economic agents acting in a broad range of enterprises. This applied not only to wood, and specialised rural merchants were often called on to supply other

Recipients  147 products. Between 1606 and 1610, the Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza regularly bought iron, locks and nails from ‘iron merchant’ Bernardo Capponi, while Malo once again displayed its manufacturing vocation to meet the demand for earthenware goods. Malo’s Battista di Martini, for instance, supplied roof tiles for saltpetre warehouses in 1587 and 1592. Outside of the trade in building materials, the case of Maffio Merlin is illuminating. A bricklayer, who probably did not work autonomously, Merlin worked for the Corpo Territoriale during the entire period of saltpetre infrastructure construction and maintenance, moving in that time to Nanto, Cornedo, Malo, Schio, Thiene, Brendola and Sandrigo. He went everywhere manual labour was needed, earning 14,827 lire between 1604 and 1612, including reimbursements for materials purchased and direct payment for labour16. These examples show that – at least in the provinces of Vicenza and Padua, if not in Brescia – military contracts attracted a heterogeneous group of merchants, workers and investors. These individuals often had multi-generational connections to the Corpo Territoriale, or at least a recurring connection, which allowed for the potential development of a trustbased relationship, which was the foundation of the family and nepotism networks within the countryside. That portion of expenditure that concerned only the local community was managed by local élite families at the community level. When the search for value dictated that recourse be made to external agents, the Corpo Territoriale assumed a central role in mediating between rural and urban merchants and artisans (January and Knapton 2007, 57−9). In addition, the contractors or wholesalers did not always come from the province involved in the expenditure. The case of the weapons of Brescia is instructive, with its inter-provincial (and regional) market, set against the availability of other products in other provinces. The Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza often bought materials from Este, in the province of Padua, for use in saltpetre infrastructure building sites17. Similarly, when the institution had to buy a large amount of blankets in 1607 due to increased numbers of troops in transit, it collaborated with Alberto Alberici, a merchant in Venice18. This interaction between public local institutions and private investors was probably the foundation on which the Venetian military structure was built. Rather than the fragmentation that has traditionally been imagined by the historiography of this topic, agreements with contractors guaranteed a certain cohesiveness and continuity in the management of structures and supplies – and it should be pointed out that cities and Corpo Territoriali actually deserve more of the credit for establishing these systems than the Republic. Of course, Venice could take it upon itself to sign contracts for weapons and saltpetre to guarantee – if not always efficaciously – the supply of the Arsenal and of the land and sea forces (Panciera 2005, 112; Pezzolo 1990, 161−4). Sources show that there was a direct line of communication between producers of weapons (especially from Brescia) and Venetian officials, who were in daily contact with the Senate and the

148 Management Council of Ten. Furthermore, the transport of the weapons was controlled by the Republic and subcontracted. Between 1615 and 1617, for example, Giacomo Bora was the ‘usual carrier’ of weapons from Brescia to Verona or to Venice, transporting 80−100 cases at a time, which indicated a consistent investment. The correspondence between Bora and the Venetian authorities involved a debate about which route to follow; the route through Este seems to have been the fastest but the most expensive, while the route through Verona was slower but cheaper. This type of planning suggests that payment for each delivery was not standardised but was negotiated on a case-by-case basis to suit the needs of the Arsenal and in response to Bora’s service and travel schedule on each occasion19. The amazing variety of economic actors involved shows that there was no simple and single way to manage military burdens. Within this complex web, however, it is possible to identify common trends that allowed for the coexistence in one system of the material and financial capacities of communities, the will of local élites and the functioning of the military structure. Investors and merchants assumed different roles according to their own competencies and in response to the internal conditions and demands of the provinces in question. Recognising this can help us to understand the overall organisation of the military structure, even if it remains difficult to identify each economic actor individually. However, we can summarise by stating that the main players were the families of the rural élites and merchants, both urban and rural. It is important to reaffirm that process of engaging the services of either elites or merchants was a function of three variables: opportunity, will and functionality. To give this topic full and proper treatment, it is necessary to dedicate time and space to a theme that has only recently been afforded the attention it requires. Previously neglected by researchers, the role of women is vital to understanding the involvement of communities in the management of the Venetian military structure. Without suggesting that this is a comprehensive treatment, I will propose some causes for reflection based on cases in the source material. In his recent work, John A. Lynn II focused on the role played by women in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century armies. While recognising the presence of traditionally ‘gendered’ roles (housewife, prostitute and so on) within the marching or quartered armies, Lynn tried to re-evaluate ‘women’s contribution to the economy of the campaign community’, especially in respect of the ‘inability of the state to maintain its troops before 1650’ (Lynn 2008, 217; 2007; 2012). Soldiers’ companions played an important role in activities like pillaging and, along with their husbands, formed channels through which they could participate in legitimate activities, such as the purchasing and distribution of supplies. The data collected in the Venetian documents can be integrated with Lynn’s analysis to identify work by women that was independent of men. Moreover, women were involved not only in the army but they also played an important role in the ‘civil’ management of the military structure.

Recipients  149 We have seen that in Malo, mothers and wives of oarsmen were in charge of receiving payments from the community; on the last day of November 1572, for instance, the community of Malo paid a 50-lire deposit to Domina Maria, mother of the oarsman Bernardo Sandan from Creazzo. Maria received another payment in March of the following year, but in July 1574, the Captain of Vicenza had to intervene because Malo had still not fully settled its debt with her. Another case involved the widow of Giuseppe de Fin, who served in the galleys between 1571 and 1572. Venetian officials wrote to Malo in November 1572 urging the community to settle its debt with Domina Chiara but it seems they were ignored. In 1573, the Captain of Vicenza had to insist that the community fulfil its obligation to pay what was due for his service ‘from September 9th 1571 when he left Venice until January 19th of the same year20 when he died in Zara’. Following an intervention by the Captain of Vicenza on 16 November 1573, another woman (Dorotea, widow of Giovan Battista dall’Aste) had to approach the community to pursue what was due to her. She received the payment in the presence of her mother-in-law, Domina Caterina21. It was quite common, and not only in Malo, that mothers and wives managed the salaries of their loved ones. They did more than simply receive payments and often had to take legal action against communities and sign official agreements with them 22 . This type of activity was fundamental to the process of redistribution of military expenditure – and while it did not directly involve women in the management of the army, there are documents that link women to troop lodgement. The link between women and troop lodgement mainly involved women performing typically gendered tasks such as the selling or the washing of tablecloths and bedsheets; in 1632 in Schio, Antonia Molin was paid for the ‘lease of cloths’ for the barracks, and similar payments were common in Bedizzole and in the Camonica Valley (Ongaro 2016)23. In 1624 in Bedizzole, Affea Gavagno provided tablecloths and napkins to the captain of a company quartered in the community. In 1626, Maria, widow of Bastiano Moreno, was appointed to wash the bedsheets used by the soldiers, while in 1628 and 1630, Ippolita Lando sewed and provided bedsheets for officials and soldiers24. Payment for such activities was limited, usually in the range of 2−3 lire; the work in question here was ‘women’s work’, cleaning or sewing. Nonetheless, there were women who assumed a more significant economic role, leasing houses and stables for the troops, or selling small amounts of wood, hay and straw. Remaining in Bedizzole, Affea and Lucia Gavagno regularly took up annual contracts to lodge troops in houses with courtyards. Between 1621, 1625, 1626, 1629 and 1630, they earned a total of 1,044 lire from the community, including the cost of building maintenance prior to soldiers taking up residence. Lucrezia Ronchi and Cassandra Belotto also rented stables and ‘buildings’ to barrack cavalry in 1625 and 1626. While Lucrezia only provided an enclosure for horses for a few months,

150 Management Cassandra seems to have provided sizeable accommodation, as well as selling small quantities of wood. Quintilia Bonfadina rented a number of houses for the same purpose between 1636 and 1639, as did Marta Zanni, widow of Giacomo Zanni, in 1626 and 1630. Domenica Miziano leased at least one property in 1627 and Antonia Parisia did likewise in in 1626, 1628, 1629 and 163025. More complex was Giulia Laude’s involvement in troop lodgement: between 1625 and 1631, she leased her stable for heavy cavalry, at quite a modest price. Where she really profited was in supplying hay: in 1625, she sold 64 pesi (approximately half a ton) of hay to the community for 40 lire, while in 1630, she earned 140 lire more for 370 pesi (approximately 3 tons) and received a second payment of 246 lire, probably due on delivery of the total supply26. Several women were involved in supplying hay to the troops: Isabetta Zecco, widow of Andrea, continued the family commerce, selling hay to soldiers in 1630. Caterina Barbi also sold hay to soldiers in 163027. It was not only widows but also married and single women who engaged independently in this type of commerce, autonomously managing equipment and provisions. This reconfirms recent historiography’s recognition of the extent of women’s involvement (Lanaro and Smith 2012) and moves us further away from the traditional interpretation of female subordination in the realm of economic resource management. Another interesting dimension of women’s involvement is the partial reinforcement of specific familiar dynamics identified earlier. Alongside the familiar concept of ‘vocations’ in specific commercial products, the greatest profits extracted from troop lodgement accrued to women belonging to the wealthiest families in the community, including the Zeccos, Belottos and Gavagnos. The case of Bedizzole, even if unique in terms of the breadth and depth of women’s economic input, did not exist in isolation. In Schio, too, there were cases of women leasing furniture or bedsheets to soldiers28, while in rural Padua, women also leased buildings. In October 1624, for example, the community of Montagnana paid 62 lire to M.a Luvieta Rovereda for the use of his house as a barracks for soldiers, and 43 lire to Flaminia Stodari for the use of a building in lodging troops for the previous six months. In December 1624, Rovereda received another 62 lire 29. According to Lynn, women participated in the economic life of armies through typical female duties and through pillage. But we have established that there was actually more to their role. Mothers, sisters and wives managed the family economy while their men were in the army; moreover, they managed the supply of accommodation and personal items for the troops. The women considered in this chapter were peripheral to the military world; their involvement – like their male relatives – revolved around military contracts awarded to communities in respect of their infrastructure and the provision of daily necessities. Their earnings from these activities were undoubtedly limited compared to those available to men, but they had similar characteristics, namely, specialisation in

Recipients  151 specific fields of commerce and a strong correlation between sums earned and family social standing. In conclusion, we can restate that the development of a management structure for the ‘modern’ Venetian army, especially at the local level, was characterised by the contribution of specific economic actors. We can assume that they constituted the common link between the two main forces affecting the military structure, namely, state requirements and local social and economic response agencies. The incomes earned by rural and urban merchants, labourers and artisans depended on the scope of the investment in question and on their social relations within communities and the Corpi Territoriali. The savings made by the rural institutions on the back of provincial contracts (as distinct from continual individual purchasing) assured the efficient functioning of the army, the saltpeter production industry and so on. At the same time, they were an important source of revenue that helped transform the military presence from a burden into an economic opportunity, albeit not one of choice. Furthermore, the local will to optimise savings and earnings led, especially in the province of Vicenza, to a more coordinated management of the military structure, with positive results for the state.

Notes 1. ACSc, b. 8, fasc. 9, fol. 229 v.; ACMg, b. 4, fasc. 10, fos 100 v., 105 v., 138 r., 182 v., 191 v., 198 r.; fasc. 11, fos. 2 r.−v., 5 r., 40 r., 41 r.−v., 46 v., 56 r., 96 r., 111 v., 112 v., 131 v., 145 v., 147 r., 155 r., 178 v., 182 v., 190 v., 193 v.; ACMd, Provisiones 1583−1584, fol. 70 v.; 1610−1615, fos. 108 v., 328 v. 2. ACMo, b. 1, fos. 109 v.−110 r. 3. ACSc, b. 42, fasc. 108, fos. 63 v.−340 v. 4. ACSc, b. 42, fasc. 108, fol. 319 r. 5. ACMo, b. 1, fos. 98 r.−99 r. 6. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3756, fol. 467 r. 7. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3763, fasc. 16. 8. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3755, fasc. 9, fol. 3 r.; b. 3756, fos. 493 r.−v., 520 r., 531 r.; b. 3763, fasc. 1, fos. 1 r., 4 r.−5v., 7 v.−8 r. 9. ASPd, Milizie, b. 33, fasc. 34, fos. 4 r.−9 r. 10. ACBe, b. 19. 11. ASPd, Milizie, b. 33, reg. 8, fol. 3 v.; b. 33, fasc. 14, fos. 11 v.−12 r., 20 v.−21 r. 12. ASPd, Milizie, b. 33, fasc. 23, fos. 1 r.−2 r.; fasc. 41; fasc. 49, fos. 1 r.−2 v. 13. Ibid, reg. 8, fol. 4 r. 14. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3756, fol. 238 r. 15. Ibid, fos. 29 v., 35 r., 38 r., 40 v., 318 r., 362 v., 499 r. 16. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3756, fos. 30 r.−31 r., 32 r.−44 v. 17. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3756, fos. 32 r., 38 v. 18. BCB, Archivio Torre, b. 240, fasc. 7, fos. 107 r.−v. 19. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 15, 22 and 31 December 1615, 1 and 22 January 1616; Ibid, b. 16, 16 April 1616, 28 May 1616, 1 and 25 June 1616, 7 September 1616, 24 December 1616. 20. The timing is according to the more veneto: in Venice the year started on March the first (so, in this case 19 January 1571 equates to 19 January 1572 in our calendar). 21. ASMa, Provvedimenti 1571−1584.

152 Management 22. Ibid. 23. ACSc, b. 42, fasc. 108, fol. 299 v. 24. ACBe, b. 19, fasc. 1, fos. 69 v., 146 v., 218 v., 221 v., 227 v., 357 v., 359 v. 25. Ibid, fos. 42 v., 64 v., 90 v., 97 v., 99 v., 127 v., 131 v.,120 v., 141 v., 158 v., 227 v., 367 v., 378 v. 26. Ibid, fos. 73 v., 98 v., 145 v., 177 v., 375 v. 27. Ibid, fos. 375 v., 376 v. 28. ACSc, b. 42, fasc. 108, fos. 260 v., 262 r., 282 r. 29. ASPd, Milizie, b. 33, fasc. 14, fos. 20 r.−21 v.

Bibliography Buono, Alessandro. 2009. Esercito, istituzioni, territorio: alloggiamenti militari e case herme nello Stato di Milano (sec. XVI e XVII). Florence: Firenze University Press. Calcagno, Paolo. 2011. “La puerta a la mar”. Il marchesato del Finale nel sistema imperiale spagnolo, 1571−1713. Rome: Viella. Favarò, Valentina. 2010. “Sugli Alloggiamenti Militari in Sicilia tra Cinque e Seicento: Alcune Riflessioni”. Mediterranea, ricerche storiche VII (20):459−78. January, Peter, and Michael Knapton. 2007. “The demands made on Venetian Terraferma Society for Defence in the early seventeenth century”. Ateneo Veneto CXCIV:25−115. Lanaro, Paola, and Alison Smith (ed.). 2012. Donne a Verona. Una Storia della Città dal Medioevo ad Oggi. Sommacampagna: Cierre. Lynn, John A. 2007. Women in war. Military History (Oct.):60−6. Lynn, John A. 2008. Women, armies, and warfare in early modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lynn, John A. 2012. “Essential women, necessary wives, and exemplary soldiers: The military reality and cultural representation of women’s military participation 1600−1815”. In Companion to women’s military history. Barton C. Hacker and Margaret Vining (eds.). Leiden: Brill. 93−136. Ongaro, Giulio. 2016. “L’Impatto Economico nell’Alta Valcamonica della Campagna Franco-Veneta di Valtellina”. In I Cannoni di Guspessa. Edolo, Cortenedolo e Mu alle Soglie della Guerra dei Trent’Anni (1624−1625). Simone Signaroli and Giulio Ongaro (eds.). Breno: Servizio Archivistico Comprensoriale di Valcamonica. 19−31. Panciera, Walter. 2005. Il Governo delle Artiglierie: Tecnologia Bellica e Istituzioni Veneziane nel Secondo Cinquecento. Milan: Franco Angeli. Parrott, David. 2012. The business of war. Military enterprise and military revolution in early modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pellizzari, Giovanni, and Ivan Bendinoni. 2011. Ai Confini della Magnifica Patria: gli Altopiani Settentrionali. Tremosine: Ateneo di Salò. Pezzolo, Luciano. 1981. “Milizie e Contadini nelle Campagne Vicentine (Lisiera nel ’500 e ’600)”. In Lisiera: Immagini, Documenti e Problemi per la Storia di una Comunità Veneta: Strutture, Congiunture, Episodi. Claudio Povolo (ed.). Lisiera: Parrocchia. 419−34. Pezzolo, Luciano. 1990. L’Oro dello Stato. Società, Finanza e Fisco nella Repubblica Veneta del Secondo ’500. Venice: Il Cardo.

7 Containment of costs

Up to this point, we have concentrated on the forces – military, economic and ‘conflict’-based – that affected the distribution, redistribution and management of military costs. Another important dimension in the development of local management of state military structures were the practices adopted by the communities and the Corpi Territoriali to avoid costs or make them less traumatic for local economies and societies. The state also intervened, especially in the seventeenth century, to reduce the impact of military burdens and redistribute them more equitably. The preceding chapters demonstrated that intercession by the Corpo Territoriale could limit costs, while depriving community élites of autonomy in the management of military expenditure. Élites participated in the decision-making process of the Corpo Territoriale, however, and were willing to relinquish some influence in return for savings. The redistribution of military costs among ‘council’ families, as well as the formation of a source of income for certain sections of rural society, ring-fenced expenditure within the local economic circuit and helped to maintain community economic stability and resilience. We must consider, of course, that while these redistribution practices could contribute to preserving local wealth, they were often the final resort of an itinerary designed to avoid burdens or limit them as much as possible. For the sake of clarity, while I will use the formula ‘protection of community wealth’, it does not imply that humanitarian redistribution in favour of the poorest parts of the rural population is the concern of this study. Employing the concept of ‘collective wealth’ in this way connotes the creation of goods and economic potential (public and private) by a human society striving to survive, without regard to its management practices (Di Tullio 2011). Turning to the strategies adopted to protect local finances, I will begin with attempts to avoid military burdens. Various tactics were employed, usually involving passing the burden to other areas or to other societal groups. Such efforts rarely produced a positive outcome, so the communities and the Corpi Territoriali focused instead on limiting expenditure. The redistributive element of these practices has been analysed; other elements were more concerned with the organisation and management of military structures.

154 Management As well as such ‘preventative’ actions that were intended to limit the amount of military expenditure and other a posteriori actions that were designed to manage costs and redistribute payments, there were also methods to extract revenue from the military investments made by communities. Proceeding in listing strategies and tactics and attempts to avoid burdens, other ones consisted of complaints directed to the Venetian authorities or of legal cases endeavouring to push the responsibility for military costs onto others. There were also illegal practices, such as the bribing of officials overseeing troop lodgements or saltpetre production; these were crisis measures, emerging not as a precise method but as something more akin to an instinctive community reaction. Appeals to privileges, exemptions and agreements were the most common routes taken to sidestep military burdens, especially in border areas – including the valleys of Brescia, the Riviera of Salò and the tableland of Asiago in the province of Vicenza – many of which had agreed to favourable terms at the time of the Venetian conquest. We saw in Chapter 5 how Corpi Territoriali, separated areas, cities and communities all pursued many legal actions to either confirm their own exemptions and privileges or undermine those of others. As we saw also, the progression towards a more equal distribution of burdens in the Mainland Dominion meant that these attempts often failed; thus, communities were motivated to adopt illegal practices in their endeavours to avoid burdens. The bribing and corruption of officials – or of military labourers – was such a common practice that the soldiers themselves sometimes expected their own kickback. In 1604 and 1615, for example, the communities of the Camonica Valley denounced soldiers for offering to transfer to different quarters in return for a payment1 (Ongaro 2016) while in 1633, the council of the community of Gavardo voted to send a ‘gift’ to the captain of the cavalry2 . In this case, the relevant document does not specify if the payment was to encourage him to quarter his men in another community or to guarantee the behaviour of his men while in Gavardo. Such practices were also regularly followed to prevent the excavation of land for saltpetre production, but it was the issue of troop lodgement that was most rife with corruption; the 1614 Grimani orders on the proper management of communities stated that, given the practice of ‘bribing soldiers in order to avoid lodgments … and encouraging them to make their quarters elsewhere’, provision would be made to ‘banish, hang or imprison’ anyone who ‘dared engage in such corruption’ (RPD, 301). Despite these attempts, the communities often failed to escape military burdens; autonomy in the management of the costs at least allowed peasants to limit the negative effects of the military structure on the local economy. The most important element in this regard – discussed in part previously – was the centralisation of contracts and of the management of the military structure in the hands of the Corpi Territoriali. Provincial contracts, predictably, were less expensive than individualised deals; moreover,

Containment of costs  155 dealing with contractors had other practical benefits and not only at a provincial level, work on the fortress of Palmanova being a case in point. In this instance, the rural communities of Brescia (through the Corpo Territoriale) and those of Vicenza both subcontracted their commitments, as it was more expensive to send men to the site than to hire local labour. The Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza signed contracts for the construction and maintenance of saltpetre infrastructure in the seventeenth century. It was also contracted to supply weapons for the rural militia, in both the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. With respect to lodgements – the most important item of expenditure for the communities in the seventeenth century – there are an abundance of examples of how communities and the Corpi Territoriali tried to limit the weight of military burdens. When it came to contracts for supplying, equipping and accommodating quartered troops, the strategies devised at the local level show a marked organisational capability that, from a certain point of view, substituted the coordinating role of the state. With regard to provisions – hay and straw in the main – we have seen that in the province of Padua in particular, the Corpo Territoriale was able to find contractors who were in a position to manage the collection and distribution of the products needed for the troops. This also applied in the context of certain other necessities and in the province of Vicenza. In 1617, when the community of Montecchio Maggiore had to lodge 25 light cavalrymen, it bought blankets, pallets, boards and a grill for the soldiers, which seems to indicate that the Corpo Territoriale did not possess such items or at least did not possess them in sufficient quantities3. This assumption appears all the more valid when one considers that the soldiers who were sent to lodge in Schio in 1631 were supplied with pallets, blankets, bedsheets and other utensils newly purchased by the community. However, sources show that Francesco Cappellaro – appointed to oversee the lodgement of the cavalry – was charged with collecting these goods and ‘forwarding them … to the Corpo Territoriale’ by Gianbattista dal Bianco4. In the province of Brescia, in contrast, there are no traces of such interventions by the rural institution. In Gavardo, Bedizzole, Maderno and Tremosine, when the troops had to be lodged, the communities acted autonomously to purchase everything needed for the preparation of the barracks. The difference in approach to the management of troop lodgement is once again attributable to the varying capacities of the rural institutions. These differences between the provinces of Brescia, Vicenza and Padua are evident in their respective structures for lodging transiting or quartered troops. During the seventeenth century, there were local provisions in all of the provinces for the construction of case-herme (barracks), as happened for example in the Spanish Lombardy (Buono 2009). Apart from the important role played by the barracks in separating military personnel and civilians, they represented a cheaper avenue for troop lodgement than leasing houses.

156 Management In Gavardo in December 1620, the community council resolved ‘to build a barracks for the lodgment of the cavalry and infantry when needed .… It is agreed to fix the big stables and to build over them two rooms’5. The council of Bedizzole approved similar projects on several occasions; in July 1617, it moved to ‘empty the house occupied by the Reverend D. Carlo … and the one owned by the community … and renovate them in order to lodge people when needed’6. In December 1620, Bedizzole established the following: Given that we have to continuously lodge troops … without having a valid barracks, nor sufficient space for the lodging of soldiers … because of the many expenses that take all the income of the community, and of the inhabitants … we have to buy … some houses in order to build a barracks for the soldiers7. A similar provision from 1624 referred not only to the community of Bedizzole but to its entire Quadra8. The number of soldiers to be lodged was growing because of the war in the Valtellina, and the communities responded by organising their barracks as effectively as possible. Records show that the local councils initially sought to find public structures that could be used as barracks; however, in the 1620s and 1630s, this approach did not provide sufficient capacity to cater to the large number of soldiers involved, so private buildings were leased with increasing frequency, as discussed in previous chapters. In the province of Vicenza, the Corpo Territoriale again mediated the leasing or the construction of houses, particularly in the ‘transit area’, while the Piedmont area was not heavily affected because the number of soldiers there was limited. So, in November 1616, Francesco Costezza from Montebello leased a house to the Corpo Territoriale for 24 ducats a year ‘in order to lodge the soldiers, cavalry and infantry that arrived [in Montebello]’9. In July 1635, as the number of soldiers at the border with the Trentino increased, the rural institution renovated a ‘big house’ at the Campogrosso pass to lodge light cavalry. The community of Recoaro paid for the work – because the building was on its territory – but then the Corpo Territoriale reimbursed it10. Other provinces also constructed buildings for this purpose: in two orders sent to the Captains of Treviso and Pordenone on 14 January 1638, the Senate pointed out that the transit troops ‘should not stop in or damage the communities and the countryside’ of the province of Treviso, and that waiting for them in Pordenone was ‘a building built for this purpose [troop lodgment] by the communities themselves’11. In this case, it is not clear if the Corpo Territoriale or the Contadinanza of Friuli (the rural representative institution of Friuli) built the structure, but again the outcome was a house designed specifically to lodge soldiers, the result of a joint effort by many communities. Sources from the province of Padua provide even richer information and refer on several occasions to ‘barracks’ that were owned by either the

Containment of costs  157 Corpo Territoriale or the community. In 1619 in Montagnana, the ‘house of soldiers’ was renovated, and in 1620 the council spent 133 lire on the maintenance of a ‘community-owned lodging house’ for some Dutch soldiers. It seems that these were two separate houses, given that in May 1619 and in January 1620, the community paid 595 lire to Bortolamio Beccari di Matteo ‘for leasing the building housing the soldiers’, while for the twelve months starting on 20 May 1619 the Corpo Territoriale paid 620 lire to ‘our community [Montagnana] for leasing the house intended for the soldiers’. Furthermore, between 1624 and 1625, the same community of Montagnana rented houses in which to lodge transit soldiers from Maffio delli Maestri among others, while the Corpo Territoriale simultaneously continued to pay for two houses owned by the community (and a third from 1626). In this case, the community managed the buildings and was later reimbursed by the rural institution of Padua, but it is interesting that the community itself leased houses to the Corpo Territoriale for the lodging of soldiers. In Este, too, there were buildings specifically intended for this purpose, given that in March 1626 the community paid 2 lire to Nicolò Sinosich for lodging 14 soldiers in his house ‘that cannot be located in the barracks’. As in other parts of the Mainland Dominion, then, the capacity of the structures was inadequate at times of intensified troop movement, so the soldiers had to be hosted by private parties or in the local inns, as receipts from Montagnana attest. In 1626, this community regularly had to lodge the soldiers outside the barracks, ‘because there were no pallets … and the barracks were also occupied’. The number of soldiers involved could be significant, as in May 1626, when in a single night the community had to lodge more than 400 men12 . In the province of Brescia, again, such practices did not occur. The provision of pieces of kit and the leasing of stables and houses as caseherme was probably more common than in the province of Vicenza, but this was not due to the Corpo Territoriale. In this sense, the letter sent by Marc’Antonio Correr to the Senate in July 1624 is emblematic of the situation. Waiting for a large number of soldiers coming from the province of Bergamo, the Captain of Brescia wrote that he ‘ordered the delegates of the Corpo Territoriale to prepare barracks, stables and personal items according to the orders printed by the Provveditore Generale Cornaro’. The newness of lodging troops meant that the delegates complained a lot about the difficulties inherent in the task. However, it was only for the Corpo Territoriale that such work was novel; the Brescian citizens had a completely different opinion, and one that seems more reliable considering the examples cited above. The inhabitants of Brescia had no doubt about what should be done: the troops had to be lodged ‘in rural communities of sufficient size, where the relevant investment has been made in barracks, stables and equipment’13. It is clear that the contending parties – citizens and peasants – were attempting to unload the burden on each other, but not all their assertions were imaginary constructions. The rural delegates

158 Management had certainly never previously experienced the challenge of coordinating management of lodgements on such a scale, although many villages had independently prepared accommodation and associated necessities. The Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza was more interventionist than that of Brescia in terms of lodgements and this also extended to other fields. It applied to contracting for the cutting of oak trees and their transportation to the Arsenal of the rural institution14. It also applied to the provision and maintenance of weapons for the rural militia in the province of Vicenza, as referred to in previous chapters. The relocation of rural militias was also governed by the rural institution. In September 1640, the Senate was petitioned to move weapons from storage in old prisons in Vicenza to the four ‘colonel’ communities (Montecchio Maggiore, Thiene, Lonigo and Marostica). According to the peasants, this weapons move would result in significant savings for the communities, limiting the wear and tear of transport on the weapons and, even more importantly, considerably reducing the number of trips required – with associated payments for labour and carts – back and forth for local reviews15. The Senate wrote to the Captain of Vicenza, asking if there were adequate storage sites for the weapons in the communities, but his response is unknown. On 21 June 1642, however, the Senate ordered the Captain of Vicenza to remind the gunsmith (Giovanbattista Antenovo) to clean the weapons and then to ‘transport them to Lonigo, Marostica, Montecchio Maggiore and Thiene, where they are routinely stored’. The cleaning went on until December 1642 and January 1643, when the Majors and Deans of the communities signed receipts for delivery of the weapons16. Thus far, we have examined some of the practices aimed at avoiding or limiting costs linked to the military structure; however, the management of these burdens also involved interventions by the communities, which were designed to generate profit from military investments. Often, these kinds of practices allowed only for partial recovery of money spent, but in conjunction with the tactics elucidated above, they help us to more fully understand local management of military burdens. The most common practice was the selling of weapons and other items that were not in use, which could create an immediate revenue stream, which could in turn be used to purchase other similar objects. This was how Schio financed the upgrading of the rural militia’s weapons in the 1580s; between July and December 1585, the community collected and then sold all the harquebuses of the soldiers. The change was implemented ‘in order to obtain the greatest income possible’. In January 1586, the council decided to sell the militia’s pikes and cuirasses, probably for the same purpose17. Some selling and leasing could assume a long-term character and represent a steady source of income for the community. The nature of the goods involved in these transactions was varied, ranging from horse manure (from the cavalry and other horses belonging to the military)18, to utensils purchased for soldiers, to fields and houses. During the heaviest

Containment of costs  159 period of troop lodgement, the community of Bedizzole tried to recoup part of the money spent leasing furniture and pallets when the soldiers left. In November 1607, the general council voted that ‘pallets, troughs and other things, and blankets purchased for the cavalry, must be auctioned’ and an analogous resolution was made in December 162219. It was not only the lodgement of troops that provoked such actions; in the province of Vicenza, for example, the communities tried to lease saltpetre production facilities. Given the itinerant nature of the work of the saltpetre producer, which meant that he stayed in one area for only so long, the communities tried to lease out saltpetre houses and stores when they were not used, the intention being to recoup part of the money spent on their construction. In November 1584, Valerio da Valle, saltpetre contractor in the province of Vicenza, complained to the Provveditore alle Artiglierie Giovan Battista Querini that ‘the communities and the Corpo Territoriale want to lease the houses close to the warehouses’, but in his opinion this would impede the lodgement of the men appointed to oversee the cultivated land during his absence20. Querini wrote to the Captain of Vicenza, demanding that the houses be cleared to facilitate the work of the saltpetre producer. The peasantry responded immediately, reiterating that the Corpo Territoriale and not the saltpetre producer was the owner of the houses, houses ‘built at great expense, and we can say with the blood and the sweat of many poor peasants’. According to the representatives of the Corpo Territoriale, the contractors have the permission only to use the buildings. They proposed that ‘the income that we can earn from them [the houses] (while they were not occupied by saltpetre producers who had moved elsewhere) … should go for our benefit’. In exchange, they promised to supervise the land 21. The outcome of this dispute seems to have been favourable to the peasants, given that in December 1588 and in November 1589, the community of Schio approved the leasing of the ‘house provided to the saltpetre producer by the Corpo Territoriale’22 . The issue was not resolved, however. In July 1597, the community of Malo wrote to the Captain of Vicenza to inform him that the saltpetre producer had refused to hand over the keys of his house so that it could be leased for the benefit of the Corpo Territoriale’23. Despite such conflicts, this type of leasing became common in the following years and, as was happening with militia weapons and troop lodgement houses, the practice was centralised from the seventeenth century, becoming managed of the Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza. In 1617, the rural institution leased the saltpetre producer’s house in Malo in June and the one in Thiene in October, along with the warehouse24. In the province of Vicenza, another interesting case involved the field that the community of Schio wanted to buy at the end of the sixteenth century so that they could snatch the cernide reviews from the adjacent community of Thiene. Schio purchased a field surrounded by mulberries but delayed payment for many years25. This choice produced many beneficial results related to the importance of the mulberry leaves for the province’s flourishing

160 Management silk industry (Demo 2001; 2004; 2013, 2013b; Vianello 2004; 2008), but the administrators of Schio could not have foreseen the crisis that would engulf this economic sector at the end of the sixteenth century. The sale of the leaves was so successful for the first two years that the community contemplated settling their debt on the field ahead of time, but the situation changed rapidly and the investment became much less profitable. In March 1590, the general council decided to no longer replace dead plants, because of the pressure on community finances and the scarcity of interest in leaf concessions. The field continued to host reviews but the records no longer referred to mulberries26. The importance of this enterprise, beyond its short-lived profitability, should not be measured in strictly economic terms. Rather, its most important facets were the foresight of the élite rural families and the normalisation of the place of military-related investment in the local economy. While this normalisation did not always happen without the emergence of contingent difficulties, often linked to commonplace social and institutional conflicts, it did become part of the regular decision-making process. In summary, looking at troop lodgement, saltpetre production and weapon purchasing and maintenance, the communities and Corpi Territoriali enacted many ‘protective’ strategies. Apart from the motivations behind these practices, it is interesting to underline their functionality, contrasting as they did with the heterogeneity of state provisions and with the myth of the fragility of the Almost Serene. When the contracts were signed, the barracks were prepared and the channels were established to facilitate the supply of provisions, utensils and raw materials for the construction of saltpetre infrastructure and so on, it amounted to more than just a local attempt to preserve community wealth. These practices also allowed the Republic to make its defensive structure more efficient – although these practices simultaneously served the interests of the rural élites. This medley of interests came together through a combination of accident and design and incorporated a variety of perspectives. In the seventeenth century, the Republic enacted many provisions, just as other states around the Italian peninsula and Europe were doing, in an effort to protect local finances, regulate the credit market and common properties, and revise the division of military burdens. These interventions were prompted by the immediate need to control the economic management of local communities to prevent their collapse, but this local concern was set in the context of protection of the entire state structure, especially from the military point of view. The Venetian institution did not want to have to guarantee equal distribution of resources, wealth and so on. The focus of Venice was on the contributory capability of the communities, especially their tax yield during the seventeenth century wars, and their financial and practical management capacity when it came to military responsibilities, including lodgements, supplies, militia maintenance and so forth. Our purpose here is not to judge the merits of motivations, but to emphasise the importance of the medley of public

Containment of costs  161 and private interests, local customs and state laws and, finally, rural and urban élites, on the one hand, and the Venetian ruling class, on the other hand. While this system did not constitute a major deviation from the path of modern state building, it did acquire a certain durability, and although it was characterised by different traits, many of its structures were also present in other Italian and European states, as we will see in the last chapter. All of this becomes apparent when one looks at the practices instituted by both communities and Corpi Territoriali, but also at the legislation enacted by Venice during the seventeenth century. The lack of research on this topic means that its treatment here is only introductory. These changes – sporadic and generalised as they were – essentially concerned two fields: the management and the division of military burdens – particularly troop lodgement – and the so-called ‘good governance’ of communities. This included the problems of debt, the commons and, more broadly, the management of local finances. The historiography of these topics – including Venetian historiography – has tended to deal with them separately but it is important to analyse them simultaneously because they emerged from and were dealt with as part of the same process. The general trend and fundamental milestones in the division of military burdens and the ‘seventeenth century turn’ (even though we have seen how this process started in the previous century) have already been identified by Peter January and Michael Knapton (January and Knapton 2007). Therefore, I will summarise them, emphasising the chronology of the provisions, before adding nuance based on some other elements identified in my research. My argument is that not only were important laws issued but also that the everyday actions of the Venetian officials in the Mainland Dominion revolved around the pursuit of the same goals that the legislation aimed to achieve. The regulation of the ordini di banca – in other words, what and how much should be given by the communities to the companies that arrived with a legal lodging order – was the main topic addressed by the new Venetian regulations on troop lodgement. In the sixteenth century, the provisions on this topic were vague but were based on the common understanding that troops received benefits-in-kind rather than direct monetary payment. Venice preferred this system because it did not give rise to a situation where soldiers who had received monetary payment from communities would still make requests for wood, hay and similar supplies. This situation changed during the War of Gradisca (1615−1617). The critical situation of local finances, in conjunction with the swelling of army ranks and the concentration of deployments in a single area of the Mainland Dominion (the Friuli), ensured that the state decided to issue new provisions on the ordini di banca and that these provisions focused, in particular, on the division of the troop lodgement burden among the various bodies of the Mainland Dominion. In 1616, the Provveditore al di là del Mincio, Girolamo Corner, reformulated the ordini di banca, specifying what the communities had to provide

162 Management to troops and removing from officials the right to have beds with bedsheets, changed monthly (January and Knapton 2007, 38). Despite this regulation, which in itself indicated greater interest in this topic on the part of the authorities than ever before, the spirit of the intervention did not intend to undermine the custom of giving soldiers payments in kinds rather than in monetary form; neither did it introduce any mechanism of compensation between bodies or areas of the Mainland Dominion. The community involved in the lodgement had to cover the costs independently and hope for reimbursement from the Corpo Territoriale. A trend relevant to this quandary emerged during the War of Gradisca, however, and was reinforced in the following years. In April 1615, the Provveditore, Antonio Lando, writing to the Senate about the desolate situation of the communities of the low plains of Brescia, suggested that some of the troops lodged there could be transferred to bordering territories (Verona and Vicenza). A more interesting suggestion from Lando was that given the importance of the effort required, the cities, as exempted and privileged areas, should also be involved in lodgements. He argued that the cities should lodge light cavalry companies and that this would limit damages and violence, while the peasantry would continue to lodge the other troops. In July 1615, the Senate seems to have adopted Lando’s suggestion; again, even if it was a contingent provision, it was indicative of the first involvement of the cities in the lodgement of troops (January and Knapton 2007, 40). In 1621, a point at which the communities were still exhausted by the War of Gradisca and Venice was embroiled in a new conflict in the Valtellina, a turning point occurred in relation to the lodgement of troops. In 1621, the Provveditore Generale, Andrea Paruta, introduced two important innovations. First, from that moment onward, the cavalry (especially the corazze and the mounted harquebusiers) would be routinely lodged in the cities of the Mainland Dominion. The rural communities would lodge transit troops or those specifically addressed to them, such as border patrol troops. This change was extremely important, given that the cities were previously exempt from this burden, which until then fell solely on the rural communities (January and Knapton, 44−5). The second very important innovation introduced by Paruta was the transformation of the ordini di banca from payments in kind to a direct tax, to be paid to Venetian officials and then distributed by them to the soldiers. On the one hand, this innovation guaranteed more efficient functioning of the chain of supplies – in theory at least – because each soldier could use his payment to purchase whatever he needed. On the other hand, according to the legislators (and this is the most interesting element of this change), the total amount of the tax, being divided equally between the various provinces, would not fall back on specific areas. The lodgement of the cavalry in the cities did not mean that the countryside was not affected by these burdens, given that the almost continuous situation of military crisis (Valtellina, War of Mantua and so on) ensured, as reported, that the

Containment of costs  163 quartering of troops in the rural communities remained frequent, especially in border areas. Between the 1620s and 1640s, the Senate issued many provisions reiterating the Paruta orders and refining the regulations governing troop movements, overnight stays and methods of lodgement, all in an effort to prevent abuse of the system and extortion (January and Knapton 2007, 46−7). As we saw in the previous chapters, the Paruta orders were not the result of an isolated individual action. Just think that while the orders were issued in November 1621, it was only in the previous August that the Sindaco, Leonardo Moro, wrote to the Senate that ‘given that the heaviest burden for quartering and transit troops falls on the province of Brescia, spending 250 scudi daily, it would be reasonable to divide the costs equally between all the provinces’ (Melchiorre 2013, 304). Moro’s account depicts the fundamental problem that Paruta tried to solve, specifically the need to guarantee a more equal distribution of military burdens between the provinces in the Mainland Dominion. In March 1624, the Senate reaffirmed that garrisons should be rotated annually to avoid the formation of bonds between soldiers and civilians; the following month, the Senate instructed companies not to claim more than they were entitled to under the ordini di banca, underlining that any proceeds from embezzlement should be immediately reimbursed to the victims27. Soon after, in August 1624, the communities of the province of Verona were relieved of the burden of lodging Corsican soldiers and cappelletti who acted as customs patrols on the border. The rural cavalry fulfilled this function in their place. These troops imposed ‘no costs on communities, being paid with money from seizures of contraband, including wheat, fodder and animals’28. In June 1634, the Senate sent a ducal order to the Provveditore Generale in Terraferma, reaffirming that he was responsible for monitoring abuses committed by the troops lodged in the countryside. He was charged with ‘distributing and alternating the duty and involvement of each community in turn, so that everyone will bear a reasonable and appropriate weight of trouble and expense’. The need to reaffirm the Paruta orders is clear from a series of Senate interventions: in March 1636, the city of Vicenza was instructed to contribute to the lodgement of the cavalry, after a request from the delegates of the Corpo Territoriale, while in April 1643, Venetian officials in the Mainland cities had to re-issue a copy of the 1621 orders to rural communities, as they had evidently been disregarded 29. The division of the cavalry tax itself (linked to the ordini di banca) was the target of the provisions of the Senate, even if they had all the appearance of being too little and too late. In May 1643, the Senate recognised that the quotas should be updated, given that the tax was still calculated on the basis of 1,400 horsemen, while there were actually 2,000 horsemen then in service for the Republic. This means that the money collected was not enough to support all the soldiers, with negative consequences for the communities in which they were lodged. However, the provision seems to

164 Management have been fruitless, given that in 1662 another resolution pointed out that the horsemen quota had been fixed on 1,500 units since 1632, ‘whether the number of the cavalry is higher or lower’. The number happened to be fairly representative and so was maintained, but it is clear that there were many omissions in the management of this tax30. Leaving aside the efficacy of such provisions, we want to underline that as well as the crises in local finances and the community responses outlined above, the state also attempted to solve the problems related to troop lodgements, especially during the first two decades of the seventeenth century. This happened, unsurprisingly, while the Venetian institutions simultaneously intervened in other fields critical to local finances, including debt, commons management and ‘good governance’ of the communities. In the Republic of Venice, contrary to other states in the Italian peninsula, there were no institutions appointed to control local finances, although the Collegio dei X poi XX Savi del corpo del Senato was a body created in 1529 with the task of judging appeals on the functioning of the tax system in the Mainland Dominion (Da Mosto 2005, 105). Nevertheless, the Senate had to regularly revisit this topic during the second half of the sixteenth century and throughout the seventeenth century, as did the local Venetian officials. In the examples previously cited, the protection of common properties in Lonato and the Camonica Valley demonstrates this. There have not been any dedicated studies of this subject in the context of the Republic of Venice, although this is not for want of source material. In November 1648, Giovanni Moro, Captain of Brescia, wrote to the Senate about how this college had issued many provisions on the management of local finances in previous decades (in 1553, 1627, 1635 and 1640). He noted that ‘many rules for the good and proper governance of communities’ had been established by the Inquisitori in Terraferma in 162131. The Sindaci Inquisitori themselves stood over their own interventions, writing on 9 August 1621 that ‘communities and Corpi Territoriali … have started taking loans out every third day … dividing the money among private parties and pawning common properties … in some cases, we absolutely prohibited this and in other instances established rules by which to proceed’. Moreover, given that communities used to divide income between private interests then use the money borrowed to settle debts and pay taxes, we absolutely and universally prohibited it, declaring that incomes have to be dedicated first and foremost to paying taxes and discharging debts. (Melchiorre 2013, 304) In June 1627, it was forbidden to stipulate loan contracts without prior approval from the Senate32 . This ruling affected both the credit market and the management of the commons. For example, when in February 1645, the community of Bedizzole decided to sign a credit contract permanently

Containment of costs  165 forfeiting rights to its commons, it obtained the authorisation through a ducal order; however, the order established that the interest rate should be 5 per cent and, most importantly, private rights to the commons had to be renewed every 29 years, and only after the approval of the local council and the Venetian Pregadi. Thus, the commons was not signed away absolutely33. The list provided by Giovanni Moro was not complete, however. In June 1614, the Captain of Brescia, Antonio Grimani, issued further guidelines for the good governance of communities; these orders were confirmed the following year by the Senate and among other things concerned ‘the abuses and problems … producing important damages … to the goods and incomes of the communities’ (RPRD, 298−301). Many points of these orders concerned the commons and the management of local institutions; to avoid conflicts of interest, individuals who rented large sections of common land could not hold public office. Leases were curtailed to seven years, because the wealthiest peasants often ‘became owners’. Other directives included a prohibition on the sale of common properties without the consent of 80 per cent of the General Council. This was not a new initiative by the Venetian authorities; this collection of ducal orders also references a provision of the Council of X, dated 27 October 1493, that forbade the selling of any stable good of the communities without the authorisation of the General Council (RPD, 304). However, while this was a generic provision, the extent of the problem in the seventeenth century meant that provisions were more frequent and specific. Some years later, in 1622, orders concerning the same topics as those addressed by Grimani were issued for the countryside of Vicenza (RLS, 9−23). In this case, too, it was established that community goods could only be sold in accordance with the appropriate laws. All these provisions concerned the management of commons, the regulation of the stipulation of loans and, more broadly, the management of communities. The primary motivation was undoubtedly the state’s concern to protect the contributory capability of communities; the Venetian authorities were aware that communities and their incomes played a crucial fiscal and military role. State policy regarding commonage, therefore, was not based on the evaluation of the property in order to facilitate equal (and durable) distribution of assets among the appropriators but on the preservation of commons as sources of income for the communities. This policy helps us to understand that the State encouraged monetisation of goods that would boost contributory capability, even if this compromised the common use of lands, wood and pastures. The Loredan orders (1652) for the efficient management of the communities of the countryside of Vicenza, for example, reiterated that the communities were obliged to lease their commons to generate income to be used for the payment of debts and taxes (RLS, 38). How these provisions actually affected the management of communities is a question requiring dedicated research. The impression created by contemporary documents is that despite procedures emanating from the orders described above, legal conflicts continued many decades after they were

166 Management originally issued because the laws regarding loans and common properties were just not observed. We have referred already to the usurpations of the commons in the Camonica Valley in 1649. In July of that year, the Senate admitted that although it had been established since 1627, the signing of credit market loans should be submitted to the approbation of the Pregadi, ‘many [communities] abused the public will … and after obtaining the necessary permissions incurred debts which they did not attempt to settle during the agreed term, but instead sought further credit’34. So, while superficial permission was requested, the law was bypassed and reduced to the status of a token bandage stuck over the wound of a chronic, festering debt. The 1649 legislation ruled that new loans could not be taken out before the existing debts were fulfilled. This measure forced the communities to resolve their debts in areas of financial management and income protection. Another illustration of how the Venetian officials were still trying to solve the problems of community debt in the middle of the seventeenth century is provided by the Venier orders, issued for the Trompia Valley in 1645. In this case, too, it is clear that despite the laws issued at the beginning of the century, the independent stipulation of loans (with interest rates of up to 8 per cent) was still a very common phenomenon, and extremely prejudicial to local finances. These orders also show that the provisions made by the various Venetian authorities were similar to each other. First, there was an attempt to limit expenditure by controlling the salaries of community officials; second, debts had to be settled, with priority given to those aimed at paying taxes, so that the communities could borrow more money if necessary (ORB). Again, it should be clarified that these provisions were sometimes ignored; it is also important to underline the normative activity of the Almost Serene in relation to these topics. There were a variety of provisos issued through many channels and following many trajectories; the mix included actual laws, orders by the Provveditori in Terraferma and conditions imposed by local Podestà and Captains. As expressed heretofore, the nonuniformity of the state response corresponded to and, from a certain point of view, was functional to the integration of analogous practices enacted at the local level to protect local finances, particularly before extension of military burdens from the sixteenth century. In this sense, it is not contradictory that the protagonists tried for abuses and usurpations were from the same élite rural families that at other times acted to protect the local finances. The aim of both the State and élite families was not the protection of collective access to resources but their economic and fiscal exploitations. As long as this arrangement worked in their favour, even if in a context of elitist management of resources, neither side would disrupt the status quo. A similar assertion is even more valid in the context of the procedures regulating troop lodgements and military burdens more generally. There were attempts at both the local and state levels to make troop transit and related military issues less onerous and more coordinated and functional.

Containment of costs  167 State institutions intervened when local self-governance was ineffective, in other words, when burdens had to be divided between the territories and between the communities. In this scenario, the essential role played by a super partes authority becomes evident, given the predictable conflicts that arose when costs and reimbursements had to be shared. It is not the efficiency of the provisions that interests here so much as the opportunity to ascertain their existence or non-existence and, where they were in place, to develop our understanding of how they fit into a structure that was not as haphazard as might have been imagined. In conclusion, this chapter has highlighted the importance of evaluating the effects of military costs on local finances in the context of the redistribution measures: the trajectories of expenses varied in response to specific elements. Obviously, the evolution of the military structure itself – mapped in the earlier chapters – affected the redistribution of expenditure, leading the communities and Corpi Territoriali to rely on specific economic actors to address the issue of military burdens. Looking at these protagonists, it is clear that at the community level, the shared management of minor costs contrasted with the elitist redistribution of major sums. This shared cost management resulted not only because of the decision-making power of élite rural families with regard to contracts and appointments but also because of pragmatic matters of economic and material capability (access to houses, stables and so on). The need to assure coordinated – and if possible, economically constructive – management of burdens led the Corpi Territoriali (especially that of Vicenza) to turn to large-scale, professional contractors who could guarantee greater efficiencies and lower prices than smaller local rivals. This was clearly one of the numerous practices enacted by the communities in an effort to reduce the negative impact of military responsibilities on local finances. We have seen that the legality of attempts to completely sidestep military burdens followed a sliding scale, with some tactics adhering less rigidly to the law than others. Other practices accepted the inevitability of military burdens and simply tried to limit their effects. In addition to the coordinated management of contracts, troop lodgement in public structures (owned by communities or Corpi Territoriali) was widespread, as were the storage of militia weapons in close proximity to review sites and attempts to earn something from military structures developed on the orders of the Almost Serene. The credit market merits its own specific analysis; in this case, too, the priority was to retain the money – that is, interest payments – within the local economic circuit, even if recourse to urban lenders (mainly religious or nobles) was often unavoidable. In this sense, Confraternities and local religious institutions played an important role, albeit one that was limited compared to their influence in the Spanish Lombardy (Di Tullio 2011). Credit and social dynamics were different there, however. Cost containment and local military structure management practices corresponded to analogous interventions by the Venetian authorities, especially during

168 Management the opening decades of the seventeenth century. Their ultimate aims were similar, even if they were inspired by different motivations; the common purpose was to increase the efficiency of the military and fiscal systems while simultaneously protecting the local finances – and it was on local finances that the wider military and fiscal systems depended. For this reason, interventions were generally two-pronged: they were devised in such a way as to not only revise or update troop lodgement management or the division of burdens between countryside, city, or separated area but also to submit the financial management of communities to more efficient controls. Thus, the interventions targeted the credit market, the management of local public offices and the management of the commons. At first glance, the links between these areas and the military structure might not be readily apparent, but they were in fact fundamental for the preservation of the contributory capability of the communities and, by extension, their capacity to pay taxes, lodge soldiers and, in a general sense, manage the military structure.

Notes 1. AVCa, b. 54, fasc.5, fos. 56 r.−60 v. 2. ACGa, b. 57, fol. 39 v. 3. ACMo, b. 1, fos. 113 v.−114 v. 4. ACSc, b. 42, fasc. 108, fos. 267 r.−268 r., 299 v. 5. ACGa, b. 52, fol. 81 v. 6. ACBe, b. 1, reg.2, fol. 13 v. 7. Ibid, b. 4, reg.1, fos. 39 v.−40 r. 8. Ibid, fos. 145 v.−146 r. 9. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3763, fasc. 1, fol. 1 v. The ‘provincial barrack’ of Montebello is cited also in 1629 (ibid, b. 3753, fasc. 1, fol. 41 r.). 10. Ibid, b. 3727, fasc. 2. 11. ASVe, Compilazione delle leggi, Serie I, b. 33, fos. 386 r., 388 r. 12. ASPd, Milizie, b. 33, reg. 8, fol. 11 r., 15 r.−v., 16 r.; fasc. 14, fos. 13 v., 20 r. v., 21 v.; fasc. 16, fos. 2 r.−v.; fasc. 18, fol. 4 r.; fasc. 17, fos. 1 r.−3 v.; fasc. 24, fos. 2 r.−3v. 13. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 25, 13 July 1624. 14. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3763, fasc. 1, fos. 6 r.−7 r. 15. Ibid, b. 3763, fasc. 16; b. 3755, fasc. 9, fol. 1 r. 16. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3755, fasc. 9, fos. 2 r., 4 r.−5 r. 17. ACSc, b. 6, fasc. 7, fos. 230 v.−231 r., 235 r., 240 r.−242 r., 245 r. 18. ACLe, m. 33, n. 25, fol. 2 r. 19. ACBe, b. 3, reg. 2, fol. 89 v.; b. 4, reg. 1, fol. 98 v. 20. ACMa, Provvedimenti 1571−1584. 21. Ibid. 22. ACSc, b. 6, fasc. 7, fos. 305 v., 312 v. 23. ACMa, Provvedimenti 1585−1630, fasc. 1590−1600. 24. ASVi, Corpo Territoriale, b. 3763, fasc. 1, fos. 2 v.−3 r. 25. ACSc, b. 6, fasc. 7, fos. 60 r.−v., 69 r.−v., 253 r., 255 r. 26. ACSc, b. 6, fasc. 7, fos. 284 r., 292 r., 302 r.−v. 27. ASVe, Compilazione delle leggi, Serie I, b. 32, fos. 112 r.−117 r., 508 r.−v.

Containment of costs  169 28. Ibid, fos. 558 r.−559 v. 29. ASVe, Compilazione delle leggi, Serie I, b. 33, fos. 277 r., 515 r.−516 r.; b. 214, fos. 183 r.−188 r. 30. Ibid, b. 13, fos. 176 r., 220 r.−v. 31. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, b. 50, 26 November 1648. 32. ASVe, Compilazione delle leggi, Serie I, b. 143, fos. 1026 r.−v. 33. ACBe, b. 4, reg. 2, fos. 12 r.−v. 34. ASVe, Compilazione delle leggi, b. 143, fol. 1055 r.

Bibliography Buono, Alessandro. 2009. Esercito, istituzioni, territorio: alloggiamenti militari e case herme nello Stato di Milano (sec. XVI e XVII). Florence: Firenze University Press. Da Mosto, Andrea. 2005. L’Archivio di Stato di Venezia: Indice Generale, Storico, Descrittivo ed Analitico, Tomo 1: Archivi dell’Amministrazione Centrale della Repubblica Veneta e Archivi Notarili. Venice: Biblioteca dell’Archivio di Stato. Demo, Edoardo. 2001. L’Anima della Città: l’Industria Tessile a Verona e Vicenza: 1400−1550. Milan: Unicopli. Demo, Edoardo. 2004. Le Manifatture tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna. In L’Industria Vicentina dal Medioevo ad Oggi. Giovanni Luigi Fontana (ed.). Vicenza: CLEUP. 21−126. Demo, Edoardo. 2013. “Manifattura vs Agricoltura: la Difficile Gestione delle Acque nella Pedemontana Veneta della Prima Età Moderna”. In Quando Manca il Pane. Origini e Cause della Scarsità delle Risorse Alimentari in Età Moderna e Contemporanea. Luca Mocarelli (ed.). Bologna: Il Mulino. 19−34. Demo, Edoardo. 2013b. “Industry and production in the Venetian Terraferma (15th−18th Centuries)”. In A companion to Venetian history, 1400−1797. Eric R. Dursteler (ed.). Leiden-Boston: Brill. 291−318. Di Tullio, Matteo. 2011. La Ricchezza delle Comunità. Guerra, Risorse, Cooperazione nella Geradadda del Cinquecento. Venice: Marsilio (English version: Di Tullio, Matteo. 2014. The wealth of communities. War, resources and cooperation in Renaissance Lombardy. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited). January Peter, and Michael Knapton. 2007. “The demands made on Venetian Terraferma Society for Defence in the early seventeenth century”. Ateneo Veneto CXCIV:25−115. Melchiorre, Matteo. 2013. Conoscere per Governare. Le Relazioni dei Sindaci Inquisitori in Terraferma (1543−1626). Udine: Forum. Ongaro, Giulio. 2016. “L’Impatto Economico nell’Alta Valcamonica della Campagna Franco-Veneta di Valtellina”. In I Cannoni di Guspessa. Edolo, Cortenedolo e Mu alle Soglie della Guerra dei Trent’Anni (1624−1625). Simone Signaroli and Giulio Ongaro (eds.). Breno: Servizio Archivistico Comprensoriale di Valcamonica. 19−31. Tamba, Giorgio. 1977. State archive of Venice. Collegio dei X poi XX Savi del corpo del Senato, inventario. Rome: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato. Vianello, Francesco. 2004. Seta Fine e Panni Grossi: Manifatture e Commerci nel Vicentino, 1570−1700. Milan: Franco Angeli. Vianello, Francesco. 2008. “Acque e Irrigazione tra Bacchiglione e Astico”. In Il Bacchiglione, edited by Francesco Selmin, and Claudio Grandis. Verona: Cierre.

Part III

A republic among monarchies

8 Venice and the European military structures

The preceding chapters drew a multifaceted picture of the Venetian Mainland Dominion in the early modern period. On the one hand, the research focused on the local functioning of the military structure; the conscription of men for fortress construction and frontline combat, demands for carts and provisions and the evolution of troop lodgement. Thus, it was possible to elucidate the consequences of military burdens for the public and private economies of communities. On the other hand, an analysis of the close relationship between the evolution and management of both the state military structure and local and regional economies was the opening gambit in developing insights into the complex dynamics that existed between communities, rural provincial institutions and state, between local and provincial élites, and between statutory legislation, local government practice and state regulatory intervention. This is a wide-ranging study that considers aspects as seemingly diverse as the evolution of military structures at the state and local levels and seventeenth-century community debt, to quote just two topics of interest. Yet all of the subjects discussed here were intrinsically linked by some factor or another. Local customs and practices, for instance, can only be completely understood in the broader context of the Republic; while not always centre-stage, Venice consistently hovered in the background. The state’s influence was tangible throughout its territory, albeit to a limited extent relative to other European powers – as we will see below. It was receptive to local demands and needs because it recognised that these were linked to its own survival and that it could only thrive and prosper if its subject communities remained viable. The state, the rural provincial institutions and local communities all modified their structures and their methods of interaction – they engaged in multilateral relationships based on negotiation (Buono 2009b). Compromise sometimes emerged from apparently unsolvable problems, sometimes from innovative and pragmatic policy decisions. The course of the institutional evolution of the ancient régime states was never straightforward or uniform, although many scholars have tried to identify common paths, often based on a supposed pattern of ‘centralisation’ that culminated in the emergence of nineteenth- and

174  A republic among monarchies twentieth-century nation-states. Because of the complexity of this topic, we cannot touch on all the historiographical milestones of the debate, but it is crucial to underscore the importance of the bond (it might even be termed symbiotic) between the state and its communities, between local problems and the evolution of state institutions; in brief, between the micro and the macro. Moreover, we must consider the importance of Venetian case study in the broader international context. The value of such a perspective is twofold: it can contribute to the greater integration of international studies; and it can also help us to more clearly understand the phenomena identified in the previous chapters. In fact, while these phenomena had profoundly local consequences, they were also manifestations of more general problems. Therefore, it is important to broaden the geographical scope of the research, adapting it to cater to accommodate these wider problems. Can the Republic of Venice be considered a ‘fiscal military state’? Which problems and which solutions were peculiar to Venice? What practices were common across Venice and other European states? A logical progression will involve an initial comparison of the Venetian military structure with that of other European states; it is undeniable that specific military and organisational needs could have altered the consequent effects of military structures on societies and economies. These effects, in turn, could have prompted local and state institutions to act in a certain fashion to guarantee the functioning of administrative structure – not necessarily centralised structures – and military management, at the same time protecting local contributory capabilities. Military needs led to specific economic and social consequences that, in turn, produced specific management practices (although cause and effect was never unilateral). This description clearly directed the general pattern of state evolution. This is clearly an introductory sketch, but it could be useful, especially when we consider that the actors involved were varied and their relationships were malleable. The comparison of Venice with other European states should do more than just provide a useful list of solutions to problems in the military structures of various states; it should shed new light on the evolution of the Republic of Venice.

The composition of armies In his Giant of the Grand Siècle, John A. Lynn identified seven steps that characterised the composition and enlistment methods of European armies (Lynn 1997, 5−9; Lucassen and Zürcher 1998; Zürcher 2013). According to Lynn, after the feudal and ‘companies of fortune’ medieval stages of army development, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries involved two intermediate stages that led to the creation of permanent armies based on popular conscription, such as the force created post-1688 in France. The first of these two intermediate stages, the time between the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century, was characterised by ‘aggregate’ enrolment contracts, which combined subject soldiers, mercenaries

Venice and the European military structures  175 and feudal troops. The second stage, during the Grand Siècle, was characterised by the presence of permanent standing armies, with large numbers of soldiers (although they were still from a mixture of backgrounds), which were subject to greater state control. Lynn’s analysis seems to be overly deterministic, however, associating the evolution of recruitment with the strengthening of state institutions, the move towards the nation-state and the composition – again according to Lynn – of armies of ‘mass reserves’ in the nineteenth century. While this simplification contains much that is accurate and could, to some extent, be seen as valid for the French case study, it can hardly be extended to all of the European states: how, in that instance, could we explain the presence in the Republic of Venice of a rural militia without an absolute monarchy? From another perspective, how could we rationalise the presence of autonomous military entrepreneurs in Richelieu’s army (Parrott 2001, 2012)? Even if increasing numbers, along with technical and tactical innovations, inevitably foreshadow evolutions in recruitment, this does not always follow a linear and geographically uniform process. The responses by European states had commonalities as well as peculiarities dictated by specific social or military circumstances. This means, according to Glete (Glete 2002, 30−3), that even if some elements are useful indicators of the emergence of a ‘modern’ state, only an in-depth analysis can reveal the real character of such an evolution. A subject proposed for analysis by Glete, and one that is quite appropriate for our purposes here, is the local militia. Enlisting peasants was a common form of recruiting but its specific aims could change from place to place and it cannot be considered an entirely ‘modern’ alternative to contracting mercenaries. Moreover, as suggested previously, it is not always possible to distinguish entirely between one form of recruiting and another. We have already discussed the primary methods of recruitment to the Venetian army. The permanent army was composed of a limited number of mercenary troops – mainly companies recruited by the nobles of the Mainland Dominion (Pezzolo 1997) or companies drawn from other parts of the Italian peninsula or from Corsica – together with a rural militia, which evolved during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (with the institution, for example, of the di rispetto troops) and grew from 20,000 soldiers in 1560 to 34,000 in the 1620s (January and Knapton 2007, 28, 81), and that is without considering reservists. When the Republic was directly involved in military operations (such as the War of Gradisca) or there was tension at the borders, the ranks of the army swelled as mercenaries were contracted, usually from German territory; the rural militia substituted in garrisons from which professional soldiers were sent to the frontline. Of course, Venice was not the only state using this method of recruitment: in the opening decades of the seventeenth century, the Swedish rural militia increased in a similar fashion (Glete 2002, 34, 201−6) while Gustavus Adolphus (1611−1632) simultaneously reformed its training in an effort to transform it from a merely defensive force into a real army. The provisions

176  A republic among monarchies issued at this time by the Venetian authorities pursued the same aims, although the outcomes did not meet the expectations in either the Venetian or Swedish cases. The use of the rural militia by Venice in the battles of the War of Gradisca was disastrous and Sweden always turned to mercenary troops during its involvement in campaigns in German territory during the Thirty Years’ War (Aström 1973, 58; Glete 2002, 208−11), because the rural militia was not up to the standard required. Aside from the poor outcomes, the Venetian and Swedish cases were exceptional because of the range of the phenomenon – the majority of each permanent army being composed by militiamen – but they are not the only examples of ‘mixed’ recruitment of mercenaries and subject militia. In Piedmont, the military reform initiated by Emanuele Filiberto (1553−1580) and carried on by his son, Carlo Emanuele I (1580−1630), created an analogous rural militia (Barberis 1988, 5−63; De Consoli 1999, 87−129), which underwent the same evolutionary process; in 1594, a general militia, involving any man competent with weapons, was established as an auxiliary to the ‘specialist’ militia. The specialist or full-time militia had to reach a certain strength of numbers and be prepared for active service (De Consoli 1999, 99−100). There were similar cases in the Papal States (Brunelli 1995), the Republic of Genoa (Musso 1986; Calcagno 2010) and the Spanish Lombardy (Dalla Rosa 1991; Pedretti 2006), while in the Kingdom of Naples and Duchy of Parma, the peasants were conscripted to reinforce Spanish troops during the Thirty Years’ War, although it is not clear whether they served in the State of Milan or in the German territories (Bulgarelli 2012, 161, 185; Hanlon 2014). Outside the Italian peninsula, the peasants and citizens were armed to support the mercenary troops in France (Potter 1993, 173−7; Lynn 1997, 373−89), the Dutch Republic (’t Hart 2014, 85−6, 104), Norway and Denmark (Glete 2002, 35), the Ottoman Empire (Murphey 1999, 2, 19, 190−1; Stein 2007, 76, Ágoston 2003, 26) and the territories of the Bishop of Trento1. Some traces of conscription can be found also in the Army of Flanders, although it was limited to ‘undesirable’ social elements (Thompson 1976, 20−35, 127−43; Parker 2004, 38). Black is undoubtedly correct to state that the importance of the rural militia should not be overestimated relative to better qualified and more frequently employed mercenaries and professional troops, especially since militiamen were used mainly for defensive purposes (Black 2011, 197). The central role of mercenary troops never diminished and they generally remained the keystone of the army in military operations. However, we must bear in mind that this was not always the case, as demonstrated by the use of the cernide during the War of Gradisca or the use in battle of Neapolitan and Lombard peasants. The presence of subject troops in the army cannot be considered important only because of their efficiency in combat, however. If the aim of the analysis is to define the capability of intervention of a public authority in its territory and the development of this capability, it is undeniable that the competence to coordinate the institution

Venice and the European military structures  177 and development of a permanent army, especially if the process is directly managed by state officials and involves the conscription of rural militiamen, is a clear indicator of the strengthening of the state. This does not necessarily mean centralisation; according to Black again, there is a substantial difference between a centralising tendency and a centralised state (Black 2011, 196). Enhanced organisational capability – like that required for the mobilisation of armed peasants – could be based on a renewed bond between state and local élites, rather than on direct control by the state institutions. While the Piedmontese militia allowed the Savoia to renew their bonds with the nobility, through the concession of military offices (De Consoli 1999, 91) – as was happening in France (Potter 1993, 174), in Spain (Thompson 1976, 144−59) and in Sweden (Glete 2002, 178) – the process in the Venetian and Lombard cases was different. In the sixteenth century, from a political and institutional point of view, the increased role played by the rural élites meant that while the central authorities (Venice and Madrid, respectively) used the more prestigious offices in the army to strengthen their bonds with their noble subjects2 , they conceded the direct control that certain military offices could exert over the countryside to members of the new rural élite (Pedretti 2006, 182−3). Both approaches involved the construction of bonds in the territory that were functional to the management of the military structure; and the same principle applied in the management of the fiscal structure. It is important to underline that this growing organisational capability and influence did not manifest itself only through coercion; the recruitment of mercenary troops cannot in itself be seen as a sign of fragmentation or ‘disorder’, especially when soldiers were contracted by their territory of residence or when – and this was quite common in the seventeenth century – troops contacted from other countries became part of the permanent army of the host state. In this sense, the Dutch case is emblematic of how an army composed of local mercenaries together with German, English, Scottish and French soldiers could very quickly become akin to a ‘national’ army, thanks to the presence of a significant cohort of veteran ‘native’ Dutch officials (Glete 2002, 157−8; ’t Hart 1993, 32−59; 2014, 37−44). Similarly, the majority of the French army was composed of ‘national’ mercenaries, commanded by nobles, and this guaranteed the King – even in the absence of extended forms of conscription – that there would be a strong bond between his forces and his territory and, even more importantly, a strong bond with influential figures capable of making crucial interventions (Beik 2005). It might seem hasty to link these situations too directly to the Republic of Venice given the differences in the amount of troops involved. However, it is certainly true that the mercenary soldiers in the Venetian army cannot be compared to the ‘captains-entrepreneurs’ of David Parrott (Parrott 2012), because army payment and logistics were controlled by the state – or by local authorities. To summarise, then, even if varying

178  A republic among monarchies forms of recruitment characterised the European armies of the Early Modern period – some targeted local or foreign mercenaries, rural or urban militia – this does necessarily indicate the presence or the absence of control capability on the part of the state. As we saw, even if an army based mainly on the rural militia (Venice and Sweden) needed a management and control structure on its territory, such a structure was equally fundamental if the militia was only a small part of the army (Piedmont, Spanish Lombardy and Spain, Papal States) or when pre-existing regional military institutions merged into a state with a renewed intervention capability on its territory (France). In any case, the conferment of offices on specific members of the subject society – to secure their effective intervention capability – was fundamental. In some cases, these members of the subject society were rural, as in the Spanish Lombardy and Republic of Venice or simply commoner rather than nobles, as in the Ottoman Empire. There, the Long War with the Hapsburgs (1595−1606) showed the need to considerably increase the number of soldiers with firearms (Inalcik 1980, 288−9; Murphey 1999, 3−7; Streusand 2011, 53−4) in an army that until then was composed mainly of feudal cavalry – based on the timar system – and kapukulu, the troops (janissaries and siphai) paid directly by the Palace (Murphey 1999, 36−9; Streusand 2011, 82−8). This requirement resulted in an increasing reliance on local mercenaries (saridja and sekban), which in turn had important social and economic consequences; the timar system suffered a crisis and was substituted by a more efficient – even if less centralised – system of tax collection contracts. This new system served the state’s new economic needs (in order to pay the mercenaries) and at the same time strengthened a new ‘bureaucratic’ local class, reducing the role played by the aristocracy in the provinces (Inalcik 1980; Aboul-El-Haj 1991; Barkey 1994; Murphey 1999, 46−50, 186; Streusand 2011, 55, 92−130). So, the use of mercenaries, paradoxically, could be an index of a strong control and organisational capability on the part of the state, able to reinforce equilibria already present in the territory or, on the contrary, to revolutionise them. Such a phenomenon is scarcely identifiable in the context of the ‘captains-entrepreneurs’, but it is much easier to recognise when it comes to local mercenaries. Local mercenaries, even if they were not forced to enlist, were bound to the state – borrowing Tilly’s categories – by capital; they depended on the state not only for payment but also (and increasingly so in the seventeenth century) for logistical support. In the end, if both forms of recruitment (militia and mercenaries) required the public authority to exert control capability and, as a consequence, to mediate with the powers in the territory, what motivated the public authority to choose one method over the other? The most immediate answer is the economic one: the maintenance costs of the rural militia were borne nearly exclusively by rural communities, while mercenaries had to be paid by the state Treasury.

Venice and the European military structures  179 This situation is confirmed by the fact that increased army size was nearly always accompanied by a corresponding process of taxation reform. The unification of duties and the institution of the military subsidy in Piedmont went hand-in-hand (Stumpo 1979), and something similar occurred with the transition from an almost feudal organisation to a contract system in the Ottoman Empire in the seventeenth century (Inalcik 1980). The ‘cheapness’ of the militia is well expressed by De Consoli’s question about the Piedmont: ‘why was the peasant militia instituted? For the same reason that Emanuele Filiberto reformed other fields of the military structure: to defend the state, given its limited economic means’ (De Consoli 1999, 90). The need to save money, then, was the primary reason that militia were preferred to mercenaries, but it was not the only one: De Consoli also suggested the second (if not secondary) cause, namely, the propensity to ‘defend the state’ instead of following a more belligerent foreign policy. According to Glete, the ‘imperial will’ of some states was the main reason for the creation of the first permanent armies (Glete 2002, 39); this statement requires qualification, however, because even if expansionist aims could lead to the creation of a permanent army, the economic circumstances that affected the recruitment process could restrict as well as facilitate this ‘imperial will’. It is in fact undeniable that in the Early Modern period, victory in war was dependent on the use of trained professionals, whereas reliance on peasants occasionally shouldering a harquebus or a musket – even if as in the Venetian or Swedish cases they could have a considerable level of training – was not enough. Therefore, if a state wished to pursue territorial extension or ‘imperial’ expansion, it needed to invest heavily in warfare professionals. At the same time, a defence based mainly on the presence of a rural militia could be entirely successful when two specific geo-political factors were present (as in the Republic of Venice): first, a skillful ‘balance of power’ policy allied to a geographical position that allowed for neutrality, however precarious, and second, limited territory to control. If one element of this equation teetered, recourse to mercenaries in addition to the rural militia was unavoidable, as in the French, Spanish, Dutch and Ottoman cases. The Spanish Lombardy is a peculiar case: from a certain point of view, it enjoyed both characteristics: it was of limited size and not directly threatened by external forces, with the exception of two second-tier powers, the Piedmont and the Republic of Venice, whose gaze was directed at the Ottomans; but at the same time, it was permanently controlled by Spanish troops, in addition to rural militia. This is before taking into account the thousands of men who traversed its roads en route to the Dutch or German war fields or on the way back to Spain. The role played by this region as a transit territory for the Austrias – as well as the first line of defence for the Italian Domains – meant that its control was fundamental for the Spanish monarchy. Moreover, it had to guard against internal risings as well as external aggression. Lombardy was in reality an occupied territory, and as such, it needed an ample military presence, in addition to the local armed peasants.

180  A republic among monarchies

Logistical support The first phase of construction of an army is the recruitment of men, the second – often the more difficult – is their maintenance. The soldiers had to be adequately lodged when they moved from one fortress to another or to the front line, which was especially important in the winter, when military operations decreased but the presence of a permanent force was still necessary. In addition to being lodged, men and horses needed to be fed, equipped and armed; all of this material had to be transported and distributed, requiring a logistical structure appropriate to the size of the army and to its purpose. State and community practices concerning lodgement changed considerably depending on whether the transit soldiers were involved or permanent troops had to be quartered during the winter. In analysing Venetian policy on troop lodgement and the direction of regulatory interventions during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the preceding chapters underlined the problems inherent in a strategy designed to achieve specific goals (a more equitable distribution of burdens through the monetisation of requests and the involvement of the cities, more efficient division between soldiers and civilians and so on) but lacking incisiveness and coherence. What most clearly differentiated the Venetian program from its equivalents in other European states was the absence of a systematic code, both in terms of defining the rules for the lodgement of the troops in transit and managing winter quarters. Nonetheless, the provisions made by Venice and other European states shared similar aims. At the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century in particular, concerted and comparable efforts were made to improve the division and management of troop lodgement around Europe. In Venice, the Paruta orders (1621) involved the cities in lodgements and introduced the monetisation of contributions (the so-called tassa degli alloggi di cavalleria); in other states, such changes were made over a prolonged period, often decades apart. The case study that most closely resembles Venice is that of the Spanish Lombardy; the social and institutional structures of the two territories were quite similar, especially with regard to the weight of the cities and the growth of a rural bourgeoisie that claimed a position of influence for itself (Chittolini 1996). It is, in fact, undeniable that the specific provisions issued in Central and Northern Italy were due not only to the traditional role played by the cities from the time of the communal period but also to the renewed importance of the countryside within those regions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In this period in Spanish Lombardy, there was a first attempt to divide more proportionately the costs of the lodgements, with the institution in 1590 of the egualanza generale, which was in turn divided into a provincial egualanza and a territorial egualanza (Maffi 1999, 327, 334; Rizzo 2001, 2008; Colombo 2008, 68−79; Buono 2009, 36−9). The egualanza

Venice and the European military structures  181 had to guarantee a system of reimbursements between the provinces that would ensure all of the areas of the Milanesado contributed to the same extent. This normative innovation anticipated the Paruta orders by more than twenty years, monetising the supply of quarters; it is interesting to note that an analogous process aiming to monetise contributions to allow the division of burdens – and so to protect the contributory capabilities of subjects – was occurring in other European areas; in the Ottoman Empire (Murphey 1999, 186−7), in Piedmont (Stumpo 1979, 91) and in France, where from 1638 la subsistence and the utensile were instituted. Both of these taxes were intended to pay for winter quarters (Lynn 1997, 22). Beyond the efficacy of these provisions – which was questionable – it is interesting that they carried a basic compensative intent, the same intent that led the Spanish Lombardy, a few years after the institution of the egualanza, to review the privileges of citizens. This endeavour initially involved motivating urban properties (from 1597) to contribute to lodgements in the countryside (Maffi 1999, 327; Buono 2009, 42), up to directly engaging the Lombard cities – Milan excluded – in the lodgement of troops by the Count of Fuentes in 1610 (Maffi 1999, 327−8, 335; Buono 2009, 44). The question of lodgements was certainly not exclusive to the Northern regions of the Italian peninsula. According to Gutmann, ‘armies in transit and winter camps, rather than battles and sieges, were the real scourge of the people of the Basse-Meuse’, in the Low Countries (Gutmann 1980, 16; Israel 1995, 130−1). An ongoing war in the region provides the context for Gutmann’s statement, but it does not mean that areas far from the battle fields were exempted from this problem, as documented in the petitions of the communities of the Kingdom of Naples, especially in the seventeenth century (Bulgarelli 2012, 56−8, 162−4, 183−6, 239−41). However, the peculiarity of the Lombard and Venetian cases lays in the relationship between their cities and rural areas; in the other cases considered, cities – traditionally with a more modest political, economic and often demographic status than the walled cities of Northern Italy – participated since the Middle Ages in the lodgement of garrisons and, from the sixteenth century, of quartered armies. This was the case in the German territories (Friedrichs 1979), the Low Countries (Gutmann 1980, 16, 32−8, 54−5; Israel 1995, 130−1, 262−7; ’t Hart 2014, 81−100) and France (Potter 1993, 188−90, 233; Lynn 1997, 21−9, 158−65). At the beginning of the sixteenth century, according to Lynn, the public authority in France ordered that transit troops had to be lodged in the walled cities to control the soldiers (Lynn 1997, 161); in 1651, this provision was extended to the winter camps (Lynn 1997, 165). The diverse roles played by the countryside in the various European states led to different practices being enacted to limit the economic and social consequences of the lodgement burden; the case of the institution of the case-herme is emblematic. It was no coincidence that the case-herme approach was adopted in areas like the Republic of Venice or Lombardy where rural communities bore most of the weight of lodgements. This

182  A republic among monarchies solution was often reached on the basis of local initiative. In earlier chapters, we reported on some examples from the Republic of Venice, but the spread of troop lodgement buildings (and of institutional and fiscal structures directed to their maintenance) is well established for the Lombard countryside (Colombo 2008, 112; Buono 2009). In the other states we looked at previously, where cities were much more involved in the lodgement of troops in transit or in quarters, the first barracks – or at least the use of isolated houses for this purpose – were developed in cities during the seventeenth century (Gutmann 1980, 58; Lynn 1997, 159−60; Parrott 2001, 505), often as a result of local initiative but sometimes, as in France, in response to a specific state order (Lynn 1997, 159). Public authorities undertook the project with uniform aims but the different chronological and geographical aspects of their approaches affected the shape of quarters in both the countryside and the cities, as well as the regulation of the lodgement of transit troops. In this field, too, there was a substantial connection between the areas where demands were higher – both in terms of frequency of lodgements and number of men involved – and areas where the solutions enacted by states and communities emerged more organically. In the Venetian case, the provisions issued by the Senate aimed to guarantee an adequate rotation of troops between the communities involved in transit lodgements while limiting the length of stays3. The Senate periodically reiterated the ordini di banca, as well as other orders intended to protect the civilians from violence and abuses committed by soldiers. In other states, there were more complex logistical structures. Some of them were fairly modest attempts to find a solution to the problem, as in the case of the presidi fissi in the Kingdom of Naples from 1608 (Bulgarelli 2012, 57), whereas other states created functional lodgement and supply structures that guaranteed – in the context of the limits of an ancient regime institution – the logistical coherence of expanding armies. The importance of such structures is made clear by examples such as that of the Ottoman army, which required huge numbers of supply stations and was accompanied by large numbers of pack animals (Murphey 1999, 49, 70−4). In France, the étapes system, was introduced at the mid-point of the sixteenth century to substitute – or at least to limit – the requisitioning of material, a practice that became more frequent as numbers in the army increased dramatically (Potter 1993, 195; Lynn 1993, 288; 1997, 132; Parker 2004, 80). While the étapes system originated in France and was primarily developed and employed there, it was occasionally used by the Army of Flanders in the Maurienne area and between the Valtellina and the Alsace (Parker 2004, 80−1). Practices regarding the lodgement of quartered troops changed to quite an extent after Louis XIII issued a set of provisions in the 1620s and Louis XIV did likewise in 1665, passing through intermediate provisions (Lynn 1997, 132−3). If we looked at these provisions in isolation, then they could appear very similar to the Venetian ordini di banca. As with the ordini di banca, the étapes specified the location and duration of lodgements

Venice and the European military structures  183 and was exact about what communities were expected to provide to troops. As in the Venetian case, more to the point, these orders had to be reiterated during the seventeenth century because of difficulties in applying them and because of the ever increasing seriousness of the problem due to the increased army sizes and the continuous state of belligerence. The étapes differed from the Venetian system regarding methods of supply and, more broadly, in the greater centralisation of logistical structures necessary to supply fodder, hay, carts and horses. As suggested above, the differences between the Republic of Venice and other European states existed not at the level of policy aims (rationalisation of the system, the exertion of greater state control, legal codification and so on) but with respect to the systematic nature of the provisions. From an organisational point of view, that the other European states surpassed the Republic of Venice with regard to the management of supplies (more so than lodgements) in the Early Modern period is borne out by the analysis of the logistical systems of France, the Ottoman Empire and the Spanish Lombardy. This was clearly due to the number of soldiers that had to be supplied in these areas, both quartered and in transit, which was itself a product of both enlarged armies and war-related troop movement. In the Mainland Dominion, the soldiers usually only moved in order to reach garrisons (or in the annual rotation of the garrisons) or to patrol specific areas. These differing problems affected the solutions proposed by the state to overcome them. In the Venetian case, as we have seen in the previous chapters, the supply of both food and carts was left almost entirely to local managers, with the exception of the period of the War of Gradisca, when private contractors with a wider range were involved. However, where needs were greater (as in France, Spanish territories, the Ottoman Empire, German territories and the Dutch Republic), the employment of such contractors was common. The level of state participation varied from providing structures and means to overseeing the work of the contractor to merely verifying results. In France, supervising officials had solely coordinated community supplies since the 1550s until they were joined by contracted entrepreneurs in the 1570s (Lynn 1997, 108−39; Parrott 2012). It is interesting to note that contracts referred mainly to bread or wheat supplies, while horse fodder – because of transport difficulties – was almost always purchased in the territory through which the troops were transiting (Lynn 1993b, 140−2). These practices occurred in France but also in the Ottoman Empire (Murphey 1999, 51, 70−1). During the seventeenth century, the presence of munitionnaires (suppliers) in France became more common, until they eventually represented the fulcrum of the supply system for troops in transit, although their emergence was accompanied by a corresponding increase in state control. As anticipated, the use of a contract system mixed with the use of ‘state’ resources (often local) was not unique to France; in the Spanish Lombardy, private entrepreneurs took up numerous contracts to supply troops (Buono 2009b, 19−21), up to the point in 1605 when Carlo

184  A republic among monarchies Perrone signed a contract to supply all state requirements and the remplazo was created in 1662. The remplazo was a similar attempt to unify the chain of supply through mixed public-private means (Maffi 2005; Buono 2009, 56−9). In the Low Countries, Spanish authorities also regularly hired private individuals to supply food and clothes for the Armada (Thompson 1976, 206−33; Gutmann 1980, 60−1; Parker 2004, 138−9), as did the independent Dutch Republic. The results were quite satisfying, thanks to the reforms that took place between 1580 and the opening years of the seventeenth century (Glete 2002, 159−60; ’t Hart 2014, 170−90). The Ottoman Empire provides another example: despite its geographical vastness, the public authority was able to guarantee an efficient supply system based on the use of pack animals, some of which were state-owned and some of which were hired from private contractors or acquired from friendly tribes, all facilitated by the availability of food warehouses (Murphey 1999, 25, 62−3, 70−9). The construction of buildings assigned for the conservation of food for the troops was fundamental to the Ottoman supply system, as it was in the Spanish Lombardy, France (Potter 1993, 188−95; Lynn 1993b, 196; 1997, 124−31; Parker 2004, 79; Maffi 2005, 525−30) and the Dutch Republic (’t Hart 2014, 182−3), while the different logistical needs of the Republic of Venice required no such innovation. In this sense, the maintenance of armies in the battlefield is another topic that was the subject of state attention in seventeenth-century Europe but that is conspicuous by its absence – for obvious reasons – from the contemporary records of the Republic of Venice. I want to refer, in particular, to the gradual transition from the situation where troops would conduct indiscriminate raids on a territory to the common use in the seventeenth century of the system of ‘contributions’, whereby monetary agreements were struck between a state and a neutral or enemy territory that, in exchange for protection against violence and other abuses, the neutral or enemy territory had to pay a negotiated amount. This type of extortion or ‘legalised pillage’, as it has been called, emerged from other kinds of autonomous supply systems endorsed mainly by German troops in the Thirty Years’ War. It absorbed the characteristics of ancient institutions such as the Ritterzehrung (Knights’ repast) or other kinds of sixteenth-century contributions (Redlich 1959; 1964, 394−9). While sixteenth-century contributions were autonomously managed by armies and often involved limited areas (such as a city or a monastery), seventeenth-century contributions were an instrument controlled by the state to supply its soldiers, based on agreements that involved entire regions. This practice was employed in the majority of European battle zones, especially by France and Spain (Lynn 1993; 1993b, 143−6; 1997, 30, 184−96; Israel 1995, 332−3; Parker 2004, 14, 121−2; ’t Hart 2014, 101, 113−14, 121−2). This expropriation of force, whatever its other merits, improved supply chains to troops and offered greater protection to civilians, limiting the use of violence and making the social and economic effects of the transit of armies less ‘casual’ by distributing it on a wider scale (Parker

Venice and the European military structures  185 1978, 429−43; Gutmann 1980, 32, 41−4; Lynn 2003, 132−3). In summary, we can support the following assertions: first, increased army size undoubtedly caused a general reconsideration of the lodgement and supply systems – but not a complete break with the existing systems – from the end of the sixteenth century especially and into the following century. The purpose of the redesign was to allow greater state control (not necessarily involving centralisation) and a more even distribution of burdens; it was fundamental to avoid the collapse of local finances and the contributory capability of the areas that were most involved in the transit or lodgement of troops. In many cases (Venice, Piedmont, Spanish Lombardy, France, the Ottoman Empire), a more even distribution of burns and in general the process of redesigning the division of burdens occurred at least partly thanks to the monetisation of contributions, which facilitated reimbursements, at least from a theoretical point of view. According to Gutmann, at the same time that the traditional ways continued [the lodgment of soldiers in civil houses, for example], war, from the point of view of rural civilians, became more systematized and monetarized. … This new wartime regime permitted planning and a more flexible set of responses. (Gutmann 1980, 53) Gutmann also underlined many differences in state provisions internationally, especially the peculiarity of Venetian policy. In France, Spanish Lombardy, the Dutch Republic and the Ottoman Empire, there were more coordinated and structural interventions (institution of storehouses and the appointment of state officials to supervise lodgements and supplies, for instance) together with the widespread use of complex systems of contracts. In the Republic of Venice and in the Kingdom of Naples, however, state provisions and laws – many of which, like the Paruta orders, could be important – were not designed to create a valid logistical structure, but if anything to correct the negative effects of the pre-existing system. These diverse state policies, particularly the more ‘decentralised’ Venetian policy, was not due to the absence of intervention capability in their own territories; the complete delegation of the management of the military structure to local communities required an important coercive capability, and the Republic of Venice, for example, was able to intervene more vigorously in specific fields. Equally, it was not due to an inexplicable absence of will; the examples reviewed, however, do point to a lack of need, because of the absence of huge armies to feed and lodge. It was not by chance that the Republic turned to wider contracts during the War of Gradisca, which was a real war involving a considerable increase in army size. Moreover, it is not surprising that Venetian logistical efforts were directly concerned with the fleet than the maintenance of the land army, given the constant state of war with the Turks, and especially the War of Candia. The development of this

186  A republic among monarchies kind of logistical arrangement (without institutions and specific structures) was affected by the existence of a defensive system based on the rural militia, which did not require all that much external scaffolding. Conversely, the choice to dedicate whatever resources were available to the maintenance of a ‘maritime’ military structure could have affected the decision to reduce land commitments, thereby reducing reliance on mercenaries – who would be fundamental to any offensive operation and who would require greater organisational and economic attention.

Burden or opportunity? To understand the causes that led European states to develop specific administrative structures, enact specific laws and adopt specific practices of military management, it is not enough to consider the structure and use of armies and their consequent logistical needs. These elements were certainly fundamental in directing state intervention, but the European powers also had to consider the effects that the military structure produced on the economy of subject territories. Moreover, the evolution of a state is not defined only by the choices of the central authority but by the interaction between central authorities and local and regional bodies; this statement applies to both the recruitment and the structuring of logistics, as well as to normative interventions intended to influence certain economic dynamics. Therefore, it is vital to understand – as we did in the previous chapters on the Republic of Venice – how the military structure interacted with the economy of the state and the economy of local communities; in this case, too, the comparison could be useful to contextualise the Republic of Venice in a broader European sense. The peculiarity of the Venetian military structure and of its management of lodgements and supplies could have produced equally peculiar economic effects; conversely, vested economic interests in its territories could have limited opportunities to improve the recruiting and logistics systems. We will proceed to discuss these topics from three points of view: first, we will review the public economy, especially the connection between war and debts incurred by rural communities. Then, we will analyse how the military structure affected the market economy, positively and negatively – as a burden and as an opportunity. Interestingly, the same economic fields could interact in different ways with the military structure at different times, producing sometimes polar effects because of many concomitant factors. The period between the end of the sixteenth century and the midseventeenth century was characterised by recurring episodes of economic difficulties – situations that often resulted in political changes or in popular uprisings – in many areas of the globe (Hobsbawm 1954; Romano 1962; Cipolla 2002; Clark 1985; Parker 2013). In the Republic of Venice, this situation presented a general increase in the debts incurred by rural communities, often owed to urban lenders; moreover, previous chapters

Venice and the European military structures  187 have shown that even if this phenomenon was stimulated by military costs in certain areas, other factors were also at play. Inefficient management of communities, the loss of the commons and the insecurity of agricultural production – not only in Italy (Le Roy Ladurie 1967; Meuvret 1977) – can be considered equally important causes; the effects of these problems were manifested unevenly at both the international and the local levels, as we saw in our analysis of the Republic of Venice. Areas with different productive and credit structures reacted differently to economic and environmental stresses, just as the problems listed above – primary among them war and the transit of armies – did not take a uniform toll on all provinces of the Mainland Dominion; this assertion was clearly demonstrated by analysing the cases of Vicenza and Brescia, but there were similar situations in other European states. Extending the comparison outside the Venetian borders, it is interesting to note the different causes and effects of debts involving cities and countryside, a phenomenon that was present from the Near East to the Baltic Sea (De Vries 1974; Stumpo 1979; Gutmann 1980, 52; Faccini 1988; Aboul-El-Haj 1991, 53−6; ’t Hart 1993, 24−7; 2014, 102−3, 118−21; De Vries and Van der Woude 1997; Tabacchi 2007, 300−28; White 2011; Bulgarelli 2012; Di Tullio, Maffi and Rizzo 2016, 252−3). Given the topic of the book, we will focus on the role played by war in causing and prolonging this phenomenon. In this context, it is useful to briefly recall the debate regarding the economic effects of the Thirty Years’ War (Parker 1984) on the economy of the German territories; the consequences for the commercial and productive structures will be discussed later, but here I want to underline the conclusions reached after this debate. Overcoming the interpretive opposition between a German economy already in crisis before the war (early decline theory) and a situation that deteriorated because of the conflict (disastrous war school), scholars concluded that this bipartite structure was constraining. Decline was already occurring at several levels before the war, but the conflict exacerbated the situation, producing different effects on the Northern and Southern German territories. Moreover, it is difficult to find general characteristics common to either areas, given that cities in both territories reacted to the war in a distinct manner. It is, therefore, difficult to identify a ‘culprit’ but, according to Rabb, ‘at best, the Thirty Years’ War started a general decline that did not previously exist; at worst, it replaced prosperity with disaster’ (Rabb 1962, 51; Kamen 1968, 4−61). Rabb was not referring specifically to debts but his comments are applicable in that regard: military costs, troop transit and the demands of waging war could certainly cause or aggravate a situation of economic difficulty for communities, but there were many other concomitant factors, including the different resilience level of each area. Furthermore, it is reductive to summarise the effects of the ‘military’ on the economy by using the term ‘role of war’, given that the effects of a conflict – whether nearby or distant – on a territory could vary and ­manifest in a number of ways. Generally, difficulties in handling costs

188  A republic among monarchies (especially military costs) could be due to two main problems: a considerable increase in the costs themselves, or a severe diminishing of income. Obviously, war could affect both costs and income. On costs, we have seen numerous examples of how increased community expenditure could be linked to increased troop lodgements or supply needs, or to the existence of a state of war in the territory. This was the case in Brescia, and also in the Lombardy (Faccini 1988, 29−34; Maffi 1999, 330−1; Rizzo 2001, 74−8; Colombo 2008, 115−27; Di Tullio, Maffi and Rizzo 2016), of the Piedmont (Stumpo 1979, 67−8; Caligaris 1984, 135), the Low Countries, the Kingdom of Naples and the Papal States. It is important to underline that resort to the credit market was due to the war, and particularly the monetisation of war (Gutmann 1980, 50−3; AboulEl-Haj 1991, 53): if the war had not been monetised, requests in kind or pillage would certainly have caused equal or worse harm, but communities would not have had the option of appealing to the credit market to repair the damage. Loans could have strengthened the resilience of communities (Gutmann 1980, 206), at least in the short term. This does not mean, however, that the increase in military costs was not destabilising for entire regions, even if the crisis of local finances – and the associated increase in debts – was not due to the army: the purchasing of foodstuffs in time of famine, for instance, or the cost of plague, could be more expensive than lodging troops. If the effect of military costs on communities’ expenditure is easily distinguishable, it is more difficult to understand how wars and the transit of troops negatively affected the communities’ sources of income. We saw that in the Venetian case, the increase of lodgement costs combined with increased debts caused communities, especially in Brescia, to gradually lose control of their commons, and sent them into a spiral of gradual impoverishment that forced the state to intervene to protect the contributory capability of its subjects. This phenomenon was not exclusively Venetian and there were similar situations in France and in the German territories (Kamen 1968, 56−7; Friedrichs 1979, 166), but not everywhere across Europe. In the Low Countries, for instance, the presence of industrialised areas, which acted as important sources of credit, limited the need to take loans from urban lenders and protected rural properties in certain regions (Gutmann 1980, 109, 204−5). This situation also occurred, to a certain extent, in the province of Vicenza. As well as from an advanced manufacturing sector, credit could be offered, as in the Lombard case, by the communities themselves, through the foundation of confraternities and charitable institutions that were provided with ‘protected’ (in other words, tax free) capital that offered liquidity to communities and, if need be, maintained the assets of the commons within the borders of the community. It was quite a sophisticated system, without equal among bordering states, and it has been analysed by Matteo Di Tullio (Di Tullio 2011): it is interesting to note that while the province of Brescia bordered the territories examined by Di Tullio, these

Venice and the European military structures  189 practices were not present there. This example provides another reason to suggest that, with regard to lodgements, specific innovations in the management of resources were introduced only when absolutely necessary; it is, in fact, undeniable that the economic commitment required of the Lombard communities encouraged them to create functional solutions, such as using confraternities as credit sources. Besides the loss of properties, diminishing incomes were caused by a number of other factors, such as reductions in the number of taxpayers due to emigration or increased exemptions. In this case, too, the main cause was not always war or military costs, although conflict or military burdens played a very important role. We saw how conscription to the fleet in the province of Brescia aroused fears among the Venetian authorities that peasants would flee to bordering territories. This fear was well founded, given that significant tracts of land in the Spanish Lombardy returned to community ownership during these years after private owners emigrated due to military burdens; any immediate boon to local coffers was offset in the longer term by cuts to the tax-paying cohort (Colombo 2008, 99−107). In a tax system characterised by inadequate adjustment of the rate due to each territorial body (adjustments occurred only two or three times per century), the consequences were predictable. A similar phenomenon of depopulation afflicted the German communities during the Thirty Years’ War (Kamen, 1968, 48−54). Deaths from combat and disease were compounded by the emigration of many peasants towards the cities. There was a large demand for manpower in the cities because of the war, further exacerbating an already difficult period for the agricultural sector; as a consequence, the communities had to sacrifice the commons to compensate for diminishing returns from direct taxation. The Venetian countryside was immune from such phenomena – at least on such a scale – because of the relative peace that reigned; from this perspective, an analysis of the demographic situation in Friuli during the War of Gradisca or in the Sea Dominion would make for interesting studies (but they are outside the scope of this research). The final element that led to reduced numbers of taxpayers was an increase in exemptions, particularly exemptions granted to nobles and clergy. The redistribution of burdens and the rebalancing of political clout away from the cities in favour of the countryside meant that exemptions became less important in the Republic of Venice during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which was not the situation in other states. In the Papal States and in the Kingdom of Naples especially, according to Stefano ­Tabacchi and Alessandra Bulgarelli, exemptions and concessions remained vital and were used by the sovereign to reinforce his bond with the clergy and the aristocracy, although the state was theoretically opposed to such privileges (Tabacchi 2007, 302; Bulgarelli 2012, 56, 64, 80−2, 164, 175−80, 229−36). Exemptions could also be directly linked to the military structure: think of the fiscal incentives conceded to rural militiamen in the Republic of ­Venice, Lombardy, the Papal States and the Republic  of  Genoa  (Musso  1986;

190  A republic among monarchies Dalla Rosa 1991, 97−191; Brunelli 1995, 105−6), or consider the privileges granted in the central provinces of the Ottoman Empire to individuals who furnished logistical support to the troops (Murphey 1999, 79). This short overview shows that various factors contributed to the weakening of local economic structures in European states and that the role of war and military costs in that process differed across states. A similar assertion applies with regard to the consequences of debts for the reallocation of resources. We saw that the increased expenditure and decreased income of rural communities produced two key and closely related effects: increased debts and loss of control over both private and communal lands. The first conclusion to draw from the analysis of the Venetian case (and from looking at many other European states) is that these phenomena generally benefited the cities at the expense of the countryside. Quoting William Caferro, ‘fiscal burdens of war increased the indebtedness of rural dwellers to urban lenders, resulting in an increase in urban ownership of rural land’ (Caferro 2008, 189). While Caferro was referring to Italy during the Middle Ages, this statement holds largely true for the Early Modern period also, albeit with some qualifications. Debts incurred by rural communities did not always lead to enrichment of urban aristocracy: the Venetian case shows that other actors in the credit market could also benefit from them, including wealthy members of the rural élite, and religious institutions in particular (although such institutions were usually urban). However, the transfer of capital (especially in the form of real estate) from the countryside to the city seems to have been more common. This was also the case outside the borders of the Almost Serene, for example in the Dutch Republic, where the debts incurred by some communities meant that ‘the economic resources of the villages and towns were drained into cities, where the moneylenders lived’ (Gutmann, 1980, 52; ’t Hart 2014, 102−3, 118−22). The Roman aristocracy played an analogous role, as did the religious institutions in the Papal States (Tabacchi 2007, 326−8). Kamen described a real ‘feudal revenge’ being exacted in the German territories in the form of widespread and extensive land hoarding by nobles and citizens (Kamen 1968, 52−61). Apart from the fact that this phenomenon – according to Kamen himself – was caused exclusively by increased military costs, we must recognise that this transfer of capital was not always one-directional. It would be reductive to assert that the countryside became impoverished while the cities made money. We saw that in the Lombardy, the impoverishment of peasants did not lead to the transfer of property into the hands of citizens, because community institutions and the wealthiest rural families ‘recovered’ them (Faccini 1988, 89, 133−5; Colombo 2008, 99−107). This case was quite unique because nothing similar happened in the Republic of Venice, and research on the other European states has not revealed analogous situations. The worsening of the difficulties of the local public economy was linked to a comparable and simultaneous depreciation of private wealth stocks:

Venice and the European military structures  191 here, too, war and military costs were not always the main causative factors, but they played a role. The debate on the economic effects of the Thirty Years’ War on the German economy provides a clear example how this could happen. Giacomina Caligaris, in her analysis of the small Piedmontese village of Pancalieri, underlines that seventeenth- and eighteenth-century wars played a fundamental role in defining local economies; requests from armies had a partially negative affect on production for personal consumption – especially agricultural production – but incentivised manufacturing, especially hemp production (Caligaris 1984, 16−68, 114−18). The clear dualism of this statement cannot be generalised, at least not completely, but it gives cause for reflection on a number of points. It is undeniable that war often had a destabilising effect on the primary sector, especially agriculture: Philip Hoffman ascribes responsibility for the collapse of the TFP (Total Factor Productivity) of the Paris-Basin area in the second half of the sixteenth century to the wars of religion, because of the damage inflicted by war on the agricultural sector (Wood 1984; Hoffman 1996, 81−8, 100−1). Similarly, other scholars – Meuvret, for example (Meuvret 1946) – listed conflicts among the causes of the broader production crisis of seventeenth-century agriculture in France and across Europe (Gutmann 1980, 75−110; ’t Hart 2014, 101−25, 178−81). Transit armies destroyed harvests, pillaged the countryside and, even when contributions were more stringently regulated (as they were in the seventeenth century), requests for fodder, animals and food all weighed on the agricultural sector and could hamper famers’ efforts throughout the season. Still, there were always some economic actors who could take advantage of requests for provisions and profit handsomely, as in the case of the Archetti family of Brescia (Mocarelli 2010, 154−9). While some merchants made a fortune from these contracts, they were the exception, and the rule was that the majority of the rural population suffered due to war or troop transit. Besides material damage to cultivated land and orchards, war supply requests affected the rural economy in other ways, chief among them the contraction of the workforce. The Republic of Venice, as we saw, experienced this contraction after the conscription of militiamen, oarsmen and sappers. Unsurprisingly, this was not an isolated case. In the Ottoman Empire, elements linked to the military structure regularly provoked demographic shifts and labour shortages in certain areas, due to conscription to the fleet or the hiring of men as mercenaries (Inalcik 1980, 287; Murphey 1999, 185). Similar migratory phenomena drew people from the central provinces of the Empire towards newly conquered, peripheral areas because of the new economic opportunities presented by the military structure (Murphey 1999, 173, 182). We have already discussed equivalent demographic oscillations in the German territories (Kamen, 1968, 48−54), although those movements were not in pursuit of happiness or riches elsewhere but an immediate escape from poverty. In addition to the emigration of the workforce, which could

192  A republic among monarchies be resolved once current difficulties receded, the loss of men to disease and violence was less readily overcome. Again, war had a role in this context (Parker 2004, 89; Calcagno 2011, 142−3; ’t Hart 2014, 105), as it did, for instance, in the spread of the 1630s plague in the province of Vicenza. While the agricultural sector was the worst affected by militarism and war, the secondary sector also suffered but research suggests that manufacturing areas were more resilient. The case of Pancalieri, who benefited from increased demand for manufactured goods during the war, provides an example of the sector’s ability to produce some positive results in a period of adversity. However, conflicts that damaged fields could also destroy the productive infrastructure of the secondary sector (Nef 1942, 25; Parker 1978, 430), although seventeenth-century military reforms introduced greater discipline to armies and benefited the manufacturing sector more than the agricultural sector. As it did to agriculture, war deprived manufacturing of both labour and capital; just as the Camonica Valley complained about the use of its miners in the Sea Dominion, on the other side of the frontline, Ottoman miners were employed for the same purpose (Stein 2007, 32−40). Similarly, if armies uprooted fruit trees and vineyards, war taxation could ‘uproot’ the manufacturing capital. According to Tallett, who suggests the negative effects of war on the economy should not be overestimated, the extent of this diversion of capital from productive to unproductive sectors should also be revised, given the ‘labour intensive’ rather than ‘capital intensive’ character of Medieval and Early Modern manufacturing (Tallett 1992, 226v7). The opinion of Geoffrey Parker is somewhat different; on the Dutch revolt, he asserts: It must be admitted that most of the money and resources which the various combatants poured into the war in the Netherlands were, in economic terms, entirely unproductive. There was little or no technological spin-off; the men paid to fight were men lost to agriculture and industry; the taxes raised to pay for armies yielded little return (at least to the belligerent states) in the shape of increased demand for goods and services. (Parker 1978, 441) The money collected from subjects in the form of direct taxation – and so denied potential investors in manufacturing – could not be employed in a productive way, lost as it was in the fog of war. It is difficult to establish principles here, which have wider resonance; in the Venetian case, it does not appear that there was a close link between manufacturing and military costs, at least at the level of capital investment. Before jumping to hasty conclusions in this area, it is necessary to adequately contextualise the field of research; in the case of Nördlingen, for example, war was not the immediate cause of the city’s economic difficulties, but it impeded the city’s recovery (Friedrichs 1979, 293). Other elements could also contribute to the decline of manufacturing production and the diversion of

Venice and the European military structures  193 private resources to the state Treasury to cover military costs – or to local Treasuries to cover lodgements, supplies and so on – could exacerbate the situation, preventing the investment needed to spur recovery. In moments of production crisis caused by diminishing exports (such as that experienced by the greater Mediterranean area during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries), technological innovation could be one of the few ways out; according to Parker (quoted above) and Nef (Nef 1942), military industry was not the most innovative sector for investment, but civil innovations were often converted for military purposes. Having focused on production, we should point out that evidence from the Republic of Venice indicates that the presence – or the fear – of a conflict could also affect distribution. The market might be affected before production. It was not only in Venice that markets were subdued by fear, even though men and capital were not involved. The same effects of war on commercial exchanges are visible in other parts of Europe. Beyond the ‘religious embargo’ that impeded – or was at least intended to impede – the weapons trade between Christians and Muslims for a prolonged period (Ágoston 2001; 2005, 113−16), we saw that the exportation of weapons was a central concern of, for example, the Venetian government. This was clearly the most obvious consequence of the relationship between war and the market, but there were also other ways in which the ‘military’ could negatively affect the distribution of manufacturing production. A state of war could limit the number of merchants attending fairs (Friedrichs 1979, 81−4), or transactions could be disrupted by specific actions of the authorities; the example of the Friuli during the Gradisca War was not an isolated case. Similar blockades of exports or boycotts on sales products needed by the army also occurred in the Ottoman Empire (Murphey 1999, 97), in Spain (Thompson 1992, 17−18), in the Baltic area, in the Low Countries (Gutmann 1980, 114) and in France (Potter 1993, 7). The Venetian case, however, is different because the typology of products involved is almost all marketable products, while the examples reported by Murphey and Potter involved only wheat. The illpreparedness of Venetian logistical structures, as reported in the previous chapters, inexperienced in the maintenance of such a large number of men and unfamiliar with such an intense military commitment, only served to aggravate the lack of a contributory base in Friuli, and produced a situation in which the efforts of subjects had to be total and all-embracing. So, the prohibition of commerce extended to food, animals and carts in order to guarantee logistical and food requirements for the troops. It is important to emphasise that this kind of blockade was not prolonged but was used only in emergency situations; the exportation of weapons or of the other products referred to above was quite different, and carried longer-term effects. In this sense, it is emblematic of the ‘revolution’ in the markets that accompanied the seventeenth-century wars; this revolution, in league with the new mercantilist policies adopted by European states, furthered the trend of the relocation of commerce (Gutmann 1980, 114). In particular, the

194  A republic among monarchies textile sector was heavily penalised in areas where the market was closed; the break in trade between Spain and the Dutch Republic, for example, led to a fall in exports of raw wool from the Castile la Vieja, which affected the Dutch economy because it could no longer act as a junction between the Spanish and Baltic markets (Parker 1978, 434, 438−9; ’t Hart 1993, 100−8; 2014, 134−5; Israel 1995, 312−15). Nördlingen’s textile industry experienced the same fate as the Castilian sector (Friedrichs 1979, 81−4). However, the particularity of this case introduces other considerations; Friedrichs argues that the crisis forced a realignment of local textile manufacturing, from wool to linen, and that this was dictated by the fact that the wool supply circuit was international but the linen supply circuit was local. So, while war interrupted or forced the relocation of specific exchange circuits, it simultaneously incentivised other circuits, such as circuits that were local in nature, for example, and raised their profile and importance. Similarly, areas to which long-distance commerce transferred, obviously benefited from this change, and we will analyse this change in due course. The final negative effect of war on markets that we must consider is its effect on the trend of prices. In general terms, there were two ways in which military demands could affect the trend of prices: through the control of prices by public authorities, in order to guarantee access to resources at a certain price (for example, the purchasing of weapons in the province of Brescia by Venice); or in the form of increased prices due to increased military demand for a specific good. Once again, wheat – being the fundamental food ingredient for both military personnel and the civilian population – was the good most affected by these phenomena. This was certainly the case in the Ottoman Empire over a prolonged period (Murphey 1999, 86, 97, 180), and in the German territories during the Thirty Years’ War (Kamen 1968, 51−2). In any case, it would be misleading to portray this phenomenon as one-dimensional, given that – as with the other economic dynamics treated in this book – military demands were only one of many factors that combined to define prices. Furthermore, state requests did not always have negative repercussions for the market; the purchase of wheat by the Venetian authorities to produce the ‘biscuit’ that provided the basic sustenance for the fleet is characteristic of the positive features of state involvement in the market. From the latter part of the seventeenth century, state demand, ‘even while unbalancing the budget, did enough to sustain the wheat market’. This was crucial given that ‘in the normal course of the functioning of the internal market, state measures promoting exports were not enough to counter the effects of the overproduction, chief among them falling wheat prices’ (Vertecchi 2013, 234). This principle holds true for most of the latter part of the seventeenth century and the following century also, as Venetian agriculture experienced an extended upturn, which led to repeated phases of over-production. The assertion does not apply to the earlier period (mid-sixteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries) even though

Venice and the European military structures  195 the Mainland Dominion achieved complete agricultural self-sufficiency at the end of the sixteenth century (Zannini 2010). If a discussion of debts, damage to farmland and limitations on manufacturing and commerce – in addition to the logistical and organisational needs of armies – shed light on why certain management practices were enacted by local and state authorities, our understanding would remain incomplete without an analysis of the incomes generated by the military structure. It is well established in the historiography of war that conflict could incentivise a state economy – even if military requirements limited civil investment – because military expenditure represented a form of monetary and product circulation, and so cannot be considered tout court a ‘loss’. Close attention should be paid to where and how these resources were employed and to who benefited from them. Of great interest from this perspective is Enrico Stumpo’s analysis (referred to above) of how the seventeenth-century Piedmontese economy benefited from wars because ‘the majority of military expenditure by Piedmont and the other states involved was redistributed within the local economy’ (Stumpo 1986, 383). More to the point, the resort to the local credit market by the Savoia completed the containment of military expenditure within the borders of the state (Stumpo 1986, 384). Thompson, too, in his analysis of the Castilian economy at the end of the sixteenth century, asserts that 80 per cent of the money collected for military purposes remained within the Iberian Peninsula, even if there was a reallocation of wealth from central regions (which were more closely involved in taxation) to peripheral areas, where troops were lodged (Thompson 1992, 8−13). In summary, an appreciation of how military expenditure returned to the territory of origin and, especially, identification of the specificities of redistribution within and among European states would allow for an understanding of important economic and social dynamics; to do this, it is vital to pinpoint the channels through which the redistribution took place. First, we must recognise that war could present economic opportunities directly linked to the management of armies but also indirectly influenced by military factors. In this sense, because of the debts incurred by peasants, the redistribution of land in central and southern Europe can be considered an important indirect effect of increased military costs combined with other factors – including changes in the wider economic climate, the broad move in favour of northern market. The redistribution of land could present an opportunity for property purchasers obviously, and in a broader sense according to Thompson – for the agricultural sector as a whole, as the privatisation of the commons, especially of pasture land, could lead to increased productivity (Thompson 1992, 5). Another positive indirect effect, referred to above, emerged from the rerouting of commercial trade; while the Stumpo hypothesis on the convenience of ‘hosting’ a war within a state’s territory has much merit, often neutral countries achieved the highest earnings during wars as they secured new market shares when trade

196  A republic among monarchies between belligerents was interrupted. Sweden, England and the Northern German territories experienced this positive outcome during the Dutch Revolt (Nef 1942, 25; Parker 1978, 441), as they filled the gap left by the exclusion of Spain from the Baltic market, while in other cases – Nördlingen’s linen trade, for instance – the local market could benefit at the expense of long-distance commerce. Many of the economic opportunities directly linked to military costs emerged from Venice and can be divided into two main typologies according to the revenue generated. In an era when new fortresses were built, armies expanded and weapons upgraded, these contracts offered the highest incomes. It was state demand, according to Caligaris, that revamped the economy of Pancalieri in the seventeenth century (Caligaris 1984, 16−68, 114−18) and the same state demand was present in the province of Brescia for weapons. Arms manufacturing boomed not only in Brescia but across much of Europe between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially in the Baltic area, thanks to merchant-entrepreneurs, of whom the most important were Dutch, who financed the establishment of weapons production in areas where this particular trade had not previously existed (Jørgensen 1963; Cipolla 1965, 11−76; Klein 1966; Vogel 1997; Parrott 2012, 212−41). The contracts awarded by various states to supply troops could be quite profitable, especially if – as in seventeenth-century Lombardy – a single service provider won the deal. In the Republic of Venice, such opportunities only became available late in the seventeenth century, whereas merchants and entrepreneurs around Europe had been benefiting from them for some time, and almost always on the initiative of communities and Corpi Territoriali that consequently stipulated quite limited contracts based on their logistical needs. Contracts for the construction of fortresses offered greater rewards, as in Palmanova, Peschiera and Bergamo, as well as in other European states, from Piedmont (De Consoli 1999, 51−85) to the Ottoman Empire (Murphey 1999, 53; Stein 2007; Karpat and Zens 2003) and to the Dutch Republic (’t Hart 2014, 92−7). Where contracts were more significant, whether they were controlled by the state (as in France and Spain) or whether they were completely delegated to the private sector (as in the German territories), they were accompanied by a more fragmented, ‘atomised’ form of redistribution. This took the shape of salaries spent by soldiers on the local market, small maintenance work on fortresses and military structures and so on. In this sense, the case of the Marquisate of Finale Ligure, studied by Paolo Calcagno, is the perfect example (Calcagno 2011). It demonstrates that the continuous passage of Spanish troops from and to the State of Milan benefited not only major contractors, but also many ‘secondary’ parties, including bricklayers, bakers, tailors and even peasants who sometimes could occasionally sell agricultural surplus to soldiers. The case of Finale Ligure had certain unique characteristics because of the large number of men to supply and the associated economic opportunities for the local population,

Venice and the European military structures  197 but it was not entirely exceptional. We can find similar dynamics in other European states (Stumpo 1986, 383−9; Rizzo 2001, 11−12, 20, 23, 41, 79, 83, 150; Caferro 2008, 190−5), and in some areas, including the Republic of Venice, this practice of ‘retail supply’ could be the primary and perhaps the only typology of redistribution of military expenditure. The economic role played by soldiers’ salaries is a topic that has been largely neglected by economic historians of the military, probably because of difficulties in quantification. It is undeniable that in some areas, the presence of troops could lead to an important increase in the demand for goods and services, which could be even more profitable when the soldiers were paid with money coming from other states, as in the cases of Piacenza (Cattanei 2011) and the Duchy of Milan (Ribot Garcia 1989, 358). This chapter opens by detailing how military and logistical needs required a more determined economic and organisational effort, and how the management of these burdens, especially in the seventeenth century, was concentrated in the hands of just a few contractors, including the French munitionnaires, the German military entrepreneurs, or the Lombard contractors of the remplazo. The Venetian management model was quite different, however: the internal redistribution of expenditure was affected by logistical needs, which were not on the scale of other European states’ requirements, with the exception of the fleet. The resultant fragmented management and local character of contracts allowed rural and urban élites to exert almost autonomous control over the redistribution of military expenditure. Therefore, if war – and the military structure generally – could relocate capital from one area to another, but also from one social body to another, by relocating resources (Friedrichs 1979, 123; Israel 1995, 308−15; Spufford 1995, 308−9; De Vries and Van der Woude 1997, 131; Caferro 2008, 172; ’t Hart 2014, 174), Venetian organisational and management structures were transposed in an analogous fragmentation. The beneficiaries were the rural élites who became the new referents of local public authorities during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The coincidence between restructuring of the management of the military structure – and often of the tax system – ‘in exchange’ for the redistribution of expenditure was not a peculiarity of Venice; what differed were the actors involved and the role played by the public authority in maintaining the balance between the functioning of the military structure and the economic yield conceded. Accepting this perspective, it is easy to understand the process of ‘decentralisation’ in the Ottoman Empire that accompanied the increased presence of mercenaries in the army (Inalcik 1980). This represents, according to Glete, an entrepreneurial involvement of élites in the state (Glete 2002, 61−5; Tilly 1990), although we need to make some distinctions. There were significant differences, for example, between the economic return and the connection between mercantile élites and the Dutch Republic (Glete 2022, 143), the earnings of German and French military entrepreneurs (Parrott 2001; 2012) and the Swedish and Venetian situations. In the latter two cases, rather than the tendency to hoard important contracts, we should concentrate on the ability to contain expenditure within

198  A republic among monarchies the borders of communities and provinces, through a sort of ‘tacit agreement’ between public authorities and specific elements of society to guarantee a certain degree of autonomy in the management and redistribution of costs. This autonomy in the management and redistribution of costs was, however, accompanied by quite vigorous state intervention, albeit if in an indirect manner, in the geographical allocation of burdens. This was achieved by the introduction of legislation governing the distribution of costs (publishing or not publishing contracts, monetising burdens and so on). Only the credit market was immune to intervention by the public authorities. The enormous volume of capital needed to guarantee the functioning of the credit market, together with its unpredictability, meant that it was very difficult to impose state directives that went beyond the merely organisational and aimed to disrupt the pre-existing equilibria – as in the case of the division of military burdens between the cities and countryside of Northern Italy. In the Republic of Venice (and our exclusive focus is the local credit market rather than public debt), the citizens and religious institutions, in contrast to the situation in Lombardy, were still the main lenders in the seventeenth century, despite the fact that rural élites had assumed control over many other military-related, albeit less economically significant, enterprises by that stage. Returning to the importance of local or internal redistribution of military expenditure in the territory which it occurred, contracts or orders of varying scale were designed both to guarantee the endurance of the economy and create bonds with specific sections of society. This rationale was behind the logistical-military reforms undertaken by European states in the seventeenth century. While the reforms aimed to optimise the logistical management of armies, the main drivers of the increased economic opportunities linked to the military structure were the monetisation of contributions, the rationalisation of the supply chain through the creation of storehouses and the publishing of contracts, as well as other innovations referred to above. The majority of incomes emerged from contracts, but also from the simple reallocation of territorial resources that was realised through market transactions. In the absence of contracts agreed between public authorities and private parties, and with a system of troop supply based on pillage and requisitions, it is easy to understand why economic opportunities were hitherto limited. Therefore, it was thanks to the intervention of the state that private interests could benefit from military investments from the point at the end of the seventeenth century when – according to Lynn’s work on France – the quartering of troops transformed from a burden into an opportunity (Lynn 1993, 307).

State and communities To complete a final draft of the picture sketched in the previous pages, we need to analyse how the dynamics referred to above (military and logistical needs, on the one hand, and the economic effects of the military structure, on the other hand) were managed at both the local and state levels. The

Venice and the European military structures  199 starting point is to recognise that the practices enacted by the communities and the directives – more or less strict – issued by the state were the result of a continuous mediation between military and logistical needs and the need to protect local wealth, as well as to guarantee redistributive autonomy to certain societal elements for specific parts of the society, thus retaining their loyalty to the public authority. Adopting this perspective means looking beyond the centralisation-delegation dichotomy. We have already encountered various elements that characterised the management of the military structure: real war demands, methods of recruitment and logistical needs. We saw that the sharp increase in state requirements, which followed the so-called ‘military revolution’, added new dimensions at various levels of the Early Modern European economic framework. The public authorities had to offer effective and functional solutions to new military problems, but this could only happen if the state and certain of its subjects engaged in continuous dialogue. In fact, the deterioration of the ‘smallest unit of taxation’ (Colombo 2008, 30), namely, the community, could have caused the collapse of the economic foundations of the entire military structure. Equally, as Glete stresses, the absence of collaboration on the part of local élites could obstruct – if not completely stop – the mechanism of the military structure; this is why it was necessary to guarantee as far as possible freedom of ‘self-protection’ and freedom of management of redistribution. In analysing the issue of redistribution and the opportunities emerging from the different military structures in the European states, we highlighted how different logistical needs often led to specific economic opportunities, e.g. the use of contracts and unique contractors. With regard to ‘selfprotection’, it is difficult to identify common traits or models of its practice, beyond the general tendency to use case herme in Europe in the seventeenth century. Other fairly common practices included bribing officials to avoid troop lodgements (Gutmann 1980, 44; Buono 2009, 181; ’t Hart 2014, 113), or the attempt – often ineffective – to maintain money spent in a territory within its borders, by the circular use of local suppliers and contractors, and by the use – or creation, as in Lombardy – of a local credit market. Such practices were not always able to protect the local economic system, sometimes because of bad governance, which was often denounced by peripheral state officers (Faccini 1988, 120−23; Bulgarelli 2012, 68−9). This led to the progressive depletion of local finances, with an attendant increase in debt and the loss of the commons. Did the state intervene in this process, and how so? Research on this topic has focused, quite rightly, on the concepts of ‘protection’ and ‘control’, and concentrated on provisions intended to interrupt the negative escalation of the ‘costs-debts-commons’ cycle. The Italian case is particularly interesting because in many states intervention led to the creation of specific state institutions appointed to control – more or less actively – the management of local finances. But before continuing with this theme, it is important to clarify the meaning of the terms ‘protection’ and ‘control’.

200  A republic among monarchies In an article synthesising the work on this topic, Stefano Tabacchi stated that ‘the juridical thought of sixteenth and seventeenth century ignored this concept [of control] … and used instead the concept of protection, which is of little use as a historiographical concept because it is charged with ideological value’ (Tabacchi 1993, 83). Tabacchi’s definition is widely applicable but he is too dismissive of the term ‘protection’ – and we have used that term in this book. We must consider that ‘protection’ did not mean a protective stance intended (in any humanitarian sense) to guarantee the well-being of a state’s subjects and, consequently, the health of local finances: it would be anachronistic and misleading to apply this concept to the Early Modern period. The approach of the state to local finances themselves, however, could be taken to constitute ‘protection’, not of the subjects but of the contributory base in a concrete sense. Studies of the evolution of sixteenth-century tax systems, in discussing provisions aimed to limit or to rectify local economic disarray, referred to this fundamental purpose, as expressed below: Considering communities as one of the fundamental sources of state revenue, especially in a period when military commitments became more and more onerous, the authorities inevitably had to pay adequate attention to the functioning of local finances in order to guarantee … that the fiscal framework of its territory functioned properly. (Bulgarelli 2012, 18) This was Alessandra Bulgarelli’s verdict on the Kingdom of Naples, and similar assertions have been made by other scholars about the Spanish Lombardy (Faccini 1988, 113), the German territories (Kamen 1968, 56−7) and the Low Countries (Gutmann 1980, 54−5). It was no accident that these provisions for the protection of local finances corresponded to the institution of new kinds of taxes. The cavalry tax in the Republic of Venice comes under this heading, as does the military subsidy introduced in Piedmont in 1659, two years before the Delegation for the good governance of local communities (Stumpo 1979, 72). Interventions intended to protect the contributory capability of communities took different forms, some of them ‘indirect’, some of them very tangible state actions. Among the former, as we have seen, were interventions that aimed to redistribute military burdens more equitably, especially those that involved previously exempt entities from early in the seventeenth century, including cities in the Republic of Venice and Spanish Lombardy, and the clergy and aristocracy in France, the Papal States, Piedmont and the Kingdom of Naples. An equitable redistribution of military burdens was achieved through monetising contributions. These normative interventions, even if they did not feature directly on the balance sheets of communities or in their management, were the expression of a new protective attitude towards the contributory capability of subjects. They were a manifestation of

Venice and the European military structures  201 the desire to revise the functioning of the public economy to make it more efficient in dealing with new military needs. Other interventions directly addressed the management of local finances, limiting the autonomy of communities in fields as varied as the imposition of new local taxes to the management of the credit market and the commons. Unsurprisingly, this process did not follow a common path across Europe, because of differing state characteristics, differing domestic equilibria and – last but by no means least – differing needs. The most interesting cases came from the Italian peninsula, where interventions were more systematic than in some other parts of Europe; the seventeenth century saw many instances of properly equipped institutions appointed to oversee the rebalancing local community finances. As anticipated, however, routes back to equilibrium diverged from each other and did not even necessarily involve the creation of an institution. Tabacchi identifies two fundamental models of intervention (Tabacchi 1993, 85−7, 96): a ‘protective’ model – followed in Tuscany, Piedmont and Papal States – characterised by the presence of a bureaucratic structure, specific institutions and frequent and intrusive legislation, which facilitated top-down management of local finances; and a second model that operated in the Spanish Lombardy and the Republic of Venice, whereby the state only mediated conflicts between subjects, especially those relating to the division of taxes and military burdens between rural and urban factions. Moreover, according to Tabacchi, these two typologies were flanked by many examples of states attempting to rebalance local finances through the support of local feudality (such as in the Kingdom of Naples, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the Kingdom of Sardinia), or through institutions and interventions that more closely resembled the two major typologies but rarely produced a result, as in the cases of the Republic of Genoa, the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza, the Duchy of Mantua and the Duchy of Modena. This schematic division – based essentially on the presence rather than the efficiency of specific institutions and peripheral offices – could be useful to understand the different paths followed by the Italian states, but it does not allow for the many common directions followed by legislative interventions in the Italian peninsula and in other areas of Europe. Clearly, the emphasis on the presence of specific institutions indicates the programmatic nature of the interventions, but it does not imply automatic success, as the case of the Papal States (analysed by Tabacchi himself), for example, so starkly demonstrates. While Tabacchi suggested that the Republic of Venice only mediated conflicts in its territory (and did not legislate for them), there is evidence to the contrary. As happened in other Italian states, the Republic also made provisions on the commons, the credit market and local finances. Nonetheless, the mediation of local élites remained fundamental to the application of these provisions. In supporting this assertion, it is interesting to observe the interventions made by the state. This helps us to identify common procedures but also peculiarities that can explain specific normative and institutional choices.

202  A republic among monarchies Aside from the ‘bad administration’ that was frequently scapegoated for every financial failing of the communities, the state focused its intervention in other specific areas: the control of debt – and sometimes of the credit market – and the protection of the commons. These issues were deeply interconnected, given that common properties were often sacrificed to pay off debts. The loss of these sources of incomes, as the Venetian case demonstrated, was at the root of the collapse of local finances; that is why the public authorities concentrated so intensely on this issue. In the opening decades of the seventeenth century, the majority of Italian states had provisions in place – based on sixteenth-century laws – which reiterated the requirement to receive state sanction before taking out loans and which permitted the state to evaluate the legality of existing debts. That was the situation in the Republic of Venice, the Papal States (Tabacchi 1993, 92; 2007, 276−83), Piedmont (Tabacchi 1993, 95), the Kingdom of Naples (Bulgarelli 2012, 68−9, 82, 109, 246) and the Republic of Genoa (Assereto 1985; Grendi 1993, 96−7; Tabacchi 1993, 109). Besides controlling the drawing down of new loans, other measures – the economic effects of which require indepth analysis – directly affected the credit market, artificially subduing interest rates. I have already referred to some sixteenth-century examples from the Republic of Venice, and while there is no specific research on this topic for that area yet, we currently know much more about the situation in the Spanish Lombardy (Faccini 1988, 113−16; Colombo and Dotti 2016, 164−6) and the Papal States (Tabacchi 2007, 278−9). In the Kingdom of Naples, the state did not intervene in matters of private credit, but after the 1647−1648 revolt, the interest rate paid by the communities to debt collectors was limited to 5 per cent; the rate had been set at 7 per cent during the first decade of the century, thanks to the Count of Lemos (Bulgarelli 2012, 69−71, 148−9; 2016). It is interesting to note that some time before the mid-century Neapolitan provisions (in 1612 to be exact), the Spanish authorities in Castile enacted a financial order that offered access to credit at a 7 per cent interest rate (Bulgarelli 2012, 201; 2016). Therefore, while states intervened in order to contain community debt through laws addressing the credit market, they also attempted to tackle a phenomenon that was both a cause and a result of debt, namely, falling incomes due to the loss of the commons. Interventions of this kind were not unique to the Republic of Venice, and they all had peculiar characteristics based on the economic and social environments of the states that enacted them. In Tuscany, for example, the activity of the Nine Conservators of the Jurisdiction and of the Domain of Florence focused not only on the compilation of cadastral surveys and the control of local balance sheets but also on the protection of the commons (Tabacchi 1993, 87); in the Kingdom of Naples, similar provisions were issued to limit the autonomy of the communities in the management and especially in the sale of common properties (Bulgarelli 2012, 36, 39, 68−71, 247−51, 262). It is interesting also to refer to the situation in France, described by Kamen, where in some

Venice and the European military structures  203 regions – specifically Burgundy – ‘for fiscal and political reasons the State intervened in favor of the peasantry. In 1667 the intendant, Bouchu, obtained a decree annulling all sales of communal property made “since the year 1620, whatever the cause or occasion”’ (Kamen 1968, 56; Roupnel 1922, 227). Equally interesting is the policy of Bavernschutz (protection of the peasants), enacted by the German princes to protect rural properties (De Vries 1976, 61). We have demonstrated that the interventions undertaken by public authorities in the various Italian states shared common traits with each other and with the provisions made by other European states. This does not mean that the picture was completely uniform; the bipartite model constructed by Tabacchi retains much of its validity. The Republic of Venice never created a specific institution – not even the Collegio dei X poi XX Savi del corpo del Senato in 1529 (Da Mosto 2005, 105) – appointed to the control of local finances, as happened in Piedmont, the Papal States and Tuscany. Similarly, there were few interventions with as systematic a nature, which was perhaps evident in the results, as in the Kingdom of Naples, which held the inquiry of the Count of Lemos (1614−1616), the inquiry of Camera della Sommaria’s (1624−1625) and the ‘Stati discussi’ of Carlo Tapia from the end of 1626 (Bulgarelli 2012, 2016). As we saw, however, this does not mean that Venetian authorities – or Lombard authorities – ignored the need to guarantee the resilience of local economic systems, given that they made normative interventions that allowed the Republic to maintain its policy of armed peace with bordering states and to support a multi-decades war on the sea against one of the greatest empires in the Early Modern world. This means that even if protective practices differed, the results did not; interventions could differ, even while pursuing a common goal, especially because of the different social settings of the subject territories. It is interesting to underline that where there was a society still strongly attached to feudal ties, state interventions had to be more trenchant – at least from a theoretical point of view – as was the case in the Kingdom of Naples and the Papal States. The aim of the state was to counter as far as possible the monopoly of the nobility over local economies. This approach also served to meet the demands of emerging social classes who proposed themselves as new agents of influence. This is how we should interpret the French phenomena reported by Kamen. But where these new voices were yet to be heard and the state still had to base its territorial control exclusively on bonds with aristocratic families, as in Sardinia, the feudal pact held strong and repudiated all interventions. In the Spanish Lombardy and the Republic of Venice this ‘passing of the baton’ from the nobility to wealthy rural families as territorial referents happened well before the seventeenth-century provisions on local finances. Where the state did not intervene directly in the management of community finances, then, it was because local élites could be relied on to represent the interests of the state and safeguard the functioning of fiscal and military

204  A republic among monarchies structures. Nonetheless, some problems linked to inefficient administration and debts were only addressed through normative interventions. Otherwise, it is not possible to explain why states operated such varied policies; if they were due simply to a desire to centralise and exert control through the creation of institutions appointed to oversee community balance sheets – such as existed in the Papal States but not in the Republic of Venice – we cannot explain why the same public authority, such as the Spanish monarchy, followed two different approaches in the Spanish Lombardy and in the Kingdom of Naples. Similarly, to link diverse solutions to different military and fiscal needs (equating increased needs with intensified centralisation, or control with the presence of specific institutions) would be misleading; examples from Spanish Lombardy-Kingdom of Naples and the Republic of Venice itself clearly tell us as much. The human and economic effort required of the Mainland peasants was probably no lower than that required of the inhabitants of the Neapolitan communities, but the manner of state intervention in the two cases was quite different. It might be more accurate to identify the respective seriousness of the problem of debt in the communities as the cause of this divergence rather than as a consequence of more or less trenchant interventions. Certainly, the ‘Venetian model’ was quite flexible, as we have seen; some provisions were issued only for circumscribed areas that were more seriously affected by debts, which was likely indicative of reduced uniformity in the diffusion of the phenomenon. In fact, earlier chapters revealed that not all areas of the Mainland Dominion were affected in the same way by increasing debts. The reactions were a function of the diverse military commitments required in the opening decades of the seventeenth century. On the contrary, more systematic programmes of intervention were undoubtedly symptomatic of a greater diffusion of problems linked to poor management of communities’ balance sheets, the loss of the commons and the increase in debt. Given the difficulty in quantifying the phenomenon of debt, and therefore in comparing the states considered, it is important to underline that this statement does not contradict the preceding findings on different social conditions as the main cause of different state actions; in all of the examples quoted above, public authorities actually intervened – first through the collection of information, then with real provisions – because of clear evidence of the flawed functioning of fiscal and military structures. Where the state’s response was tempered, it was because local notables guaranteed an acceptable level of tax collection and troop lodgement and supply. In these areas, practices enacted at the local level – even through a sort of ‘delegation’ from the state – anticipated state intervention in certain ways. These considerations again prompt the question that for a long time formed the basis of the debate on the birth and development of the so-called ‘modern state’: to what extent is this definition conditioned by the creation of a centralised system (through a bureaucratic structure) that gradually substituted local powers? Many Italian and non-Italian scholars dealt with this topic (Rotelli

Venice and the European military structures  205 and Schiera 1971; Fasano Guarini 1978; Chittolini, Molho and Schiera 1994; Greco and Verga 1996; Reinhard 2001), and rightly downplayed – sometimes quite decisively (Parrott 2012) – the idea of a public authority able to pursue a linear process of centralisation. We must acknowledge the status of local actors who still played a fundamental role in their territory in the seventeenth century; however, it is still interesting to discuss the problem, especially because it is not absolutely clear that forms of delegation of authority conflicted with ‘centralising’ practices. The examples provided in relation to the management of the military structure and economic and logistical problems show that the sundry approaches taken by European states were shaped by military, political, social and economic peculiarities. These practices were characterised by various levels of state delegation of competences, according to the economic and military needs in question and – just as importantly – the intervention capability of the state in its territory. Nevertheless, if ‘centralisation’ means the gradual undermining of local institutions ‘as defenders of local liberties’ and their establishment in the role of ‘intermediaries who facilitated royal government while defending the interests of provincial elites’ (Beik 2005, 205; Potter 1993), it is easy to assume that this kind of process was underway in almost all of the European states – and outside Europe – in the Early Modern period. The problem was to conciliate local interests with broader state needs, against the backdrop of a gradual increase in the supervision capability of the central authority. These categories require further specification: what do we mean by the formulae ‘local interests’ and ‘supervision capability’? What were the instruments used to achieve these goals? ‘Local interests’, from a strictly historiographic point of view, were the local powerbrokers, those who wielded political and economic control capability in a specific territory. The state, as we have seen, needed the help of these local actors (be they nobles, military entrepreneurs or rural notables) to fulfil military and fiscal tasks. This connection evolved through fluid one-to-one relationships. As the public authority could alter its fundamental traits in response to different stresses (revolts, changes in the equilibrium of the body-politic, economic trends), ‘local actors’ could likewise rise and fall. When this happened, the state usually tried to adapt its method of intervention so as to maintain good relations with the factions that were most relevant to its current purposes; but the opposite could also be true, that is, some ‘social’ changes were provoked by the state. In the Kingdom of Naples, feudatories managed tax collection on their lands, thanks to the intervention capability that the state awarded them, even if sometimes it contrasted their excessive power and exemptions (Bulgarelli 2012, 108; 2016). On the contrary, the evolution of the Ottoman state structure – from the timar system to contracts – in a certain way encouraged the formation of new social classes that were permitted more local management capability over burdens (Aboul-El-Haj 1991, 41−5, 64; Streusand 2011, 126−30). In the Republic of Venice and in the Spanish

206  A republic among monarchies Lombardy, there were similar processes, with the growth of a new social class enjoying a strong local intervention capability – in the previous chapters defined, in a near-Weberian way (but obviously with many differences from that model), as ‘rural bourgeoisie’. That class first obtained institutional recognition from the state and then achieved important favourable normative interventions, especially from a fiscal point of view, against the ‘old’ urban aristocracy. Therefore, it is clear that local actors could exhibit diverse characteristics and carry a range of influences based on the historical evolution of a specific territory; the nobility remained quite strong, especially in central-southern Italy and in the isles (the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the Kingdom of Naples, the Papal States), but in France and central-northern Europe more broadly, for example, while it maintained a reasonable level of power in the seventeenth century, it had to compete with the emerging ‘bourgeois’ social classes. Moreover, as the Venetian and Lombard cases show, the traditional fiscal and logistical role played by rural communities was paralleled by the increasing political weight of the rural élites within the state. Identifying local figures helps to explain why specific practices were enacted, but there were two major instruments through which state-locality mediation took place. They were not necessarily exclusive or favoured by local actors. These instruments, the concession of offices and the management of contracts, reflected the relevant logistical, military and fiscal needs at play. As we have seen, these two forms of collaboration between local élites and states were necessary to protect the functioning of military and fiscal structures and also helped to place the management of burdens and revenues in the hands of state referents throughout its territory; in Piedmont, offices were sold to nobility and the main military charges were assigned to the leading aristocratic families, not only to present them with economic opportunities but also to cement the bond between the crown and this social class (Stumpo 1986, 156−83; Barberis 1988, 44−51; De Consoli 1999, 91). The situation was similar in the Kingdom of Naples (Bulgarelli 2012, 92), and somewhat similar in France (Potter 1993, 179, 239; Collins 1988; Lynn 1997, 86−90, 598), Spain (Thompson 1976, 55−7), the Dutch Republic (’t Hart 1993, 187, 205−8; 2014, 46; Van Bavel 2010, 264−70) and Sweden; in Sweden, however, the crisis of the aristocracy gave the monarchy more room to manoeuver, and obliged the involvement of more levels of rural society (Glete 2002, 178, 196−9). In a certain way, the creation – or the recognition – of institutions that managed military and fiscal structures, such as the Venetian Corpi Territoriali or Lombard Contadi, can be seen as a method of bond creation through a sort of Weberian bureaucratic structure, although there was more to it than that. As anticipated, this form of involvement of rural élites, which can be defined as ‘political’, was paralleled by more ‘economic’ engagement, characterised by the semi-autonomous management of contracts at the local level. The state asked only efficiency. This chapter began by explaining

Venice and the European military structures  207 that the logistical structures of European states were predicated on contracts that varied according to economic range as well as earnings and varying military needs. In spite of this, a common phenomenon across Europe was that the supplying of troops, the building of fortresses and, more broadly, the provision of general services to armies remained the prerogative of local élites, completing from an economic point of view the management control obtained by granting access to offices. Even where the financial management of the army was firmly in the grip of the King or his representatives, from a practical point of view the main role was still played by local actors. The Lombard case is representative in this sense; while the veedores and contadores of the army were Spanish officials (Maffi 2002), communities managed supplies and lodgements. In a general sense, it would be accurate to summarise the situation in the following terms: Early Modern states developed an increasingly greater capability of imposition of burdens and of supervision of the functioning of fiscal and military structures, while the day-to-day practicalities of management remained unseen by the eyes of the state. Therefore, while it is clear that much responsibility was delegated to management, we must enhance our understanding – and the question of the ‘centralising’ tendency of the state surfaces again here – of how the state’s imposition and supervision competence developed. We have already cited many examples showing that all of Europe achieved a general improvement in the strategies, methods and laws followed in pursuit of this goal, both to improve the functioning of the military and fiscal structures and to protect the contributory capability of subjects. The development of ‘centralising’ practices was attendant and functional to the fulfilling of these needs; in this sense, normative interventions in the sixteenth century – and especially in the seventeenth century – aimed to rationalise the management of armies (in respect of contributions, lodgements and so on). The state’s renewed will to exert control attested to the increased frequency of military officers commissioned, civil offices conferred and inspectors appointed to oversee the functioning of the military and fiscal structures and to review community balance sheets. France is the best known case, with an increasing number of fiscal offices created throughout the seventeenth century, such as the Central Treasury and especially the Intendants (Wolfe 1972; Collins 1988), along with military offices such as Ordinary and Extraordinary Council of War, State Secretary of War and commissioners for the storehouses (Lynn 1997, 68, 75−80, 86−90, 111, 125). The Republic of Venice itself, as we saw in the opening chapters of this book, underwent a similar process, creating specific institutions to oversee fortress construction and artillery, for instance, as well as a host of bodies appointed to fiscal duties. Similarly, in the Spanish Lombardy, the Council for the Reformation of the Army was created in 1638 and the remplazo was also established in the seventeenth century (Rizzo 2001, 2008; Buono 2009). It was common in Europe for civil officials to garner increased power over the military during this era.

208  A republic among monarchies Moreover, we saw that interventions designed to protect the local economy became quite common, too, through the institution of specific commissions or simply through provisions for a more equitable distribution of burdens. The totality of these elements make clear what has been exposed previously, that is, the gradual increase of the will – and often the capability – of the state to exert control. It should not be surprising that these offices and institutions included members of the local élites (nobles and non-nobles alike) because state laws were enacted by these very persons. This does not mean that state intervention capability was lacking and failed; on the contrary, the fact that the legitimation of the management of the military and fiscal structures by local élites came exclusively from the state indicates an important change in the idea of the state itself. Delegation could be considered a form of centralisation; methods of centralisation – the development of bonds with nobles or rural bourgeoisie, or through officials and king magistrates – were dependent not only on the state’s intervention capability in a territory but also on the needs of the state and the resources available. Less direct management of tax collection or of the army could often be more effective in economic and logistical terms, as the changes in the Ottoman Empire between the sixteenth and seventeenth century attest; in other cases, public offices assigned to nobles – as in Sweden or France – could strengthen the presence of the state, while simultaneously legitimising the local powers.

Notes 1. ASVe, Senato, Dispacci, Dispacci dei Rettori, Brescia e Bresciano, bb. 15, 16, 17, 25. 2. It is interesting to observe that this strategy could be useful also to create bonds between a state and families from other states, such as in the case of the Vicenzan nobles in the Piedmontese court (Savio 2015). 3. Something similar was also established in France in the sixteenth century and reiterated with the étapes orders issued by Louis XIII in 1623 (Lynn 1997, 132).

Bibliography Aboul-El-Haj, Rifacat Cali. 1991. Formation of the modern state. The Ottoman Empire sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. New York: State University of New York Press. Ágoston, Gabor. 2001. Merces Prohibitae; The Anglo-Ottoman trade in war materials and the dependence theory. Oriente Moderno, XX (LXXXI) n.s. 1:177−92. Ágoston, Gabor. 2003. “A flexible empire: authority and its limits on the ottoman frontiers”. In Ottoman borderlands. Issues, personalities and political changes. Kemal H. Karpat and Robert W. Zens (eds.). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 15−32. Ágoston, Gabor. 2005. “Behind the Turkish war Machine: Gunpowder technology and war industry in the Ottoman Empire, 1450−1700”. In The heirs of Archimedes. Science and the art of war tjrough the Age of Enlightenment. Brett D. Steele and Tamera Dorland (eds.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 101−33.

Venice and the European military structures  209 Assereto, Giovanni. 1985. “Dall’Amministrazione Patrizia all’Amministrazione Moderna: Genova”. Archivio ISAP 3, L’amministrazione nella storia moderna I:95−159. Aström, Sven-Erik. 1973. “The Swedish economy and Sweden’s role as a great power 1632−1697”. In Sweden’s Age of Greatness, 1632−1718. Michael Roberts (ed.). New York: St. Martin’s Press. 58−101. Barbacetto, Stefano. 2008. “La Più Gelosa delle Pubbliche Regalie”: i “Beni Communali” della Repubblica Veneta tra Dominio della Signoria e Diritti delle Comunità, Secoli XV−XVIII. Venice: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti. Barberis, Walter. 1988. Le Armi del Principe. La Tradizione Militare Sabauda. Turin: Einaudi. Barkey, Karen. 1994. Bandits and bureaucrats. The Ottoman route to state centralization. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Beik, William. 2005. The absolutism of Louis XIV as social collaboration. Past & Present 188:195−224. Black, Jeremy. 2011. War in the world. A comparative history, 1450−1600. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Brunelli, Giampiero. 1995. Poteri e Privilegi. L’Istituzione degli Ordinamenti delle Milizie nello Stato Pontificio tra Cinque e Seicento. Cheiron 12 (23):105−29. Bulgarelli, Alessandra. 2012. La Finanza Locale Sotto Tutela: Regia Corte e Comunità nel Regno di Napoli (secolo XVII). Vol. I. Venice: Marsilio. Bulgarelli, Alessandra. 2016. “Far fronte alla crisi della finanza locale: riforme contabili e nuovo patto fiscale tra governo e comunità locali nel Regno di Napoli (XVII secolo)”. In Le crisi finanziarie. Gestione, implicazioni sociali e conseguenze nell’età preindustriale / The financial crises. Their management, their social implications and their consequences in pre-industrial times. Giampiero Nigro (ed.). Florence: Florence University Press. 77−108. Buono, Alessandro. 2009. Esercito, istituzioni, territorio: alloggiamenti militari e case herme nello Stato di Milano (sec. XVI e XVII). Florence: Firenze University Press. Buono, Alessandro. 2009b. Guerra, Élites Locali e Monarchia nella Lombardia del Seicento. Per un’Interpretazione in Chiave di Compromesso di Interessi. Società e Storia 123:3−30. Caferro, William. 2008. Warfare and economy in Renaissance Italy 1350−1450. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 39 (2):167−209. Calcagno, Paolo. 2010. ‘Per la Pubblica Quiete’. Corpi Armati e Ordine Pubblico nel Dominio della Repubblica di Genova (Secoli XVI−XVIII). Società e Storia 129:453−87. Calcagno, Paolo. 2011. “La puerta a la mar”. Il marchesato del Finale nel sistema imperiale spagnolo, 1571−1713. Rome: Viella. Caligaris, Giacomina. 1984. Vita e Lavoro in una Comunità Rurale Piemontese: Pancalieri nei Secc. XVII−XVIII. Cuneo: Società per gli studi storici, antropologici ed artistici della Provincia di Cuneo. Cattanei, Giuseppe. 2011. “Piacenza Città Fortezza”. In Storia Economica e Sociale di Piacenza e del suo Territorio. Vol. 2. Dai Borbone alla Vigilia dell'Unità d'Italia 1732−1861. Piacenza: Tip.Le.Co. Chittolini, Giorgio. 1996. Città, Comunità e Feudi negli Stati dell'Italia CentroSettentrionale (XIV−XVI Secolo). Milan: Unicopli.

210  A republic among monarchies Chittolini, Giorgio, Anthony Molho, and Pierangelo Schiera (ed.). 1994. Origini dello Stato. Processi di Formazione Statale in Italia fra Medioevo ed Età Moderna. Bologna: Il Mulino. Cipolla, Carlo M. 1965. Vele e Cannoni. Bologna: Il Mulino. Cipolla, Carlo M. 2002. Storia Economica dell’Europa Pre-Industriale. Bologna: Il Mulino (first published in 1974). Clark, Peter, ed. 1985. The European crisis of the 1590s. Essays in comparative history. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. Collins, James B. 1988. Fiscal limit of absolutism. Direct taxation in early seventeenth-century France. Berkeley: University of California Press. Colombo, Emanuele. 2008. Giochi di Luoghi. Il Territorio Lombardo nel Seicento. Milan: Franco Angeli. Colombo, Emanuele and Marco Dotti. 2016. “Usi del debito locale e cultura della rendita. Casi dalla Lombardia spagnola (17°−18° secoli)”. In Le crisi finanziarie. Gestione, implicazioni sociali e conseguenze nell’età preindustriale / The financial crises. Their management, their social implications and their consequences in pre-industrial times. Giampiero Nigro (ed.). Florence: Florence University Press. 153−77. Contamine, Philippe. 1976. La Vie Quotidienne pendant la Guerre de Cent Ans. France et Angleterre, XIV Siecle. Paris: Hachette. Corvisier, André. 1976. Armees et Societes en Europe de 1494 a 1789. Paris: Presses Univesitaires de France. Da Mosto, Andrea. 2005. L’Archivio di Stato di Venezia: Indice Generale, Storico, Descrittivo ed Analitico, Tomo 1: Archivi dell’Amministrazione Centrale della Repubblica Veneta e Archivi Notarili. Venice: Biblioteca dell’Archivio di Stato. Dalla Rosa, Enrico. Le Milizie del Seicento nello Stato di Milano. Milan: Vita e Pensiero. De Consoli, Claudio. 1999. Al Soldo del Duca. L’Amministrazione delle Armate Sabaude (1560−1630). Turin: Paravia. De Moor, Tine. 2008. The silent revolution: A new perspective on the emergence of commons, guilds, and other forms of corporate collective action in western Europe. International Review of Social History 53 (Suppl. 16):175−208. De Moor, Tine. 2009. Avoiding tragedies: A Flemish common and its commoners under the pressure of social and economic change during the eighteenth century. The Economic History Review 62 (1)(Feb.):1−22. De Vries, Jan. 1974. The Dutch rural economy in the Golden Age. 1500−1700. New Haven: Yale University Press. De Vries, Jan. 1976. Economy of Europe in an Age of Crisis (1600−1750). London: Cambridge University Press. De Vires, Jan, and Ad M. Van der Woude. 1997. The first modern economy: Success, failure, and perseverance of the Dutch economy, 1500−1815. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Di Tullio, Matteo. 2011. La Ricchezza delle Comunità. Guerra, Risorse, Cooperazione nella Geradadda del Cinquecento. Venice: Marsilio. Di Tullio, Matteo, Davide Maffi, and Mario Rizzo. 2016. “Il fardello della guerra. Governo della finanza pubblica e crisi finanziarie nello Stato di Milano fra centri e periferie (secc. XV−XVII)”. In Le crisi finanziarie. Gestione, implicazioni sociali e conseguenze nell’età preindustriale / The financial crises. Their

Venice and the European military structures  211 management, their social implications and their consequences in pre-industrial times. Giampiero Nigro (ed.). Florence: Florence University Press. 239−60. Faccini, Luigi. 1988. Lombardia fra ’600 e ’700: Riconversione Economica e Mutamenti Sociali. Milan: Franco Angeli. Fasano Guarini, Elena, ed. 1978. Potere e Società negli Stati Regionali del ’500 e ’600. Bologna: Il Mulino. Fioravanti, Maurizio, ed. 2002. Lo Stato Moderno in Europa. Istituzioni e Diritto. Bari: Laterza. Friedrichs, Christopher R. 1979. Urban society in an age of war: Nördlingen, 1580−1720. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Glete, Jan. 2002. War and state in Early Modern Europe. Spain, the Dutch Republic and Sweden as fiscal-military states, 1500v1660. London-New York: Routledge. Greco, Gaetano, and Marcello Verga. 1996. Storia degli Antichi Stati Italiani. Rome: Laterza. Grendi, Edoardo. 1993. Il Cervo e la Repubblica. Il Modello Ligure di Antico Regime. Turin: Einaudi. Gutmann, Myron P. 1980. War and rural life in the Early Modern Low Countries. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hanlon, Gregory. 2014. The hero of Italy. Odoardo Farnese, Duke of Parma, his soldiers, and his subjects in the Thirty Years’ War. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hardin, Garrettt. 1968. “The tragedy of the commons”. Science, New Series 162 (3859)(13 Dec.):1243−8. ’t Hart, Marjolein. 1993. The making of a bourgeois state. War, politics and finance during the Dutch revolt. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ’t Hart, Marjolein. 2014. The Dutch wars of independence. Warfare and commerce in the Netherlands 1570−1680: London: Routledge. Hobsbawm, Eric J. 1954. The general crisis of the European economy in the 17th century. Past & Present 5:33−53. Hoffman, Philip T. 1996. Growth in a traditional society. The French countryside, 1450−1815. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hurt, John J. 2002. Louis XIV and the parlements: The assertion of royal authority. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Inalcik, Halil. 1980. Military and fiscal transformation in the Ottoman Empire, 1600−1700. Archivium Ottomanicum 6:283−337. Israel, Jonathan. 1995. The Dutch Republic. Its rise, greatness, and fall. 1477−1806. Oxford: Clarendon Press. January Peter, and Michael Knapton. 2007. The demands made on Venetian Terraferma Society for Defence in the early seventeenth century. Ateneo Veneto CXCIV:25−115. Jørgensen, Johan. 1963. Denmark’s relations with Lübeck and Hamburg in the seventeenth century. The Scandinavian Economic History Review XI (2):73−109. Kamen, Henry. 1968. The economic and social consequences of the Thirty Years’ War. Past & Present 39:44−61. Karpat, Kemal H., and Robert W. Zens, eds. 2003. Ottoman borderlands. Issues, personalities and political changes. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Klein, Pieter W. 1966. The Trip family in the 17th century: A study of the behaviour of the entrepreneur on the Dutch staple market. Acta Historiae Neerlandica I:187−211.

212  A republic among monarchies Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. 1967. Histoire du Climat Depuis l’An Mil. Paris: Flammarion (Italian version: Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. 1982. Tempo di Festa, Tempo di Carestia. Storia del Clima dall’Anno Mille. Torino: Einaudi). Levi, Giovanni. 1985. Centro e Periferia di uno Stato Assoluto. Tre Saggi su Piemonte e Liguria in Età Moderna. Turin: Rosemberg & Sellier. Lynn, John A. 1993. How war fed war: The tax of violence and contributions during the Grand Siècle. The Journal of Modern History 65 (2):286−310. Lynn, John A. 1993b. “Food, funds and fortresses: Resource mobilization and positional warfare in the campaigns of Louis XIV”. In Feeding Mars. Logistics in western warfare from the Middle Ages to the present. John A. Lynn (ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press. 137−60. Lynn, John A. 1994. Recalculating French army growth during the Grand Siècle, 1610−1715. French Historical Studies 18 (4):881−906. Lynn, John A. 1997. Giant of the Grand Siécle. The French army, 1610−1715. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lynn, John A. 2003. Battle. A history of combat and culture. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Lucassen, Jan, and Erik J. Zürcher. 1998. Conscription as military labour: The historical context. International Review of Social History 43:405−19. Maffi, Davide. 1999. Alloggiamenti Militari e Comunità Locali: Pavia e il suo Contado nel ’600. Annali di Storia Pavese 27:325−38. Maffi, Davide. 2002. L’Amministrazione della Finanza Militare nella Lombardia Spagnola: i Veedores e i Contadores dell’Esercito (1536−1700). Storia Economica V:51−106. Maffi, Davide. 2005. Tra Asiento e Administraciòn. Carlo Perrone e il Contratto per il Pane di Munizione nello Stato di Milano (1605−1615). Storia Economica VIII (3):519−43. Mannori, Luca. 1994. Il Sovrano Tutore. Pluralismo Istituzionale e Accentramento Amministrativo nel Principato dei Medici, sec. XVI−XVIII. Milan: Giuffrè. Meuvret, Jean. 1946. Les Crises de Subsistence et la Démographie de la France d’Ancien Régime. Population (French Edition) 1 (4) (Oct.–Dec. 1946): 643−50. Meuvret, Jean. 1977. Le Problème des Subsistances à l’Époque Louis XIV. La Production des Céréales dans la France du XVII° et du XVIII° Siècle. Paris: Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Mocarelli, Luca. 2010. Le Diverse Vie della Mercatura: i Panzerini e gli Archetti nel Bresciano del XVIII Secolo. Proposte e Ricerche XXXII (65) (estate/ autunno):143−61. Mocarelli, Luca. 2013. Quando Manca il Pane. Origini e Cause della Scarsità delle Risorse Alimentari in Età Moderna e Contemporanea. Bologna: Il Mulino. Murphey, Rohads. 1999. Ottoman warfare 1500−1700. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Musso, Riccardo. 1986. Compagnie Scelte e Ordinarie nello Stato di Terraferma. Liguria LIII (1−2):11−15. Nef, John U. 1942. War and economic progress, 1540−1640. The Economic History Review 12 (1/2):13−38. Parker, Geoffrey. 1978. “War and economic change: The economic costs of the Dutch revolt”. In Domanda e Consumo; Livelli e Strutture (nei Secoli XII− XVIII). Atti della Sesta Settimana di Studio dell’Istituto Datini (27 aprile−3 maggio 1978). Vera Barbagli Bagnoli (ed.). Florence: Olschki. 429−43.

Venice and the European military structures  213 Parker, Geoffrey. 1984. The Thirty Years’ war: London, Boston, Melbourne and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Parker, Geoffrey. 2004. The army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 1567−1659. Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parker, Geoffrey. 2013. Global crisis. War, climate change and catastrophe in the seventeenth century. New Haven: Yale University Press. Parrott, David. 1985. The administration of the French army during the Ministry of Cardinal Richelieu. PhD thesis. Oxford University. Parrott, David. 2001. Richelieu’s army. War, government and society in France, 1624−1642. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parrott, David. 2012. The business of war. Military enterprise and military revolution in early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pedretti, Sara. 2006. “Ai Confini Occidentali dello Stato di Milano: l’Impiego delle Milizie Rurali nelle Guerre del Seicento”. In Alle frontiere della Lombardia. Politica, Guerra e Religione nell’Età Moderna. Claudio Donati (ed.). Milan: Franco Angeli. 177−200. Pezzolo, Luciano. 1997. “Nobiltà Militare e Potere nello Stato Veneziano fra Cinque e Seicento”. In I Farnese. Corti, Guerra e Nobiltà in Antico Regime. Antonella Bilotto, Piero Del Negro, Cesare Mozzarelli (eds.). Roma: Bulzoni. 397−419. Pitteri, Mauro. 1984. I Beni Comunali nella Terraferma Veneta. Annali Veneti, società, cultura, istituzioni 1 (1):133−8. Pitteri, Mauro. 1985. La Politica Veneziana dei Beni Comunali (1496−1797). Studi Veneziani 10:57−80. Pitteri, Mauro. 1988. L’Utilizzazione dei Beni Comunali della Podesteria di Treviso nel XVII Secolo. Studi Trevisani 7:9−33. Potter, David. 1993. War and government in the French provinces. Picardy 1470−1560. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Price, John L. 1994. Holland and the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century. The politics of particularism. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rabb, Theodore K. 1962. The effects of the Thirty Years’ War on the German economy. The Journal of Modern History 34 (1)(Mar.):40−51. Raggio, Osvaldo. 1990. Faide e Parentele. Lo Stato Genovese dalla Fontanabuona. Turin: Einaudi. Redlich, Fritz. 1959. Contributions in the Thirty Years’ War. The Economic History Review, New Series 12 (2):247−54. Redlich, Fritz. 1964. The German military enterpriser and his work force: A study in European economic and social history. Vol. I. Wiesbaden: F. Steiner. Reinhard, Wolfgang. 2001. Storia del Potere Politico in Europa. Bologna: Il Mulino. Ribot Garcia, Luis. 1989. “Milano, Piazza d’Armi della Monarchia Spagnola”. In Millain the Great». Milano nelle Brume del Seicento. Aldo De Maddalena (ed.). Milan: Cariplo. 349−63. Rizzo, Mario. 2001. Alloggiamenti Militari e Riforme Fiscali nella Lombardia Spagnola fra Cinque e Seicento. Milan: Unicopli. Rizzo, Mario. 2008. “‘La Maggiore et più Sentita Gravezza, che si Provi in Questo Stato’. Oneri Militari, Politica Fiscale e Corpi Contribuenti. La Lombardia Spagnola (1550−1620)”. In La Fiscalità nell’Economia Europea secc. XIII−XVIII. Simonetta Cavaciocchi (ed.). Florence: Firenze University Press. 881−95.

214  A republic among monarchies Roberts, Michael. 1967. Essays in Swedish history. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Rogers, Clifford J. 1995. The military revolution debate: Readings on the military transformation of Early Modern Europe. Boulder: Westview Press. Romano, Ruggero. 1962. Tra XVI e XVII Secolo. Una Crisi Economica: 1619−1622. Rivista Storica Italiana LXXIV (III):480−531. Romano, Ruggero. 1980. L’Europa tra Due Crisi. XIV e XVII Secolo. Turin: Einaudi. Rotelli, Claudio. 1968. La Finanza Locale Pontificia nel Cinquecento: il Caso di Imola. Studi Storici Year 9, No. 1(Jan.–Mar.):107−44. Rotelli, Ettore, and Pierangelo Schiera, eds. 1971. Lo Stato Moderno. 3 vv. Bologna: Il Mulino. Roupnel, Gaston. 1922. La ville et la campagne au XVIIe siècle. Étude sur les populations du pays dijonnais. Paris: Leroux. Savio, Andrea. 2015. Nobili relazioni. Militari e uomini d’affari vicentini nel ducato sabaudo (1559−1595). Società & Storia 149:493−521. Schiera, Pierangelo. 1994. “Legittimità, Disciplina, Istituzioni: Tre Presupposti per la Nascita dello Stato Moderno”. In Origini dello Stato. Processi di Formazione Statale in Italia fra Medioevo ed Età Moderna. Giorgio Chittolini, Anthony Molho, and Pierangelo Schiera (eds.). Bologna: Il Mulino. 17−48. Spufford, Peter. 1995. “Access to credit and capital in the commercial centres of Europe”. In A miracle mirrored. The Dutch Republic in European perspective. Karel Davids and Jan Lucassen (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 303−33. Stein, Mark L. 2007. Guarding the frontier. Ottoman border forts and garrisons in Europe. London-New York: Tauris Academic Studies. Streusand, Douglas E. 2011. Islamic gunpowder empires. Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals. Boulder: Westview Press. Stumpo, Enrico. 1979. Finanza e Stato Moderno nel Piemonte del Seicento. Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per l’Età Moderna e Contemporanea. Stumpo, Enrico. 1986. “Guerra ed Economia: Spese e Guadagni Militari nel Piemonte del Seicento”. Studi Storici A. 27 (2)(Apr.–Jun.):371−95. Tabacchi, Stefano. 1993. “Il Controllo sulle Finanze delle Comunità negli Antichi Stati Italiani”. Storia Amministrazione Costituzione, Annali ISAP 4:81−115. Tabacchi, Stefano. 2007. Il Buon Governo. Le Finanze Locali nello Stato della Chiesa (sec. XVI−XVIII). Rome: Viella. Tallett, Frank. 1992. War and society in Early-Modern Europe, 1495−1715. London and New York: Routledge. Thompson, I. A. A. 1976. War and government in Habsburg Spain. 1560−1620. London: The Athlone Press. Thompson, I. A. A. (ed.). 1992. War and society in Habsburg Spain. Selected Essays. Aldershot: Variorum. Tilly, Charles. 1990. Coercion, capital, and European states, AD 990−1992. Oxford: Blackwell. Van Bavel, Bas. 2010. Manors and markets: Economy and society in the Low Countries, 500−1600. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vertecchi, Giulia. 2013. “L’‘Eccessiva Abbondanza si Converte in Miserabil Penuria’: i Provvedimenti del Governo Veneziano nel XVIII Secolo”. In Quando Manca il Pane. Origini e Cause della Scarsità delle Risorse Alimentari in Età Moderna e Contemporanea. Luca Mocarelli (ed.). Bologna: Il Mulino. 237−52.

Venice and the European military structures  215 Vogel, Hans. 1997. “Arms production and exports in the Dutch Republic, 1600−1650”. In Exercise of arms. Warfare in the Netherlands (1568−1648). Marco Van der Hoeven (ed.). 197−210. Leiden-New York: Brill. White, Sam. 2011. The climate of rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wolfe, Martin. 1972. The fiscal system of Renaissance France. New Haven: Yale University Press. Wood, James B. 1984. “The impact of the wars of religion: A view of France in 1581”. The Sixteenth Century Journal 15 (2)(Summer):131−68. Wright, Nicholas. 1998. Knights and peasants: The Hundred Years War in the French countryside. Woodbridge: Boydell. Zannini, Andrea. 2010. Sempre più Agricola, Sempre più Regionale. L’Economia della Repubblica di Venezia da Agnadello al Lombardo Veneto (1509−1817). Ateneo Veneto CXCVII (terza serie 9/I):137−71. Zürcher, Erik-Jan. 2013. Fighting for a living: A comparative history of military labour 1500−2000. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Conclusions

So, how best to analyse the effects of the Venetian Republic’s military structure on its rural economy, and what does this analysis reveal? The historian must do more than merely establish a dichotomy between cost and income, profit and loss; this much is abundantly clear from our discussion of the effects of war on markets and on production – in both the primary and secondary sectors – in addition to the public economy of local communities and the state as a whole. This work has demonstrated that it is necessary to go beyond simple quantification of expenses and earnings and to characterise them, in order to identify the mechanisms underlying their emergence and functioning. This method of economic analysis can provide us with new perspective on the broader context of the Italian and international debate on the development of the so-called ‘modern state’. The management of the military structure – like that of the fiscal structure – represented one of the cornerstones around which early modern states were built. From a theoretical perspective, this system followed the Weberian principle of the ‘monopoly of violence’ (which has a marked symbolic value), but it also reflected the practical need to adapt state structures to contemporary needs; this meant reforming troop lodgement and the logistics of provision and supply, and reviewing the norms governing these systems. This phenomenon was European-wide and occurred outside Europe also (for example, in Asia), but it varied across time and space. In many states, including Venice, the confluence of certain military and geographical factors facilitated the raising of subject militias, which were usually supported by mercenary forces of varying scale and significance. Other European areas, involved in prolonged conflicts, sometimes over several decades, relied mainly on the enrolment of professional soldiers, native or foreign, in permanent armies. Differing patterns gave way to some sort of uniformity when it came to the construction of new fortresses and the purchase of harquebuses, muskets and artillery, all of which heaped pressure on state treasuries. One of the consequences of these changes – necessarily reduced here to just a few lines, but the real complexity of which is still debated by historians – was a significant general increase in state financial requirements, and an attendant gradual increase in the role played by direct taxation in state revenue. But

218  Conclusions the questions raised by the evolution of warfare in Europe do not start and finish here; the economic and human efforts required of subjects, especially rural dwellers, increased consistently, producing new normative standards and organisational needs. European states were confronted by manifold problems, nearly all of which had a pronounced economic dimension: how to manage the modernisation of fortresses; how to guarantee supplies and shelter to the transiting or quartered soldiers. These were common problems and, especially in the seventeenth century, states and communities attempted to solve them through practices sharing common traits, including the construction of ante-litteram barracks, the monetisation of contributions to troops, the introduction of rigorous standards for the lodgement of soldiers in transit, and the recourse to contracts for weapons purchasing, fortress construction and army provisioning and supply. Having outlined these broad contours, attention turned to the alternative application of these measures and their varying results, focusing primarily on the Republic of Venice. This kind of analysis had to consider several elements, foremost among them the various characterisations of the areas of the Mainland Dominion under review, particularly in relation to the development of the military structure. Diverse military needs resulted in state and local actors making unique interventions; in this sense, we can generalise that the period between the mid-sixteenth century and the end of the first decade of the seventeenth century was characterised by interventions concerned with the structuring of the military framework. The books of expenditure and the resolutions of rural communities clearly indicated as much, as did the contemporary documents accessed in the archives of Vicenza and Venice. First, the ‘cernide-system’ was gradually modified, with the institution of the cernide di rispetto in the 1570s and the establishment of an extensive regulatory framework in 1593. This was followed by the formation of border militias around the first decade of the seventeenth century – in the provinces of both Brescia and Vicenza, but also in the other provinces – involving almost all adult males who were able to take up weapons. Another major area of investment in the sixteenth century was fortress construction: Verona, Peschiera, Bergamo and Palmanova all saw major building work begun between the 1570s and the end of the century. These projects employed sappers sent by the rural communities and were the focal point of monetary contributions. Moreover, we saw that in the province of Brescia, unlike the province of Vicenza, the communities had to maintain smaller fortresses to defend their own villages. Finally, saltpetre production was the last military-related enterprise around which heavy investment centred in the sixteenth century; after an initial involvement of cities, the War of Cyprus brought storehouses and land cultivation infrastructure to rural communities, especially in the province of Brescia, where at the beginning of the seventeenth century there were more than 30 storehouses. The construction boom was at its height in both provinces between the 1570s and the 1580s, with rural communities involved to a

Conclusions  219 greater extent than was anticipated or understood by Venetian officials. In this sense, provincial Vicenza’s lesser involvement (relative to provincial Brescia’s), as suggested by the Provveditori alle Artiglierie, should be reconsidered in light of the sources collected in the communities; the sources, in fact, demonstrate the existence of storehouses of dubious legality, which official statistics did not record. The absence of war was a defining feature of the second half of the sixteenth century; if we exclude the sea war with the Turks – the human and economic effects of which should not be underestimated – the Republic of Venice enjoyed a period of relative peace. These conditions favoured the development and expansion of the military framework and meant that the problems attendant to waging war did not have to be confronted until the following century. In the seventeenth century, in fact, because of tensions with bordering states and outright war (the War of Gradisca, the Valtellina uprising, the War of the Mantuan Succession), the number of mercenary troops recruited by the Almost Serene increased considerably and the problems associated with lodgement and supply crystallised and could no longer be ignored. The involvement of the peasants also changed in some respects, as increased use of rural militia in battle (during the War of Gradisca, for example) and in fortresses had important and immediate economic and demographic consequences. Moreover, we should not forget that the seventeenth century was a century of crisis; while its extent has been exaggerated in some quarters, it is undeniable that in certain areas of the Mainland Dominion, rural communities suffered debilitating financial difficulties, characterised by the gradual accrual of debts and the loss of the commons. The consequent shrinking of community incomes seriously affected the resilience of communities at times of direct military commitment, as well as increases in direct taxation, especially during the War of Candia. This understanding of the evolution of expenditure is not enough to proceed with an analysis of local practices and state interventions, however; the economic impact that the structuring and application of the military framework had on local actors must also be factored into the equation. There are a number of angles to consider, chief among them the position of the public economy. To what extent did military expenditure affect local balance sheets and the phenomenon of debts? This fundamental question has been taken for granted for too long; war is automatically assumed to inflict economic costs and losses on those who have to manage it. It is all too easy to ascribe financial difficulties to military outlays. This is not an attempt to deny the weight of military costs on local balance sheets, especially if we include direct taxation in this category – and direct taxation can be legitimately considered a ‘military cost’, given that it was directly linked to the maintenance of fortresses and armies. Data collected from community books of expenditure, however, provided new insight into the role of military burdens in local balance sheets and the argument here is that their negative impact has been overstated. The Vicenzan case demonstrated that

220  Conclusions there was no increase in the costs borne by the rural communities in the seventeenth century and that there was actually a reduction in military expenses. This was partly due to the inclusion of some costs in the payments to the Corpo Territoriale, costs which are difficult to characterise. Nevertheless, the reduced expenditure can be explained by the fact that the illusory increase in expenditure displayed in balance sheets was a product of the strong inflationary phenomenon that affected the lira in the early decades of the seventeenth century. When we account for inflation, it seems that the crisis of the 1590s and the financial difficulties of the following century cannot, in fact, be attributed to increases in general expenditure and that military spending contracted dramatically with the lessening of burdens linked to equipping militias and building fortresses and saltpetre production infrastructure. To be clear, these assertions apply mainly to the piedmont area of the province of Vicenza; the scant sources relating to the plain communities did not provide conclusive evidence, but the available material hints at a partially different situation. As we have seen, the great challenge of the seventeenth century was the lodgement of troops, and transit troops particularly after the Paruta orders of 1621 moved the majority of quarters to the cities. In this regard, the geographical position of the piedmont area of Vicenza (like the mountain Quadra in the northern part of the Riviera of Salò), meant that it was only marginally affected by this phenomenon. Other communities in provincial Vicenza, however, were extensively involved, especially those located in the transit axis between Udine, Treviso, Padua, Verona and Brescia. Evidence from provincial Brescia shows that, unlike provincial Vicenza, in addition to parallel decreases in military expenditure, local balance sheets – particularly those of Bedizzole and communities in the Camonica Valley – suffered strong surges at times of intense military activity, including debts. In this case, the positive correlation between increased military expenditure and the crisis of local finances could be considered as strong, although such a simplification could be misleading. In fact, it was not only increasing military costs that led to debts, as the fragile and often critical condition of local finances (due to inefficient administration on the part of local élites) could affect the management of burdens in a very negative fashion. Military costs, therefore, were not the main cause of these financial phenomena, even if it is undeniable that they played a decisive role in compromising the economic resilience of some communities. This is readily apparent when we consider that of the two provinces measured, only Brescia – which was the more heavily involved of the two in seventeenth-century lodgements – experienced a strong increase in debts. Debt was nearly entirely absent from the communities of the northern part of the province of Vicenza and it was only an occasional problem – according to Venetian officials at least – in the plain communities. Conflicts, in particular, and the broad dynamics of management of the military structure could affect aspects of community life other than the

Conclusions  221 public economy, of course, and sometimes had important demographic consequences. Outside of deaths in battle, the effects of war and armies on population trends are difficult to quantify, but the research highlights a number of other areas in which military factors could affect demography, for example, by worsening famines or spreading plagues. In particular, the troop movements that characterised the opening decades of the seventeenth century could be considered one of the main causes of the spread of the bubonic plague, as illustrated by the case of the Vicenzan cernide. Equally relevant to demographic trends were migrations, the patterns of which were also subject to the whims of the military structure. The most pressing problem was that many fled to avoid conscription: this applied to both unskilled and skilled peasants, the latter group including the likes of the miners of the Camonica Valley, whose service was required on the battlefield in the years of the War of Candia. Another quandary of importance was presented by the migration of armaments workers attracted by work opportunities in bordering states (principally in the Duchy of Milan) at times when the threat or existence of war meant that the Venetian authorities halted exports. Ceasing exports prompts a brief digression on the negative effects of war on the market: the case of the production of weapons is emblematic, arms manufacturing being the sector most closely controlled by the state so that it could prevent supplies reaching potential enemies while meeting the requirements of its own forces. Similar principles apply to the commerce of iron, the raw material for supplying gunsmiths’ forges, but at the same time this material was subordinated to a cautious excise policy based on the supply needs and the financial needs of the state treasury and the consequences – including those of migration – of excessively restrictive interventions. In addition to the question of weapons, the effects of war on markets could sometimes be all-encompassing, as in the case of Friuli in 1616. A major finding of this research, however, is that the military sector was not unproductive in economic terms; payments from the state treasury, from Corpi Territoriali and from communities rarely crossed the borders of the Republic. Furthermore, money often remained within the territory of the community or province making the payment. This was in sharp contrast to some other scenarios – such as that of the Swedish soldiers who spent their income in German territories during the Thirty Years’ War. Given the high retention rate of payments within their zone of origin in the Republic, redistribution paths are fundamental to understanding the management of the military structure from an economic perspective, but this is all dependent on analysing the geography of the redistribution itself. Generally, we can say that payments were directed to the areas where military investments were concentrated; this means that in the sixteenth century, a proportion of payments was ring-fenced within local communities for the purposes of the rural militia or the saltpetre industry, but a disproportionate share reached the pockets of the gunsmiths who supplied pikes, harquebuses and muskets and the contractors who built new fortresses. In the

222  Conclusions seventeenth century, then, payments were mainly directed towards the areas where troops were lodged. With respect to the redistribution of military payments, there was no absolute symmetry between the areas affected by a military presence and the geographical provenance of the economic actors involved; merchants – of weapons, of raw materials for storehouses, of provisions for the soldiers – could be rural as much as urban, as could credit market lenders. The higher the payments, the greater the range of actors required to fulfil requests; in this regard, the role played by wealthy urban families of the Mainland Dominion was fundamental, even in renting houses for soldiers. These contracts could be quite significant and represented good opportunities for rural as well as urban merchants. Areas with a more pronounced manufacturing vocation experienced the same developments; the pattern was repeated in arms production in Brescia, cotto production in Malo and the textile sector in Schio. So, the general ‘sprinkler’ system of redistribution – involving militiamen, oarsmen, sappers and carters as well as unskilled workers, bricklayers and small merchants – operated in parallel with a wider market, producing substantial incomes. Seventeenth-century troop supply contracts published by the Corpi Territoriali bear this out, as does the management of lodgements in each community, albeit on a smaller scale. In this circumstance, too, many actors benefited from military payments, but it quickly becomes apparent that the few who made significant profits were nearly all members of the rural élite who monopolised local councils. These families, thanks to their decision-making roles and the practical availability of structures, goods and capitals, dominated troop supply services, each one according to his own commercial specialisation. This manner of payment redistribution was closely related to the methods of military cost management practiced in the two provinces: since the sixteenth century, Vicenza’s Corpo Territoriale had been central to coordinating the construction of saltpetre storehouses and the building of Palmanova, and had been the chief mediator between the communities and the credit market. It is not until the seventeenth century that we see the coordinated management of arms purchasing for the cernide – previously the duty of individual communities – and troop lodgement. The consequence was that the majority of the military burden was managed through a system of contracts that guaranteed more efficient functioning of the military structure and at the same time offered a predictable cost savings. In the province of Brescia, the rural institution rarely intervened and burdens were managed autonomously by each community and by local rural élite families. When the Corpo Territoriale interceded, it did so in a supervisory capacity or in order to settle conflicts, but it did not assume a planning or coordinating function, as it did in Vicenza. This situation highlights the dissimilar nature of the two rural representative institutions; the Brescian body was older but weaker and it operated in a more fragmented framework. The ability of the Brescian Corpo Territoriale to oppose the city

Conclusions  223 and the privileged areas, including the Valleys and the Riviera of Salò, was also less than its Vicenzan counterpart. The Corpo Territoriale of Vicenza for its part, was quite a compact block – apart from internal leadership squabbles – and involved all of the province’s communities, with the exception of the seven communities of the Asiago tableland. Management styles in the two provinces clearly differed, then, but we must also consider the respective characterisations of the military costs they had to contend with, especially in the seventeenth century. The fact that the management of military costs – and the general costs arising in the daily administration of communities – was based on a multifaceted system of refunds meant that ‘ordinary’ expenditure was well catered for by the mechanism, which prevented the accumulation of outstanding payments and the build-up of an excessive load for local finances. Onerous mediumto long-term commitments could be met through recourse to forms of credit that were functional and did not compromise local finances, thanks to the action of community and provincial institutions and the inflow of refunds from other communities and provinces. But in moments of military crisis – often manifested in the dramatic increases in the number of troops to be lodged – the emergency nature of the interventions required and costs to be met proved too much for the system of refunds and the Corpi Territoriali to bear, and communities were forced to improvise. So, it is no coincidence that rural Brescia, being more heavily frequented by troops in the seventeenth century, suffered the majority of the difficulties intrinsic in the refunds system, and that the role played by the Corpo Territoriale in coordinating the management of military burdens was more limited. Similarly, in the province of Vicenza, where the Corpo Territoriale played an important role in coordinating the management of the military structure from the sixteenth century and where the volume of troops to lodge also increased in the seventeenth century, each community had to develop or identify its own infrastructure for this purpose and basically had to deal with all the practicalities of lodgements. Fundamentally, the emergency character of military costs shaped the operation of the refund system, defined the role played by the Corpo Territoriali in its coordination, and necessitated improvisation on the part of the communities. The problems linked to the management of military costs and to the redistribution of payments gave cause for reflection on a final component that sheds light on the economic functioning of the military structure, namely, the practices enacted at the local and state levels in an attempt to overcome these problems. In summary, meeting specific needs (structuring of the cernide, construction of fortresses, lodging of troops, preparation of militiamen for battle and so on), led to specific consequences, some of them negative (debt, emigrations, market blockages), but some of them positive, at least for certain sections of society. Single militiaman and international merchants, for instance, both benefited from state and community military expenditure. We can schematise this process by overlapping military needs with state action and the

224  Conclusions resultant consequences for local actors; while this scheme might be slightly contrived and imperfect, it can help us to understand why specific practices were enacted by state and local institutions. Looking first at the response of local institutions, the management of military expenses initially involved attempts to discharge the burdens on other bodies, then to limit them by using various means and, finally, by seeking to somehow extract profit from the costs. Passing the burdens on to other parties was a pervasive practice in ancient regime societies, so rather than concentrating on that one issue, it is more interesting and revealing to analyse day-to-day forms of cost management that can highlight the vitality of local institutions and unravel the threads of their interaction with state bodies. The use of contracts and, more generally, the attempt – at least in the province of Vicenza – to achieve coordinated management of costs is one of the more interesting dynamics at play, but the use of local institutions, such as the Confraternities, as sources of money also tells us much about the intervention capability of the communities and Corpi Territoriali. Equally fascinating are the measures undertaken to secure local redistribution of payments, through their containment within community boundaries and through improved military investments; examples of such steps are numerous, from the renting out of the mulberry bushes around the militia review field in Schio to the renting out of buildings left idle by saltpetre producers at certain points. These practices were designed to protect the wealth of communities, and state institutions and officials had the same aim; in contrast to other Italian states, the Republic of Venice did not follow a programmatic series of interventions, but there was no paralysis of the state in this area. As was the case with other European states, Venice sanctioned a suite of normative interventions between the mid-point of the sixteenth century and the end of the seventeenth century. These provisions were implemented by officials across the Mainland Dominion and were concerned with fiscal and military burdens in the broadest sense, but they targeted three specific fields: the credit market, the good governance of communities and the management of troop lodgement. The Venetian institutions displayed a keen awareness of the close connection between debts and the loss of common land and how that played out in the credit market; many of the dictates issued in the seventeenth century reiterated the prohibition on communities taking out loans without the authorisation of the Senate, while the role played by the local General Councils in authorising the use of common properties as pawns was confirmed. There was also an artificial restriction of interest rates, a process that awaits a more indepth analysis by scholars. But what we can report at this point is that the state intervened here with the objective of maintaining the stability of local finances. The protection of the commons, given its role as a source of income for communities, also gave rise to specific provisions, which in addition to punishing illegal appropriations by wealthy peasants and giving general

Conclusions  225 councils sole authority to sell commonage, aimed (as in other states of the Italian peninsula) to monetise the properties. In fact, the purpose of the legislators was not to equalise distribution of resources but to implement payment for military burdens and taxes. Such normative interventions, leaving the commons aside, focused on the wider financial management of the communities and guarded against ‘unnecessary’ overheads (especially legal costs) by trying to control financial administration and submitting the communities’ balance sheets to the control of provincial Venetian officials. The closures of local councils were eventually halted, but only when the process was nearly complete, and by then the role played by rural élites in deciding the destiny of communities could not be challenged. Venice also offered compensation for problems emerging from the division of burdens within the Mainland Dominion, primarily through a revision of the fiscal system; this process inevitably involved the military structure, especially in the seventeenth century, when – as we have seen – the costs borne by communities, cities and Corpi Territoriali changed in nature, now relating mainly to the management of soldiers and lodgements. From this moment onward, the ordini di banca were reviewed; the Paruta orders were issued – introducing the cavalry lodgement tax and moving quarters to the cities; and a further series of policies attempted to make transit lodgements less onerous. These interventions were piecemeal and lacked the support of a dedicated institution comparable to the Neapolitan Sommaria, the Ten in Tuscany or the Papal Congregazione. However, the guiding principles were those followed in other Italian and European states: monetisation of contributions, protection (and at the same time intercession in the market) of the commons and regulation of the credit market. The interaction between local practices and state interventions, in turn more or less explicit results of the interaction of military needs and the economic effects of management of the military structure, is the crux of this book. How to explain these mechanisms? Without evoking the multiple theories on the formation of the ‘modern state’, it is absolutely vital to adopt an economic perspective to provide real insight into the enduring questions of centralisation and delegation. What emerges from the analysis of the Venetian case study presented in this text and from its comparison with other European cases is the need to rethink classifications that remain useful but do not necessarily represent binary couples or dichotomies. State action, especially in the Republic of Venice, modelled itself on local actors, was interconnected with their interests and was in constant dialogue with groups who were the final executors of its policies. Similarly, the practical as well as the economic management of the military structure by the communities shows the organisational autonomy enjoyed by rural authorities; this does not mean, however, that the state was not influential. The illusory opposition of state and local community conceals the component that facilitated the functioning of state mechanisms; the entire

226  Conclusions military structure (and this applies also to the fiscal structure and other areas) was based, as in the other ancient regime states, on the active involvement of local élites, in this case rural élites, in the state machine. This involvement should not be considered a demonstration of state authority, a sort of delegation of sovereignty conceded only as part of a meticulous strategy to construct links between the centre and peripheral areas; it was often an ‘obliged’ choice, the results of which were nonetheless functional for both protagonists, the state and the élites. This involvement, or more precisely collaboration, happened on many levels, through the recognition of specific administrative and institutional roles, up to the concession of military positions – just think about the value of offices in the rural militia, for instance, not with regard to the state but in terms of the dynamics within peasant society. More often than not, however, state-rural élite bonds developed through economic channels and the system had deep and firm roots. The nearly autonomous management powers enjoyed by subject élites over military burdens afforded them interesting investment opportunities, ranging from the inter-provincial to the community scale, and tracing power hierarchies and equilibria within the Mainland Dominion. The peculiarities – geographical, social and economic – of each area meant that while each province travelled in much the same direction, they took slightly different routes, in terms of both the management of the burdens and mediation between cities, countryside and separate jurisdictions. As we have seen, this process was replete with contrasts, some of which could be successfully resolved through mediation and some of which descended into violence, but all of which were characterised by a continuous search for equilibrium by all of the interested parties. Despite this level of complexity, it is possible to identify the principles guiding the interaction of all of the actors involved. Compromise between state and local élites, based on recognition of their respective roles, was the foundation of the system: the state required the communities to contribute to its military machine while the communities managed their own affairs autonomously. The relationship between the state and its subjects often went beyond mere compromise, however: the demands made by the state in creating an efficient military structure became important economic targets for local élites, representing a valid convergence of interests.