Overview

The articles in this volume position Venice and her economy during the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries in relation to the larger European and Mediterranean context. In so doing, they engage firmly in a debate with recent historiographical discussions about the European “peripheries,” the role of craft guilds and rural industries, the impact of fashion and demand-driven markets in the process of production specialization, and the emergence of regional markets and proto-industrial districts.

Paola Lanaro is full professor in economic history at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Her field of research is the economic and social history of Europe in the late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period, with particular reference to Italy and the Venetian State. Her books include I mercati della Republica veneta (Venice, 1999) and La pratica dello scambio: Sistemi di fieri, mercanti e città in Europa (1400-1700) (Venice, 2003).

412 pp
ISBN: 978-0-7727-2031-3 softcover
Published: 2006

Contents

Abbreviations

Weights and Measures

Maps 

Illustrations

Tables

1. Paola Lanaro, Introduction, "At the Centre of the Old World. Reinterpreting Venetian Economic History"

Part I: Venice
2. Andrea Mozzato, “The Production of Woolens in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Venice”
3. Marcello Della Valentina, “The Silk Industry in Venice: Guilds and Labour Relations in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries”
4. Francesco Trivellato, “Murano Glass, Continuity and Transformation (1400-1800)”
5. Walter Panciera, “The Industries of Venice in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries”

Part II: The Venetian Mainland
6. Edoardo Demo, “Wool and Silk: The Textile Urban Industry of the Venetian Mainland (15th-17th Centuries)”
7. Carlo Marco Belfanti, “Hosiery Manufacturing in the Venetian Republic (16th-18th Centuries)”
8. Giovanni Favero, “Old and New Ceramics: Manufacturers, Products, and Markets in the Venetian Republic in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries”
9. Luca Mocarelli, “Manufacturing Activity in Venetian Lombardy: Specialized Products and the Formation of a Regional Market (17th-18th Centuries)”
10. Francesca Vianello, “Rural Manufactures and Patterns of Economic Specialization: Cases From the Venetian Mainland”
11. Maurice Aymard, “Conclusions”

Andrea Caracausi, Glossary

Edoardo Demo, Index

Reviews

Canadian Journal of History, 42:3 (Winter 2007), pp. 497-499. Reviewed by Gayle K. Brunelle.

The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 38:4 (Spring 2008), pp. 607-608. Reviewed by Steven A. Epstein. (PDF)

American Historical Review, 113:1 (February 2008), pp. 276-278. Reviewed by Benjamin Arbel.

Seventeenth-Century News, 65:3-4 (Fall-Winter 2007), pp. 219-221. Reviewed by R. Burr. Litchfield.

Renaissance Quarterly, 60:2 (Summer 2007), pp. 219-521. Reviewed by James S. Grubb.

The Journal of Economic History, 67:4 (December 2007), pp. 1068-1069. Reviewed by Yadira Gonzalez de Lara.