The long and varied relationship of Andrea Mora and Anzola Davide: concubinage, marriage and the authorities in the early modern Veneto.

In 1565, Anzola Davide, a pretty young woman from the village of Lovadina, in the Trevisan countryside, went to live with a moderately successful merchant named Andrea Mora. (1) A sexual relationship developed between them rather quickly; Anzola gave birth to their first child, a son, in 1567 or '68. The couple and their children lived together, seemingly quite happily, for over ten years. In the plague year 1577, Andrea decided to marry, and chose for his wife not his concubine but rather Cattarina di Gratiani, a woman of some means from the nearby village of Vascon. (2) That marriage was not successful; Andrea left Cattarina and moved back in with Anzola almost immediately. With that move and its incumbent decision to abandon his marriage and reinvigorate his relationship with Anzola, Andrea created a situation that would anger the di Gratiani family and result in more than fifteen years of court proceedings.

In 1580 the di Gratiani involved the authorities. They first brought the matter to the attention of the Bishop of Treviso; his involvement in Andrea and Anzola's life would continue until 1590. By that year, the di Gratiani had exhausted the resources of the Trevisan ecclesiastical authorities without garnering the desired result. Also by 1590, Andrea and Anzola had moved to Venice, and it was to that city that the di Gratiani took their offensive to the Holy Office. And it is there that the archival record begins. The Holy Office recorded not only their own investigation but some of the crucial moments in the preceding investigations as well.

An investigation of the relationship between Andrea Mora, Anzola Davide and Cattarina di Gratiani is useful for a number of reasons. The tale the archival record tells is compelling. It details Andrea's twenty-five year concubinal relationship with Anzola and the brief and unhappy marriage to Cattarina that rendered his pairing with Anzola adulterous. This case is simultaneously quotidian and unique. It is unique in that it is the only case of secular concubinage dealt with by the Holy Office of Venice and details a relatively rigorous prosecution and fairly serious punishment that is exceptional. But despite this unique prosecution, this case relates a common tale. Many couples lived in concubinal relationships in Venice and its environs just like Andrea and Anzola, and most were left alone to carry on their relationships. (3) This is, largely, a story of conflicting desires: Andrea wanted to make a good marriage and maintain an affective relationship with another woman. Unfortunately for Andrea, this did not mesh with the desires of his wife and her family and he found himself in protracted legal battles and criminal investigations. Andrea's actions clearly demonstrate that he believed he could marry and keep a concubine; the actions of his marital kin indicate that they did not agree. This misunderstanding provides a case study that tells us a good deal about the concubinal union in the Venetian Republic. As we trace Andrea's navigation of secular and ecclesiastical authorities, family politics and the mores of the village and the city over the course of fifteen-odd years, we see that there were limits, recognized but not clearly articulated, to the community's tolerance. This study will explore these boundaries while defining concubinage, discussing the union's relationship with secular and ecclesiastical law and their authoritative bodies, and placing this particular relationship in the broader Venetian context.

Very little work has been done on concubinage in Europe, and much of what has been done focuses on elite concubinage--that is, the relationship between upper-class men and lower-class women. Many elites were unable to contact marriages that met their affective needs and consequently developed concubinal unions in their stead. (4) In these studies it becomes clear that concubinage was intricately linked with marriage and that any study of the union must be discussed in dialogue with the institution of marriage. The current study contributes to the discussion on elite concubinage. Though Andrea Mora was a man of limited means, he was still of considerably higher status than his concubine.

In addition, this study contributes to our understanding of marriage. Two distinct models of marriage have been identified by scholars. (5) The first, associated with Mediterranean Europe, is characterized by early marriage for women. These women, often in their early teens, were paired by their families with men at least a decade older. The bride relocated to the family home of her groom, and became part of his extended kin group. The late or modern marriage model, associated with northern Europe, on the other hand, is characterized by many opposing factors. In the modern marriage model the partners married somewhat later and were of relatively similar ages, chose their partners themselves, and left their natal homes to form independent, though related, nuclear families. Many variations existed, and both models of marriage were practiced throughout Europe. In addition, class differences determined marriage patterns to some degree. Among elites, early marriage arranged by families in order to further family interests were more common. Pairings among the lower classes affected few other people, and consequently were subject to fewer strictures; the poor could marry pretty much whomever they wanted. I argue that this marriage model requires yet more rethinking. Some concubinal unions, like the one detailed in this article, resembled marriages is almost every way. While most elite families practiced early, extended kin group marriages, their sons were also free to form concubinal unions that clearly resembled modern marriage. While this reinforces the idea that the Mediterranean elite practiced early, extended kin group marriages, it also subverts that paradigm. Though Andrea's relationship with Anzola was not a marriage, it resembled a marriage. By blurring the lines between legitimate and illegitimate marriages, making them as indistinct as they would have been for Andrea and Anzola's counterparts, we find both marriage models in evidence on the early modern Mediterrane.

Concubinage

Clergy and lay people alike debated and discussed clerical concubinage, but rarely gave lay concubinage the same treatment. (6) Ecclesiastical authorities addressed lay concubinage at the Council of Trent, but did not define the union, reflecting the rather slippery nature of the concubinal union. (7) Or perhaps they felt the relationship, in all its forms, was too common and easily recognized to require a firm definition even as they were condemning it. A contemporary of Andrea and Anzola, the Paduan humanist writer Sperone Speroni, described the union simply as a steady relationship between a man and woman who were not united in marriage to one another. (8) Speroni provides a good starting point, though a few other implied characteristics ought to be fleshed out for a modern audience. In order to be considered concubinal, and distinguishable from other relationships, a concubinal relationship was sexual in nature, demonstrated some relative stability, and involved some financial component. In addition, most, but not all, concubinal relationships were exclusive and many couples cohabitated.

Determining an average duration for these unions has proven quite difficult. Even in the most complete runs of documentation, like the Matrimoni Segreti, few couples who were clearly concubinaries relate the exact length of their relationships. (9) When Zuanne Contarini contracted a secret marriage with his concubine Angela, witnesses testified that he had lived with her for twenty-five years, but this sort of precision is very rare. (10) Indeed, even with this testimony, it is not clear that they were together for precisely twenty-five years; that is long enough, and exact enough, to elicit some suspicion. They could very likely have lived together for twenty-three or twenty-seven years. Francesco Fantini's supplication demonstrates much more common language when a witness testifies that while he tried to leave his concubine Anzola many times, he was unable to abandon her and consequently lived with her "for many years." (11) In other cases there are some clues that allow for supposition. For instance, Antonio Marini sought a secret marriage with his concubine Lucretia on the grounds that everyone in their neighborhood believed their twenty-three year old son to be legitimate and he did not want to disabuse them of this notion. (12) It is not unreasonable to suppose that the couple had lived together for at least that amount of time. Overall, although it is impossible to determine an average duration, it is clear that many concubinal relationships lasted for quite some time.

However, not all relationships had the staying power of the one shared by Andrea and Anzola. Indeed, many were terminated rather quickly. The secret marriage files contain the records of several couples who chose to marry rather quickly, like Horatio Milani and his concubine Margarita. They lived together only three years before marrying secretly. (13) These relationships, with their happy endings, tell only part of the story. Criminal records relate tales of relationships with much less pleasant conclusions. In 1589 Giovanni Carnia denounced his concubine Maria before the Holy Office for love magic. They had lived together only three months before she tried to bind him to her by placing something suspicious in his lasagna. (14) The Holy Office records contain more than a few investigations of witchcraft that resulted from the efforts of an unhappily dispensed concubine to regain the attention of her lover.

Moreover, some varieties of the concubinal relationship were clearly not intended to last very long at all. When Venetian nobility chose to support a woman exclusively, that relationship was usually orchestrated as a temporary measure, providing sexual satisfaction or status for the man during his early adult years. The concubine would then be put aside, either by completely ceasing all relations or by relegating the concubinage to a position inferior to his proper, family-approved marriage to an acceptable Venetian woman. This was the case when Daniele Dolfin developed an exclusive relationship with the courtesan Isabella Cigala. (15) After two years he paid for a dowry and secured a marriage for her. (16) And finally, among the lower classes whose lives were extremely transitory, the choice to cohabit exclusively in an attempt to share the financial burden of their precarious lives might have involved little thought about the ultimate vagaries of old age.

Concubinal couples had a financial arrangement of some sort. Among lower-class couples, both partners often worked in some capacity to support their family group. Their relationship allowed them a more comfortable life. Lucieta di Natali and Andrea Zuffando, for instance, were simple day laborers who lived together to lessen their desperation for five years. (17) When he left she sought supernatural help to bring him back, citing financial need in her defense. On the other end of the spectrum, wealthier Venetians set their concubines up in their own apartments, and supported them fully. It is this continual, and individual, support that separated many a concubine from a courtesan. Often this support continued after the patron's death; many Venetian wills contain provisions for long-term lovers and illegitimate children. In some cases, the bequests were considerable, as was the case when Francesca Pallazzo gained 1000 ducats upon the death of her noble lover, Marco Barbarigo. (18) Others were less substantial: one Madonna Isabetta received fifty ducats and some sheets when her patron died. (19) Cohabitation was quite common. In the majority of the cases examined the couple lived together in a stable, relatively exclusive sexual relationship without the benefit of marriage. And some couples, like Andrea and Anzola, experienced both living arrangements in the course of the relationship. Anzola lived with him for many years; when that became problematic she moved into another apartment provided by Andrea.

Concubinal relationships were also characterized by a level of exclusivity. (20) In many relationships, both partners were sexually involved only with each other. It was also common for wealthier men to have a wife and a concubine; in those cases the concubine was expected to maintain an exclusive relationship only with her patron. Certainly Anzola followed this model. Throughout the entirety of their relationship--even when Andrea married another woman--she seems to have had no other partner. Andrea also demonstrates the nuanced nature of personal relationships. Clearly he was not exclusively involved with Anzola; he married another woman. But Andrea's marriage to Cattarina did not last long and did not provide any children; it is likely that their sexual relationship was inconsequential. But more importantly, Anzola was clearly his primary affective object choice throughout his life.

And finally, the crux of the matter is that these couples were not married according to the conditions set out in the Council of Trent. The Tametsi decree, promulgated in 1563 to publicize some of the conclusions of Trent, set very clear requirements for marriage. In order to contract a marriage that would have been considered legitimate, banns had to be published in advance, vows had to be exchanged before a priest and other witnesses, a mass had to be said in celebration, and the marriage had to be recorded in the couple's parish register. By the time Andrea brought Anzola into his home, the conditions of Trent were well established in Venice. (21) Even relationships that might have been considered marital a century earlier were no longer thought of as such. Most importantly, the individuals in the concubinal relationship did not consider themselves married. Even if they had claimed that status before their community or the authorities, they knew that they had not met the requirements set out by Trent and expected by the Venetian authorities. (22)

The di Gratiani and the Beneficial Marriage

Andrea's troubles began when he married into the di Gratiani family in 1577. When later asked why he made that choice, Andrea replied simply that he did not want a villana. Literally translated as someone of low condition from the countryside, the word carried negative class and status connotations. And although Cattarina was not terribly well off, she had considerably higher status and financial viability than Anzola. She was from a minor branch of the Gratiani, an important noble family in Treviso. She brought a dowry with her, though it could not have been a large one as she accused Andrea of having run through it in four months. As for power, her family was responsible for most of the pressure applied to the concubinal couple after Cattarina moved back home. While they were not, ultimately, successful, the mere ability to wield this sort of influence suggests people of some rank. Anzola, on the other hand, could provide no dowry. Nor, clearly, did she have any family that could pressure Andrea into a marriage. He certainly looked at marriage to Cattarina as a political and economic opportunity Anzola could not provide.

But Cattarina and Andrea's marriage was not a happy one. Within a month Andrea began to visit Anzola again. Thus began what would be approximately three years of negotiation. Four months after their nuptials, Catterina refused Andrea entry into their marital home. By this time Andrea was living full time in the house he had provided for Anzola and his son when he married. Catterina was steadfast. She maintained her residence in Lovadina and denied Andrea access to his possessions for another twenty-four months. Perhaps the fruitless two-year stalemate convinced Catterina that Andrea would not return to her even for his possessions. Anzola gave birth to at least one child in this period; that might have diminished Catterina's resolve. Or maybe Cattarina was simply lonely and longed for her family. After two years she returned to Vascon to live with her mother and asked the bishop of Treviso for a separation of bed and board. (23) Andrea and Anzola enjoyed a brief period of domestic peace while the Trevisan officials considered the separation and Cattarina's family considered their options.

When the bishop in Treviso refused to grant the separation--appropriately, as there were no grounds--Cattarina's family went on the offensive. (24) They began to put pressure on Andrea to end his adulterous relationship with Anzola; ostensibly they assumed he would return to Cattarina after he left Anzola. In 1580 Cattarina's brother Antonio brought the situation to the attention of the bishop of Treviso. The bishop then promptly ordered the concubinal couple to separate under penalty of excommunication. Little paperwork survives from 1580-82, and the extant bits lack detail, so it is difficult to surmise precisely what the bishop ordered or how the involved parties responded. The threat was sufficient, however, to finally spur Andrea into action.

By April, 1582 Andrea and Anzola were in Venice, probably attempting to put some space between them and the di Gratiani. This move to the metropole seems to have been their first, though they would continue to keep a residence there from this time forward. Upon arrival in Venice, Andrea procured a confessor immediately--correspondence reveals that he went to a friar at the convent of San Francesco della Vigna in Castello--and began to get his ducks in a row, spiritually speaking. In the extant correspondence, Andrea's confessor assured the bishop that Andrea had spoken to him and was confessing and taking communion. This must have satisfied the bishop of Treviso because the documentary record lapses. Indeed, it seems the couple lived in relative peace until 1588. But in that year the couple returned to Lovadina and the watchful eye of the bishop of Treviso and, certainly, the di Gratiani. On the 16th of September of that year they were officially excommunicated. (25)

It is likely that Andrea responded primarily with surprise. Nothing about his previous actions indicated that he believed the situation would ever become so troublesome. He had chosen to return to Lovadina and live with his concubine in full view of his in-laws, the bishop and the entire community. But when the sentence came down, he acted immediately. He left the tiny village of Lovadina again, heading for the relative anonymity of Venice. Once there he attempted to ameliorate his position. He went to San Geremia and confessed there to a priest who was willing to verify, in writing, that Andrea had both cleared his conscience and moved his concubine out of his house. Both the priest and Andrea sent missives to Treviso on 9 June, 1589, indicating that the relationship between Andrea and Anzola was over and that Andrea should be welcomed back into the fold. The bishop absolved Andrea; the incident was over.

Nothing about the bishop's decision to absolve Andrea was terribly aberrant. Excommunication was a word thrown around with great frequency. Most longer Sant'Uffizio sentences, for instance, threatened excommunication. The sentenced person must then confess, express genuine contrition then perform some act of penance. When completed, the Christian was allowed back into the fold. Certainly Andrea expected this treatment. This is not to say that excommunication was taken lightly. As the testimony of Andrea and Anzola's friends demonstrate, excommunication was serious business if left unmanaged. But the mere threat of excommunication was not all that far out of the range of normal experience.

The Authorities

Andrea Mora ran afoul of several authoritative bodies in relation to his union with Anzola Davide. The bishop of Treviso, the Venetian Holy Office and the Inquisition of Treviso were all mentioned in the Sant'Uffizio case. But rarely was a case pursued with decisiveness or ferocity. The two bodies best represented in the documentary record, the Venetian Inquisition and the Trevisan bishopric, were by no means zealous in their prosecution of Andrea and Anzola. For several years, the bishop of Treviso only threatened excommunication. When pushed by the di Gratiani, and after Andrea ignored his warnings for close to a decade, the bishop excommunicated Andrea and Anzola, but then quickly offered absolution when the couple offered some proof of their contrition. And despite a fairly thorough investigation, the Holy Office of Venice did even less than the Trevisan authorities. Both bodies accepted, or claimed to accept, Andrea's assertions that he had put his concubine aside and moved on. Nor does the case contain extant documentation, or even the briefest mention, of any proceedings against Andrea and Anzola before his marriage to Cattarina. It seems they escaped notice completely.

This is not surprising. There existed no legislation whatsoever that directly condemned, nor even regulated, concubinage in the Veneto at the time. (26) Consequently, concubinal unions could be ignored when the relationship functioned within prescribed boundaries. This helps to explain why the Holy Office dealt with just this one case of lay concubinage, and more broadly, why concubinage left only scarce traces in the documentary record. Indeed, the overwhelming percentage of concubinal couples must have lived their entire lives without running afoul of the law, at least as a result of their relationship. But if the relationship caused trouble or perhaps threatened the honor or financial well-being of family members, there were grounds for dealing with the offending couple.

While there were no laws discussing in particular the concubinal relationship, there were some laws and a judicial tradition in place to deal with it should it become troublesome. (27) Concubinage could resemble bigamy, the crime of being married to two people at once. This was a greater problem before the Tametsi decree, when the exchange of consent was still sufficient to create a marriage and concubinal unions could more reasonably resemble marriage. By the time Andrea and Anzola were carrying out their affair, concubinal unions could not legally be considered as marriages, though they might seem bigamous to some. (28) Andrea and Anzola's relationship was among those concubinal relationships that could also be prosecuted as adulterio, or adultery, as one of the partners was married. (29) Had Anzola had some family support and the desire to pursue her claim, this relationship could have been treated by the Venetian authorities as the crime of deflorazione. At the end of the sixteenth century, this crime was dealt with by the Forty and generally referred to fornication with a very young girl. (30) But increasingly often, this crime--also prosecuted as seduzione--was handled by the Esecutori Contro la Bestemmia and involved a broken promise of marriage. (31) In most of these cases a man promised to marry a woman in order to convince her to have sex with him. If he reneged on his promise, he could be held responsible for the damage to her honor and future marriage prospects. And finally, all concubinal unions were, by definition, fornication, which was, like the rest of these situations, both a sin and a crime. (32)

In practice, many of these prescriptions were extremely flexible. In theory, fornication was prohibited, yet noblemen who visited Venice's famed cortigiane oneste did so without stigma. They could also visit the less glamorous and considerably less celebrated prostitutes working near the Rialto without censure. At home these noblemen had regular access to unmarried women around them; they could likely even get away with intercourse even with the married ones. Among common Venetians, simple fornication rarely got the attention of the secular authorities as long as it fell within acceptable bounds. (33) Further, in some cases, fornication could have been a regular and sanctioned step to marriage. Certainly more than a few young lovers used fornication to put some weight on their parents and force them to accept a socially undesirable marriage. There were no fornication squads policing the city's beds in search of unsanctioned sexual behavior. If that sexual behavior became troublesome, if perhaps a father took offense at his daughter's lost honor or an abandoned lover was left with a child she could not support, and the father or lover were willing to bring their problem to a court, prosecution could follow. But should a day laborer from the Arsenale have consensual sex with a coworker in the hopes that they might share living costs in the future, likely no one would take umbrage and bring the matter to the authorities.

The immense flexibility that Venetians and their secular authorities had when dealing with concubinage, sex crime and domestic disputes is notable. The legal situation permitted them to manage the concubinal union with efficiency and practicality. Because there was no legislation prohibiting concubinage, the city's courts did not need to prosecute the crime when it came to their attention. Indeed, Venetian secular governing bodies, supported by and following the opinions of families and individuals, generally seemed to believe that stable concubinal relationships were not very dangerous. They tolerated and occasionally privileged the concubinal union. In many criminal cases, the duration of the cohabitation (and the resulting offspring) added weight to the abandoned woman's complaint. Likewise in civil cases, the children of concubinal couples often found that their parents' long-term, relatively stable relationship actually strengthened their position; it was easier for these children to inherit their parents' goods in regards to legitimization and inheritance issues. (34) However, when these relationships caused problems for the parties involved, the wronged parties could lodge their grievances with the secular authorities. Then the concubinal unions could be regulated through the prosecution of other, more socially destabilizing, sex crimes. Venetian secular authorities could, and often would, discipline the union when it transgressed socially acceptable bounds.

But when Andrea and Anzola were brought before the authorities, they received treatment best described as lax. Indeed, when the couple was excommunicated--receiving what was, theoretically, an uncomfortably stiff penalty--the move lacked vigor. It is unclear just how strenuously the excommunication was implemented. Andrea was able to confess and take communion--precisely what the excommunication was supposed to bar. Andrea's Venetian confessor argued that the Andrea should be reinstated because he had abandoned his concubine, but nothing suggests that Andrea had actually moved Anzola out. This cannot be written off exclusively to distance and poor communication between different church bodies. Andrea's confessor was aware of the excommunication and wrote to the bishop of Treviso to explain that he had given Andrea communion because he had abandoned his concubine. Rather, it demonstrates that this concubinal union was not a source of great anxiety for any of the authoritative bodies, secular or ecclesiastical, who came upon it.

After the Excommunication

For a brief moment, the benefit of absolution emboldened Andrea anew. Within the month he brought Anzola back into his home in Venice and then with him to the Friuli. While in that remote province she gave birth to another daughter, Camilla. Unfortunately, even the Friuli was not far enough for the couple to escape the gaze of Cattarina's family, and through them, the bishop of Treviso. Cattarina's brother went back to the bishop and denounced Andrea again. In September of 1589 the bishop of Treviso sent Andrea and Anzola another order of excommunication. At this point it is likely that the severity of his situation finally hit Andrea in full. He realized that his wife's family did not intend to let the matter drop, that the bishop of Treviso would not look the other way, that even the Friuli was not distant enough to protect him.

Andrea took immediate and decisive action. He moved Anzola out again and went to the bishop of Aquilea to confess and take communion. One letter from a friar in San Giobbe in Venice dated 27 December, 1590 also indicates that he had confessed and communicated and suggested that the ban of excommunication should be lifted. The record does not contain any response from the Bishop of Treviso. But it does seem that Andrea had grown wiser. He and Anzola returned to Venice, but he put her up in another apartment near his--both in the neighborhood of San Geremia near the convent of San Giobbe--and maintained all appearances of contrition. He continued to speak to her and occasionally have meals with her, but this he attributed to a desire to spend time with his children. He very publicly left her house in the evening and generally refrained from providing any fodder for the neighborhood gossip mill. When the oppressive heat of summer descended on the city Andrea, Anzola and their children fled to the country, as was the custom. They maintained separate residences there as well, demonstrating their separation under the scrutiny of village life. By October Venice was inhabitable again and they returned, but again to their separate cassette. Andrea thought he had struck a balance, maintaining a relationship with both his children and his long-term mistress but not overstepping the boundaries drawn by the ecclesiastical authorities. But this did not satisfy Cattarina's family.

In December of 1590 the di Gratiani went back to the Trevisan bishop and complained that Andrea still had contact with Anzola. Andrea had done his part, however, and the bishop was likely tired of dealing with it. He took no action. Cattarina's kin were nothing if not determined, however; they redoubled their efforts in the metropole. The family could have been justifiably dissatisfied with the results provided by their local ecclesiastical officials, as the Trevisan bishop had eventually dropped the case and two separate Venetian priests had taken Andrea's confession and supported him as he sought to have the ban of excommunication lifted. Thus, they took their case to the Holy Office on March 1, 1591. The move to Venice required a change of tactics for the di Gratiani. Because their clan were Trevisan nobility, though a minor and inconsequential branch, they had expected and received some deference from the Trevisan officials. They could expect no such thing in Venice. They wisely opted to use a Venetian contact for the next offensive. Cattarina's sister was married to a Venetian resident named Zuan Amauser, called the German. The two lived in the parish of San Boldu in a home owned by Marc' Antonio Grimani; it was the noble Grimani who first contacted the Venetian authorities.

The Holy Office and the Catholic Reformation

The Holy Office of Venice had more and better resources than the bishop of Treviso. (35) They used the Venetian secular dungeons and torture chambers. They could imprison the accused and expected that when summoned, witnesses would quickly appear. The di Gratiani might have believed that they would finally get some satisfaction. The Holy Office was an interesting choice for the di Gratiani. In its earliest days the Inquisition was concerned with heresy. The revival of the organization was primarily intended to combat Protestant errors, and was particularly important in Venice, a region that was sometimes viewed as a possible gateway to the northern heresy. But the Inquisition did its job and Venice never really turned into a hotbed of heretical thought. By the late-sixteenth century, the perceived Protestant threat had ebbed but the Sant'Uffizio had not. Instead, it shifted its focus to theological errors among those proclaiming orthodoxy and misuse of spiritual power. Witchcraft, its more serious relation 'ars diabolica' and some unacceptable quasi-religious literature account for a majority of the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth century cases. (36)

Concubinal unions came to their attention on occasion in these cases, but the Inquisition largely ignored them. As explained above, if a concubinal union could be mistaken for a legitimate marriage and one of the parties were married to someone else, then the resulting bigamous union would be examined. But most crimes that were sexual in nature, like rape, adultery or fornication, were more effectively, or at least more commonly, dealt with by the Venetian secular authorities. In fact, this is the only case of secular concubinage examined by the Inquisition in the late-sixteenth century. A number of factors could have convinced the Holy Office to address this particular case when they had ignored so many other cases. First, a Venetian nobleman made a denunciation. The Holy Office did not have to seek this case out; rather, it was brought to them by a person worthy of attention. And while concubinage itself might not necessarily have been under their purview, this case was not really about the concubinage. It was about the excommunication.

The Inquisition Testimony

About a dozen witnesses including Andrea, Anzola and Catterina were called to testify. The Holy Office asked a series of questions to determine if Andrea and Cattarina were married, if Andrea had lived with Anzola before and if he continued to live with her. The testimony of Clarissimo Giacomo Pisani was representative of that given by many of those on the small but varied list of witnesses. Giacomo testified that he had known Andrea for three years, that he believed Andrea lived near San Giobbe and that Andrea kept a donna named Anzola as his concubine. He also told them that Andrea had a wife--one of the di Gratiani--but that they had not lived together for many years because she had returned to her mother's house. He offered a simple explanation for the couple's separation: he had heard that Cattarina did not live with Andrea because of his concubine.

The next set of questions addressed Andrea's relationship with the church. Giacomo reported what Andrea had told him, that the couple had been admonished many times by the church that they should leave their sin and live in a Christian manner. He was aware that the Bishop of Treviso, in particular, had admonished them to separate under penalty of excommunication and had later followed up on that threat. And he testified that he, too, had counseled Andrea to leave Anzola and return to the church. His responses were typical; other witnesses said pretty much the same. Some offered a bit more detail about the couple: Andrea and Anzola had five children, the two of them had been together for about twenty-five years. Some witnesses, attempting to place themselves in a good light before the Sant'Uffizio, offered that Andrea had not been as welcome in some homes after the excommunication.

Cattarina di Gratiani also gave her version on 30 March, 1591. Her responses to the earliest questions were fairly standard. She related that she and Andrea had been married fourteen years earlier in the village of Vascon, but she did not live with her husband because he left her to live with a woman named Anzola from the village of Lovadina. She knew that Andrea and Anzola lived together even when Cattarina had married him. From Cattarina we learn that Andrea had been counseled by his sister Chiara, a nun, to leave Anzola, marry and live as a Christian. Cattarina also provided the timeline for the marriage and explained that Andrea had left her because of his overwhelming lust for Anzola. In part this lust could have been motivated by very pedestrian drives; Cattarina snidely remarked that she had heard that Anzola had been quite beautiful in her youth. But she also raised the stakes by suggesting more sinister motives: she dropped a suggestion that Andrea's lust was a result of witchcraft. Perhaps bitterness drove her to suggest that Andrea had wanted to marry Anzola but could not because of a consanguinity issue; she contended that he had first had sex with her mother.

Andrea was interviewed a couple days later--on the second of April. His take on the situation was quite different. When responding to the formulaic "do you know why you are here?" he immediately began to spin a narrative that put him and his decisions in the best light. "I do not know why I was called before the Holy Office except that ... this morning ... [someone] asked for a certain Anzola who was my massara. But I cannot imagine that I was called for this because for three years this Anzola has been outside of my house and staying in the house of Madonna Helena, the wife of Bortolo ... near my house." (37) In his version, he and Anzola had lived together for ten or twelve years and had four children. When they had been excommunicated he provided her with a casetta and they separated.

On the second day of his testimony Andrea revealed more details. He had committed adultery, this he admitted. But his return to Anzola was not based on lust--not even lust caused by witchcraft--but rather a result of paternal devotion to his children. Cattarina had refused cruelly to allow the children he had with Anzola a place in her martial home. He loved them and needed to care for them so he had to return to Anzola. He also cleared up his neighbor's misconceptions. At the time of the Inquisition process, he and Anzola did not live together and they did not have commerce. He visited her regularly to see his children, but that was all. It was all about the children. "I know that I have done wrong and it kills me, but I have continued ... for the love of my children who needed me." (38) As he told the Holy Office, he even explained this to his friends when they admonished him to leave Anzola.

Andrea gives us some insight into his motivation and his character when discussing the reasons he married Cattarina and not Anzola. The Inquisitor asked if there were any impediments that prohibited his marriage to Anzola and suggested, "perhaps some impediment of consanguinity." (39) He responded that there were no impediments, rather he did not want to marry a villana. He added poignantly, "... and for this I have had many troubles." (40) Then his interrogators asked if Anzola's mother was alive; he replied in the affirmative, adding that she was old. He seemed to have been taken completely off guard by their next questions. When asked about the nature of their relationship, he responded, "Her mother came to stay with me ... but I never had sex with her, never." (41) They advised him to tell the truth because there was confirmation that he had commerce with the mother of Anzola. He responded again with the same intensity that he had never had sex with her, and would never. This seems to have satisfied the Inquisition as they dropped it.

Testimony and the sources

By ascribing his motivation to paternal duty, Andrea attempted to spin a narrative that was both comprehensible and acceptable. The other witnesses did the same. The testimony provided by the three main players and their respective camps reflected many common conditions in accounts of concubinage. Andrea, Cattarina and Anzola and all of the friends and neighbors called upon to testify were well aware of their responsibilities. From their first words to the Inquisition, they recounted their tales carefully, if not always cleverly, intent on presenting their actions in the most positive light. Everyone's testimony was crafted to further their agenda and protect themselves while employing a "repertoire of tropes" that would make sense to the appropriate authorities. (42) Venetians were well aware that their testimony had to be good. Serious consequences faced those unsuccessful in convincing the prosecuting body that their actions were acceptable. But this does not render testimony useless. Rather, it opens up several avenues of exploration. With their testimony, witnesses indicated not only their own opinions and reasoning, but also what they expected the Inquisition to accept. They tell us their feelings--to some degree, at least--and accepted cultural norms.

According to Andrea, he returned to Anzola because he felt a strong sense of paternal affection and responsibility. He clearly could have expected this to play well. In Venice, illegitimate children were well cared for by family members. Venetian men and women regularly left some inheritance to their illegitimate children. (43) In some cases this was rather small, but in other cases illegitimate children inherited sizable fortunes. Nor were natural children solely the concern of their parents; wills regularly feature bequests of ranging sizes to illegitimate nephews and nieces. They were even integrated into their legitimate families with some regularity. A run of documents in the Avogaria di Comun feature Venetian noblemen applying to have their illegitimate sons awarded membership in the citizen class in order to secure certain privileges. (44) Consequently, Andrea was not only expressing what might have been a real need on his part to see to his children's welfare, but also a cultural norm. He used a trope that should have rung true to the Inquisitors in an attempt to make his actions seem more acceptable and less open to punishment. He confirms not only that he cared for his children, but that the Inquisitors felt that he should.

Cattarina, too, used social tropes to strengthen her testimony. She offered several suggestions for Andrea's behavior, each more damning than the last. She referenced lust, the maddening side of love, as an opener before suggesting that this lust was provoked by Anzola's love magic. Since witchcraft was a crime the Inquisition cared a great deal about, she likely hoped to spur them to action against her husband's concubine. She also tapped into some commonly held beliefs about the illegitimate power that women marshaled unfairly. Perhaps she genuinely preferred to believe that her husband was lured away by supernatural forces. But she also referenced an entire set of beliefs and behaviors that were easily comprehensible to her and the authorities. And finally, when she suggested that Andrea had enjoyed carnal commerce with Anzola's mother, she was making a not terribly subtle reference to consanguinity. Thus she further offered proof of Andrea's craven sexual needs and the inappropriate nature of her husband's concubinal union.

Anzola

In the eyes of the Inquisitors, Anzola had precious little to report. They asked her only a handful of questions. They wanted to know why she had come, whether she was married or had children and if she still resided with Andrea. She replied briefly, explaining that she and Andrea had never married, but that they had lived together. In regards to her children she explained that she had two living children--a twenty-three year old son and a seventeen year-old daughter--and had also borne three that had died. All five were Andrea's issue. When asked to clarify the timeline of their relationship, Anzola recounted the end of her live-in relationship: she had given birth to the last child three or four years earlier and that the order to separate had come from the bishop approximately two years before the time of her interrogation. Further, she explained when questioned that the bishop had ordered that they separate because she was living adulterously with Andrea. Finally, she told them that after that birth of her last child she left, taking with her a few of his goods. She was excused.

Her brief interrogation is symbolic in that it demonstrates how unimportant she was in the case. Again, although Andrea and Anzola had lived together as a concubinal couple for some time, the authorities got involved only after the relationship became adulterous. And when adultery was the crime in question, Andrea was the primary concern as he was the married person. Anzola, as his donna, was not an active participant. She was a witness, but despite her position as the 'other woman' she was quite insignificant. She wasn't even the victim in the case; her testimony would have been more important if she had claimed to have been raped or carried away against her will. Throughout the decade of prosecution that Andrea and Anzola withstood, Anzola herself mattered very little to the prosecuting authorities.

Nor was she terribly important to most of her contemporaries. Although she tells us little directly, we can discern a bit about her from the description of the others in the case. Anzola had little standing in her community. A villana from Vascon, she was of a low class and few resources. Her family was never called to testify, demonstrating either that they had little to do with her life or that they were not terribly important. Clearly they had less influence than the di Gratiani clan as they were unable to pressure Andrea into marriage. Moreover, Andrea called her his massara or housekeeper. Although she was clearly his companion as well as his housekeeper, her status and class made this appellation fitting. (45)

Though Anzola never explains her decision to enter the concubinal union, the benefits the union provided are quite clear. As to how and why she entered the union, her lover and her neighbor offer some suggestions. Andrea says that he brought her into his home to be his housekeeper. A neighbor offered that he had taken her away--la mena via--after seeing her in the village and admiring her beauty. She offered no reason whatsoever. Clearly, she benefited from the union. As a villana of no means, she could not hope to make a good marriage on her own. Women in the early modern period had few options; this poor position was exacerbated by her low status. She might have married another poor peasant in her village, borne a brood of ill-nourished children and passed her life in toil. Instead, she took a fairly privileged position in the comfortable household of a merchant. For her, entering this concubinal relationship might well have seemed to be her best strategy for a comfortable life.

A few years after the conclusion of Sant'Uffizio proceedings, we meet her again in an unrelated wounding trial. At that time, she was still being cared for by Andrea. Despite Andrea's continual pleas of poverty--another common trope in these cases--he was able to offer a one thousand ducat dowry for his daughter, indicating that the Mora family did not live in complete privation. In the end, Anzola gained financial security, companionship, affection and a family from her relationship with Andrea. There were many times when she might well have reconsidered her decision to move in with him and live as his concubine. She moved around at his whim, stood by while he married a socially better woman, and took him back into her bed when he wanted to leave that woman. But, on balance, this relationship benefited her.

It is clear that Anzola was very important to Andrea. The duration of the relationship, and particularly its persistence through a decade of intermittent prosecution bordering on persecution from the di Gratiani suggests that Andrea's relationship with Anzola, and indeed Anzola herself, were of primary importance to him. He could well have supported his children without maintaining intimacy with her. Instead he chose to keep her near and stayed with her as they aged. In their testimony, many witnesses spoke of her with some familiarity, indicating that their relationship had many companionate characteristics.

The family

Marriage and sexual pairings were a family affair. The marriage between Andrea and Cattarina actually forged a series of relationships between the two of them and between the couple and the greater kin groups. Andrea had a duty to his wife that extended to her greater kin group. When Andrea abandoned Cattarina in favor of his concubine, he also abandoned the entire di Gratiani clan. Cattarina's family was responsible for policing and enforcing Andrea's duties. When they called him before ecclesiastical and secular authorities, they were doing precisely what they should have to defend their honor. But the di Gratiani probably would not have reacted with such vigor, if at all, had Andrea managed to balance his responsibilities better by maintaining both his concubine and his wife reasonably.

On some level this was simply financial. When the di Gratiani first brought their complaint to the Bishop of Treviso, they reported that Andrea had already run through Cattarina's dowry. They might have been exaggerating, or perhaps even lying outright, but the charge indicates that financial issues were among their concerns. Unfortunately, if a civil case was started, it has been lost in the intervening years. The family did initiate proceedings to secure a separation of bed and board that would have allowed them to take Cattarina and their dowry back, but those were unsuccessful. The involvement of the ecclesiastical authorities might well be simply an extension of that failed attempt to regain control of Cattarina's dowry. The di Gratiani had sent their daughter off with some money; her husband then used to it support another woman without even helping to provide an heir. It is notable that they expected that this should add some weight to their complaint. It is also notable that it did not actually add weight to their complaint, or at least not weight sufficient to spur the Bishop into immediate or strong action. (46)

The relative status of the family groups involved clearly influenced the direction of the case. Anzola was utterly without family connection. Her mother made a brief appearance in the documentary record, but only as a woman of questionable morals. No one else in her family spoke at all. Nor could her family muster power sufficient to force a marriage to Andrea or another merchant of similar status; clearly, the decision to place her as a concubine to Andrea represented the best possible course for her. It is also fairly clear that Andrea's family pulled little clout because they did not speak for him in the trial. Moreover, Andrea--and one assumes, his family--considered his marriage to Cattarina to be a strategic one. Cattarina's sister was married to an unimportant merchant in Venice and the two of them lodged in an apartment in a nobleman's house. Assuming that the di Gratiani made similar matches for their daughters, Andrea, too, would have been of mediocre status. Nor was he particularly wealthy. He seems to have done well enough to support a separate apartment for his concubine when necessary and he eventually provided his daughter with a 1000 ducat dowry. However, as he was to learn painfully, he was not enough of a presence in village life to allow him to completely flout the wishes of the di Gratiani without repercussion. Cattarina's family had the highest status as they were related, though probably tenuously, to an important Trevisan family and that position allowed them to hound Andrea and Anzola from their village and across the Veneto for more than a decade.

The Mora Family

Ultimately, it is the family unit created by Andrea and Anzola's concubinage that is of the greatest interest. Their relationship spanned two decades, produced two children who lived to adulthood and proved incredibly resilient in the face of repeated legal battles. The years detailed in this case were actually aberrant moments that punctuated an otherwise quiet existence. Aside from a brief cohabitation with his legal wife, Andrea lived with Anzola for at least thirty years. The couple had children that they cared for together. Most of their neighbors recognized their long-term pairing and accepted them into the community.

This was made all the more clear in 1595, when Andrea Mora makes another appearance in the documentary record. In that year he introduced a case to the Avogaria di Comun regarding the wound he had suffered at the hands of his son-in-law while trying to rescue his daughter from a bad marriage. (47) Andrea and Anzola had married their daughter Marieta off with a 1000 ducat dowry to a moderately well-to-do Venetian resident, Zuan Andrea Bembo. He did not treat her well, however, and the couple decided to bring their daughter home. After the Venetian Patriarch refused to grant Marieta a separation of bed and board Andrea and Anzola tried to spirit her away from her unhappy marital home. Marieta's husband discovered the family when Andrea and Anzola were loading their daughter and her gear into a gondola. Zuan Andrea and his cousin Domenego beat Andrea quite badly and stabbed him. It was this physical abuse that drove Andrea to the Avogaria di Comun. Very likely, Andrea also filed some sort of civil suit in an attempt to get Marieta's dowry back, but if that happened, the process is no longer extant. What does remain tells us that in 1595 Andrea was living in the same apartment near San Giobbe, and admittedly shared it full time with Anzola. All of the witnesses referred to Anzola as Marieta's mother and Andrea's donna, with the exception of the one who called her his wife.

The concubinal union could be viewed as an alternate family model that permitted Venetians unable or unwilling to marry legally with a relationship that was like a marriage in many ways. This concubinal family, like many others in Venice, was not immediately considered unworthy of inclusion in families created by legitimate marriages. Many contemporaneous families placed their illegitimate children in socially significant unions in order to strengthen and expand their social position. (48) Though an illegitimate child carried a social taint that would keep them from the highest ranks of society and the best marriages, they were still important pawns in the marriage game.

That is, quite clearly, what Andrea and Anzola were trying to do when they negotiated a marriage between their daughter Marieta and Zuan Andrea Bembo. He was not noble himself, though his surname could have indicated some ties to that family. He was not of such a high standing that he was above a marriage with the illegitimate daughter of a commoner and a foreigner. But he was a Venetian of some position, deserving of a one thousand ducat dowry with an extensive family network and he represented a socially good match. For Andrea and Anzola, this marriage represented a good placement of their daughter. She would be married, avoiding the troubles her parents encountered, and married relatively well at that. They probably also believed that this marriage would be good for them; as the parents of a legitimately married Venetian daughter, they would be developing the sort of community and family ties that would solidify a good social position for them and Marietta.

Unfortunately, the second-generation Mora marriage was not a success. Zuan Andrea and Marieta were not happy and Marieta decided to leave him. He resisted her departure and the ensuing violence landed him and the Mora family back before the Venetian authorities. And this represents an important thread in the cloth of the Mora case: the primacy of emotion. Just as Andrea and Anzola had privileged their own desires, choosing to continue their relationship in the face of legal battles and harassment from Cattarina's family, they again privileged the happiness of their daughter. They willingly and forcefully pulled Marieta from her marital home and replaced her in the bosom of the natal home.

Conclusions

After a few interrogations, the Sant'Uffizio admonished Andrea to keep his distance from Anzola and dismissed the case. Unfortunately for Andrea, his wife's family did not drop it. The last scrap of paper in the file is from the ninth of December, 1592. "Being initiated in this Holy Office of Treviso a certain Andrea Mora, Venetian, and for a good part of the year an inhabitant of Lovadina in this diocese, under suspicion of heresy ..." It seems the di Gratiani had initiated another round of proceedings with yet another authoritative body. That procedure is no longer extant, but we can surmise that the Trevisan Holy Office treated the matter similarly. Remember, Andrea and Anzola were living together a few years later in Venice. In fact, the di Gratiani's battle that spanned two decades was ultimately unsuccessful on all counts. The family probably wanted Cattarina's dowry back, but it doesn't seem they were successful there. Andrea never lived with Cattarina again, nor did he leave Anzola.

As I said at the outset, this is a case of conflicting desires and misunderstandings. Andrea's marriage to Cattarina signaled the genesis of his legal troubles, but it need not have. Before he married Cattarina neither authoritative bodies nor members of the community had any concern at all about his relationship with Anzola. He was a regular member of his community and the patron of a concubine. Even after his marriage to Cattarina, there was no real concern about his continuing relationship with Anzola. He moved her into another apartment and began to live with his wife. His continued care of his children was expected and appreciated. Had he continued to live with his wife and support his illegitimate children, and, as a consequence, his old concubine, he probably would have had no problems at all. He only came to the attention of the bishop of Treviso when Cattarina's family--angry that he was publicly living full time with Anzola and probably spurred by dowry issues--complained.

The rapid disintegration of the marriage was notable and largely unexplained. One witness offered simply that Andrea did not like Catterina. And although Catterina intended to intimate accusations of witchcraft when she quoted Andrea as saying that he just could not leave Anzola, she might well have been accurately reporting the love Andrea felt for his concubine. But these emotional issues need not have instigated the two-year fiasco that was their marriage so quickly. Many men kept concubines without inciting prolonged legal battles. It is likely that Catterina and Andrea did not see their marriage in similar terms from the outset. It seems that the couple had not fully negotiated the role that Anzola would play in Andrea's life. Perhaps he had expected a bit more freedom from his wife than she was willing to give while she expected at least nominal fidelity. Although Andrea later claimed that he meant to sever all ties with Anzola and might even have professed similar sentiments publicly before the marriage, he did little to ensure his fidelity. While providing her financial support and a place to live very nearby might have been for the benefit of his children, as he argued before the Inquisition, it might also have been intended to provide easy access to this woman that still interested him sexually and emotionally. Catterina might have been bitterly angry that Andrea's sexual attention returned to Anzola so quickly and so completely. In addition, Andrea and Catterina disagreed on the level of care he should provide for his illegitimate children. There is no indication that Catterina balked at his support of them. Indeed, doing so would have been against the norm in the late-sixteenth century. But Andrea tried to move them in to his home and claimed that Catterina's cruel refusal originally drove him back to Anzola.

Andrea's behavior after the situation collapsed did not suggest he had either any desire to leave his concubine or any real concern about serious repercussions. When the bishop of Treviso threatened to excommunicate him, Andrea merely went to his confessor to beg forgiveness. He confessed, took communion, then continued to live in the precise situation that had earned him the threat of excommunication. He then continued his relationship with Anzola in a very public manner for another nine years. Even when he was put under a ban of excommunication he did not put her away. He did move, first to the remote Friuli, and later to the anonymous city of Venice, in an attempt to escape the persecution but he did not leave her. But even these moves can not be considered particularly valiant action. Both locations were relatively close to Treviso and both were in Venetian territory. Nor did he limit the time he spent with Anzola or fundamentally alter his relationship with her. Instead, the couple had another child. He finally took steps to create at least the appearance of separation by moving her into another apartment after the early death of their last child. Even then he visited her daily; few people in his community really believed that he had put her aside altogether. Let us revisit the moment when the Inquisitor asked him why he had not married Anzola. He replied, I imagine somewhat wearily, that he had not wanted a villana, "... and for this I have had so many troubles."

Affection is one of the characteristics most closely associated with modern marriage. In pre-modern marriage, the marital union was the province of the extended kin-group, a political and economic union that benefited the entire family and had little consideration for the wishes or desires of the two people getting married. While this is a rather draconian view, and some literature on marriage indicates that broader kin groups did take their offspring's wishes under consideration some of the time, this is the prevailing, and I would argue, correct view. And, as I discussed earlier, conclusions about marriage must be nuanced according to class. Important political and economic unions rarely involved the lower classes, and they were more likely to form martial bonds based on affection or need of the own choosing. But in this case we see that strategic marriage applied to the middling classes as well. But does this case simply reaffirm old notions about the nature of marriage on the Mediterranean? The answer is both yes and no. Yes, Cattarina and Andrea contracted a politically and financially beneficial union that had nothing to do with affection or personal choice. But at the same time, Andrea, like so many other men in early modern Venice, carried on a long-term, semi-exclusive relationship with a woman of his choice that resembled companionate marriage in many ways. While this was never a legitimate marriage, it was a relationship very much like marriage. If we are willing to expand the definition of union, or at least blur the edges of the divide between legitimate marriage and illegitimate concubinage, we see a multi-tiered marriage system wherein affective unions, contracted among adults and based on personal choice, existed and even flourished on the early modern Mediterranean.

Andrea misread the situation to his detriment. He lived in a society in which concubinage was common. He took a concubine. He lived in a society in which marriage was a political and economic union. He made a fairly good marriage. He lived in a society in which married men kept lovers. He tried to keep his lover. But he misjudged his own situation. He could keep a lover, but he could not live with her on a full-time basis. He could not move out of his marital home and expect his wife's family to surrender control of her dowry. And once he gained the attention of the ecclesiastical authorities, he simply could not continue to keep the concubine in the same way. He tested the boundaries of concubinage and suffered a troubled twenty years, yet in the end his relationship endured and was apparently very important for him, much as concubinage itself endured and remained important throughout the Renaissance and early modern period in Venice.

Department of History

Walla, Walla, WA 99362

ENDNOTES

Research for this article was generously funded by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. The author would also like to thank Guido Ruggiero, Holly Hurlburt and Monique O'Connell for comments on earlier drafts.

1. Archivio di Stato di Venezia (hereafter ASV), Sant'Uffizio (hereafter SU) busta 67. These earliest dates are my reckoning. With the exception of the rather imprecise 'in the year of the plague' most testimony is uncertain about dates. For instance, I have chosen 1565 to mark the commencement of the cohabitation based on several witnesses' testimony in 1591 insisting that the couple had been together 'for 25 or 26 years' combined with the probable age of Andrea's first child and the date of his marriage to Cattarina.

2. The village is referred to as Guascon throughout the process.

3. See Alexander Cowan, "Concubinage," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation (New York, 1996), 397-99; idem., "Love, Honour and the Avogaria di Comun in Early Modern Venice," Archivio Veneto, 5th ser., 179 (1995), 5-19; idem., "Patricians and Partners in Early Modern Venice," in Medieval and Renaissance Venice, Ellen E Kittell and Thomas Madden, eds. (Urbana, 1999), 276-93; Jacques de Pauw, "Amour illegitime et societe a Nantes au XVIIIe siecle," Annales: e.s.c. 27 (1972), 1176-77; Emlyn Eisenach, Husbands, Wives and Concubines: Marriage, Family and the Social Order in Sixteenth-Century Verona (Kirksville, MO, 2004); Jean Flandrin, Families in Former Times: Kinship, Household and Sexuality (Cambridge, 1985), 35-38; Kathryn Norberg, Rich and Poor in Grenoble, 1600-1814 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1985); Silvana Seidel Menchi and Diego Quaglioni, eds., Trasgressioni: seduzione, concubinato, adulterio, bigamia (XIV-XVIII secolo) (Bologna, 2004).

4. James Cushman Davis, The Decline of the Venetian Nobility as a Ruling Class (Baltimore, 1962) still presents the best analysis concerning the economic necessity of restricted marriage. See also: Milly Buonanno, ed. Le funzioni sociali del matrimonio: Modelli e regole della scelte del coniuge dal XIV al XX secolo (Milani, 1980); Stanley Chojnacki, "Marriage Regulation in Venice, 1420-1535," in Women and Men in Renaissance Venice: Twelve Essays on Patrician Society (Baltimore, 2000); Jutta Gisela Sperling, Convents and the Body Politic in Late Renaissance Venice (Chicago, 1999).

5. Mary S. Hartman, The Household and the Making of History: A Subversive View of the Western Past (Cambridge, 2004) lays this out in her introduction. See also John Hajnal, "Two Kinds of Preindustrial Household Formation Systems," Population and Development Review 8 (1982); David Herlihy and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Tuscans and their Families: A Study of the Florentine Catasto of 1427 (New Haven, 1985).

6. James Brundage, "Concubinage and Marriage in Medieval Canon Law," in Sexual Practices in the Medieval Church, Vern L. Bullough and James A. Brundage, eds. (Amherst, NY, 1982), 188-28; Guido Ruggiero, "The Abbots Concubine: Lies, Literature and Power at the End of the Renaissance," in Medieval and Renaissance Venice, Ellen E Kittell and Thomas Madden, eds. (Urbana, 1999), 166-80; Oscar di Simplicio, "Le Perpetue (Stato Senese, 1600-1800)," Quaderni Storici 68 (1988): 381-409, translated as "Perpetuas: The Women Who Kept Priests," in History from Crime: Selections from the Quaderni Storici, Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero, eds. (Baltimore, 1994), 32-64.

7. Council of Trent, Twenty-fourth session, 11 November, 1563. See Henry Joseph Schroeder, Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent (Rockford, IL, 1978).

8. "... relazione stabile tra un uomo e una donna non uniti in matrimonio tra loro, "cited in Manlio Cortelazzo and Paolo Zolli, Dizionario Etimologico della Lingua Italiana (Bologna, 1979-88), 265. The entry also lists a similar definition from Pietro Aretino, "Uomo che vive con una donna con cui non e legato dal vincolo matrimoniale." For Speroni, see Francesco Bruni, "Sperone Speroni e l' Accademia degli Infiammati," Filologia e letteratura 13 (1967): 24-71.

9. Archivio Storico del Patriarcato di Venezia (hereafter, ASP), Matrimoni Segreti (hereafter MS); Jana Byars, "Concubines and Concubinage in Early Modern Venice," (Ph.D. diss., Penn State University, 2006), 45-9; Cowan, "Patricians," 282.

10. ASP, MS, busta I, folio 14.

11. ASP, MS, I.35.

12. ASP, MS II, 78.

13. ASP, MS I, 25.

14. ASV, SU, 69.

15. ASP, Causarum Matrimonium, 85. It was not uncommon for Venetian men to use a courtesan for this sort of relationship. The courtesan was a high-level prostitute, quite famous in the city of Venice for providing not only sexual services, but also conversation, a well-appointed space for entertainment, and often, companionship. Venice was known by contemporaries as a land of courtesans, see Thomas Coryat, Coryat's Crudities (London, 1611). Modern scholarship is as varied in quality as it is vast. See Rita Casagrande di Villaviera, Le Cortigiane Veneziane del Cinqucento (Milan, 1968); Gian Battista de Lorenzi, Leggi e Memorie Venete sulla Prostituzione all Caduta della Repubblica (Venice, 1970-72); Lynne Lawner, Lives of the Courtesans (Milan, 1987); Gerogina Masson, The Courtesans of the Italian Renaissance (London, 1975); Anthony Newcomb, "Courtesans, Muses, or Musicians? Professional Women Musicians in Sixteenth-Century Italy," in Jane Bowers and Judith Tick, eds., Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150-1950 (Urbana, 1986); Achillo Olivieri, "Eroticism and Scoial Groups in Sixteenth-Century Venice: The Courtesan," in Philipe Aries and Andre Bejin, eds., Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times (New York, 1985); Sarah F. Matthews-Greico and Sabina Vrevaglieri, eds. Monaca, Moglie, Serva, Corgiiana: vita e immagine delle donne tra rinascimento e controriforma (Firenze, 2001). The most famous courtesan of the period, Veronica Franco, was recently covered in the problematic film, Dangerous Beauty. For a solid scholarly treatment, see Margaret Rosenthal, The Honest Courtesan: Veronica Franco, Citizen and Writer in Sixteenth-Century Venice (Chicago, 1992).

16. This marriage was not successful. See Joanne Ferraro, Marriage Wars in Late Renaissance Venice (Oxford, 2001), 107-8.

17. ASV, SU 64.

18. ASV, Notarile, Testamenti 191.588. I cover this point more fully in Byars, "Concubinage," 165-70.

19. ASV, NT, 65.

20. Byars, "Concubinage," 53-7; Cowan, "Patricians," 280-81.

21. Joanne Ferraro, Marriage Wars, 20-21; idem., "The Power to Decide: Battered Wives in Early Modern Venice," Renaissance Quarterly 48 (1995): 496; Antonio Niero, I Patriarchi de Venezia: da Lorenzo Giustiniani ai Nostri Giorni (Venice, 1961), 103.

22. Marriage in Venice was also policed by secular bodies. See Stanley Chojnacki, "Marriage Regulation," 27-52; Ferraro, Marriage Wars, 20-31; Paolo Prodi, "Chiesa e societa," in Storia di Venezia, vol. 6, Dal Rinasciamento al Barocco, ed. Gaetano Cozzi and Paolo Prodi (Rome, 1994), 320-23; Guido Ruggiero, The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice (Oxford, 1985).

23. Ferraro, Marriage Wars, passim. Separation is also provided for in canon law; this is explained in the twenty-fourth session of the Council of Trent. Marriages could be terminated by demonstrating that the marriage was invalid from the start. Separations could be handed down for a number of reasons. Men tended to argue that their wives had committed adultery, women often claimed cruelty or poor treatment.

24. There are no extant records of this procedure; I have only a brief mention of her intentions from the Sant'Uffizio process. As Ferraro discusses, adultery was not sufficient cause for separation.

25. According to the canons of Trent, concubinaries would be given three warnings and one year to obey. If the couple did not separate within one year, they were to be excommunicated until they separated.

26. Marco Ferro, Dizionario del Diritto Comune e Veneto dell'Avvocato Marco Ferro. Vol. 1 (Venezia, 1845), 455. Ferro was an eighteenth-century jurist and his work reflects the opinion of that period. He does provide a fairly comprehensive history of legal practice that covers the sixteenth century and includes nothing on concubinage. This is not merely oversight; the lack of legislation has been confirmed by Cowan. Byars, "Concubines," 65-66.

27. James Brundage, "Concubinage and Marriage in Medieval Canon Law," passim.

28. There is no exhaustive study on bigamy in Venice for this period. There has been some very good work on bigamy in Spain and Latin America, however, that sheds light on that relationship. Richard Boyer, Lives of the Bigamists: Marriage, Family and Community in Colonial Mexico (Albuquerque, 1995) discusses travel and marriage patterns not dissimilar to those of early-modern Venetians. See also Alexandra Parma Cook and Noble David Cook, Good Faith and Truthful Ignorance: A Case of Transatlantic Bigamy (Durham, 1991); Allyson M. Poska, "When Bigamy is the Charge: Gallegan Women and the Holy Office," in Mary Giles, ed. Women in the Inquisition: Spain and the New World (Baltimore, 1999), 189-205.

29. Ruggiero, Boundaries, ch. 3, passim.

30. On fornication with a puella, Ruggiero, Boundaries, chapter five. The Forty was an authoritative body responsible for both legislating and adjudicating.

31. The Bestemmia was created in the late 1530s to handle speech and related crimes. On the importance of speech in Venice in particular, Elizabeth Horodowich, "Blasphemy, Insults and Gossip in Renaissance Venice," (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 2000); See also Robin Ian McDonald Dunbar, Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language (Cambridge, MA, 1996); Deborah Cameron, Fiona McAlinden and Kathy O'Leary, "Gossip Revisited: Language in All-Female Groups," in Women in Their Speech Communities: New Perspectives on Language and Sex (London, 1989).

32. Ruggiero, Boundaries, ch. 2, passim.

33. Ibid.

34. Byars, "Concubines," 165-70; Cowan, "Patricians," 280.

35. Andrea del Col, "Organizzazione, compsizione e giurisdizione dei tribunali dell'Inquisitione romana nella Repubblica di Venezia (1500-1550)," in Critica storica/Bollettino A.S.E. 25.2 (1988): 244-94; Paul F. Grendler, The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 1540-1605 (Princeton, 1977); John Martin, "Popular Culture and the Shaping of Popular Heresy in Renaissance Venice," in Inquisition and Society in Early Modern Europe, Stephen Haliczer, ed. (Totowa, NJ, 1987); idem., Venice's Hidden Enemies: Italian Heretics in a Renaissance City (Berkeley, 1993); Brian Pullan, The Jews of Europe and the Inquisition of Venice, 1550-1670 (Totowa, NJ, 1983).

36. Witchcraft, too, fell under the Sant'Uffizio's purview. Ruth Martin, Witchcraft and the Inquisition in Venice 1550-1650 (Oxford, 1989). See also: Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (New York, 1997); Carlo Ginzburg, Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witch's Sabbath (New York, 1991); idem., The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Baltimore, 1983); Mary O'Neil, "Magical Healing, Love Magic and Inquisition in Late Sixteenth-Century Modena," in Inquisition and Society in Early Modern Europe, Stephen Haliczer, ed. (Totowa, NJ, 1987); Giovanni Romeo, Inquisitori, Esorcisti e Streghe nell'Italia della controriforma 2nd ed. (Florence, 1990); and Guido Ruggiero, Binding Passions: Tales of Magic, Marriage and Power at the End of the Renaissance (Oxford, 1993).

37. ASV, SU, 67.

38. Ibid.

39. Ibid.

40. Ibid.

41. Ibid.

42. This phrase comes from Joanne Ferraro, Marriage Wars, p 6, in a brief paragraph in which she addresses the problematic nature of her sources. For a discussion on the merits and dangers of testimony, particularly in regards to Inquisition documents, see Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero's introduction to History From Crime (Baltimore, 1994).

43. Cowan, "Patricians," 286-88. Dennis Romano, Patricians and Popolani: The Social Foundations of the Renaissance Venetian State (Baltimore, 1987) discusses support for concubines as well. For a discussion of the importance of parenthood in early modern Venice, see Giulia Calvi "Reconstructing the Family: Widowhood and Remarriage in Tuscany in the Early Modern Period," in Trevor Dean and K. J. P. Lowe, eds., Marriage in Italy, 1300-1600 (New York, 1998); Stanley Chojnacki, "Family and State, Women and Men," in Women and Men in Renaissance Venice (Baltimore, 2000); Daniela Hacke, "Gendering Men in Early Modern Venice," Acta Historiae, VIII (2000): 63; Thomas F Madden and Donald Queller, "Father of the Bride: Fathers, Daughters, and Dowries in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Venice," Renaissance Quarterly 46 (1993): 685-711.

44. ASV, Avogaria di Comun (hereafter AC), buste 365-80 covers the late-sixteenth through the mid- seventeenth centuries.

45. In elite concubinage, the concubines were always of a lower status than their patron. This was relative, however. The illegitimate daughter of a noble might well be the concubine of another noble. I've found cases wherein high-status women of legitimate birth were the concubines of very prominent Venetian noblemen. Most concubines, however, came from the lower classes.

46. For an excellent treatment of dowry in general and particularly in Early Modern Venice, see Jutta Gisela Sperling, Convents and the Body Politic, introduction and ch. 1; see also Stanley Chojnacki, "Dowries and Kinsmen in Early Renaissance Venice," Journal of Interdiscplinary History 5.4 (1975): 571-60; Diane Owen Hughes, "From Brideprice to Dowry in Mediterranean Europe," Journal of Family History 3 (1978): 262-96; Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, "The Griselda Complex: Dowry and Marriage Gifts in the Quattrocento," in Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance Italy (Chicago, 1985); Claude Levi-Strauss, The Elementary Structures of Kinship (London, 1969); Anthony Molho, Marriage Alliance in Late Medieval Florence (Cambridge, MA, 1994).

47. ASV, AC, Miscellanea Penale, 176.7.

48. Byars, Concubines, ch. 4, passim.

By Jana Byars

Whitman College