Widows in Venice
Introduction (+ historical background)
Motivation (to see if to include with intro)
Project Plan and Milestones
| Week | Task | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 07.10 - 13.10 | Define project and structure work | Done |
| 14.10 - 20.10 | Write code to extract widow data Read historical papers on widows and Venice |
Done |
| 21.10 - 27.10 | Autumn vacation | |
| 28.10 - 03.11 | Comparative rent analysis (catastici) Property ownership Heritage |
|
| 04.11 - 10.11 | Analysis: - Property ownership - Comparative rent analysis Prepare for the presentation |
|
| 11.11 - 17.11 | Midterm presentation on 14.11 Continue analysis |
|
| 18.11 - 24.11 | Finish property ownership analysis - Sommarioni & Catastici Finish comparative rent analysis - Catastici |
|
| 25.11 - 01.12 | Start widow heritage analysis Social aspect: see how many times words/titles are used to describe different groups of people (‘Vedova’, ‘Consorte’, …) Start writing down findings in the wiki |
|
| 02.12 - 08.12 | Compare all the different analyses done and see if one can extract general trends for widows or interpret some of the results | |
| 09.12 - 15.12 | Finish writing wiki Prepare presentation |
|
| 16.12 - 22.12 | Deliver GitHub + wiki on 18.12 Final presentation on 19.12 |
Dataset presentation
Textual description
Methodology
Property ownership analysis
For the porperty ownership analysis for the widows mentioned in the Catastici and Sommarioni a similar approach was used. First the widows where located using the keyword "vedova", meaning widow, and "consorte", meaning wife of dead husband. After filtering the datasets using row-wise text matching for these keywords, the entries of the widows where saved. These new data sets where then used as the basis of further analysis.
How specific should we be here? for every analysis give the exact mehtod or no
Results
Catastici prop
general analysis
rent analysis
Sommarioni property analysis
Using the methods described in #Property ownership analysis, the study identified 659 entries related to widows out of a total of 23,400 entries in the Sommarioni. Since this dataset includes only property owners and excludes tenants, no conclusions can be drawn about the number of widows renting properties. Similarly, due to some widows owning multiple properties, it is impossible to determine the total number of widows living in Venice during this period.
When looking at how much property one widow holds, its important to ensure that it's the same widow. When comparing the data it appears that in the 'owner' category there are 443 unique owners, whilst in the 'owner_standardised' there are only 360 unique widows. This means that there must be some typos and errors in the way the widows are written in the 'owner' section compared to the cleaned and standardised section, which is as expected. When looking at the new list of widows, it is still possible to see the same widows, but written differently and further refinement is therefor necessary. After looking for similarities in the names, there are around 246 unique widows.
Most widows own a single property, as illustrated in the histogram below, which shows an exponential decrease in ownership frequency with increasing property counts.
From the data:
- The majority of widows own one property.
- The graph shows similarities to an exponential decay.
- The maximum observed ownership is 25 properties, held by Loredana Grimani, wife of Giovanni Morosini. This exceptional case may indicate significant wealth, and further investigation into the Grimani-Morosini family could provide more context.
The following graph compares the proportion of properties owned by widows to those owned by the general population in each district:
This comparison reveals significant regional differences:
- In Cannaregio, widows own a disproportionately large share of properties compared to the general population.
- In Castello, widow property ownership is notably lower than that of the general population.
- In Dorsoduro, San Marco, and San Paolo, widows own slightly more properties than average, while in Santa Croce, widows own slightly fewer properties.
These findings suggest that socio-economic and demographic factors may influence the distribution of widow property ownership across districts.
The graph below shows the normalized average area of properties owned by widows in each district, compared to the average property size in that district:
The graph below shows what the average area of a property owned by a widows in a given district is, normalized by the average area of the properties in that district. This might give an indication of the wealth of the different districts. Though it has to be said, that the area given in the Sommarioni is likely computed from the vectorization available in the GeoJSON file.
Key observations include:
- In Castello, widow-owned properties are approximately 40% larger than the average, a notable finding considering the low number of widows holding property there. This discrepancy may reflect wealth concentration among widows in Castello.
- In Dorsoduro, the average property size for widows is comparable to the district average.
- In other districts, widow-owned properties are generally smaller than the average, suggesting a relatively worse economic situation for widows in these areas.
The final aspect of the analysis focuses on the types and functions of widow-owned properties. The graph below shows the distribution of properties by the number of distinct functions they serve:
From this data:
- Most properties serve a single function, while over 100 properties serve two functions.
- A smaller number of properties have three or four functions, which may reflect detailed notations in the Sommarioni or unique uses of these properties.
- Of the 659 widow-owned properties, 555 are rented (partially or fully), while 104 are not rented at all. The non-rented properties primarily include vegetable gardens (orto) and covered walkways (sottoportico).
- Only nine widows are listed as living in the properties they own, an unexpectedly low number that may merit further investigation.
Comparison
properties anlaysis comparison
heritage
Catastici to Sommarioni
To see how properties are inhereted by widows or passed on, links between the Catastici and Sommarioni will be analysed.
By looking at the widows in the Catastici, their property will be related to the property in the Sommarioni using either id_napo when available or geometry. Hopefully this will give an indication about how porperties of widows were passed on. This is only possible for the widows owning property, not the widows renting.
- id_napo in the Sommarioni relates the property to the corresponding property in the Sommarioni Get 61 entries of widows owning properties. Let's look at how many have an entry for id_napo. There are 16 entries of widows that have id_napo values. So lets start by analyzing these. The id_napo in the Catastici corresponds to the parcel number in the Sommarioni. Not sure if this is the best way to do it, but I will go through all the 16 manually and see if there are any relations between them: - id_napo : 4270
- Catastici: Gerolema ( widow - second marriage to Santo Bonoto), function a bit unclear but might be something related to baker - Sommarioni: DA' RIVA Giovanni Battista (owner), quality: Shop house with rental courtyard --> seems to be no link between the two
- id_napo: 4896
- Catastici:
- Elena Vianol Consorte di Ferigo Renier
- function: "casa in soler " - house attic
- special remark: two entries appear hear in the Catastici for the same women, but only mentioned as widow in one, in the other she has her and her husbands name
- this has a tenant and is a shop
- Sommarioni:
- two entries for this parcel number:
- RENIER Bernardino (q. Alvise)
- house and shop
- 1. floor and shop
- GUIZZETTI Domenico e Fratelli
- part of second store and third store to rent
--> same last name- son? related? part of the house in heritage
- id_napo: 15622
- Catastici: two entries with this id_napo
- Nobil donna Battistina Consorte Nobil homo Costantin Bolini
- function: house and storage
- Nobil homo Zaccaria Bolini
- function: house and store of a tailor
- both of the entries have the same tenant
- Sommarioni:
- quality: shop, house
- owner: BORDINI Alvise e Fratelli
--> no link
- id_napo:
- Catastici: Elena Vianol consorte del nobil homo Ferigo Renier ( same owner as id_napo:4896)
- function: house ( for rent)
- Sommarioni: RENIER Bernardino, rental house
--> this might be a relative, same inhereter as id_napo:4896
- id_napo: 2690
- catastici: "Paolina Mocenigo consorte del Nobil homo Michiel Morosini,
- function: house, shop, balcksmith
- Sommarioni: |S| MOROSINI Elisabetta
- quality: house and rental shop
--> might be relative
- id_napo: 2689
- Catastici (five entries)
- Nobil homo Michiel Morosini, shop for wine? (uso della malvasia)
- Paolina Mocenigo consorte del nobil huomo Michiel Morosini, house
- Nobil homo Michiel Morosini, appartment
- Nobil homo Michiel Morosini, appartment
- Nobil homo Michiel Morosini, shop (leather)
- Sommarioni: |S| MOROSINI Elisabetta, house and shop
--> probably relative, also inhereted id_napo 2690
- id_napo: 2688
- Catastici: Nobil donna Paolina Mocenigo consorte del nobil huomo Michiel Morosini, house and shop of tailor and turner(?) - Sommarioni: MOROSINI Elisabetta, house and shop for rent --> same as above
- id_napo: 7334
- Catastici: Anna consorte Abram q. Mois\u00e8 Malta, house
- Sommarioni ( 3 entries):
- Possessore ignoto - unknow owner, quality: public arcade ( sottoportico)
- FOSCARINI Giacomo (q. Sebastiano), first floor rental home
- MALTA Abramo, rental home, first floor
--> names for one of them seems similar, maybe relation?
- id_napo: 10806
- Catastici:
- Nobil Homo Ser Polo Capello fu de Ser Alvise, house
- Nobil Homo Ser Polo Capello fu de Ser Alvise, appartment
- Nobil Domina Perina Capello consorte del Nobil Homo Ser Polo, small house ( casetta)
- Nobil Domina Perina Capello consorte del Nobil Homo Ser Polo, house
- Nobil Domina Perina Capello consorte del Nobil Homo Ser Polo, house in two levels, attic
- Nobil Domina Perina Capello consorte del Nobil Homo Ser Polo, house in two levels
Nobil Domina Perina Capello consorte del Nobil Homo Ser Polo, casetta
- Sommarioni: Eredi del fù Giovanni PASQUALIGO, house and courtyard for rent
--> no link
- id_napo: 1525
- Catastici
- Zuanne Mitti e Giovanni Battista Girardini, storage
- Per uso et habitatione propria di Cecilia Maffei, Consorte d'Antonio Panciera, house attic
- Sommarioni:
- MANZONI Antonio q. Francesco, part of an house
- PANZIERO Antonio (q. Antonio), shop
- RUGIA Antonio q. Antonio, part of a house
--> no link
- id_napo: 9937
- Catastici:
- Vianoli Consorte del Nobil Homo Ferigo Renier, house
- Vianoli Consorte del Nobil Homo Ferigo Renier, house
- Sommarioni:
- RENIER, parts of house for rent
- MARUZZI Costantino (q. Pano), house and shop for rent
--> seems like part of the property has been herited to someone in the family
- Hypothesis**:
- for multiple entries for the same id_napo, where the husband is mentioned for some of them and the widow in some, the data was collected at different times and the husband deseased inbetween
- Results**:
From the 11 entries it seems like there is some sort of inheritance in the family for 7 of them. From these Vianoli Consorte del Nobil Homo Ferigo Renier, is mentioned in three of the cases and the property is inherited to someone with the last name Renier. Another case where there is a clear pattern is for Paolina Mocenigo consorte del Nobil homo Michiel Morosini, where in three cases the property is inherited to a MOROSINI Elisabetta.
Sommarioni to Catastici
By relating the properties of the widows here to the properties in the Catastici, one can perhaps get an indication about how properties are passed on to widows. We will try relating them by using the parcel_number and see if there is an corresponding id_napo in the Catastici. For the matching of parcel numbers to id_napo in the Catastici, we get 388 links. These are way too many to go tghough manually and we therefor must try to analyse it using general code.
The general idea would be to look if there is a similarity in their names. A problem here is that the names are sometimes written differently ( ex. Bonvicini and Bonbicini) even though its the same familyname.
By looking for similarities between the strings in owner_standardised and owner with owner_name, owner_family_name or owner_family_group i n the Catastici using difflib and a similatrity ratio of 0.4, 360 matches are found. After inspecting these matches it is obvious that not all matches result in a link between the Sommarioni and Catastici, meaning that not all matches guarantee the same family name. That's why a second method is tested to check similarity. It appears that often in the Sommarioni names are for instance "Lin", whilst in the Catastici it would be "Lini", is this then the same name.
vocabulary analysis
Discussion, limitations and quality assessments
Conclusion (summary) and continuations (where to go from here :) )
Deliverables
Credits
Course: Foundation of Digital Humanities (DH-405), EPFL
Professor: Frédéric Kaplan
Supervisor:
Authors: Eglantine Vialaneix, Nathanaël Lambert, Lisa Marie Njå
Date: 18.12.2024
References
For our eyes only
Draft of the report plan:
TODO (guideline):
-Project plan and milestones (5%) (>300 words)
-Motivation and description of the deliverables (5%) (>300 words)
-Detailed description of the methods (5%) (>500 words)
-Quality assessment and discussion of limitations (5%) (>300 words)
TODO: - redo the plan table (nicely) - is it nice enough? -
TASK SPILT: - everyone write down their own results, discussion and limitations (merge the common ones) - we later split the rest of common sections
Motivation
This is not really a motivation of the project, but rather a project description.
Goal:
The goal of this project is to analyze the socio-economic status and property dynamics of widows as recorded in two historical datasets, the Catastici and the Sommarioni. By comparing these datasets, the project aims to uncover patterns in property ownership, tenancy, and rent payments among widows and to investigate changes in their living conditions over time.
Who are the widows recorded in the Catastici and Sommarioni datasets? This phase will involve locating and identifying widows in both datasets, gathering key demographic information (such as name, property status, and rent details), and understanding their distribution.
Are widows more likely to be property owners (landlords) or tenants? This question focuses on determining the proportion of widows who owned properties versus those who rented them. Understanding this ratio will provide insights into their economic standing.
Do widows pay different rents compared to other tenants for similar types of properties? Here, the project will investigate whether widows receive any preferential treatment or experience discrimination in terms of rent compared to other demographic groups in the datasets.
How does the ownership or tenancy of widows change between the two datasets (Catastici and Sommarioni)? By comparing property ownership or tenancy records between the two datasets, this question aims to explore whether widows' economic positions (through property ownership or rent status) improve or decline over time. For example, do they acquire more properties, or is there evidence of downsizing?
What patterns emerge from comparing widows across the two years? By analyzing widows’ presence in both datasets, this phase will search for trends regarding widowhood and economic mobility. For instance, did certain social classes of widows fare better or worse in retaining or expanding their property holdings?
Extra: If time look at the Tassini and see if and how they mention widows
Historical background
Where do we want to find this information? What are good sources to use? --> Google Scolar?
When reading about the history, add knowledge here with references to the sources used.
Venice is part of the Venetian Republic. It falls to Napoleon in 1796. Venice is given to the Austrian Monarchy by the French Republic as part of the Treaty of Campo Formio. Then it became French again and then Austrian.
https://www.napoleon-series.org/research/government/diplomatic/c_campoformio1.html
There is no major Palgue Epidemy during our period of focus [1]
The Venetian Society has strong gender roles and has a class system:
- Patricians (there names are probably in the libro d'Oro - Citizens (Popolani) - Commoners
I wish I had access to : [2]
this looks cool : [3]
Project Plan and Milestones
| Week | Task | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 07.10 - 13.10 | Define project and structure work | Done |
| 14.10 - 20.10 |
| |
| 21.10 - 27.10 | Autumn vacation | |
| 28.10 - 03.11 |
| |
| 04.11 - 10.11 |
| |
| 11.11 - 17.11 |
| |
| 18.11 - 24.11 | Finish property ownership analysis - Sommarioni & Catastici
Finish comparative rent analysis - Catastici |
|
| 25.11 - 01.12 | - Start widow heritage analysis
- Social aspect: see how many times words/titles are used to describe different groups of people ( ‘Vedova’, ‘Consorte’, …) - Start writing down findings in the wiki |
|
| 02.12 - 08.12 | Compare all the different analysis done and see if one can extract general trends for widows or interpret some of the results | |
| 09.12 - 15.12 | - Finish writing wiki
- Prepare presentation |
|
| 16.12 - 22.12 | Deliver GitHub + wiki on 18.12 and final presentation on 19.12 |
Methodology
Data
Catastici
| Column Name | Description | coverage |
|---|---|---|
| uidx | ? | |
| id | ? | |
| owner_name | The name of the owner associated with the record. | |
| owner_code | code of owner type | |
| owner_count | number of owners (type int) | |
| owner_count_remark | remark for owner count if exact number is not applicable (e.g. fratelli) | |
| owner_entity | owner entity name (blank if owner is not an entity) | |
| owner_entity_group | owner entity group standardisation (blank if owner is not an entity) | |
| owner_first_name | owner first name (blank if owner is not an person) | |
| owner_family_name | owner last name (blank if owner is not an person) | |
| owner_family_group | owner family group standardisation (blank if owner is not an person) | |
| owner_title | owner title (blank if owner has not title) | |
| owner_title_std | standardisation or propagation of owner title | |
| owner_mestiere | owner mestiere (blank if owner has no mestiere) | |
| owner_mestiere_std | standardisation of owner title mestiere | |
| ten_name | Name of the tenants. | |
| function | ? | |
| an_rendi | ? | |
| id_napo | whenever found, the correspondingparcel in the Sommarioni 1808 | |
| quantity_income | ? | |
| quality_income | ? | |
| author | ? | |
| place | ? | |
| sestiere | the sestiere (district) of the entry as an acronym. Possible values are SM (San Marco), CS (Castello), CC/CN (Cannaregio), SP (San Polo), SC (Santa Croce) and DD (Dorsoduro) | |
| uid | ? | |
| path_img | ? | |
| geometry | single point coordinate where the parcel is located in CRS84 format | |
| parish_std | standardized name of the parish |
| Italian | English | Description |
|---|---|---|
| vedova | widow | - |
| mestiere | profession | - |
| parrocchia | parish | Parishes in Venice were local ecclesiastical districts, each centered around a parish church. Every house in Venice belonged to a specific parish, creating a network of smaller communities within the larger city. |
| sestiere | district of Venice | The name given to the districts of Venice: San Marco, San Polo, Santa Croce, Dorsoduro (which includes the island of Giudecca), Castello, Cannaregio. |
| frateli | brothers | plural of fratello |
| sorelle | sisters | plural of sorella |
| ved | widow of | short for vedova |
| quondam | son/daughter of | literraly : previously |
| fratelli quondam | this person + his brothers from the the father | - |
| fu di | of the late man | like "quondam" but the father is dead |
| q.m | abrevation of quondam | |
| sudett-o/-a/-i | part of an other place | in the table sometimes multiple rows in a row belong to one place |
| consorte | married with | husband is dead |
| della fu | of the late woman |
Sommarioni
Is a cadaster from 1808 showing the different properties in Venice (parcels) and their assigned parcel number. The information is given in a tabular form. Information includes: - parcel numbers: relates to a certain property - owner of the given property -...
Analysis
What data is comparable between the two datasets
- function of property
- Catastici it is mentioned as function
- Sommarioni it is mentioned as quality
- owners
Results
Should include graphs and plots of the data/ just some data visualisation
Interpretation of the data
it's essential to contextualize the findings within the broader political and economic shifts in Venice (e.g., Napoleonic occupation, decline of the Republic). How did these events impact inheritance patterns or gender roles in property ownership?
Deliverables
The GitHub page of this project can be found at the following address: Rich Widows
Limitations
what limitations did our analysis have, was the data lacking. How sure are we that the results presented are true?
Credits
Course: Foundation of Digital Humanities (DH-405), EPFL
Professor: Frédéric Kaplan
Supervisor:
Authors: Eglantine Vialaneix, Nathanaël Lambert, Lisa Marie Njå
Date: 18.12.2024