Widows in Venice

What is left to do

• Detailed description of the methods - rent analysis
• historical backrgound: is the libre oro correctly integrated?
• conclusion and continuation - need to figure out the part about interpretation

small things to fix

• references

What to discuss on the group meeting:

• everyone reads wiki together, final touches
• check if word count is achieved for the specicfied sections
• discuss how to make git repository nice
• continuation does not seem to be very specific to our project, i think we should be discussing what we could have continue in our own project, not really other slightly related ideas of projects
• ciara pisani -> how do we know she is a widow? is she an example of widows we count not identify given our pipeline? could be a good opening for the end of our analysis

• hand in both
• prepare presentation
• plan a meeting for wednsday to practice

maybe split it like this for the meeting: two people read and make the finale touches, one person ( preferably with good knowledge of git, fixes the repository)

• deliverables - add how the github repository is organized. ( after github is nicely combined) -> this should not be in our wiki but in the readme.md file in our repository

Introduction

This project examines the socio-economic status and property dynamics of widows in the 18th- and early 19th-century Venice, focusing on two historical datasets: the Catastici and the Sommarioni. By analyzing these records, the project aims to uncover patterns in property ownership, tenancy, and rent payments, providing insights into widows’ roles and lives during this period.

The analysis focuses on identifying widows within the datasets and gathering key information such as property ownership, tenancy status, and rent values. It also compares trends across the two time periods to explore changes in widows’ economic circumstances. Specific questions include whether widows were more likely to own or rent properties, whether their properties differed in size or value from others, and how their economic situations varied between the Christian districts and the Jewish Ghetto.

Historical background

The project focuses on Venice during the period 1740–1808, a time marked by significant social and political changes. This era includes the dramatic Fall of the Republic of Venice to Napoleon in 1797, ending over a thousand years of independence. Unlike earlier centuries, the late 18th century was not plagued by major epidemics, allowing for relative demographic stability.

Venetian society in this period was structured by rigid gender roles and a hierarchical class system. At the top were the patricians, followed by citizens (popolani), and finally the commoners. These divisions were formalized through records like the libro d'Oro, which documented the city’s elite families. Social mobility was limited, and class often determined one's opportunities and rights within the Republic.

As in many European cities at the time, Jews were the only people allowed to lend money. They were forced to live in a Ghetto and paid expensive taxes to the city. During night they were locked in the Ghetto.

This historical context provides a backdrop for the analysis, offering insight into the societal structures, class dynamics, and economic realities that shaped the lives of Venetians, particularly widows, during this transformative period.

Motivation

Word cloud of all the tokens present in the Catastici that are not names

The situation of women in historical patriarchal societies is often difficult to fully understand. Their names are frequently only found in historical records when linked to male relatives, as women were long considered dependent on their fathers and later their husbands, with fewer rights than men. Wives were often referred to by their husband's name (e.g., Mrs. Leonardo Rossi would refer to Sofia Bianchi after marriage). Widows often faced the same fate, with their identities obscured or even forgotten.

This historical trend is evident in official documents like the Catastici and the Sommarioni, which list property owners. These records are dominated by male nouns and adjectives, as seen in the Word Cloud. However, it is interesting to note that a few female nouns and adjectives do appear, with widows among them. A closer examination of these widows can provide valuable, quantifiable insights into gender roles and the economic and cultural relationships in 18th-century Venice.

Project Plan and Milestones

The project is structured on a weekly basis, to ensure an even progression and workload. Each week has a clearly defined goal. The plan spans from the initial setup and data extraction through to final analysis and presentation, with clear milestones throughout.

The first phase of the project (07.10 - 13.10) is focused on defining the project's scope and structure. Here the focus was on creating a common understanding of the project to ensure good collaboration in the group. The following week data extraction of the widows in the two datasets started. In addition a review of historical papers on widows and Venice was done, providing the necessary context for the research (14.10 - 20.10). The analysis then shifted towards examining the widows mentioned in the Sommarioni and Catastici records. This stage involved comparative rent analysis and property ownership evaluation (8.10 - 03.11).

The mid-project milestones included a midterm presentation on 14.11, with further development of the analysis through the end of November (11.11 - 24.11). This phase focused on completing the property ownership and comparative rent analyses, as well as beginning to explore widow heritage and social aspects, such as the frequency of titles like "Vedova" and "Consorte" used in the records. These findings were progressively written into a shared wiki.

The final analysis phase, beginning 02.12, was dedicated to comparing the results of the previously conducted analyses, and identifying overarching trends related to widows in Venetian society. The last steps of the project (09.12 - 15.12) will involve finishing the wiki documentation and preparing the final presentation.

The project will conclude with the delivery of the GitHub repository and wiki on 18.12, followed by the final presentation on 19.12.

For a detailed overview of the workflow and corresponding milestones, see the table below.

Workflow

Week	Task
07.10 - 13.10	Define project and structure work
14.10 - 20.10	Write code to extract widow data Read historical papers on widows and Venice
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
02.12 - 08.12	Compare all analyses to identify general trends for widows Interpret some of the results
09.12 - 15.12	Finish writing the wiki Prepare the presentation
16.12 - 22.12	Deliver GitHub + wiki on 18.12 Final presentation on 19.12

Dataset presentation

For this project, two primary datasets are used as the foundation for the analysis, the Catastici and the Sommarioni. These historical records provide information about property ownership, income, and land use in Venice.

Catastici

Catastici

The Catastici is a historical register from 1740 comprising 32'123 property records, collected through door-to-door surveys within a parish. The sequence of entries reflects the route taken during data collection. The original register contains five main columns of information:

• Owner information
• Tenants
• Income from rent
• Place name
• Urban function

The entries vary in detail, as there was no strict data format. Some records are highly detailed, while others lack certain information. During standardization and digitization, additional columns were created to improve data usability, such as Family Name and Owner Title.

For analysis, the transcription version "catastici_text_data_20240924.json" is used. This dataset includes both the original and standardized columns.

Sommarioni

Sommarioni

The Sommarioni is a cadaster from 1808, documenting properties and parcels in Venice alongside their assigned parcel numbers. In total it has 23,400 entries. The dataset is tabular and contains the following core information:

• Parcel Number: Corresponding to a specific property
• Owner Information: Listing the property owner
• Quality: Describing the function or use of the property

Similar to the Catastici, additional columns were added post-digitization to capture supplementary details. Unlike the Catastici, the Sommarioni does not include information about tenants of rented properties. For the analysis the dataset "sommarioni_text_data_20240709.json" was used.

Methodology

Property ownership analysis

For the property ownership analysis for the widows mentioned in the Catastici and Sommarioni a similar approach was used. First the widows were located in the relevant columns using the keywords "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 were saved. These new datasets were then used as the basis of further analysis. A distant reading methodology of the data was done by counting and and creating distributions of different variables given in the data. When counting properties, uniqueness of each property was ensured by the unique identification number of the parcel provided in the dataset. For ensuring uniqueness in widows, this was done for both datasets manually and by using likeness of standardized names.

Heritage Analysis

To explore inheritance patterns of widow-owned properties in Venetian records, two following two approaches were used.

Linking Catastici to Sommarioni

Properties owned by widows in the Catastici were linked to entries in the Sommarioni through matching the "id_napo" from the Catastici to the corresponding parcel numbers in the Sommarioni.

Due to the limited amount of data available, only 16 entries with an id_napo in the Catastici, manual inspection was conducted to identify familial connections.

Linking Sommarioni to Catastici

Properties listed in the Sommarioni were traced back to the Catastici using parcel numbers and name similarity.

Using the parcel numbers from the Sommarioni, they were linked with the id_napo of the Catastici. To check for familiar relations between the owners a name similarity analysis was conducted. Here computational tools like [[ https://docs.python.org/3/library/difflib.html difflib]] were used to compare widow names between datasets, accounting for spelling variations (e.g., "Bonvicini" vs. "Bonbicini"). A similarity threshold of 0.7 was applied.

This methodology allowed for a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis, addressing historical inconsistencies while exploring inheritance patterns across records.

Rent Analysis

Here are the steps followed to analyze the rent paid by widows:

• data preprocessing : rent standardization, conversion between the different currencies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetian_lira https://giacomo-casanova.de/catour16.htm https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/oa_monograph/chapter/2471365 We came up with :

   1 ducato = 1488 denari
   1 lira = 240 denari
   1 grosso = 62 denari
   1 soldo = 12 denari
   we consider that the the unit is ducato if there is no unit specified (according to Isabella)

• from properties to widow : identifying widows across multiple properties using their names.
• identifying nobles through a set of keywords ('nobil', 'conte', 'cavaliere', 'marchese', 'duca', 'principe', 'barone', 'illustrissima', 'illustrissimo')
• identifying charity as properties where no rent is paid in money, quality_income contains a reasonable justification ('gratis', 'amor dei') and there is no quantity_income
• macro analysis by computing median rent for all properties, widow-owned properties, and widow-rented properties, at the scale of venice, at the scale of each district, at the scale of each parish
• plotting the widows and properties, showing rent with color, nobility with edges and size, parishes with lines
• manually observing tendencies and linking the computed median rent for different subgroups with observation on the geographical level
• looking for possible explanations in the literature

Results

Property Ownership Analysis

Catastici Property Analysis

Widows extraction in the Catastici

Using the methods described in Property ownership analysis, a total of 104 unique mentions of widows were identified in the Catastici out of the 33'297 entries. Widows names were identified when they were mentioned as either "Vedova" or "Consorte" in the column of owner names or in the column of tenants names. Since one widow can own several properties, instance were counted with and without repeats. In the tables below, counts of all mentions of widows as "vedova" and "consorte" are displayed with and without repeats.

Number of mentions of Vedova and Consorte

Mentioned As	Owner Name	Tenant Name	Total mentions
Vedova	26	55	81
Consorte	37	6	43
Total	63	61	124

Number of unique mentions of Vedova and Consorte

Mentioned As	Owner Name	Tenant Name	Total mentions
Vedova	22	49	71
Consorte	29	5	34
Total	51	54	105

Antonia Franchini

As mentioned above, in total, 104 unique names of widows were identified. However, adding each count of unique instance of both keywords vedova and consorte for both owners and tenants results to 105 instances, meaning one more instance than expected (see the tables above). This difference is due to one widow in the Catastici who owned one property and rented another one: Antonia Franchini vedova. Apparently, in 1740, Antonia Franchini was renting a house and a fruit roll shop (casa e bogetta da frutaroll) owned by Nobil Domina Chiara Moro Zen. The property Antonia Franchini owned was an inviamento located in Cannaregio and was not rented to anyone.

Properties owned and rented by widows in the Catastici

It is intuitive to think that some widows could own several properties. On the same note, some widows could rent several properties. Following this idea, the number of widows owning or renting several properties was computed and their distribution is shown in the barplots below:

As expected most widows in the Catastici owned one single property (45/51 widow owners). Six of them, however, stand out and revealed to own more than one property, even up to six properties. These six particular widows could be extracted and their names displayed in the table below. Similarly, one could think that people would most commonly rent one single property which is the case for most of the widows (49/54 widow tenants). For five of them, several properties were rented at their name, up to four properties one of them. These widows' names are displayed in the table below.

Widows' Name	Number of Owned Properties
Nobil Domina Perina Capello consorte del Nobil Homo Ser Polo	6
Vedova Steffani Nodaro	3
Domenica Ferrari consorte di Zuanne Stella	3
Vianoli Consorte del Nobil Homo Ferigo Renier	2
Vedova del q. Marco Coen	2
Fiama Fiorelli vedova di Giacomo Dente	2

Widows' Name	Number of Rented Properties
Domenica Persego vedova Domino Val[azzo]	4
Vedova Marsilia	2
Orsetta Maggia vedova	2
Maria Scagnola affittanza fatta a Francesco Scagnola suo consorte	2
Elisabetta Vedova	2

Perina Capello

Perina Capello was the widow who owned the most properties in Venice in 1740. As she is the only widow that is referred to as a Nobil Domina, it is likely that she had a great influence at that time. Among the six properties she owned, most of them are houses (casa and casetta) that she rented to both males and females. All her properties were located in the district Santa Croce, all nearby to each other.

Widows' Distribution across Venice districts

Through history, the construction and inhabitation of cities followed population dynamics, creating clusters of people related to their social and economical situation. One can learn a lot about a group and a population just by looking at their spacial distribution. In this optic, this study compared the spatial distribution of properties owned and rented by widows across Venice's districts with the global distribution of properties in Venice. The Figure below illustrates the results obtained when computing this data.

In the first panel of the graph below ("Property Owners") the distribution of owned properties across the district of the entire population tells us that regarding the total population of Venice, the district with the most owned properties in is Cannaregio where nearly 18% of the owned properties are found. On the contrary, the district with the less owned properties is the Ghetto Novossimo, which contains only 2% of the total owned properties. These observations make sense since Cannaregio and the Ghetto represent, respectively, the largest and the smallest area of the city of Venice, which directly affects the number of properties they can contain which thus affects the proportion of properties that can be owned in the first place. This study also computed the repartition of properties owned by widows across the district which revealed a completely different distribution. For instance, while Cannaregio represented 18% of the total owned properties, for properties owned by widows, only 7.5% of them are located in this district. Similarly, while the Ghetto represented only 2% of the total owned properties, for widows, this district contains nearly one fifth of all the propeties that are owned by widows.

To compare the difference in repartition between widows and global population, this study computed the ratios of the proportion of properties owned by widows in a district over the proportion the same district represents in the entire population. The results are shown in the second panel of the Figure below ("Relative Proportion of Properties Owned by Widows in each District"). If this ratio is equal to 1, this means that the proportion of properties owned in this district is the same for widows as for the global population. If this ratio is greater that 1, notably for the Ghetto Novossimo whose ratio is equal to 9.5, it means that the proportion of properties owned by widows is equal to 9.5 times the global proportion.

These operations were also done on the rented properties: where do widows rent properties compare to the global population? From the last two panels of the Figure below, one can establish that properties rented by widows are more distributed in Cannaregio, Ghetto Novossimo and Santa Croce than the global population.

Comparison of the distribution of properties owned and rented by widows in each district with the general population distribution

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 amount of widows renting properties.

Ownership Distribution

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 different spellings 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, 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.

Loredana Grimani

Loredana Grimani is the widow holding the most properties in Venice in 1808. This exceptional case may indicate significant wealth, and further investigation into the Grimani-Morosini family could provide more context. From the presentation given on the Venice Data[15], there is a graph from showing the distribution of family ownership - weighted by ownership portion. The graph, based on Catastici data, highlights that both the Morosini and Grimani families controlled a significant share of Venetian properties during this period. It is reasonable to assume that by the time of the Sommarioni in 1808, the Grimani family’s property holdings had remained relatively stable.

Geographic Distribution of Widow-Owned Properties

The 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.

• 

  Fraction of properties owned by widows and people per district

• 

  Normalised average area of properties owned by widows in a given district

Property Size and Wealth Indicators

The figure 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.

Property Functions

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.

Catastici and Sommarioni: Properties Analysis Comparison

When comparing the results of the different analysis of the Catastici and Sommarioni only the intersection of the columns from the two sets are possible to use. This is due to the datasets not containing entirely the same data. An example for something that falls outside this scope is aspect of the tenants, due to them not being mentioned in the Sommarioni. A few common aspects can still be compared between the analysis of both datasets.

Amount of extracted widows

In the Catastici, out of 33'297 entries, this study could only extract 104 widows (70 vedova VS 34 consorte), while in the Sommarioni, even though it contains 23'400 entries, which is less than the Catastici, 659 widows (651 vedova VS 8 consorte) could be found. Is this difference representative of a true difference in number of widows in Venice population between the two time points? Is the difference due to some biais induced by the data and the way widows were recorded? Is there other words one could use to extract the widows from at least of the datasets?

Distribution of owners in each district

As seen in Distribution of the widows across Venice districts, in 1740, there were strikingly more widows that were recorded to own properties in the Ghetto Novossimo (part of Cannaregio) than the rest of the population, while in the Sommarioni Property Analysis widows tended to own more properties in completely different regions, namely Castello and Dorsoduro. These regions are also different from the ones in which widows tended to rent more properties than the global population.

Heritage analysis

The inheritance of properties by widows in Venice offers insight into historical family dynamics and property ownership structures. This study examines links between property records in the Catastici and Sommarioni to identify patterns of inheritance. The analysis focuses on widows who owned property, as tenants are not mentioned in the Sommarioni.

Catastici to Sommarioni

Of the 61 widow-owned properties in the Catastici, only 16 contained valid id_napo values, enabling direct comparison. Manual inspection of these entries yielded the following results. From these 16 entries, some of them id_napos related to the same parcel number. Therefor only 11 distinct cases are given in the datasets.

For four of the entries there was no apparent relationship between the widow-owned properties in the Catastici and corresponding entries in the Sommarioni. For example, the property linked to id_napo 4270 (Catastici: Gerolema; Sommarioni: DA' RIVA Giovanni Battista) showed no familial or functional connection.

For another seven of the entries there is a possible relationship between the two datasets. Several cases suggested familial inheritance, often indicated by shared last names between the Catastici and Sommarioni entries. An example of this is id_napo 4896, where in the Catastici the owner of a house with a shop is called Elena Vianol (widow of Ferigo Renier). In the Sommarioni the owner is called Renier Bernardino, which is likely a family member.

Other recurring patterns seen in this analysis is that Elena Vianol (widow of Ferigo Renier) appeared in multiple instances where properties were inherited by individuals with the surname Renier. Paolina Mocenigo (widow of Michiel Morosini) showed a similar trend, with properties inherited by Morosini Elisabetta.

For some properties, both the widow's and her husband's names were recorded across different entries, possibly reflecting a time lag in property registration before and after the husband's death.

Sommarioni to Catastici

Attempting to trace properties from the Sommarioni back to the Catastici yielded 388 potential links based on matching parcel numbers. Given the volume of data, computational methods were employed to identify connections.

The analysis focused on name similarity, which presented challenges due to variations in spelling (e.g., Bonvicini vs. Bonbicini). Despite these difficulties, clear inheritance patterns were identified in several cases.

The analysis revealed clear inheritance patterns in several cases, particularly among prominent families like the Renier and Morosini. These findings suggest that property often stayed within family lines, with widows playing a transitional role in ownership. Discrepancies in name spelling, inconsistent recording practices, and incomplete historical data hindered efforts to establish conclusive links for many properties. These limitations highlight the need for refined computational techniques and deeper contextual understanding in future research.

Rent and Geographic Analysis

Economical situation of widows in Venice 1740

When looking the entire city of Venice, we find only 120 properties involving widows from a total of more than 30k. This is about 0.36% of properties. We could expect this number to be closer to 15%. We are identifying the widows with keywords (consorte and vedova), so we miss all the widows that are mentioned with only their name. Also, widow can remarry or stay with family or at a convent where they might not be registered as tenants.

Classification : Jewish and Nobles

Widows live very different situations depending on their socioeconomic situation, the number of children they have, if they remarry or not. To understand the rent paid and earned by widows we need to understand what kind of widows we can find in the Catastici. A relevant separation we can make is to separate the nobility. Another separation is to isolate the Jewish society from the rest of the Christian society because they are very different.

Widows in the Catastici are always either tenants or owners of a place. Only one property (out of 745) in the Jewish Ghetto is owned by a noble and it does not involve widows.

Widow Classification in Venice

	Nobility	Jewish	Other
Tenants	2	5	45
Owners	13	19	19

In Venice out of 33297 properties, 9521 are owned by nobles(about 28%). (though nobles most likely represent a way smaller percentage of the population). For widows out of 51 widow-owned properties, 13 are owned by nobles. This is about 25% of properties. Out of 33297 properties, 455 are rented by nobles (about 1.3%). For widows, out of 52 widow-rented properties, 2 are rented by nobles (about 4%). We will overlook those arguably small differences and claim that the proportions of nobles are the same for widows than for the rest of Venice.

Charity

Not everyone is paying rent with money, or even paying rent at all. People can pay rent with money or goods (like sugar). However, no Widow owners was found receiving payment in goods and no widow tenants was found paying in goods. Properties with no rent paid (no good and no money) fall into three categories :

• charity, (for instance : "gratis": free , "per carità": per charity, "per grazia": per grace, "amore dei": for the love of God)
• refusal to pay, ("giurò non pagar affitto": swore not to pay rent)
• no comment

It is difficult to determine if no comment entries are mistakes and rent was actually paid or if they fall into charity or some sort of agreement between owner and tenants. But, if we only focus on entries for which we are sure that they are charity, it is clear that charity towards widow tenants is almost 7 times higher than charity in general. Widow owners were not found practicing charity, but remember that charity is rare and there is not a lot of widow owners, so this might not be a significant result.

Charity in Venice

	Total number of properties	Properties where no rent is paid (no good and no money)	Mentioned as charity
Venice	33,297 (100%)	3,115 (9.35%)	169 (0.50%)
Widow Owners	61 (100%)	10 (16.39%)	0 (0%)
Widow Tenants	59 (100%)	4 (6.78%)	2 (3.39%)

Rent in Venice [5]

The scale of Venice

If we now only consider properties for which we have quantifiable rents paid with money, we find that widows pay about 40 lirae less than median rent per property and when owning a place, they earn about 40 lirae more than median rent per property. Those difference represent a 30% difference to median rent.

A possible explanation for widows renting at lower price would be that they get discounts due to their social status. But, this type of positive discrimination towards widows wouldn't explain why widows own properties that are rented at a higher price.

Widows tenants seem to rent cheap places and widow owners own expensive places.

But this asks further questions: Are those properties located in specific cheap or expensive neighborhoods ? Where are widows renting ? Where do they own properties ? What happened to owners of cheap houses and tenants in big houses ?

Median Rent and Population in Venice

Median Rent	Widow Owners Median Rent Difference	Widow Tenants Median Rent Difference	Properties	Widow Owned Properties	Widow Rented Properties
124.0	+ 37.2	- 37.2	29999	48	55

Districts of Venice [6]

The scale of the districts

If we zoom in to the scale of districts, we can see that despite the high variations in rent between districts, the pattern of owners owning more than median rent and tenants renting at lower prices holds in almost every district.

We also see that widows are not present in equal proportions in each district. In particular, the Ghetto is very dense with both widow owners and widow tenants. This result can be put in relationship with what we suspect about the difference between the Venetian, catholic society where widows were encouraged to remarry or become nuns and could often only gain temporary control of their late husband's business and the Jewish society of the Ghetto that gave more autonomy to widows allowing them to be part of the workforce for instance. It is likely that widows found in other districts are facing a strong social incentive to remarry. Probably, most of them will remarry or become nuns in the months or years following 1740.

Widow tenants are present in good proportions in the Ghetto, Santa Croce and Cannaregio. Widow owners are present in good proportions at The Ghetto and a bit in Castello.

Median Rent in the districts

Sestiere	Median Rent	Widow Owners Median Rent Difference	Widow Tenants Median Rent Difference	Properties	Widow Owned Properties	Widow Rented Properties
San Marco	210.8	+ 37.2	0.0	5697	5 (0.09%)	4 (0.07%)
Castello	124.0	+ 99.2	- 43.4	5774	14 (0.24%)	8 (0.14%)
Cannaregio	124.0	+ 55.8	- 6.2	6016	6 (0.10%)	20 (0.33%)
San Polo	142.6	+ 24.8	- 43.4	2930	3 (0.10%)	3 (0.10%)
Santa Croce	111.6	- 12.4	- 37.2	3218	5 (0.15%)	10 (0.30%)
Dorsoduro	86.8	+ 40.3	- 24.8	5835	4 (0.07%)	5 (0.08%)
Ghetto Novossimo	124.0	+ 24.8	- 62.0	529	11 ( 2.08%)	5 (0.94%)

Let's look in detail at each district. For each of them, we can identify the parishes in which widows are involved. Parishes represent local religious communities, but people don't always belong to the parish closest to where they live. In the following plots, parishes are represented by a line encircling all of it's members. Sometimes, non members happen to fall inside the parish's shape despite not belonging to it. Nobility owned properties are highlighted in black. Rent is shown with color. Here, the main method of investigation is to manually identify patterns in the following visualizations.

Rent in San Marco [7]

San Marco

San Marco is a very rich district where rent is almost double as in the rest of Venice. The widows representation in this district is quite low (less than 0.1% of the district). Noble widows are integrated within a noble community. It is very interesting to see how in this district, all the nobility is grouped in San Salvador. Ignoring widows, the pattern of rents really highlights key commercial elements of the district. For instance the "Merceria" (the main shopping street in the parish of San Salvador) is really visible, because rent is very high on it.

Selected Parishes of San Marco

Parish	Median Rent	Widow Owners Rent Median Difference	Widow Tenants Rent Median Difference	Properties	Widow Owned Properties	Widow Rented Properties Size
San Salvador	272.8	5.2	-	521	1	0

Rent in Castello [8]

Castello

Castello has some widows, particularly owners, that really gather in specific parishes in the east of the district, in San Giovanni in Bragora, San Martin and Santa Maria Formosa. Here again, nobles gather in specific geographical area and widows seem to match this pattern. We can clearly see that owners own more within there community while widow tenant rent for less also within their community. This exception are some widows that are able to afford expensive housing in nobility owned areas, we can assume that those widows are either recent widows or they have the opportunity to have a viable economic activity.

Parishes of Castello

Parish	Median Rent	Widow Owners Rent Median Difference	Widow Tenants Rent Median Difference	Properties	Widow Owned Properties	Widow Rented Properties Size
San Giovanni in Bragora	124.0	+ 84.3	-52.7	399	2	4
San Martin	86.8	+ 49.6	-6.2	563	3	2
San Pietro di Castello	99.2	+ 86.8	+ 142.6	1495	2	1
Santa Maria Formosa	186.0	+ 62.0	+ 434.0	747	7	1

Rent in Cannaregio [9]

Cannaregio

Unlike in Castello, widows of Cannaregio are present in almost every parish. Tenants are better represented in Cannaregio. The nobility owns significant parts of the district not necessary in one area. Rent is more expensive in cannaregio. Here the pattern doesn't hold: widow owners own rent that are sometimes below median rent and tenants sometimes rent at prices above median rent. Also, charity for widows is mentioned in San Marcuola.

Cannaregio is the district in which widow tenants and owners seems to be well integrated on an economical level.

Parishes of Cannaregio

Parish	Median Rent	Widow Owners Rent Median Difference	Widow Tenants Rent Median Difference	Properties	Widow Owned Properties	Widow Rented Properties
San Cancian	124.0	-	-62.0	629	0	1
San Felice	186.0	-	+ 434.0	351	0	1
San Geremia	99.2	+ 148.8	-49.6	1082	1	1
San Giovanni Grisostomo	186.0	-86.8	-	187	1	0
San Lunardo	148.8	-	-74.4	117	0	3
San Marcilian	124.0	-	+ 136.4	589	0	2
San Marcuola	117.8	-	+ 83.7	1432	0	6
Santa Fosca	124.0	+ 620.0	+ 347.2	163	1	1
Santa Maria Maddalena	124.0	-	-37.2	119	0	1
Santa Maria Nova	198.4	-	-99.2	183	0	2
Santa Sofia	136.4	-	0.0	546	0	1
Santi Apostoli	161.2	-49.6	-99.2	618	3	1

Rent in San Polo [10]

San Polo

Similarly to San Marco, widows are not very present in this San Polo. Also, very few properties are nobility owned in this district.

Parishes of San Polo

Parish	Median Rent	Widow Owners Rent Median Difference	Widow Tenants Rent Median Difference	Properties	Widow Owned Properties	Widow Rented Properties
San Mattio	136.4	+ 31.0	-37.2	319	2	1
San Polo	161.2	-117.8	-	353	1	0
San Toma	136.4	-	+ 24.8	272	0	2

Rent in Santa Croce [11]

Santa Croce

Santa Croce has a significant number of tenants that experience a similar situation to what we have been observing : living in lower rent places. Despite being the smallest parish, Santa Maria Mater Domini seems to be a parish with a lot of widows, more than in the rest of the district. Charity for tenants is also mentioned in this parish. All the properties owned by widows in Santa Maria Mater Domini are owned by the same person : Nobil Domina Perina Capello. This district is mostly nobility owned.

Parishes of Santa Croce

Parish	Median Rent	Widow Owners Rent Median Difference	Widow Tenants Rent Median Difference	Properties	Widow Owned Properties	Widow Rented Properties
San Cassiano	186.0	-124.0	-	546	1	0
San Giacomo dall'Orio	99.2	-	-55.8	657	0	1
San Simeon Apostolo	99.2	-	-62.0	198	0	1
San Simeon Profeta	93.0	-	0.0	447	0	1
Santa Croce	111.6	-	-58.9	739	0	2
Santa Maria Mater Domini	124.0	+ 3.1	-31.0	152	4	5

Rent in Dorsoduro [12]

Dorsoduro

There are very few widows in Dorsoduro. Significant part of the ditrict are mobility owned. Stil, a majority of tenants are below local median rent.

Parishes of Dorsoduro

Parish	Median Rent	Widow Owners Rent Median Difference	Widow Tenants Rent Median Difference	Properties	Widow Owned Properties	Widow Rented Properties
San Raffael	74.4	-	-43.4	772	0	3
San Barnaba	124.0	+ 93.0	-	904	1	0
San Basegio	74.4	-37.2	-	359	2	0
San Gregorio	86.8	-	-24.8	487	0	1
San Pantalon	111.6	-	+ 446.4	639	0	1
Santa Margherita	99.2	+ 148.8	-	483	1	0

Rent in the Ghetto [13]

The Ghetto

The Jewish Ghetto is made of three parts that were added at different time in history. There is almost no nobility. The situation of tenants is the same as in most of the cities : their rent is lower than median. For widow owners, the situation seems to be better in the old Ghetto Nuovo and worse in Ghetto Vecchio.

Parishes of the Ghetto

Parish	Median Rent	Widow Owners Rent Median Difference	Widow Tenants Rent Median Difference	Properties	Widow Owned Properties	Widow Rented Properties
Ghetto Nuovissimo	148.8	-	+ 68.2	46	0	1
Ghetto Nuovo	124.0	+ 105.4	-55.8	207	5	2
Ghetto Vecchio	124.0	-6.2	-80.6	276	6	2

Conclusion and interpretation

Widows face various economic situations in Venice.

Noble widows almost always own a house and are able to rent it at a very good price. Widows that inherit a house after the death of their husband and are able to rent this house often rent it at a price above median rent. On the other hand, widow who are renting are very rarely nobles and rent at a price below median rent.

Widow tenants don't seem to be marginalized on a geographical level, this is a bit of a guess, but it seems that they prefer to rent a cheap place in a rich neighborhood rather than move to a poor neighborhood. Charity is way more frequent towards widows. It is likely that widow stay in their community after the death of their husband because they can benefit from the charity of their surroundings. The small number of widow found might indicate that being a household head widowhood for female is not a durable situation as opposed to remarrying, joining a convent or being placed under the responsibility of one's son as it is sometimes mentioned in the Catastici : "Nicolò et ISeppo Fratelli Gatto quondam Gerolamo eredi di Cattarina Cavaliera sua madre" (Nicolò and ISeppo Gatto, brothers, sons of the late Gerolamo, heirs of Cattarina Cavaliera their mother). Richer widow who inherit a house big enough to accommodate them and their family and rent a part of it or all of it seem to also remarry/join a convent/be placed under their sons protection, otherwise we would have found way more widow-owned properties than widow-rent properties and we found about the same amount.

We find a lot of widow owners owning expensive properties, few widow owners owning cheap properties, a lot of widow tenants renting cheap properties and a few widow tenants renting expensive properties. It is difficult to know why this is the case in the entire city. Maybe, this has to do with the speed at which widows remarry : Widow owning a house are attractive marriage options so they remarry faster, but rich widow owners might be less eager to remarry because they have no economical incentive to do so. Widows renting at a high cost have high incentives to remarry because they might not have an income, but if they live in a difficult situation they might be less attractive marriage options.

> There was a tendency to look down upon women who remarried because of concern that they were seeking sexual satisfaction from other men or transferring their late husbands’ assets or children to another family. https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/italy-early-modern#pid-12315

The Jewish widows seems to not remarry as much and therefore we find more widows in proportion in the Ghetto. Jewish widow tenants seem to face similar economic difficulties as in the rest of Venice and rely on some form of support from their community. There are more Jewish widow owners with under median rent properties, this shows that the reasons why poor widow owners are rare in Venice is linked to the Venetian Christian society.

Properties of Chiara Pisani [14]

Case Study : Chiara Pisani

Chiara Pisani was an extremely wealthy widow of the 18th century Venice. She was part of the Pisani family. Accounts of here life mentioned that she was left in charge of a significant fortune after loosing both her father in 1737 and her husband in 1738. [16] At the time of the Catastici (in 1740) she was 36 years old. By looking for her name in the Catastici, we can get a better idea of how significant her fortune was: in 1740, she was the owner of 36 properties. She is sometimes mentioned as Chiara Pisani, sometimes as the tutelle of her sons, sometimes as the procuartor of her uncle Nicolò Pisani. Her total income from rent was 16,812 lirae. This is about 135 times the median rent of Venice of 124 lirae. We had to exclude Chiara Pisani from the rent analysis of widow-owned properties because she had too much impact given the significant outlier she represents.

Discussion, limitations and quality assessments

The analysis conducted on the Catastici and Sommarioni data reveals important insights but is constrained by several methodological and data limitations. A key issue lies in the small sample size: only 16 cases were identified using the id_napo when examining the heritage between the two registers Heritage analysis. This amount is insufficient for drawing concrete conclusions about widows. Additionally, inconsistencies in standardised sections like "owner_standardised" in the Sommarioni, which still includes spelling variations, makes a comparison harder.

The methodological tools used, such as difflib for identifying name similarities, while helpful, may have overlooked certain matches, and the narrow scope of the methods applied may not fully capture all the information given in the data. The absence of tenant data in the Sommarioni further restricts the ability to generalize findings, particularly for poorer widows who may be underrepresented in the cadaster.

Despite these challenges, the data quality is largely acceptable, though it is important to acknowledge potential errors introduced during the creation of the cadasters and the digitization process. However, combining these historical records with other sources adds quantitaive foundation to an else qualitative analysis.

This study's transparency and reproducibility increases its quality, since all analyses are documented and accessible on GitHub. Future research can build on these foundations by broadening the scope to include female-headed households, which might provide a more representative picture of widows in Venice. Exploring broader themes, such as the nobility's control of Venetian real estate, the role of the Catholic Church and charity, marriage laws, community dynamics, migration patterns, and economic activities across districts, can clarify confusing factors and pinpoint causes for observed phenomena.

Ultimately, the knowledge bottleneck about Venice in this era limits interpretive potential, but the Catastici and Sommarioni datasets, when combined with additional sources, offer valuable insights that can help enrich the understanding of Venetian widows and their societal contexts.

Conclusion and continuation

Conclusion

After conducting various analysis the most clear trends are the following. In the Catastici cadaster from 1740 not a lot of widows are identifiable as owners or tenants compared to the amount of entries given. The proportion of widows owning or renting properties is higher in the Jewish Ghetto than anywhere else. Compared to this, in the Christian districts, widows rent cheap properties, whilst they own expensive properties. It appears as charity in the Venetian society during this time is low in general but higher towards widows.

In 1808 there are more widows mentioned in the Sommarioni cadaster compared to the Catastici from 1740. Most of these widows tend to rent out their property. Only 9 widows are explicitly mentioned as living at their own property. In general the properties held by the widows are smaller than the average size of a property in the given district, which might indicate worse economic situations.

Interpretation, we believe that these facts might be explained by : - widows remarry quickly or fall under their son's protection in Christian Districts - Jewish widows have more autonomy than their christian counterparts - the catholic church encourages charity towards widows

Continuation

This project has been an attempt to collect knowledge on the widows living in Venetian society in 1740 and in 1808. There is still plenty to uncover about how life was for them and possible research areas are described followingly.

• Geometric Matching: Comparing spatial data where id_napo values were unavailable. This method was not applied in this project due to lack of time. But one could use the coordinates given in the Catastici and link it to parcels in the Sommarioni using the geojson.

• Explore how widows are mentioned in the Tassini
• Qualitative and socio-economical analysis of families
• Nobility's control of Venetian real estate
• The role of the Catholic Church and charity towards widows
• Marriage laws and traditions, motivation to remarry
• Community dynamics
• Migration patterns
• Economic activities across districts

Deliverables

The main deliverable of the project are this Wikipedia page where one can find the results of the different analysis conducted during the span of the project and the tools used to extract the different data. For more details, please review the Results section.

In addition, all the code used for the analysis can be found in the GitHub repository of this project:

Our Github Repository

Credits

Course: Foundation of Digital Humanities (DH-405), EPFL

Professor: Frédéric Kaplan

Authors: Eglantine Vialaneix, Nathanaël Lambert, Lisa Marie Njå

Date: 18.12.2024

References

• Image of the Venice Datasets – Retrieved from DH-405 lecture slides
• Fall of the Republic of Venice, Wikipedia
• Napoleon, Wikipedia
• A Chronology of the Black Plague in Venice, History Walks Venice
• Citizen of the Republic of Venice, History Walks Venice
• Libro d'Oro, Wikipedia
• Wall & Moring (PDF), INED
• Peek into Private Lives of Venice, Venetian Cat Blog

Supplementary Information

Dictionary of Useful Words and Idioms

Italian	English	Description
vedova	widow	Refers to a woman whose husband has passed away.
mestiere	profession	A term used to describe one's occupation or trade.
parrocchia	parish	Parishes in Venice were local religious districts, each centered around a parish church. Every house in Venice belonged to a specific parish, forming 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, and Cannaregio.
fratelli	brothers	The plural form of fratello (brother).
sorelle	sisters	The plural form of sorella (sister).
ved	widow of	An abbreviation of vedova.
quondam	son/daughter of	Literally means "formerly" or "previously." Often used in historical contexts to indicate lineage.
fratelli quondam	brothers of the father	Refers to a person and their brothers from the same father (e.g., siblings from a deceased patriarch).
fu di	of the late man	Similar to quondam, but explicitly indicates that the father is deceased.
q.m.	abbreviation of quondam	A shorthand version of quondam used in records and documentation.
sudett-o/-a/-i	part of another place	Indicates that certain rows in a table belong to one geographical or administrative area.
consorte	married with	Indicates a spouse, often implying the husband is deceased.
della fu	of the late woman	Used to indicate lineage or connection to a deceased mother.