Widows in Venice

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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

Workflow

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	Who are the widows recorded in the Catastici and Sommarioni datasets? - from catastici: how much do tenants pay rent? extract all rents from tenants and compare both distributions (eg mean, std, statistical tests…) ; extracting family name/family groups and see how rich they are -> how many properties they have ? compare between both datasets ; look at parcels number from sommarioni and maybe compare with catastici||
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 (details to be specified) ||
18.11 - 24.11	To be determined
25.11 - 01.12	To be determined
02.12 - 08.12	To be determined
09.12 - 15.12	Finish writing wiki and prepare presentation
16.12 - 22.12	Deliver GitHub + wiki on 18.12 and final presentation on 19.12

Methodology

Data

Catastici

Descriptions of the Columns

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

Dictionary of useful words and idioms

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	literraly : previously
this person + his brothers from the the father |
son of ? | could it be a transcription error for "filio di" ?

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 -...

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