Widows in Venice
What is left to do
Hello my fellow teammates! To be more structured in what is left to do and so that we don't forget anything important, here is a todolist :)
Once you have done something, please remove the point from the list
Before sunday evening:
- Motivation and description of the deliverables (5%) (>300 words)
- Detailed description of the methods - Methodology(5%) (>500 words)
- Nathanaël add for rent analysis
- Eglantine do you know how much we need for the property analysis? I'm not so sure about how detailed we have to do this, but its supposed to be 500 words....
- Quality assessment and discussion of limitations (5%) (>300 words)
- here everyone should add theirs
- when everyone has added we can write it into a fluent text
- introduction + historical backround and motivation
- maybe Nathanaël can talk briefly about the historic context and motivation?
- conclusion and continuation
- every one adds continuation
- one person writes conclusion once all results are written
- Results
- catastici property analysis
- compariosn cata and sommarioni property analysis, are there any overreaching trends?
- deliverables - what should we write here?
Monday:
- everyone reads the whole wiki, focus points:
- logical flow of the text
- are the findings contextualised within the broader political and economic shifts in venice
- fix small mistakes
- if anything needs to be discussed, write it down
Tuesday:
- group meeting
- discuss how to make git repository nice
- prepare presentation
Before final delivery:
- proofread the finale changes
- remove todo list hehe
Introduction
Widows in historical societies often occupied a unique socio-economic position, navigating the dual challenges of loss and the constraints of societal structures. This project seeks to explore the socio-economic status and property dynamics of widows as recorded in two historical datasets: the Catastici and the Sommarioni. By comparing these records, it aims to uncover patterns in property ownership, tenancy, and rent payments among widows, shedding light on their economic mobility and societal roles.
The analysis is guided by several key questions. First, it seeks to identify and contextualize the widows recorded in both datasets, gathering demographic and economic details such as names, property statuses, and rent information. From this foundation, the study explores whether widows were more likely to be property owners (landlords) or tenants, offering insights into their relative economic standing.
Another critical focus is the comparison of rent dynamics. The project investigates whether widows paid different rents compared to other tenants for similar properties, exploring potential evidence of preferential treatment or discrimination. Additionally, by comparing widows’ ownership or tenancy statuses across the two datasets, the study examines changes in their economic positions over time—did widows acquire more properties or experience economic decline? Finally,... what do we do at the end, how do we conclude??
Through this multi-faceted approach, the project aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of widows’ socio-economic roles and property dynamics, offering a nuanced perspective on gender, property, and economic mobility in historical contexts.
(example for introduction from chat - need to double check that it coincides with project and that it doesnt include things we didnt do)
Historical backdrop Here is the notes we have written previously: 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 [15]
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 : [16]
this looks cool : [17]
Motivation
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.
| Week | Task |
|---|---|
| 07.10 - 13.10 | Define project and structure work |
| 14.10 - 20.10 |
Write code to extract widow data |
| 21.10 - 27.10 | Autumn vacation |
| 28.10 - 03.11 |
Comparative rent analysis (catastici) |
| 04.11 - 10.11 |
Analysis: |
| 11.11 - 17.11 |
Midterm presentation on 14.11 |
| 18.11 - 24.11 |
Finish property ownership analysis - Sommarioni & Catastici |
| 25.11 - 01.12 |
Start widow heritage analysis |
| 02.12 - 08.12 |
Compare all analyses to identify general trends for widows |
| 09.12 - 15.12 |
Finish writing the wiki |
| 16.12 - 22.12 |
Deliver GitHub + wiki on 18.12 |
Dataset presentation
For this project, two primary datasets are used as the foundation for research: the Catastici and the Sommarioni. These historical records provide information about property ownership, income, and land use in Venice.
Catastici
![Sommarioni [3]](/images/thumb/6/6a/Sommarioni.png/348px-Sommarioni.png)
Sommarioni [3]
![Sommarioni [3]](/index.php/File:Sommarioni.png)
Catastici
The Catastici is a historical register comprising 32,123 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
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.
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 where 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.
This study provides different visualizations of the Catastici and the Sommarioni data relative to widows. Given the nature of the datasets, the data this study retrieves gives information on Venice properties ownership at that time.
Heritage analysis
To explore inheritance patterns of widow-owned properties in Venetian records, two approaches where used:
Linking Catastici to Sommarioni Properties owned by widows in the Catastici were linked to entries in the Sommarioni through two primary methods:
- id_napo Matching: Directly relating id_napo (parcel numbers) from the Catastici to corresponding entries in the Sommarioni.
- 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.
Due to the limited amount of data avialable, only 16 entries with an id_napo in the Catastici, manual inspection was conducted to identify familial or functional 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 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.
Results
Catastici property analysis
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.
| Mentioned As | Owner Name | Tenant Name | Total mentions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vedova | 26 | 55 | 81 |
| Consorte | 37 | 6 | 43 |
| Total | 63 | 61 | 124 |
| Mentioned As | Owner Name | Tenant Name | Total mentions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vedova | 22 | 49 | 71 |
| Consorte | 29 | 5 | 34 |
| Total | 51 | 54 | 105 |
As mentioned above, in total, 104 unique names of widows were identified. However, when adding each count of unique instance of both keywords vedova and consorte for both owners and tenants, we count 105 instances. This 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 and was not rented to anyone.
Distribution of properties owned by widows in the Catastici
Distribution of properties rented by widows in the Catastici
What Eglantine still needs to do:
- write about the widows that own and rent several properties
- write about the plot of the distribution of widows across the districts (absolute and normalized plots)
- put the word cloud in introduction? ask what the team think about that
- put the graphs more nicely
- compare with sommarioni (more widows in sommarioni even if only owners, different distributions…)
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[18], 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.
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.
aspects to compare:
- amount of widows found
- distribution of districts
- function of buildings
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.
For seven 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 Analysis
What is the economical situation of widows in Venice in 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.
| 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.
| 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%) |
![[6]](https://fdh.epfl.ch/images/b/b1/Venice_noble.png){kind=link}
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 ? And are we sure that what we observe at the macro level of the city still holds at more micro levels ?
| 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 |
![[7]](https://fdh.epfl.ch/images/a/ae/Sestiere.png){kind=link}
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.
| 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. To be able to visualize this case, properties not belonging to the widows parishes are shown with a smaller diameter.
![[8]](https://fdh.epfl.ch/images/5/50/San_marco_noble.png){kind=link}
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%). 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.
| 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 |
![[9]](https://fdh.epfl.ch/images/5/52/Castello_noble.png){kind=link}
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, those widows are either recent widows or they have the opportunity to have a viable economic activity.
| 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 |
![[10]](https://fdh.epfl.ch/images/1/15/Cannaregio_noble.png){kind=link}
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.
| 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 |
![[11]](https://fdh.epfl.ch/images/7/7d/San_polo_noble.png){kind=link}
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.
| 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 |
![[12]](https://fdh.epfl.ch/images/c/c1/Santa_croce_noble.png){kind=link}
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 Nobil Domina Perina Capello.
| 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 |
![[13]](https://fdh.epfl.ch/images/2/25/Dorsoduro_noble.png){kind=link}
Dorsoduro
There are very few widows in 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 |
![[14]](https://fdh.epfl.ch/images/c/cd/Ghetto_noble.png){kind=link}
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 |
Case Study : Chiara Pisani
Chiara Pisani is an extremly wealthy widow of the 18th century Venice. She is 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. [19] At the time of the Catastici 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 from the rent analysis of widow-owned properties because she had too much impact.
Discussion, limitations and quality assessments
should we maybe summarize, since we probably have similar limitations?
Lets make a list first:
Limitations
Methodological Limitations: Were there constraints in your methodology?
- Data: when looking at the heritage between the Catastici and the Sommarioni only 16 cases were identified using id_napo. This is too few to be able to say anything concrete about all widows.
- Not all columns have values, for instance for the heritage only 16 out of 61 entries had a id_napo.
- Tools: using difflib and searching for similarities in names
Data Limitations: Issues with data quality, availability, or representativeness.
- The standardised sections, like "owner_standardised" in the Sommarioni is not fully standardised. Still some different spellings of names or additional characters.
External Validity: Can your findings be generalized to other settings or populations?
- Sommarioni no tenants so cant really say anything about them. Also maybe the poorest widows not properly represented
Quality assessment
- Data Quality: Comment on the quality, completeness, and reliability of your data.: might be errors from person writign cadaster, but also through digitization, maybe the data also wrongly represents the reality of the situation for widows? But mention that it is mostly good
- Methodological Rigor: Methods might overlook some data, maybe too narrow
- Transparency and Reproducibility: Every analysis can be found in the GitHub
and also maybe all of this should be one coherent text and not discussion, limitations and qa each on its own
Conclusion and continuation
Conclusion
Continuation
This project has been an attempt to collect knowledge on the widows living in Venetian society between 1740 and 1808. There is still plenty to uncover about how life was for them and possible research areas are described followingly.
- look at the Tassini (explain what the Tassini is) and see if and how they mention widows
- try to do more on archetypes, maybe some qualitative analysis of familis
Deliverables
The main deliverables of the project is the results of the different analysis conducted during the span of the project and the tools used to extract the different data.
- should we go into more detail on what is to be found in the git?
- maybe mention which tools can be reused when conducting further analysis
- maybe talk again about resutls
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
- if for instance the figures of the Catastici is taken from the PP from the lecture https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/tu5waw0623hcp4537lx6u/AKx-eznaH6BRddo1goaF7OE?dl=0&e=1&preview=FDH2024-1-7-VeniceData.pdf&rlkey=jiewdfpk5ysyv92m1817sk5qc&st=01697apo, do we need to reference to it?
should include references to the historical sources used for the historical background
- how do we want to reference to slides from the lecture?
Supplementary Information
| 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. |