Urbanism and Economics: Industrial Activities in Eighteenth-Century Venice: Fid-Bau Portal

Urbanism and Economics: Industrial Activities in Eighteenth-Century Venice

Polledri, Paolo

Though architectural histories usually describe eighteenth-century Venice as uneventful, a careful examination of city records reveals a complex, dynamic urbanism at work. Official censuses, tax records, guild rolls, and parish registers provide quantitative data on population, occupations, workshops and distributions. Such statistics portray a city with a stable population, but in the process of readapting from the role of a European economic power to that of a local center. The Venetian economy focused on small scale industries providing luxury goods and services to a sophisticated, cosmopolitan internal market. These activities required a different use of space and found place in marginal areas, mostly in existing buildings, where rents and costs were more affordable. The overall picture is not one of large, dramatic changes, but of a widespread process of adaptation. Continuous small changes ultimately had a large aggregate impact on the city as a whole. This study of Venice demonstrates that the well-considered use of quantifiable records can help the urban historian to look beyond intentional design and identify those areas where more subtle changes may occur, changes more comprehensive than those implied by architectural or urban design schemes.