Women and Men in Early Modern Venice: Reassessing History (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Women and Men in Early Modern Venice: Reassessing History Sally Parkin Datta, Satya , Women and Men in Early Modern Venice: Reassessing History, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2003; hardback; pp. vii, 272; 1 b&w illustration; RRP £45; ISBN 0754633470. This careful and meticulous book is written in a personalised style, giving it an accessibility which the considerable methodological analysis would otherwise have made very weighty. Nevertheless, the continuous side-tracking down avenues of complex methodology can render the reader somewhat confused, losing sight of the women and men in early modern Venice who are the subject of the book. The long introductory chapter is a reflection on the nature of historical discourse with theoretical considerations which encompass epistemological considerations, descriptive gender studies, the Scott-Tilly-Varikas controversy on gender/experience/discursive reality, and the determination of meaning and experience through intellectual history after 'the linguistic turn'. By this is meant that intellectual history's major concern should be the semiological orientation [End Page 217] of the history of meaning, which is then viewed from the perspective of a realist epistemological position. Essentially, the remit of the work is to make the common people of Venice, the popolani, major historical subjects. Each of the five sections begins with a detailed analysis of historical discourse and, true to the sub-title 'Reassessing History', each is a presentation of the subject matter within the constructs of the historical discourse. However, the discourse itself is sometimes limited by the cut-off point of research, pre 1998. Each chapter highlights one crucial aspect of the human experience: the social experiences of commoners who were male and female artisans; the cultural experience of art-related artisans; the feminist experience of three Venetian intellectual women; and the invisibility of women explored through a gender perspective on the working experiences of ordinary women, lacemakers. Chapter 2 examines the social experiences of artisans and is contextualised within the ruler-ruled relationship, citing the conceptualisation of the early modern state in the case of Venice, the dialectics of the patrician and popolani relations, patrician hegemony as expressed through the state, popular consent in civil society and anti-hegemonic tendencies. Datta concludes that the social life of men and women was constrained by the ruler-ruled dynamics but, through guilds and confraternities, they experienced an autonomous social life. However, they failed to capitalise on this by not undertaking the cultivation of any political vision and working towards their own betterment. In part, this was because of the enlightened pragmatists who ruled them, and the artisans' inability to harness their own experience to develop a socio-political consciousness. Chapter 3, the cultural experience of Venetian artisans in the Renaissance, begins with an analysis of culture, popular culture and historical studies. In setting the historical parameters, most of the discussion is limited to texts published prior to the 1990s. Renaissance artisans were as essential to the Venetian art community as they had been in pre-Renaissance times but the artisan community contributed far more to art patronage and the promotion of new art works in the early modern period. The chapter ends with a brief evaluation of the living costs and valuation of Venetian monies in this era. Chapter 4 examines three Venetian writers and their feminist experiences. Datta relates the emergence of early feminism in sixteenth century Venice to two main circumstances: Venice was an epicentre for the growth of women's writing in the sixteenth century, and the Counter-Reformation's negative portrayal of women provoked a backlash from Venetian women, specifically Moderata Fonte, [End Page 218] Lucrezia Marinella, and Arcangela Tarabotti. All three women were successful in articulating their personal experiences but only at the personal-intellectual level. Their work and feminist experiences did not connect with society as a whole. Chapter 5 is perhaps the most informative of all the chapters as it considers 'invisible women', the working experiences of Venetian lacemakers. Lacemakers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were not officially recognised as a highly skilled artisan trade despite the fact that their endeavours contributed significant economic wealth to Venice. The Venetian state refused to allow them to form guilds or confraternities, which makes them historically invisible because...