Provveditori sopra i Monasteri

The Provveditori sopra i Monasteri were the representatives of an authority-like institution of the Republic of Venice founded in 1521 , which had to supervise the monasteries of the city. Contrary to the name, however, their task was solely to oversee the city's nunneries , as it was believed that the nuns' regular conduct was of crucial importance for the relationship with God, who could punish the entire city if not violated. The institution existed until the end of the republic.

background

Noble women as forced inmates of the convent

The Venetian state saw its existence endangered by external and internal threats. In order not to lose divine help in this, it seemed to be of the greatest importance to see to it that his moral demands were met. This included above all the observance of vows and oaths, which were also made available to the bond with the state, in that the population was "sworn" to him through public swearing-in rituals. The explosiveness of these principles was particularly evident in times of political and military threat, or in times of severe epidemics, which were often interpreted as God's punishment for wrongdoing. As a result, it was particularly important in spiritual institutions such as monasteries to make stricter moral requirements. Girolamo Priuli expressed the imagined direct relationship between monastery morality and state fate after the catastrophic defeat of 1509 in the Battle of Agnadello in his Diarii : "Per il peccato gravissimo di queste monache meretrice se judichava fusse proceduto in grande parte la ruina del Statto Veneto" (Basically: the extremely grave sins of these nun whores were thought to be the cause of the ruin of the Venetian state).

There is no precise information about the number of nuns in Venice at the beginning of the 16th century, but according to the Nota di tutte le Anime esistenti nella Città di Venezia nell'Anno 1586 there were 2,408 nuns in Venice in 1586. In 1606 there were 2,082, in 1642 there were 2,905. After that, the number of nuns decreased continuously.

Two thirds to three quarters of the nuns came from noble houses. In San Zaccaria , one of the most prestigious monasteries, only nobles were housed in 1609, a total of 70 women. In Santa Caterina in 1616 only one of the 100 nuns came from a noble family. It was the same in the monasteries of S. Alvise, S. Andrea and Spirito Santo, where 94% of the nuns were noble. The families preferred Benedictine and Augustine monasteries to Franciscan monasteries . The stricter and cloistered monasteries of the Carmelites , Capuchins and Servites were avoided entirely. The noble clans also preferred certain monasteries in which they usually housed their relatives. The Morosini mostly went to Spirito Santo, the Contarini to Santa Caterina, while Foscarini, Gradenigo or Morosini again preferred San Zaccaria. Between 1550 and 1650, more than half of the daughters of these houses went to the monastery, the rest were supposed to be married, but this often failed because of adequate spouses who were appropriate in the eyes of the heads of the families - or they were married to commoners, who increased accordingly Brought in morning gifts. In 1581 54% of noble women were in monasteries, and everyone knew that these stays were mostly forced.

While there were still 40 noble weddings between 1560 and 1574, this number fell further to only 28 in the 17th century. In this way, i.e. with the external marriage of the daughters in order to maintain a purely male lineage to which the son-in-law and Even more so the married daughter had no access, the families kept their assets together in the male line, but many of the families simply died out with this marriage policy. This type of exchange of honor, which required reciprocal gifts, and which took place with the relinquishment of an enormous part of the family fortune, also had the potential to make the families extinct, as gifts that could no longer be compensated due to the enormous endowments, in a sense " had to be destroyed ”by forcing the“ gifts ”into the monastery. This potential for destruction is enormously high: The number of members in the Grand Council, where all adult male nobles had a seat and vote, decreased from 2500 to 1500 between 1550 and 1650, i.e. by 40%.

The contemporaries were well aware of the problem of forced nuns, and so the Senate tried to counteract the increasingly powerful equipment with laws in the years 1420, 1505, 1535, 1551 and 1575. Their enormous cost at the end of the 16th century was up to 10,000 ducats , in the early 17th century it could be up to 40,000. The attempts by the Senate of 1420 to set an upper limit of 1,600 ducats, of 1505 to 3,000 or of 1575 to 6,000 were unsuccessful.

The role of the state and the patriarch during the Counter Reformation

Even before the Reformation , preachers increasingly complained about the situation in the monasteries. Forced nuns lived together with those who were looking for their life role in the monastery, the cloister and the residence obligation were disregarded. In 1497 the preacher Thimoteo da Luca exaggerated by claiming that the nunnery would be offered to visitors to the city as “prostribuli e bordeli publici”. In 1519, on the initiative of the Patriarch Antonio Contarini , reforms were made to reverse the secularization of the monasteries. They aimed at the submission to strict observation and the enforcement of the cloister. The nuns and their relatives protested to Doge Leonardo Loredan , but he refused. The patriarch had rooms set up for the observants so that the monasteries were divided. The nuns called the Pope and rang the bells all day when he forbade the compulsory billeting of the observants against the will of the other nuns on June 27, 1519. The Doge, Senate and Council of Ten continued to build on the reform instructions and rejected the papal breve . In August 1521 the abbess Clara Donato and the three monasteries that refused to submit to the reform, namely S. Zaccaria, S. Maria della Celestia and S. Marta, protested in vain with family members against the state and ecclesiastical action. Finally, the Patriarch threatened with excommunication anyone who dared to continue resisting his actions. On September 17, 1521, the institute of the "Provveditori sopra i Monasteri" was set up under the direction of three nobles, which brought the nunnery, without explicitly expressing this in the title, under state supervision.

When the first Protestants arrived in Venice, they rejected the life of the nuns, not only because of the lifestyle, which they considered disreputable, but because there was not contemplation there , but inactivity, which naturally led to boredom and luxuria , a term under to which every kind of improper behavior was subsumed. Even if contemplation was practiced there, they found the worldly life as a wife to be more useful to society. Luther himself had given up his Augustinian habit and married the nun Katharina von Bora , the Protestant states dissolved the monasteries.

Against this background and in view of the enormous successes of the new denomination, the Council of Trent reacted by defending monastic life, but tried to defend the secularization and the aspects of monastery life that have now been perceived as detrimental, in particular the temporary leaving of the monastery by the inmates To restrict access to the monasteries from outside and the disposal of women over their bodies; In addition, there was the waiver of personal property, a minimum age of 16 years for profession , a kind of probationary year and a determination of the voluntary nature of the monastery stay ( Decretum de regularibus et monialibus , 1563). Locking up in the monastery became a means of controlling chastity , a regulation that the respective bishop had to oversee. However, these restrictions did not apply until the profession was made.

The monastery world was divided into two parts, namely into closed convents, which had to observe the changed rules, and more open ones, which had always maintained their own rules, or which had no cloister at all, but whose orders were recognized. The question arose whether a bull from 1298 should now apply to all women's convents, in which the enclosure was required for all institutions - without any significant impact on reality. It was only with a bull by Pope Pius V ( Circa pastoralis , 1566) that the church leadership decided on a restrictive interpretation. This now also affected the tertiary women . Legitimate reasons to leave the monastery even for a short time were drastically curtailed. From 1570 onwards only fire, an epidemic or leprosy were recognized as reasons. The buildings were now increasingly surrounded by walls, and windows and doors were barred. The mendicant orders , which were dependent on external contacts, were no longer viable, at least no longer in the form of nunneries.

The patriarch's visitation became the most important means of control. On this occasion bars, portals, windows and bolts were examined, then the book inventory. The nuns' complaints were listened to - we owe deeper insights into monastery life to the minutes drawn up. The question of visitors was also asked because the nuns were only allowed to be visited by certain men, namely fathers, brothers and first-degree uncles. All conversations with relatives were overheard. It was forbidden to greet relatives with hugs or kisses, or to express joy in any other way. Even where the profession of male visitors required a visit, such as doctors, they needed a permit and they had to be of good repute and at least 40 years old. All men who had work to do in the monastery, such as craftsmen, required special permission. Sexuality among women was noticed from time to time and attempts were made to prevent it, but in the eyes of the patriarch it did not disturb the monastery order and the image of the monastery to the outside world. Rather, the question of hairstyle became the content of arrangements, as well as the removal of crystal windows, because they could serve as mirrors. In order to enforce requirements for submission, contact within the monastery could be forbidden, so that only nuns who were ready to admonish were allowed to visit the "sinner" until she was repentant, repentant and ashamed or humiliated ( humiliata ).

The Provveditori sopra i monasteri

Control of the monasteries was the responsibility of the Council of Ten until 1521. In that year it was transferred to the three Provveditori sopra Monasteri , initially as a temporary institution, and from 1528 as a permanent institution. From the beginning the Provveditori were only responsible for the nunneries. Up to 1536 three members of the Council of Ten were elected , from 1551 the Provveditori came from the Senate, but these three men continued to have access to the Council of Ten if this council passed a judgment within the framework of the proceedings initiated by the Provveditori had felling. The Provveditori had freedom of choice against members of the Church, but they were not allowed to pass death sentences. Responsibility also found its limit where that of the patriarch began, that is, above all with the nuns themselves.

After 1509, action was initially taken against the monachini , men who had sexual contacts ( comercio carnal ) with nuns or who courted them . There was unlimited banishment from Venice for sexual contact, and ban for ten years for breaking the enclosure. If rowers or other helpers helped a nun escape from the monastery, they faced six months in prison. As early as 1514, the Council of Ten rowed back insofar as the question of sexual intercourse was no longer given any priority before breaking the enclosure. But with the Counter-Reformation, the Serenissima gradually increased the sentence, so that in 1605 the death penalty was no longer just for sexual contact, but also for breaking the cloister.

On July 29, 1568, the Provveditori forbade the lawyer Modesto di Tivali from even talking to the nuns of S. Anna. An anonymous denunciation a few days later claimed that Modesto had defied the order three or four times. Witness interviews showed that he had mostly stayed there with Piero Spicier, who was also admonished. Although Modesto served as an attorney for the nuns, he was sentenced to one month in prison.

But not only men were brought before the court, but also women with a dubious reputation in their time. On November 30, 1611, the whore Novella Albanese was anonymously denounced that she had insulted a noble woman. One of the witnesses claimed to have seen them more often in the monastery of S. Girolamo. Novella was not interviewed until May 4, 1612. She claimed that she only went to the church to pray, not the premises of the monastery. Had she known that women of her repute were forbidden from visiting such churches, she would have failed to do so. Nevertheless, she received a fine of 100 ducats and half a year in prison, which she was able to pay for 50 ducats.

On June 14, 1611 the young fruit seller Battista di Zuane was on trial for singing obscene songs in front of the walls of S. Anna in Castello while rowing his boat. He had to pay the legal fees and was detained for six months. In the State Archives of Venice numerous cases of this type to find, but they were rarely sanctioned with the planned, very harsh sentences. Contrary to the legal requirements, death sentences were not pronounced in general, but the exact circumstances and events were assessed.

However, between 1608 and 1619 there were a number of relatively harsh sentences. This was true of Battista Mariner and his wife Meneghina. The two had helped escape a nun who had fallen in love with a nobleman. Battista was either to be banished from Venice for 15 years or to report to the Council of Ten within two months of the conviction to row a galley with chains on for 18 months. However, his wife's nose and ears were supposed to have her nose and ears cut off after she was on public display and then banished for 15 years. Zuanne Gobo was punished just as harshly for delivering love letters, but his ears were spared, and he was only banned from Venice for five years.

Much less is known about the convicted and repentant nuns because after the trial they were placed in the care of the Patriarch. But the files in the Archivio storico del Patriarcato di Venezia were destroyed in the 19th century.

The interference of state institutions became inevitable when it came to the question of sexual intercourse with nuns, especially when it came to pregnancy. On July 24, 1564, the Provveditori received a letter from the abbess of the monastery of S. Maffio di Mazzorbo , in which the monastery chief complained about the sisters Giustina and Catherina Corner. Caterina had given birth to a son, but her influential relatives had made sure there was no official reaction. When the sister also behaved in a "scandalous" manner, the other nuns demanded that they be removed from the house. The Provveditori sent a negotiator to the Patriarch, who in their eyes was more willing to compromise, in order to prevent the return, which would have caused further unrest in the monastery. The patriarch preferred the nun's return, even if she was to spend a few years in prison there. The further process is not known.

In 1614, in view of the complaint of the abbess of S. Zaccaria, where only nobles lived, the patriarch was forced to intervene through the 45-year-old nun Laura Querini, especially since he himself inspected the hole in the monastery wall through which two young men had been let in would have. One of the two was only once in the monastery to have sexual intercourse with Sister Zaccaria, a 25-year-old initiate and helper, while his cousin Zuanne Cocco was once housed in a chamber for 10 or 12 days, with only Laura Querini Had access who had the power of the keys. Abbess Andriana Gradenico ordered Laura to open the chamber, but she claimed that the key had been stolen from her. The two women were imprisoned until the patriarch's arrival. During the questioning, Laura reported that she had already been to various monasteries as a little girl and how she had made profession “with her mouth, but not with her heart”. During visits to the monastery, she fell in love with Zuanne, who was more than 20 years her junior. After all, the two women dug a hole through the wall for more than a month. It also turned out that “the Nena” and her husband had organized the external placement of men. The Provveditori ordered the arrest of the two lovers and "the Nena". The latter was called Antonia and she was the wife of the Zulian Marangon, an arsenal worker . When Laura refused to give the names of the men, she was threatened with torture by order of the Council of Ten , whereupon she confessed that she was also the lover of Andrea Foscarini, a nobleman. To this she had made contact with the help of "Nena" and her husband, but she claimed that the two did so on the assumption that he was a relative to whom she wanted to send gifts and letters. Even helpers, like a rower named Mario, had no knowledge of their real goals. Another man, Alvise Zorzi, who had also been in the monastery, was banished for life by judgment of the Provveditori , as was the Foscarini. Zulian was sentenced to eight years galley . Antonia was to be flogged and with a sign that read “Per li SS. Prov. Sopra li Monasteri ”can be hung. Should she ever contact a convent again, her nose and ears would be cut off in St. Mark's Square .

As in most cases, the interrogation effort and the resulting penalties were significantly higher for the lay people and men than for the women for whom the patriarch was responsible. The latter were usually given a prison sentence within the monastery, as they were not granted a will of their own, even if they stated that they had acted completely sovereign and of their own accord, like Laura, even preventing the "ruin" of the accused Foscarini wanted to. The jurisprudence of the time also believed that given the stronger sexual drives and weaker will of women, the burden of monastic life was much more difficult for them to bear. Cardinal Giovan Battista De Luca also recognized that nuns who were locked up in the monastery against their will anyway did not shrink from fleeing because they only had to fear that they would be locked up again.

swell

The files of the Provveditori are in the Venice State Archives . In connection with the nunneries, they consist of the Processi criminali e disciplinari in buste 263 to 268. They cover the years 1554 to 1642. In addition, there are the Ammonizioni, castighi ed intimazioni , busta 312, registro 99 for the years 1626 to 1762.

The entire collection includes the capitularies (1514–1796), the Decreti (1412–1737), the Decreti per delegazione di cause (1676–1795), then ordini, proclami e terminazioni (1571–1698), the Terminazioni (1630–1797 ), then on the economic side di Zecca (1675–1798) and in oggetti economici (1758–1796), in addition the Atti riguardanti il ​​personale dei conventi (18th century), the Stato economico e statistico dei conventi di Venezia e Dogado from 1764, but also the aforementioned Processi criminali e disciplinari , which extend to 1793, and sequestri (1688–1797), vendite (1632–1797), then files on deposits, admonitions, mandates, receipts, etc. from 1594 to 1762 to to registers of the families that formed the regolari as well as reports on individual monasteries. Occasionally the Provveditori were entrusted with matters outside of Venice, for example in Dalmatia .

literature

• Susanna Mantioni: Monacazioni forzate e forme di resistenza al patriarcalismo nella Venezia della Controriforma , Diss., Rome 2013.
• Anne Jacobson Schutte: By Force and Fear. Taking and Breaking Monastic Vows in Early Modern Europe , Cornell University Press, 2011.
• Jutta Gisela Sperling: Convents and the Body Politic in Late Renaissance Venice , University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Remarks

1. ↑ Quoted from: Susanna Mantioni: Monacazioni forzate e forme di resistenza al patriarcalismo nella Venezia della Controriforma , tesi di dottorato, Rome 2013, p. 31.
2. ↑ Susanna Mantioni: Monacazioni forzate e forme di resistenza al patriarcalismo nella Venezia della Controriforma , tesi di dottorato, Rome 2013, p. 31.
3. ↑ Susanna Mantioni: Monacazioni forzate e forme di resistenza al patriarcalismo nella Venezia della Controriforma , Diss., Rome 2013, p. 33.
4. ↑ Susanna Mantioni: Monacazioni forzate e forme di resistenza al patriarcalismo nella Venezia della Controriforma , tesi di dottorato, Rome 2013, p. 33.
5. ↑ Jutta Gisela Sperling: Convents and the Body Politic in Late Renaissance Venice , University of Chicago Press, 1999, p. 18.
6. ↑ Susanna Mantioni: Monacazioni forzate e forme di resistenza al patriarcalismo nella Venezia della Controriforma , tesi di dottorato, Rome 2013, p. 52.
7. ↑ Susanna Mantioni: Monacazioni forzate e forme di resistenza al patriarcalismo nella Venezia della Controriforma , tesi di dottorato, Rome 2013, p. 64.
8. ↑ Federico Stefani (Ed.): Marino Sanuto: Diarii , Venice 1879, Vol. 1, col. 836.
9. ↑ Susanna Mantioni: Monacazioni forzate e forme di resistenza al patriarcalismo nella Venezia della Controriforma , tesi di dottorato, Rome 2013, p. 170.
10. ↑ Susanna Mantioni: Monacazioni forzate e forme di resistenza al patriarcalismo nella Venezia della Controriforma , tesi di dottorato, Rome 2013, p. 177 f.
11. ↑ Susanna Mantioni: Monacazioni forzate e forme di resistenza al patriarcalismo nella Venezia della Controriforma , tesi di dottorato, Rome 2013, p. 188 f.
12. ↑ Mary Laven: Monache. Vivere in convento nell'età della Controriforma , Il Mulino, 2004, p. 138.
13. ↑ Susanna Mantioni: Monacazioni forzate e forme di resistenza al patriarcalismo nella Venezia della Controriforma , tesi di dottorato, Rome 2013, p. 257 f.
14. ↑ Giovan Battista De Luca: Il vescovo pratico, sopra le cose spettanti al buon governo delle chiese et all'offiti de 'vescovi e degli altri prelati ecclesiastici , Corbelletti, Rome 1675, p. 304.
15. ^ Alvise da Mosto: L'Archivio di Stato di Venezia. Indice generale, storico, descrittivo et analitico , Rome 1937, p. 201.