Tavern culture
Venice was a hub of trade and tourism, which required a vibrant hospitality industry. The state sought to control this industry as much as possible, principally by limiting the location and number of inns, called osterie. There were about twenty allowed in the city, half in Rialto, and half in San Marco, but they could be quite large, with several storeys and offering anywhere between 10 and 30 guest rooms for travellers. The Do Spade is one of the oldest osterie in Venice, dating to the mid-fifteenth century.
The restrictions on locations and numbers of premises served two financial purposes and also assisted in the maintenance of state security. The state made money through taxing wine served at the osterie, and a limited number of premises clustered together made the collection of this tax easier. The same limitations also protected the business interests of the noblemen who rented out buildings they owned to innkeepers, a lucrative deal. Finally, these restrictions made it easier for the state to monitor and control the movement of foreigners.
Technically, the inns were only supposed to serve foreigners, and those foreigners were required to register with the authorities and possess a bollettino, or pass. Innkeepers were expected to report on their guests’ arrivals and departures on a daily basis, and could face fines if they were found hosting guests without a bollettino. Innkeepers were also instructed to expel sex workers and locals who might come in for a drink or a meal. In reality, however, while the courts were interested in unregistered foreign guests, they rarely investigated inns for serving locals, allowing sex workers in, or for allowing gambling on the premises, unless there were other disturbances reported.
It is clear, however, that the courts were aware that osterie could be sites of disorder. Sometimes accused criminals were arrested in osterie that they were known to frequent. Other times, the osteria figured in the accusation or the narrative of a crime. In 1749, for example, a boatman called Gerolamo Canella was accused of abandoning his family and spending all of his time in the osterie with sex workers. In a more dramatic 1743 case, a man named Girolamo Ongaro was accused of several crimes committed in the Do Spade: he apparently ran a long-standing card game, and he also pimped a young woman named Antonia, whom he had seduced under a false promise of marriage and then forced into sex work. Interestingly, however, the courts seemed disinterested in the role the inns played here. Although both Canella and Ongaro, as locals, should have been excluded, and the sex workers they patronised or trafficked should have been removed, the court went after the men and left the inns alone. Canella was sentenced to three years’ banishment, while Ongaro would spend two years in a prison cell with a window (milder than a sentence to a dark cell).
Celeste McNamara
Further Reading:
Bernardi, Teresa, and Matteo Pompermaier. “Hospitality and Registration of Foreigners in Early Modern Venice: The Role of Women within Inns and Lodging Houses.” Gender & History 31, no. 3 (October 2019): 624–45.
Salzberg, Rosa. “Spaces of Unrest? Policing Hospitality Sites in Early Modern Venice.” In Popular Politics in an Aristocratic Republic: Political Conflict and Social Contestation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Venice, edited by Maartje van Gelder and Claire Judde de Larivière, 105–28. London: Routledge, 2020.
HistoryCity Apps 