During the Italian Renaissance, humanists and thinkers explored the theoretical foundations of political societies. But this scholarly theory was only one facet of the discourse used to describe social and professional groups, social belongings and urban identities. In large cities like Venice, there were many other ways of describing society, promoted by the inhabitants themselves, with numerous words and categories used to designate social classes, professional affiliations, wealth scales, gender, age and geographical origin. Based on the testimonies of ordinary inhabitants of Venice in the 15th and 16th centuries in judicial sources, L’ordinaire des savoirs. Une histoire pragmatique de la société vénitienne attempts to reconstruct a group portrait of Venetian society as perceived, described and acted upon by its inhabitants, men and women, born or not in the lagoon, rich and poor, workers and servants, nobles and clerics. The aim is to analyse what people knew about themselves and how this social knowledge provided a context for acting and interacting in society.
Claire Judde de Larivière is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès. She studies the history of Venice in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, with a particular focus on the social and political history of the popolo. Her publications include: The Revolt of Snowballs. Murano confronts Venice, 1511 (Routledge, 2018). Her recent research focuses on the history of waste and pollution management in Venice during the Renaissance period.
