The economic organisation of public galleys offers therefore an ideal case study to illuminate the transformation of the State at the beginning of the early modern period. Doing so became easier with the fluid social structure of sixteenth-century Venice where wealth no longer belonged, as it once had in the fourteenth and fifteenth-centuries, to one privileged social register. One of the first cities in Italy to engage in international commerce after the devastations of the early Middle Ages, Venice established a maritime empire by 1300 and a territorial empire from the early 1400s. The Merchant of Venice is a 16th-century play by William Shakespeare in which a merchant in Venice must default on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender. VENICE. Chojnacki, Stanley. The Merchant of Venice is a play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. In sixteenth-century Venice, the change in eco-nomic practices was one of the signs of the emergence of a new state configu-ration. Contemporary Italian social structure. Boston: Twayne, 1990. A good study of social history, notably about the lower class of Venice. John Martin and Dennis Romano. Ed. “At the start of this period, the region is fragmented into city-states dominated by Venice and Milan, two great rivals whose territorial holdings extend over much of northern Italy (with frequently changing boundaries). Print. The Family - Wife had only two responsibilities: - To bear children - Obedience to her Husband - The equality of the Gospel did not mean overthrowing the inequality of social … It was the first and the largest trading power in the world, and they made most of their money from trading on the Mediterranean with its large trading fleet. Due Shakespeare was integral in challenging the subservient role expected of women in the 16th century. To the contemporary mind social order and position represented a structured world; the bible advocated the ‘natural order’, and it is fair to say that generally the … Ravid, Benjamin. The Social Impact of the Protestant Reformation. —–. Angelo Beolco (Il Ruzante). Throughout the play, ‘The Merchant of Venice’, women are expressed as powerful characters who behave, speak and live in a way that breaks away from the conformist role of females during the 16th century. earliest stages of modernity. Bourgeoisie (10% of the working population) includes high-class entrepreneurs, managers, politicians, self-employed people, highest-ranking celebrities, etc. VENICE. 2. What Venice was like in the 16th Century In the early 16th century the population of Venice was about 175 000 people. Note the virtually independent third part of the book about the economic situation of the Jews in the city without and in the terraferma with “Monti di Pietà” in the century after the League of Cambrai (1508). 1. Life in the 16th century was by and large governed by two important factors- religion and social structure. Its unique form of government, although not as perfect as its apologists claimed, was a model of a "mixed" constitution for the early modern world. “Identity and Ideology in Renaissance Venice: The Third Serrata.” In Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297—1797. Reitia was the goddess of Justice, Education, and Culture, celebrated for bringing social fairness, tolerance, and harmony in the society.A model for both women and men, She was the precursor to the representation of Venice as a female.. Tiziano, Tintoretto, Veronese, all represented Venice as an extraordinarily beautiful woman, serene and majestic.. Sixteenth Century Journal 20 (1989): 531-558. Print and Web. A hierarchy of social class rank in Italy today.