Education and Apprenticeship in the Venetian Republic

Education in the Venetian Republic followed several paths. Families arranged first lessons, publicly supported schools taught particular subjects, and Padua’s university offered advanced degrees. In workshops, registered contracts joined craft instruction to productive work, payment and maintenance.

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Family choices and first lessons

In Venice, in northeastern Italy, families commonly arranged children’s early reading and writing through relatives, tutors, private teachers, priests or convents. Learning to read often involved Latin grammar, which could lead toward advanced literary study; commercial arithmetic and account-keeping prepared pupils for trade. In the 1540s, Francesco Patrizi, a teenager from Dalmatia on the eastern Adriatic, was sent by his uncle for commercial arithmetic schooling and account-keeping, preparation for a merchant’s career. His father instead arranged Latin grammar lessons with a priest, following his son’s interest in reading.

In 1517, the diarist Marin Sanudo recorded a school in Venice’s Merceria teaching reading and writing in Arabic.

Public schools in Venice

Two publicly supported schools offered distinct advanced courses. The school at San Marco began in 1446 to prepare future government clerks, who needed to write clearly. Its students later included other adolescents and members of the nobility. Classes in rhetoric, history and poetry trained students to read, write and speak persuasively; Latin was central, and Greek was added in the early sixteenth century.

The Rialto school began in 1408 through a bequest from Tommaso Talenti, who set aside fifty ducats a year to pay a teacher of logic and philosophy. Public support gradually took over its costs. In 1445, when teacher Paolo dalla Pergola tried to turn the school into a university able to award degrees, the Council of Ten ordered him to keep within its existing role. Students seeking degrees had to continue their studies at Padua.

A 1551 Senate plan proposed teachers for the city’s districts, but financial problems prevented the original scheme. A 1567 revision organized four schools to serve the six districts.

Learning a craft by contract

In many regulated trades, the government office Giustizia Vecchia, which supervised craft guilds (associations for individual trades), registered apprenticeship contracts. These agreements named the apprentice, master and sometimes a guarantor, then recorded the term, payment and who would provide lodging, care, clothing or other expenses. The registration rules, established in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, were intended to protect both parties, especially the apprentice.

A study of selected contracts from the late sixteenth century, the 1620s and the 1650s found that apprentices younger than twenty-five averaged just over fourteen years old; contracts averaged about five years. In this sample, 79 percent of contracts specified that the master would pay the apprentice; in 4 percent, the apprentice or guarantor paid the master; 17 percent had no monetary payment specified. Masters often covered lodging, personal care and expenses, while apprentices usually supplied their own clothing. The contract therefore combined work and instruction with cash payment and, in many cases, living costs.

A 1575 registered contract records an unusually young apprentice: Baldisera, a boatman’s son about eight, entered an eight-year term with a chest painter. The master promised to teach him the craft and pay twenty ducats plus expenses; his father guaranteed compensation for any damage.

University study at Padua

Founded in 1222, the University of Padua, also in northeastern Italy, remained the Republic’s only institution authorized to grant degrees after Venice took control of the city in 1405. Students studied law and the medical and philosophical sciences.

The university’s buildings shaped how some subjects were taught. By 1493 the university had begun adapting the former inn that became Bo Palace; the definitive move to the complex took place in 1539. The university ordered its permanent anatomy theatre in 1594, and inaugurated it on 16 January 1595. Six widening wooden levels rose around the central dissection space, letting students observe a teacher’s demonstration.