Abstract EN:

By the end of the Middle Ages, the Venetian people had to deal with lots of problems. The State had to face an unknown public debt and maintain public order. Then, it was hurted by tensions into the leading group and from some foreign princes, especially in christian Europe, stressed to distroy the influence and political power of the Serenis-sima, on the Mediterranean area. They also thought to assume its dominion. Those Venetian nobles, now too numerous, were subjected to a fall in status (déclassement) which process had been started at the end of the XIIIth Century, by the partisans of a conservative oligarchy, very jealous of its domination. It’s around the definition of this social class (first part), born to rule the City (second part), that the destiny of a majority of patricians happened at the beginning of the XVIth Century. As actors than victims of this refoundation (third part), the Venetian nobles tried not to fall into the traps set by the ones who looked for exclusion – and then, abandon – of a majority of nobles, to their destiny of decaduti. To fight against those tendencies, they reinforced and developed their familiar and friendly relationships (fourth part).