Credit and Poverty in Early Modern Venice

Abstract

In early modern Venice, wine and money were intrinsically linked through the pawnbroking service that innkeepers and bastioneri, the managers of wine warehouses (bastioni), offered their customers. The loans that they supplied were generally small, officially interest-free, and frequent. Moreover, at least one-third of each was paid in wine, at that time considered a staple. Hence, innkeepers and bastioneri were central figures in Venice’s urban context, especially for the poor. Those individuals, usually considered “voiceless” in history were, in fact, the main actors in what might be termed a “handkerchief” economy, named for one of its most pawned items.