Page 17 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

Eonomy and Networks of Rural Elite Families in a Manufacturing Area

Figure 1.2 Schio at the End of the Sixteenth Century
Notes Detail of the altarpiece ‘Virgin between the Saints Rocco and Sebastiano,’
by Alessandro Maganza, in the church of San Pietro in Schio (Snichelotto 2007, 14).

the decline of the woollen sector in Vicenza and, in contrast, the evident
dynamism of the same sector in the area of Schio, led the Vicentine coun-
cillors (the Deputati ad Utilia) to grant this privilege, which until that point
was given only to the two podesterie of the province, Marostica and Lonigo
(Panciera 1988, 20; Vianello 2004a, 228).
The ‘urban’ pretensions of Schio were supported by the fact of its being,
still in 1534, a village ‘surrounded by walls and with many beautiful hous-
es and palaces’ (Savio 2017, 306, n. 3), and with gates at the four sides of
the settlement, an architectural characteristic that actually called to mind
more a city than a rural village (figure 1.2). During the Venetian period, the
walls were likely just the rests of the Medieval defence structure: indeed,
according to Fontana, Schio in 1492 asked the Venetian authorities to re-
build the city walls, to be considered a city and to be allowed to produce
high-quality clothes, but the request was denied (Fontana 1985, 82). More-
over, within the walls there were two hospitals, the San Giacomo hospital,
established in the fourteenth century, and the Baratto hospital, created at
the beginning of the seventeenth century (Snichelotto 2007), and various
churches and religious and secular brotherhoods. A description dated 1532
lists ‘eight churches with many priests, a monastery of Zoccolanti [Francis-

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