Page 23 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

Eonomy and Networks of Rural Elite Families in a Manufacturing Area

sector in Schio and with the role played in this process by the wealthiest
families of the community, a short reference to the agricultural sector is
needed, for two reasons. Firstly, the families that led the manufacturing
development of Schio were at the same time largely involved in the land
market, in the trade of agricultural products and in the exploitation of lo-
calrawmaterials,especiallytheonescomingfromtheminingindustry.The
land market and, especially, the use of the land in credit-debit relationships
between the great merchant-entrepreneurs and the small proto-industrial
producers, was crucial in the construction of economic and social bonds
within the community (Ramella 1997, 928), as is very well demonstrated
by thecaseofthe Toaldofamily (Savio2017, 316).
Secondly, but not in importance, the structure of the agricultural sec-
tor and the availability of raw materials could have relevantly affected the
development of the secondary sector. Even if Mendels’ theory on proto-
industry (Ciriacono 1983) has been recently discussed (Panjek et al. 2017),
especially because of its determinism in the connection between the char-
acteristics of agricultural production and the growth of proto-industrial
activities, it is undeniable that in the broad economic structure of an
area the various productive sectors are not separate components. Quoting
Panciera (2017, 208) on the Vicentine context, ‘the interrelation between
industry-agriculture-livestock or, in other words, the strong agricultural
foundation of the manufacturing activities, should be always kept in mind
in the history of the industries in the province of Vicenza during the entire
early modern period.’
However, there is a lack of research on the characteristics of the agri-
cultural sector in the area of Vicenza in the early modern period, on the
distribution of the landed properties and the way they were managed (di-
rectly cultivated, the rent of large plots, short- or long-term rents to small
farmers, etc.), and on the products cultivated (Pezzolo 2011; Knapton 2010;
Ongaro 2017a). Therefore, we can only make some hypotheses, that should
be confirmed by future archival research. On the distribution of the landed
properties, it is established that between the fifteenth and the sixteenth
centuries in the province of Vicenza – as was happening in the entire Re-
public of Venice and abroad – there was a notable transfer of properties
from the rural owners to urban ones. This was due partly to the purchase
of plots by the urban families and partly to the urban drift of some rural
owners, members of the local rural elites. This process produced relevant
consequences, especially in fiscal terms, because of the inadequacy of the
fiscal surveys to pick up on these changes (Grubb 1984). The urban activism

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