Page 86 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

Matteo Di Tullio and Claudio Lorenzini

nali (‘municipal’ land) they owned, that is, the commons granted by the
Venice Republic for use by the communities themselves (Barbacetto 2000,
79–122). Between 1605 and 1606, in listing these assets to the Venetian
magistracy of the Superintendents for Municipal Goods (Provveditori sopra
beni comunali), the villages declared how many so-called ‘big’ animals (cat-
tle and horses) they raised. In the mountains the rate of these animals on
the population was slightly lower than in the plains. For Carnia this ratio
was 3.66 heads per family while in the plains it reached 4.01 (Barbacetto
and Lorenzini 2017, 371). It can be reasonably assumed that this also re-
sulted from the different functions performed by the cattle reared. In the
mountains, breeding for the production of calves and milk was prevalent,
while in the plains, in addition to this, the function of supporting agricul-
tural work was important, particularly the ploughing of the land carried
out by oxen (Fornasin 2011, 254; 2008). In the Friulian mountains, as con-
firmed by the preparatory acts of the cadastre of the 1820s (and also for
theareaofLakeCavazzo whereSomplagois located:see Ciceri 1987,300)
and ethnographic investigations (Stacul 1993a; 1993b), the plough was un-
known or very little used. This is an additional element that proves, on the
one hand, the meagre productivity of the land and, on the other hand the
concentration of labour on the land to obtain benefits from it anyway, a
considerable part of which was and would be concentrated in the arms of
women (Rizzolatti 1987; Di Qual 2019).
A further measure of land poverty and low productivity was derived
from a time threshold: annual productive self–sufficiency. Multiple and
persistent sources since the second half of the sixteenth century attest to
this threshold of around three months per year. These testimonies come
from different and even opposing points of view: the communities, the
magistracies of the Venetian Republic, and the scholars who produced the
chorographic descriptions of Carnia. Among these, one of the first was
Iacopo Valvason of Maniago, author of Descrizione della Carnia, prepared
in April 1565 on the occasion of Carlo Borromeo’s appointment as com-
mendatory abbot of Moggio Abbey (Rurale 2014; Simonetto 2009). Carnia,
he wrote, ‘is devoid of grains and wines and of many things that belong to
living, there is born only a few quantities of formentone and wine for one
month of the year, for which they use that produced in Friuli, leading there
in contrast woollen cloths, cloths, calves and dairy products of which they
have plenty’ (Valvason di Maniaco 1866, 17).
Afew years later,on June14, 1601,lieutenantTommaso Morosini, rep-
resentative of the Venetian government in the Patria del Friuli, in order

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