Page 90 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

Matteo Di Tullio and Claudio Lorenzini

emigration. The emigration of Carnic people has been traditionally inter-
preted as the cause and consequence of poor agrarian conditions. Because
they were unable to survive and provide for their families, men would have
been forced to leave their village for long periods of the year. We can again
resort to the words of Nicolò Grassi: ‘The inhabitants of this country are
industrious in the mechanical arts and practical in every kind of commerce
which they practice not only in Italy and Germany but almost in all parts
of Europe in order to procure for themselves and their families the neces-
sary food. [...] They go about part of their lives in Germany, Hungary and
Transylvania,sellingthemanufacturesofFriuli’(Grassi 1976,38–9).Along-
side those who traded in Central and Eastern Europe as pedlars of spices,
medicines and textiles, there were those who devoted themselves to the
business of weaving, a trade carried out in Friuli, the Venetian mainland,
Istria and Trentino.
Many were leaving. The only quantitative source we possess on this phe-
nomenon, dating September 1679, allows us to establish that from Septem-
ber until the following spring at least a quarter of the active male popula-
tion left their villages. Relatively more of the emigrants were merchants
(almost a third) and somewhat fewer weavers (a quarter of the active male
population).FortheinhabitantsofCarnia,landingdestinationswerefairly
rigidly distinct. From the northern valleys departed the pedlars– cràmars,
they were called, from krämer, pedlar in German – while from the south-
ern valleys weavers departed – tessêrs in Friulian, the language spoken in
Carnia (Ferigo and Fornasin 1997).
Itinerant trade was practiced in a wide area of Central and Eastern Eu-
rope, from the Palatinate to Hungary. Textile activity, on the other hand,
was carried out in village workshops on the Friulian and Venetian plains,
in Istria, and in Venetian cities, including Venice (Fornasin 1997, 133–53;
Ferigo and Lorenzini 2006, 38–46).
The area of Cavazzo Lake, where Somplago is located, represents a spe-
cial space since there are different trades and emigration destinations.
However, the predominant activity was the textile industry, for which men
moved to Venice and the Venetian mainland, but there were also pedlars
who went to Germany and Bohemia (Stefanutti and Tomat 1997; Molfetta
1987; Ganzer and Argentieri Zanetti 1987). In September 1679, there were
eight men missing from Somplago, of whom three were in Germany, two
in Friuli (Udine and Pordenone), and two in Venice (Lorenzini 1997, 466).
The goals and characteristics of the mobility of the men remained the
same until the beginning of the nineteenth century as regards traders,

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