Page 92 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

Matteo Di Tullio and Claudio Lorenzini

related to the alliances that the Billiani made through marriages. Among
these should be noted in the mid–eighteenth century the union of Giovan-
ni Battista with Caterina De Corte from Ovasta (Pugnetti 2006, 306–8).
The De Corte family and men from the villages in the southern part of the
Gorto valley were engaged in textile and trade activities in Istria. The De
Corte family, in particular, assiduously frequented the villages around the
Pazin/Pisino area (Brhan 2020, 108).
Evidence of the economic and social importance achieved by the family
in the early eighteenth century is found in the presence of consecrated per-
sons and notaries among their members. Antonio Billiani became parish
priest of the Pieve di Cavazzo (1740 and 1752: see Angeli 1969, 224); Giovan-
ni Battista Billiani, a notary, was the author of Formulario per uso delli notaj
di villa, a manual for the preparation of deeds published in Udine in 1781
(Di Marco 2003). Notaries and priests within Carnic communities, and in
the Alpine area in general, as well demonstrated by Raul Merzario’s studies
(see at least 1984 and 1995), were among the figures at the top of society
in their communities. It was part of the strategy of these family groups to
have such figures among them in order to keep assets intact (Lorenzetti
and Merzario 2005, 121–42). The notaries were in the happy position of
controlling the network of relationships that was woven around the deeds
they drew up: wills, divisions, purchases and sales, grants of credit, and
so on (Bartolini 2017). Priests were responsible for the control of souls
through the administration of the sacraments: they were the guardians of
the construction of kinships, including symbolic ones such as godparent-
hood (Allegra 1981).
In this same perspective should be placed the commitments that mem-
bers of the family held in community positions, both within the institution
of the vicinia, the assembly of family heads, and in support of ecclesias-
tical institutions. Candido Billiani was cameraro (the one who keeps the
accounts) of the village church of St. Valentine and also administrator of
the confraternity dedicated to the same saint, with uncommon effort ex-
pended during the 1770s when work was undertaken to rebuild the village
church, including the bell tower. His son Gio Batta (the notary) established
alegacytothe church forthe celebrationofmassesinmemoryofhis father
and his uncle, the parish priest Antonio (Sereni 1987, 146–8; Angeli 1969,
108–13; asu, ab, b. 8).
The social prestige, built up over time to maintain itself, derived from
these tasks and from the economic power acquired within the community,
the fruit of two main activities: mercantile, attested by the account books,

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