Entrepreneurship Beyond Convent Walls: The Augustinian Nuns of S. Caterina dei Sacchi in Venice

On the first day of September in 1565, with a strongly worded letter, the Venetian Patriarch Giovanni Trevisan threatened the convent of Santa Caterina dei Sacchi with excommunication. Informed of the Augustinian nuns’ routine practice of rejecting non-patrician women from their community, he tried to convince them to prioritise Christian piety as well as republican values above social hierarchy. Despite the warning, his words were disregarded by the nuns. Almost fifty years later, in 1619, noblewomen numbered ninety-nine among the one hundred nuns at Santa Caterina. The practice of coerced monachisation was a phenomenon of high social significance in Renaissance Venice. This in turn led to the creation of several influential clusters of women who were actively involved in the political and socio-economic dynamics of the city. In this, the convent of Santa Caterina led the way. Beyond its walls, these women were well-educated, refined, and resourceful, and they were “women of means” who managed to elevate the small peripheral community to become one of the wealthiest Venetian religious complexes. Patrons of distinguished artists like Veronese, Tintoretto, and Jacopo Palma il Giovane, the Augustinian nuns distinguished themselves due to their astute economic planning and management of a wide range of profitable activities. In particular, they played a crucial role in the land reclamation of the swamps and marshlands around their convent, an enterprise that culminated in the late sixteenth-century addition of the Fondamente Nuove, the paved pedestrian walkway constructed by the Republic for solidifying the northern border of the city. Reports by the Savi ed esecutori alle acque, meticulously preserved in the nuns’ archive, elucidate all the indefatigable interventions —both legitimate and illegitimate— made by the religious order between 1502 and 1595. They also demonstrate their systematic purchase of most lots sold at auction by the State. Following these acquisitions, the nuns began their speculative operations in order to gain substantial profit on the new lands. Significantly, among 3,000 square meters of reclaimed land, none was converted into spaces for the convent. On the contrary, all the reclaimed areas were transformed into houses, warehouses and workshops to be rented out to the upper-middle class and wealthy and powerful merchants, such as Benetto Tiepolo and Giacomo Ragazzoni. If the position of the Augustinian nuns as entrepreneurs is sufficiently revealed within the city’s contours, this appears even more evident in their mainland investments. Thanks to family inheritances and bequests, along with a carefully and strategically calculated financial policy, the Augustinian nuns of Santa Caterina were called upon to act as landowners of extensive real estate that spread out among Padua, Treviso, and Verona, vital cities of the Venetian terraferma. Retracing the broad scope of lucrative initiatives undertaken by the nuns of Santa Caterina, this essay sheds light on one of the least studied religious communities in Venice, one that had a powerful role in determining the final shape of the northern rim of the city. This case study underscores the important function and engagement Venetian convents and its women had in the development and organisation of the city’s social and economic dynamics as well as its impact on the greater urban fabric.