Out of the Shadow: Heretical and Catholic Women in Renaissance Venice

In late Renaissance Venice, a patriarchal ideology was not only the patrimony of noblemen but was diffused among male artisans as well. Drawing on the records of trials from the Roman Inquisition in the later half of the six teenth century, this article examines ways in which both Catholic and heretical women—in both cases the wives of artisans—responded to the patriarchy and the violence of their households. Catholic women found refuge in a variety of reli gious devotions ranging from confession to the rituals associated with childbirth. To a degree, these women were aided by certain of the Tridentine reforms. The heretical women, by contrast, sought solidarity with one another and demon strated remarkable self-confidence in their interpretations of religious matters. Yet there were similarities in both social and cultural dimensions of female reli giousness in sixteenth-century Venice which transcended purely religious dif ferences. These similarities, moreover, are suggestive of a world in which, despite the pervasiveness of a patriarchial ideology, women enjoyed considerable autonomy.