Corporations et confréries : les étrangers et le marché du travail à Venise (XVe-XVIIIe siècles)

This essay aims to analyze the economic and social role of foreign (forestieri) merchants and artisans in Venice between the low middle age and the early modern time. In search of new perspectives of work, many strangers, also of different religions, came in Venice, where they organize themselves as a “community”. The phenomenon of growth and decrease of these communities underlines the dynamics of the Venetian economy and society and the change of its structures in front of the new equilibrium in the early modern world economy. The idea of great tolerance has been followed up by the political institutions but this study shows the great struggle in the labour market between Venetians and foreigners.