Riches to Rags

Riches to Rags

In the 1600s in Venice, Italy there was a young nobleman named Alvise Pisani who was taken to court by his own grandfather. Hid grandfather had spent a lot of money during his time and he told Alvise not to spend his inheritance frivolously. Alivise had other plans… plans that apparently included building a lavish home, frequently traveling on expensive trips, and selling the family jewels so he didn’t go bankrupt. Despite his shrinking budget, Alvise went out and bought 9 horses, even though he already owned 9 horses and 3 mules. His grandfather then took him to court to punish him for spending so much.

Today I’d like to talk about a group of people so obsessed with maintaining wealth and political power that they became financially bankrupt and nearly collapsed their government.

The first thing to know about the Venetian patriciate is how they got started…

In the early 1500s a group of wealthy merchants comprising 70% of all the wealthy in Venice decided to make themselves into a closed caste. They created what they called: The Golden Book –which is like the Golden Rule only its exact opposite. These wealthy families signed their names into the Golden Book and became inducted into an elite, select class entitled to hold offices in government.

The government itself was…rather odd.  At the top was the Doge who was figure head who looked like a distant cousin of the Pope. Beneath him were the Judicial Branch, the Senate, the Great Council. The most powerful governing authority however was The Council of Ten –which was actually comprised of 100 men who acted as Inquisitors. Even though the council had the prestige of being the most select powerful group –they weren’t exactly popular.

Most laws that were passed in the government usually involved defining appropriate conduct for public and private lives. These laws distinctly separated the Noble class and what was expected of them from the lower classes. One law for example said that nobles couldn’t work. They could only hold government positions that didn’t pay much –that way they wouldn’t be mistaken with someone from the merchant class. The merchants then continued increase their wealth through trade. Nobles then felt the need to increase their spending so they could appear wealthier then members of the lower classes.

One of the results of this was Dowry inflation. Nobles would go out of their way to spend excessively on dowry. Then some nobles weren’t able to compete with the dowry costs and could not afford to have their daughters married off. Instead they started sending their daughters to convents to become nuns so they didn’t tarnish their good family name. Occasionally the government would step in and pay for the nobles to marry off their daughters.

Now I’d like to go into the problems with the Venetian nobility.

First off: No work and lavish spending is not a good combination.

The government actually started passing Sumptuary laws –which were fines placed on nobles who spent their money too lavishly -especially on women’s clothes, jewelry and large feasts. Nobles then began to aspire to be fined by these laws because it made them feel wealthier to be fined for being wealthy. 

The second problem was the distinction that divided the nobles between whether it was better to have a Prominent Lineage or great Accumulated Wealth. Both had their issues. Those who did focus on lineage and having a lot of offspring found themselves broke after a couple of generations because they were spreading too little money over too many kids. The wealthy nobles also had their line decreased because of the limited number of other nobles who could afford to marry off their daughters as well as many wealthy nobles choosing to keep the money for themselves and not procreate.

The third problem nobility faced was the large number of lives being lost to war The Black Plague. People think the Black plague came in one wave and died out. It kept resurging and coming in waves over the course of many decades.  When people say they’re “avoiding like the black plague” they should actually be saying they’re avoiding something better than the plague –because those people didn’t avoid it very well. Because of the loss in numbers of nobles the government body began to shrink in size –which led to problem number 4.

In the late 1600s, in order to increase government members, the wealthiest families of the merchant class were allowed to buy their way into nobility for 60,000 ducats a person. 127 families were added to the patriciate class and automatically given government positions that normally took years of training to achieve. The younger untrained members of Government then started to outnumber the older experienced members.

The end result was a weakend government and a group of “nobles” walking around in rags –able to claim noble lineage but not able to equal the wealth of the local merchant class.

History often has lessons to teach us. Like making goals for example. It’s important to have goals. The wealthy members of Venice had a goal –gain privileges and prominence that far exceeds the lowly lives of the less-wealthy classes of society. That’s a goal. It’s a very similar goal to the one Captain Ahab had that involved tracking down and killing that white whale. Unfortunately the nobles learned a hard economic truth: You can’t avoid work and spend excessively and expect things to turn out ok. Many a shopaholic has also had to come to that tragic realization –usually 5-7 credit cards too late. History teaches us lessons like this so we are not doomed to repeat them. I think the lesson here is clear: Don’t make stupid goals.