A data set for historians

Ever since the Middle Ages, the Venetian government exercised strong control over guilds and, more generally, over labour relations and apprenticeships in particular. The regulations of the Venetian guilds are often quite detailed with regard to apprenticeships and admission to the trade and became more precise in the course of the early modern age, in response to an increasingly pressing demand from state magistracies. The Venetian economy in the early modern age was characterised by an important manufacturing development, which partly compensated for the commercial marginalisation of Venice. The research highlights the way apprenticeships were organised and the role played by artisan immigration in the Venetian economy.