Data analysis and case studies about the professions of the Fraglia

In Early Modern Venice, painters were members of a Fraglia, which literally means “brotherhood”. This guild included diverse crafts, such as wood painters specialised in furniture decoration, embroiderers, card painters, leather painters, etc. The Mariegola (guild roll) regulated some aspects of the apprenticeship (mainly the duration, the number of apprentices for each workshop and the requirement to present a masterpiece in order to become a master). The garzonato (apprenticeship) was not a good investment for the master in terms of low-cost workforce and it had an eminently formative function. This chapter also focuses on the terminology used to identify the different specializations within the guild, as well as the increasing occurrence, after the first decades of the 17th century, of members practicing two or three different professions, a phenomenon that invites us to rethink the concepts of both profession and apprenticeship.