Too Big To Fail

In a rapid sequence of events in 1499--1500 the maritime Republic of Venice lost three of its four chief private banking institutions, labeled by the contemporary observer as the ‘four columns of the temple’. While economic historians have already analyzed the immediate causes of the crisis as well as its short-term impact on the Venetian economy, this study sees it from the perspective of the longue durée , as a surface manifestation of some deep historical trends that ultimately ushered in major structural shifts in the social fabric of the republic. It follows the gradual unfolding of the crisis through the eyes of contemporary Venetian chroniclers whose detailed accounts give the social and cultural historian one of the earliest opportunities to reconstruct the internal dynamics of a full-blown fiscal and economic crisis taking place in the midst of the public sphere of a society whose constitution already contained some important elements of democratic culture. The study points out the complex web of social and cultural tendencies that tied together the militaristic attitudes of the state with its overall fiscal policies, and their combined impact on the long-term social stability and political culture.