Il lavoro militare fra XVI e XVII sec.: contadini-soldato nella Repubblica di Venezia tra subordinazione e agency ; Military work between XVI and XVII farmer soldiers in the Republic of Venice between subordination and agency

Military labour between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: peasants-soldiers in the Republic of Venice between subordination and agency. The aim of the paper is to propose some preliminary reflections on the topic of the labour relationships in the military field, using the Venetian rural militia in the Early Modern period as a case study. The purpose is double: on one hand, it aims to demonstrate that the “domesticity” remained a fundamental element in the recruitment of men and, broadly, in the functioning of the military structure, in spite of a supposed process of “nationalization” of the armies between the Early Modern and the contemporary period. On the other hand, the paper will link this element to an additional reflection on the agency of the soldiers —using the terms agency in its broader sense. We will show that the agency of the soldiers included various practices, quite different one from another, that had important consequences in shaping the military structure and the social context in which soldiers lived. This was due to the fact that the conflictual dynamics, the practices that characterized the daily relationships between soldiers, officials, local and state institutions, had a strong domestic character. After all, the relationships between the groups went beyond the traditional categories (soldiers-institutions, rural élites-subordinate groups, and so on), having a cross character and often temporary aims. ; Il presente contributo vuole proporre alcune riflessioni preliminari sul tema dei rapporti di lavoro in ambito militare, utilizzando come caso di studio le milizie rurali venete nella prima età moderna. L’intento del saggio è duplice: da una parte si vuole mostrare come la componente domestica sia rimasta un elemento fondamentale nel reclutamento degli uomini e più in generale nel funzionamento dell’apparato militare nonostante un presunto processo di “statalizzazione” degli eserciti tra età moderna e contemporanea. Nella seconda parte del saggio si vuole invece legare questo ...