The Everyday Struggle Over Urban Space: Neighbourhoods, Neighbours, and the Policing of Street Gambling Mobs in Early Modern Venice

Abstract

In early modern Europe, spontaneous festive activities such as gambling and other street entertainments were a prominent part of everyday urban life. This article analyses their impact on some of Venice's informal political spaces. Ludic gatherings disrupted the rhythms of everyday life and often provoked violent reactions from residents who complained of being denied access to these public spaces. These daily struggles have long gone unnoticed, but they provide an example of how residents conceived of the urban environment in which they lived and how they established a political relationship with the authorities. Historians usually associate the suppression of street entertainment with a process of moralization imposed from above, beginning in the sixteenth century. The article reinterprets this narrative, arguing that the authorities’ policy of controlling urban space found fertile ground in a section of the community and depended on it to be effective. It shows how the prohibition of public ludic activities emerged from the demands of resident communities, who repeatedly appealed to the authorities for action to defend their use of informal spaces. The authorities’ repression relied heavily on neighbourhood control, which in turn depended on political decisions: in fact, residents usually denounced undesirable individuals or those with no ties to the community.