Heiress Abducted: Sanudo Diaries: April 28, 1518

After years of war, and the subsequent lack of funds, some take matters into their own hands in contravention to laws, tradition, social order and norms of civility. Marin Sanudo reported that a ten year old girl, an heiress to a wealthy family in Brescia was kidnapped and sent to a monastery  in 1518.

Editor's note: "The abductors were a powerful provincial family, important to the Venetian government as military leaders, and the heiress's stepfather was equally well connected in Venice." p. 132

It should be noted that this occurred as the War of The League of Cambrai was drawing to a close. The previous winter a motion had been made to send funds to Brescia, Cremona, Bergamo and other recently retaken - and historically Venetian - holdings on the Terraferma. After many years of war, many places needed money. But, Emperor Maximillian had died in January 1518 and so the reason to send funds and shore up those holdings, as a buffer against the Emperor was less urgent. One can easily imagine prominent locals deciding they needed those funds any way they could gain them.

Sanudo Diaries: April 28, 1518 (25:368)  "A wealthy young girl, a member of the Cavrioli family, was living in the country. Her mother is married to one of the Averoldi who has two sons, one of whom has [married] the girl's sister. The second son wants this girl, who is ten years old, with her mother's permission. But the Contin Martinengo, who is a condotierre in our army and the son of Count Vetor, who was made a member of our nobility, went to the house where she was ..., with a number of other armed men, as is recounted in the letter.... he abdcuted the girl while distracting the mother with chitchat and took her to Brescia. He placed her in a certain monastery of Santa Iulia, where some of his relatives are nuns, with the idea of giving her in marriage to a brother of his.... The mother then came to Brescia to the Venetian governor to lodge a complaint about this insult, and the governor immediately had the girl brought to him. He kept her in the governor's palace --- days, then had her taken to another monastery to keep her very safe under his protection. He then wrote a report to the Venetian government about what had occurred.
Thus there was a great debate today in the Council of Ten with the zonta because a bill to send a state attorney to Brescia had been posted." pp 132-3

Editor's footnote: "Under the date of 29 April 1518 this case begins to appear in the Council of Ten's records.... with an order to keep the young count and one of his relatives, Teofilo, from leaving Venice without permission. At the same time a message was sent to the authorities in Verona to restrain two others of the Martinengo clan. ... The abduction, under the guise of a social visit, is similarly described in the judicial record: ..." under the guise of a social visit, they violently seized and carried away the respectable girl Franceschina, daughter of the late Girolamo Caprioli and the said Marina...." p. 133

This case would continue through the spring and summer.

The Editors note that a more detailed account of this case can be found in Labalme and White : "How to (and not how to) get married in sixteenth-century Venice"; Renaissance Quarterly 52: 1999, 66-68.

All quotes as Sanudo Diaries or Editor's notes or Editor's Footnotes from Venice, Cita Excellentissima, Selection from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo translated by Linda L Carroll,  editors: Patricia H LaBalme and Laura Sanguineti White, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008