2021/

1-2

ISBN 978-88-8368-153-0

Robin Quillen

Pag. 55-

73

, DOI 10.17426/R07C03

Keywords: Venice; Boatmen-guilds; Rights; Spaces; Communities.

Abstract: The aim of this article is to trace the functioning of a plural professional world – the Venetian boatmen – that’s organized and divided into several distinct bodies which are recognized and identified as such by the public authorities. The sharing of business on the water is a complex legal architecture, the logic of which this research makes reconstruction possible. This work has highlighted the territorial nature of the various boatmen’s collectives that are authorized to work on the water. The goal is to understand how users of the water come together and enter into a spatial relationship in order to acquire a stretch of shoreline and collectively exercise power over that area. Within these bodies, the boatmen were not only given the right to work a stretch of canal or river, but also the ability to regulate themselves, set standards and guarantee their application. The repeated observation of the phenomena of the establishment of boatmen near the quays of the city led us to question the existence of riverside communities whose presence is explained by the need to assert rights over these spaces.