コンミッサリーア： ヴェネツィア共和国の遺言信託

Commissarie（ sg.: commissaria） were testamentary trusts practised in the Republic of Venice. Deriving from the Latin word fideicommissum, commissaria meant everything trusted by a testament, mainly the division of property and bequests, but also instructions on the funeral, Masses, the construction of tomb and/or monument, and especially the administration of assets ‘in perpetuo’ for the sake of the salvation of the testator’s soul. 　In charge of the execution of commissaria were commissarij, trustees appointed by the testator, and their successors and agents. Often commissarie were entrusted to confraternities or to the Procurators of San Marco, the second highest offices after the Doge in the Republic of Venice, or in some cases to both institutions. 　Where perpetual management of assets was required, the bequests were mainly in the form of government bonds, real estate, and charitable houses （ospedali and ospizi）. Interests of government bonds and rental incomes from real estates were used to support the surviving family members or to pay for perpetual Masses, donated to religious or charitable organizations, or distributed among the poor by the hand of executors. Some testators wished to establish almshouses to accommodate the socially vulnerable. Such facilities were expected to be maintained forever and laid a heavy burden on the executors. 　The benefactor and the beneficiaries could have a direct relationship, but charitable trusts were aimed at unspecified people in need, and the selection of the beneficiaries was left to the executors. For them, this task was advantageous as well as arduous, because they could consolidate their own personal ties through the distribution of the benefits. The poor who received benefits had their role, too, because they were indispensable for the salvation of the soul of the benefactors. Thus, multilayered personal relationships were weaved around commissarie. 　The detailed inventories of commissarie entrusted to the Procurators in the Archivio di Stato di Venezia allow us to extract quantitative data from some 3,500 commissarie. I collected information regarding the year of establishment and the last year of the records of each commissaria to figure out how long it was maintained. The results show that about 20 per cent or 688 commissarie lasted more than 100 years, among which 384 lasted more than 200 years. The documents I have surveyed are silent about how a commissaria ended, but this analysis proved the longevity of numerous commissarie. 　Commissarie functioned as social bonds which brought people together across time and class. In previous studies, commissaria documents have been used for historical research about finance, charity, and art, but they are also useful for social network research. In the future, it will be necessary to elucidate the reality of commissarie in more detail through specific case studies. ＊ Research for this study was made possible by the generous assistance of Momoyama Gakuin University. I wish to express my special thanks to Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia for allowing me to develop my research in March-September 2022 as a visiting scholar.