ABSTRACT
Widowhood in early modern Europe placed many women on the margins of family and society. Along with the loss of their spouses and sources of income, widows of early modern Europe had to face other daunting prospects – isolation, poverty and struggles between marital and natal family over their offspring, dowries and their very bodies. By the fourteenth century, Venice had largely completed its slow transition from principality to republic, and the power of the doge, the city's life-tenured elected figurehead, was greatly restricted by various councils and an oath of office called the promissions ducale. The lives of the dogaressa's two sons, Alvise and Nicolo, were neither as quiet nor predictable. The elder son, Alvise, led a tumultuous life that ended in tragedy. Prior to the unprecedented burial demands of Agnese da Mosto Venier, dogaressal entombment had been almost always humble, simple and largely anonymous.
