ABSTRACT
This chapter first places the overall numbers of prove in the context of all the patrician marriages registered by the Avogaria, before considering changes over time, the social backgrounds of applicants and their geographical origins. It then examines the women in greater detail, their ages in the year in which their suppliche were submitted, whether they had been married before, and whether their applications may have been encouraged by existing links in some way with Venetian patricians. The levels of patrician out-marriage in Venice can be viewed as the extent to which marriages registered by patricians with the Avogaria di Comun reflected a choice to marry an outsider bride and the extent to which the choice of outsider brides was reflected by the suppliche examined as part of the prove di nobilt. Finally, the numbers of unregistered marriages by patricians who deliberately chose to exclude their male heirs from future membership of the Great Council.
