Riformare ma non troppo. La Repubblica di Venezia e le feste religiose nel Settecento

In the second half of the 18th century the problem of too many religious holidays seemed to haunt governments and reformers throughout most of Italy, who tried in every way to reduce them in order to improve the efficiency of their economies. Even in Venice the question was discussed since the late 1740s, but it took several decades, many debates and failed attempts and a long struggle with Rome, before a drastic reform of the religious calendar could be enacted (1787). This article aims to reconstruct this complex affair, replacing it in the political-religious climate of Italy at the time, investigating the reasons of those who supported or criticized the reduction of holidays, and the multiple causes that made this reform so complicated in the territories of the Serenissima.