Venezuela

VENEZUELA. - I. GEOGRAPHY. - The northernmost of the Atlantic states of South America, the only one whose territory lies entirely north of the Equator.

Almost three times the size of Italy (912,050 sq. km.), it is divided, by the broad belt of plains (llanos) through which the Orinoco flows, into two distinct parts. The northern one alternates a mountainous region (the Cordillera of Mérida, which rises to over 5,000 m., and the much lower Caribbean Mountains) on the western border and parallel to the Atlantic, with a series of flat coastal strips, extending especially around Lake Maracaibo. Southern V. corresponds instead to a portion of the tabular plateau of Guiana, which rises above 2,500 m., almost uninhabited, but covered with magnificent forests. The climate of V., tropical in the llanos (with a dry season of 5-7 months), gradually passes over into the equatorial one, more humid and unhealthy, toward the south and in the Orinoco delta, as vast as Sicily.

The population (5 million inhabitants, about 6 to 8 per sq. km.) consists for 9/10 of mixed-race people (mestizos and mulattoes), with barely 4% whites (65 thousand Italians): three-quarters of it lives in the northern regions, while the rest of the country is almost desert (in the territory of Amazonas there is one inhabitant for every 33 sq. km.).

In the economy of V. the contrast between enormous possibilities and modest achievements is evident. The fundamental crops are coffee and cocoa, which supply the export trade, but cereals are not enough for internal consumption and the importance of the other products (sugar cane, tobacco, cotton, etc.) is modest. Stock-raising too is in its beginnings (nevertheless there are 6.8 million head of cattle; lacking modern equipment, the quality is poor), while the enormous forest reserves are still almost untouched. The greatest resource of the country is petroleum (northern regions), for which V. holds second place among world producers (78 million tons in 1950). Still limited, on the other hand, are the quantities of other mineral raw materials extracted (gold, diamonds, copper, mercury and recently iron), and limited, despite the variety of its branches, is industry.

Of the inhabited centers, besides the capital, Caracas (500 thousand inhabitants), notable are Maracaibo (232 thousand inhabitants), the main exporting port; Barquisimeto (105 thousand inhabitants) and Valencia (90 thousand inhabitants), in the interior.

V. is a federal Republic of 20 States, 2 territories and a federal district, with a bicameral parliamentary government and a president elected every 5 years.

Giuseppe Caracci

II. HISTORY

In a letter of July 18, 1500, returning from a voyage to the New World, Amerigo Vespucci, describing to Lorenzo de' Medici the lands he had visited, wrote thus: "... the inhabitants had their houses built on the sea as at Venice, with much artifice and marvel"; from this resemblance to the Most Serene Republic, the name of little Venice given to the island of Aruba would pass, subsequently, to the adjacent coast which, from that time, would be called V.

Sighted on Columbus's third voyage (1498), cursorily visited in 1499 by Ojeda's expedition, of which A. Vespucci was a part, the Spaniards did not trouble to occupy V., limiting themselves to settling on the coasts for pearl fishing and for gathering up natives to sell as slaves in Cuba and Hispaniola. In 1527 the Spaniard Juan de Ampuez founded there the first colony (Santa Ana de Coro), governing it wisely; it would, however, be the merit of German elements to attempt a serious penetration into the interior of the country, following a regular license granted to them for twenty years, in 1528, by Charles V; the most notable among them, who acted on behalf of the Welser bankers of Augsburg, were Ambrosius Alfinger, who met his death on the Magdalena River; Georg von Speier who, in search of the mythical "El dorado," would push as far as the Guaviare River; Nicolas Federman who would reach the region of the Muisca almost contemporaneously with the Spanish expeditions of Belalcazar, coming from Quito, and of Quesada, who reached it from S. Marta. After these, particular mention must be made of the explorations carried out by Fr. Samuel Fritz, followed by many groups of daring Franciscan and Jesuit religious during the 17th century; the present capital Caracas (Santiago de León de Caracas) would be founded in 1567, in the time of governor Ponce de León, by captain Losada; subsequently, or contemporaneously, life would be given to Borburata, Barquisimeto, Valencia, Trujillo.

Organized like the other Spanish lands of America, V., until 1742 incorporated into the viceroyalty of New Granada, in that year would be elevated to a captaincy general; despite its undoubted agricultural resources (cocoa, tobacco, cotton, indigo) it would live almost exclusively on contraband and on the commercial movement of the Spanish galleons that came and went from Europe (Maracaibo, Puerto Cabello) throughout the entire 17th century. Around 1728 this situation would be brought to an end by entrusting to a Guipuzcoan company the exclusivity of the traffic, on condition of combating the contraband and piracy carried out by the Dutch (Curaçao) and by the English (Margarita, Trinidad, Leeward Islands). The colony having developed notably as a result of these measures, two insurrectionary movements provoked by landowners and by government employees were put down (1749, 1752), a university was opened, and the seat of the archbishopric was established at Caracas (1803). Though scant in inhabitants (about 412,000, of whom 12,000 Spaniards; 100,000 American Spaniards; 300,000 natives, blacks and mulattoes) scattered over an area of a million and a half sq. km., V. would leap to the forefront for its revolutionary activity against the antiquated Iberian colonial regime. In the action tending toward the country's independence, note Francisco de Miranda, precursor of the South American revolution (1750-1816), and Simón Bolívar (1783-1830), its achiever.

The entire Venezuelan history from May 6, 1830, when Gen. Paez and Bermudez proclaimed at the Congress assembled in Valencia the separation of the region from Gran Colombia and the birth of the State of V., may be said to be encompassed in the politics of the two parties - the conservative and the liberal - and in the activity of four statesmen who, each in his own way, imposed his will on the Republic; in order of time they were: José Antonio Paez, hero of the wars for independence; José Tadeo Monagas; Guzman Blanco; Juan Vicente Gomez. Through the multiform capacity of these men the political life of V. has unfolded, in its entirety, down to our own days, in which power is in the hands of a military junta presided over by Col. C. Delgado Chalbaud who, having dissolved Parliament, has governed since Dec. 1948. The peculiarity of the aforementioned men, military or political according to whatever internal circumstances imposed, was manifested not only in the years in which they were directly in the presidency, but was prolonged through the successive presidents they had elected, imposing their will on the country even through third persons. Among these latter, other personalities stood out who led the country toward the normalization of internal life, toward recognition by the other powers, toward placing itself decisively on the path of social reforms, toward restoring the public debt and subsequently toward fully developing, by availing itself of foreign capital, the exploitation of petroleum, the principal and ceaseless wealth of the region.

In the years closest to us, special mention must be made of the work of Gomez: at the head of V. from 1908, "almost illiterate, but endowed with natural intelligence, with cunning, with a remarkable sense for business," he succeeded in keeping the Republic in good relations with foreign countries, in settling favorably disputes in Holland, Belgium, the United States, in remaining neutral during the First World War, in adhering to the League of Nations, in 1920, in settling border questions with Colombia (1922) and Brazil (1929), in reabsorbing in 1930-35 the whole of the foreign public debt. His successor, Gen. Lopez Contreras, in office from 1936 to 1941, contributed significantly to the reform of the Constitution, restored to the people political, press and assembly freedom, was the soul of a three-year plan for the growth of the economy, of agriculture, of social improvements. After him his minister of war, Gen. Medina Angarita, became president; he broke off relations with the Axis countries after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, supplied large quantities of raw materials to the United States, by which he was strongly aided in industrialization and in the exploitation of natural reserves, intensified the struggle against illiteracy, broadened the provisions on social security, outlawed the communists, dissolving their leagues (but in 1945 he had to recognize the legality of that party).

At the end of 1945, Medina having been forced to take refuge in the United States with Lopez Contreras by a popular uprising, the economist Romulo Betancourt became president, after a brief interregnum of a popular junta. The latter, although he had performed good acts during his years of government, did not live up to the country's expectations, so much so as to provoke, after several insurrectionary movements, a coup d'état at the end of 1948. From that year, as has been said, Col. Chalbaud has been at the head of the Republic.

III. EVANGELIZATION

A first missionary attempt in V. was made in 1513 by the Dominican Francisco de Cordoba, who together with a lay brother set out from Haiti toward the Pearl Coast, west of the Island of Trinidad. Because of the pearl traders, who sold the natives into slavery, the attempt ended with the massacre of the two missionaries. A second attempt, undertaken from 1516 to 1519 by Dominicans and Franciscans, likewise failed after initial successes because of the slave hunting by the Spaniards and ended with the killing of the missionaries. The same fate befell the colonization of the Pearl Coast, devised by Bartolomé de Las Casas.

In the 16th century Spanish colonization and the Dominican and Franciscan mission were limited to the north-western part, where flourishing cities arose such as Coro and, from 1578, Caracas as the seat of government. In 1531 Coro was erected as a diocese, later transferred to Caracas in 1637. Eastern V., however, like the lowland region of the interior, remained unexplored. After various failed attempts, the Franciscans succeeded in founding a convent on the Island of Trinidad at the end of the 16th century. From there they pushed forward toward the Orinoco delta, at first without success. Only after 1656 did they found a flourishing mission among the Indian tribes in Piritù, and in the course of the 18th century they also penetrated into the regions south of the Orinoco River. From about 1760 the missions depended on the Apostolic College of the Franciscans of Piritù.

The Franciscans were helped, from 1650 in Cumaná, from 1678 in Guyana, by the Capuchins, who erected fine reductions. At the beginning of the 18th century the Jesuits founded some missions in the region of the Upper Orinoco. With the so-called "Concordia" of 1734 the various fields of action of the Franciscans, Capuchins and Jesuits received well-defined boundaries. After the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 the Franciscans took over their missions of the Upper Orinoco. In 1787 the Franciscans administered 68 missions with about 35 thousand Christian Indians; the Capuchins, in 1789, 30 missions with about 25 thousand Christian Indians.

Until the end of the 18th century Caracas remained the only diocese; in 1777 the hierarchy was expanded with the erection of the diocese of Merida, followed in 1790 by that of Guyana. In 1803 Caracas was elevated to a metropolis. During the struggles for independence in the first decades of the 19th century the flourishing Franciscan and Capuchin missions were radically destroyed. The continuous struggles against the Church in the 19th century did not permit the restoration of the missions. It is true that in 1862 a Concordat was stipulated with the Holy See and that the new dioceses of Calabozo in 1863, of Zulia in 1897, of Barquisimeto in 1907 were erected, and furthermore in 1922 the dioceses of Coro, Cumaná, Valencia and S. Cristóbal followed, and Merida was elevated to a metropolis, but only in 1918 were the Capuchins able to return to their old mission, where in 1922 the apostolic vicariate of Caronì (v.) was erected. In 1943 the new apostolic vicariate of Machiques (v.) in western V. was also entrusted to them, where the Motilones, fierce Indians, live. The Salesians in 1933 began the mission in the region of the Upper Orinoco, which in 1932 was erected as an apostolic prefecture. In the territory there are numerous Indian tribes still pagan.

IV. LEGAL STATUS OF THE CHURCH

It is dominated and characterized by the question of the national Patronato. Ever since the separation from Spain of "Gran Colombia" (Colombia, v., Ecuador, Panama), the new government claimed to continue exercising the Patronato as heir to the privileges granted by the Holy See to the Kings of Spain, and subsequently arbitrarily expanded. These claims were asserted and condensed in the Ley de Patronato Eclesiastico of July 28, 1824, definitively confirmed, as regards Venezuela, by the Constituent Congress with the law of March 15, 1833, and always regarded by the government as the basis and foundation of relations between Church and State. All the Constitutions, including the one in force since April 1953 (art. 50), make explicit reference to it. Some numerous rights that the government intends to exercise by virtue of the Patronato, such as, for example, those relating to the celebration of Councils, pastoral visitations, etc., are practically not enforced. To others, however, such as the creation of new dioceses, appointment to cathedral and parish benefices, and the election of bishops, the government clings absolutely. For its part, the State pays the Church substantial economic subsidies. The Holy See has never recognized these rights, but has only tolerated them. This state of affairs could not fail to be harmful to the life and development of the Church in Venezuela, depriving it in particular of the necessary freedom in the appointment of bishops and encouraging an interference by the state authorities in the ecclesiastical field as extensive as it is undue.

The Constitution guarantees to all the inhabitants of the Republic freedom of religion under state control (art. 35, 6) and barely touches on the subjects that most concern the Church — namely, the school, marriage, the family, the social problem — continually referring back to special laws, which, for the most part, are still inspired by the atheistic and anticlerical principles of the last century. Civil marriage is in force and divorce is granted with ease. Education, whether public or private, is regulated by the Provisional Statute of Education of May 25, 1949. It provides for such meticulous state intervention as to hinder the free development of the activities of private colleges, and to reduce to very little the freedom of teaching sanctioned by the Constitution (art. 35, no. 13) and reaffirmed in art. 2 of the Statute. It must be recognized, however, that it marked a considerable improvement compared with the previous Organic Law, promulgated in October 1948, partly eliminating the odious differences between private and official education and removing distrust toward the work of Catholic colleges. The same Statute moreover reestablished religious instruction in state schools, with two hours per week, for pupils whose parents or their representatives request it.

By decree of the Ministry of National Defense, dated July 10, 1946, the "Chaplaincy Service of the Armed Forces" was instituted, for religious assistance to the armed forces.

The Holy See established in 1876 an apostolic delegation in Venezuela, Santo Domingo and Haiti with residence in the latter two Republics; the first delegate was Msgr. F. Rocco Cocchia; in 1909 Msgr. G. Averse was appointed apostolic delegate for Venezuela and in 1913, with definitive character, Msgr. C. Pietropaoli; Pope Benedict XV elevated the apostolic delegation to an internunciature in 1916 and subsequently, in 1920, to a nunciature; the first nuncio was Msgr. F. Marchetti Selvaggiani, already internuncio since 1917, later cardinal. Pope Pius XII, by apostolic letter of October 7, 1944, constituted the B. Virgin Mary "de Coromoto," venerated in Guanare de los Cospes, as the principal heavenly patroness of the Republic of Venezuela (AAS, 41 [1949], pp. 318-19).

V. ECCLESIASTICAL CIRCUMSCRIPTION

Ecclesiastically it is divided into the two metropolitan sees of Caracas (with suffragans at Barquisimeto, Calabozo, Coro, Cumaná, Guayana, Valencia del V.) and of Merida (with suffragans at S. Cristoforo di V. and at Zulia), into the apostolic vicariates of Caroni, of Machiques or Mission of Guajira-Perjia, and into the apostolic prefecture of Alto Orinoco.

Ippolito Rotoli

VI. For literature: v. ISPANO-AMERICANA LETTERATURA, XII.

VII. ART

Scholars of pre-Columbian civilization assign V. to a region called "intermediate," comprising, in addition to the Republics of the Central American isthmus, also Colombia and Ecuador. As a mediator between the influences of the advanced northern cultures (Aztec, Maya, Totanac) and southern ones (Chimu, pre-Inca, Inca), the region does not on the whole reveal characteristics of marked originality. The present political boundaries of the various States do not even approximately correspond to the distribution of the ancient cultures. As far as what is of interest here is concerned, for example, the separation of the western provinces of V. from the north-eastern ones of Colombia would be entirely arbitrary. The systematic exploration of this vast and arduous territory has, however, only just begun, chiefly through the efforts of North American scholars, and it is therefore still impossible to trace a complete and satisfactory panorama of the primitive civilizations that flourished there. The principal archaeological finds concern the so-called calzadas, paved roads, frequent especially in the territory of Barinas (north-western V.),

(from Pal Kelemen, Medieval American art. II, New York 1956, pl. Phil. 69, C)
VENEZUELA. - Ornamental object in gold, with an anthropomorphic figure, from La Guajira, now in the collection of Dr. R. Requena - New York.

which reveal an advanced construction technique, in the service of a civilization founded on trade.

It seems, however, that there are no architectural monuments of any importance. In western Zulia, stones have been found engraved with ideograms and allusive figurations, dating back to a not yet well-defined Tiot-tio civilization. Other epigraphic discoveries of considerable interest were made by Aguirre and Vigirama, along the coast of the Caribbean Sea.

More intensively explored, including by native scholars, since the last century, has been the area of Lake Valencia to the west of Caracas, where on the small lake peninsula of La Caprera an important necropolis was discovered, which has yielded much fictile material of the greatest interest from the artistic standpoint. A deep strip of the mountainous territory, from Barquisimeto to S. Cristobal, along the Cordillera de Mérida, also appears to have been extensively explored.

Among the most singular artifacts of the northwestern zone are the smooth grinding stones (metates), carved in the shape of wild animals (mostly puma or jaguar) and with edges adorned with graffiti and geometric reliefs. Ceramics have been distinguished into six different areas.

Many fictile forms are unfamiliar both to the art of the Incas and to those of the Mexican civilizations. In general, anthropomorphic symbolism is exaggerated with summary and impressionistic stylization. But small terracotta heads have also been found, of a fineness of execution comparable to that of the products of archaic Egyptian or Chinese art (Kelemen). In short, we are faced with another fictile civilization, inferior to the Peruvian one in the fineness of its ornamentation, but equally advanced in its plastic art. During the first period of Spanish colonization, architecture had only a modest development in V., both because of limited European emigration and because the Spanish authorities were concerned to prevent what had happened in Mexico, where the conquistadores had created dangerous monopolies for themselves, erecting sumptuous dwellings and withdrawing from the control of the mother country. Moreover, the difficulty of procuring the material necessary for solid constructions persisted. Thus civil building is predominantly in wood, and only sacred building uses brick.

The only religious buildings of artistic importance of which there is record in the 16th century are the convent and the adjoining church of S. Francesco in Caracas, today so transformed that only from the plans and drawings preserved in the Archive of the Indies in Seville is it possible to gain an understanding of their original substance. The author of the designs is Antonio Ruiz Ullán (1593). The church had three naves, a solution quite rare in Spanish colonial art.

The facade's elevation, with the central loggia attic, high above the slopes of the lesser naves, reveals that the architect had in mind the models of the late Renaissance, deriving the elements of the decoration from the works of Serlio and Vignola.

Subsequently the forms of exuberant Spanish Baroque triumph. In Caracas arise the hybrid Cathedral, inspired by the architectural works of the Jesuits, the church of Altagracia, the Cathedral of Coto, S. Rosalia; in Maracaibo, the church of S. Francesco. Public palaces too display sumptuous forms, and at times achieve results of sure taste (Palacio de Miraflores in Caracas). Neoclassicism insinuates itself in the Napoleonic era and dominates in the period of the wars of independence (Bolívar's house in Caracas).

In the second half of the 19th century, Venezuelan architecture too follows the fate of all American countries: the frenetic building boom welcomes the most disparate European and North American influences, and in a hybrid mixture of bad academic taste and functional ineptitude promotes the erection of entire new quarters in Caracas and in the cities that meanwhile are acquiring economic and commercial importance: Trujillo, S. Cristobal, Mérida, etc. In religious building, Neo-Romanesque and Neo-Gothic prevail, with a predominance of Spanish models. The most recent architecture, especially in the new center of Caracas, has instead a formal dignity that places it among the best products of modern urban planning.

In the other arts the level remains modest until the wars of independence. Sculpture and painting are practiced almost exclusively in a sacred function, and more than by a native impulse, as happens in other regions of Latin America, they obey an external and programmatic set of rules.

Excellent, by contrast, is craft production, especially of carved wood (choir of the Iglesia de S. Francesco in Caracas) and in sacred furnishings.

From the dramatic and glorious events of the wars of independence, sculpture drew in the first half and then throughout the 19th century the inspiration for an intense reproduction, of a labored and often obtuse realism. Greater assent is won by the names of Rafael de la Cova (author of the bronze equestrian statue and monument of the Liberator) and of Eloy Palacios (1847-1909), popular sculptor of celebratory monuments scattered through the principal cities of the State (his, among others, is the famous India desnuda). E. Rubin Hernandez devoted himself in particular to sacred sculpture (statues of St. Gabriel in Saragozza, José Felix Ribas in Tucupido, Francisco Cabral in Arragua of Barcelona, Padre Guasco in Valle de la Pascua).

The illustrative intention does not rise above an oleographic result in the majority of the painters who gathered around Pedro Lovera, Domingo de Tovar, Antonio José Carranza, founders of the local school. Among these the best is perhaps Carmelo Fernández. But exchange with the countries of Europe soon becomes frequent, and advantage is drawn from it by Manuel Cruz, who from the Italian milieu derived the manners and even the very themes of his genre painting, Celestino Martínez, a diligent academic, executor of sacred paintings in the churches of Caracas, Ramor Bilet, initiator of local landscape painting.

Greater vigor is revealed by the artists of the second generation, of no longer provincial renown, such as Tovar y Tovar, author of battle paintings in some respects close to the taste of those of our Fattori, preserved in the Capitol of Caracas, Michelena, Herrera-Toro, Maury, Rivero Sanabria.

Above the others rises, for his ardent imagination and sureness of palette, Cristobal Rojas, one of the greatest artists of South American Romanticism. His most celebrated painting is the Purgatorio, but no less worthy of attention are Orfandad, La Taberna, La miseria, Beatriz andando por la senda de los lirios.

Tito Salas too, educated in Paris and curious about contemporary European art, acquired some merit.

The historical cycle that decorates Bolívar's house in Caracas is the work of his brush.

Riccardo Averini

VIII. SCHOOL SYSTEM

In the Republic of V. the school system is similar to that of the other republics of Central and South America; in all of them there is a growing development of education, which seeks to extend as far as possible to all rural areas and is the fruit of the ever broader importance that school problems are acquiring in order to set the entire population on the path to a cultural revival.

There is therefore compulsory primary education beginning at age 7 and continuing to age 14; after which one enters secondary education, which is divided into: a) the colleges, with a 5-year course that gives access to the university, or b) the various types of specified schools: "normal" schools, of 4 years, for the training of teachers for urban primary schools; "teachers' schools" of 2 years for the training of teachers for rural primary schools; "vocational schools," generally of 3 years, which cover the following types: agricultural, commercial, technical-industrial, arts and teaching. Higher or university education in V. comprises: the University of Los Andes in Mérida, the Central University of Caracas (founded in the 18th century), rebuilt and modernized in 1944, the University of Zulia in Maracaibo and the Pedagogical Institute. Furthermore, in 1947 the Workers' University was established in Caracas.

An idea of the development of education is given by the two censuses of 1941 and 1950. The census of 1941 indicated that 56.6% of the inhabitants aged 10 and under were illiterate; that of 1950 reported 1,374 adult education centers with 33,000 attendees.

Celestino Testore