148 THE REPUBLIC OF RAGUSA
and spread until the curse of the Turkish conquest fell on the land like a blight, from which it is only now beginning slowly and painfully to recover.
   This mercantile development naturally led to the formation of numerous guilds or confraternities. Like other Ragusan institutions, they were based on Venetian models, and were really the beginnings of the modern mutual aid societies on a religious groundwork. Among the earliest of these are that of the joiners, founded in 1266; that of St. Michael, founded in 1290; that of the goldsmiths (1306), that of Rosgiato (1321), and that of St. Anthony the Abbot (1348). During the Venetian period they were under strict Government supervision, but after 1358 they were invested with political privileges and exemptions.1
1	Gelcich, Ragusa, p. 32.