as part of its colonial policy. People belonging to the upper classes were more likely to be educated and to have studied at an Italian university, usually the University of Padua. Modelled after the academies operating at that time in Venice, the first literary academy, , was founded in Corfu in 1656 by individuals. It had as an emblem two rocks beneath a winged lion, with an inscription hovering in the air. Religion Venetians, being Catholics, retained the privileges enjoyed by the Latin bishopric of the islands under the Count Palatine dynasties. The Catholics were not numerous, and during the Venetian period, they were mainly concentrated in Corfu and Cephalonia. Most of them were descendants of Italian settlers but there were some conversions by Greeks to Catholicism. According to the law, Greek Orthodox priests and monks had to accept the Catholics as their superiors, though the Venetians placed the interests of the Republic ahead of those of the Papacy. Mixed marriages between Catholic and Orthodox Christians were allowed. These two were the main factors in the decline of Roman Catholicism in the Islands. Jews were also a native religious group to the Islands during the Venetian period. They were even fewer in number than the Catholics; in 1797 the number of Jews in Corfu appears to have been only two thousand. Jewish presence in Corfu can be traced since the times of the Principality of Taranto. In Cephalonia, there is evidence of Jewish habitation in the old capital, the Castle of St. George, since the early 17th century. When the capital of the island was transferred to Argostoli the Jews resettled there. Social structure The social structure of the islands followed that of Venice. The whole population was divided into three classes: the nobles (), the bourgeoisie () and the common people (). Legacy Across formerly Venetian-owned Greek territory, particularly the Ionian Islands, the memory of the Republic lives on in the social consciousness of the local population with a sentiment of nostalgia despite its troubled history. The sheer duration of the Venetian period has shaped modern-day Heptanesian culture into an amalgamate of its Greek and Italian heritage in all aspects of everyday life. In 1800 the Septinsular Republic was established; its flag design was based on the flag of the Republic of Venice. In addition, Italian was the co-official language of both the Septinsular Republic and the United States