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Porters, Beggars, and Noblemen: The Social Construction of Political Power in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Rome
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2017
Abstract
Employing Norbert Elias’s notion of figuration and referring to models based on the relational nature of power (patron-client, entrepreneur and big-man relationships), this article highlights how the relationship between the elite and the lower classes played a crucial role in the establishment of local power in Rome. The high degree of social mobility amongst the Roman elite made the neighborhood a politically open space: an official list of the aristocracy’s members was not available until the eighteenth century, and the Statute of Rome (1580) simply defined eligible candidates for local offices as “illustrious men of the neighborhood.” In this context, strong territorial connections were key when it came to gaining local power. An interconnected network of relationships linked the lower classes and noble families vertically. Through judicial sources, notarial records, and account books, this article presents the highly personalized nature of exchanges between the elite and the lower classes in addition to the complex web of economic transactions and social relations which was essential to creating a local network of clients.
- Type
- Political Cultures in Italy, from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century
- Information
- Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales - English Edition , Volume 68 , Issue 3 , September 2013 , pp. 487 - 510
- Copyright
- Copyright © Les Éditions de l’EHESS 2013
References
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6. Sahlins, “Poor Man, Rich Man.”
7. On the concept of neighborhood in Italian towns, see Brigitte Marin, “Lexiques et découpages territoriaux dans quelques villes italiennes (XVIe-XIXe siècle),” in Les divisions de la ville, ed. Topalov, Christian (Paris: Éditions de l’UNESCO, 2002), 8–45 Google Scholar. On Roman neighborhoods, see Manuel Royo, Étienne Hubert and Agnès Béranger, eds., Rome des quartiers: des vici aux rioni. Cadres institutionnels, pratiques sociales et requalifications entre Antiquité et époque moderne (Paris: De Boccard, 2008). On neighborhoods in general, see also: Yves Lequin, Heinz-Gerhard Haupt, and Philippe Boutry, eds., “Le quartier urbain en Europe (XVIIIe-XXe siècle). Approches et réalités,” special dossier, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Italie et Méditerranée 105, no. 2 (1993): 299-538; Pierre-Yves Saunier, “La ville en quartiers: découpages de la ville en histoire urbaine,” Genèses 15 (1994): 103-14.
8. Tribunale criminale del Governatore, Processi, vol. 46, 1605, ASR, Rome.
9. Ibid.
10. Consequently, Rome’s population, which in large part consisted of foreigners, was highly mobile. The migratory waves were so significant that they affected the city’s sex ratio. In effect, from the late sixteenth century until the late nineteenth century, there were significantly more men than women in Rome. See Eugenio Sonnino, “L’età moderna (secoli XVI-XVIII),” in La popolazione italiana dal Medioevo a oggi, ed. Panta, Lorenzo Del , Bacci, Massimo Livi , and Pinto, Giuliano (Rome: Laterza, 1996 Google Scholar), 73-130 and Sonnino, Eugenio , ed., Popolazione e società a Roma dal medioevo all’età contemporanea (Rome: Il Calamo, 1998 Google Scholar). The Descriptio Urbis (1527), which lists the geographic origins of 3,495 of the city’s inhabitants, has been interpreted in various ways. According to Egmont Lee, Romans comprised 68 percent of the total population. See Urbis, Descriptio : The Roman Census of 1527 (Rome: Bulzoni, 1985), 289 Google Scholar. However, Jean Delumeau more plausibly believed that the percentage of Romans was considerably lower at 16.4 percent of the total, whereas immigrants represented 83.6 percent. See Vie économique et sociale de Rome dans la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle (Paris: De Boccard, 1957), 1:338.
11. Giovanni Francesco Commendone, Discorso sopra la corte di Roma (1554), quoted by Maria Antonietta Visceglia, “Figure e luoghi della corte romana,” in Storia di Roma dall’antichità ad oggi. Roma moderna, ed. Ciucci, Giorgio (Rome: Laterza, 2002), 39–78 Google Scholar, quote on 40.
12. The list of names, which consists of 19,609 officers, was compiled from records of the acts of municipal councils: Camera capitolina, Archivio Storico Capitolino (hereafter ASC), Rome. The officers elected between 1550 and 1650 are listed in the following volumes: credenzone (hereafter cred.) 1, vols. 4, 5, 18, and 20-34; cred. 4, vols. 33, 104, 116, 117, 120, 121, and 123; cred. 6, vols. 25-30, 33, and 36. The openness of neighborhoods varied, as a comparison between three neighborhoods—Borgo, Trastevere, and Sant’Angelo—shows. Over each decade, the first was governed by members of 40 families on average; in the case of the second, the figure falls to 33.2, and falls even further for the third, where the average was 27.4 families per decade.
13. Statuta almae Urbis Romae auctoritate S. D. N. Gregohi Papae XIII, a senatu, populoq. rom. reformata et edita. Romae in aedibus populi romani (1580) bk. 3, chaps. 27 and 28.
14. Nussdorfer, Laurie , “City Politics in Baroque Rome, 1623-1644” (PhD diss., University of Princeton, 1985), 146 Google Scholar.
15. Most of this office’s regular income came from fines for violating city cleanliness rules and from building permits, which primarily concerned the work needed to close the porticos. Street masters also profited from permits for digging into the ground and despoiling ancient monuments by claiming one third of all the marble and sinter found. Finally, the sale of portions of the public domain provided another opportunity for profit. To all of this must be added extraordinary income, notably demolition taxes (tassa per la ruina), which affected parties paid when public works improved their property’s value.
16. Waddy, Patricia , “Giacinto Del Bufalo, ‘Maestro delle Strade’ and Homeowner,” in Architectural Studies in Memory of Richard Krautheimer, ed. Striker, Cecil L. (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1996), 175–79 Google Scholar.
17. The jurisdiction of the conservators’ court extended to corporations. It also had the final word on decisions made by guild officers. This court was not, however, simply a means for the Capitol to control the corporations: at times, the latter turned to the Capitol when they had problems, for instance with one of their members.
18. The familia consisted of officers such as the chaplain, the archivist, secretaries, and scribes, as well as servants, including a palace butler, a cook, and twelve “faithful,” i.e., personal servants.
19. It must not be forgotten, moreover, that Capitoline offices provided a source of income. First, they came with salaries, though not very large ones: street masters were paid forty-seven scudi annually, caporioni fourteen scudi every three months, and marshals eleven scudi every three months. Other income came from rights that were directly owed to officers themselves. For example, in 1574-1575, Prospero Boccapaduli, as street master, earned 366 scudi in rights that were paid entirely to him. While the real interest of being elected to the Capitol lay elsewhere, it becomes clear, when one considers examples of misconduct, that there were numerous opportunities to take financial advantage of one’s office and to pocket money that had been unduly earned. For instance, the secret council of October 8, 1587, denounced the conservator’s scribe Pietro Paolo Muziano, who had held the office for thirty years, for his habit of pocketing 0.5 percent of the funds he managed. See Pecchiai, Pio , Il Campidoglio nel Cinquecento (Rome: N. Ruffolo, 1950), 124 Google Scholar.
20. This word is used here while acknowledging that to “measure” an oligarchy, an analysis based on names alone is insufficient, since, among other reasons, it tells us nothing about the role of family alliances and kinship.
21. Parrocchia di San Bartolomeo, Stati d’anime, 1596-1628, Archivio storico del vicariato di Roma (hereafter ASVR), Rome; vol. 682, Mercanti e sensali di Ripa, and vol. 54, Catalogo dei fratelli, 1540-1575, Archivio di Santa Maria dell’Orto (hereafter ASMO), Rome.
22. I refer here to Giovanni Levi’s well-known book, Inheriting Power: The Story of an Exorcist, trans. Lydia Cochrane (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).
23. Vol. 128, Eredità Tesauro, 1624-1633, ASMO, Rome.
24. Ospizio apostolico di San Michele, part. 2, vol. 652, Libro delle persone che danno sicurtà, 1588-1590, ASR, Rome.
25. Molho, Antony , “Patronage and the State in Early Modern Italy,” in Klientelsysteme im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Maczak, Antoni (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1988), 233–42 Google Scholar; Nussdorfer, “Il ‘popolo romano’ e i papi.”
26. Ospizio apostolico di San Michele, part. 2, vol. 652, February 18, 1588, ASR, Rome.
27. Ibid., January 24, 1589.
28. Ibid., March 8, 1589. Reference to the election of Pompeo Ruggeri can be found in Camera capitolina, cred. 1, vol. 290, ASC, Rome.
29. Ospizio apostolico di San Michele, part. 2, vol. 652, December 10, 1589, ASR, Rome.
30. Ibid., January 6, 1590. Reference to the election of Francesco Calvo can be found in Camera capitolina, cred. 1, vol. 29, ASC, Rome.
31. Ibid., April 4, 1589. On Capitoline musicians, see Cametti, Alberto , “I musici di Campidoglio ossia ‘Il concerto di tromboni e cornetti del senato e inclito popolo romano,’” Archivio della società romana di storia patria 48 (1925): 95–135.Google Scholar
32. Ospizio apostolico di San Michele, part. 2, vol. 652, March 18, 1589, ASR, Rome.
33. Ibid., April 7, 1589. On officers for roads, see Re, Emilio , “Maestri di strada,” Archivio della società romana di storia patria 43 (1920): 61–102 Google Scholar, and Waddy, “Giacinto Del Bufalo.”
34. Ospizio apostolico di San Michele, part. 2, vol. 652, December 28, 1589, ASR, Rome.
35. On practices of pardoning, see Niccoli, Ottavia , Perdonare. Idee, pratiche, rituali in Italia tra Cinque e Seicento (Rome: Laterza, 2007).Google Scholar
36. Miscellanea famiglie, vol. 78, Velli, June 21, 1599, ASR, Rome.
37. Miscellanea famiglie, vol. 107, Massimi, January 23, 1597, ASR, Rome.
38. Ibid., May 15, 1599.
39. Ibid., May 25, 1605.
40. Ibid., October 23, 1598.
41. Miscellanea famiglie, vol. 43, Cenci, March 24, 1598, ASR, Rome.
42. Ibid., vol. 66, Del Bufalo, November 12, 1581.
43. Tribunale criminale del Governatore, Atti vari di cancelleria, vol. 96, 1618, ASR, Rome.
44. Garzoni, Tomaso , La piazza universale di tutte e professioni del mondo, ed. Cherchi, Paolo and Collina, Beatrice (Turin: G. Einaudi, 1996), 44.Google Scholar
45. In most cases, the landed property of noble families included vineyards situated extra portam or intra moenia. Since the Middle Ages, wine growing was a form of agriculture that was very widespread in Rome due to the high demand for wine from the city’s market. See Cortonesi, Alfio , Terre e signori nel Lazio medioevale. Un’economia rurale nei secoli XIII-XIV (Naples: Liguori ed., 1988).Google Scholar
46. Parrocchia di San Lorenzo in Damaso, Baptisms, June 26, 1607, ASVR, Rome.
47. Ibid., February 4, 1691.
48. Ibid., June 21, 1692.
49. Capitolo di Santa Maria in Trastevere, vol. 139, Spese diverse Velli, 1611-1613; vol. 163, Libro mastro Velli, 1605-1609; vol. 178, Eredità Velli, 1573-1574; vol. 193, Libro mastro Velli, 1607-1614, ASVR, Rome.
50. This amounted to a total of ninety-four sales between 1564 and 1640. Capitolo di Santa Maria in Trastevere, vol. 163, Libro mastro Velli, 1605-1609; vol. 164, Libro mastro Velli, 1625-1641; vol. 166, Ricevute di diversi artisti e creditori, 1544-1618; vol. 178, Eredità Velli, 1573-1574; vol. 179, Entrata e uscita Velli, 1625-1640; vol. 193, Libro mastro Velli, 1607-1614, ASVR, Rome.
51. “Strictly, clientization applies to the tendency, very marked in the suq, for repetitive purchasers of certain goods and services—whether consumption ones like vegetables or barbering, or intracommercial ones like bulk weaving or porterage—to establish continuing relationships with certain purveyors, occasionally one, much more often a half dozen or so, instead of searching widely through the market at each occasion of need. More broadly it applies to the establishment of relatively enduring exchange relations of any sort, for in essence the phenomenon is the same, whether the client is
52. Ago, Renata , Economia barocca. Mercato e istituzioni nella Roma del Seicento (Rome: Donzelli, 1998 Google Scholar); Fontaine, Laurence , L’économie morale. Pauvreté, crédit et confiance dans l’Europe préindustrielle (Paris: Gallimard, 2008 Google Scholar).
53. This form of staggered payments is known as a buon conto—or, in Latin, ad bonum compotum—an expression indicating that the amount paid is only a down payment. Thus the sixteen installments that the Santacroce paid Bernardino, a carriage blacksmith, were spread over three years, from 1603 to 1606. Archivio Santacroce, vol. 515, Conti di casa Santacroce, ASR, Rome.
54. In January 1605, Muzio Mattei sold Giovanni Battista Sacchetti, illustrissimo, the grass of a plot located in the domain of Casetta: the agreement stipulated that the price would be paid in two installments, one at Easter and the other in May, on the feast of Sant’Angelo. A few days later, a Bolognese shepherd, Ligorio, bought the grass of another plot in the Casetta domain from Muzio and agreed to pay according to the same terms and arrangements. Trenta notai capitolini, ufficio (hereafter uff.) 2, vol. 54, January 4 and 21, 1605, ASR, Rome.
55. For example, the bankers Ferrante and Filippo rented a shop and a house in San Simeone from the nobleman Antonio Formicini of the Sant’Angelo rione, while the apothecaries Ludovico Barbieri, Alessandro Capocefalo, and Quintiliano, also Formicini’s tenants, simultaneously rented two shops from him. This suggests that their relationship with Formicini went beyond their rental agreement. Indeed, Barbieri was one of the tenants who stayed with Antonio the longest, and Capocefalo lived in a building near the Formicini home: he was thus the family’s neighbor. The son of the eximius artium et medicine doctor dominus Ioannes Battista, Formicini had an estate consisting of a significant number of rental properties. Thanks to his account book, it is possible to reconstruct the stages by which he acquired his building stock: its origins date back to 1494, when one of his ancestors, Antonio, acquired several houses in the Ponte rione on long lease from the Collegio Capranica. Arciconfraternita della Santissima Annunziata, vol. 211, ASR, Rome.
56. Other examples can be found in the Santacroces’ account books. In 1613, Domenico Marchesi, a stonemason, rented three different buildings: a “stockroom or room where he worked as a stonemason,” a house in which he lived, and two other rooms that were in the same building. Archivio Santacroce, vol. 696, Libri antichi di entrata ed uscita in tempo del Signor Onofrio Santacroce dell’anno 1539 e seguenti, ASR, Rome. Another example can be found in Francesco Cenci’s property holdings: Alessandro Olgiato, a merchant from Como, lived in one of the houses on Monte dei Cenci (Trenta notai capitolini, uff. 7, vol. 23, ASR, Rome), and was also, from 1572, the tenant of the garden Francesco owned in Santa Sabina (Collegio dei notai capitolini, vol. 422, ASR, Rome).
57. Trenta notai capitolini, uff. 2, vol. 58, March 26, 1607, ASR, Rome.
58. In another instance, once again involving a baker, Fiore of L’Aquila acknowledged receipt from Ciriaco Mattei of 285 scudi for the work he had done on the Villa Maccarese. The payment consisted of a 166 scudo down-payment and 199 scudi in bread, which Fiore received from Astolfo’s ovens on the Piazza Branca and from Giovanni of Macel de’ Corvi. While the work was being completed and before the final settlement, Fiore received bread from the two bakers by showing them bills (bollettini) written by Ciriaco Mattei, in which the nobleman asked them to provide Fiore with bread on his account. Trenta notai capitolini, uff. 2, vol. 58, June 19, 1607, ASR, Rome.
59. Renata Ago has demonstrated that credit was another way that one could expand one’s personal network: “In general, buying everything on credit, and thus the constant need for an external guarantor of the transaction, often brings individuals into contact with one another who otherwise would not have had direct relationships.” Ago, Economia barocca, 23.
60. Arciconfraternita della Santissima Annunziata, vol. 71, Giornale di entrata et uscita della vigna fuori di Porta San Pancrazio di Orazio Manili dal 1597 al 1633, ASR, Rome.
61. Ibid.
62. Wolf, Eric R. , Peasants (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1966).Google Scholar
63. Hannerz, Ulf , Exploring the City: Inquiries toward an Urban Anthropology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980).Google Scholar
64. The fact that noblemen functioned as centers of resource distribution is evident in the case of the mason Giovanni Angelo and his relationship with the Santacroces. He worked for the latter frequently enough—most likely with his son, who often handled payments to his father—that the nobleman protected the mason’s family when it ran into trouble with the law. In May 1604, Angelo’s brother, Francesco, was put in prison and Tarquinio gave the mason the necessary sum (7.80 scudi) to have him released. The relationship between the nobleman and Angelo went beyond a work relationship and the “loyalty” that artisans characteristically owed to their shop’s clients. Furthermore, the loyalty between an artisan and his clients could survive a career change: Alessandro Todeschini, one of the Santacroces’ carriage blacksmiths, became, in late 1606, a wood merchant; however, Tarquinio continued to be his client, buying his wood from him. Archivio Santacroce, vol. 696, ASR, Rome.
65. The Velli family archives consist of around thirty volumes, collected in the archive of the Santa Maria chapter in Trastevere at the ASVR. Their location is explained by the fact that Adriano, the last of the Trastevere Velli, who died without heirs, left a bequest to the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere which, in 1667, inherited all the family’s goods.
66. In 1527, the Descriptio Urbis offered testimony of the Vellis’ importance in the neighborhood: Felice (of the Stefano branch) is described as being the head of a household of a hundred people, while Antonio and his brothers, descendants of Onofrio, housed eighty-eight servants and family members.
67. The “dei Velli” area was already included on maps of Rome when, in 1551, Leonardo Bufalini identified part of Trastevere as “Velius.” See Bufalini, Leonardo , Roma (1551), wood engraving, London Google Scholar, British Library, Map Library, MapRoom S_I_R_1.
68. Similarly, in April 1636, the innkeeper Antonio Arrigoni paid the rent of one of the family’s tinellos and, at the same time, bought nine casks of romanesco wine, while Vincenzo Barone, an old tenant, bought sixteen casks of romanesco between 1635 and 1636. Capitolo di Santa Maria in Trastevere, vol. 179, ASR, Rome.
69. Other goods, linked to the countryside and agriculture, also formed part of superimposed transactions. In 1613, Giovanni Bagnaia, a citrus merchant and tenant, bought one thousand fascines at the price of one scudo (Capitolo di Santa Maria in Trastevere, vol. 193, Libro mastro Velli, 1607-1614, ASVR, Rome) and in 1627, the innkeeper Giacomo, who rented two barns in San Pietro in Montorio, gave the Velli seven carts of hay worth a total of eighty scudi—that is, the amount of his rent (Capitolo di Santa Maria in Trastevere, vol. 164, Libro mastro Velli, 1625-1641, ASVR, Rome). Over the course of the same year, the tenant Lucchino d’Amatrice paid his ten scudi in rent as follows: two scudi in cash with eight scudi discounted for transporting the Velli’s wine goods, which he brought right to the domus magna in Rome. In 1640, the son of another Amatrice tenant, Ludovico, sold the Vellis straw for 0.50 scudi. Capitolo di Santa Maria in Trastevere, vol. 179, Entrata e uscita Velli, 1625-1640, ASVR, Rome.
70. Another example is the relationship between Antonio Formicini and his tenant Simone, a weaver renting one of the shops on the same floor as the Formicini household. When Simone left without paying, still owing 6.8 scudi, Antonio struck from his credit “all the work done until the day he left, notably a piece of tow-cloth and several strips of fabric.” Simone was thus a Formicini tenant and worked for them as a weaver. Arciconfraternita della Santissima Annunziata, vol. 211, ASR, Rome. The case of the nobleman Orazio Manili and his apothecary tenants Radicchio Schiavone and Caterina is also worth mentioning. Between 1507 and 1548, they rented a house in Borgo Vecchio and paid an annual fee of five ducats and products from their shop, including one pound of pepper and another of incense.
71. In 1607, the factotum Rosato De Amicis bought wheat. Capitolo di Santa Maria in Trastevere, vol. 163, Libro mastro Velli, 1605-1609, ASVR, Rome. In September 1637, Giuliano, a vineyard sharecropper (mentioned in the account books as il nostro mezzarolo), bought fifty-one casks of romanesco wine. Capitolo di Santa Maria in Trastevere, vol. 179, Entrata e uscita Velli, 1625-1640, ASVR, Rome.
72. Maddalena Ramazzini worked as a servant for the Vellis for at least forty years, beginning in 1602. A true pillar of the casa, she took care of the laundry, food, and other family expenses. Maddalena’s loan was reimbursed in several installments, the first of which (fifty scudi), dating from 1629, was made to Menico Antonio, the husband of Maddalena’s niece. Capitolo di Santa Maria in Trastevere, vol. 179, Entrata e uscita Velli, 1625-1640, ASVR, Rome.
73. Another source, the Santacroces’ account book, provides several examples of these multiple relationships. For instance, the innkeeper Angelo Senni borrowed money in the form of a compagnia d’ufficio and also bought an inn from Tarquinio. Lullo d’Aquilella owed several debts, but he also acted as a middleman in bringing the nobleman several sums that he collected in his own name. Furthermore, Lullo sent his apprentice to work for Tarquinio in January 1603. Lorenzo de Cochi, who rented an inn from Tarquinio, bought wheat from the nobleman and catered for him at home on a number of occasions. Archivio Santacroce, vol. 515, Conti di casa Santacroce, ASR, Rome.
74. Capitolo di Santa Maria in Trastevere, vol. 163, Libro maestro, 1605-1609, ASVR, Rome.
75. Ibid., July 1606, and Capitolo di Santa Maria in Trastevere, vol. 193, Libro maestro, 1607-1614, April 1609, ASVR, Rome.
76. Capitolo di Santa Maria in Trastevere, vol. 164, Libro maestro, 1625-1641, ASVR, Rome.
77. Ibid.
78. Capitolo di Santa Maria in Trastevere, vol. 179, Entrata e uscita Velli, 1625-1640, ASVR, Rome.
79. Capitolo di Santa Maria in Trastevere, vol. 164, Libro maestro, 1625-1641, ASVR, Rome. Another example is that of Giovanni Domenico Cerasolo, also known as Citolo, a butcher who, between 1625 and 1633, rented several of the family’s properties: a barn in San Pietro in Montorio, the casa grande of the via de’ Balestrari, and part of the Campo Salino estate. Citolo maintained the latter in his possession for a long time—from 1625 to 1640 (for an annual lease of six hundred scudi). But the butcher was also indebted to the family, for he borrowed one hundred scudi through a censo contract. Finally, he delivered meat to reimburse the merchant Antonio Pozzo in Velli’s name. Ibid.
80. On the bobacterii, see Gennaro, Clara , “Mercanti e bovattieri nella Roma della seconda metà del Trecento,” Bullettino dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo e Archivio Muratoriano 78 (1967): 155–203 Google Scholar; Maire-Vigueur, Jean-Claude , “Classe dominante et classes dirigeantes à Rome à la fin du Moyen Âge,” Storia della città 1 (1976): 4–26 Google Scholar.
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This is a translation of: Porteurs, mendiants, gentilshommes