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Patterns of poor-relief and patterns of poverty in eighteenth-century Italy: the evidence of the Turin Ospedale di Carità

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Sandra Cavallo
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Continuity and Change , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , May 1990 , pp. 65 - 98
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

ENDNOTES

1 Blockmans, W., ‘Circumscribing the concept of poverty’, in Riis, T., ed., Aspects of poverty in Early Modern Europe (Stuttgart, Brussels and Florence, 1981).Google Scholar

2 The different definitions of poverty adopted by historians are discussed in Slack, P., Poverty and policy in Tudor and Stuart England (London and New York, 1988)Google Scholar; see also Beckerman, W., ‘The measurement of poverty’Google Scholar, in Riis, Aspects.

3 This is the main approach found in Himmelfarb, G., The idea of poverty (New York, 1984).Google Scholar

4 The hospital founded in 1649 should not be confused, as often happens, with the hospital for beggars set up in 1626 as a result of a special initiative by the Duke. The latter had a troubled and fairly brief existence and finally closed down at the end of the 1630s. Furthermore, even its income did not go to the Ospedale di Carità, which replaced it, but was incorporated into the income of the hospital for the infirm of S. Maurizio e Lazzaro, which was also the product of ducal patronage. Borelli, G. B., Editti antichi e nuovi di Sovrani Prencipi della Real Casa di Savoia (Torino, 1681), 232Google Scholar (‘Eretione di un hospedale per i mendicanti’).

5 Although the inmates had been transferred as early as 1685, the building went ahead in stages with long gaps in between. The cruciform building envisaged by the project, in line with the hospital architecture of the time, was actually only finished in 1715. Subsequent extensions took place in the 1730s and 1760s.

6 From 1733, however, the hospital extended its functions, establishing a new ward for contagious diseases (especially venereal), which was built with the legacy of the banker Bogetti, as stipulated in his will. The activity of the Opera Bogetti (or Opere Nuova), which was separately administered, is not considered in the present study. For the city's medical charities see Cavallo, S., ‘Charity, power and patronage in eighteenth century Italian hospitals: the case of Turin’, in Granshaw, L. and Porter, R., eds., The hospital in history (London and New York, 1989).Google Scholar

7 Gutton, J. P., La société et les pauvres. L'exemple de la Généralité de Lyon, 1534–1789 (Paris, 1971)Google Scholar; Rosa, M., ‘Chiesa, idee sui poveri e assistenza in Italia dal Cinque al Settecento’, Società e Storia, 10 (1980)Google Scholar; Assereto, G., ‘Pauperismo e assistenza. Messa a punto di studi recenti’, in Archivio Storico Italiano, CXLI (1983)Google Scholar; Pastore, A., ‘Strutture assistenziali fra Chiesa e Stati nell’ Italia della Controriforma, in Storia d'Italia. Annali IX (Turin, 1986).Google Scholar

8 For a recent overview in this regard see Pullan, B., ‘Support and redeem: charity and poor relief in Italian cities from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century’, Continuity and Change, 3, 2 (1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Duboin, F. A., Raccolta per ordine di materia delle leggi, doe editti, patenli, manifesti… (Turin, 1850) XII, 280Google Scholarpassim; Reggio editto col quale si proibisce di mendicare nella città e nel territorio di Torino, 6.8.1716, 34 passim; Regio editto per lo stabilimento di ospedali generali o di congregazioni di carità in tutti i Comuni dello Stato, 19.5.1717.

10 Guevarre, A., La Mendicità Sbandita col sovvenimento del poveri (Turin, 1717)Google Scholar. This work belongs to a very large number of pamphlets printed in various Italian and French cities to mark the inauguration of similar projects in relation to the poor, beginning with the publication of La mendicité abolie par un bureau de charité à Toulouse (Toulouse, 1692)Google Scholar. An English edition, Ways and Means for suppressing Beggary and relieving the Poor, by erecting General Hospitals, and Charitable Corporations…, was also published in 1726.

11 Such an interpretation is already proposed by the biographer of Victor Amadeus, Carutti, A., in his Storia del Regno di Vittorio Amedeo II (Turin, 1897), 460Google Scholar. It is taken up by Prato, G., La vita economica in Piemonte a mezzo del secolo XVIII (Turin, 1908), 332Google Scholar; Quazza, G., Le riforme in Piemonte nella prima metà del Settecento (Modena, 1957) 313 ff.Google Scholar, and more recently by Symcox, G., Victor Amadeus II. Absolutism in the Savoyard State 1675–1730 (London, 1983), 199–200.Google Scholar

12 Nor was this a high point. A few years earlier, in 1709, when the state had not yet recovered from the French invasion and the exhausting siege of the capital, the number of inmates had reached 1,350. AST, sez, riun., 1a archiv., Confraternite e Congregazioni, m. 1, fasc. 2, Congregazioni per provvedere all'emergenza dello Spedale di Carità di Torino (1709).Google Scholar

13 See in particular clauses 1 and 2 of the Deliberazione della congregazione dell'ospedale della carità di Torino, 1.6.1700 in Duboin, , Raccolta, XII, 272 and 286Google Scholarpassim, the regulation included with the Regio editto col quale Sua Maestà conferma l'erezione e le prerogative dell'ospedale della carità di Torino, 17.4.1717.

14 Archivio Ospedale di Carità (henceforth AOC), Cat. III, Ordinati 1664–1945.

15 Archivio storico del Comune di Torino (henceforth ACT), C.S. 657, Regolamento del modo e governo della Congregazione del Poveri nell'Ospedale di S. Giovanni di Torino, 1.5.1541.

16 See, for instance, De mendicantibus validis et aliis otiosis et vagabundis, 17.6.1430 in Borelli, G. B., Editti, 711Google Scholar; Letters di Sua Altezza colle quali nomina un cavaliere di virtù e di polizia per la città di Torino, con autoritàa di scacciare gli oziosi mendicanti, 5.4.1568, in Duboin, , Raccolta, XII, 248.Google Scholar

17 See the document 11.2.1571 with which the Duke accepts the supplications of the rectors of the hospital of San Giovanni to approve the appointment of a post responsible for the expulsion of beggars (ACT C. S. 3234). This was followed by a series of provisions undertaken by the city itself; ACT Ordinati 10.9.1586; C.S. 4701, 1.8.1587; Borelli, Editti, 228–9, 29.5.1592; ACT Ordinati 13.12.1601, 29.6.1603, 12.11.1611, 9.8.1623; Duboin, Raccolta, XII, 249, Ordine di Sue Altezza, 10.3.1627; 254 already during the period of plague, Ordine del Magistrato di Sanità, 27.11.1629 and Ordine di Vittorio Amedeo I, 15.6.1631. During the period of plague and civil war and the aftermath there do not appear to have been further banning orders until the edict of 9.5.1650 (Borelli, Editti, 236). There followed the provisions of 11.1.1651, 20.8.1654, 20.3.1657, 30.3.1661, 1.4.1664, 24.9.1666, 8.1.1670, 31.3.1672, 4.2.1676 (pp. 237 ff.), ACT Ordinati 29.9.1679, and l'Ordine di Sua Altezza 5.7.1700 in Duboin, Raccolta, 277.

18 The penalties for recidivist beggars generally consisted of whipping, but sometimes prescribed the shaving of their heads, a beating or imprisonment. Anyone giving lodging to beggars or giving them alms was liable to various fines, and officers responsible for their repression who failed to carry out orders were liable to loss of pay or removal from their posts.

19 ACT Ordinati, 11.11.1601 and Lettere di Sua Altezza, 5.4.1568.

20 In fact the distribution of the rectors elected by the different bodies (eleven in all) remained unchanged. These, in turn, had to nominate another 24 (previously 20) governors.

21 For a reconstruction of the ongoing conflict that accompanied the centralizing process, see Cavallo, , ‘Charity’.Google Scholar

22 Although a hierarchical structure had been spoken of from the very beginning, its features remained very vague in the preceding provisions. Not until 1719 did a Royal Edict establish the foundation of Congregazioni generali in every province and what was called the ‘primaria generalissima’ in the capital. According to the Regulations in the Edict the congregazioni generali had to obtain a statement of accounts every six months from each of the provincial congregazioni which took the form of a questionnaire to be filled in, and they had to carry out an annual visit. The congregazione generalissima, apart from having responsibility for the province of Turin, had to intervene on request, in aid of other congregazioni, though its supervisory duties remained completely undefined; Editto Regio per lo stabilimento di une congregazione primaria e generalissima sopra gli ospizi e congregazioni di carità, 20.7.1719. in Duboin, , Raccolta, XII, 92 passim.Google Scholar

23 See in particular Istruzioni degli Ospizi Generali del Poveri, Porte Prima, Capo III, clause 9 and Capo IV, clause 3.

24 Ibid., Capo I, clause 3, and Capo III, clauses 3 and 6.

25 Levi, G., Centro e periferia di uno stato assoluto (Turin, 1986).Google Scholar

26 AOC, cat. IV, Libri delle Informazioni, 1742–1865Google Scholar. It is interesting also to make comparison with the work of S. J. Woolf on Florence in the nineteenth century, which uses a similar source; Woolf, S. J., The poor in western Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries (London and New York, 1986).Google Scholar

27 Immigration brought on by hardship, originating above all in the Alpine valleys of the dioceses of Saluzzo, Mondovì and Alba, peaked in November and March (i.e. at the beginning and end of winter). The low points were in July and August. This immigration should be distinguished from that providing the capital with manpower on a seasonal basis; Levi, , Centro e periferia, 58–67.Google Scholar

28 In the five annual samples examined, I found only one case in which falsification of the testimonial from the parish was uncovered. Instead, checks among neighbours carried out during the annual inspection of households in June often revealed that recipients of relief presented other people's children in place of their own who had died.

29 Giovanni Levi has shown how certain Piedmontese and Lombard villages would be emptied of adult males for several months of every year when they moved to the capital to work. These men were concentrated in certain occupations, such as building, carpentry, and wine-carrying, fulfilling the role of a kind of ‘appendix of the urban population’. Levi, , Centro e periferia, 50–57.Google Scholar

30 Such attitudes reflect, in addition, the nature of the apprenticeship contracts. In Turin, the apprentice did not receive payments in cash (except sometimes the odd sum towards the end), but the master was obliged to provide board and lodging. In some instances, it appears that families had to pay the master to accept an apprentice. In any case, a tax of about two lire was paid to the guild of the craft.

31 Some example of authorizations: ‘Angela Catarina Prina, aged 70, absence of 15 days to assist her daughter’; ‘Pietro Bernardi, aged 70, 2 months to visit his daughter at Borgo di Po [a quartiere of the city]’; or ‘Margarita Derocha, aged 16, 25 days for holidays [sic]’. The authorizations are sometimes recorded in the ‘Libri delle informazioni’ at the foot of the description of the person or family assisted and of type of relief. They were also recorded separately in the ‘Libri delle licenze temporanee’ (Books of temporary permissions), only existing for the period 1768–1793. This latter source (which I suspect is not complete) shows the dimensions of the phenomenon: for example, 390 permissions were listed in 1769, 381 in 1770, 369 in 1779, 459 in 1780, 359 in 1789, 254 in 1790 (in the same years the overall number of inmates in the hospital grew from about 1,700 to 1,900). The permissions were for a maximum of one to two months (80% of the total) and show a marked seasonality, coinciding with the summer months.

32 The babies were sent to the Canavese, a semi-mountainous area about 50–70 kilometres from Turin. They were kept for up to two years, while the older children remained for a few years, until the healthy air of the region strengthened them.

33 One libbra was the equivalent of 0.369 grams. It is interesting to note that, from the 1760s, the amount of bread assigned was no longer calculated in libbre but in ‘portions’ (one ‘portion’ equalled two libbre, or 0.738 grams), a measurement more convenient after the extension of bread provision to the older children which took place in this period.

34 On the relief of foundlings in Turin see F. ‘Doriguzzi, I messaggi dell’ abbandono: bambini esposti a Torino nel ‘700’, and Cavallo, S., ‘Strategic politiche e familiari intorno al baliatico. Il monopolio dei bambini abbandonati nel Canavese tra sei e settecento’, both in Quaderni Storici, 53 (1983).Google Scholar

35 AST, sez. I, Luoghi Pii di qua dai Monti, m. 19, fasc. 24, Stato generale (1758).Google Scholar

36 See Cavallo, S., ‘Assistenza femminile e tutela dell'onore nella Torino del XVIII secolo, Annali della Fondazione L. Einaudi, 14 (1980), 131.Google Scholar

37 For similar suggestions for early modern England, about the independence of the elderly and their continued relationship to work while still capable of it, see Pelling, M., ‘Old people and poverty in early modern England’, Society for the Social History of Medicine Bulletin 34 (1984).Google Scholar

38 See Smith, R. M., ‘The structured dependency of the elderly as a recent development: some sceptical historical thoughts’, Ageing and Society, 4, 1984CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thomson, D., ‘Welfare and the historians’, in Bonfield, L., Smith, R. M. and Wrightson, K., (eds), The world we have gained (Oxford, 1986)Google Scholar; Snell, K. D. and Millar, J., ‘Lone-parent families and the welfare state: past and present’, Continuity and Change, 2, 3 (1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 The lack of studies on the city population's sex and age structure prevents us from certifying whether the phenomenon of the solitary older woman was due to the greater number of women than men of this age as opposed to just variations in their opportunities to remarry. For the position of the solitary women in pre-industrial society see the articles contained in section C (‘La femme seule’) of Annales de Démographie Historique (1981)Google Scholar; Hufton, O., ‘Women without men: widows and spinsters in Britain and France in the eighteenth century’, Journal of Family History, 9, 4 (1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40 For similar considerations of the English case see Wales, T., ‘Poverty, poor relief and the life-cycle: some evidence from seventeenth-century Norfolk’, in Smith, R. M., ed., Land, kinship and life-cycle (Cambridge, 1984)Google Scholar; Smith, R. M., ‘Transfer incomes, risk and security: the roles of the family and the collectivity in recent theories of fertility change’, in Coleman, D. and Schofield, R. eds., The state of population theory forward from Malthas (London, 1986)Google Scholar, and similar remarks about Florence in the nineteenth century, in Woolf, S. J., The poor in western Europe, chapters 7 and 8.Google Scholar

41 The mobility of the workforce in Turin was not just an ‘import’ from outside but also affected the resident population. In particular, the migration of the artisans and servants on a seasonal basis or in moments of crisis represented a massive phenomenon. Silk workers, for instance, maintained a stable relationship with manufacturers in Lyons to whom they turned for work when it was in short supply in Turin.

42 The image of the family as the focal point of reciprocal obligations that has dominated social historical work for the last twenty years has been dented by recent studies, especially as regards the situation of the old people. See Smith, ‘The structural dependency’ and Thomson, ‘Welfare’. My study of Turin suggests that responsibilities were limited even in relation to children. For an approach that stresses the weakness of bonds between parents and children see also Macfarlane, A., Marriage and love in England. Modes of reproduction, 1300–1840 (Oxford, 1986)Google Scholar. However, Macfarlane's claim about the uniqueness of the English case is often questionable.

43 Table 7 provides the figures on occupations declared by male and female heads of families with children. Solitary people or couples are excluded, because in the presence of serious infirmity or inability to provide for themselves, consideration of their membership of particular occupational groups might have been less relevant.

44 It should be borne in mind that the representativeness of this category is underestimated since many simply declared themselves to be ‘sedan-bearers’ or ‘coachmen’. In consequence, they were included under ‘services’, though they might have carried on these activities in the employ of a gentleman.

45 The 1792 Consegna della Arti e Mestieri is the document nearest in time to the period under examination that provides data on all the occupations. Duboin, , Raccolta XVI, 68–9.Google Scholar

46 On the silk industry see Prato, G., La vita economica in Piemonte a mezzo del secolo XVIII (Turin, 1908)Google Scholar; and, in particular, Arese, G., L'industria serica piemontese dal secolo XVII alla metà del XIX (Turin, 1922).Google Scholar

47 The most important documents for reconstructing these processes with regard to the silk industry are to be found in AST, sez. I, Commercio, cat. IV, m. 7, 8, 9. An outline of these conflicts can be found in De Fort, E., ‘Mastri e lavoranti nelle Università di Mestiere fra Settecento e Ottocento’, in Agosti, A. and Bravo, G. M., eds., Storia del movimento operaio, del socialismo, delle lotte sociali in Piemonte, I (Bari, 1979).Google Scholar

48 It is worth noting that the distribution of trades remains roughly constant in all the samples. Moreover, the proportion of silk workers among those requesting relief did not rise significantly in the crisis year 1773. In fact, they were responsible for 40% of the new requests from artisans in 1743, 21% in 1753, 34% in 1763, 39.6% in 1773, and 27.5% in 1783.

49 The development of these enterprises, together with information on the fiscal privileges and economic concessions granted to various entrepreneurs in the silk industry, are documented in Arese, , L'industria sericaGoogle Scholar; Prato, , La vita economica, 215Google Scholar; and Prato, , Il costo della guerra di successione spagnola (Turin, 1907), 351.Google Scholar

50 AST, sez. I, Luoghi Pii di qua dai Monti, m. 20 and m. 19 d'addizione. On the characteristics of these institutions see also Cavallo, S., ‘Assistenza femminile’.Google Scholar

51 AST, sez. I, Luoghi Pii di qua dai Monti, m. 17 d'addizione, fasc. 6, Memorie per lo stabilimento della manifattura del Ritiro degli oziosi e vagabondi; fasc. 10, Parere per la fondazione di tre ritiri nelle vicinanze di Torino per le donne di mala vita per gli oziosi e vagabondi e per l'onorevole e caritatevole ritiro del figli dei soldati. The moresca was the stuffing extracted from the cocoons and then from the silk material, which was abundant in Piedmont but until then unused; it could be employed for producing fabrics. The processing of the floss is described by C. Ghiliossi, senator and magistrate of the Consolato, the main person responsible for its diffusion, in Mezzi per provvedere ai mendici volontari e necessari ed agli operai disoccupati (1788)Google Scholar, Biblioteca Reale, Storia Patria, 879.

52 The Consolato di Commercio was the body with jurisdiction over disputes in industry and craft organizations; it also had an advisory role on economic questions, in the production and commercial sectors. It was established in 1676, and from 1733 was staffed by state functionaries.

53 The limit of four looms had been imposed through royal edict in the crisis year of 1730. This was a defensive measure obtained by small producers at a time when the divisions between the artisans and the guild were already deep. The institutional separation of producer and merchant was beginning to be discussed. Furthermore, according to the Regolamenti dell'Università of 1686Google Scholar, apprentices were limited to a maximum of two per master. However, the regulations were subject to suspensions and extensions; in periods in which orders from other countries were particularly profitable, the number of looms permitted rose from four to five and then to six (as in 1731 and 1743), while during crises there were demands for their restriction (as in 1738). For a summary of these measures, see AST, sez. 1, Commercio, cat. IV, m. 10, fasc. 4, Parere sopra le prowidenze che si potevano dare provisionalmente affine di procurare agli operai di stoffe in seta qualche lavoro…,(im).

54 Ivi, m. 8, fasc. 21, Ricorso di trecento circa giovani lavoranti di stoffe d'oro sulla pretesa contravvenzione del capo 17 dell'Editto dal mercante Carlo Vanetto, 1741.Google Scholar

55 In the second half of the eighteenth century, petitions for relief make frequent mention of the presence in the family of a state employee as a sign of special distinction. For reference to this phenomenon see my article ‘Charity’, 100–1, 118.Google Scholar

56 AST, sez. 1, Commercio, cat. IV, m. 21 da ordinare, Riepilogo di tutte le provvidenze emanate per soccorrere gli disoccupati senza lor colpa; ivi fasc. 32, Filatojeri disoccupati senza lor colpa, 29.10.1790. According to this last proposal, the workers' wage should have been anticipated through a loan from the kind, and then repaid on the sale of the goods. However, in a petition conserved together with the project, the workers complained that they had no money, ‘not even enough to buy a flask of wine, tobacco, to go to the barber or pay for the washing of shirts’.