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Demographic Characteristics of Florentine Patrician Families, Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

R. Burr Litchfield
R. Burr Litchfield
Affiliation:
Brown University
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Extract

One seemingly certain characteristic of the social structure of Europe between the sixteenth and late eighteenth centuries was the persistence in power, wealth, and eminence of limited numbers of individuals or families. These made up the aristocracies, the nobilities of feudal origin, the ennobled officeholders of the new monarchies, and the patrician oligarchs of the towns. Political structures provided these families with privileged status and favored their preservation of wealth and influence, while a relatively slow rhythm of economic change and growth in general population tended to secure them against displacement by newcomers. In Italy, distant from the new centers of Atlantic trade, where tensions between absolutism and traditional liberties were fought out mainly within the ruling groups themselves, this stratification of society seemed almost a “new feudalism” in the seventeenth century as the powerful families of the petty courts consolidated their power.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , June 1969 , pp. 191 - 205
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1969

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References

The material in this article was first presented as a paper at the American Historical Association Meetings at Toronto in December of 1967 and will be included in my general study of the Florentine aristocracy. I am grateful to the American Council of Learned Societies for a grant-in-aid (IBM-GIA-66) which aided the collection and elaboration of the data, and to the computer facilities of Dartmouth College and of Brown University.

1 Braudel, F. calls attention to this “seigneurial reaction” in Italy at the end of the sixteenth and in the early seventeenth century in La Méditerraneé et le monde Méditerranéen á l'époque de Philippe II, Vol. II (2d ed.; Paris: Armand Colin, 1966), pp. 49–94.Google Scholar See also Bulferetti, L., “L'oro, la terra e la società; Un interpretazione del nostro seicento” in Archivio Storico Lombardo (1953);Google ScholarSereni, E., Storia del paesaggio agrario Italiano (Ban: Laterza, 1961);Google ScholarWoolf, S. J., Studi sulla nobiltà Piemontese nell’ epoca dell’ assolutismo (Turin: Accademia delle Scienze, 1963);Google Scholar and Berengo, M., Nobili e mercanti a Lucca nel ‘500 (Milan: Einaudi, 1965).Google Scholar

2 Stone, L., The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558–1641 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965), p. 590,Google Scholar and Hollingsworth, T. H., “The Demography of the British Peerage” in Population Studies, XVIII (1964), p. 34.Google Scholar

3 Henry, L., Anciennes families genevoises, Etude démographique XVIe—XXe Siécles (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1956);Google ScholarHenry, L. and Levy, C., “Dues et Pairs sous l'ancien régime” in Population, XV (1960);Google ScholarDavis, J. C., The Decline of the Venetian Nobility as a Ruling Class (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1962), p. 137.Google Scholar

4 For a description of the constitutional structure of Florence in the fifteenth century, see Rubinstein, N., The Government of Florence under the Medici, 1434–1494 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1966),Google Scholar and Martines, L., The Social World of the Florentine Humanists (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), pp. 18–84.Google Scholar

5 For the number of persons eligible for offices, see Martines, L., Lawyers and Statecraft in Renaissance Florence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), pp. 388–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Family names appearing as Priors have been taken from the priorista Grifoni published in Mecatti, G. M., Storia genealogica della- nobiltà e cittadinanza di Firenze (Naples, 1754), pp. 231–410.Google Scholar

6 For a discussion of the constitution of Florence under Cosimo I, see Anzilotti, A., La costituzione interna dello stato Fiorentino sotto Cosimo I de’ Medici (Florence: Lumachi, 1910). Anzilotti (pp. 153–54) somewhat exaggerates the nature and social effects of this “absolutism.” See also A. d’ Addario, “Burocrazia, economia e finanza dello stato Fiorentino alia metà del ‘500” in Archivio Storico Italiano (1963).Google Scholar

7 For Florentine senators, see Mecatti, Storia genealogica, pp. 147–227. Officeholders in the ducal bureaucracy from Archivio di Stato Firenze, Miscellanea Medicea, Filza 686, Knights in the Order of St. Stephen from Garnieri, G., L'ordine di S. Stefano (Pisa: Giardini, 1966), Vol. IV,Google Scholar and holders of Tuscan fiefs from Zobi, A., Storia Civile del Granducato di Toscana (Florence, 1850–1855), Vol. I, appendice di documenti.Google Scholar

8 Cantini, L., Legislazione Toscana raccolta ed illustrata (Florence, 1800–1808), Vol. XXX, p. 321 ff.Google Scholar Proofs of patrician status were taken from the Libri di Oro and Provanze di Nobiltà in ASF., Archivio della deputazione sopra la nobiltà Toscana.

9 N. Rubinstein estimates the number of benefiziati and others eligible for the Consiglio Maggiore of 1495 at “about 3,300” (Rubinstein, N., “I primi anni del consiglio maggiore di Firenze” in Archivio Storico Italiano (1954), p. 181),Google Scholar while the number of males in the families proving patrician status in 1760, estimating three to four per family, was perhaps 800 to 1000.

10 See Henry, L., Manuel de démographie historique (Geneva-Paris: Droz, 1967),Google Scholar and Wrigley, E. A., An Introduction to English Historical Demography (New York: Basic Books, 1966).Google Scholar

11 Genealogical material was taken from the following sources: Passerini, L., Genealogia e storia della famiglia Corsini (Florence, 1858);Google ScholarGenealogia e storia della famiglia Rucellai (Florence, 1861);Google ScholarGenealogie e storia della famiglia Ricasoli (Florence, 1861);Google ScholarMemorie genealogico-storiche della famiglia Pecori (Florence, 1868);Google ScholarGli Alberti di Firenze (Florence, 1870), 2 Vols.;Google ScholarGenealogia e storia della famiglia Niccolini (Florence, 1870);Google ScholarGenealogia e storia della famiglia Altoviti (Florence, 1871);Google ScholarGenealogia e storia della famiglia Guadagni (Florence, 1873);Google ScholarGenealogia e storia della famiglia Ginori (Florence, 1876); Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze, MSS Passerini 8, families Riccardi, Bartolommei, Cerchi, Ubaldini, Pepi, Baldovinetti, Orlandi, Rondinelli, Gianni, Mannelli-Galilei; ASF, Carte Sebrigondi families Attavanti, Guicciardini. Whenever possible the genealogies were checked against additional genealogies in the Biblioteca Nazionale, MSS Passerini 8, in the ASF, Carte Sebrigondi, Riccardi, Mannelli-Galilei, Bartolommei, Ubaldini-Vai-Geppi, Cerchi, Gianni, in the private archive of the Pepi family, and in the libri di battesimi of the Archivio dell Opera di S. Maria del Fiore.Google Scholar

12 On the basis of baptisms yearly in Florence in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, the sex ratio of male-to-female births should have been about 104:100 (Lastri, M., Ricerche sulla popolazione antica e moderna di Firenze [Florence, 1775]). The genealogies provide a figure of 143 for this period, indicating a considerable underreporting of females. Except for a few cases in the sixteenth century, the genealogies do not record illegitimate births.Google Scholar

13 Mortality between birth and age 14 for the families of English peers studied by Hoilingsworth ranged between 350 to 370 per thousand in the mid-seventeenth century to 200 per thousand at the end of the eighteenth century (Hoilingsworth, Demography, p. 60). The corresponding figure from the Florentine genealogies is only 183 per thousand, again indicating underreporting of births.

14 Average family size for all sons of English peers who married (estimating on the basis of uncorrected data) ranged between 4.45 and 3.87 in the seventeenth century, and (on the basis of data corrected for underenumeration) between 5.42 and 4.31. (Ibid., p. 30).

15 Existing studies of the population of Florence before the beginning of modern registration in 1810 are limited largely to estimating the total population of the city. See Pardi, G., “Disegno della storia demografica di Firenze” in Archivio Storico Italiano (1916)Google Scholar and Battara, P., La popolazione di Firenze a metà del ‘500 (Florence: Rinascita del Libro, 1935). Exhaustive analyses of the 1427–28 catasto are being prepared by E. Conti, D. Herlihy, and others.Google Scholar

16 Hollingsworth, Demography, pp. 26–27, Henry, Anciennes families, pp. 54–57.

17 See Bandettini, P., L'evoluzione demografica della Toscana dal 1810 al 1889 (Turin, 1960).Google Scholar

18 Probabilities of extinction were estimated using the method of A. Erlang described in Kendall, D. G., “Branching Processes Since 1873,” in Journal of the London Mathematical Society, XLIII (1966), p. 388,Google Scholar which was explained to me by Professor L. Snell of Dartmouth College. Beginning with 1000 married sons in the first generation, there would be 480 lines of married sons in the third generation, 211 in the sixth, and 106 in the ninth. This prediction is very close to the observation of family names at Giminiano, S. of Fegiz, P. Luzzatto (“I cognomi di S. Giminiano” in Metron, V [1925] p. 127),Google Scholar but is a somewhat more rapid rate of extinction of males than appears actually to have resulted in the Florentine genealogies, the discrepancy probably resulting from the omission of some earlier collateral lines.

19 For successive stages of evolution of the Florentine economy see Fiumi, E., “Fioritura e decadenza dell’ economia Fiorentina” in Archivio Storico Italiano (1957–1959);Google ScholarJones, P. F., “Florentine families and Florentine diaries of the fourteenth century” in Papers of the British School of Rome XXIV (1956);Google ScholarCarmona, M.“Aspects du capitalisme Tuscan aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles, Les sociétés en comandite à Florence et à Lucques” in Revue d’ Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine XI (1964);Google ScholarLitchfield, R. B., “Les investissements en commerce des patriciens de Florence au XVIIIe siècle,” to appear in Annales, Economies, Sociétés, Civilizations, I. Imberciadori, Campagna Toscana nel ‘700 dalla reggenza alla restaurazione (Florence: Accademia dei Georgofili, 1956).Google Scholar

20 G. Fabbroni, “Discorso intorno ai mezzi di incoraggimento al matrimonio” in Venturi, F., ed., Illuministi Italiani (Milan: Ricciardi, 1958), III, 1114–5.Google Scholar

21 Summaries of marriage contracts for 165 marriages of sons in the families in fn. 10 from ASF, Deputazione sopra la nobilta’ Toscana, Filze 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 14, 16, 17. A median was taken for the dowries in each fifty-year period.

22 ASF, Tratte, Filza 1136, “Specchietto delle famiglie che hanno acquistato lo stato dal principato in qua” contains a list of 4640 names of heads of families who acquired Florentine “citizenship” between 1532 and 1782. It is not yet certain how many of these remained permanently in the city, were habilitated for offices in the magistracies, or held them; and considering that the population of the city increased from 59,000 in 1550 to 78,000 in 1766, the number of newcomers does not seem large but it does show that offices were accessible to new men.

23 See Anzilotti, A., “Il tramonto dello stato cittadino” and “Le riforme in Toscana nella seconda metà del secolo XVIII, Il nuovo ceto dirigente e la sua preparazione, intellettuale” in Movimenti e contrasti per l'unitd Italiana (Milan: Giuffré, 1964).Google Scholar

24 Zobi, Storia Civile, II, 463.