Trade and Industry in Early Modern Italy (Variorum Collected Studies) [1 ed.] 9780754659938, 0754659933

Table of contents :
Cover
Series Page
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
Part 1: General
I: Industrial Production in Seventeenth-Century Italy: A Reappraisal
II: European Industries, 1500-1700
III: The Iron Industry in Italy, 1500-1650
IV: Industrial Raw Materials in the Import Trade of Northern and Central Italy During the XVIIth Century
Part 2: Lombardy
V: Contribution to the History of the Sources of Energy: Water-Driven Spinning Wheels in the Po Valley During the 17th Century
VI: War Finance and Industry in Seventeenth Century Lombardy
VII: Au Dossier des Migrations Montagnardes: L’Exemple de la Lombardie au XVIIe Siècle
VIII: The Two Faces of the Lombard Economy in the Seventeenth Century
IX: An Industrial Village in Sixteenth-Century Italy
X: Profilo Demografico e Sociale di un Comune Rurale Lombardo: Balsamo nel 1597
XI: Household, Land Tenure, and Occupation in North Italy in the Late Sixteenth Century
XII: Politica, Istituzioni e Società Nella Lombardia Del Cinquecento
XIII: Spanish Rule in Milan in the Sixteenth Century: Old and New Perspectives
XIV: Coping with Famine: The Changing Demography of an Italian Village in the 1590s
XV: Wool, Paper and Iron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys
Part 3: Venice
XVI: Crisis and Transformation in Venetian Trade
XVII: The Rise and Fall of the Venetian Woollen Industry
Index

Citation preview

Also in the Variorum Collected Studies Series:

SEVKET PAMUK

The Ottoman Economy and Its Institutions

ROBERT FINLAY

Venice Besieged Politics and Diplomacy in the Italian Wars, 1494-1534

G.V. SCAMMELL

Seafaring, Sailors and Trade, 1450-1750 Studies in British and European Maritime and Imperial History

RAYMOND VAN UYTVEN

Production and Consumption in the Low Countries, 13th-16th Centuries

BENJAMIN G. KOHL

Culture and Politics in Early Renaissance Padua

JOHN E. LAW

Venice and the Veneto in the Early Renaissance

NIKOLAI TODOROV

Society, the City and Industry in the Balkans, 15th—19th Centuries

MICHAEL NORTH

From the North Sea to the Baltic Essays in Commercial, Monetary and Agrarian History, 1500-1800

DENNIS O. FLYNN

World Silver and Monetary History in the 16th and 17th Centuries

FRANCOIS CROUZET

Britain, France and International Commerce From Louis XIV to Victoria

RICHARD A. GOLDTHWAITE

Banks, Palaces and Entrepreneurs in Renaissance Florence

JERZYTOPOLSKI

The Manorial Economy in Early-Modern East-Central Europe Origins, Development and Consequences

VARIORUM COLLECTED STUDIES SERIES

Trade and Industry in Early Modern Italy

Domenico Sella

Domenico Sella

Trade and Industry in Early Modern Italy

O Routledge S ^ ^ Taylor & Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2009 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon 0X14 4RN 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition © 2009 by Domenico Sella Domenico Sella has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Sella, Domenico. Trade and industry in early modern Italy. - (Variorum collected studies series ; no. 932) 1. Industries - Italy, Northern - History - 16th century. 2. Industries - Italy, Northern - History - 17th century. 3. Italy, Northern - Commerce - History - 16th century. 4. Italy, Northern - Commerce - History - 17th century. 5. Italy, Northern - Economic conditions - 16th century. 6. Italy, Northern - Economic conditions - 17th century. I. Title II. Series 338'.0945'09031-dc22 ISBN 9780754659938 (hbk) Library of Congress Control Number: 2009923687 ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-5993-8 (hbk)

VARIORUM COLLECTED STUDIES SERIES CS932

CONTENTS Preface by Thomas Max Safley

ix

Acknowledgements

xv

PART 1: GENERAL

I

Industrial production in seventeenth-century Italy: a reappraisal EEHSecond Series 6. Madison, WI, 1969

235-253

II

European industries, 1500-1700 The Fontana Economic History ofEurope 2, ed. CM. Cipolla. London: Fontana, 1970

5-77

III

The iron industry in Italy, 1500-1650 91-105 Schwerpunkte der Eisengewinnung und Eisenverarbeitung in Europa 1500-1650, ed. H. Kellenbenz. Cologne and Vienna: Bohlau Verlag, 1974

IV

Industrial raw materials in the import trade of northern and central Italy during the XVIIth century The Journal of European Economic History 33. Rome, 2004

59-70

PART 2: LOMBARDY

V

VI

Contribution to the history of the sources of energy: water-driven spinning wheels in the Po Valley during the 17th century Translation of "Contribute alia storia dellefonti di energia, " Studi in onore di Amintore Fanfani. Milan: Giuffre, 1962 War finance and industry in seventeenth century Lombardy

Troisieme Conference Internationale d'Histoire Economique/ Third International Conference of Economic History. Paris, 1965

1-9

699-702

vi VII

VIII

CONTENTS Au dossier des migrations montagnardes: l'exemple de la Lombardie au XVIIe siecle Histoire economique du monde mediterraneen 1450-1650 (Melanges en Vhonneur de Fernand Braudel). Toulouse: Privat, 1973 The two faces of the Lombard economy in the seventeenth century Failed Transitions to Modern Industrial Society:Renaissance Italy and Seventeenth Century Holland, eds F Krantz and P.M. Hohenberg. Montreal: Interuniversity Centre for European Studies, 1974

IX

An industrial village in sixteenth-century Italy Wirtschaftskrdfte und Wirtschaftswege 3: Festschrift fur Hermann Kellenbenz. Cologne: Klett-Cotta, 1978

X

Profllo demograflco e sociale di un comune rurale lombardo: Balsamo nel 1597 Studi in Memoria di Luigi dal Pane. Bologna: Editrice CLUEB, 1982

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

547-554

11-15

37-46

333-344

Household, land tenure, and occupation in north Italy in the late sixteenth century The Journal of European Economic History 16. Rome, 1987

487-509

Politica, istituzioni e societa nella Lombardia del Cinquecento Annali di Storia Pavese 16-17. Pavia, 1988

137-145

Spanish rule in Milan in the sixteenth century: old and new perspectives Italian Renaissance Studies in Arizona, eds J.R. Brink and PR. Baldini (Rosary College Italian Studies 3). River Forest, IL, 1989 Coping with famine: the changing demography of an Italian village in the 1590s Sixteenth Century Journal 22. Kirksville, MO, 1991

199-211

185-197

CONTENTS XV

Wool, paper and iron: industrial production in the Bergamasque valleys Author s translation of "Le attivitd manifatturiere nelle valli bergamasche, " originally published in Storia economica e sociale di Bergamo, eds A. De Madalena, M.A. Romani and M. Cattini. Bergamo: Fondazione per la storia economica e sociale di Bergamo, 2000, pp. 83-97

vii

1-21

PART 3: VENICE XVI

Crisis and transformation in Venetian trade Crisis and Change in the Venetian Economy in the 16th and 17th Centuries, ed. B. Pullan. London: Methuen, 1968

8-105

XVII The rise and fall of the Venetian woollen industry Crisis and Change in the Venetian Economy in the 16th and 17th Centuries, ed. B. Pullan. London: Methuen, 1968

106-126

Index

1-2

This volume contains xvi + 298 pages

PUBLISHER'S NOTE The articles in this volume, as in all others in the Variorum Collected Studies Series, have not been given a new, continuous pagination. In order to avoid confusion, and to facilitate their use where these same studies have been referred to elsewhere, the original pagination has been maintained wherever possible. Each article has been given a Roman number in order of appearance, as listed in the Contents. This number is repeated on each page and is quoted in the index entries.

PREFACE Until recently, the literature on the economic and social history of early modern, northern Italy dealt primarily with the major cities, Milan, Florence and Venice, and their celebrated industry, extensive commerce and sophisticated finance. By contrast, the countryside was largely neglected and its population dismissed as an undifferentiated mass of peasants, fully engaged in farming. That this long forgotten past became the subject of review and revision owes a great deal to the scholarship of Professor Domenico Sella. Much of his work appeared in English- and Italian-language journals and volumes devoted to economic and social history. English-speaking scholars know him primarily as an essayist, an elegant stylist in a field, the writing of which is known neither for its clarity nor for its brevity. Yet, Professor Sella also authored a series of five distinguished monographs and syntheses, leaving aside his earliest work on the history of religion. These volumes, many of which are unavailable in English, rely upon the same archival scholarship, empirical argumentation and concise formulation that unite his briefer essays. Commercio e Industrie di Venezia nelsecolo VXII (1961) plumbed neglected collections in the Archivo di Stato of Venice to raise fundamental questions about the economy of the Republic in the sixteenth century, a period long characterized by scholars in terms of decline. Certainly, the characterization had a basis in fact. Failed military campaigns and rising commercial competition caused an economic retraction in the first half of the sixteenth century. Like all characterizations, however, this one distorted as much as it clarified. Trade renewed as peace returned. Competition, especially the Portuguese efforts to achieve monopolistic control of the pepper trade through the Indian Ocean, faltered. Venetian traders profited handsomely from the renewal of the spice trade overseas via the Red Sea and overland to the caravanserai in Aleppo and Smyrna. Though the Atlantic economies rose, Professor Sella demonstrated early on that their ascendancy was neither linear nor inevitable. Shortly after the publication of "Commerce and Industry," Professor Sella turned to the Lombard countryside. Yet, his interests and methods remained constant. Salari e lavoro neU'Edilizia lombarda durante il secolo XVII appeared in 1968. Once again, he explored little known archival collections, the Fabbrica del Duomo in Milan and the Collegio Borromeo in Pavia, to produce a work that was well ahead of the scholarly curve. In the late sixties, very little

x

PREFACE

research had been done on the history of wages, none of it in Italy. Focusing on masons, stone-cutters and unskilled laborers, he found that their wages declined catastrophically over the course of the seventeenth century. Although nominal wages demonstrated periodic stability, real wages moved steadily downward in a pattern that could not be understood simply in terms of market forces. Corporative organizations, labor recruitment and alternative employments also played a role. It was a study that appropriately bedded economic problems and behaviors in a broader social and institutional context. And, most interestingly, it addressed the topic of a crisis of the seventeenth century before the term or the thesis had become commonplace. About ten years passed before the publication of Professor Sella's bestknown work in English, Crisis and Continuity: The Economy of Spanish Lombardy in the Seventeenth Century (1979). It was the fruit of a growing engagement and dissatisfaction with the meta-thesis of a general crisis. Certainly, if urban commerce and industry constitute the center, then the evidence of crisis in northern Italy is overwhelming. Regularly subjected to natural and human catastrophes, relentlessly taxed by Spanish authorities and conservatively regulated by urban guilds, the manufactories of Milan and other cities declined in the face of changing demand and foreign competition. The Lombard countryside suffered a different fate, however. There, Spanish fiscal policies and elite mentalities combined to promote economic expansion. There, though taxes were collected, regulations were fewer. Thus, political and economic elites turned their attention to lesser towns and villages, to rural areas in general, to develop new industries and intensify agriculture. The result was a high degree of economic continuity, even prosperity, forming the material link between the affluence of the Renaissance and that of the Risorgimento. Even the evidence of a re-feudalization, actively pursued by Spanish administrators as a key to political control and traditionally accepted by Marxist scholars as a sign of decadence, failed to weaken the proof of growth. The return to the land constituted a common and ultimately successful effort to reinvigorate this sector of the economy. Apart from its contribution to Italian history, Professor Sella's masterful argument struck a broader chord: the "general crisis" was neither exactly general nor necessarily a crisis. Two more books followed. In 1984, Professor Sella collaborated with Carlo Capra to publish // ducato di Milano dal 1530 al 1796. The synthesis attempted to explore the effects of foreign rule on domestic structures and relations. It offered an opportunity to reprise the findings of Crisis and Continuity but with particular attention to their political context. The Lombard economy resisted decline far longer than other regions of Italy due to the vigor of rural agriculture and industry. Re-feudalization played a crucial role in this process. The extension of aristocratic power and principles that propelled a reintroduction of feudal

PREFACE

xi

relations also compelled a rapid shift of capital out of the cities and into the countryside. The capitalization of agriculture and the creation of industry, especially silk weaving, that buoyed the Lombard economy would have been unthinkable otherwise. In 1999, he published another synthesis, Italy in the Seventeenth Century, in which he again emphasized stability rather than decline. The crisis conditions that so ravaged broad regions of Europe were absent in much of Italy. There were no wars to speak of. Few reforms were introduced; even those associated with the Council of Trent were not advanced urgently. The Roman Inquisition, according to Professor Sella, proved no more destructive or deleterious than Calvinist consistories. A study of Italy in "the forgotten century," the book nonetheless made a bold argument. Again, the economy of northern Italy experienced not a decline but rather a restructuring. As a result, the deep social and economic divide that separates northern and southern Italy today may well have its roots in this crucial but neglected period. It was a fitting summation to the author's scholarship. The present volume draws together essays that appeared in the United States and Europe over that same forty years, soundings into a long forgotten, rural world that would otherwise have to be tediously sought. These focused studies present many of the findings that would be reprised and summarized in monographs, and they offer many advantages and pleasures to scholars. Take, by way of example, Professor Sella's "Contributo alia storia delle fonti di energia: I filatori idraulici nella Valle Pandana durante il secolo XVII," which appears here translated for the first time. The author examined the introduction of hydraulic spinning machines into silk-spinning workshops in the Po Valley, allowing them to produce orsoglio alia bolognese, silk yarn composed of multiple threads, twisted by water-power and used as the warp in organzine, a high-quality silk fabric. Relying on little more than a handful of statistical surveys, which document the rapid diffusion of a new technology, he brings to bear a deep erudition in the scholarship and knowledge of the past to reveal industrial strategies in the early modern period. Italian producers faced stiff foreign competition that enjoyed the advantage of being low cost. Moreover, changing styles had led to increased demand for new kinds of silk textiles. Urban guilds, conservatively concerned to control entry and preserve markets, proved unable to respond to these new market conditions. Three possibilities presented themselves: 1) shift industries to rural areas, free of guild regulation; 2) concentrate resources on new luxury products; 3) promote industries that rely on technology to reduce labor costs. The first two proved unfeasible. Natural catastrophes had led to population losses that translated into labor shortages in the countryside, and mercantilist regulations hindered the efficient transition to new production of new luxury goods in urban industries. New technology provided the answer. A single water-driven spinning wheel could do the work

xii

PREFACE

of 4000 spinners, thus dramatically reducing labor costs. Moreover, the Po Valley was an ideal locus for innovation. It had abundant waterways with assured seasonal flows as well as an established silk-producing agriculture. The combination of water power and raw materials put the region in an ideal position to respond to rising European demand for silk. It is a pleasure to observe the author's precise reading of a few archival sources and to follow his closely reasoned, lapidary argument. The article offers more than an exemplary exercise in the methods of economic history. It also suggests the necessary connection between a microhistorical exercise and macrohistorical theses. As it turns out, rural communities often harbored handicraft industries, and the latter appear to have avoided the seventeenth-century decline that struck urban economies and their manufacturing, highly regulated by the guilds as they were, in the face of growing international competition. Here, in brief form at the onset of his career, are the methods and topics that have dominated Professor Sella's scholarship. The same can be said of all the articles that are reissued between these covers. In "Coping with famine: the changing demography of an Italian village in the 1590s," he continues his examination of crisis but in the case here in terms of population rather than industry. It comes as no surprise that, under his lens, catastrophe did not have linear consequences. Once again, he brings broad reading and deep knowledge of the social and economic history of northern Italy to bear on a very few, crucial archival sources, in this case two nominal lists of inhabitants from the Lombard village of Villa-d'Adda in 1574 and 1602. Periodic famine had led to an indisputable decline in population, as in so many regions of Europe, but the question of cause remained unclear. Scholars often assume a rise in mortality, but close examination of age and sex structures indicate that higher death rates were not involved. Striking is the decline in the number of children under the age of 15 years. Given the basic stability in the population of reproductive age, the losses appear due to declining fertility rather than rising mortality or emigration. The lower ratio of children between the ages of 0 and 4 per 1000 women of childbearing age offers a rough measure. Why the decline in fertility? By examining the marital status of women between 1574 and 1602, Professor Sella discovers a remarkable increase in the level of female celibacy. The percentage of single women increased from 39.7 to 55.5, indicating that more women married later or not at all. In other words, the rural population in this village responded positively to a subsistence crisis by adopting preventive checks to regulate growth and keep it within the limits of resources. The microhistorical serves once more to inform the macrohistorical, offering contour and contrast that provokes even as it enlightens. Another essay, which appears in English for the first time in this volume, takes up the theme of proto-industrialization as well as crisis. "L'attivita manifatturiere nelle valli bergamasche" confronts an apparent contradiction

PREFACE

xiii

that later scholarship has demonstrated to have been all too commonplace. The Bergamo Valley was home to advanced industries in wool, iron and silk production that, unlike their more famous, urban counterparts, not only resisted the worst effects of the so-called general crisis of the seventeenth century but even managed to flourish. Scholars today may not find this observation entirely surprising, but as recently as the turn of the century only a few regional historians could make that claim. Professor Rolf Kiessling and his students, for example, noted similar developments in Swabia. Other instances come to mind. Professor Sella belongs to this select group of pioneers, whose focus on rural industrialization worked a sea-change in the economic history of early modern Europe. This article relies on a few government surveys and reports for a single region. In the Bergamo Valley, producers responded to increased foreign competition and altered market conditions by introducing new products and new techniques. Absent guild restrictions and high costs, they could respond to shifting constraints and opportunities quickly and flexibly. Professor Sella also demonstrates that industrial policy and activity alone provides but an incomplete picture. Crucial in Bergamo as elsewhere were patterns of seasonal migration that brought the local population into contact with distant markets and marketplaces. Woolen and, later, silk producers relied on the traditional movements of laborers and materials to insure their success against foreign competition and their avoidance of state regulation. No less important was an entrepreneurial class that effectively attracted necessary capital and skilled labor to emerging industries. Their presence made itself directly felt, for example, in the reliance upon the indirect smelting process in metallurgy, which required more skilled labor and greater fixed capital but yielded a finer metal with more uses and, thus, greater possibilities for export. This is political economics at the highest level, placing processes of production, exchange and consumption in the context of local political and social relations. The result for any concept of general crisis is, by now, familiar: it is as much a matter of scholarly perspective as of historical fact. Turn away from established centers of production and population, andfindregions in which crisis conditions proved a positive stimulus to economic growth. Likewise, protoindustrialization, a term that Professor Sella eschews, becomes not a necessary aspect of economic take-off, an early stage of industrialization, but rather a regionally-specific organization that appeared in the countryside, relied on domestic production networks and produced for export. He thus achieves within the framework of a single article what other scholars have required volumes to express. It would be easy to describe (and dismiss) these essays as revisionist history. They certainly serve that function, insofar as they have caused thoughtful historians to reconsider the accepted tropes and topics of their field. Yet, they offer much more. They are gathered here, easily accessible in a single volume,

xiv

PREFACE

from many scattered collections and journals. They are a pleasure to read, economical in their own right, won from a few sources, subjected to sharp analysis and argued in concise terms. Their careful attention to a well understood, deeply felt past, demonstrates how crisis, change and continuity were not everywhere the same, how they assumed different appearances with different attributes and different affects, depending on the specific conditions of specific communities and places. By insisting that the voices of the past, as preserved in their sources, be allowed their integrity, be understood on their own terms, Professor Sella returns history to the lived experience of the past, qualifying but also enriching the reasoned models of the present. THOMAS MAX SAFLEY University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA May 2009

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following institutions and publishers for their kind permission to reproduce the articles included in this volume: University of Wisconsin, Graduate Program in Economic History, Madison, WI (Article I); Fontana, London (II); Bohlau Verlag, Cologne and Vienna (III); UniCredit Group, Rome {Journal of European Economic History) (IV, XI); Giuffre Editore, Milan (V); Mouton, Paris (VI); Editions Privat, Toulouse (VII); Interuniversity Centre for European Studies, Montreal (VIII); Klett-Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart (IX); Cooperativa Libraria Universitaria Editrice Bologna (CLUEB), Bologna (X);Annali di Storia Paves e, Pavia (XII); Rosary College, River Forest, IL (XIII); Sixteenth Century Journal, Kirksville, MO (XIV); Fondazione per la storia economica e sociale di Bergamo, Bergamo (XV); and Methuen, London (XVI, XVII). I also wish to extend my fondest thanks to my former colleague Professor Lee Wandel for her gracious and invaluable assistance in putting together this collection.

I

Industrial Production in Seventeenth-Century Italy: A Reappraisal In the early part of the seventeenth century the Italian economy suffered from a long sequence of severe dislocations and setbacks. The evidence for this is as abundant as it is well known: in Genoa and Venice, the two largest commercial ports of the peninsula, trade contracted sharply early in the century and remained at low levels for several decades, and so did trade over the Alpine passes leading into Germany and France. In a number of major towns such as Milan, Cremona, Mantua, Verona, Venice, and Florence, all of which had long been prominent as manufacturing, and notably textile, centers, output dropped to a fraction of what it had been at the close of the sixteenth century. The exodus of artisans and merchants, the depopulation of towns, the loss of foreign markets, and the inroads made by foreign goods on the domestic market are recurrent themes in the documents of the time. In view of this grim record the seventeenth century has long been regarded as a time of unprecedented trials, indeed of debacle, for the Italian economy; in fact, as the time when Italy not only ceased to be in the forefront of economic progress, but actually joined the ranks of the comparatively stagnant and backward countries. The general argument has been that the commercial and industrial structure on which Italian prosperity had traditionally been based and which had ensured the peninsula a commanding position in European economic affairs was irreparably undermined in the first half of the century by a tragic sequence of famines, epidemics, and wars, but also, and more importantly in the long run, by Italy's inability to hold her own before the competition of the rising nations of northern Europe in trade, shipping, and manufacturing. The failure to maintain her previous position as a supplier of commercial services and manufactured goods has, in turn, been variously ascribed to a crippling burden of taxation, to the guilds' stubborn resistance to change, to a wage level badly out of line with that pre-

I 23 6

vailing abroad, finally to a change in the behavior and scale of values of the Italian commercial and financial elite as it grew more interested in the social prestige attached to landholding and public office than in the more prosaic rewards earlier generations had sought in the counting house. Whatever the causes of the decline may have been, the consensus seems to be that by 1700, if not earlier, Italy had not only lost her former industrial and commercial lead, but had, in fact, sunk to the undistinguished position of a basically agrarian country cut off the mainstream of economic life. Only by exporting the raw silk, rice, and olive oil for which her soil and climate were especially suited—besides a trickle of art works and luxury handicrafts—was the country able to retain a foothold in international trade and to secure from abroad those manufactures she had ceased to produce.1 On close scrutiny, however, this grim picture of economic involution looks only partially convincing. That the country suffered heavy economic losses; that by the end of the century she had irretrievably been deprived of her former commercial and industrial lead; that foreign competition was an important factor in bringing about those unfavorable changes—all this, seems unquestionable. What is less clear is the actual range and impact of the crisis: were all or most industries and localities affected by it?; did the Italian economy emerge from the ordeal radically different in structure? These are questions that can not be satisfactorily answered on the basis of the evidence that has commonly been recited, for that evidence is still far from complete. We know a good deal about Venice and Genoa, but much less about other ports such as Leghorn and Ancona—and it is possible that some of the losses suffered by the former two were, to some extent, made good by gains in the latter.2 The economic record of the major industrial towns is well known, but that of lesser towns and villages is not—and yet there certainly was a shift of industrial activity there.3 We know much about textile production, and evidence is especially abundant as regards cloth making; 4 but the story of other industries has been largely neglected—and the neglect may be a serious one when dealing with a country, such as Italy was, where the industrial spectrum comprised a variety of productions besides woollens and silks—notably leathergoods, glassware, arms, paper, linen, and refined sugar. Lastly, we are better informed about the first than about the second half of the century, when signs of recovery are discernible.5 Yet the role, if any, played by manufacturing in that recovery has never been adequately discussed, on the assumption that

I Industrial Production in iyth-Century Italy

237

by then industrial production was but a minor and indeed negligible segment in what had become a basically agrarian economy. This paper certainly cannot fill in all the many blanks in the economic record of seventeenth-century Italy. Its more limited purpose is to broaden somewhat our knowledge of the industrial sector in order to reassess the actual range of the crisis and the consequences of massive foreign competition on the Italian economy. Only four industries—wool, silk, arms, and paper—will be discussed in the light of some recent publications as well as of unpublished information culled in the archives of Milan and Venice. To do justice to the entire industrial sector would be, for the time being, a far more arduous and over-ambitious task. In dealing with these four industries an effort will be made to include developments in the later part of the century as well as minor towns and rural districts. The present inquiry is deliberately restricted to northern Italy, roughly the geographical area stretching from the Alps to the Arno River. The choice reflects, in part, my own limited competence; yet it is not entirely arbitrary for, at the opening of the seventeenth century, Antonio Serra, the early mercantilist writer, could contrast an agrarian, backward south with a more highly developed north in terms that bear a striking similarity to those used by economists in our own day.6 I No one industry seems better to epitomize the misfortunes of the Italian economy in the seventeenth century than the wool industry. The evidence of its decay is well known and has long formed the core of any discussion of the economic vicissitudes of the peninsula in that period: in town after town where, until the end of the sixteenth century, thousands of pieces of high quality cloth made of fine Spanish wool had been turned out annually and had fed a flourishing export trade, output contracted sharply after about 1600, and it was never to recover its earlier levels. Available figures tell essentially the same story for Florence as well as for Milan and Como, for Venice no less than for Mantua, Cremona, and Genoa.7 In all of these, by mid-century, the once glorious cloth manufacture had been reduced to a pale image of its former self; by the close of the century the making of fine quality cloth had nearly disappeared from the Italian industrial scene. There was, however, a brighter, although less well known, side to the picture. There is a glimpse of it in a statistical table detailing

I *3»

the commodities entering the port of Venice in the year 1680.8 Among the most conspicuous items listed are dyes, alum and raw wool (in fact, over two million pounds of the last item). Interestingly enough, this was not fine Spanish wool, but rather lower-grade wool from Greece, the Balkans, and Turkey. As for its ultimate destination, one must not look to Venice itself where cloth making was by then a paltry affair, but to other areas of the Venetian State, and notably to the Treviso, Padua, and Bergamo districts. In 1686 those three districts combined could boast an annual output of about 50,000 pieces of cloth,9 an amount roughly equal to that produced in Venice and Florence together at the zenith of their prosperity some eighty years earlier. Most of the cloth made in the Venetian mainland, however, was of a coarser and cheaper quality and, as such, seems to have been mainly intended "for the peasants and the poor" in northern Italy, in Spain, and in the Levant. It is difficult to compare output in the 1680's with that of earlier years: for Bergamo, however, we know that at the close of the preceding century output had stood at about 26,000 pieces a year10 as against the 34,000 pieces recorded for 1686; as for production in the Padua and Treviso districts, this was reportedly an entirely fresh development. The vitality of one particular branch of the cloth industry in the late seventeenth century was certainly no exclusive privilege of the Venetian mainland. Looms were active at that time in a number of villages north of Milan, in the Biella region, and on the northern slopes of the Appennine range.11 But this is about all one can say concerning the wool industry outside Venetian territory: any quantitative estimate of its output is still beyond our reach. What is clear, at any rate, is that toward the end of the century northern Italy still possessed, in the making of cheap woollens, a sizeable industry and one that had obviously recovered from, or escaped altogether, the troubles and misfortunes of the other, and nobler, branch of the wool industry. The story of the silk industry is equally checkered and hard to fit into a simple, tidy pattern. As in the case of woollen cloth, the early part of the century brought very serious setbacks to a number of established centers of the silk industry. Innumerable memoirs and reports have survived that are filled with outcries about the decay of a once unexcelled manufacture and the intolerable "invasion" of foreign (and notably French) fabrics. The decay of the industry was lamented the more vehemently in that northern Italy, as a major producer of raw silk, seemed to have been predestined by nature to

I Industrial Production in ijth-Century Italy

2

39

be and to remain the proud homeland of the silk industry from the cocoon to the finished fabric. Widespread concern over the misfortunes of the silk industry was not unwarranted: both for Milan and Venice, which until the opening of the seventeenth century had held a very prominent position in the field, there is enough supporting evidence to show that by 1650 they had registered severe lossses;12 and much the same can be said of other towns such as Genoa, Vicenza, and Pavia.13 Yet losses were neither general nor always irreversible: some areas were spared, others recovered at least partially in the second half of the century, and in others there were fresh developments. In the late seventeenth century, for instance, Milan had but a fraction of the silk looms it had had at an earlier date,14 and its shops were filled with imported silk goods.15 Nevertheless the working of silk, in one form or another, was still a major industry within its walls: it employed, according to a count taken in 1690,16 some 15,000 operatives, an impressive figure for a city of 120,000 people. Possibly half of them were engaged in the making of silk hosiery,17 while the manufacture of silk and gold thread and the embroidering of imported fabrics must have employed much of the remaining labor force.18 Genoa, traditionally a major center of the silk industry, suffered heavy losses as early as the 1580's and again in the 1670's; in the Ligurian countryside, however, the making of velvets and damasks remained important, with 3-4,000 looms reported as being active in the 1660's and twice that number at mid-eighteenth century.19 As for Venice, such quantitative evidence as is now available indicates a contraction of nearly 50 per cent in the total output of silk textiles during the seventeenth century. If, however, we break down aggregate output figures according to the various types of fabrics produced by Venetian silk makers, some striking contrasts become apparent: on the one hand, the simpler and cheaper fabrics tended to disappear from the industry's spectrum; on the other, there was a fivefold increase in the output of elaborate, expensive cloth woven of silk and gold thread. The latter's increase never made up, in terms of sheer quantity, for the contraction of the former; but, of course, in terms of value, it offered a substantial, if partial, compensation.20 So did the development of the making of silk stockings "after the English fashion": introduced in Venice in 1671,21 the new manufacture was reported as having reached "a zenith of perfection" by 1689 and as having successfully displaced imported stockings.22 Some of the reverses suffered by the larger cities, moreover, were

I 240

made good by gains registered elsewhere. To some extent what Genoa lost was gained by Liguria,23 and the sharp contraction in the output of low grade fabrics in Venice was ascribed to the rapid expansion of the silk industry in the lower reaches of the Bishopric of Trent just across the Venetian border.24 Late in the century some of the troubles besetting the Venice weavers were blamed on the vigorous competition of those of Vicenza where silk making was staging a remarkable recovery—from a mere hundred looms in 1675 to about 500 in 1712.25 Just as Venice had to reckon with Vicenza, Milan had to reckon with Vigevano: silk weaving was introduced there in the 1680's, and a half century later as many as 800 looms were reported at work.26 The malaise besetting silk makers in Venice, Genoa, and Milan was often blamed on Florentine competition, too. In 1638, for instance, an alarming report reached Venice from Syria to the effect that "an infinite quantity of Florentine satins brought hither by English ships'* was driving Venetian fabrics from that market; 27 some forty years later, "the large amount of satins coming from Florence" was enviously reported from Constantinople, and plans were on foot to develop a manufacture "after the Florentine style" in Venice.28 In Genoa it was complained at one time that many of her weavers had drifted to foreign countries and notably to Tuscany.29 In the 1690's an inspection in the Milan silk shops revealed the presence of large stocks of satins made in Florence.30 Unfortunately, we do not have quantitative data on the Florentine silk industry in the seventeenth century. Thanks to a recent article by Jose Gentil da Silva, however, we do know that, until about 1680, investments in silk goods by Florentine business partnerships exhibited an impressive growth in sharp contrast with the rapidly falling investments in woollen cloth.31 To some extent, of course, that long upswing in investments may simply reflect a swelling trade in raw silk and silk thread at the hands of Florentine merchants, but in view of contemporary comments about the flourishing state of the silk manufacture in the Medicean capital,32 it is reasonable to assume that the seventeenth century was a prosperous time for Florentine silk manufacturers. The shift of the silk industry to new localities affected spinning to an even greater extent than weaving: the seventeenth century, in fact, witnessed the complete relocation of the making of silk thread (even in its finer variety, organzine) from the towns to the countryside. What took place then was indeed more than a mere change of location:

I Industrial Production in iyth-Century Italy

241

it was also a change from hand-made to mechanical spinning thanks to the generalized adoption of the so-called "Bolognese silk mill," This was, in the admiring words of an early seventeenth-century writer, "a very large engine activated by a water stream which easily and with wondrous speed can spin and throw 4000 threads of silk, doing at once the work of 4000 spinners."33 More realistically but no less admiringly, an eighteenth-century source described the power driven silk mills as "a water-engine which, with a few hands to attend it, will do more work than a hundred persons can do at throwing (silk), according to our common (hand) method."34 Apparently the mechanical mill commended itself not only as a labor-saving device, but also on account of the superior quality of its product: "fine raw silk—it was claimed—cannot be thrown, with that exactness and delicacy required, by hand as it can by an engine"; 35 and we know that for the warp of the finest silk fabrics high grade organzinc was needed such as only the power driven mill could turn out.36 The spread of the mechanical silk mills had begun early in the seventeenth century. Previously they had been Bologna's jealously guarded secret, and the Venetian industry, for one, had depended on Bologna for its supply of fine organzine. In 1600, however, a Bolognese silk mill was erected in Bergamo, and another made its appearance near Padua four years later. By the 1630's the output of the numerous silk mills scattered throughout Venetia was reportedly sufficient to meet domestic needs; by mid-century large amounts of organzine could be exported. In 1670 production in the Venetian territory stood at about 180,000 lbs.; by mid-eighteenth century 160 power-driven mills located in the Venetian mainland turned out twice that amount. Progress seems to have been rapid in neighboring Spanish Lombardy too, after the first mill was built there in 1611. As for Piedmont, its late start in the field was compensated by a remarkably fast pace of expansion: the first silk mill made its appearance there in 1677; three decades later over a hundred mills were in operation with an annual output of about 360,000 lbs. of silk thread 37 On balance, it is safe to say that the working of silk, in one form or another, remained an important and vital sector of the Italian economy in the seventeenth century. The record varied a great deal from place to place and from one type of production to another as a result of locational and qualitative changes, but silk making, on the whole, seems to have held its own with considerable success and to have been largely spared the gloomy fate of the manufacture of high quality woollen cloth.

I 242

It is also possible to say that silks continued to feed a brisk export trade. No doubt the geography and composition of the trade were different in 1700 from what they had been a hundred years before, and its volume may have been somewhat smaller; yet it was still far from negligible. If France had ceased, by the end of the century, to be the largest outlet for Italian silk textiles, she still absorbed sizeable amounts of select high quality fabrics38 besides, of course, a great deal of thrown silk and gold thread.39 If exports to Germany had been whittled down during the Thirty Years War, a partial compensation was found in growing exports to England.40 Late in the century the expanding output of Venetian "gold cloth" largely reflected the revival of trade with both Germany and Turkey. 41 At the opening of the eighteenth century, "silk, silk fabrics of various sorts, and gold thread from Milan" open the list of what Pierre Daniel Huet described as "the great and considerable traffic which the Dutch carry on with Italy."42 And at that time Spain and the Spanish colonies were still important outlets for Italian silk goods, and notably for velvets, damasks, and ribbons from the Genoese Republic.43 Italian paper, too, continued to loom large, to the end of the century and beyond, in the country's exports. The time, of course, had long passed when Italy had been the chief and nearly sole supplier of paper to Europe, but her position was still quite respectable and may even have improved in the period under discussion. In northern Italy paper came mainly from two sources: the Genoa coast and the Lake Garda region. In the former, the city of Genoa itself had by the later part of the century lost most of a once prosperous business, but paper mills came to stud the western Riviera, with the small town of Voltri harboring fifty-one mills in 1675 and eighty-seven by 1689, while nearby Pegli, Arenzano and Varazze trailed behind with a few each.44 On the shores of Lake Garda the town of Salo was known as a major center of papermaking early in the century;45 a hundred years later its reputation was still very much alive and is attested by the existence of thirty paper mills in 1725.46 In that year another forty-seven mills were scattered in various localities of the Venetian mainland dominions.47 In a cluster of villages south of Milan eighteen mills were counted in the 1660's;48 paper making was, and continued to be, throughout the century an important element in the economy of Bologna.49 Besides catering for domestic needs, the Italian paper industry, and notably that of Voltri and Salo, was heavily oriented towards foreign markets. The list of its customers included Constantinople50

I Industrial Production in ijth-Century Italy

243

as well as the homeland of the book trade that was Holland. 51 But possibly the two largest customers in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were Spain and her American possessions on the one hand and England on the other. Around 1680 the former absorbed some 200,000 reams of Genoese paper a year, much to the dismay of French authorities as they unsuccessfully tried to secure that handsome market for their own subjects;52 and in the early eighteenth century restrictions on paper imports from the Genoese Republic were viewed by Spanish authorities as an indispensable precondition if a native industry was to take roots.53 As for England, Dr. Coleman has shown that from the 1660's and for the next half century she offered a large outlet for Italian paper with imports soaring from a few thousand reams a year to a peak of over 80,000 in 170L54 The last industry to be discussed is the making of arms. Here, too, was an industry in which northern Italy had experienced an early start as compared to most European countries and one in which, until well into the sixteenth century, she had shared with Germany a position of clear prominence. The industry itself had, by 1600, two main centers—Milan and Brescia—both of which had won an international reputation in the making of defensive and offensive weapons: Milan had specialized primarily but not exclusively in the production of plate armor, while Brescia led in the production of swords, pikes, cannon and, above all, small firearms. The two cities were, in fact, but the pocal points of an industry that reached deep into their mountainous hinterland (roughly the area comprised between Lakes Como and Garda) where iron mining and smelting as well as the working of the metal into bars, sheets, and parts (such as unfinished sword blades and unmounted gun barrels) were actively carried on in many small villages; the two cities themselves handled the finishing stages of production besides acting, of course, as marketing places.55 The seventeenth century brought a good deal of change to the old industry. During its first half the making of plate armor died out almost entirely in Milan,56 and the casting of heavy ordnance both in Milan and in Brescia apparently dwindled to negligible proportions.57 As regards small firearms, however, conditions were quite different. In Milan the making of muskets, arquebuses, and carbines (or at least the assembling of parts made elsewhere) enjoyed a long spell of prosperity during the wars being fought in or around Spanish Lombardy until 1659,58 and so did mining and metallurgy in the nearby Valsassina.59 But no doubt much of the benefit deriving from Spanish war

I 244

spending accrued to the Brescian gun makers, as they were called upon to supply their warlike neighbor. Brescia is, of course, chiefly remembered for its finely chiselled, custom-made firearms intended for military display or for the hunt, and the admiration bestowed on them by contemporaries is fully shared today by the student and collector of seventeenth-century weapons.60 The reputation of Brescian carbines and pistols rested chiefly on their elegant design and the superior quality of the steel that went into the making of their thin-walled barrels; so much so, in fact, that increasingly, as the century went on, gun barrels made in the workshops of Brescia or of nearby Gardone in the Valtrompia were exported unmounted to other parts of Europe to be fitted with locks and stocks by local gun makers.61 Besides expensive guns and gun barrels, however, the Brescia district also produced, on a much larger scale, common service firearms and parts. Despite its obvious interest for the economic historian, this less famous branch of the arms industry still awaits a detailed study, and we have no way of telling what its output may have been in the course of the seventeenth century. Such scattered evidence as is now available, however, does suggest that it remained very substantial to the end. Individual orders from the Spanish crown, the Genoese republic, the Duke of Bavaria, and, of course, the Venetian Republic for several thousand carbines, arquebuses, pistols, and unmounted gun barrels were common in the later part of the century and bear witness to the existence of a large and vital industry in the Brescian district.62 II The evidence indicates that, at the close of the seventeenth century, the industrial scene in northern Italy was far from barren and that manufactured goods still held a conspicuous place in her foreign trade. Heavy and indeed irreparable losses had no doubt been registered in the case of high quality cloth, plate armor, and cannon, while silk weaving had probably lost some ground especially as regards the simpler fabrics. On the other hand, manufactures such as cheap woollens, small firearms, and paper seem to have remained rather prosperous, while in the case of organzine, silk stockings, and gold cloth we can definitely speak of gains. Whether, on balance, the gains were sufficient to offset the losses is a question that cannot be satisfactorily settled until and unless more quantitative data become

I Industrial Production in ijth-Century Italy

245

available. All that can be confidently asserted on the basis of the limited information now at hand is that, even though her aggregate industrial output may not have been quite so large in 1700 as it had been a hundred years before, northern Italy experienced no general industrial debacle. What the country did experience was considerable change in her industrial make-up, a change that affected both the location of her manufactures and the types of goods produced, and brought a great deal of distress to certain towns and certain groups while benefiting others. How can this change be accounted for? How can the dismantling of some glorious industries be reconciled with the better performance of others? Part of the answer is provided by those unfavorable factors historians have so often stressed: fiscal oppression, the guilds' conservatism, bottlenecks in the labor supply. Clearly, however, those negative forces did not influence industrial activity equally throughout the country; their main influence must rather be seen in the shift of industry to more suitable locations where, presumably, the hand of the tax collector was less heavily felt, where a fresh supply of labor could be tapped, or where no guild stood in the way of technical innovations. Of greater and more pervasive influence in determining the course of the industrial sector were changes in both the demand and the supply of manufactured goods throughout Europe. Both confronted the old industrial structure with serious challenges, but also with new, if limited, opportunities; both, in the end, were to claim casualties, but also beneficiaries; both called for change and adaptation. To these we must now turn. Ill Changes in demand have, by and large, received little attention at the hands of economic historians of early modern Italy, and the neglect is a serious one in a study of the seventeenth century. It was in that century, for instance, that the methods of warfare took a decisive turn that made suits of armor largely obsolete on the battlefield and called for a much larger use of small firearms for both horse and foot.63 It is no mere coincidence, therefore, thet the making of plate armor died out in the century, while the firearms industry remained vigorous.

I 246

Far reaching changes occurred in the demand for textiles as well For one thing, there was a definite tendency for European consumers to replace fine woollen cloth with silk fabrics in their apparel.64 Paintings of the Baroque Age bear abundant witness to the new fashion, but their testimony is supported by the written document as well. " 'There is such a madness in England,' an Englishman could write in 1617, 'to be clothed in silk that we cannot endure our home made cloth.' " 65 In the 1620's an Italian Utopian writer thundered against the evil of "excessive luxury" that he saw rampant among his fellow countrymen; interestingly enough, he singled out "gold and silk cloth" as the most conspicuous index of a new, deplorable trend in the morals of his own day and advocated a return to the wearing of woollens as a necessary step toward a more austere way of life.66 A few years earlier Montchretien had lamented a contraction in the French wool industry remarking that "this is caused in part by silk as the latter has come to enjoy too great a vogue among our people."67 Later in the century the use of velvet and silk clothes by middle-class people was denounced in Holland as evidence of moral laxity,68 and the author of Britannia Languens, for his part, noticed that in his country "silk is now grown nigh common as wool" and that "ordinary People, especially the Female, will be in silk more or less, if they can," with the unhappy result that "the importation and home-consumption of dear silk-manufacture [...] hath much contracted the home-vent of our woollen-stuffs and clothes."69 The contrasting records of the Italian wool and silk industries in the seventeenth century, then, must be viewed against this background of changing consumers' habits: to a country with an established reputation in the field, silk making obviously offered far better prospects than the making of fine, yet outmoded, woollen cloth.70 The latter received a further, and possibly more damaging blow by another twist of fashion, namely the substitution of the heavy carded wool fabrics, such as Italy had traditionally produced, by the less durable but more attractive worsteds known in England as "new draperies."71 Italy, like other Mediterranean countries, quickly developed an enormous appetite for worsteds, and this change of taste, too, helps account for the crisis that broke, early in the century, on the wool industry.72 IV Italy notoriously failed to develop a strong, competitive worsted

I Industrial Production in ijth-Century Italy

247

industry: throughout the seventeenth century she relied mainly on imports from England to meet the new and very considerable domestic demand for worsteds. Nor was this the only failure to face up to foreign competition: other instances could be recited, as they have often been recited in the literature devoted to the period, witnessing to the negative effects resulting from the progress of manufacturing abroad. Thanks to better techniques, lower costs, or more attractive makes, other countries managed to catch up with Italy and even to leave her behind in a number of fields: as a Milan official surveying that alarming process sadly remarked at mid-century, "Men's wits have of late sharpened everywhere."73 Industrial progress abroad, however, did not have "marketdestroying effects" over the whole range of Italian manufactures: the position of some remained unchallenged while others found new opportunities in the very countries where industrial activity was making long strides. The impressive growth of the mechanical production of organzine, for instance, was obviously stimulated by the spread of silk making in much of western Europe; Italian enterprise, on its part, was able to respond to widening market opportunities because it commanded, as its younger rivals presumably did not, the technology and the trained labor force needed to build and operate those "wondrous engines." Another instance of a similar response, although in an entirely different field, may be seen in the Brescian gunmakers specializing more and more in the making of parts-—those renowned, thin-walled barrels that were shipped unmounted to the firearms manufactures abroad.74 The advantage that the older economy possessed in the way of long established and not easily matched skills and techniques was likely, moreover, to cushion the impact of foreign competition in a number of fields, as the new entrants tended to develop first the making of the cruder goods while still relying on the old source of supply for the finer varieties. And, of course, insofar as a particular industry enjoyed the blessings of an expanding world market, this division of labor between old and new countries could very well take place without output being appreciably curtailed in the former. Such seems to have been the case of papermaking. In an age when the book trade flourished, when pamphlets and tracts made their appearance in the political arena, when overseas settlements began to show an appetite for the printed page alongside their more prosaic demand for paper as a wrapping material, market conditions must have looked quite promising for papermakers and were eagerly seized

I 248

upon. Younger industries naturally moved first into the lower fringes of the market, and meanwhile industries of an older vintage could retain control of high quality production. The case of England well illustrates this point: in the seventeenth century the bulk of her rising paper output was of the inferior varieties, mainly brown and blue wrapping paper; when it came to fine white paper, her growing domestic needs were met by imports from the Continent and notably, in the last forty years of the century, from the Genoa and Lake Garda districts.75 Much the same holds true of silks: an expanding demand in Europe and in the colonies coupled with a wide commodity spectrum (from ribbons to hosiery, from cheap lining materials to costly velvets and gold cloth) left considerable elbow room for old and new industries alike, with the former concentrating on the more elaborate fabrics and the latter on the simpler ones. This was the kind of situation the Venetian ambassador in England was portraying when, in 1672, he reported on the progress of the young silk industry there: after dismissing local production as "consisting of ribbons, stockings, etc.,'* he reassured his fellow countrymen on the ground that English silks did "not interfere with the sale of Venetian manufactures."76 Nor does this confidence seem unwarranted at a time when, as we have seen, Venetian silk makers were decidedly upgrading their own production. A similar situation may have obtained in Holland, another outlet for Italian silks: at the opening of the eighteenth century the young and vigorous Haarlem silk industry was reported as producing mainly low grade fabrics;77 better ones continued to be imported. Even vis-a-vis so formidable a competitor as France which, by the second half of the seventeenth century, was turning out some of the most sophisticated silk goods and was indeed making deep inroads into the Italian market itself, Italy's position was not irreparably damaged. France continued to the end of the century to buy substantial amounts of select Italian fabrics, while on third markets Venetian gold cloth, Florentine satins, and Genoese velvets continued to sell side by side with French silks. Clearly, in a field such as silk, in which the scope for product differentiation was no doubt very wide (and may have been widening as new layers of consumers were reached and silks were put to new uses), an element of monopolistic competition was at play that made it possible for the two countries to exchange, and to sell in third markets, goods that were superficially identical but, in fact, differed in style and design, their relative

I Industrial Production in ijth-Century Italy

249

success largely depending on the diversity of local consumers' tastes.

NOTES I am much indebted to the participants in the Graduate Program in Economic History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and to Professor C. M. Cipolla for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Research has been supported in part by the Research Committee of the Graduate School, University of Wisconsin, from special funds voted by the State Legislature. The following abbreviations have been used in giving references: A.C.M. = Archivio Storico Civico, Milan; A.S.M. = Archivio di Stato, Milan; A.S.V. = Archivio di Stato, Venice. 1. The large body of literature on this subject is surveyed and discussed in two articles by L. Bulferetti, "L'oro, la terra e la societa. Un'interpretazione del nostro Seicento," Archivio Storico Lombardo (1953), and "II problema della decadenza italiana" in Nuove questioni di storia modcrna (Milan 1964), II, pp. 803-45. Cf. also G. Luzzatto, Per una storia economica d'ltalia: progressi e lacune (Bari 1957), pp. 63-80; C. Livi, D. Sclla, and U. Tucci, "Un probleme d'histoire: la decadence economique de Venise" in Fondazione G. Cini, Aspetti e cause della decadenza economica veneziana nel secolo XVII (Venice-Rome 1961), pp. 287-317. The economic decline of Italy is also discussed in a broad European perspective by E. J. Hobsbawn, "The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century," Past and Present, no. 5 and 6 (1954), and R. Romano, "Tra XVI e XVII secolo. Una crisi economica: 1619-1622," Rivista Storica Italiana (1962). Traditional views on Italian decline in general have been forcefully challenged by H. G. Koenigsberger, "Decadence or Shift? Changes in the Civilization of Italy and Europe in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (1960). 2. That the prosperity of Leghorn was at the expense of Genoa is briefly argued by M. Baruchello, Livorno e il suo porto (Leghorn 1932), p. 411. For contemporary observations on the shift, cf. "Britannia Languens" (1680) in Early English Tracts on Commerce, ed. J. McCulloch (London 1856), p. 369, and J. Addison, Remarks on Several Parts of Italy (London 1705), p. 64. 3. Cf. F. Catalano, in Storia di Milano, ed. Fondazione Treccani degli Alfieri, XI, pp. 180-82; B. Caizzi, // Comasco sotto il dominio spagnolo (Como 1955), pp. 97 and 107; C. M. Cipolla, 'The Decline of Italy," Economic History Review (1952), p. 180; Bulferetti, "L'oro, la terra e la societa . . . , " pp. 38 and 41. 4. Cipolla, op. cit., p. 180. 5. Bulferetti, "L'oro, la terra e la societa," p. 44; Catalano, in Storia di Milano, XI, p. 149. 6. Cf. G. Luzzatto, Storia economica delVeth moderna e contemporanea (4th ed., Padua 1955), I, p. 107. 7. Cipolla, op. cit., pp. 178-79; also A. DeMaddalena, "L'industria tessile a Mantova nel '500 e alFinizio del '600" in Studi in onore di A. Fanfani (Milan

I 250 1962), IV, p. 652; U. Meroni, Cremona Fedelissima, vol. X of Annali della Biblioteca Governativa di Cremona (Cremona 1957), p. 19; L. Bulferetti c C. Costantini, Industria e Commercio in Liguria nell'eta del Risorgimento (Milan 1966), p. 35. 8. The table is reproduced in D. Sella, Commerci e Industrie a Venezia nel secolo XVII (Venice-Rome 1961), p. 115. 9. Ibid., p. 57. 10. A.S.V., Sindici Inquisitori in Terrafermay b. 63, "Descrittione di Zuane da Lezze del 1596," p. 113 v°. 11. Cipolla, op. cit., p. 180; also G. Prato, La vita economica in Piemonte a mezzo il secolo XVIII (Turin 1908), p. 236. 12. For Milan, cj. Cipolla, op. cit., p. 179; for Venice, Sella, Commerci e Industrie, pp. 126-28. 13. Bulferetti-Costantini, Industria e commercio in Liguria, p. 33, present evidence indicating that exports of Genoese silk fabrics fell by about 80 per cent between 1565 and 1697. Vicenza had 200 silk looms in 1628 (L. Brenni, La tessitura serica attraverso i secoli, Como 1925, p. 119) and 107 in 1675 (A.S.V., Senato Terra, b. 918, 7 Nov. 1675). On Pavia, cj. G. Aleati e C. Cipolla, "II trend economico nello Stato di Milano durante i secoli XVI e XVII: il caso di Pavia," Bollettino della Societa Pavese di Storia Patria (1950). 14. According to P. Verri, Considerazioni sul commercio dello Stato di Milano (1763), ed. Vianello (Milan 1939), pp. 39-51, the city had 200 silk looms in 1662 as against 5000 in 1628. The latter figure was derived from a 1662 document and is probably far too high: a document for 1606 speaks of "over 3000 looms" (A.S.M., Commercio p.a. 228, "Discorso di persona incognita"); by 1635, however, their number was down at 600 (Ibid., 26 June 1635); in 1687, 807 looms were counted (M. Daverio, "Saggio storico sulle sete e serifici nello Stato di Milano" in C. A. Vianello ed., Economisti minori del Settecento lombardo, Milan 1942, p. 446). 15. A.S.M., Commercio p.a. 145, "1691. Notificationi di Drappi e Bindelli forastieri": this shop-by-shop search yielded a grand total of over 60,000 yards of foreign-made silk fabrics and a roughly similar yardage of imported ribbons. Florentine and Venetian goods were, of course, classified as "foreign": they loom large in this document and so do French fabrics. 16. A.C.M., Materie 269, May 1693. 17. According to E. Verga, "Le leggi suntuarie e la decadenza delFindustria in Milano," Archivio Storico Lombardo (1900), p. 95, in 1663 handknitting employed some 8000 persons in Milan. Milanese silk-stockings were "hugely esteemed in Italy" at the time according to R. Lassels, The Voyage of Italy (Paris 1670), p. 130. 18. Cf. Verga, "Le leggi suntuarie," p. 109, note 3; also Lassels, The Voyage of Italy, p. 130: Milanese "embroiderie in gold and silver is the best in the world and the cheapest"; and R. Levi-Pisetzky, in Storia di Milano, XI, p. 565. On the importation of Milan gold thread into France, cf., J. Savary, Le Parfait Negociant (Paris 1675), p. 62. 19. Bulferetti-Costantini, op. cit., pp. 33, 47, and 112. 20. Sella, op. cit., pp. 128-31. 21. Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, 8 July 1671.

1 Industrial Production in ijth-Century

Italy

251

22. A.S.V., Savi alia Mercanzia n.s., busta 120, mercers' petition for 1689. 23. Cf. supra note 19. 24. Sella, op. cit., p. 80. 25. Brenni, Tessitura serica, p. 119. Complaints about Vicenza's competition in A.S.V., Arte della Seta, busta 110/209, 1 October 1668 and 13 May 1675. 26. A.S.M., Commercio P.A. 145; P. Landini, La Lomellina, profilo geografico (Rome 1950), p. 197. 27. A.S.V., Senato, dispacci Aleppo, filza 5, 20 May 1638. 28. A.S.V., Senato, dispacci Costantinopoli, filza 162, 9 April 1681. 29. Bulferetti-Costantini, op. cit., p. 49, note 2. 30. Cf. supra note 15. The fact that silk-producing Lombardy imported foreign made (including Florentine) silk fabrics was regarded as being "truly against nature" earlier in the century (A.C.M., Materie 269, 1 April 1658). 31. J. Gentil da Silva, "Au XVHe siecle: la strategic du capital florentin," Annales, Economies, Societies, Civilisations (May-June 1964). 32. Cf. John Evelyn, The Diary, ed. E. S. DeBeer (Oxford 1955), II, p. 200 (31 October 1644); John Struys, The Voiages and Travels (London 1684), p. 71 (26 February 1656). It is possible that Florentine capital was also invested in the flourishing silk manufactures of nearby Lucca. On the latter, cf., A. de Sommelsdyck, "Voyage d'ltalie fait en Pannee 1654," ed. L. G. Pellissier in Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Scienze Storiche (Rome 1903), HI, p. 243; W. Bromley, Remarks on the Grand Tour (London 1692), p. 347; and British Museum, Add. 10,623, "R. Chisweirs Journal" (1696), p. 24 v°. 33. [Pompeo Vizani], Descrittione della Citta . . . di Bologna (Bologna 1602), p. 26. 34. M. Postlethwayt, The Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce (London 1751), I, p. 350. 35. Ibid. 36. A.S.V., Senato Terra, filza 367, 28 November 1634: "without Bolognese organzine high grade satins can not be woven." In another Venetian document (A.S.V., Arte della Seta, busta 120/340, 5 July 1670) the superior quality of organzine made from a power-driven mill is ascribed to the "evenness of twisting imparted by the water stream," while twisting by hand is said often to result in an imperfect thread. 37. For a detailed discussion, cf., D. Sella, "Contribute alia storia delle fonti di energia: i filatoi idraulici nella Valle Padana durante il secolo XVII," in Studi in onore di A. Fanfani (Milan 1962), V, pp. 621-31. 38. Cf. F. Braudel and others, "Le declin de Venise au XVIIe siecle" in Aspetti e cause della decadenza economica veneziana nel secolo XVII, p. 58: in 1714 France imported from Italy four million livres tournois worth of silks. A century earlier, according to P. Boissonnade, Le socialisme d'etat (Paris 1927), p. 247, silk imports from Italy added up to 36 million livres tournois. 39. On the export trade of silk and gold thread to France, cf. A.C.M., Materie 269, 20 September 1667, and Savary, Parfait Negociant, p. 62. 40. R. Davis, "Influences de PAngleterre sur le declin de Venise," in Aspetti e cause della decadenza veneziana, p. 229, gives the following figures (in thousands £) for Italian silk exports to England:

i 252

1663-69 1699,1700,1701 (average) (average) Silk fabrics 4 105 83 Raw or thrown silk 91 81 Exports of Italian silk fabrics from Leghorn to England rose from £120 in 1621 to £81,204 in 1633 (cf. A. E. Millard, The Import Trade of London, 1600-1640, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 1956, p. 287). 41. Sella, op. cit., p. 86. 42. P. D. Huet, he grand tresor historique et politique du florissant commerce des Hollondois (Paris 1714), pp. 164 and 166. 43. A. Girard, he commerce francais a Seville et Cadix an temps des Habsbourgs (Paris 1932), pp. 366 and 368. 44. The figure for 1675 is in Monumenta Chartae Papyraceae Historiam lllustrantia, IV (Hilversum 1955), p. 185, but see also p. 178; the figure for 1689 in Bulferetti-Costantini, op. cit., p. 65. 45. O. Rossi, he Memorie Bresciane (Brescia 1616), p. 210. 46. Monumenta, IV, p. 207, note 17. 47. Ibid. 48. A.C.M., Materie 139, "Nota delle folk 1666." 49. Vizani, Descrittione di Bologna, p. 26; G. de Liverdys, Journal d'un Voyage de France et d'ltalie (Paris 1667), p. 799. 50. Cf. Braudel and others, "Le declin de Venise," p. 69. 51. Monumenta, IV, p. 178; Huet, Commerce des Hollondois, p. 166. 52. Girard, he commerce jrancais a Seville, p. 385. 53. J. C. Pujal, Historia della Economia espanola, III Barcelona 1945), p. 134. 54. D. C. Coleman, The British Paper Industry, 1495-1860: A Study in Industrial Growth (Oxford 1958), p. 21. 55. Among recent contributions cf. B. Thomas and O. Gamber, "L'arte milanese delParmatura," in Storia di Milano, XI, pp. 699-829; J. F. Hayward, The Art of the Gunma\er, 2 vols. (London 1962) with abundant information on Brescia; A. Frumento, Imprese lombarde nella storia della siderurgia italiana, II (Milan 1963); and two chapters in vol. Ill of Storia di Brescia (Brescia 1961): L. Mazzoldi, "L'economia dei secoli XVII e XVIII," pp. 133-37, and A. Gaibi, "Le armi da fuoco," pp. 821 ff. 56. Thomas-Gamber, "L'arte milanese delParmatura," p. 702; Frumento, Imprese lombarde, II, p. 93. 57. C. M. Cipolla, Guns and Sails in the Early Phase of European Expansion, 1400-1700 (London 1965), p. 34. 58. J. Gelli, Gli archibugiari milanesi (Milan 1905), p.89; Frumento, Imprese lombarde, II, pp. 87 and 124. 59. A. Fanfani, "L'industria mineraria lombarda durante il dominio spagnolo," in his collected Saggi di storia economica italiana (Milan 1936), pp. 175, 201, and 205; Frumento, Imprese lombarde, II, p. 102. 60. Hayward, Art of the Gunmafar, I, pp. 190, 192, and II, p. 133. 61. Ibid., I, pp. 192-96. 62. Gaibi, "Le armi da fuoco," p. 852: 6000 muskets shipped to Genoa in 1628; ibid., p. 857: 11,000 muskets, 12,000 arquebuses, 1000 carbines, 2000 pistols sent to Naples in 1673. A.S.M., Cancelleria Spagnola, series XXII, reg. 61, 5 1621

1 Industrial Production in ijth-Century

Italy

253

December 1641: 2000 muskets, 1000 arquebuses, 1000 carbines, and 2000 pistols ordered for Spain. A wealth of information is to be found in A.S.V., Senate, dispacci Brescia (filze); here are a few samples: filza 72, 6 November 1667: 10,000 muskets to be shipped to Venice; f. 91, 10 April 1683: 3000 gun barrels for Genoa; f. 95, 4 August 1689: 4000 gun barrels for Milan, and on 29 November 1689, 3000 gun barrels ordered by the Duke of Bavaria. 63. Cf. A. R. Hall, "Military Technology," in Ch. Singer ed., A History of Technology, III (Oxford 1957), pp. 348-49 and 353; P. Pieri, "L'evoluzione delParte militare nei secoli XV, XVI e XVII," in Nuove questioni di storia moderna, II (Milan 1964), p. 1152. 64. F. Braudel, Civilta e imperi del Mediterraneo nelVeta di Filippo II (Italian transl., Turin 1953), p. 459, has forcefully called attention to the increasing use of silks for both apparel and interior decoration at the opening of the seventeenth century and to the stimulus the new fashion imparted to Italian manufactures. 65. The quotation is from W. C. Palmer, The Activities of the English East India Company in Persia, 1616-57 (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1933), p. 17. 66. L. Zuccolo, La Repubblica di Evandria e altri dialoghi politici, ed. R. DeMattei (Rome 1944), pp. 37, 38, and 51. 67. A. de Montchretien, Traicte de Veconomie politique, ed. T. Funk-Brentano (Paris 1889), p. 72. 68. C. R. Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, 1600-1800 (New York 1965), p. 39. 69. Early English Tracts on Commerce, pp. 421-22. 70. Florentine merchants seem to have been well aware of the radically changed market prospects: "they allege—it was reported—that the Art of Wool cannot decline into greater ruin, whereas that of Silk might hold its own if they continue the vent which is made of those cloths." {Cal. State Papers, Venetian, 28 October 1673). 71. Commenting on the change as it affected the English wool industry, C. Wilson, England's Apprenticeship, 1603-1763 (Oxford 1965), p. 75, speaks of "one of those major revolutions in trade and fashion which have periodically turned the textile industries upside down." 72. Cf. F. J. Fisher, "London's Export Trade in the Early Seventeenth Century," Economic History Review (1950); also, B. E. Supple, Commercial Crisis and Change in England, 1600-1642 (Cambridge 1959), pp. 152-54. 73. A.S.M., Commercio P.A., cart. 1, 5 October 1650, "Mezzi per il ristabilimento delle arti." 74. Hayward, Art of the Gunma\er, I, pp. 192-94. 75. Coleman, British Paper Industry, pp. 13 and 14. 76. Cal. State Papers, Venetian, 18 November 1672. 77. Huet, Commerce des Hollondois, pp. 39 and 40.

II

European Industries, 1500-1700 The two centuries roughly comprised between Columbus's first voyage of discovery and the creation of the Bank of England form a distinct period in the economic history of Europe, and the economic historian, conscious though he may be of the risks involved in periodisation, feels comparatively few qualms in carving those two centuries out of the flow of human events and in presenting them as a distinct segment of our past. For the two hundred years that witnessed the discovery and opening up of a new continent, the emergence of new economic powers on the shores of the North Sea, the penetration of the market economy into eastern Europe and Scandinavia, the harnessing of resources and manpower to the unprecedented needs of the absolute monarchy, clearly have a claim to a separate place in the annals of mankind. Once such a place has been granted, however, there still is the danger of making too much of change and novelty while losing sight of all that represented mere continuity with the preceding age. The danger is especially real in the case of industry: it is tempting, for instance, to assemble such information as we possess on the growth of English coal mining, Dutch shipbuilding, or Swedish iron output, and then portray the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries not only as an age of considerable industrial expansion, but as one indeed during which mining and manufacturing moved to the forefront of Europe's economic life and replaced agriculture as the leading sector of its economy. This would be grossly misleading: for all the changes and the progress experienced in those two centuries, Europe's industrial sector as it stood in 1700 bore far greater resemblance to its medieval antecedent than to its nineteenth-century successor. Around 1700 industrial technology, in spite of some sig-

II European Industries 1500-ijoo

nificant innovations, was still very much what it had been in the late medieval period, with its limited array of powerdriven machines — fulling mills and paper mills, mechanical bellows and tilt hammers — and its dependence on manual effort at the loom and the anvil, in the glassmaker's workshop and the shipyard. In the days of Colbert and Newton, moreover, most manufacturing continued to be carried on in diminutive units — the weaver's cottage, the village smithy, the paper-mill manned by a handful of workmen. Finally, and more importantly, there was continuity with the preceding age in the range of goods produced as well as in the relative importance of individual industries. In terms of the size of the work force employed in them, the top-ranking industries were probably those catering to such basic human needs as shelter and clothing. Construction has been too much neglected by economic historians as a field of study except perhaps for its most conspicuous and lasting products — the churches, castles, and mansions which over the centuries, came to stud and to adorn the landscape of Europe. It is easy, however, to overestimate the importance of that particular branch of the construction industry in terms of the resources and the manpower actually allocated to it,1 and to ignore, because it has left fewer traces and escapes our measurement, the far more important construction activity involving the building, rebuilding, and repair of the countless common houses and cottages in which the population of Europe lived and worked. It is obvious, however, that here was a major field in which Europe's resources were used. As regards the manufactures connected with clothing, they are far better known and have, in fact, long been a chosen object of historical investigation. This is especially true of the several textile industries — wool, linen, cotton, and silk: the conspicuous place they occupy in the annals of medieval and early modern economic history may, to some extent, reflect 1

Cf. H. T. Johnson, 'Cathedral Building and the Medieval Economy'. Explorations in Entrepreneurial History (1967), for a stimulating, if con-

troversial, approach to the subject.

[6]

II Introduction

the greater survival rate of documents bearing on them; yet their predominance on the industrial scene cannot be doubted as it was not by contemporary statesmen and political writers when they equated industrial prosperity and progress with the spread and success of textile production. Not only did the making of textiles employ in given areas thousands and even tens of thousands of people; in one form or another it was also carried on nearly everywhere in medieval and early modern Europe, from the banks of the Arno to those of the Scheldt, from the hamlets perched on the slopes of the Alps where coarse cloth was woven for local use to the cottages of the English Midlands where production was geared on the demand of foreign markets. Few other industries could compete with construction and textiles in terms either of their contribution to the national product or in terms of geographical diffusion. No doubt leather-making was widely practised in an age in which leather found an incredible variety of uses not only in footwear and garments, but also in the making of harness, bellows, containers, chests, and furniture, but it certainly could not take precedence over textiles. Neither could the metal trades. The range of metal goods that were produced at the time as well as the demand for them continued to be, by our standards, very limited. Nails, pins, needles, chains, wire, locks, cutlery, and tools of all kinds were indeed common items in the shops and households of Europe around 1700 much as they had been two or three centuries before; their production, as will be seen, was a major source of livelihood in certain areas, and we may well agree with that sixteenth-century writer who claimed that Tor the everyday necessities of life (. . .) iron is as essential as bread.' 2 For all that, it must be borne in mind that the demand for iron goods was kept low by the absence of elaborate machinery in the production process as well as by the fact that in such machinery as was used at the time, more parts were made of wood than of iron and steel; and * G. Botero, The Reason of State (1589) ed. D. P. Waley (London 1956), p. 152.

[7]

II European Industries 1500-ijoo

the same remark applies, of course, to ships, carriages, and farming implements. The primacy of construction and textiles and the limited scope of iron metallurgy were not the only features which the industrial sector had inherited from the Middle Ages. Possibly the clearest element of continuity between the medieval and the early modern economies (as well as the sharpest elements of contrast with the world we live in) is afforded by the smallness of the industrial vis a vis the primary sector of the economy. That the majority of the European people were engaged in agriculture even in the most advanced and economically sophisticated nations is a fact too well-known to require much elaboration. What needs emphasis, if our survey of the industrial sector is to be set in proper perspective, is rather the fact that in 1700 Europe was not only a predominantly agrarian world, but also one in which stark poverty continued to be the lot of the greater part of its people. Although overall conditions may have been somewhat better in the days of John Locke than in the days of Machiavelli, the fact remains that at the close of the seventeenth century a good half of the population of Europe lived close to what, in normal times, must have been a physiological minimum. Gregory King was able to express this grim fact in quantitative terms when he showed that roughly half the population of England fell under the poverty line; 3 shortly after, Vauban, the disgruntled minister of Louis XIV, drew an even darker picture for France as he reckoned that five-ninths of its people lived in utter destitution;4 even Holland at the zenith of its commercial prosperity was reportedly swarming with beggars and vagrants;5 and what modern research has been able to find about the average workman's earnings and diet fully supports the sombre conclusions drawn by eyewitnesses. 3

Cf. D. C. Coleman, 'Labour in the English Economy during the Seventeenth Century', Economic History Review (1956). 4 Vauban, Projet d'une Dime royale (1707) ed. E. Coornaert, pp. 6-7.

9

C. R. Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, 1600-1800 (New York 1965),

pp. 54 ff.

[8]

II Introduction

The roots of such widespread poverty need not detain us here: it will suffice to say that in the past the low level of technology forced most human effort to be expended on the production of basic foodstuffs, while the rudimentary state of transportation in general and of overland transportation in particular severely restricted the scope of trade and specialisation. The consequences of poverty, on the other hand, are of special interest in the present context as they help us preserve a sense of proportion in our discussion of the industrial sector in early modern times. Low income levels plus the fact that the peasant family often produced itself such simple textiles and crude implements as it needed, placed severe limitations on the size of the market for manufactured goods; at the same time a still backward technology obviously meant small markets for producer goods. Much as in previous centuries widespread poverty, of course, stood in sharp contrast with the wealth and affluence of a restricted minority — the kings and rulers and their courts, but also the noblemen, churchmen, officials, and financiers who clustered around the seats of power or held sway in the provinces. While the destitution of the many severely restricted the scope of industries producing common, inexpensive consumer goods, the wealth of the few — whether Spanish grandees or English peers, Roman prelates or Dutch regents — presented unique opportunities to a variety of luxury manufactures. Although it is difficult to subscribe to Sombart's view on the decisive role played by luxury in the rise of the modern economy, there is no denying that conspicuous consumption at the hands of a wealthy minority caused a remarkable amount of resources and skills to be channelled into the making of non-essential goods. Every student of urban history is familiar with the long lists of craft guilds in which city authorities and local chroniclers seem to have taken so much pride, and he is duly impressed by the number and diversity of highly specialised trades (jewellers, embroiderers, leather-gilders, lace-makers, tassel-makers, woodcarvers, and what not) which are found even in towns of modest size in the late [9]

II European Industries 1500-1 joo

medieval and early modern periods. Their existence and number is proof that, in spite of the moralist's tireless reprimands and the lawmaker's barrage of sumptuary laws, the demand for luxuries continued to be a major force behind a good deal of industrial activity. The connection between lavish spending at the hands of the rich and the prosperity of the artisans was, of course, clearly perceived by political writers and publicists long before The Fable of the Bees went to press. And it appeared rather obvious even to casual observers such as the Duke of Rohan who, after commenting on the Italian aristocracy's astonishing taste for luxury and display, went on to state that: 'this has caused the artisans to devote so much care to good workmanship that they have achieved excellence each in his own trade (...) with the result that anyone who wishes to secure exquisitely wrought arms, fabrics, harness, all sorts of embroidery, and, in short, all the fine things a man may wish, must seek them in that country.'6 Similar remarks could have been made in medieval times. Then as later, a large portion of manufactured goods was intended for the insatiable appetite of a narrow, but rich clientele. Limited markets, a technology still heavily dependent on the artisan's know how and manual dexterity, the puny size of enterprise, the predominance of construction and textiles in the industrial spectrum, all this suggests that the secondary sector, in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe, still bore the marks of an earlier age. And yet, for all such continuity, things were far from static between 1500 and 1700: new markets were found for manufactured goods; industrial output became more diversified and sophisticated as a result of both changing consumer tastes and improved technology; a few new industries developed vigorously thus broadening the range of choices open to consumers; lastly, the geographical distribution, if not the basic structure, of 6

Rohan's quotation in A. Frumento, Imprese lombarde nella storia della metallurgia italiana (Milan 1958), vol. II, p. 86.

[10]

II The Demand for Industrial Goods

industry was deeply altered. It is to this changing scene that we must now turn. The first section of this chapter will be mainly devoted to a discussion of the changes that occurred in the size and nature of the market for industrial goods; the second will deal with the production; the third with the changing geography of European industry. i. T H E DEMAND F O R I N D U S T R I A L G O O D S [A] OVERSEAS EXPANSION

The most dramatic event in the economic history of early modern Europe was no doubt the discovery and colonisation of the New World. And yet, while its impact on trade, shipping, and the stock of precious metals has received extensive treatment at the hands of a host of historians, its significance for Europe's industries has been comparatively neglected. We know a great deal more, in fact, about what the Old World received from the New than about what the former sent to the latter; we have more accurate information about the dyes, the sugar, and the bullion that poured in increasing and truly astonishing amounts into Seville, Lisbon, Antwerp, and Amsterdam than about the cargoes that sailed out of those ports bound for the West Indies, the Spanish Main, and Brazil. Our lopsided knowledge reflects in part the nature of the available information. Unlike later colonialists and empire builders, the explorers, conquerors, and statesmen of the Renaissance looked on the New World primarily as a source of exotic commodities and of bullion rather than as potential markets for their countries' manufactures, and this may explain why better records were kept of incoming than of outgoing shipments. The historians' concern with the Price Revolution and the rise of modern capitalism, moreover, has resulted in one particular branch of the new colonial trades, namely that involving precious metals, being thoroughly investigated, while other trade currents have been largely ignored. [n]

II European Industries 1500-ijoo Such neglect is serious indeed, for all the silver and gold, dyestuffs and sugar that reached Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries did not represent unilateral flows, but were largely matched by exports from Europe in the form of either commodities or shipping and commercial services. In point of fact, the importance of the American colonies as outlets for European goods did not escape contemporaries altogether, although the main emphasis lay on what Europe received from, rather than on what it sent to, the New World. In the I54o's, for example, considerable concern was voiced in Castile over the export trade to the Indies: internal prices, it was claimed, were rising dangerously and the blame was often laid at the door of the great Sevillian merchants who purchased vast quantities of foodstuffs and manufactures for shipment overseas; and requests were set forth that such shipments be curbed — a revealing, if perverted, recognition of the impact of colonial demand on the metropolitan economy and its strained resources. Some fifty years later the opportunities which the New World seemed to offer to the merchants of the Old were extolled in a more optimistic vein by the anonymous English compiler of a Direction for divers trades. In his view, Tor the trade of the West Indews belonginge to Spaine all these wares following ar very good: oyles ar very well sold (. . .), lookinge glasses of chrystall and others; knyfes of all sortes very well sold; taylors sheres and sissars for barbors; linne clothe of divers sort; ( . . . ) some quantities of wyne, but it must be singular good; also pines, pointes, and such other like small wares . . .' 7 The enumeration is interesting and indicative of the variety of manufactured goods that could find a market overseas. Nor was the export of commodities from Europe a mere trickle at the time the anonymous Direction was written. Working on some detailed trade statistics for the early 7 R. H. Tawney and E. Power eds., Tudor Economic Documents (London 1924), vol. Ill, p. 206.

[12]

II The Demand for Industrial Goods

1570's (at a time, that is, when the torrent of American bullion was nearing the high levels it was to maintain for the next fifty years), Dr. Jose Gen til DaSilva8 has been able to show that about half that bullion was spent in Seville on the purchase of return cargoes, while the remaining half went to pay for shipping and commercial services or was absorbed by taxes and profits. The return cargoes themselves included Andalusian wines and oils as well as a nondescript assortment of manufactured goods made in Spain or abroad. We are, unfortunately, in the dark as to the exact amounts and the kind of manufactures involved, but it is safe to say that American bullion, while it may not have been, any more than Calvinism, the parent of modern capitalism, did act as a powerful stimulant on Europe's industrial production. It certainly stimulated Spanish industries, at least in the first half of the sixteenth century, when the making of woollen cloth in Segovia and Valladolid, of silks in Valencia, of metal goods and ocean-going vessels in the Bilbao area all enjoyed a long spell of prosperity and expansion that largely reflected a brisk and expanding colonial demand. After mid-century, as the volume of American trade climbed to new heights, the pull of overseas demand apparently outstripped Spain's industrial capacity and new sources of supply had to be tapped abroad, eventually leaving for Spain herself little more than the role of a funnel through which manufactured goods produced beyond her border found their way to their final destination in the Caribbean, in Mexico, and in the highlands of New Granada. 'The Spaniards, whose living wholly depends on France, being compelled by inexorable circumstances to secure from us grain, linens, cloth, woad, paper, books, even carpentry and, in short, all manufactures, sail to the end of the world to fetch for us gold, silver, and spices.'9 So wrote Jean Bodin in 1568 as he probed the effects of 8

9

J . Gentil DaSilva, En Espagne: developpement economique, subsistance,

declin (Paris-The Hague 1965), p. 65. Quoted in R. Carande, Carlos Vy sus banqueros (Madrid 1965), p. 167.

[13]

II European Industries 1500-ijoo

American treasure on the European, and particularly the French, economy. His recognition of the importance of the American market for French industries was echoed, at the opening of the seventeenth century, by the Rouen city council as it asserted that 'linen fabrics are the true gold and silver mines of this realm (France) because they are shipped to the lands from which gold and silver are brought to us.'10 This was no mere rhetoric, for we know that linen fabrics, either as sail canvas or as clothing, formed one of the major articles demanded in the colonies and that Normandy itself was at the time and long remained one of the chief suppliers of linen. Flanders was another, at least until the outbreak of the Revolt against its Spanish rulers: as Etienne Sabbe has brought out, the remarkable surge of linen output in the Low Countries during much of the sixteenth century can be largely ascribed to the opening up of the new American markets, while the temporary slump in the last quarter of the century reflected the breakdown of normal trade connections with Spain. It was then that Normandy and Brittany managed to engross much of that tempting trade, only to be forced to yield to Flanders once again in the first half of the seventeenth century when Flemish linen enjoyed a privileged position in the Spanish empire. After the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, Flemish textiles lost in the face of foreign competition as several countries were allowed to trade in the Spanish colonies; Dutch and Silesian linens made substantial inroads, but in the 1680's, when annual shipments of French linen reached a summit of 75,000 pieces, Bodin's homeland was once again in the lead. At any rate, whether made in France, Flanders, Holland, or Silesia, linen loomed large in the American-bound trade. It also found a not negligible, if much smaller, outlet in West Africa where it was used alongside silks, firearms, and trinkets to secure slaves for the sugar plantations of Brazil and the West Indies. We know, for instance, that linen was shipped from Normandy to Africa in the late sixteenth century11 and that in the late seventeenth century the Royal 10 11

H. Lapeyre, Unefamille de marchands: Us Ruiz (Paris 1955), p. 502. Ibid., p. 523.

h4l

II The Demand for Industrial Goods

African Company traded large shipments of Dutch-made linen sheets on the Guinea Coast.12 In the tropical and subtropical regions of the New World the demand for linen far outdistanced that of other textiles, but in the uplands and mountains of the interior a respectable market was found for woollen cloth and the opportunity was seized upon, at first, by the Castilian clothmakers and, later on, by such great and thriving centres of the wool industry as Hondschoote, Lille, and Amiens. A close study of the output curves of the Lille cloth industry has, in fact, revealed a significant correlation with the ups and downs of the Spanish American trade; the impressive rise of the industry in Hondschoote between 1530 and 1570 has been ascribed in good part to growing exports to the New World; and so has been the growth in output which the Amiens manufacture experienced in the second half of the sixteenth century. For all their importance in the new ocean trades, linen and cloth did not exhaust the colonists' shopping list. A large assortment of other manufactured goods were, in fact, shipped to America and to West Africa — from luxuries to firearms, from small hardware to paper and books. In the absence of precise statistical information we cannot, of course, try to estimate the magnitude of those exports. Something, however, can be said about the chief commodities involved and their place of origin, for we know, for instance, that iron bars, nails, knives, and tools of all sorts made in Barcelona, in the Forez, in Liege and Dordrecht were shipped from Seville to the colonies in quantities large enough to have left a trace in historical records. It is also known that small firearms and gunpowder manufactured in Spain, the Low Countries, and Germany were important articles in the African slave trade alongside more peaceful goods such as Venetian glass beads and French silks. By the late seventeenth century, moreover, New Spain and its dependencies are known to have developed a strong appetite for such luxuries and comforts as English and Italian stockings, French hats, and, above all, silk fabrics, 12

K. G. Davies, The Royal African Company (London 1957), p. 172.

[15]

II European Industries 1500-1J06

ribbons, and lace. In the days of Colbert, French silkmakers sold some 2 million livres worth of silks to Spain and nine-tenths of that hefty figure were ultimately intended for the overseas market. Even then, however, French officials and merchants had to acknowledge the fact that they had secured but a fraction of a handsome market on which their Italian, and notably Genoese, rivals were still leading.13 The Spanish colonies saw the French and the Genoese pitted against each other in the paper trade as well. Hundreds and even thousands of reams of paper were normal items in the cargoes that sailed from Seville and Cadiz in the seventeenth century, and so were large consignments of legal and devotional books. Much of that reading material came from the printing presses of Lyons and Paris, one of their specialities being precisely the production of books intended for the Spanish metropolitan and colonial markets. Paper, on the other hand, came from both France and Italy: up to the middle of the seventeenth century, France had been the chief supplier of paper to the Spanish colonies; in the later part of the century and well into the next, however, the Genoese succeeded in capturing most of that trade and reportedly each year 200,000 reams of paper produced in some fifty papermills strung along the Riviera were shipped to Spain and her overseas possessions.14 [B] POPULATION AND URBANISATION

If the stimulus imparted by the opening up of new markets in America is clearly discernible, albeit not measurable, it is much more difficult to tell whether in Europe itself the size of the market for industrial goods was substantially affected, in the two centuries under discussion, as a result of changes in either the size of population or income levels. Regarding the former, it is possible to say, in spite of considerable uncertainties, that from the late fifteenth century and for the next 150 years Europe was the stage of an im13 14

A. Girard, Le commerce francais a Seville et Cadix au temps des Habsbourgs (Paris-Bordeaux 1932), pp. 375, 379. Ibid., p. 384.

[16]

II The Demand for Industrial Goods

pressive demographic upswing at the end of which a number of countries had scored gains of the order of 50 per cent. It is also known that in the period from about 1620 to 1660 severe losses were registered in the Italian peninsula, in Spain, and in Central Europe, while in the north and west the earlier rapid rate of increase gave way to stagnation or, at best, slowed down markedly. Ultimately, however, it would seem that in 1700 Europe had a population larger than in 1500, although probably somewhat below the high mark which had been reached at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Given this overall increase and the sharp contrast between a dynamic sixteenth century and a sluggish seventeenth century, one would be inclined to assume, on the basis of the historical experience of the last 150 years, that industrial production surged vigorously during the great demographic upswing of the sixteenth century only to stagnate at a comfortably high level in the following century. Such simple correlation between demography and economic growth, however, is probably misleading when applied to the early modern period. As P. Bairoch has convincingly argued,15 before the Industrial Revolution, increasing numbers, far from being translated into larger effective demand for industrial goods, were likely to leave things basically unchanged. Much depended, of course, on whether food supplies kept pace with population: should they lag behind, living standards would deteriorate and, on the average, a smaller proportion of per capita income would be spent on commodities other than basic foodstuffs. Such apparently was the case in sixteenth-century Europe. What research has been done on real wages in that period points to their erosion in much of Europe as food prices rose faster than money wage-rates, with but a few fortunate areas escaping the inexorable effects of population pressure on an inelastic food supply. In the second half of the seventeenth century, on the other hand, the situation was reversed as food prices tended to fall while wage-rates held their own or failed to drop to quite the same extent. In 15

P. Bairoch, Revolution industrielle et sous-developpment (Paris 1964), ch. 2.

[17]

II European Industries 1500-1 joo

summary, one is led to believe that the potential effect of rising numbers on the size of the market for manufactured goods was cancelled or, at best, dampened until about 1650 by lower per capita incomes, while the latter's improvement after mid-century may have been offset in part by sagging population figures. What is true of aggregate demand need not, however, apply to the demand for specific goods, for while rising food prices forced consumers to reduce expenditures on non-farm goods, they also brought larger earnings to food producers — the landowners, the tenants, and the farmers with a surplus to sell. In other words, the scissors movements of food prices and wages effected a redistribution of income among different social groups and this may well have caused shifts in the demand for individual commodities. If changes in the sheer size of European population are not likely to have profoundly affected aggregate demand, changes in the distribution of population between country and town certainly did. That a redistribution of considerable magnitude did occur is beyond doubt: around 1500 only four cities in western Europe had over 100,000 inhabitants and none reached the 200,000 mark; by 1700 as many as twelve cities had crossed the 100,000 threshold and four of them had a population of over 2oo,ooo.16 Even granting that by the latter date the total population of western Europe was larger than it had been two centuries before, it is clear that it had not grown to quite the same extent as its urban segment. We can safely assume, in other words, that in the course of two centuries a significant townward drift had occurred as immigrants from the countryside and smaller towns had come to live in the larger cities. The transfer of substantial numbers from their traditional residence to such sprawling capitals as Naples, Rome, Paris, Madrid, or London obviously called for heavy investments in housing and in public facilities, whether city walls or churches, new town-halls or hospitals or bridges. No doubt, part of the increase in numbers was absorbed by packing 1G

R. Mols, Introduction a la demographie historique des villes d*Europe du XlVe au XVIIIe sikle (Louvain 1955), vol. II, p. 47.

[18]

II The Demand for Industrial Goods

more people in existing dwellings rather than by the addition of new ones. But, even by the very tolerant standards of the time, there were limits to overcrowding. In his study of sixteenth-century Rome, J. Delumeau17 has called attention both to a rising density in the old popular districts of the papal city and to the appearance of whole new blocks of low-cost houses designed after a common pattern and intended to accommodate part at least of a population that doubled in size in the course of the century. The 'explosion' experienced by Madrid after it became the permanent residence of the royal government around the middle of the sixteenth century resulted, too, in appalling conditions of congestion, but also in a great deal of new constructions however hastily and cheaply put together; the city's central area 'was divided and subdivided ad infinitum into smaller and smaller plots' to make room for new dwellings; the total area covered by the city expanded fourfold between 1500 and 1700 while its population rose from 10,000 to 150,000.18 In the heart of seventeenth-century London many great houses which had formerly served as aristocratic residences were minutely subdivided into small, separate dwellings and turned into unhealthy tenements; at the same time whole new districts were built to the north and west of the old urban core.19 In Renaissance and Baroque Europe urban construction was further stimulated by forces other than mere increase in size. On the one hand, the architect and the mason were called upon to satisfy the new grandiose taste for display and ostentation that obsessed popes, monarchs, noblemen, and nouveaux riches at the time; on the other hand, governments and municipal authorities began to develop a keen interest in the layout of their towns as well as in the quality and structural features of new constructions: wider streets and spacious squares were carved out of the congeries of 17

J . Delumeau, Vie economique et sociale de Rome dans la seconde moitie du

XVIe siecle (Paris 1957), vol. I, pp. 280-286. E. A. Dutkind, International History of City Development, vol. I l l : Urban Development in southern Europe (New York 1967), p . 404. 19 H . C. Darby ed., An Historical Geography of England before 1800 (Cambridge 1961), p. 528. 18

[19]

II European Industries 1500-1700

medieval houses, while timber and thatch were often discarded in favour of more durable building materials such as stone, brick, and tiles. This fresh interest in urbanism, it must be pointed out, reflected only in part a better and keener appreciation for symmetry, perspective, and beauty; it was also prompted by two practical problems that came to confront the European town in the early modern period. One problem arose from the changing methods of warfare, and notably from the improvement in the efficiency of artillery: not only did this make the old medieval walls obsolete and call for stronger and far more elaborate defensive structures; the increased vulnerability of towns to enemy shelling during a siege also encouraged the substitution of brick or stone for the old building materials. Another problem was posed by urban traffic: the very growth in size obviously resulted in greater congestion at the centre of towns; from the late sixteenth century, however, the problem of urban traffic was compounded by the appearance and the rapid diffusion of the great coaches and sumptuous carriages as indispensable status symbols among the well-todo. In spite of repeated attempts to curb what legislators considered an objectionable and wasteful trend, wheeled traffic became a serious problem for municipal authorities and city planners; and when we read that in a city of 120,000, such as Milan was in the late seventeenth century, something like 1,400 coaches jammed its narrow streets, we find it easier to understand why contemporaries became so much interested in redrawing the map of their cities.20 Rome certainly set a record of architectural splendour, urban planning, and fabulous spending with 54 churches (and St. Peter's among them), some 60 sumptuous palaces, 20 stately villas, 3 aqueducts, and 35 public fountains either built or totally renovated and enlarged in the course of the sixteenth century. Alongside the construction activity generated by the addition of 50,000 new residents and by the opening of 30 new streets that cut across the tangle of tightly packed medieval houses, this astonishing 20

G. Gualdo Priorato, Relatione della Cittd e Stato di Milano (Milan 1675), p. 131.

[20]

II The Demand for Industrial Goods

building programme imparted a peculiar character to the economy of the papal city as construction came to represent by far its largest single industry in terms of the size of the labour force employed.21 Elsewhere the new taste for urban magnificence and geometric order was no doubt on a smaller scale, but still impressive enough. Naples, Palermo, and Genoa were caught, in the sixteenth century, in a 'frenzy of demolition and reconstruction' as new port facilities were developed and palaces and churches came to line the spacious thoroughfares newly opened across the welter of their old, dilapidated urban centres. Venice, of course, owes much of its present charm to the builders and patrons of the Renaissance and Baroque periods and its two northern rivals, Antwerp and Amsterdam, still bear, both in their layout and in their architecture, the mark placed on them by the city planners and the private architect in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries respectively. In Paris such wellknown sights as the Place des Vosges and the Tuileries bear witness to the taste and ambitions of the first Bourbon king, while in Germany a host of princely capitals were either rebuilt or thoroughly redrawn and embellished after the destruction wrought by the Thirty Years' War. From the towns the search for architectural splendour spilled over into the countryside. Palladio's villas in Venetia were the harbingers of a new fashion that was to sweep Europe in the first centuries of the modern age as monarchs, noblemen, and wealthy upstarts developed the habit of spending part of the year in a country mansion built to exude prestige, grandeur, and impeccable taste. At the hands of kings and statesmen the new fashion could attain astonishing proportions. The Spanish Habsburgs spent on an heroic scale on their numerous residences outside Madrid — El Pardo, Aranjuez, El Escorial — while at least one of their favourites, the Duke of Lerma, vied with his royal masters in lavishness and magnificence when he had a whole town designed and built around his country residence as a tangible symbol of his power and influence. On the opposite side of the Pyrenees their French rivals, 81 Delumeau, op. cit., pp. 359 ff. [21]

II European Industries 1500-1700

whether Valois or Bourbons, left an equally impressive architectural legacy and in the late seventeenth century one of them was to overshadow every other ruler in Europe with that unique monument of human vanity that was Versailles. Unlike art historians and modern tourists, economic historians have seldom been kind to the rulers, churchmen, and tycoons of the past who invested enormous fortunes in palaces, country mansions, and churches; they have, in fact, repeatedly accused them of squandering vast resources instead of channelling them into productive investments. That sweeping indictment, of course, rests on the implicit assumption that had it not been for their prodigality the factors of production that were in fact buried in the great architectural achievements of the Renaissance and the Baroque would have found their way into other and more useful undertakings; and, if this was the case, it follows that economic growth was retarded or impeded by what looks very much like a flagrant misallocation of resources. But was this, in fact, always the case? It all depended, of course, on whether or not at a given time and in a given area the economy was operating at or near full-employment levels; for if it was not, then even the building of useless mansions and sumptuous palaces could, as Lord Keynes argued long ago, contribute to the general welfare by activating factors that would otherwise have remained idle thereby generating new rounds of income. Much detailed research will have to be done before final judgment can be passed on the economic impact of the huge investments that were locked up in brick, stone, and mortar by the extravagant ruling classes of early modern Europe. The final verdict need not always be unfavourable. It will probably be so in the case, for example, of a Philip II who spent on a stupendous scale on his Escorial residence at a time when the resources of Castile were notoriously strained to the point of disaster. In other cases, however, the verdict may well turn out to be different. In his discussion of 'conspicuous expenditure3 by the English aristocracy in the late sixteenth century, Lawrence Stone has [22]

II The Demand for Industrial Goods

spoken of its 'critical importance in galvanising into activity the sluggish Tudor economy'22: in view of what is known about the slow-down of economic activity in that period his remark does not seem unwarranted. Much the same could probably be said of Germany after the Thirty Years' War, when its numerous princes embarked on great works of urban reconstruction and renewal: in times of prolonged depression lavish spending on construction could no doubt act as a powerful stimulant of income and employment. The more so on account of the strong linkages the building industry had with a wide penumbra of related trades and crafts. The point was made, with understandable enthusiasm, by Nicholas Barbon, a London contractor and land speculator who had waxed rich in the wake of the Great Fire of 1666, when he wrote: 'Building is the chiefest promoter of trade. It employs a greater number of trades and people than feeding and clothing: the artificers that belong to building, such as bricklayers, carpenters, plasterers, etc. employ many hands; those that make the materials for building, such as bricks, lime, tile, etc. employ more; and with those that furnish the houses, such as upholsterers, pewterers, etc. they are almost innumerable.'23 Urbanisation did more than just promote construction. As an increasing, if still modest, proportion of the population of western Europe came to live in large towns and thus ceased to be engaged in the growing of foodstuffs, agriculture was called upon to step up its production of a surplus for the market; in the process, the area of commercial farming was broadened at the expense of subsistence farming and food producers, whether great landowners, tenants, or (more rarely) small freeholders, received income that could be spent on manufactured goods. What dimensions the process actually reached it is impossible to say. The widening of the area of commercial farming generated by 22 23

L . S t o n e , The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1585-1641 (Oxford 1965), p . 5 8 5 . Q u o t e d i n W . L e t w i n , The Origins of Scientific Economics ( N e w Y o r k 1965), p. 64.

[23]

II European Industries 1500-1700

urban growth has been traced in detail in the case of London's agricultural hinterland in a well-known article by F. J. Fisher several years ago; 24 and something has been written on the stimulus imparted in the course of the sixteenth century, by the growth of Seville and of Venice on their respective countrysides.25 What these and similar developments meant in terms of the demand for industrial goods has not, however, been adequately investigated as yet. In but one case, and a rather spectacular one at that, is the creation of a whole new market for industrial goods clearly traceable to the spread of commercial agriculture. This is the case of Poland. It is well-known that in the course of the sixteenth century that country was drawn into the mainstream of international trade as it became a major source of food supplies to the urban masses of western Europe. As early as the 1530's a Flemish envoy in Danzig noticed the changing pattern of the Polish economy. c

In the past — he reported — the great landowners did not know what to do with their grain and left their lands uncropped (. . .) In the last twenty-five years, however, they have found it possible to ship their grain to Danzig down the rivers and to sell it in the said town. Accordingly the kingdom of Poland and the great lords have grown very rich.'26 The new trend gained momentum decade after decade and by the early seventeenth century, when as many as 70,000 tons of rye left Danzig each year westbound, Polish grain exports were nearly ten times as large as they had been at the close of the fifteenth century; and increasingly that swelling flow was reinforced by exports of raw materials 24

25

26

F. J. Fisher, 'The Development of the London Food Market, 15401 6 4 0 ' , Econ. Hist. Rev. ( 1 9 3 5 ) . Cf. R . P i k e , 'Seville i n t h e S i x t e e n t h C e n t u r y ' , Hispanic American Historical Review ( 1 9 6 1 ) , p . 2 2 ; a n d D . B e l t r a m i , Saggio di storia delVagricoltura nella Repubblica di Venezia ( V e n i c e - R o m e 1 9 5 5 ) , p p . 30 ff. Quoted in P. Dollinger, La Hanse: Xlle-XVIIe siecles (Paris 1964), p. 520.

[24]

II The Demand for Industrial Goods

such as timber, tar, potash, and flax.27 In the process, Poland became an ever more attractive outlet for western commodities: Biscayan salt, French wines, Dutch cured fish, English and Dutch woollens. Before the sixteenth century was over some 30,000 'cloths',* mainly from England, entered the Baltic each year; by 1630, at the zenith of the Polish grain trade, England and Holland together sent there twice that amount.28 The opening up and the rapid expansion of the Baltic trade, involving as it did bulky cargoes, must also be accounted as a major stimulant of one of the few 'heavy industries' of the early modern period, namely shipbuilding. The number of ships clearing the Sound rose from about 1,000 at the beginning of the sixteenth century to nearly six times as many in the early seventeenth century. Although inaccurate registration, changes in the average size of ships over time, and considerable uncertainty as to the number of voyages the average freighter could effect in a year require caution in the interpretation of these figures, there can be little doubt that the Baltic trade played a decisive role in the growth of the shipbuilding industry in general, and particularly of that of Holland, the country which by 1600 controlled three-quarters of the carrying trade in that area. The colonial trades, too, added considerably to the world's demand for tonnage, the crucial factors being here both the mileage to be covered and the relatively high rate of replacement caused by frequent shipwrecks as well as by losses inflicted by privateers and pirates. For all that, the demand for tonnage in the colonial trades fell far short of demand in the Baltic: in the late seventeenth century the Dutch merchant marine, by then unquestionably the largest in the world, employed less than one tenth of its 560,000 27

M. Malowist, 'The Economic and Social Development of the Baltic Countries from the 15th to the 17th Century', Econ. Hist. Rev. (1959), p. 184. * A unit of measurement probably equivalent to 24 yards. 28 R. W . K. Hinton, The Eastland Trade and the Common Weal in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge 1959), p p . 226-230.

[25]

II European Industries 1500-ijoo

tons in the American trade as against 200,000 in the Baltic.29 [C] LUXURY, COMFORT, AND LEISURE

The new taste for luxury and ostentation which, as will be recalled, found expression in the construction of stately palaces and handsome country houses, affected the whole style of life of the European upper class. It was reflected in the use, referred to above, of sumptuous coaches, but also in the growing refinement of interior decoration with its profusion of silk hangings, tapestries, and carpets, its increasingly elaborate and ornate furniture, the substitution of silver plate and ceramics for pewter and common earthenware on the table of the rich. Their wardrobe, too, came to reflect a change in taste: the extravagant display of silks, lace, ribbons, and embroidery in seventeenth-century paintings stands in sharp contrast with the more austere dress of an earlier age. Stimulated by a swelling stream of conspicuous spending, luxury industries prospered throughout Europe. The making of silk fabrics, once chiefly confined to a few Italian towns, spread to other countries — Germany, Holland, England, and, above all, France. By the late seventeenth century, 8,000 looms were reportedly at work in Lyons alone and by then French silk fabrics and fashions were eagerly sought and imitated abroad. The making of finely painted, glazed pottery, had, by that time, reached unprecedented standards of workmanship in Delft, while in Augsburg and Nuremberg the trades of the gold- and the silver-smith had risen to new prominence after the eclipse caused by three decades of war. Early in the century the tapestry industry had brought new blood to the Antwerp of the Archdukes; in Venice the making of finely-carved and inlaid furniture added fresh strength to a declining economy. Most of the luxury productions which in those days 29

J. H. Parry, 'Transport and Trade Routes', in Cambridge Economic History of Europe, vol. IV (Cambridge 1967), pp. 171, 206.

[26]

II The Demand for Industrial Goods

formed the pride of individual towns throughout Europe and specimens of which are today the cherished possession of museums and art collections were, of course, intended for the restricted minority which commanded a disproportionate share of the existing wealth. Some luxuries and comforts, however, did come within the reach of a larger clientele especially during the seventeenth century. At this point one could recall the substitution of glass for waxed canvas or paper on the windows of private homes, better heating such as the large tiled stove, the use of bed and table linen, or even the renting of coaches and carriages by people of modest means who occasionally wanted to enjoy the prestige and the comfort of wheeled transportation. But possibly the strongest evidence of changing and more exacting consumption standards among the 'middle class' is provided by the history of clothing. Two developments are clearly discernible here. On the one hand, in spite of a flood of sumptuary laws aimed at restricting the more costly fabrics to the top echelons of society, silk garments did find their way into the wardrobes of 'ordinary people' whose immoderate spending habits and 'excessive luxury5 moralists and political writers denounced with admirable perseverance.30 On the other hand, in country after country, an equally deplorable trend was noticed: consumers tended to shun traditional woollen fabrics that were well-known for their fine quality and durability, and increasingly turned to more attractive, although flimsier, ones simply because the latter came in a variety of ever changing patterns and colours; the demon of fashion allegedly lured people away from judicious spending and made them reckless and vain. The spreading use of silks and the tendency to follow the capricious turns and twists of fashion by renovating one's wardrobe more frequently would seem to indicate that, even among the middling group of European consumers, incomes were perceptibly rising. It is also possible, however, 30

Cf., for example, L. Zuccolo, La Repubblica di Evandria ed. R. De Mattei (Rome 1944), pp. 37, 51; A. de Montchretien, Traicte de Veconomie politique ed. T. Funk-Brentano (Paris 1889), P- 72> a ^ so Early English Tracts on Commerce ed. McGulloch, pp. 421-422.

[27]

II European Industries 1500—1700

that the satisfaction of the new frivolous taste for display and ostentation was made easier by reductions in the relative price of textiles or by a wider range of fabrics so priced as to suit a broader spectrum of consumers. On these points our knowledge is admittedly still very limited. In the case of silk, some broad developments referred to elsewhere in this chapter should be borne in mind: the industry's diffusion in Europe; the increasing differentiation of local products; the adoption of improved equipment such as the silk-mill, the draw loom, and the ribbon frame. These developments all point to a growing aggregate output, to efforts to cut production costs, and to a widening range of products; the implication seems to be that at least some silk goods became accessible even to consumers who had to reconcile their vanity and social ambitions with the constraints of a modest budget. In the case of woollen textiles the role played by an expanding and cheaper supply in creating its own market is more easily discernible. The chief development here was the emergence and the remarkable success of a whole, proliferating family of worsted fabrics (bayes, sayes, perpetuanas, etamines, etc.), commonly known in the Walloon country as nouvelle draperie and as 'new draperies' in Britain. This new branch of the textile industry had its birthplace in the southern Low Countries in the late fifteenth century and its early progress occurred there: by the 1550's Lille, and, to an even greater extent, Hondschoote had acquired a towering position as centres of the nouvelle draperie; at that time Hondschoote reached its zenith with an output of nearly 100,000 pieces a year, most of them for export to other European countries as well as to the new, promising markets of the New World. The trials and tribulations which beset the Low Countries in the later part of the century played havoc on the Flemish worsted manufacture, but the remarkably successful example set by Hondschoote and Lille proved contagious and imitators were soon to emerge in various parts of Europe — in Liege and Amiens, in the Leyden area, in Wiirttemberg and East Anglia — wherever the Flemish artisans found refuge from persecu[28]

II The Demand for Industrial Goods

tion, oppression, and hardships. When normalcy was restored to their homeland under the rule of the Archdukes, many of them, or rather their children, did return and in the early decades of the seventeenth century once again the worsted industry loomed large in the economy of the Spanish Low Countries. The earlier summits, however, were not to be reached again: in 1630, with an annual output of about 60,000 pieces, Hondschoote was still unquestionably an impressive textile centre, but by then it had to share an expanding market with a number of powerful competitors: Calw in Wurttemberg had already outdistanced Hondschoote, while England and Holland were rapidly catching up with, and were soon to leave behind, their Flemish masters. By mid-century the aggregate output of new draperies in Europe was certainly several times as large as it had been a century before. The success of the worsted industry rested both on the wide variety of fabrics it produced and on their comparatively low price. As such, worsteds competed with and partly displaced the traditional textiles made of carded wool which had long satisfied the less frivolous tastes of earlier generations. True enough, the new fabrics were flimsier and less durable than the old, heavy woollens which had been the pride of Florence, York, Arras, and Valenciennes in late medieval times: tradition-minded authorities and guild officials, obsessed with the decline or the stagnation of the 'old draperies', were tireless in pointing out that the new substitutes, for all their 'outward appearances and attractive prices', ultimately were a fraud wrought on consumers. The latter, however, must have felt otherwise, for they went on buying more and more worsteds; clearly, as E. B. Supple has suggested,31 short-term obsolescence presented no problem to consumers who were anxious to keep up with rapidly changing fashions —- the more so as the relatively low price of the 'new draperies' made replacement easier in one's wardrobe. The range of goods available to consumers of even 31

B . E. Supple, Commercial Crisis and Change in England,

(Cambridge 1959), p. 154.

1600-1642

[29]

II European Industries 1500-1700

moderate income was further widened, in the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, by the development of two industries of recent vintage which succeeded in expanding their sales thanks to lower prices: one such industry was printing, the other was clockmaking. Both were rooted in the late medieval period, but both came of age and prospered in the first two centuries of the modern period; both started on a diminutive scale as the work of a restricted elite of highly skilled craftsmen and artists, but both by 1700 had spread far and wide and were in a position to offer large quantities of standardised goods to a substantial consumer market. The story of printing from movable types is too wellknown to require retelling here. It will suffice to say that from its modest beginnings in the Rhineland around the middle of the fifteenth century, the book industry made rapid headway in the first century of its existence and became firmly established not only in Germany but also in Italy and France; over the next century and a half the map of Europe became covered with printing presses, large and small, long-lived and ephemeral, while a position of clear supremacy was gradually achieved by the Low Countries, with France, Italy and, later, England, trailing not far behind. The geographical distribution and the multiplication of printing shops is, of course, easier to trace than the progress of aggregate output. It may be useful, however, to recall that in the second half of the fifteenth century an estimated 35,000 editions (or something like 15 million books) were produced in 236 localities scattered throughout Europe, while in the course of the following century Paris and Lyons alone had a combined output of some 40,000 editions — and, of course, the two French cities were by no means the largest printing centres in sixteenth-century Europe, but were certainly outranked, for instance, by Antwerp and possibly by Venice. Progress continued in the seventeenth century when the older centres of the industry were overtaken by new ones, and notably by Amsterdam, Leyden, and London. It is instructive at this point to notice that the catalogues of the largest European book fair, that of [30]

II The Demand for Industrial Goods

Frankfurt, totalled nearly 20,000 entries in the second half of the sixteenth century and twice as many in the second half of the seventeenth century. In view of this remarkable record, it is clear that the printing industry could count from the start on a buoyant and indeed expanding demand for its products. Admittedly, neither the sixteenth nor the seventeenth century witnessed a dramatic change in the literacy rate, but some progress certainly did take place even among artisans and small tradesmen. More importantly, among the well-to-do and the educated minority reading habits and the appetite for books spread as a result of a renewed interest in religion, the law, and secular culture. The Reformation, the Counterreformation, and the great religious debates that stirred the Protestant and Catholic camps alike in the seventeenth century unquestionably acted as powerful stimulants of the book trade: before the end of the fifteenth century, 99 editions of the Imitation of Christ had left the presses; during Luther's lifetime, 430 editions of his translation of the Bible or parts of it appeared in print; the great Antwerp printer Plantin, while he is chiefly remembered today for his fine editions of the classics, made in fact most of his profits and indeed supported his thriving business by producing tens of thousands of missals, breviaries, and devotional books;32 ironically enough, in Protestant Amsterdam John Blaeu, in the late seventeenth century, was able to defray the cost of his magnificent world atlas by printing under assumed names vast numbers of missals and other religious works intended for the German Catholic reading public.33 If, however, religious literature continued to represent a major segment of the printer's output and Bibles, prayerbooks and doctrinal works were long at the top of the bestseller lists, secular works steadily gained ground as time went by. The works of the humanists and the editions of classical authors, however important for the history of 32

33

R. M. Kingdon, 'Patronage, Piety, and Printing in Sixteenth-century Europe', in A Festschriftfor Frederick B. Artz (Durham 1964), pp. 19-36. W . G . Hellinga, Copy and Print in the Netherlands ( A m s t e r d a m 1962), P- 37-

[31]

II European Industries ijoo-iyoo

European culture, never had more than a restricted audience, and Erasmus was certainly an exception among the scholars of his time in that he could impose his own terms on publishers who were only too anxious to have his immensely popular works in their list of titles.34 Unlike most classical and literary books, on the other hand, legal treatises and compendia became quite popular in an age of increasing litigation when even the old feudal nobility ceased to regard horsemanship, military training, and physical exploits as the chief ingredients in a gentleman's education and began to send their sons to law school. The new interest in the law was paralleled, moreover, by a taste for secular subjects in general — political treatises and tracts, scientific works, plays, essays, and that new child of the Baroque age, the periodical press. The printing industry, for its part, effectively contributed to making more books available and accessible to its public by paring costs, expanding output, and improving marketing practices and methods. In the first century of its history printing had mainly been the business of adventurous pioneers who often spent their lives moving from town to town in search of a generous patron or a promising local clientele. Such men combined the roles of typefounders, printer, publisher, and bookseller; after the midsixteenth century, however, the small itinerant printer was gradually superseded by larger established firms and the various functions in the book trade tended to become highly differentiated. Type-founding, for instance, evolved into a separate trade, individual printers hiring the services of a type-founder whenever a new set of type was needed; subsequently, the cutting and casting of type came to be handled by specialised firms and by the late seventeenth century an estimated fifty firms controlled the business in the whole of Europe and supplied thousands of printing shops with movable type. This trend towards specialisation and concentration, resulting as it did in more durable types, greater uniformity, and greater simplicity in the 34

S. H. Steinberg, Five Hundred Tears of Printing (rev. ed., Penguin Books 1966), p. 142.

[32]

II The Demand for Industrial Goods

design of typographical signs, must have led to substantial reductions in costs. Specialisation affected other phases of the printing industry as well: increasingly the owner of a printing shop confined himself to management and proof-reading while entrusting to educated and highly trained employees the actual composition of the page; the operation of the press itself was left to workers who were often illiterate but whose astonishing manual dexterity and physical endurance could turn out as many as 3,000 printed pages in one day. The benefits of an increasing divison of labour extended to the marketing process, too. Here two developments are discernible : one is the emergence of the large bookseller who acted as entrepreneur securing author's manuscripts, contracting work with the printers, and attending to the diffusion and sale of books; the other development is the establishment of the great book fairs where printed materials from all over Europe were made available to an international clientele. Thanks to the invention of printing from movable types, reading materials ceased to be a luxury and the exclusive possession of a few churchmen and scholars. By the seventeenth century, if not earlier, the printed book had become a fairly common item in the homes of at least such people as enjoyed a measure of economic well-being and the privilege of at least some years of formal schooling. By that time, moreover, their homes were as likely as not to include, alongside a small assortment of books, a new and much admired gadget, namely the clock. Mechanical time pieces had, of course, a long history behind them. Clocks based on the verge escapement, an oscillator activated by weights, go back to the thirteenth century; in the next two centuries they were produced in a wide variety of shapes and designs and with mechanisms of increasing complexity that could show not only the hours of the day, but also the passing of months and seasons as well as the movements of planets and stars. Those admirable clocks, however, were large in size and expensive to build and maintain; as such, only prosperous cities and [33]

II European Industries 1500-1700

wealthy churches could afford them. Only with the advent of some important technical innovations did time pieces come within the reach of private individuals. The first major breakthrough occurred in the fifteenth century: the invention of the coil spring as motive power, in fact, made possible the manufacture of portable clocks; and in course of time improvements in design and workmanship further helped reduce their size. Mechanical clocks thus ceased to be exclusively huge public facilities and could find their place in private households. Around 1650, moreover, the invention of the pendulum as time-setter, by greatly adding to the precision and dependability of clocks, made them even more attractive to people. It is hard, for lack of precise evidence, to follow the progress of clock-making in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. That the industry made great strides in that period is, however, beyond doubt and is attested by the sheer diffusion of the industry throughout Europe — from Augsburg and Nuremberg to Paris and Geneva, from London to the villages of the Black Forest — and by what is known about the size of its output in some centres of clockmaking. By 1680, for instance, Geneva alone reportedly produced 5,000 pieces a year, while its great rival, London, probably had already topped that figure. The growth of the industry is further illustrated by the changes that occurred over the years in its organisation and structure. While the great medieval public clocks had been the work of individual craftsmen who were responsible for every stage of production from the making of parts to their assemblage, the domestic clocks of the seventeenth century drew upon the skills of several groups of specialised workers, each of them attending to a specific task such as the making of wheels or coils, the assemblage of the mechanism, or the manufacture and decoration of dials and encasements. The process of differentiation of skills and functions in the clockmaking industry closely resembles, of course, a trend of affairs which is discernible in the printing industry as well and it reflects here, too, the growing size of the market. And so does the emergence, in the seventeenth century, of

[34]

II The Demand for Industrial Goods

the clock merchant who placed orders for parts or for complete clocks with a host of specialised artisans, advanced funds to them, and took care of marketing the finished product. [D] WARFARE

Our survey of the forces and stimuli impinging on the industrial sector in the early modern period would be seriously incomplete without a discussion of warfare, for in an age that witnessed the creation of vast overseas empires and the ensuing struggle for seapower, the division of Europe into hostile religious camps vying for supremacy, and the longdrawn conflicts between the great absolute monarchies, a rising and unprecedented amount of resources was channelled into military use. Whether this was done entirely or primarily at the expense of civilian consumption; whether, in other words, the war effort shouldered by individual nations at one time or another was wholly matched by a proportional curtailment of production in the industries that catered for civilian uses rather than by mobilising otherwise unused factors is, of course, impossible to tell with any degree of accuracy, given the present state of knowledge. What can be said with considerable confidence however, is, first, that between 1500 and 1700 the scale of warfare as measured by the sheer size of armies and navies increased very substantially and, secondly, that warfare gained in complexity to an even greater extent with the result that the amount of resources embodied in armaments, equipment, and fortifications rose at a faster pace than did the size of armed forces. The first point is firmly, if not precisely, established.35 The size of armies exhibited a crescendo from the days of Louis XII when the French crown could muster 30 to 40,000 soldiers to the days of Louis XIV when the French army numbered nearly 300,000 men. Nor was this trend confined to one country only: in the 1560's the Duke of 35 Gf. G. Clark, The Seventeenth Century (2nd ed., New York 1961), pp. 98-100.

[35]

II European Industries 1500-iyoo

Alva could still hope to subdue the Low Countries with 1 o,ooo men; forty years later Ambrogio Spinola, the Spanish commander in Flanders, failed to accomplish the task with five times as many. In the Thirty Years' War, armies 50,000 strong wrere fielded and Wallenstein at one point reportedly set a record with 100,000 soldiers under his command; the English Civil War may have seen as many as 150,000 men under arms on the two sides together, a far cry from earlier times. Much the same holds true of naval forces. In 1588, England mustered nearly 16,000 men against Spanish naval forces; some eighty years later, when she was locked in combat with Holland, twice as many men were serving at sea. At the time Richelieu took power, France had no navy worthy of that name; within a decade the Cardinal had built up its strength to 21 galleys in the Mediterranean and 35 ships of the line in the Atlantic seaports; and Colbert, on his part, was to raise the number of ships of the line to over one hundred.36 By 1700 armies and navies were not only larger than before ; they also used a far more elaborate and costly equipment. At the opening of the modern period land warfare basically rested on the infantry formation armed with the long pike and drilled in the Swiss order; armour clad cavalry was at the time on its way out as a key instrument of warfare, while firearms (both heavy ordnance and small handguns) were still playing a secondary supporting role on the field of battle. At sea hand-to-hand fighting was still considered normal and gunfire, if used at all, was directed not so much at sinking enemy ships as rather at inflicting losses on enemy crews prior to boarding. Before the end of the sixteenth century, however, large numbers of infantrymen were equipped with light firearms, the pikemen's main role being now that of providing protection to the arquebusiers and musketeers during reloading; as for naval warfare, drastic changes were introduced after Lepanto (1570), the last great battle to be fought according to traditional methods: henceforward the core of naval forces would consist of large 36

C. W. Cole, Colbert and a Century of French Mercantilism (2nd ed., London 1964), vol. I, p. 194.

[36]

II The Demand for Industrial Goods

sailing ships bristling with long-range cannon and artillery duels, rather than man-to-man melees, would provide the main decisive act in the cruel drama of battles at sea.37 The armament race gained momentum in the seventeenth century. At sea the trend was towards increasing the size of navies, differentiating the warship from the merchantman, increasing the tonnage and the armament of individual vessels. On land three main developments must be recalled besides the increasing use of light firearms at the hands of infantry: first, a revived role for cavalry as the latter was equipped with pistols and carbines; secondly, the appearance of lighter, highly manoeuvrable field artillery; and thirdly, in response to quantitative and qualitative improvements in gunfire, an entirely new conception in the layout of fortifications as these came to be based on an interlacing system of polygonal defences calculated to provide maximum concentration of crossfire and maximum protection against enemy shelling.38 The above developments were made possible by scientific and technological progress in a variety of fields. The new system of fortifications owed much to advances in mathematics and geometry; the widespread use of artillery was facilitated by the substitution of iron for bronze in the casting of ordnance, a substitution which to some extent sacrificed quality and performance to lower costs and largescale production; the adoption of firearms by cavalry, on its part, was made possible by significant improvements in the making of thin-walled gun barrels as well as by the invention of self-igniting mechanisms, such as the snap-lock and the flint-lock, that replaced the less practical matchlock previously used in hand-guns. The combined effects of large-scale warfare and of a more sophisticated military technology on European industries are, of course, hard to gauge with any degree of precision. 37

On the evolution of naval warfare in the late sixteenth century see M. A. Lewis, The Spanish Armada (London i960), ch. 5, 'The Changing Face of War at Sea.' 38 A. R. Hall, 'Military Technology', in A History of Technology ed. G. Singer and others, vol. I l l (Oxford 1957), p. 371.

[37]

II European Industries 1500-ijoo

There is little doubt, however, that in the age of Stevin and Vauban, of Tilly and Louvois enormous sums were spent on the construction of impregnable defence works, on the creation by the state of naval yards, arsenals, and gun foundries, and on the purchase of ships, military hardware, and ammunition from private manufacturers. Predictably enough, war contractors and arms manufacturers built vast fortunes for themselves and in many cases their names have survived in the annals of history as early examples of entrepreneurial talent and success in business — from John Browne, the gunfounder of the early seventeenth century whose reputation was as great in his English homeland as it was abroad, to the famous dynasties of the De Geer, the Tripp, and the De Beche who controlled the booming Dutch and Swedish arms industries during much of the seventeenth century, to the Klett family of Thuringia who rose to prominence as war contractors during the Thirty Years' War, and to Daliez de La Tour, the purveyor of ordnance on whom Colbert relied to refurbish the French army and navy. We also know that some districts in Europe came to harbour an unusual concentration of arms and munition industries and became heavily dependent on the growing needs of war-like rulers for their economic prosperity. Such was, for example, the Bishopric of Liege, famous since the early sixteenth century for its small firearms, gunshot, cannon balls, and gunpowder and a major source of supply to the Spanish monarchy from the days of Charles V to the days of Charles II. The Brescia province in Venetian territory had an equal reputation for its carbines and muskets and although its craftsmen are chiefly remembered today for their superb, custom-made sporting pieces, down to the end of the seventeenth century their main business and source of livelihood consisted in the production of large quantities of common service firearms or unmounted barrels that were shipped by the thousands to the armouries of Spain, Bavaria, and the several Italian states. In France, Saint-Etienne, Sedan, and the Forez district were important centres of the armament industry, and so were, in Germany, Augsburg and Nuremberg in the six-

[38]

II The Demand for Industrial Goods

teenth century and Suhl (Thuringia), Solingen, and Essen in the seventeenth. The making of bronze cannon had its earlier and most renowned centres in the Low Countries (Namur and Malmes), in southern Germany (Augsburg and Nuremberg), and in Italy (Venice, Brescia, and Milan) during the sixteenth century. In the 1540's, however, the casting of iron ordnance made a promising start in the Weald of Sussex and before the close of the century English iron cannon was much in demand at home and abroad on account of its attractive price; in spite of repeated export restrictions, it had found a market on the Continent, particularly in the United Provinces, but occasionally even in Spain. The seventeenth century saw a marked slowdown in the production of English cannon as the industry was increasingly faced with a fuel shortage as well as with stiff foreign competition; eventually England herself became a net importer of cannon. Among her numerous rivals, one must recall the Dutch towns of Utrecht and Amsterdam, Marsberg and Asslar in Westphalia, and the French provinces of Perigord and Angoumois. All of these centres of gun making, however, were soon to be outdistanced by the rapid progress achieved by Sweden. Wrought and cast iron cannon had been produced in Sweden since the I53o's, but for a long time the scale of production had remained trivial, locally made cannon being chiefly intended for the still limited needs of the Swedish crown. Early in the seventeenth century, however, Dutch gun makers and arms merchants brought improved casting techniques as well as their superior organisational and financial power to bear upon Sweden's vast, but still largely untapped, iron and timber resources. The fruits of foreign entrepreneurship and technology were not late in coming: annual exports of cast-iron cannon from Sweden rose from a paltry 20 metric tons in the 1620's to nearly 1,000 tons in the 1640's and to twice that amount in the 1660's.

[39]

II

2. E X P A N D I N G O U T P U T When the growth of cities, the opening up of new markets overseas, the increasing diversification and sophistication of production are taken into account, it is hard, even in the absence of aggregate output data, to escape the conclusion that the period from 1500 to 1700 was one of industrial expansion and advance for Europe as a whole. This broad conclusion admittedly runs counter to the view now held by a number of historians which portrays those two centuries as comprising a long upswing from 1500 through the second quarter of the seventeenth century and a subsequent period of depression and contraction that lasted until the early decades of the next century. During the period of 'general crisis', it has been argued, not only did aggregate output of goods and services fall dramatically, but a widespread process of involution set in in which older and backward forms of economic and social organisation were revived and came to exert a stifling influence on the European economy thus, in fact, retarding by a century or so the advent of a genuinely modern, industrial economy such as the buoyant, dynamic sixteenth century had seemed to herald.39 Without embarking upon a detailed discussion of the 'general crisis' thesis, it must be said that, while there exists a good deal of solid evidence that would seem to support it, other facts can and should be recited which simply do not fit the sombre image of a great downturn and a prolonged debacle. True enough, one major branch of the wool industry — the making of carded fabrics — suffered severe setbacks at the time; but, as will be recalled, the making of worsteds and of linen fared quite differently. No doubt the Spanish-American trade did contract sharply after about 1620, but the Brazilian and West Indies sugar trade went on expanding. In the Baltic trade a contraction is clearly 39

Cf. E. J. Hobsbawn, 'The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century', Past and Present, nos. 5 and 6 (1954). For a recent critique of the 'general crisis' thesis cf. A. D. Lublinskaya, French Absolutism: the Crucial Phase,

1620-1629 (Engl. transl., Cambridge 1968), ch. I.

[40]

II Expanding Output

discernible in the second half of the century, but it reflected mainly a reduction of grain exports to the West: export of industrial raw materials, on the other hand, tended to rise.40 In various parts of Europe, and notably in England and Germany, iron mining and metallurgy probably contracted in the course of the century, but in Sweden the opposite was true. And while Italian silk-makers encountered increasing difficulties and even suffered heavy losses, their younger French rivals made steady headway. The enumeration could be prolonged on both sides of the balance sheet, but enough has been said to suggest that the seventeenth century was not so much a time of 'general crisis' as rather one of profound changes in the composition of Europe's economic spectrum and of dramatic shifts in the geographical distribution of economic activity. We shall come back to the question of geographical shifts at a later point in this chapter. What must be done now is to consider the overall record of Europe's industrial progress from a new angle, namely that of the supply of factors. For if a measure of industrial progress was indeed achieved during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in response to new demands and new opportunities, it was obviously because no insuperable obstacle or bottleneck, in terms of either natural resources, manpower, technology, or capital, stood in the way. [A] NATURAL RESOURCES

So far as natural resources were concerned, the most common way to meet the growing needs of industry was, of course, that of tapping previously unused sources of supply. Examples of this are as numerous as they are well-known. In the case of industrial crops, for instance, one could recall the spread of the cultivation of flax and hemp in the Low Countries, Poland, and Silesia, of the mulberry tree from Sicily and Calabria to the Lombard plain and, at a later 40

P. Jeannin, 'Les comptes du Sund comme source pour la construction d'indices generaux de Pactivite economique en Europe', Revue historique (1964), pp. 336-337.

[41]

II European Industries ijoo-iyoo

date, to southern France, of woad in Languedoc and Piedmont and of indigo in the New World. In the case of hides and leather there are reasons for believing that their supply in western Europe seriously lagged behind demand especially in the sixteenth century when population pressure caused arable farming increasingly to encroach upon pastureland; the shortage, however, was relieved in part by enormous shipments of hides from Spanish America and from eastern Europe. Fresh sources of supply were also tapped to meet the rising demand for mineral resources. The opening of new silver mines in Saxony and Tyrol in the early sixteenth century is a case in point, and so is the extraordinary surge of silver output in the New World. But more significant, if less spectacular, were the efforts undertaken to step up the production of other, and humbler, minerals. Such efforts are discernible in iron mining: in all of the districts where iron had traditionally been practised — the Alps, the Basque provinces, the Rhineland, the Low Countries, England — the sixteenth century witnessed an expansion of output in response to the growing demand for tools, small hardware, and weapons; in the following century, as further expansion was checked as a result either of diminishing returns in the operation of mines or of a shortage of fuel for the processing of the ore near the mining pits, new iron fields were sought and exploited. Examples could be quoted for the Alps as well as for Ireland, but the most remarkable case is beyond question that of Sweden where iron production, on the upgrade since the early sixteenth century, attained impressive results in the course of the seventeenth: in the 1620's exports of iron from Sweden amounted to about 6,600 tons per annum; at midcentury over 17,000 tons were exported; in the I6G,O'S, with an estimated annual output of some 33,000 tons, Sweden was probably the largest producer of iron in Europe. 41 Sweden also made a major contribution to industrial growth as a supplier of copper, a metal increasingly de41

B. Boethius, 'Swedish Iron and Steel, 1600-1955', Scandinavian Econ. Hist. Review (1958), pp. 149-151.

[42]

II Expanding Output

manded for both monetary and industrial uses: the output of Swedish copper kept rising at least until mid-seventeenth century when nearly 3,000 tons were annually shipped abroad. While new supply sources of iron and copper were being tapped to offset shortages in the older mining districts and to feed the buoyant metal trades of western Europe, a similar development was under way in the case of alum, a basic ingredient in the dyeing industry and one which in medieval times had been mainly secured from the Levant. From 1462 and through the next hundred years a new and plentiful source of supply was represented by the alum works of Tolfa in the Papal States: for nearly a century the great textile centres of Italy, Flanders, and England came to depend on Tolfa for their needs. At the same time efforts were being made to find alternative sources of supply: both in the Low Countries and in England the processing of native alumstones was undertaken before the close of the sixteenth century; by the middle of the next century the new alumworks of Yorkshire and Durham, with an estimated output of 1,000 tons per year, were not only in a position to meet domestic needs, but successfully competed with their Italian rivals on third markets. In the case of no other raw material were the pressure of demand and the need for fresh sources of supply so strongly felt as in the case of timber. This is understandable in view of the indispensable role played by timber and its byproducts in practically every industry of the time: construction and shipbuilding were obviously among the chief consumers of forest resources, but it must be borne in mind that wood entered to a greater extent than iron or steel in the making of tools and mechanical devices, whether ploughs or cranes, watermills or carriages, looms or tilt hammers; and, of course, charcoal or firewood remained throughout this period the most common source of thermic energy in furnaces, forges, kilns, and domestic hearths, while wood ashes were a basic ingredient in the making of soap and glassware. Not surprisingly, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with the manifold and rising de-

[43]

II European Industries 1500-ijoo

mands placed on Europe's woodlands by a growing population and an expanding industrial sector, witnessed local scarcities of a very serious nature, the more easily so as the high cost of transportation of timber and firewood relative to their value placed severe limitations on the actual use of potential forest resources, unless they be located near the seashore or in the proximity of navigable rivers. A shortage of timber was certainly felt before the close of the sixteenth century in much of southern Europe: it was a major concern of Venetian shipbuilders and acted as a powerful brake on their activity before the century was over; in the same period shipbuilding in the Bay of Biscay, after several decades of expansion generated by the opening of the Atlantic sea routes, ran into a similar bottleneck; before the end of Philip II's reign, the supply of firewood and charcoal was reportedly running short in much of Castile as well as in north Italy. The problem, however, was not unknown north of the Alps and the Pyrenees. By the late seventeenth century, for example, deforestation had become a major concern in Dauphine and the blame for it was squarely placed on the local forge masters whose insatiable appetite for charcoal allegedly drove up prices and led to reckless felling. In the Liege district, too, iron metallurgy had resulted in extensive deforestation by the opening of the seventeenth century, while in early Stuart England urban construction, the growth of the iron and shipbuilding industries, and the expansion of sheep raising combined to eat deeply into the country's timber resources and to bring about a 'national crisis' of alarming proportions.42 The response to the timber shortage basically took two forms: either new and more distant sources of supply were tapped or, but less frequently, substitutes were adopted. The Baltic countries with their seemingly inexhaustible forest resources represented, of course, the largest and most promising source of timber supply from the late sixteenth century onwards: not only was the largest merchant marine 42

Cf. P. Leon, La naissance de la grande Industrie en DauphinS (Paris 1953), vol. I, p . 19, and G. Wilson, England's Apprenticeship, 1603-1763

(Oxford 1965), p. 80.

[44]

II Expanding Output

of the time, that of Holland, totally dependent on Polish and Scandinavian timber for its growing needs, but most European countries, from England to the Venetian Republic, tried to offset local timber scarcities either by importing planks, masts, and spars from the Baltic43 or by purchasing sea-going vessels from Dutch shipyards. Another source of supply was found in the New World: following the exhaustion of local forest resources in Biscay where most Spanish and Portuguese ships had been built in the early stages of overseas expansion, shipbuilding developed in the West Indies and Brazil and, from the late sixteenth century, American-built vessels came to handle an increasingly large share of the Atlantic trade; 44 in the later part of the seventeenth century, England, on its part, turned to her North American colonies to meet at least part of her needs for timber and naval stores. Substitution of new materials for wood occurred, as will be recalled, in construction with the adoption of brick and stone as building materials. More importantly, in some regions peat and coal tended to replace firewood and charcoal as fuel for domestic and industrial uses, with the notable exception of iron smelting. Early examples of the use of coal in industry are provided by the Liege district in the late sixteenth century or by the Cevennes in the next century,45 but in no other country did the adoption of coal reach the proportions that it did in England. The rise of the coal industry in that country stands as one of the most remarkable developments of the early modern period and has been thoroughly investigated by J. U. Nef. It will be recalled that coal output surged from 200,000 tons at midsixteenth century to 3 million tons in the 1690's and that coal provided a timely substitute for firewood and charcoal in a variety of uses thus averting what could have been a near disaster. 43

44

45

H . W a e t j e n , Die Niederlaender im Mitielmeergebiet zum £eit ihrer hoechsten Machtstellung (Berlin 1900), p . 344. F . M a u r o , Le Portugal et VAtlantique au XVIIe siecle (Paris i 9 6 0 ) , p p . 43-45. E . L e R o y L a d u r i e , Les Pay sans du Languedoc (Paris 1966), vol. I, p . 214.

[45]

II European Industries

1500-1yoo

Tapping previously unused or alternative sources of supply was not the only way to meet the rising demand for resource inputs: in a few cases, improved technology helped alleviate the problem by saving scarce resources. The results were no doubt rather limited in scope, but cannot be ignored altogether. Mining and metallurgy were two fields which benefited from resource-saving techniques. One such technique was the amalgamation process whereby silver was separated from its ore with the use of mercury. Its superiority over the traditional method of cupellation apparently rested on the fact that it saved fuel and ensured a higher yield of pure metal. Probably introduced in the early years of the sixteenth century, it met with remarkable success especially in the Spanish colonies and contributed to the phenomenal increase of silver production there. Another and in the long run more significant case of technological progress was the introduction in the late fifteenth century and the diffusion in the next two centuries of the indirect process of iron smelting; this was made possible by the substitution of the large blast furnace in lieu of older types such as the bloomery and the shaft furnace. As Dr. Schubert has brought out,46 the advantages of the blast furnace were mainly two: fuel inputs per unit of output were considerably smaller; moreover, as inferior ores could now be profitably processed, 'the area of ore resources was widened'. For all this, the blast furnace did not displace more primitive types at once: the heavier investment involved in the construction of a blast furnace and its indispensable complement, the forge, and the larger lumps of working capital required in the indirect process ensured the survival of the older furnaces well into the eighteenth century; moreover, wherever rich ores were available the direct process continued to be quite satisfactory. The point that needs emphasis, however, is that from 1500 onwards the blast furnace did spread from its birthplace in the Low Countries to various parts of Europe — Galicia and Lombardy, Styria and Dauphine, England *6 H. R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry (London 1957), P. 152.

[46]

II Expanding Output

and Sweden — and thus contributed to the slow, but crucial, expansion of iron production. Improvements in the means of transportation also led to a more economic use of resources. The adoption of iron tyres, turning front wheels, and a rudimentary system of suspension in carts and carriages in the course of the seventeenth century may have contributed to faster transportation overland thereby reducing to some extent the need for large stocks of commodities, but the actual economic significance of this development still awaits investigation. We are on better ground when we turn to seaborne transportation. We know, of course, that by the opening of the sixteenth century such revolutionary innovations as the marriage of square and lateen sails in ocean-going vessels, the adoption of the stern rudder, and the design of longer, slimmer hulls had already been introduced and successfully tested; and insofar as those innovations increased speed and manoeuvrability, they obviously made for a better utilisation of cargo space. We also know that, from 1500 to 1700 no comparable breakthrough occurred in the design and rigging of ships. What did take place in those two hundred years, however, was the diffusion of those earlier innovations from their Iberian homeland to other seafaring nations, their adaptation to local conditions and needs, and their steady improvement as suggested by experience. There was, moreover, some progress in hull design and construction methods which made possible the launching of larger and stouter ships: this is revealed by the increase in the size of ships plying the Atlantic routes from 200 to 600 tons in the course of the sixteenth century; and this must have meant greater seaworthiness and better protection against pirate attacks. But possibly the most significant advance in seaborne transportation was represented by the appearance, late in the sixteenth century, of a new freight carrier, the Dutch fluyt or flyboat. Cheaply built, unarmed, shorn of ornaments and heavy suprastructures, equipped with a rather simple sail-plan, the long, flat-bottomed fluyt had the advantage of offering maximum cargo space and of being cheap to operate. The partial loss of speed and the

[47]

II European Industries ijoo-iyoo

absence of armament prevented its use in the long ocean voyages, but in the North and Baltic seas it proved admirably suited to the transport of bulk cargoes such as salt, grain, and timber. The efforts to overcome scarcities of resources whether by widening the supply area, introducing substitutes, or adopting resource saving techniques did more than making expansion of output possible; they also had some important indirect effects which should not be ignored. The tapping of new and more distant supply sources, for instance, brought new areas into the orbit of the market economy; by generating fresh purchasing power in those areas, it certainly led to an extension of the market for manufactured goods. The introduction of substitutes and of more sophisticated technology had, on its part, strong backward linkage effects: in the case of iron metallurgy, the indirect smelting process implied heavy outlays in the construction of the blast furnace and the forge; the amalgamation process was responsible for the rapid development of mercury mining in Spain (Almaden) and Istria; the increasing use of coal in England, requiring as it did seaborne transportation from the coal pits of the North, acted as a powerful stimulus on coastal navigation in Tudor and Stuart times. [B] LABOUR AND TECHNOLOGY

New demands were placed, not only on Europe's resource basis, but on its manpower as well: as traditional industries progressed, however slowly, and new ones were introduced, a larger labour force and a widening spectrum of skills had to be found — unless, of course, some form of inanimate energy or new mechanical devices could be substituted for human efforts and manual dexterity. Before the eighteenth century, examples of labour-saving techniques and devices are notoriously rare. In iron metallurgy, however, there was a definite tendency to adopt more widely such power-driven machines of late medieval vintage as the large bellows, the tilt-hammer, and the stamping mill for crushing the ore before it was fed into the

[ 4 8]

II Expanding Output

furnace. A few innovations also made their appearance, and notably the wire-drawing machine, the rolling mill, and the slitting mill.47 The first was probably invented in Nuremberg before the end of the fifteenth century, but was not widely adopted abroad until the late sixteenth century: it replaced the old, time-consuming, and laborious process of drawing wire by hand; it also made for greater accuracy and more uniform tension, thus improving the quality of wire and its by-products such as nails and needles. The rolling and the slitting mills, on their part, had their birthplace in the Liege area in the early sixteenth century; before the close of the century a number of them was in use outside their native country. The rolling mill was used to turn iron bars into sheets and its superiority over the traditional battery hammer rested on a larger output per hour. In the slitting mill (the fenderie for which the Liege metallurgists were justly admired), the iron sheet passed under a grooved cylinder or roller and was cut into rods of equal thickness. By replacing the slow and strenuous method of cutting rods by hand it reportedly enabled 'two men to do the work of a hundred'. Saving labour became a prime concern in a few other industries as well. Dutch shipyards came to be much admired for their extensive use of mechanical saws and cranes, and also for stockpiling parts that could be easily assembled into cheaply-built freight carriers. Mechanisation made some inroads into the textile sector, too. The ribbon frame, an improved loom which, it was said, raised four-fold the output of the ribbon maker, was slow to gain acceptance (probably in the face of opposition by the guilds), even in Leyden where it originated; by about 1660, however, it had come into use in Lancashire and the Basel area and was a common feature of the peasant household there. The stocking frame, a hand-operated knitting machine of English origin, grew very popular in the Midlands early in the seventeenth century and gave rise to an important hosiery manufacture that was soon to overshadow traditional hand-knitting. In Lombardy an attempt 47

W. Rees, Industry before the Industrial Revolution (Cardiff 1968), p . 610.

[49]

II European Industries 1500-1700

to introduce the stocking frame in the late 1660's miscarried in the face of local opposition,48 but in nearby Venetia it was apparently adopted with little trouble; before the end of the century, stockings were produced in that region in considerable quantities and they were said to be comparable to their English-made counterpart. Venetia and indeed the whole Po valley must be chiefly remembered in the seventeenth century for adopting the power-driven silk mill on a large scale.49 The mill itself was possibly the most admired machine at the time due to its unusually large size and the complexity of its operation which involved hundreds of spindles and spools. Contemporaries variously estimated its output as the equivalent of that of 400 to 4,000 spinners, and those wild estimates tell us more about the way popular imagination was caught by the sight of those 'wondrous engines' than about the mill's actual performance. There is no doubt, however, that the great silk mill (originally built in medieval Bologna, but jealously guarded for over two centuries as the city's treasured secret) was one of the most successful laboursaving devices in pre-industrial Europe. Its diffusion in the Po valley began early in the seventeenth century; by the end of the century there were over one hundred such waterdriven machines in operation in that region with an aggregate output of over one million pounds of high-grade silk thread (organzine) that was largely exported to the nascent silk manufactures of southern Germany, Holland, and England, but above all to the leading centre of the silk industry at the time, namely Lyons. Before the end of the century, however, mechanical silk mills had already made their appearance in the Rhone valley thus heralding their remarkable diffusion outside Italy and throughout Europe in the next century.50 However significant these and a few other labour saving 48

49 50

E. Verga, 'Le leggi suntuarie e la decadenza dell'industria in Milano', Archivio Storico Lombardo ( 1 9 0 0 ) , p . 9 5 . D. Sella, 'Contribute* alia storia delle fonti d'energia', in Studi in onore di A. Fanfani (Milan 1962), vol. V, pp. 621-631. Leon, op. cit., p. 44.

[50]

II Expanding Output

devices may have been to a handful of industries and however much they may have helped relieve local shortages of manpower, the fact remains that in the two centuries we are surveying manufacturing continued to depend, much as it had in the past, primarily on man's efforts and skills. Contemporaries were aware of such dependence: their emphasis on a plentiful labour supply as a prerequisite for industrial expansion and the policies aimed at attracting workers from other countries must be viewed in the light of an economy in which human energy still played a predominant role and human dexterity could seldom be replaced by the machine. Immigration from foreign countries was, of course, the exceptional way to increase the size of the labour force, although in certain cases, as will be seen, it proved essential to industrial progress. As a rule, such additional manpower as a growing industrial sector might require had to come mainly from the primary sector of the economy. As the latter comprised an ample majority of the working population, the needs of industry could be met, it would appear, without any radical redeployment of the labour force. . Moreover, a complete occupational change from the plough to the loom or the anvil was facilitated by the fact that it did not necessarily involve the migration and resettlement of workers from the village to the town: industrial activity was notoriously carried out in both. For all that, severe limitations could stand in the way of an expansion of the industrial labour force: so long as productivity in agriculture was not significantly raised (as apparently it was not, by and large, between 1500 and 1700), a substantial transfer of manpower from agriculture to industry was bound (once redundant farm labour had been mopped up) to undercut the output of primary goods, and notably of foodstuffs, and thus to impair, beyond a certain point, further industrial progress. There are good reasons for believing that, in fact, those limitations were real. No doubt large numbers of rural people, especially from such relatively overpopulated areas as the Alps and the Massif Central, did flock to the towns [51]

II European Industries 1500-1700 and while many found employment as domestic servants, petty retailers, or porters rather than as artisans, others certainly came to man the city workshops, smithies, and building yards. It is equally certain that many more switched from agriculture to industry without leaving their ancestral home, for certain industries required a rural, rather than urban, setting. And yet, it is indicative of the delicate balance that had to be struck in the allocation of manpower between primary and secondary production that often enough, and increasingly so in the seventeenth century, the needs of industry were met not by complete occupational transfers, but rather by utilising in loco and on a part-time basis rural workers who, while still tending their fields and cattle, were willing to work at the spinning wheel, the loom, or the forge in the slack periods of the agricultural cycle. Such was the case of the nailmakers in the Verviers region, of the clockmakers in the Black Forest, of the 'rustic, miserable folks' who lived in the Lombard Alps and earned part of their living spinning and weaving wool for the clothiers of the plain; such was also the case of the peasantry of Flanders, Normandy and Switzerland who made linen in their cottages and fed it to the great bleaching centres of Haarlem, Rouen, and Zurich. In Dauphine, according to a late seventeenth-century report, 'cloth-making is an occupation common among men while the spinning of wool and silk and the sewing of gloves are common among women; this, however, must be understood of the time when farming does not claim their labour.' 51 Similarly, the knitting industry in Yorkshire, cloth-making in the Midlands, iron metallurgy in Normandy and Limburg were chiefly carried out in rural communities in which manufacturing dovetailed with farming and claimed but a portion of the available supply of labour time. The utilisation of rural labour in industry must obviously have involved some disadvantages: the dispersion of production in widely scattered villages and hamlets, their distance from a marketing centre where goods were to be 51 Boulainvilliers, Etat de la France (London 1737), vol. VI, p. 16. [52]

II Expanding Output

brought for sale or shipment, the frequent interruptions caused by the demands of agriculture at peak times. Those disadvantages, however, were presumably more than offset in the eyes of the merchant-manufacturer by some important gains. Contemporary sources variously mention lower taxation, freedom from stifling guild regulations, and, above all, lower wages as the chief advantages offered by the countryside over the city. Lower labour costs were probably the most attractive feature of industries employing rural workers who still retained a foothold in agriculture, and understandably so. For those workers, being only partly dependent on wages for their living, could afford to hire themselves out for less; the time they devoted to manufacturing being, in fact, time during which they would have been virtually idle, the supply price of their labour was bound to be appreciably lower than that of the fully specialised urban craftsman and journeyman. For the economy as a whole, on the other hand, the employment of rural labour was no less vital than for the merchant-manufacturer anxious to pare costs: by tapping the reserve of labour time that existed in the countryside industrial production could be expanded very considerably without undercutting food production. The introduction of a new manufacture as opposed to the expansion of an existing one presented, of course, different problems. In an age in which most work depended on manual dexterity and knowhow rather than on highly sophisticated machinery the recruitment of specialised craftsmen from a more developed area was, as a rule, the first necessary step. Under the circumstances, it is not surprising that in the centuries we are discussing, when all kinds of industrial activity spread into new areas of Europe, migration of skilled personnel was a prominent feature indeed. We know, for instance, that miners and metal-workers from Saxony, Styria, and Tyrol contributed to the rise and development of 'heavy industry5 in France, Italy, and England in the course of the sixteenth century; that Walloon gunfounders and gunsmiths must be largely

[53]

II European Industries i500-1 joo

credited with the creation of the Swedish iron industry, just as others among their fellow-countrymen must be credited with initiating England and the Palatinate to the secrets of the 'new draperies'. The French silk, printing, and glass industries notoriously owed much, during their infancy, to Italian immigrants, while in Geneva clock-making was originally introduced by artisans from Augsburg and Nuremberg. France itself, after being for a century and a half a major recipient of skilled foreign labour, became, in the late seventeenth century at the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, a source of highly trained manpower for other countries, and notably England, to draw upon. This enumeration could be prolonged, but unnecessarily so, to stress the vital role played by migrations in Europe's industrial progress. Of greater interest, however, would be to inquire into the forces and motivations behind the individual craftsman's or groups of craftsmen's decisions to leave their homeland and to resettle in a new and often wholly alien society. Of the two mechanisms that are responsible for migration — the 'push' of a hostile homeland and the 'pull' of a more promising future elsewhere — it is the former that is best known. Much has been written about religious and political persecution as a cause of emigration, and the exodus of religious dissidents from the Spanish Low Countries in the late sixteenth century or that of the Huguenots from France in 1685 are two familiar illustrations of that process. The ravages and hardships wrought by war, too, could result in emigration as they did in Italy when the peninsula became the stage and the victim of the long-drawn Habsburg-Valois struggle for supremacy or in Germany during the Thirty Years' War. On a smaller scale and in a less dramatic way, the 'push' to emigration could be imparted by a growing tax burden or by stringent and basically obnoxious guild regulations, as apparently was the case in a number of Italian towns during the seventeenth century. It is much more difficult to tell what made individual workers decide on a specific destination once they had made up their minds about emigrating. We have all heard of [54]

II Expanding Output

enlightened rulers and ministers enticing artists and craftsmen away from their native land with the promise of high wages, naturalisation privileges, tax exemption, or dowries for their brides and nubile daughters, but those inducements were no doubt exceptional, and had prospective emigrants merely waited for a foreign prince to wave at them the diffusion of industry in early modern Europe would have been a very slow process indeed. Most emigrants certainly found out about a suitable destination through personal contacts and by word of mouth passed along by relatives or friends who had preceded them and were in a position to report that in a given area opportunities did exist for a given type of skill. Merchants must have played an especially useful role in this respect: not only did they travel a great deal, but, more importantly, by bringing to a country manufactured goods produced in another, they created, when successful, a demand for them; and once a sufficiently large demand had been created, it became possible and indeed attractive for artisans to come and set up shop in that area. Thanks to the merchants, in other words, the artisan's work paved the way to the artisan himself. No doubt, this is largely speculative, but it is no mere coincidence, for instance, that long before it harboured refugee silk-makers from Italy and long before it emerged as a major centre of the silk industry, a city like Lyons had served as the headquarters of Italian merchants and as the distributing centre of Italian silk goods in France; nor is it a mere coincidence that Flemish merchants were very active in the Baltic area long before Sweden began to attract forge masters, miners, and gunfounders from the Low Countries. [c] CAPITAL

While the sources from which the industrial sector of early modern Europe drew its raw materials, inanimate energy, and manpower are fairly easy to identify and are often known with a considerable degree of precision, it is much harder to be specific about the sources of industrial capital. Much, of course, is known about the great financiers — the [55]

II European Industries 1500-1700

Fuggers, the Welsers, the Affaitadis, the Ruiz, the Tripps — who built vast fortunes, lent vast sums to impecunious rulers, launched risky commercial ventures, and dominated the money market of Renaissance and Baroque Europe. With some notable exceptions, however, their role in industry was limited: it was mainly confined to providing working capital to certain industries that were heavily oriented towards distant export markets; their main interest was primarily directed at international trade, state finance, and monetary transactions. For their investment needs most industries had thus to turn to sources other than the great banking and financial houses of the time, and more often than not those sources were too small to leave a clear trace in the annals of history. Even in the absence of precise records, however, the historian's task is not entirely hopeless. We may start by noticing that in early modern times by far the largest group of producing units was represented by the countless workshops, urban hovels, or country cottages where the anvils, the looms, the printing presses, or the ribbon frames were operated by a craftsman and a few assistants or relations. The basic feature of those plants was clearly the diminutive size of the physical capital locked up in them: not only was the building itself often used both as home and as workshop and, as such, represented no additional investment, but the tools and simple machines lodged in it did not amount to very much. What their value may have been is not easy to determine, but it is revealing that innumerable small artisans throughout Europe did own the equipment they used. Poor though they unquestionably were, they provided their own fixed capital; obviously they could do so because that capital itself was small enough to be within their reach. A major source of fixed industrial capital was thus represented by the small investments of the artisans themselves. A consequence of the puny size of the initial investment was to make entry to most trades relatively easy. To stay in business, however, was often a far more difficult task for the small independent weaver, printer, or nailmaker. His over[56]

II Expanding Output

head costs might well be negligible, but his own subsistence or his wage bill were not; the purchase of raw materials, moreover, could well be beyond his means. This was especially true of the artisan who happened to work for a distant market or had to use expensive raw materials: in one case his limited cash resources could not be stretched to cover the several months that might elapse before his goods were sold; in the other, he might be in no position to purchase his raw materials in advance. These problems were, of course, of old standing and the medieval period, as is well-known, had developed a variety of practices aimed at bridging the gap between the workshop and the market place; those practices carried over into the early modern period and remained normal until the coming of the large factory. Basically, a middleman or merchant commanding both liquid assets and commercial connections relieved the small producer of the burden of a slow turnover or of heavy outlays on raw material purchases; this he could do either by putting out the raw material to the artisan, by paying him wages, or by contracting to buy his goods as soon as they were manufactured. What particular arrangement was in fact resorted to depended on a number of circumstances. In the linen industry, for instance, where rural artisans generally used flax grown on their own or their fellow villagers' premises, the merchant's chief function was to buy the linen as soon as it was brought to him by peasant producers, thus ensuring the latter a prompt return for their efforts and financing, in fact, the manufacturing process to the extent of reducing the cost represented by a slow turnover. On the other hand, in industries that used imported or expensive fibres, such as fine wool, silk, or cotton, the merchant provided the raw material, handed it over to the weavers with specific instructions as to the type of fabric he expected them to make, and paid them wages. In a similar way, the small, scattered producers of common hardware, while owning their shops and tools, had to depend on a middleman to the extent that either the acquisition of raw materials or the final disposition of their produce involved roundabout,

[57]

II European Industries 1500-ijoo

time-consuming transactions. In Normandy, as Jean Vidalenc has brought out in his detailed study of the metal trades in that region, the typical producer was the independent rural craftsman: as long as he confined himself to fashioning inferior local iron into cheap needles, pins, knives, and locks intended for the local market, he remained wholly his own master and was financially autonomous; in the seventeenth century, however, as the industry found new outlets in France itself, in Spain, and in the New World, and as iron increasingly had to be secured from the Rhineland, Burgundy, and Sweden to supplement an inadequate local supply, the small masters came to depend upon the wealthy negotiants for raw materials, wages, and the marketing of their hardware. Similar examples, could be recited for the nail industry in the Vesdre region, the Auvergne cutlery trades centred around Thiers, or the making of light firearms in the Brescia province. In all such cases industrial production fed on two distinct sources of capital: the artisan's tools and equipment and the merchant's cash. With a few notable exceptions much the same holds true of the printing industry. Here again was a field of activity where entry was relatively easy for a man who had expertise and ambition: all he needed to get started in business was a couple of rooms, a press, and a good stock of types; the amazing proliferation of tiny, one-press shops manned by a master and two or three assistants throughout Europe from the late fifteenth century onwards is enough evidence of the modest needs for plant and equipment in that industry. To operate an independent book-printing business, however, was a far more arduous game, for the printing of a normal edition (600 to 800 copies) represented a very substantial outlay on paper alone (in fact, one several times the cost of the fixed equipment itself); moreover, the disposal of a newly printed work, given the wide geographical dispersion of its potential readers and the difficulties of transportation, was likely to be a slow process. Under the circumstances, the launching of a book was often beyond the financial ability of a small printer or might wreck him long before he [58]

II Expanding Output

had recovered his investment; outside capital was, in most cases, an absolute necessity. A few fortunate printers might lean on an enlightened patron willing to finance, even at a loss, the production of certain books; others joined in partnership with men of substance and shared with them profits or losses; many more worked on contract for large booksellers or (more rarely) for a wealthier fellow-printer on much the same terms as weavers and nailmakers did for clothiers and ironmongers. This was by far the most common practice: in the printing industry, it has been said, the large bookseller with wide business connections performed the role of a 'banker'. In a few industries even the provision of fixed capital far exceeded the resources of the average artisan and had to be ensured either by an individual or an institution of unusual financial strength or by the joint effort of several smaller investors. In mining and metallurgy, for example, large landowners continued to play, as they had in medieval times, an important role. In Saxony and Thuringia the manorial lords on whose lands deposits of silver, copper, or lead were found alongside a plentiful supply of timber invested heavily in the exploitation of mineral resources; in Dauphine the extraction and processing of iron ores continued to prosper, in early modern times, on the estates of the monks of the Chartreuse as well as on those of the old landed nobility; but new pits, furnaces, and forges were opened on the land newly acquired by prominent upstarts such as the Barrals who had climbed to the top of the social ladder through a combination of commercial activities, taxfarming, and public office and were anxious to exploit the resources now in their hands.52 In Tudor England, peers and upper gentry were active in promoting mining and metallurgy on their estates and invested heavily in coal pits, mining shafts, furnaces, and forges.53 At times the large doses of capital needed in mining and metallurgy were supplied by the great merchants and financiers whose fortunes had been built up to heroic pro52 53

L e o n , op. cit., p . 5 9 . S t o n e , op. cit., p . 3 3 9 ; also R e e s , op. cit., p . 2 0 4 n .

[59]

II European Industries 1500-iyoo

portions in long distance trade and state finance. Such were the Chigi, the Pallavicino, the Sauli who, at one time or another, secured the lease of what probably was the largest extractive enterprise in early modern Europe, namely the alumworks of Tolfa in the Papal States, with its workforce of some 800 men; 54 such were the Fuggers and the Welsers who leased and operated copper and silver mines in Saxony, Thuringia, and Tyrol and built impressive refineries (Saigerhuetten) for processing the ores. Investment in large mining and metallurgical enterprises by individual landowners and financiers, however, was probably less common than investment by partnerships in which the merchant, the tax collector, the lawyer, and the nobleman pooled their resources in varying proportions while limiting their risks. In Saxony and Bohemia the mining company (Gewerkschaft) derived its life-blood from a wide range of sources — monastic institutions as well as wholesale merchants, titled landlords no less than municipal governments — each holding a number of shares (Kuxen). In England the Company of Mines Royal, created in the 156o's to promote the mining of copper, drew on German models for its organisation. It drew on German capital as well: of its original twenty-four shares, eleven were taken up by the great commercial house of Hang, Langnauer, and Co. of Augsburg, the remaining shares being held by Englishmen, among them Sir William Cecil and Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester. The contemporaneous Mineral and Battery Company which combined mining and heavy metallurgy saw its original thirty-six shares subscribed by successful London merchants and prominent peers.55 A similar pattern obtained in Valsassina, the chief iron mining district in Lombardy: in the seventeenth century the opening and exploitation of new pits was, as a rule, the work of partnerships in which ironmongers and local gentry rubbed shoulders with city patricians and government officials.56 In Liege and in the regions, such as the Rhineland and 54 55

56

Delurneau, Valun de Rome: XVe-XIXe Rees, op. cit, p p . 374, 376.

siecle (Paris 1962), p . 76.

A. Fanfani, 'L'industria mineraria lombarda durante il dominio

[60]

II Expanding Output

Sweden, where the Liegeois were especially active, a few wealthy families (the Curtius, the De Geer, the Mariotte) managed to build huge industrial empires out of the financial resources they had amassed in trade, real estate speculation, war contracts, and earlier industrial enterprises. Those families, however, were exceptional: in most enterprises capital was initially provided by the joint contributions of local brewers and aldermen, churchmen and ironmasters, most of them merely acting as sleeping partners in the company. Mining and heavy metallurgy, with their demand for large investments, were clearly fields in which a great landowner, a financial tycoon, or (more commonly) some form of partnership must play a dominant role. In lighter industries, as indicated before, the normal pattern continued to be that of a host of tiny shops owned and operated by individual artisans; only exceptionally did the size of physical plant attain such proportions as to require a generous dose of outside capital. One such exception was the Plan tin printing house in sixteenth-century Antwerp: with its 24 presses, over a hundred employees, and an international market to serve, it unquestionably towered in a field where the one or two-press workshop long remained the rule. The rise of that early 'book factory5 was basically the work of Christopher Plan tin, an artisan of modest means who for years had earned his way by serving as printer and bookbinder in Rouen, Paris, and Antwerp. His success as the leading printer and publisher in Europe, however, was due to his talents and skill as a printer as much as to his ability to find solid partners among the Antwerp bourgeoisie. The glass industry, to quote but another example, remained largely in the hands of small, independent masters, whether impecunious gentilhommes verriers of Normandy and Lorraine, expert glassblowers of Murano, or crystal-makers in Bohemia. The introduction of a new process for casting and rolling large glass plate in late spagnolo', in his Saggi di storia economica italiana (Milan 1936), pp. 201, 205.

T6i]

II European Industries 1500-1700

seventeenth-century France, however, signalled a sharp departure from the traditional pattern: the Royal Plate Glass Company which first adopted the new technique was almost from the start, with several hundred workers on its payroll and an elaborate costly equipment, a large factory. As such, it owed its existence to a partnership formed by four well-endowed financiers. The industrial partnership, while remaining a sporadic practice in most fields, found nearly universal acceptance in the construction and ownership of merchant ships. Joint ownership of large, ocean-going vessels was, of course, wellknown in the late Middle Ages both in the Hanseatic towns and in the Mediterranean seaports; it had been preferred to ownership in severalty basically as a form of insurance for what then was and would long remain a high-risk investment. After 1500, as the size of freight carriers tended to increase and voyages became longer and more hazardous, the practice of joint ownership spread and, if we are to judge from the development of the English shipping partnership, the trend was towards larger numbers of shares and partners. The decisive role played by the partnership in channelling investments into what was unquestionably one of the fastest growing industries in early modern times seems to be beyond doubt. It was part-owners (parcenevoli) who in the sixteenth century made possible the remarkable transformation of the Venetian merchant fleet from one in which oared galleys predominated to one consisting mainly of round ships entirely dependent on their sails. It was the shipping company (reederij) in which a dozen individuals (merchants, mariners, patricians, and lawyers) pooled their savings that made possible the spectacular, ten-fold growth of the Dutch commercial fleet between 1500 and 1700. On a smaller scale, what is true of Dutch shipping holds of English shipping too: the creation of what by the Restoration was the second largest merchant marine in the world was the work of innumerable shipping partnerships and of a galaxy of small savers. Whether provided by individual craftsmen, merchants, [62]

II Expanding Output

or landowners or through some form of partnership, much new capital thus flowed into industrial undertakings during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Clearly, the expanding market opportunities created by colonisation, urbanisation, and changing patterns of consumption were decisive factors in determining the level and the direction of that flow. Another and no less important factor, however, may have been at work, namely falling interest rates. The evidence for this is still very fragmentary, but it would seem that from the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century onwards, interest rates in western Europe, or at least in its economically most advanced areas, followed a descending trend; by 1700 the cost of loans on good security was probably half of what it had been three hundred years before.57 The whole phenomenon still awaits, and deserves, further study, and so do its possible causes. Some of its implications, however, can be tentatively read into a number of developments discussed in the preceding pages. The widespread, if not generalised, adoption of such roundabout, capital-intensive techniques as the indirect process of iron smelting and the mechanisation of silk-throwing; the search for, and the working of, new and presumably less accessible mineral deposits outside traditional mining areas; the growing output of consumer goods intended for overseas markets and, as such, dependent on lengthening trade channels and on a slower turnover of capital — these and similar developments are consistent with a significant drop in the cost of capital. They suggest that the downward trend of interest rates had, as we would expect it should, the effect of widening the range of opportunities open to industrial enterprise and of enabling it to respond more effectively to the manifold demands of the early modern world. 57

Cf. S. Homer, A History of Interest Rates (New Brunswick, N.J. 1963), part two, for a compendium of the available evidence; C. M. Cipolla, 'Note sulla storia del saggio d'interesse', Economia Internazionale (1952) and H. J. Habakkuk, 'The Long-Term Rate of Interest and the Price of Land in the Seventeenth Century', Econ. Hist. Rev. (1952) are two of the most significant contributions to the subject.

[63]

II

3. T H E C H A N G I N G G E O G R A P H Y OF INDUSTRY One of the most striking developments that occurred in the first two centuries of the modern age was the spread of industrial activity in areas where, before 1500, such activity had been, if not entirely absent, at least negligible and definitely inferior to that of other and more advanced parts of Europe. Around 1500 the latter included, as is wellknown, the southern provinces of the Low Countries, north Italy, and portions of south Germany. In those three main areas manufacturing had attained high levels, in the late Middle Ages, in terms of both the size and the diversity of output: from those 'older industrial countries' came to the rest of Europe the finest cloth, expensive silks and linen, exquisite glassware and ceramics, highly prized incunabula and musical instruments, but also large quantities of fustians, common hardware, arms and armour, leathergoods and writing paper. Admittedly, industry in late medieval times had by no means remained wholly confined to the area roughly comprised between Bruges in the north and Florence in the south: by 1500, for instance, English unfinished cloth already loomed large in international trade; ships built in Zealand and Holland and fish cured and packed in those same provinces were already wellknown outside their homeland; the linen industry of Normandy was by then of old standing and an important complement to the rural economy of the region; in the northwest of Spain, to quote one more example, iron mining and metallurgy also had, by the close of the Middle Ages, a long and distinguished record to show. For all this, there is little doubt that the industrial backbone of Europe ran at the time from Flanders to Tuscany; the concentration of industrial enterprise in that narrow corridor had no parallel elsewhere; the rest of Europe depended on that early 'workshop of the world' for its supply of a host of manufactures, while mainly contributing to it farm goods, raw materials, and unfinished goods. Two hundred years later the old order appeared radically [64]

II The Changing Geography of Industry

altered. By that time, as will be recalled, Sweden had emerged as one of the leading producers of iron. The French economy, while still firmly attached to its traditional rural moorings, had gained very considerably in industrial strength: its silks, by then, held sway in Europe, were wellknown overseas, and successfully competed everywhere with Italian goods; its linens had captured the lion's share of the Spanish-American market previously controlled by Flemish manufacturers; French glassware, and notably large mirrors, was beginning to displace the products of Venice; in papermaking and printing, too, France had made great strides and, in spite of a serious but temporary crisis in the last quarter of the seventeenth century, could rank among the two or three largest producers of paper and books. Lastly, some progress had been registered in the iron industries of Normandy and Dauphine, in the woollen industry of Languedoc, and in shipbuilding in Brittany. Far more remarkable, however, were the gains achieved by the end of the seventeenth century in the northern portion of the Low Countries and in England. In the territory of what in the late sixteenth century had become the Dutch Republic industrial progress was no doubt overshadowed by the astonishing expansion of the tertiary sector. But even in the field of industry the Dutch could be proud of their record. The old shipbuilding industry continued to be, until the close of the seventeenth century, one of the leading industries of the Netherlands: its size and growth are suggested by the ten-fold increase of Dutch tonnage between 1500 and 1700; at the latter date the Dutch merchant marine, with well over half-a-million tons afloat, was three times as large as its English rival and probably larger than all the European fleets combined.58 Dutch shipbuilding was thus geared to the growing needs of the largest commercial fleet in the world, but its prosperity was further enhanced by the fact that most other nations — the Spaniards no less than the English, the French no less than the Italians — were partially dependent on Dutch shipyards for their needs. Naturally enough, the 58

Parry, art. cit., p. 206.

[65]

II European Industries 1500-ijOQ

shipbuilding industry was singled out for praise and admiration by contemporary writers and observers of the Netherlands: the size of the industry had no precedent and, moreover, with its many ramifications (the making of sails and cordage, the timber trade, small metallurgy and the casting of anchors) it reached deep into the economic texture of the country and was obviously a major force making for growth and prosperity. Other industries helped, too. By the mid-seventeenth century, for instance, at a time when the Dutch economy had reached or was near its zenith, the town of Leyden probably ranked as the single largest centre of the wool industry in Europe with an annual output of about 100,000 pieces of cloth. Haarlem, on the other hand, held a commanding position in the linen industry: unfinished linen fabrics from Germany, the Spanish Low Countries, and northern France were brought there to be bleached alongside those made in the town itself or in the surrounding countryside. On a smaller scale, several other industries thrived on Dutch soil: besides such processing industries as sugar refining and distilling in which a nation like Holland, with its world-wide trade connections, enjoyed obvious advantages, there developed a host of manufactures in which the craftsman's expertise was the key to success: silkmaking, ceramics, printing, diamond cutting, precision instruments, the making of maps. In spite of their comparatively recent origin, those manufactures, and notably ceramics and printing, soon acquired an international reputation they were to maintain for a long time. The establishment of a broad spectrum of industrial activities in the Netherlands from the late sixteenth century onwards, had a parallel in England, for here, too, the late sixteenth and, even more so, the seventeenth centuries witnessed the formation of a robust and highly diversified industrial structure. What shipbuilding and the great fisheries had been to the Netherlands in late medieval times clothmaking had been to England: the island's export trade had, in fact, been almost entirely dependent on the shipment of unfinished cloth to the Continent. The surge [66]

II The Changing Geography of Industry

of cloth exports from 50,000 to 150,000 pieces a year in the first half of the sixteenth century, while unquestionably imparting a powerful stimulus to the whole economy, had also emphasised its traditional, narrowly based character and its vulnerability to the vagaries of foreign demand for a single commodity — a fact painfully brought home by the depression of the 1560's and again by that of the 1620's. Both depressions, however, may have served to quicken a slow process of diversification at the end of which England emerged a strong industrial power. Mining and metallurgy have already been referred to as fields where progress was especially noticeable. The rise of coal production from 200,000 to 3 million tons in the course of a century and a half is possibly the most impressive and distinct development of the period we are discussing; not only did it enable England to break a dangerous fuel bottleneck, but it also had powerful linkage effects on the rest of the economy as it induced a roughly proportional increase of tonnage in the coastal trade as well as an expansion in the production of tools and implements as were required in coal mining itself. As regards iron mining and metallurgy, information is far less precise, but it would seem that considerable progress was achieved during the sixteenth and the early seventeenth centuries: at the accession of Charles I, that is to say nearly a century after the introduction of the first blast furnace in England, one hundred such furnaces, with an estimated output of 25,000 tons of pig iron a year, were reported in existence; and in the wake of a growing iron output metal trades had made considerable headway in response to the new demand generated by mining, construction, shipbuilding, and armaments. From the Civil War to the early eighteenth century, when output was down to about 18,000 tons, the English iron industry experienced a long period of difficulties and a partial decline that must be largely ascribed to a shortage of charcoal. Industrial progress, however, continued in other fields. One such field was papermaking where output rose steadily from early Tudor times, although it remained

[67]

II European Industries 1500-1700

chiefly confined to inferior grades. Another was glassmaking: first produced on a substantial scale in the late sixteenth century, English glassware could not compete for a long time with the quality production of continental industries such as those of Italy, Lorraine, and Bohemia; by the early seventeenth century, however, English-made common glassware had captured the domestic market; before the century was over a new English product known as flint-glass had established for itself a solid reputation on foreign markets thanks to its remarkable transparency. Throughout the period we are discussing woollen textiles continued to hold a major place in English manufactures, although their position relative to aggregate industrial output slowly declined as the whole industrial spectrum grew more diversified.59 By 1700, moreover, cloth production was markedly different in quality from what it had been in the past: traditional carded fabrics were now dyed and dressed at home rather than abroad; more importantly, as will be recalled, they had been overshadowed by the 'new draperies', that sprawling and ever changing family of worsted fabrics which appealed so much to large classes of consumers. The industrial awakening experienced by France, the Netherlands, and England since the late sixteenth century had far-reaching consequences for the rest of Europe. The emergence of new, formidable competitors in the north cut deep into existing markets for manufactured goods, confronted long-established industries with unprecedented challenges, and ultimately resulted in the redrawing of the industrial map of Europe. Spain offers a remarkable illustration of the impact of industrialisation abroad: from the late sixteenth century, in fact, her manufactures lost ground on both the domestic and the colonial markets and the country became an important outlet for French, Dutch, and English goods. True enough, industrial production had never loomed very large in the Spanish economy, and long before the onset of its 59

R. Davis, 'English Foreign Trade, 1660-1700', Econ. History Review (1954)-

[68]

II The Changing Geography of Industry

decay, foreign observers — from Francesco Guicciardini to Jean Bodin — had commented on Spain's meagre industrial performance. Nevertheless, in the early decades of the sixteenth century some progress had been achieved: in the northwest iron mining and metallurgy had expanded very considerably, as had shipbuilding, under the powerful stimulus imparted by colonisation in the New World; in the days of Charles V the making of woollen textiles had experienced a promising, if short-lived, growth in Castile and the silk industry had prospered in Valencia and Granada; in Seville new manufactures had been established, such as pottery, soapmaking and armaments. And yet, what the sixteenth century had begun the seventeenth century proved unable to preserve: increasingly, Spain came to depend on foreign sources of supply for her needs; Dutch built ships, English worsteds and metalware, French and Italian silks, gradually replaced domestic productions and were exchanged for such primary commodities as Spain could offer — raw wool, olive oil, and iron. A similar process of de-industrialisation occurred in Poland. As M. Malowist has brought out, in the course of the sixteenth century, at a time that is when Poland's resources and manpower were being harnessed to large-scale cereal farming and the production of timber, naval stores, and flax in response to a buoyant demand in the west, her handicraft industries were forced out of existence by the inflow of Dutch and English manufactured goods.60 Even countries with a glorious industrial past such as Flanders, Germany, and north Italy were bound to suffer severe losses at the hands of their younger rivals and to lose the lead they had traditionally enjoyed in a wide range of activities. One of the fields where losses were highest was no doubt cloth-making: from the late sixteenth century the key centres of the wool industry — Hondschoote, Lille, Florence, Venice — began to feel the pressure of their new competitors; in the following century they all experienced, although in varying degrees, a prolonged and irreversible 60

M. Malowist, 'L'evolution industrielle de la Pologne du XIVe au XVIIe si&cle', in Studi in onore di A. Sapori (Milan 1957), pp. 571-603.

[69]

II European Industries ijoo-iyoo

decline as their place was taken by the Dutch and English textile industries. Much the same story is written in the records of shipbuilding, iron metallurgy, and silk-making: Italian and other Mediterranean shipyards gave in before the competition of their Dutch counterpart; the old, and once famous, gunfoundries of Flanders, Bavaria, and Lombardy were driven out of business in the face of the superior performance of the English and the Swedes; the silk-makers of Milan and Venice lost ground to those of Lyons and Tours. In all such cases long-established and comfortable supremacies were challenged and toppled as newcomers steadily caught up in field after field and, by dint of greater efficiency, lower costs, or better design, often left the older nations far behind. Not in every field, however. Insofar as the older industrial countries possessed a comparative advantage either in terms of natural resources or in terms of skills and knowhow which younger economies found hard to imitate, they could still hold their own at least in certain fields. And insofar as in the rising nations of the north, higher incomes meant a larger demand for imports, some room was left in which the older countries could partially recover from the heavy losses suffered in other quarters. A case in point is provided by the progress of a number of luxury manufactures which catered for the needs of an increasingly affluent and sophisticated international clientele. In the seventeenth century, for instance, the making of tapestries prospered in the Spanish Low Countries;61 in Nuremberg, no longer a major centre of heavy metallurgy, the manufacture of toys, clocks, and jewellery recovered briskly after the Thirty Years5 War; Cremona, once an important centre of the fustian industry, achieved world renown in the Baroque age thanks to the incomparable craftsmanship of its Amatis and Stradivaris. Of greater significance for the welfare of the countries involved was, however, the performance of industries 61

J. Graeybeckx, 'Les industries d'exportation dans les villes flamandes au XVI Ie siecle, particulierement a Gand et a Bruges' in Studi in onore di A. Fanfani (Milan 1962), vol. IV, pp. 411-467.

[70]

II The Changing Geography of Industry

serving broader and expanding needs. Papermaking was certainly one: in the age of Blaeu and the sugar plantations paper, whether for printing or as wrapping material, came into wider use and its production, as will be recalled, spread from Italy to France, Holland, and England. In the process Italy lost her former supremacy, but in no way was she forced out of the field. By concentrating on quality productions Italian papermills actually managed to retain a very respectable share of a growing market: fine writing paper from the Genoese coast, in particular, was shipped in increasing quantities, in the late seventeenth century, not only to Spain and her colonies, but also to countries such as England and Holland where the paper industry was making headway but was still mainly confined to inferior grades. Even in the textile sector, where losses were heaviest, the older industrial areas succeeded in retaining a foothold by diversifying or upgrading production, or by seeking new outlets for their goods. In Ghent and Bruges, as J. Craeybeckx has recently shown,62 a compensation was found for the demise of the traditional cloth industry in the manufacture of new fabrics variously combining wool, flax, and silk. In Augsburg, after the trials and tribulations of the Thirty Years' War, a promising start was made in the production of light printed cottons. North Italy, as will be recalled, increasingly specialised in the mechanical production of high-grade organzine that was largely intended for the new silk manufactures then burgeoning abroad; and the Italian silkmakers, if fewer in number than in the past, could still maintain a reputation on world markets with a limited output of elaborately patterned or richly embroidered fabrics. Likewise, the Flemish linen industry owed its survival, in the changing market environment of the seventeenth century, to its ability to turn out fabrics that had few rivals in terms of fineness and workmanship. Predictably enough, much of its production was absorbed by England. And so was that of Bohemia in the late seven62

Ibid.

[71]

II European industries 1500-1700

teenth century:63 traditionally geared to the German market, the linen industry of Bohemia had come close to extinction during the Thirty Years' War; its later recovery and prosperity largely reflected its expanding sales to a country where economic progress along a broad front was beginning to make itself felt in higher incomes and new, more sophisticated consumer habits. 63

A. Klima, 'Industrial Development in Bohemia, 1648-1781', Past and Present, no. n (1957), pp. 87-99.

[72]

II

Select Bibliography

The student of early modern industrial history will find it worth his while to consult at first such general works on the economic history of Europe as I. Kulischer's (in German), G. Luzzatto's (in Italian), and H. Heaton's (in English).

In spite of its title, An Historical Geography of Europe before

1800 by C. T. Smith (Cambridge-New York 1968) is an excellent, up-to-date introduction to the economic history of continental Europe. Economic histories of individual countries are equally indispensable companions to the student of industry. On England, the massive work by E. Lipson is still useful in spite of its age (1931); the seventeenth century is now fully covered and discussed in the light of recent findings and interpretations in C. H.

Wilson, England's Apprenticeship, 1603-1763 (Oxford 1965).

The economic history of France by H. See (1927) has yet to find a much needed replacement and the sixteenth century, in particular, still awaits a comprehensive, up-to-date survey; for the seventeenth century C. W. Cole's book on mercantilism previously mentioned and W. C. Scoville's The Persecution of the Huguenots and French Economic Develop-

ment, 1680-1720 (Berkeley i960) contain a wealth of information on the industrial sector; recent, in-depth studies of individual towns and provinces, such as P. Goubert, Beauvais et le Beauvaisis de 1600 a 1730 (Paris i960) and P. Devon, Amiens capitate provinciate (Paris-The Hague 1967), mark a new beginning in our knowledge of the French economy in that century. That of Spain is surveyed in J. Vicens Vives' masterly An Economic History of Spain (Engl. transl., Princeton 1969); for the early sixteenth century R. Carande, Carlos V y sus banqueros: la vida economica en

Castilla, 1516-1556 (2nd ed., Madrid 1965) is indispensable, and so is for Catalonia, vol. I of P. Vilar's La Catalogne dans FEspagne moderne (Paris 1962). There is no comprehensive work on Italy in the early modern period: G. Luzzatto,

[73]

II European Industries 1500-ijoo Storia economica, vol. I (Padua 1954) covers the whole of Europe but has some excellent chapters on Italy; A. Fanfani, Storia del lavoro in Italia dallafine del secolo XV agli

inizi del secolo XVIII (Milan 1943) is a mine of information on techniques and working conditions; Crisis and Change in the Venetian Economy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

edited with an introduction by B. Pullan (London 1968), although dealing primarily with Venice, has much to offer on the broader Italian economic context; the course of textile production, papermaking, and the arms industry in north Italy is discussed in D. Sella, 'Industrial Production in Seventeenth-century Italy: a Reappraisal', Explora-

tions in Entrepreneurial History (1969). F. Luetge, Deutsche Sozial-Utid Wirtschatsgeschichte (Berlin 1952) is a valuable

introduction to the subject; the vast bibliography on the German economy in the seventeenth century has been discussed in T. K. Rabb, 'The Effects of the Thirty Years' War on the German Economy', Journal of Modern History (1962). Much of the literature on the Low Countries and Scandinavia presents to many a student (including the present writer) obvious language problems. Fortunately, on the southern provinces of the Low Countries we have a good compendium in J. A. Van Houtte, Esquisse d'une histoire economique de la Belgique (Louvain 1943) and on the

northern provinces the older, but still reliable work by E.

Baasch, Hollandische Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Jena 1927); two

recent books in English, C. R. Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, 1600-1800 (New York 1965) and C. H. Wilson, The Dutch Republic (London 1969), incorporate the latest findings of Dutch economic historiography; lastly the Acta Historiae Nederlandica periodically published in Leyden since 1966, are meant to help the English reading public keep abreast of Dutch scholarly production. On Sweden E. J. Heckscher, An Economic History of Sweden (Cambridge 1954) is, of course, a classic. The literature on individual industries is very large, but most of it follows national or regional lines. The few attempts at bringing together, in a European perspective, local historical experiences are all the more noteworthy.

[74]

II Select Bibliography

J. U. Nef's pioneer essays on industrial Europe in the sixteenth century and on the comparative growth of industry in France and England have now been conveniently reprinted in book form as The Conquest of the Material World (Chicago-London 1964); although written some thirty years ago, they are still worth careful study and consultation. On the iron industry, O. Johannsen, Geschichte des Eisens (3rd ed., Duesseldorf 1953) is the chief authority, and so is for the early centuries of printing L. Febvre and H. J. Martin, U apparition du Livre (Paris 1958). Several chapters in vol. I l l of A History of Technology ed. C. Singer are rich sources of information, but the emphasis in them is, of course, on techniques rather than on the economics of industry. The same limitation applies to M. Daumas, Les instruments scientifiques aux XVIIe et XVIHe siecles (Paris 1953) and to J. F. Hayward's remarkably well informed study of small firearms, The Art of the Gunmaker. 1500-1830 (2 vols., London 1962). The interaction of technological and economic factors, on the other hand, has been carefully and refreshingly explored in two recent books by C. M. Cipolla, Guns and Sails in the Early Phase of European Expansion, 14001700 (London 1965) and Clocks and Culture, 1300-ijoo (London 1967); the sections in the present chapter devoted to armaments and clockmaking are heavily indebted to them. A comparative study by H. Kellenbenz, 'Les industries rurales en Occident de la fin du Moyen Age au XVIlie siecle5, Annales: Economies, Societes, Civilizations (1963) surveys and discusses the vast literature on the subject. National and local studies on industrial history are legion, especially in the case of textiles, mining, and metallurgy. As regards textiles, one ought at least to mention, for England, E. Lipson, A Short History of Wool and Its Manufacture (London 1953) as a useful introduction to the subject, and B. E. Supple, Commercial Crisis and Change in England, 1600-1642 (Cambridge 1959) for its thorough discussion of the shift from the 'old5 to the 'new draperies'. On the nouvelle draperie in the Low Countries the basic work is still E. Coornaert, Un centre industriel d'autrefois: la

[75]

II European Industries 1300-1700 draperie-sayetterie d* Hondschoote: XIVe-XVIHe siecles (Paris 1930); in Annales: E.S.C. (1946) E. Coornaert has also summarised, for the benefit of the non-Dutch reading public, the great work by W. W. Posthumus, De geschiedenis van de Leidsche lakenindustrie (The Hague 1933). On the French wool industry the books by Goubert and Deyon mentioned above are most valuable; on the industry in Lille there is an important article by P. Deyon and A. Lattin in Revue du JVord (1967). Information on the silk and linen industries is still widely scattered and must be gleaned from secondary sources in which they are often discussed but incidentally; a notable exception is E. Sabbe, Histoire de VIndustrie liniere en Belgique (Brussels 1945). The study of mining and metallurgy includes such wellknown works as J. U. Nef, The Rise of the British Coal Industry (2 vols., London 1932), J. Delumeau, Ualun de Rome: XVe-XIXe siecle (Paris 1962), H. R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry from c. 450 B.C. to A.D. 1775 (London 1957), and A. Frumento, Imprese lornbarde nella storia della siderurgia italiana (2 vols., Milan 1963). Also largely devoted to the iron industry is J . Lejeune, La formation du capitalisme moderne dans la Principaute de Liege an i6e siecle (Paris 1939); the next century is covered in J. Yernaux, La metallurgie liegeoise et son expansion au XVHe siecle (Liege 1939). J . Vidalenc, La petite metallurgie rurale en Haute Normandie sous VAncien Regime (Paris 1946) is especially instructive as a study of the organisation of metallurgy in a rural setting. The history of the iron industry in France at large still awaits investigation. On shipping and shipbuilding at least two titles must be mentioned in a short bibliographical note such as this: F. C. Lane, Venetian Ships and Shipbuilding of the Renaissance (Baltimore 1934) and R. Davis, The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London 1962). W. G. Scoville, Capitalism and French Glassmakings 164.0-1789 (Berkeley 1950) and A. Gasparetto, // vetro di Murano dalle origini ad oggi (Venice 1958) are important contributions to a comparatively neglected subject. Papermaking is in even greater need of thorough study. In

[76]

II Select Bibliography his book on The British Paper Industry, I4gj-i86o

(Oxford

1958) D. C. Goleman has, however, set an example that will hopefully find imitators in other countries.

[77]

Ill THE IRON INDUSTRY IN ITALY, 1500—1650

The Italian peninsula is notoriously poor in mineral resources, and particularly in iron deposits. The one conspicuous exception is the Island of Elba off the Tuscany coast where considerable quantities of iron are still mined today as they have been, in fact, since ancient times. Even so, Italy's total output of native iron is but a minimal fraction of world output — something like 0.2 W . The poverty of iron resources is matched by that of fuel resources, notably coal, and these two deficiencies go a long way toward explaining the long delay with which Italy entered the age of modern industrialization. Interestingly enough, in the nineteenth century most iron ore from Elba was shipped all the way to England to be smelted and processed, obviously on account of fuel scarcity in Italy herself2. Only in recent times, with improvements in communications and technology, has iron metallurgy cast fresh roots on Italian soil. While the absence of a strong iron industry is an obvious feature of the Italian economy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the situation obtaining in earlier times is still far from clear. At least until a few decades ago, economic historians generally assumed that in ancient, medieval and early modern periods mining and metallurgy were negligible sectors of the Italian economy. In the words of no less an authority on medieval Italy as Alfred Doren, "Italian mines were too small, their output too insignificant, their place in the context of the Italian economy too peripheral, their technology too crude (...) for them to deserve a place comparable to that which mines deserve in the north of Europe and especially in Germany."3 In case of repeated quotations of a certain book, the number of the quotation, in which full bibliographical details are given, is indicated behind the author's name. *) In 1950 production of iron ore in the world was 245 million tons (cf. W o y t i n s k y and W o y t i n s k y , World Population and Production, N e w York, 1953, p. 785); at that time Italy produced about half million tons of iron ore ( I S T A T , Annuario statistico italiano 1952, Rome 1953, p. 216). 2 ) A. F o s s a t i , Lavoro e produzione in Italia dalla meta del secolo X V I I I alia seconda guerra mondiale, Turin 1951, p. 150. 3 ) A. D o r e n , Storia economica delPltalia nel Medioevo (Ital. transl. by G. Luzzatto), Padua 1936, p. 472.

Ill 92

Doren, of course, was too competent a student of Italian economic history not to know that iron mining and metallurgy were actively carried on in medieval times on the Island of Elba, in Tuscany, and in the Alps4, but he clearly regarded them as definitely worth nothing more than a brief mention. And so have most historians before and after him with the result that mining and metallurgy have been pushed into the background of Italian economic history or have been neglected altogether. Such neglect may well be commensurate to the diminutive size of the Italian iron industry, but it is equally possible that the industry itself looks so small and insignificant because it has received so little attention at the hands of historians inclined to project back into the past conditions that held in the nineteenth century. As an antidote against modern views one could quote Pliny's words to the effect that Italy "metallorum omnium fertilitate nullis cedit terris" — as regards metal resources Italy is inferior to no other country. Pliny's testimony, however, is neither relevant to the present discussion nor easy to test for accuracy. Of greater interest and authority is what Vannoccio Biringuccio had to say in his celebrated "Pyrotechnia" (1540): "Nature produces iron ore abundantly in many regions of the world, especially in Italy where . . . there is a great abundance of it."5 As subsequent remarks will show, Biringuccio was certainly blinded by chauvinistic pride when he asserted that iron ores were "especially abundant" in Italy. But he may well have been right in saying that Italy was far from deficient in iron resources. Actually, recent scholarship and fresh documentary evidence suggest three things that tend to bear out, in part, Biringuccio's view: 1) iron deposits were actively mined in various parts of Italy during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; 2) although total output is hard to ascertain, such crude estimate as I shall try to make indicates that Italy's share in European iron production was far from negligible and definitely larger, percentagewise, than it is today; and 3) besides iron mining, Italy possessed a respectable and highly specialized metallurgy whose products enjoyed a considerable reputation at home and, to some extent, even abroad.

4

) I b i d., pp. 462—464. ) V a n n o c c i o B i r i n g u c c i o , Pirotechnia (1540) transl. and ed. by C. S. S m i t h , new ed., Cambridge, Mass. 1966, p. 61. 5

Ill Iron Industry in Italy

93

The Geography of Mining. The presence of iron mines is attested, if only by occasional references to place-names, over the whole length of the Italian boot in late medieval and early modern times (Cf. Map 1). Iron, we are told, was mined in Calabria, and notably near Stilo6, in Lucania7, in the hinterland of Naples8, near Spoleto in the Papal States9, on the Island of Elba, at Boccheggiano near Siena10, on the Appennine range near Piacenza11, and over much of the Alps. In the latter, running clockwise, the existence of mines is documented, however scantily, in Piedmont on the slopes of Monte Argentera and in the region of the Gran Paradiso Massif12; in Lombardy (then split into a Spanish ruled and a Venetian ruled section) iron mines were found on both sides of Lake Como (Dongo and Valsassina)13 as well as in the valleys (Brembana, Seriana, Scalve, Camonica, Sabbia and Trompia) roughly comprised between Lakes Como and Garda14. This enumeration, based as it is on scattered information culled from local studies and monographs rather than on any systematic survey of the whole peninsula, is certainly incomplete. Its deficiencies 6 ) G. C o n i g l i o , II Viceregno di Napoli nel secolo X V I I , Rome 1955, pp. .56, 57. 7 ) A.Doren,/3/,p. 464. 8 ) A . F a n f a n i , Storia del l a v o r o in Italia dalla fine del secolo X V agli inizi del secolo X V I , M i l a n 2 1959, p . 60. 9 ) G . B a r b i e r i , I n d u s t r i a e politica m i n e r a r i a nello S t a t o pontificio d a l '400 al '600, R o m e 1940, p . 78. 10 ) V. B i r i n g u c c i o , [5], p . ix. 11 ) C . G. M . R e i n a , Descrizione corografica e storica d i L o m b a r d i a , M i l a n 1714, p. 24. 12 ) L. B u 1 f e r e 1 1 i , Sogni e realta n e l mercantilismo d i C a r l o E m a n u e l e I I , i n : N u o v a Rivista Storica, 1953, p p . 77—79; R. B l a n c h a r d , Les Alpes O c c i d e n tales, V I : Le Versant P i e m o n t a i s , G r e n o b l e - P a r i s 1954, p p . 498, 499, 5 0 1 , 6 3 6 — 6 4 0 ; A. G a r i n o - C a n i n a , N o t i z i e storiche sulle miniere della Valle d'Aosta, i n : Scritti si storia economica e finanziara, T u r i n 1961, p p . 3 0 1 — 3 3 1 . 13 ) A . F a n f a n i , L i n d u s t r i a m i n e r a r i a l o m b a r d a d u r a n t e il d o m i n i o s p a g n o l o , i n : Saggi d i storia economica i t a l i a n a , M i l a n 1936, p p . 1 5 9 — 2 5 4 ; A . F r u m e n t o , Imprese l o m b a r d e nella storia della siderurgia italiana, I I : II ferro milanese fra il 1450 e i l 1796, Milan 1963. 14 ) G . R o s a , Metallurgia storica bresciana, ( = C o m m e n t a r i d e l P A t e n e o di Brescia) 1877, p p . 9 1 — 1 0 4 ; A. A l b e r t i e R . C e s s i , L a politica m i n e r a r i a della Repubblica Veneta, R o m e 1927; L. M a z z o l d i , L'economia dei secoli X V I I e X V I I I , i n : Storia d i Brescia ed. F o n d a z i o n e Treccani degli Alfieri, I I I , Brescia 1961.

Ill 94 and gaps, however, are probably not too serious, for in the early modern period most native iron came from three main areas. In order of decreasing importance these were the Island of Elba, the Lombard Alps between Lakes Como and Garda, and the Gran Paradiso Massif. As regards Elba, Biringuccio claimed that its iron mines "supply two thirds of Italy as well as Sicily and Corsica" 15 , and he may have meant that the Elba output roughly represented two thirds of Italy's total output. In this, as will be seen, he was probably inaccurate, but we can confidently accept his view that the Elba mines were by far the largest source of iron in Italy. As for the mining districts of Lombardy and Piedmont, their relative importance will appear as soon as an attempt is made to estimate iron output in Italy in early modern times. To this problem we must now turn.

The output of iron. Quantitative information on iron production in Italy for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is very scarce indeed. We know, however, that around 1670 the Elba mines yielded about 8,800 tons of iron ore per year and that from them something like 3,700 tons of iron could be obtained 16 . At about the same time the capacity of the Piedmont mines was estimated at 1,400 tons of ore per year, but actual output was said to have been much less, possibly 2—300 tons a year, from which one hundred tons of iron could be extracted 17 . Turning now to Lombardy, we have it from a 1539 official report that the output of iron from ores mined in three Brescian valleys (Trompia, Camonica and Sabbia) stood at about 2,700 tons a year 18 . By the end of the century production had greatly increased, if we are to believe Giovanni Botero who claimed for the eleven furnaces located in Valtrompia and Valsabbia an annual output of 4,400 tons 19 ; 15

) P i r o t e c h n i a , [5], p. 61. ) A. P e d e m o n t e , Ferro e ferriere in Liguria nei secoli X V I I e X V I I I , unpublished dissertation, University of Genoa 1959, p. 44. 17 ) A. G a r i n o - C a n i n a , [12], p. 3 3 1 ; L. B u l f e r e t t i , Assolutismo e mercantilismo nel Piemonte di Carlo Emanuele II, (Memorie dell'Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, 1953), p. 211. 18 ) G. R o s a , / / * / , p. 98. 19 J G i o v a n n i B o t e r o , Relatione della Repubblica Venetiana, Venice 1608, p. 16. 16

Ill Iron Industry in Italy

95

since at the time Valcamonica had six furnaces in operation20, total output for the three Brescian valleys should be estimated at about 6,800 tons. The figure supplied by Botero, however, is probably far in excess of reality, for it would imply an average annual output of 400 tons per furnace. As will be seen, blast furnaces in north Italy at the time could turn out on the average 150 tons of pig iron a year: this being the case, the seventeen furnaces that reportedly were active in the Brescia area around 1600 could yield at best something like 2,500 tons of metal each year. Lastly, we know that at the close of the sixteenth century seven furnaces were in operation in the Valsassina21: at 150 tons a year each, their aggregate output must have been close to 1,000 tons. In sum, all that can be said about iron production in Italy is expressed in the following figures: from Elba ores (about 1670) 3,700 tons Brescian Valleys (about 1600) 2,500 tons Valsassina (about 1600) 1,000 tons Piedmont (about 1670) 100 tons Assuming that iron production registered no radical changes between 1600 and 1670, one could state that, in the seventeenth century, annual iron production from the major mining districts of the peninsula stood in the neighborhood of 7,000 tons. This is no doubt a very crude approximation: all I can claim for it is that it conveys an order of magnitude that is not wholly unrealistic. As such, it should enable us to compare Italian production with that of Europe as a whole. According to Johannsen, iron production in Europe around 1500 can be estimated at around 60,000 tons a year22For the mid-sixteenth century Nef has reached an estimate of about 100,000 tons23. A hundred years later this last figure had probably been surpassed as a result of the expansion of iron mining in England and in Sweden, but it is unlikely that the order of magnitude was by then radically different: even after the advent of Swedish iron output figures for individual countries still contained at best five digits. With 29

) G. R o s a ,/JM/, p. 98. ) A. Frumento,/i3/,p.63. 22 ) O. J o h a n n s e n , Geschichte des Eisens, Dusseldorf 3 1953, p. 213. 23 ) J. U . N e f , Industrial Europe at the Time of the Reformation, 1941, reprinted in J. U. N e f , T h e Conquest of the Material World, Chicago-London 1964, p. 114. 21

Ill 96

7,000 tons Italy, therefore, ranked rather low among European producers and her output may have represented 4—5 per cent of Europe's aggregate iron production. Even such modest share, however, is of considerable interest to us, not only because it suggests that as late as the seventeenth century Italian iron production was far from negligible, but also because Italy's share of total output at the time sharply contrasts with the situation obtaining at present when native Italian iron, although produced in much greater quantities, represents but a minimal, indeed trifling, fraction of world output. And the contrast between the two periods affords one more illustration of a well known fact, namely the relative decline of the Italian economy vis-a-vis Europe and the world. Iron industries. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries native Italian iron was processed and turned into finished goods within Italy herself. In this respect the situation at the time differed radically from that obtaining either in the nineteenth century, when most native ores were shipped abroad, or at present, when the iron and steel mills feed mainly on imported ores or scrap iron. In other words, in the century and a half under discussion the presence of substantial ore deposits had full forward linkage effects running all the way from the mine to the ironsmith's shop. That this should have been the case depended, of course, on a complex set of circumstances. For one thing, the high cost of transportation, especially overland, provided a powerful incentive for the utilization of native ores as close as possible to the pits. For another, the processing of iron ores requires that adequate timber resources be at hand to supply fuel in the form of charcoal — a requirement especially crucial at a time when fuel inputs per unit of output in the smelting process were much larger than they are today. The processing of ores and the making of the metal into finished goods also depended on water power for activating mechanical bellows or water aspirators ("trompe")24 as well as tilt-hammers and wire-drawing machines. 24 ) In 1629, near Spoleto, the course of the river Corno was deviated "in order to provide the furnace enough water to produce the necessary wind" (doc. quoted in G. B a r b i e r i , [9]3 p. 79): a clear reference to a "trompe".

Ill Iron Industry in Italy

97

The Alpine region met these requirements well, for, besides having substantial iron deposits, it was also covered by forest up to the altiude of about 1000 meters, in the vicinity, that is, of the mining pits; and its water streams are as numerous as they are abundant. The Alps, moreover, were favorably endowed in terms of manpower as well. On the one hand, the close contacts which had long been established with the mining regions of Styria, Tyrol, and Dauphine certainly promoted the diffusion of skills and knowhow this side of the Alps25. On the other hand, the rugged nature of the soil, low agricultural yields, and the predominance of small subsistence farms in the settlements perched on the slopes of the Alpine range combined to create a condition of disguised unemployment and hence an ideal recruiting ground for cheap labor (woodcutters, charcoal makers, muleteers, and unskilled mining personnel) willing to be hired for part of the year in order to supplement their inadequate income derived from agriculture26. This combination of complementary resources was responsible for iron metallurgy developing in a number of Alpine valleys where iron was mined. Such was the case of the valleys that cluster near or around the Gran Paradiso Massif in the western part of Piedmont: the mining of iron in that area gave rise to a brisk, if modest metallurgical activity in the valleys of Cogne, Soana, Locana, Oreo and Stura where a host of small forges and smithies engaged in the making of nails, farming implements, and cutlery that were largely sold in the nearby plain27. The same pattern is discernible, on a much larger scale, in Lombardy (Map 2). There, too, the metal trades thrived in the valleys where iron deposits were available along with timber resources and an abundant water supply. Val Camonica, for instance, reportedly had, in the seventeenth century, 6—7 blast furnaces and between 70 and 90 forges ("fucine") scattered over its whole length and at altitudes rang25 ) O n German and French miners employed in Lombardy cf. A . F a n f a n i , [8], p . 127; on G e r m a n miners in Piedmont cf. A. G a r i n o - C a n i n a , [12], p. 314. 26 ) O n population pressure in the mountains of Southern Europe cf. F. B r a u d e l , La Mediterranee et le monde mediterranean a Pepoque de Philippe I I , Paris 1949, p p . 18 ff. I intend t o discuss the subject as it affected seventeenth-century Lombardy in a forthcoming essay. 27 ) R. B 1 a n c h a r d , [12], p p . 638—640.

Ill 98

ing from 300 to 1000 meters28. At its lower end, where the valley opens onto the Brescian plain, the small town of Pisogne served as the clearing center where "iron sheets, ploughshares, locks, nails, horseshoes, pots, knifes, iron band, and infinite other things . . . are sold to divers merchants from Bergamo, Brescia, Milan, Pavia, and Genoa who then ship all that hardware to France, Spain, and divers places in Italy."29 Only exceptionally did the metal trades flourish in the large towns of the plain. One such exception is Brescia, the renowned center of the firearms industry30; another is Milan whose armorers, from the fifteenth to the early seventeenth century, shared with their German and Austrian rivals a wide reputation for their magnificent suits of armor31. The two towns, however, really formed but the final links of a chain that stretched all the way back to the Alpine valleys: the Brescian gunmakers assembled barrels, locks and stocks that were made in the villages of Val Camonica and Val Trompia32; the Milan armorers used iron and steel sheets originally made in Lecco and Valsassina33. The locational pattern that has just been described does not apply to one major mining area, the Island of Elba. Although, as will be recalled, that tiny island supplied over half of all Italian ores, it harbored no iron industry. Once mined, the ironstone left the island's shores and was ferried across to the continent. Since medieval times, if not earlier, the Elba ores found their way mainly to Tuscany and Liguria, although there is some evidence of shipments to Naples and to the Papal State34. In Tuscany the Elba ores were processed in several localities — some of them on or near the coast, such as Piombino, Follonica, Pietrasanta 28 ) G. R o s a , [14], p. 9 8 ; also the seventeenth-century surveys of Valcamonica by G. D a L e z z e (1609), P. B o n a (1662), and G. B r u n e 11 i (1698 j , published in: La Valcamonica nel Seicento, ed. R. P u t e 11 i , Breno 1918. 29 ) D a L e z z e ' s survey (1609) in: R. P u t e 1 1 i , [28 J, p. 24. 30 ) A. G a i b i , Le armi da fuoco, in: Storia di Brescia, I I I , Brescia 1961, p p . 821 ff.; J. F. H a y w a r d , The A r t of the Gunmaker, London 1962, I, p p . 3 1 , 190—197, and I I , pp. 133—136. 31 ) A recent, exhaustive discussion in B. T h o m a s and O . G a m b e r , L'arte milanese dell'armatura, i n : Storia di Milano ed. Fondazione Treccani degli Alfieri, 1958, X I , pp. 699—829. 32 ) J. F. H a y w a r d , [30], I I , p. 133; A. G a i b i , [30]', p p . 830—832. 33 ) A. F r u m e n t o , [13], pp. 60, 87, 102. 34 ) G. C o n i g 1 i o , [6], pp. 9 0 — 9 1 ; G. B a r b i e r i , [9], p p . 168—170.

Ill Iron Industry in Italy

99

or Massa; others deep into the Tuscan hills and mountains, such as Siena and Pistoia — wherever an adequate combination of timber resources, water power, and manpower could be found35. Something like one third of Elba's production, however, traveled as far as Genoa or lesser ports of Liguria36. From there the ore was carried by pack animals all the way across the steep Appennine range and down its northern slopes for smelting and processing, only to be sent back once again to Genoa and the coastal villages either for final use or for reshipment to central and southern Italy. (Map 3) The reasons behind this peculiar and seemingly impractical pattern are not far to seek. With its limited size, barren landscape, and lack of streams, Elba was ill suited to serve as the home of the iron industry. And with a ratio of 3 to 1 between charcoal and iron ore inputs it obviously paid to move the ores as close as possible to the source of timber. The Tuscan hinterland as well as the slopes of the Ligurian Appennine facing north had the timber (and the waterfalls) needed by the iron masters: ores had to go there if they were to be utilized at all. The iron industry that flourished from the Tuscan Appennine to the Lombard Alps in early modern times did not contribute as much as the wool and silk industries to Italian foreign trade — and this may be one further reason for its neglect at the hands of economic historians whose attention has traditionally focused on international rather than interregional or local trade currents. Actually, it could be argued that, although some iron goods such as armor, firearms, and wire were exported from Italy, the country as a whole was a net importer of iron goods. The point that needs stressing, however, is that Italian iron making in the early modern period was definitely market-oriented and that as such it involved a considerable degree of sophistication and complexity. This is suggested, for instance, by the organization and structure of the mining industry. Here we find large partnerships (compagnie, 35 ) Scattered information in E. R e p e 11 i , Dizionario geografico fisico storico della Toscana, Florence 1835, sub: Elba, Follonica, Massa, Pietrasanta, Piombino. Cf. also D. H e r l i h y , Medieval and Renaissance Pistoia: the Social History of an Italian Town, 1200—1430, New Haven-London 1967, pp. 42, 176. 86 ) J. H e e r s , Genes au XVe siecle: activite economique et problemes sociaux, Paris 1961, pp. 220—221; A. P e d e m o n t e , [16], pp. 20, 24, 32; L. B u 1 f e r e 11 i e C . C o s t a n t i n i , Industria e commercio in Liguria nelPeta del Risorgimento, Milano 1966, p. 38.

Ill 100

societa, maone) whose membership included some of the wealthiest families of the Italian aristocracy: the Medici and the Spinola in the Elba mines, the D'Adda and the Borromeo in Valsassina, the dukes of Castro at Spoleto, the Carignano and the Challant in Piedmont37. Obviously, iron mining called for large investments and held the prospect of substantial returns. Moreover, the fact that patrician families exhibited a strong interest in iron mining throughout the seventeenth century38 (at a time, that is, when the Italian economy suffered severe setbacks and the Italian upperclass tended to withdraw from trade and manufacturing to seek comfort and security in landed property) would indicate that here was a sector that remained vital and preserved its earlier orientation to large markets. That orientation is also confirmed by what is known about specialization in the iron trades. Milan, as will be recalled, had a reputation throughout Europe as a major center of armor making until the first half of the seventeenth century when suits of armor fell into disuse as a result of the increasing adoption of portable firearms39. Brescia, on the other hand, specialized in the production of small firearms and well into the eighteenth century Brescian-made hand-guns, carbines, and muskets were widely appreciated in Europe largely on account of their excellent thinwalled barrels made of high quality steel40. Gun barrels came mainly from one source, the small town of Gardone Val Trompia, of which it was said that "it makes nothing but barrels for arquebuses and muskets, and its craftsmen can turn out as many as 300 such barrels in one day."41 We also know that small firearms made in the Brescia area found a market in the various Italian states as well as abroad. This applies not only to finely chiseled, custommade arms such as one day would form highly prized collector's items, but also to common service, standardised carbines, muskets, and un37 ) J. H e e r s , [36], p . 222, a n d A. P e d e m o n t e , [16], p . 40 for the Elba mines a n d the Ligurian ironworks; A. F a n f a n i [13], p p . 201, 205, a n d A. F r u m e n t o , [13], p. 86; for Valsassina; L. B u l f e r e t t i , [12], p . 80. 38 ) This point is stressed by A. F r u m e n t o a n d L. B u l f e r e t t i , locc. citt.; in the Papal State, however, there was a sharp decline in the number of noblemen participating in the mining industry during the seventeenth century {G. B a r b i e r i ,

[9], pp. 160-162). 39

) B. T h o m a s and O. G a m b e r , [31], p. 702. For changes in warfare cf. C h . S i n g e r ed., A History of Technology, III, Oxford 1957, pp. 348, 349, 353. 40 ) J. F. H a y w a r d , [30], I, p p . 192—194. 41 ) O t t a v i o R o s s i , Le Memorie Bresciane, Brescia 1616, p . 202.

Ill Iron Industry in Italy

101

mounted gun barrels that were shipped out of Brescia by the thousands42. In Val Seriana, north of Bergamo, there were 25 highly specialized workshops capable of turning out "twenty-five swords of forty-six daggers a day."43 Nearby Val Torta was known for its nails with which it supplied, according to one source, the whole of Lombardy44. In Busto Arsizio and later in Lecco wire-making was the chief business45 and one, incidentally, in which Lecco is still prominent. Some twenty miles south of Lecco, the large village of Concorezzo absorbed large quantities of iron wire to produce needles and a considerable portion of its population earned a living in that trade46. The scattered and fragmentary evidence recited so far thus supports the following conclusions: first, that in early modern times the Italian iron sector was in no way negligible, although it certainly never attained the size and importance of other sectors; secondly, Italian iron output relative to that of Europe was then much larger than in later times; and lastly, iron making was highly specialized and diversified — a fact which, in turn, reflects a definite orientation of production for the market rather than for merely local needs. What the available evidence fails to tell us, however, is whether, between 1500 and 1650, iron production in Italy registered any marked quantitative change either upward or downward. No doubt numerous cases could be recited of mining pits and ironworks closing down at one time or another, but many instances are on record of new mines and furnaces being opened. The evidence, in short, is too fragmentary to be conclusive one way or the other. There is, however, at least one broad development that would seem to indicate that, from the late sixteenth century onward, iron production in Italy failed to make any headway and possibly experienced a slow decline: this is the increasingly felt shortage of fuel resulting from deforestation. The depletion of timber resources in the central 42

) J . R H a y w a r d , [30], I, p. 196; A. G a i b i, [30], pp. 852, 857—860. ) A r c h i v i o d i S t a t o , V e n i c e , Sindici Inquisitori in Terraferma, 6 3 , "Descrizione di Bergamo, 1596", p . 377. 44 ) A . F r u m e n t o , [13], p p . 61—62. 45 ) A n t o n i o C r e s p i C a s t o l d i , L a Storia di Busto e le Relazioni (1612 —14), ed. L. B e 1 o 11 o , Busto Arsizio 1927; G u a l d o P r i o r a t o , Relazione della Citta e Stato di Milano, Milan 1666, p. 162. 46 ) Cf. C. M . C i p o 11 a , P e r la storia della popolazione lombarda nel secolo X V I , i n : Studi in onore di Gino Luzzatto, Milan 1950, I I , p . 153; C. G. M. R e i n a , /n/,p.96. 43

Ill 102

Mediterranean area has been underlined by Professor Lane in his study of Venetian shipbuilding47. Moreover, complaints about fuel shortage are quite common in seventeenth-century documents bearing on the iron industry48. Yet, the whole question of the fuel supply still awaits thorough investigation. It is likely, however, that such investigation will confirm the impression that, beginning in the seventeenth century, the Italian iron industry ran into difficulties on account of rising fuel costs. Some remarks on technology Detailed investigation is also needed on the subject of iron technology in early modern Italy, and notably on the process or processes then used for smelting. A few broad facts, however, are discernible. From a recent work on Liguria we learn that well into the eighteenth century local furnaces produced malleable rather than liquid iron49: in other words, in the area where a large portion of the Elba ores was smelted the direct process had not given way to the more modern indirect process connected with the development of the blast furnace. In Valsassina, on the other hand, blast furnaces ("altiforni") were certainly in operation in the sixteenth century if not earlier50, and Professor Frumento has quoted an interesting description of iron processing in that area by a seventeenth-century writer: "After restoring every year the shaft ("canna") of the very tall furnace with red refractory stones which for several months can stand a continuous fire, they start the fire with enormous bellows driven by a large waterwheel . . . Day and night has each smith his hours assigned for work . . . Some of them from the top feed the prescribed amounts of ore mixed with white pebbles into the insatiable flames... Others let the iron pour out in a liquid state; as it cools, the molten iron hardens in lumps. These are then broken up in pieces by a heavy hammer driven by water . . . and the 47 ) F. C. L a n e , Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders of the Renaissance, Baltimore 1934, pp. 231—233. 48 ) Cf. A. A 1 b e r t e R. C e s s i , [14]3 p . 120; A. F a n f a n i , [13], p. 224; R . B l a n c h a r d , [12], p. 637. 49 ) L . B u l f e r e t t i e C. C o s t a n t i n i , [36], p. 89. 50 ) A. F r u m e n t o , [13], pp. 116—118.

Ill Iron Industry in Italy

103

pieces are later carried to the forge to be worked on by other smiths. Work, once started, goes on day and night, on weekdays as well as on holidays, as long as there is material to smelt ("materiale per la fusione") and, as a rule, lasts no less than three months."51 From the same source we learn that the furnaces just described were built and operated by smiths from Brescia, for these were said to be "the greatest experts in the art of making molten iron."52 It is legitimate to assume, therefore, that in the Bresdan district blast furnaces were in use as they were in Valsassina. They certainly were in the valleys north of Bergamo, half way, that is, between Brescia and Valsassina: a 1596 document dealing with iron metallurgy in the Bergamo district speaks, in fact, of furnaces that "cause iron to melt" ("colano il ferro") and goes on to say that "iron is then taken to the forge ("fucina") to be wrought."53 The different techniques used in Liguria and in Lombardy had a marked effect on the output of individual furnaces. Average output per day in the Ligurian furnaces (probably hearth furnaces or fairly short shaft furnaces) ranged between 0.5 and 0.7 tons of wrought iron54. In Lombardy, on the other hand, a blast furnace could produce between 1 and 1.5 ton of pig iron per day55. Differences in output per year are even more striking, because the duration of the smelting campaign varied very considerably from Liguria to the Lombard valleys. Dr. Pedemonte has shown56 that in Liguria, around 1670, 49 furnaces could produce 1,800 tons of iron or an average of 37 tons a year per furnace; at the rate of 0.7 ton per day this meant that the actual smelting campaign lasted but 53 days. The reason for so short a campaign is far from clear, the more so as we know that in the Ligurian Appennine water power was available for about six months a year57. Some light may be shed on this problem, however, by what Biringuccio had to say about the operation of "a simple forge" used to produce malleable iron from Elba ore: the 51

) ) 53 ) 54 ) 52

I b i d . , p. 121. I b i d. "Descrizione di Bergamo, 1596" cit. [43J. A . P e d e m o n t e , [16], p . 3 5 ; L . B u l f e r e t t i

/*J/,p.92. 55

e C. C o s t a n t i n i ,

) A. F a n f a n i , / 7 3 / , p . 2 2 1 ; A . F r u m e n t o , / / 3 / , p p . 116,118. ) A. P e d e m o n t e , [16], pp. 32, 35. 57 ) I b i d . , p . 34. 56

Ill 104

smelting process, he said, requires "a fire of only eight or ten hours" and "this process is done in every works twice a week."58 Accordingly, the 53 days during which the Ligurian furnaces were in operation must have been spread over about 26 weeks or six months. Conditions were totally different in Lombardy where the indirect process was in use. In Valsassina, as will be recalled, the blast furnaces operated day and night, seven days a week, and for "no less than three months a year." The smelting campaign, in other words, lasted no less than 90 days. But it could last much longer, too: in the area of Brescia, we are told, a normal campaign extended for as many as six months, or 180 days, the rest of the year being devoted to the making of charcoal59. At the rate of 1.2 ton per day, therefore, a blast furnace could turn out between 110 and 220 tons of pig iron a year. In the absence of more precise information, the average annual yield of a blast furnace may be estimated at about 150 tons. The coexistence of two different techniques giving so widely different results in areas, such as Liguria and the Lombard valleys, that were less than 100 kilometers apart and between which economic contacts had traditionally been very close, may at first sight seem rather surprizing. It is well to recall, however, that a similar situation held elsewhere and notably in England where bloomeries remained in use long after the introduction of the blast furnace60. It is well to bear in mind, moreover, that the survival of the direct process can be ascribed to sound economic and technical reasons rather than to sheer inertia and conservatism. As Dr. Schubert has convincingly shown61, the choise between the direct and the indirect process could well depend on the quality of the ores: where rich ores were available, the direct process was quite satisfactory; and the obvious disadvantages attached to it — smaller output of iron and higher inputs of fuel — could be outweighed by the smaller capital investment called for in the direct process. Going back to the ironworks of Liguria, it is conceivable that their adherence to the older technology was dictated by the kind of ores they used, namely ores from the Island of Elba. The latter are very 58

) P i r o t e c h n i a , [5], p . 6 3 . ) A . G i a r r a t a n a , Brescia industriale al p r i n c i p i o del Seicento, C o m m e n t a r i d e l l ' A t e n e o di Brescia, 1935, p . 40. 69 ) H . R. S c h u b e r t , H i s t o r y of the British I r o n a n d Steel I n d u s t r y from c. 450 B.C. t o A . D . 1775, L o n d o n 1957, p p . 1 4 6 , 1 5 2 . 61 ) I b i d . , p . 152. 59

Ill Iron Industry in Italy

105

rich in iron content62, and the author of the "Pirotechnia" himself explicitly pointed out the connection between their quality and the technology used for smelting them: ,,this ore is of such a nature that, in order to extract the iron from it and then reduce it to purity, it is not subjected to the force of violent fires or many devices and extraordinary efforts as are others. By merely placing it on a forge in front of the tuyere where the blast issues, a very soft and malleable iron can be extracted with an ordinary smelting fire." He then went on to contrast this process with the one used in the Brescian district: "this ore (from Elba) does not need the powerful fires of great furnaces in order to purify it, as is usual for many other ores (particularly for those that are in the Brescian territory in Valcamonica), but a simple forge is sufficient."63

62 63

) F. M i 1 o n e , L'ltalia nell'economia delle sue regioni, Turin 1955, p. 529. ) P i r o t e c h n i a , [5], p. 62.

Ill

1. Centers of the Italian Iron Industry 16—17th Cent

Ill

2. The Mining District of Lombardy

Ill

3. The Iron Industry in Liguria around 1670. Figures after place-names indicate number of ironworks (ferriere) in existence around 1670 (based on L. Bulferetti and C. Costantini, Industria e commercio in Liguria nell'eta del Risorgimento; Milan 1966, p. 38).

IV

Industrial raw materials in the import trade of Northern and Central Italy during the XVIIth Century The import trade is probably the one aspect of the Italian economy in the seventeenth century about which we know least — with the notable exception of textile imports from England and the Netherlands which were often blamed, in contemporary sources, as the main cause for the decline of the celebrated textile manufactures of Venice, Florence, and Milan. The main reason why so little has been written about the import trade has to do, in my own experience, with the scarcity of original sources dealing with the subject. This is all the more unfortunate because data on foreign imports would help clarify the structure of the economy in a century during which it experienced profound changes — not, however, in the sense proposed by a long historiographical tradition according to which the country suffered a process of "absolute" decline and of deindustrialization, and was turned into an impoverished, mainly agricultural land dependent on foreign sources of supply for its needs of manufactured goods. This bleak view has now been largely abandoned as new research over the past twenty years or so has brought to light the shift of manufacturing from major cities to the countryside, the emergence of new industries such as hydraulic silk mills, and the staying power of old industries such as metallurgy and firearm production in the Brescia hinterland, papermaking along the coast of Liguria, and the textile industry of Bergamo. All of which convey the picture of an economy which, while declining "relative" to the economies of northern Europe, yet showed unsuspected vitality This article appeared in The Journal of European Economic History, 2004, pp. 59-90, published by Capitalia Banking Group.

IV

and resilience1. How were all these developments reflected in the country's import trade? Two sets of documents - one concerning imports to the port of Leghorn in Tuscany in the early 1650s and the other concerning imports to the port of Venice in the 1680s - show, somewhat unexpectedly, that the large majority of incoming cargoes consisted of industrial raw materials (and, to a lesser extent, of foodstuffs), whereas manufactured goods were only marginally present - the very reverse of what had often been assumed in the past. I

Consider first the case of Leghorn. By the early seventeenth century its key role as one of the three leading Italian ports with far-flung international connections was firmly established. Rising from an obscure village of some 700 souls around 1550 to a bustling city of over 10,000 by the 1620s, Leghorn had become a hub of international trade where well over one hundred large ships of many nationalities (in addition to a swarm of small boats plying the coastal trade) docked every year with cargoes that included Baltic grain, north African hides, sugar, oriental spices, dyes from the New World, English and Dutch textiles, raw wool from the Balkans and cured fish from north Atlantic waters.2 The data on imports presented here cover three short periods of time (specifically, 2 January-21 March 1652, 7 November-21 December 1652, 1

The large body of literature on the subject is discussed in D. Sella, Italy in the Seventeenth Century, (London-New York 1997), pp. 29-49. See also M. Aymard, "La fragilita di un'economia avanzata: l'ltalia e le trasformazioni dell'economia" in R. Romano (ed.), Storia dell'economia italiana, vol.11, (Turin 1991), p. 86; P. Malanima, Economia preindustriale. Mille anni: dal XI al XVIIIsecolo, (Milan 1995), pp. 322-323; S. Ciriacono, "Economie urbane e industria rurale nell'Italia del Cinque e Seicento: riconversione o stagnazione?", Rivista storica italiana, CXIII, 1 (2001), pp.5-35. andV. Beonio-Brocchieri, "Piazza universale di tutte leprofessioni del mondo". Famigliee mestieri nelDucato di Milano in eta spagnola, (Milan 2000), ch. 11. 2 On the rise of Leghorn, M. Baruchello, Livorno e il suo porto, (Leghorn 1932) and F. Braudel and R. Romano, Navires et merchandises a I'entree duport de Livourne (15471611), (Paris 1951). Population figures in E. Fasano Guarini, "Esenzioni e immigrazione a Livorno tra xvi e xvii secolo" in Atti del convegno 'Livorno e il Mediterraneo nelVetd medicea\ (Leghorn 1978), p. 62. 60

IV Industrial raw materials in the import trade of Northern and Central Italy during the XVIIth century

and 1 March-31 September 1653) for a total of about eleven months during which 165 large ships sailed into the harbour, with over half of them coming from North Africa.3 For each ship our source provides nationality, name of the port of departure, and a detailed list of the cargo indicating the quantity of each commodity on board. It should be pointed out that at times it is difficult to know with absolute precision the quantities involved, mainly due to the wide variety of the units of measurement then in use, for some of which a modern metric equivalent cannot be determined. Grain, for instance, is variously measured in terms of mine, sacchi, carra, scafissi or cafissi, starelli, and for the latter I know of no modern equivalent. Fortunately, however, the term starelli appear only once in a total of 52 TABLE 1 . Ships entering the port of Leghorn. 1652-53 Provenance

Number of ships

%

Lybia, Tunisia, Algeria

52

Egypt Turkey

43

Holland Cyprus

12

31.5 26.0 9.7 7.3

7

4.2

16

Syria

5

3.0

Spain

5

Greece

4

3.0 Z4

Portugal

4

2.4

Apulia

3

Sicily and Sardinia

3

1.8 JL8 1.2

Muscovy

2

Ionian Islands

2

1.2

England

1

0.6 6.6

Hamburg

1

Unknown

3

1.8

165

100

Major items transported grain, hides flax, hides, sugar cotton, silk, valonia, wool spices,dyes, cloth, cured fish cotton, wool, soda ash cotton, valonia .salt, iron, wool, hard currency cheese fish, spices, sugar, tobacco grain cheese,tuna caviar, fish raisins fish, lead cod, lead, tin

Source: Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Mediceo, 2328.

3

The number of ships entering in this eleven-month period is rather high compared to other years. V.Salvadorini, "Traffici con i paesi islamici e schiavi a Livorno nel secolo XVII: problemi e suggestioni" in Atti del convegno 'Livorno e ilMeditermneo", p. 211, provides the number of ships over six separate periods between 1644 and 1656 for a total of 980 ships in 81/2 years, or 115 ships a year on average. 61

IV

entries where grain is mentioned. Ignoring it, therefore, is not likely to distort significantly the total quantity of grain unloaded in Leghorn in those eleven months. And a large quantity it was indeed: 20,986 hi or 59,597 bushels. Gauging the quantity of spices, dyes (notably indigo and brazil wood) and cured fish presents more serious problems, because the variety of measures under which they are listed {pezzi, botti, barili, rotoli, fardi) defies any attempt at converting them into modern equivalents. Lastly, the few references to woollen fabrics (mainly from England and Holland) are entered in the documents in terms of pacchi (parcels) with no way of telling how much those 'parcels' weighed.4 At TABLE 2. Raw materials and grain entering the port of Leghorn. 1652-53 a) Industrial raw materials

cotton flax hides (number of) silk sugar sugar

wool wool b) grain

Number

Florentine lbs.

Total weight

Total weight

of units

per unit

in lbs.

in tons

1,923 coin 2,898colli 81,801 1^274colli

340 340

653,820 985,320

222.3 335^0

300 400

382,200 534,800 ?'"

129.9 534.8

1,337 casse 1,025 sacchi 251 sacchi 869balle

? 125 400

31,375 358,400

Number of units

Equivalent in hi.

Total in hi.

in bushels

0.12

2,164 12^610 5,510 702

6,146 15,648 1^994

20,986

59,600

18,037 mine 2,967 cafissi 926 carra 961 sacchi

. _ „ . . . .

5^95 a73

9

10.6 -•• — ••£•

Source: same as for Table 1. Note: all modern equivalents of old measures are taken from Braudel-Romano, Navires et merchandises a I'entree du port de Livourne, p. 84, except for the equivalents of the sacco of sugar and the cafisso or scafisso which the authors do not provide. I cannot find a modern equivalent for the sacco of sugar. As for cafisso, I have assumed, in light of the fact that the term is found only in connection with commodities comingfromnorth Africa, that we are dealing with the Arab unit qafiz which, according to Paul Sebag, Tunis au xviie siecle. Une cite barbaresque au temps de la course, (Paris, 1989), p.191, was equal to 425 litres. A Florentine Ib. is equal to 0.34 kg. 4

Out of 165 ships, only six (all from Holland) carried a varying number of 'parcels' of cloth among other items. 62

IV Industrial raw materials in the import, trade of Northern and Central Italy during the XVIIth century

any rate, for the purpose of this article, I have focused on six industrial raw materials (cotton, flax, hides, silk, sugar, and wool) that figure prominently in our source; the inclusion of sugar is based on the assumption that what came to Leghorn was, as will be seen in the case of Venice, unrefined sugar intended to be processed on Italian soil before reaching the consumer. Our source provides no information on the final destination of all these imported commodities. At first glance, one might be inclined to think that most of them were goods in transit rather than being intended for the Italian hinterland: after all, it has been widely held that Leghorn's prodigious rise from obscure village to free port with an international reputation where ships and merchants from distant lands called to exchange goods or merely to replenish their stores of food and water on their long journeys across the Mediterranean, was an "exception" totally "unconnected" to an allegedly depressed and de-industrialized Italian economy.5 And yet there are reasons for thinking that such was not the case at all and that, on the contrary, much and perhaps most of Leghorn's imports were meant for use in Italian manufactures. There is, first of all, the fact that for only seven ships out of a total of 165 did the customs official specify that all or part of their cargoes was intended for re-export. For example, when the ship Sanjacopo arrived on 14 March 1652 from Lisbon laden with brazil wood, sugar, cinnamon, tobacco and "diverse stuffs," her cargo was registered in two separate lists one of which read "for Genoa." Likewise, next to the list of commodities (mainly cotton and valonia, the latter a key ingredient for tanning) aboard the Dutch ship Arme di Amburgo, which had sailed from Alexandretta (Iskanderun in Syria) and docked at Leghorn on 15 April 1653, we find the notation "for Amsterdam." In light of this, it is reasonable to conclude that, in the absence of a specific notation, most cargoes were unloaded in Leghorn. More telling, however, is the information, however fragmentary, showing that industrial raw materials brought to Leghorn did find their way into the 5

F. Diaz, // Granducato di Toscana. I Medici, (Turin 1976), p. 397; C. Ciano, "Uno sguardo al traffico di Livorno e l'Europa del Nord verso la meta del Seicento" in Atti del Convegno 'Livorno e il Mediterraneo", p. 151; Malanima, Veconomia italiana nell'etd moderna, p. 127. 63

IV

hands of manufacturers in central and northern Italy. The Tuscan countryside, for instance, offered a significant outlet for importedflaxas the demand for it was high in that region, especially among the local peasantry, for making coarse linen fabrics and far outstripped local supply, so much so that by the eighteenth century two million pounds had to be imported annually from Egypt via Leghorn.6 Raw cotton, too, was in high demand in northern Italy, notably in the Gallarate area west of Milan where the making of cotton fabrics (fustagni and bombasine) still was and long remained the mainstay of the local economy7. As stated in a 1650 document, "the greater part of the people here are engaged in making cotton fabrics with cotton fetched from Milan, Genoa and Leghorn."8 As for all the raw silk imported from Turkey and the dyes brought in by Dutch vessels from the New World, they were most likely intended for the still thriving silk industries of nearby Lucca9 and Florence.10 Much of the fine raw wool imported from Spain no doubt went to the declining, yet still not negligible Florentine cloth industry whose annual output by mid-century stood at about 5,000 cloths and required some 220 tons of the raw material11, while the growing industry of lesser Tuscan towns, where annual production of low-grade fabrics in the 1660s reached the 10,000 mark12, absorbed the rest in addition to wool imported overland from Apulia and the Papal State. Lastly, the huge shipments of leather reaching Leghorn found a ready market in the tanneries and leather workshops of Italy - a subject to which I will return.

6

P. Malanima, // lusso dei contadini. Consumi e Industrie nelle campagne toscane del Sei e Settecento, (Bologna 1990), pp. 60 and 67. 7 In northern Italy the cotton industry had long been established. See the definitive work on the subject by M.F. Mazzaoui, The Italian Cotton Industry in the Later Middle Ages, 1100-1600, (Cambridge 1981). 8 Quoted in D. Sella, Crisis and Continuity. The Economy of Spanish Lombardy in the Seventeenth Century, (Cambridge, MA 1979), pp. 113-114. 9 R. Mazzei, "I rapporti tra Lucca e Livorno nel Seicento" in R. Mazzei and T. Fanfani (eds.), Lucca e VEuropa degli affari, (Lucca 1990), p. 313. 10 P. Malanima, La decadenza di un'economia cittadina. L'industria a Firenze nei secoli xvi-xviii, (Bologna 1982), pp. 93 and 302-304. 11 1 base this estimate on the data provided by Malanima, La decadenza, p. 93, indicating that about 130 Florentine lbs. (44 kg.) of wool were needed for manufacturing one cloth. l2 J.C. Brown, "The economic 'decline' of Tuscany: the role of the rural economy" in Villa I Tatti, Florence and Milan: Comparisons and Relations, (Florence 1989), p. 105. 64

IV Industrial raw materials in the import trade of Northern and Central Italy during the XVIIth century

n The two documents on Venetian imports in the early 1680s are of a different kind. One consists of a list of all commodities that passed through the Maritime Customs Office (Dogana da Mar); it indicates neither the number of ships involved nor the ports they had sailed from and only in a few instances is there mention of the country from which a given commodity originated. Commodities are simply classified into two broad categories depending on whether they originated from countries east (Levante) or west (Ponente) of a line running down the length of the Adriatic Sea. Accordingly, the first category included goods coming from Dalmatia, the Balkans, the Greek archipelago, Asia Minor and Syria; the other, goods from the Italian peninsula, Sicily and Sardinia, north Africa, and western Europe. For each commodity quantity is given in terms of standardized colli (bales) weighing 300 Venetian pounds (about 140 kg.). The list includes 142 different commodities (ranging from spices and dyes to hides, wax, sulphur, raisins and lead, to mention but a few) for a grand total of 84,790 bales (11,870 metric tons), with the eastern trade claiming 45,390 bales and the western trade 39,400. To place these figures in perspective, we may recall that in the first decade of the century, when port activity in Venice was at its peak, the total had stood at 95,000 bales; by 1675, in the aftermath of the long Cretan war against the Ottoman empire (1645-1669), it was down to 68,000 bales; by the early eighteenth century it had reached the 110,000 mark.13 The 1680 figure, therefore, suggests that Venetian maritime trade (at least in terms of sheer weight) was not far from the level it had known in the halcyon days of the early seventeenth century. Turning now to the composition of the 1680 imports (Table 3) we find striking similarities with the situation in Leghorn: in Venice, too, industrial raw materials stand out and, in fact, account (in terms of sheer weight) for 65% of all imports from the Levant and nearly 78% of those 13 D. Sella, Commerci e Industrie a Venezia nel secolo XVII, (Venice- Rome 1961), p. 72. A similar document for die year July 1681-June 1682 in Civico Museo Correr, Fondo Dona dale Rose, f. 3.

65

IV

from the west. As in Leghorn, we might add, imported textiles are present only in small quantities (25 bales). On the other hand, two commodities figure prominently in Venice, while they do not in Leghorn, namely wax from the Balkans and lead from the west (and most likely England). The second document, albeit limited to imports from the Dalmatian port of Ragusa (Dubrovnic) sheds further light on our subject for the years 1684-87. In those years, annual imports of leather stood, on average, at 10,525 cow hides and 211,415 Venetian pounds (nearly 100 tons) worth of cordovani (high-grade goat skins used for making shoe uppers); raw TABLE 3. Raw materials entering the port of Venice, 1680 (all measured in colli of 300 Venetian lbs., 1 lb.= 0.47 kg.) number of colli

% of total

weight in tons

provenance

a) from the east (da Levante) Total imports

cotton hides soda ash wax wool Total raw materials

45,390 1,016 7,467 2,948 10,841 7,390 29,662

_ 2.2 _ .

6.5 23.0 16.2 65.3

6,354 143 1,053 416 . _ _ 1,042 4^183

Syria and Cyprus Balkans Syria and Egypt Balkans Albania, Greece,

b) from the west (da Ponente) Total imports dyes lead sugar tin wool Total raw materials

39,400 1,905 12,406 14,945 153 1,200 30,609

100.0 4.8 31.5 37^9 3.0 77\7

5,516 269 1,749 2^107 21 169 4315

likely England

Spain

Source: Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Senato Mar, filza 649, attachment to a decree of 24 November 1683, reproduced in its entirety in Sella, Commerci e Industrie a Venezia nel secolo XVII, pp. 115-116. Comparable data in a list of imports for the year July 1681-June 1682 in Civico Museo Correr, Fondo Dona dalle Rose, 357/3. An attached note specifies that y 4 of all imports is consumed in Venice. Note: Although in Venice two different pounds were in use, the libbra grossa (0.47 kg.) for weighing such commodities as wool, iron, copper, lead, and alkali ash, and the libbra sottile (0.3 kg.) for weighing cotton, silk, dyes, sugar and wax, I have assumed that in this document only one kind of weight (presumably the libbra grossa) was intended, because the document reads : "we have reckoned and equalized (calcolato e ragguagliato) one collo at the weight of 300 pounds".

66

IV Industrial raw materials in the import trade of Northern and Central Italy during the XVIIth century

wool at 775,436 pounds (364 tons); and wax at 1,333,206 libbre sottili (at 0.3 kg. per lb.) or about 400 tons.14 As in Leghorn's case, our Venetian sources provide no information as to the final destination of these imports. There are grounds, however, for thinking that most of them ended up in Venice itself and in her mainland dominions stretching from the shores of the Adriatic to the heart of the Po Valley. As regards Venice, it is well to remember that, despite some heavy losses, the city continued to be an important manufacturing centre during the seventeenth century: even though its celebrated woollen industry had seen production plummet from an alltime high of 28,600 high-quality cloths ipanni alti) in 1602 to a low of 3-4,000 in the 1680s, at this late date it still needed not negligible quantities of fine Spanish wool; and if we adopt for Venice the data available for Florence, namely that one high quality cloth required 44 kg. of fine Spanish wool15, we can see that Venetian production at the time was likely to absorb most of the imported Spanish wool (1,200 bales or 160,000 kg), while the 7,390 bales of coarser varieties imported from the Balkans and from Greece no doubt found their way to the mainland where the cloth industry had greatly expanded in the course of the century and by 1687 boasted an output of 50,000 cloths of which, however, only 14% were panni alti probably made of fine Spanish wool, while the rest were mostly lower grade fabrics ipanni bassi) using coarser wool16. Raw materials that most certainly found their main outlet in the city of St. Mark were wax, unrefined sugar, and lead. The making of candles was a Venetian industry of long standing with a reputation that went well beyond the city's boundaries: in 1622 reportedly one fourth of production had been sold in the city to the many churches and shrines as well as to the homes of the rich, the rest being exported to the mainland and abroad. The 10,841 colli (1,500 tons) registered in 1680 strongly suggest that the old industry was prosperous and growing.17 And so must have been sugar refining and confectionery, another Venetian specialty: the 15,000 bales " Archivio di Stato di Venezia, V Savi alia Mercanzia, Diversorum, busta 350. See note 11 above. 16 Sella, Commerci e Industrie, p. 57n. 17 Ibid, p. 57. 15

67

IV

weighing 4.5 million Venetian pounds (2,115 tons) that were imported in 1680 compare favourably with the 4.3 million pounds imported in 1622 when nearly half of the finished product was re-exported "both to our subject cities and to Rome, Naples, Florence, Milan, Turin, and other places...".18 The destination of some 2,000 tons of English lead is more difficult to pinpoint, and yet can be reasonably inferred from the fact that lead was needed in at least two Venetian industries (as well as in their counterparts in the lesser towns of mainland). One was window glazing, an industry that was no doubt in great demand in a city of some 130,000 souls so rich in churches and palaces, but also a city where even modest households could afford window glass so much so that "a laudatory description of Venice boasted that every parish had its glazier"19. The other industry was the casting of moveable type made of an alloy of lead, tin and antimony for the printing industry - a field in which Venice had pioneered in the fifteenth century and in which it had long held a leading position in Europe. Even though this position had been gradually eroded as printing spread widely across the continent, printing remained a vital sector of the Venetian economy and, if we are to judge from the number of printers (libreri da stampd) registered in the city (111 in 1603 and 275 in 1690),20 a growing one too.

in Before concluding we must take a close look at the import of hides (mostly from north Africa21 and the Balkans) that are so conspicuous in both Leghorn (81,800 hides) and Venice (7,500 bales or some 1,000 tons). The sheer size of those imports is impressive indeed, the more so as we 18

Doc. quoted ibid., p 56n. EC. Lane, Venice. A Maritime Republic, (Baltimore-London 1973), p 310. 20 R.T. Rapp, Industry and Economic Decline in Seventeenth-Century Venice, (Cambridge, MA and London 1976), p. 60. 21 On leather as a key export from the Maghreb and the dominant role played in its trade by Jewish merchants from Leghorn see M.H.Cherif, "Algeria, Tunisia and Libya: the Ottomans and their heirs", B.A. Ogot (ed.), General History ofAfrica, vol. V, (New YorkBerkeley 1992), p.249. 19

68

IV Industrial raw materials in the import trade of Northern and Central Italy during the XVIIth century

know that the demand for hides was met in part from local sources, that is by animals slaughtered for their meat by local butchers. For instance, in Milan, a city of 120,000 at the turn of the sixteenth century, some 27,000 heads of cattle were slaughtered in a given year22, and their skins were tanned in or near the city itself or further away as far as Cannobio and Chiavenna, two locations well over 100 kilometres north of Milan that were rich in lime (a key ingredient of the tanning process) before being turned into a wide variety of leather goods by specialized craftsmen. And yet, Milan itself had to import hides from Venice, Genoa, and Leghorn to meet local demand.23 Clearly, we are dealing here with a large industry whose products held a prominent place, second only to textiles, in the limited array of manufactured goods available to early modern consumers. As a 1606 Milan document put it, leather was needed to make "scabbards, belts, coverings for horse-drawn coaches, clogs for the poor, horse harnesses, suitcases, hatboxes, shoelaces, trunk coverings, boots, shoes, and many more useful things"24 including, we might add, expensive gilded and engraved wall coverings, a renowned Venetian specialty25. As a sixteenth-century English statute succinctly put it: "everie sort of people of necessitie must use and have leather"26. In light of this the scant attention leather making has received until recently at the hands of economic historians is rather puzzling27. The data on imports we now possess invites us to revisit the subject. In Leghorn's case we know that by law all imported hides had to be 22

Sella, Crisis and Continuity, p. 12. E. Merlo, "La lavorazione delle pelli a Milano fra Sei e Settecento. Conflitti, strategie,dinamiche", Quaderni Storici 80 (1992), pp. 377 and 392n. 24 Archivio Storico Civico di Milano, Materie, 737, 23 October 1606. 25 S. Ciriacono, "Industria e commercio" in A. Tenenti and U.Tucci (eds.), Storia diVenezia, vol. 5, II Rinascimento, (Rome 1996), p. 558. 26 Quoted in L.A. Clarkson, The Pre-Industrial Economy of England 1500-1750 (New York 1972), p. 172. 27 Recent studies have now begun to fill the gap. In addition to E. Merlo's article cited above, see C. Poni, "Norms and disputes: the shoemakers' guild in lS^-century Bologna", Past and Present 123 (1989), pp.80-108; by the same author, "Local markets rules and practices. Three guilds in the same line of production in early modern Bologna" in S. Woolf (ed.), Domestic Strategies: Work and Family in France and Italy 1600-1800, (Cambridge 199D, pp.69-101; and the collection of essays in la conceria in Italia dal Medioevo ad oggi, (Milan 1994). 23

69

IV

forwarded to nearby Pisa28 where the leather industry had been in operation since medieval times29 and was still thriving in the seventeenth century30. There is scattered evidence, however, to the effect that some hides ended up, legally or not, well beyond the walls of Pisa: raw hides from Leghorn show up in 1621 in Bergamo and Brescia (much to the displeasure of Venetian authorities)31 as well as in Milan and Ancona.32 Unlike Leghorn which served merely as a conduit for imported leather, the city of Venice offered a partial, yet substantial, outlet for it. The guilds engaged in leather work (tanners, curriers, shoe and belt makers, cobblers, scabbard makers, furriers, and craftsmen known as coridoro who produced expensive gilded and engraved leather) had a combined membership of 1,210 at the close of the sixteenth century and 1,294 a century later.33 Venice, however, could not absorb all the imported hides and large quantities found their way further inland. Of the 620,000 hides imported during the first decade of the eighteenth century only 15% were absorbed by the city, while the rest were re-exported to Ancona, Verona, Brescia and Bergamo.34 The evidence on the import trade of Leghorn and Venice thus sheds light on the vitality not only of two major Italian commercial ports, but, more generally, on that of the economy of central and north Italy as well. It corroborates the view that, in spite of serious losses in its major cities, the country still harboured a vibrant and diversified manufacturing sector which, while catering primarily to the internal consumer market, retained strong links with the world economy to meet its needs for key industrial raw materials. 28

Braudel-Romano, Navires et marchandises, p. 19. D. Herlihy, Pisa in the Early Renaissance. A Study of Urban Growth (New Haven 1958), p. 135. 30 R. Mazzei, Pisa medicea, L'economia cittadina da Ferdinandola Cosimo III (Florence 199D, pp. 129-146. 31 Archivio di Stato di Venezia, VSavi alia Mercanzia, Risposte, reg. 145, c. 109,11 August 1621. 32 Merlo, "La lavorazione delle pelli a Milano", p. 392n. 33 Rapp, Industry and Economic Decline, pp. 58-62. 34 A. Vianello, "La lavorazione delle pelli nei territori veneto-lombardi della Repubblica di Venezia. Premesse secentesche e sviluppi settecenteschi" in La conceria in Italia, p. 135. A similar proportion had held a century earlier: S. Ciriacono, "Industria e commercio", p. 561. In 1609 the eighty tanneries of Brescia were reported as importing large quantities of hides from Venice as well as from Bolzano (A. Giarratana, "Brescia industriale al principio del Seicento", Commentari delVAteneo di Brescia, 1935, p. 34.) 29

70

V

Contribution to the History of the Sources of Energy: Water-driven Spinning Wheels in the Po Valley during the 17th Century [Author's translation of his essay "Contribute alia storia delle fonti di energia: I filatoi idraulici nella Valle Padana durante il sec. XVII," in Studi in onore di Amintore Fanfani (Milan: Giuffre, 1962), vol. 5, pp. 622-31.] On November 6, 1604 a man named Ottavio Malpighi from Modena secured from the government of the Venetian Republic the exclusive right to launch near Padua the manufacturing of fine, high quality yarn (orsoglio) as it was done in Bologna1. In the technical jargon of the time orsoglio alia bolognese meant a silk yarn used as warp in high quality fabrics, and more specifically, an organzine produced in a spinning mill2 through a twisting process for which Bologna had long been famous thanks to its hydraulic spinning mills, which are certain large machines which, driven by running water, easily and with marvelous speed spin, twist and double four thousand silk filaments, doing in a single moment what it would take four thousand spinners to do manually.3 The granting of this privilege to Malpighi apparently marks the onset of mechanized spinning in the inland territories (Terraferma) under Venetian

1

Archivio di Stato di Venezia (ASV), Senato Terra,fil^a368, doc. 6, November 1604. ASV, Arte della Seta, busta 120, fasc. 340, c. 22, doc. of 5 July 1670: "They say that orsoglio consists of two threads of silk; twisting is done either with wheels activated by hand, and these are called orsogli ordinari, but the twisting can also be done on wheels moved by water and these are 2

known as orsogli alia bolognese." 3

[Pompeo Viziani] Descrittione della Cittd, Contado, Governo e altre cose notabili di bologna

(Bologna, 1602), p. 26. For a technical description of the Bolognese silk mills, see U. Forti, Storia della tecnica italiana alle origini della vita moderna (Florence, 1940), pp. 112—13. According to Forti the

earliest hydraulic mill was built in Bologna in 1273, but it is doubtful whether it found practical use for industrial purposes: precise information on this score is found only in the treaties on technology of the late sixteenth century. At that time, mills were undoubtedly in operation in Bologna. According to those writers, a hydraulic silk mill could provide, in a unit of time, a production equal to that of 400 manual workers. I do not have any data for validating this figure or the one, even more suspect, given by Viziani.

V 2

Water-driven Spinning Wheels in the Po Valley during the 17th Century

rule,4 even though we cannot rule out the possibility that in Terraferma a few water-driven spinning mills were already in operation.5 A century and a half later a statistical survey revealed the existence in the Venetian mainland of more than 160 water-driven mills with an output of organzine over 600,000 lbs. (about 180,000 kg.). The largest concentrations of hydraulic silk mills were reported in the Bergamasque district with 60 mills, in the district of Brescia with 44, around Bassano with 29 and around Vicenza with 24.6 We do not have precise data such as would allow us to reconstruct the stages of development of hydraulic silk spinning from the beginning of the 17th century to the mid 18th century. We do know, however, that around 1636 mechanical silk spinning was well under way in Bassano, with excellent prospects for future growth, in Vicenza where 16 mills were in operation and in Padua.7 During the next decade another 15 mills for the production of organ^ino alia bolognese were set up in unidentified localities in the Venetian territory.8 In 1654 the production of organ^ino in the Terraferma was viewed as sufficient to meet the needs of the Venetian silk industry, an industry which by that time was admittedly in decline, but still had one thousand looms in operation.9 A few years later the hand-spinners in Venice were trying to make the government aware of the spread of unemployment among them, "a consequence of the construction of so many silk mills in Terraferma which have deprived us of

4 ASV, Cinque Savi all Mercan^ia, registro 165, carta 559, on 10 June 1698, for a reference to Ottavio Malpighi as the first man who, near Padua, launched the production of orsoglio alia bolognese. 5 O. Brentari, Storia diBassano e delsuo territorio (Bassano, 1884), p. 514; hydraulic silk spinning would seem to have been started in Bassano in 1578. 6 Museo Civico Correr, Venice, Miscellanea Correr XLIX, fascicolo 2170 (III): contains a report on the silk industry in the Venetian state in 1766. Attached to it is a list of "degli edifij tutti da orsogir and the annual output for each of them. Nearly always they are reported as either waterdriven or hand-operated. For example, the territory of Brescia had 44 hydraulic mills and 6 handoperated; for some localities of lesser importance (such as Treviso with 10 mills) such distinction is omitted. The sum total of 160 hydraulic mills does not include dubious cases and is, therefore, an approximation below the actual total. The same is true for the total output of 600,000 lbs. Silk was weighed in Venice in libre sottili, equivalent to 301 grams. 7 A.S.V Cinque Savi alia Mercan^ia, busta 411, 29 September 1636. According to Brentari, op. cit., p. 514, Bassano produced 15,000 lbs. of organ^ino a. year at the end of the 16th century and ten times as much a century later. 8 A.S.V. Senato Terra,fil^a603: scrittura dei Savi alia Mercan^ia of 28 September 1646. 9 A.S.V. ylrte della Seta, busta 99, fasc. 39: liMemoriale sopra I'estra^ione delle sede nostrane" (1654). On the silk industry of Venice see my book Commerci e industrie a Venecia nel secolo XV^II (VeneciaRoma, Istitutoper la collabora^aione culturale, 1961), pp. 123—34.

V Water-driven Spinning Wheels in the Po Valley during the 17th Century our jobs."10 Around 1670 the output of orsogli alia bolognese within the Venetian Terraferma was estimated at about 270,000;1 x seventy years later, as mentioned earlier, it was above 600,000 lbs. The growth of hydraulic silk spinning was not, but the way, circumscribed only to the territory of the Republic of St Marc. In the second half of the 17th century hydraulic spinning mills were built in other parts of the Po Valley, notably in the state of Milan and in Piedmont.12 This interesting phenomenon of growth, in a sector of production in which the use of hydraulic energy found such wide application, and in an age in which a great deal of manufacturing activities in the Po Valley were undergoing a rapid and irreversible decline, presents the historian with a series of questions. What factors promoted the growing use of hydraulic energy? Why did its use find practical application in the processing of silk? And lastly, why in such a specific sector did it meet with such a remarkable success? One of the best known and most stunning aspects of the Italian economy during the 17th century is represented by the decline of the major manufacturing centers which, first in the late Middle Ages and again after the eclipse caused by the Italian wars in the 16th century, had held a leading position in the economic life of Europe. The woolen industry in Milan, Como, Cremona and Venice, Lombard and Venetian silk making, the Milanese arms industry, the Cremonese industry of fustians, shipbuilding in Venice, leather-making in Como. This impressive production complex experienced in the early seventeenth century a complete decline or long stagnation.13 What caused this dramatic economic decline was essentially foreign competition. In the late 16th century, Italian manufacturing thrived to a large extent on their exports. From the close of the 16th century their products were gradually replaced on foreign markets by those made in countries that

10

A.S.V. Militia da Mar, busta 722, supplica dei filatoggi di seta of 7 August 1660. A.S.V. Arte della seta, busta 120, fasc. 343. 12 For the State of Milan see a short discussion in G.P. Bognetti, La seta in Lombardia in Problemi italiani, I (1922), p. 28; for Piedmont, G. Destefanis, Notice suit'arte della seta in Racconigi nei secoli XVI, XVII, XVIII, in Bollettino della EL Deputa^ione subalpina di Storia Patria, Se^ione di Cuneo, 1941, and A. Fanfani, Storia del lavoro in Italia dallafinedel secolo XV agli ini^i del XVIII, 2nd ed. (Milan 1959), p. 135. In Mantua in 1610 an hydraulic silk mill is in operation, cfr. L. Brenni, La tessitura serica attraverso i secoli (Como, 1925), p. 72. 13 For the general aspects of decline, see Fanfani, Storia del lavoro, pp. 1—49, and CM. Cipolla, IIdeclino economico dell'Italia, in Storia dell'economia italiana, ed. Cipolla, vol. I (Turin, 1959). O n shipbuilding in particular, see F.C. Lane, Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders of the Renaissance_(B2Lhimoi:e, 1934). 11

3

V 4

Water-driven Spinning Wheels in the Po Valley during the 17th Century

were experiencing a vigorous growth - England, the Netherlands and France.14 The competition of the new rivals, by the way, occurred even on the home market. In the Venetian merchant fleet the presence of Dutch-built ships became more and more conspicuous.15 English worsted textiles found in Italy at the time of the decline of Italian woolen industries one of their new and most promising outlets.16 Arms were being imported from France by the midseventeenth century, while the local manufacture, once so prosperous, was no longer capable of satisfying demand.17 In Colbert's time Lombardy was one of the chief clients of the French woolen industry.18 When debating the reasons for the superiority of foreign goods, 17th century sources are virtually unanimous in pointing to their lower prices.19 This does not exclude the presence of other favorable elements, and in particular that of quality; some manufactured goods offer features that consumers prefer. But even when Italian manufacturers tried to launch the production of new articles, they often had to give up in the face of higher costs.20 And among the various elements of cost, labor seems to have been crucial. Whether they were involved in the construction of ships or in the textile field, Italian entrepreneurs, in each case, given the status of available technology, found that labor represented some of the most conspicuous elements of cost.21 And in terms of labor cost, the old and celebrated Italian manufactures seem to have occupied a position of inferiority vis-a-vis their younger European rivals, whether that inferiority depended on higher wage rates or on, in the case wagerates were equal, the lower productivity of labor.22

14

Cipolla, II declino economico, p. 611. Lane, Ships and Shipbuildings p. 232. 16 See B.E. Supple, Commercial Crisis and Change in England 1600—1642 (Cambridge, 1959), pp. 154 and ff. For the second half of the century some data on the export of English cloth to Italy are provided by M. Priestley, "Anglo-French Trade and the 'Unfavorable Balance' Controversy, 1660-85", in Economic History Review, 2nd ser., IV (1951-52), p. 47. 17 Cipolla, art. cit, p. 622 note. 18 C. Cole, Colbert and a Century of French Mercantilism (New York 1939), vol. I, p. 433. 19 Cipolla, art. cit., p. 617. 20 I have recorded a few cases of failure in my books on the Venetian economy cfr. supra note 9. 21 Some data on the incidence of labor on costs in shipbuilding (26%) in Lane, op. cit., p. 265. In the Florentine woolen industry at the opening of the 17th century, the incidence of labor costs stood at 55%. A slightly lower incidence (52%) is reported for the English woolen industry by E. Lipson, The History of the Woolen and Worsted Industries (London 1921), p. 256. 22 The lesser cost of Dutch ships, for instance, can not have resulted from lower wages, but rather from the superior and more efficient organization of their ship yards and from the use 15

V Water-driven Spinning Wheels in the Po Valley during the 17th Century At that time, knowledgeable Italians were well aware of the necessity of bringing labor costs in their traditional industries in line with those that prevailed among their rivals abroad, but were unanimous that such an adjustment was opposed by the powerful craft guilds and that the latter were supported by the urban legislation which ensured them full control over the supply of labor, but also, after 1630, by a devastating outbreak of the plague that destroyed at least one third of the population in the major urban centers such as Milan, Venice, Pavia, Como, while not sparing a good number of lesser towns.23 In order to cope with the difficulties created by the rigidity of the labor market and to respond effectively to foreign competition, three strategic approaches were available to the entrepreneurs of northern Italy: one was to shift traditional manufactures from the cities to small towns in the countryside that were free of the guilds' control; a second alternative consisted in concentrating available resources on the production of luxury goods that required a long tradition of highly skilled craftsmanship not easy to imitate in countries of more recent manufacturing development; a third alternative was to promote industries where the use of water driven machines could substitute to a considerable extent the labor input. As a matter of fact, all of these solutions were tried out in the Po Valley during the seventeenth century.

of mechanical saws and winches (see V Barbour, "Dutch and English Merchant Shipping in the Seventeenth Century," in Essays in Economic History, ed. E.M. Carus-Wilson, London 1954, p. 238). In the case of the Venetian woolen industry contemporaries saw one of the cases of its decline vis-a-vis foreign competition in the complex of the prohibition imposed by the guilds against a more rational and more efficient organization of the production process: prohibition of employing workers who were not members of a guild, prohibition of more than three looms in a single workshop, prohibition imposed on the merchant-entrepreneur to concentrate, under his control, the various phases of production under one roof (cfr. D. Sella, "Les mouvements longs de l'industrie lainiere a Venise aux XVI et XVII siecles," in Annales XII [1957], p. 42). 23 See Cipolla, art. cit., p. 618. For data on the incidence of the plague of 1630 in the major cities of the Po Valley, see D. Beltrami, Storia delta popola^ione di Venecia delta fine del secolo XVI alia caduta delta Repubblica (Padua, 1954), p. 58; B. Caizzi, II Comasco sotto ildominio spagnolo (Como, 1955);

G. Aleati, "La popolazione di Milano neli secoli XVI e XVII," in Storia di Milano (ed. Fondazione Treccani degli Alfieri), vol. XII, p. 465; On Bergamo, Brescia, Piacenza, Verona, see R. Mols, Introduction a la demographie historique des pities d'Europe du XIV

au XVII

siecle (Louvain, 1954—56), vol.

II, p. 457. On lesser towns we only have sporadic information in a Milanese document in Archivio storico civico, Dicasteri 329, "Relatione del presentaneo stato del Ducato," (undated, but probably from 1641) which provides stunning, albeit rounded, figures on the tragic losses caused in 1630 in small towns such as Monza, Busto Arsizio, Lecco, Abbiategrasso, etc. On the smaller communities in the Comasco, see Caizzi, op. cit.

5

V 6

Water-driven Spinning Wheels in the Po Valley during the 17th Century

As for the first strategy, it is well known that some measure of development of traditional manufacturing did take hold in the countryside.24 Yet, in view of the large importation of foreign manufactured goods that characterized, as will be recalled, the entire seventeenth century, we can assume that rural industries played only a limited role such that they could not fill the gap left by the collapse of the urban industries - a fact that can reasonably be accounted for with the relative shortage of rural labor, not only as a consequence of the 1630 plague, but above all, as the consequence of the expansion of agricultural production, such as that of rice and silk, that require large labor inputs.25 As for the second option, we know that in some old manufacturing centers there was a tendency to give up the production of goods intended for a large market and to concentrate their efforts on luxury items, such as finely carved rock crystal and expensive silk fabrics as in Milan, furniture and artistic glassware in Venice26 - with somewhat disappointing results due to the growing restrictions imposed by mercantilist governments on the import of items considered superfluous. The third option - in other words, the development of productions that could be obtained for the most part with machines and with hydraulic energy - the construction of spinning mills for making silk yarn proves that it too was pursued, at least in this sector, with obvious success. What reasons recommended the use of hydraulic energy in this specific sector of production? It is nearly superfluous to recall that, in the seventeenth century, the range of possible applications of natural energy to replace human energy was very 24 On rural industries, notably the weaving of woolen cloth and of fustians, and leather making, some information can be found in Caizzi, op. cit, pp. 97—8; F. Catalano, La fine del dominio spagnolo, in Storia di Milano, cit., vol. XI, pp. 180—82; and Cipolla, art. cit., p. 610. We do not have information about a typically rural industry — the trattura of silk (extraction of silk filaments from the cocoons). Yet, in view of the expansion of the raising of silkworms on the one hand, and of the preparation of silk yarn, it is legitimate to assume that the preliminary stage of the processing of the raw material — the trattura — employed a large number of workers in the countryside of the Po Valley. 25 On the expansion of rice fields, see A. De Maddalena, Pre^i e aspetti di mercato in Milano

durante it secolo XVII

(Milano 1949), pp. 85—6, and M. Lecce, Pa coltura del riso in Perritorio Veronese

(secoli XVI-XVIII)

(Verona, 1958), pp. 8 and f£; and for silk see S. Pugliese, Condition? economiche

delta Pombardia nellaprima metd del secolo XVIII 26

(Turin, 1924), pp. 42—3.

Interesting information in R. Lassels, Phe Voyage of Italy (Paris, 1670), p. 130 (for the carved crystals and the glassware of Milan), and p. 473 (for the vetrerie muranesi). On Venice, see also G. Morazzoni, II mobile vene^iano del Settecento (Milano, 1952), vol. I, pp. 12—28, and also information on the second half of the seventeenth century.

V Water-driven Spinning Wheels in the Po Valley during the 17th Century much restricted and came down to the use of a few machines activated either by water or by wind and capable of performing just a few isolated complex production processes. Besides grain mills and the hydraulic machines for fulling woolen cloth, both of them widely used since medieval times, at the start of the seventeenth century there were machines for papermaking, mechanical saws for wood working, machines for crushing minerals, bellows and hammers for iron metallurgy and, finally, spinning mills for making silk yarn.27 Within this limited technological range, the actual possibilities for expanding the use of mechanical energy were further limited given the high cost of transportation in general, and, particularly, by the high cost of transportation by land and the conditions of accessibility of raw materials. The mechanical saws for cutting timber found only sporadic use in the Po Valley where deforestation had been going on since the mid-sixteenth century,28 whereas they had wide application in a country such as Holland, located in the vicinity of the rich Baltic forests.29 In the case of machines for crushing the ores extracted from the mines, the possibilities of utilization no doubt found a limit in the modest size of the mines in northern Italy, while they found a significant area of application in a country such as England, far more endowed with mineral resources.30 In the case of silk, by contrast, the situation was quite different: in the Po Valley, the raising of silk worms, that started in the late fifteenth century, put the raw material within easy reach — a raw material that was convenient to transform into an intermediate state, discarding all useless matter before shipment to the consumers' market. If the presence of an easily accessible raw material, the technical possibility of transforming it, following Bologna's example, in water driven spinning mills, and the presence of many streams and rivers characterized with a fairly stable seasonal flow represented the indispensable premises for the development of the mechanical processing of raw silk in the Po Valley, the stimulus for the construction of a large number of new mills was undoubtedly provided by the growing demand for silk in Europe.

27 Fanfani, Storia del lavoro, cit., pp. 137, 139, 140 and 141. In the case of silk it looks like the use of hydraulic water was applied only to twisting. 28 See Lane, op. cit, pp. 231—2, on the massive deforestation of the plain. 29 Barbour, art. cit, p. 239. 30 See H.R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry from c.450 B.C. to A.D. 1775 (London, 1957).

7

V 8

Water-driven Spinning Wheels in the Po Valley during the 17th Century

In Italy, it is true, silk weaving was in decline during the seventeenth century;31 in Germany, during the Thirty Years War some centers of the silk industry suffered very serious losses.32 In the rest of Europe, however, the demand and the production of silk fabrics tended to expand under the influence of taste, both in fashion and interior decoration; in France, the silk industry of Tours and even more so that of Lyons expanded vigorously during the century, and by its end attained the position of primacy in Europe.33 If not as pronounced as in France, other countries too, notably Holland and England,34 since the first half of the seventeenth century, started their own silk industries. It was toward these new outlets that the growing production of silk was directed. This included raw silk, but above all spun silk. According to a 1636 document, for instance, the entire production of organzine was allegedly absorbed by exports, while that of Bassano was "exported to Flanders, Milan, Lyons, Florence and Germany."35 Between 1620 and 1640 one of the most salient facts in English trade to the Mediterranean was the fast and conspicuous growth of the importation to England of silk thread from the three major harbors - Genoa, Venice and Leghorn.36 Around 1670, the Milanese silk manufacturers asserted that the shipments of wrought silk to France amounted to one thousand bales (or 300,000 lbs.) and represented the bulk of the exports from the State of Milan;37 around that same year the export of organ^ino from Bologna must have been quite large, if an English visitor spoke about it with astonishment and estimated (and probably exaggerated) it at one million lbs. per year;38 at the close of the eighteenth century, the well-informed historian Carlo Antonio Marin asserted that from the Venetian Terraferma about 2 million lbs. of silk every year were shipped

31

Cipolla, art. cit., pp. 606-10. J-M. Kulischer, Storia economica (Italian trans. G. Bohm), (Florence, 1955), vol. II, p. 373. 33 G. Luzzatto, Storia economica: I'etd moderna, 4th ed., (Padua, 1955), p. 329. 34 On Holland see E. Baasch, Hollandische Wirtschaftsgeschichte, (Jena, 1927), pp. 101—3; on England, E. Lipson, The Economic History of England, 5th ed. (London, 1948), vol. II, p. 102. 35 A.S.V., Cinque Savi alia Mercan^ia, busta 477, on 29 September 1636, doc. cit. 36 M.A. Millard, "The Import Trade of London, 1600-1640" (doctoral thesis, London University, 1956), p. 227. 37 Archivio di Stato di Milano, Commerciop.a., cartella 25, rela^ione del 1670. See also Archivio Storico Civico di Milano, Materie 269, of 29 September 1667; The leaders of the merchants stated that the State of Milan "has no other commercial relationships other than with France, to which it exports both raw and wrought silk which the State of Milan produces in abundance as the majority of the populace work silk and from it derives its livelihood." 38 John Clenche, J\ Tour in France and Italy made in 1675 (London, 1676), p. 33. 32

V Water-driven Spinning Wheels in the Po Valley during the 17th Century abroad39 - and it must have been, in part, silk transformed into organzine in the many hydraulic mills scattered within the dominions of Serenissima. The growth of the production and exportation of silk prompted by European demand had one important result for the economy of the Po Valley; in an age when the traditional exportation of manufactured goods was on the way to extinction, the large exports of silk represented a new, important and active share of the commercial balance, a share that offset, at least in part, the decline of traditional exports and contributed in supporting the import capacity of the states included in the Po Valley, preventing them from sliding into economic isolation. To that result, the use on a large scale of hydraulic energy made a significant contribution. Without it the transformation of raw silk into organzine would likely have run into the same bottlenecks in the supply of labor which traditional manufactures experienced and would never have developed at all; the Po Valley would have exported silk cocoons rather than fine silk yarn, and the value of its exports would have been considerably lower. Moreover, it is legitimate to assume that if the making of silk yarn could not have been done with hydraulic mills, the necessity of doing it by hand (in Italy or abroad) would have resulted in an increase in production costs, a contraction of the market for the finished product and, in the final analysis, in a lower demand of raw material, with unfavorable repercussions on the Po Valley, one of the major producers in Europe of that raw material. Yet, even though the utilization of hydraulic energy made possible the development of a new and important productive sector and thereby contributed to sustaining the overall income of northern Italy, it could not stop the decline of traditional manufactures. The reason for this is clear; given the conditions of the technology at that time, the use of hydraulic energy was strictly limited to one isolated phase of production. The other phases continued to depend on the work of the craftsman, and on this score the problem of cost was apparently insuperable. This accounts for the fact that, in the seventeenth century, the Po Valley was transformed from an exporter of finished goods to an exporter of semifinished goods, and this transformation illustrates well the limited possibilities of adaptation and of development in an economy with a limited and basically static range of technological knowledge, but also without a plentiful supply of cheap labor.

C.A. Marin, Storia civile del commercio dei Vene^iani, (Venice, 1798—1808), vol. VIII, p. 338.

9

VI

WAR FINANCE AND INDUSTRY IN SEVENTEENTH CENTURY LOMBARDY

i. In the literature devoted to the economic vicissitudes of the Spanish portion of Lombardy during the seventeenth century the subject of public finance holds a conspicuous place, and rightly so. For in the age of the Thirty Years War and down to the Treaty of the Pyrenees of 1659 the State of Milan was called upon to play a key role in Hapsburg strategy, was repeatedly involved in actual warfare, and was made to bear a large share of the physical and financial cost of the prolonged war effort staged by the Spanish crown on its soil. Public finance has been primarily discussed in terms of fiscal policies and revenue; and much of the historians' attention has been devoted to the effects of a long series of increasingly stringent fiscal measures on the economy. Those effects are well known: although a number of other factors were undoubtedly at play, there is little doubt that the growing and insatiable demands of a hard-pressed treasury bear a major responsibility for the dramatic dislocation of Lombardy's traditional economic structure in the second quarter of the century. High quality textile manufactures, a variety of luxury

VI 700

industries, the making of finely chiseled and highly ornamented armor, widely ranging commercial activities, the construction of palaces, nsions and churches—all the things that had traditionally supported the prosperity of Lombardy suffered severe and sometimes irreparable damages under the implacable pressure of taxation. 2. While the rising tide of taxation and its adverse effects on important sectors of the economy are clearly discernible, the expenditure side of the budget and the impact of government spending are not and have so far been largely neglected. The neglect is a serious one, for we know that much of the money raised in Lombardy was spent there and, accordingly, we are entitled to expect the high level of government spending to have had effects no less noticeable than (although sharply different from) those wrought on the economy by its counterpart, namely government revenue. Source material for a study of war expenditures is certainly not lacking and, while it may not enable us to draw a complete picture of military appropriations, it is nonetheless very instructive and deserves to be rescued from the oblivion in which it has been allowed to rest for so long. Even a preliminary reconnaissance of the treasury registers of the State of Milan makes it possible to single out some of the most conspicuous and frequently recurring items of expenditure. Besides the vast sums appropriated to pay native soldiers and foreign mercenaries, to hire horse and carriage, and to secure food and fodder for the army, we find heavy outlays for bulk purchases of weapons, ammunitions, and equipment: individual consignments of several thousands muskets, helmets, uniforms, boots, picks, shovels, and barrels of gunpowder are routine matter in the treasury registers. But possibly no entries are so conspicuous and so frequently recurring as those relating to construction works and to the acquisition of building materials, a fact which needs little comment, for we know that in those troubled decades the State of Milan was turned into a formidable stronghold with the newly expanded Castle of Milan at its center and an impressive ring of fortresses and bulwarks along its borders. 3. What were the actual sources of government purchased supplies? In the case of fortifications the answer is obvious enough: building materials had to be mainly secured from local quarries and brick furnaces. Arms, ammunition, and equipment, on the other hand, could be imported and occasionally were. We read of cannon and cannon balls imported from Holland, of portable firearms imported from Brescia, Lucca, and even from enemy France, of cheap cloth shipped from Bergamo. While foreign suppliers of military hardware and textiles must have found a good market in war-ridden Lombardy, local entre-

VI 701

preneurs were not idle and a good many certainly prospered. This was true not only of the building contractors and the purveyors of victuals, but also of the mine owners and iron masters in the Valsassina, a district traditionally geared to mining and metallurgy and one that was reported as being very active in the 1630's and 4o's mainly as a result of government demand for arms, ammunitions, and hardware. Business was good for the armorers and gunmakers of Milan too: at a time when the making of expensive, custom-made armor was dying out, a number of arms manufacturers could secure handsome contracts for common service arms, helmets, and breastplates. In Milan itself as well as in a number of villages in the Lake Gomo area the leather industry received a fillip from the war, as it was called upon to fill large orders for footwear, bandoleers, holsters, and harness. 4. The evidence of the kind just presented is very fragmentary and it would be rash to draw from it precise conclusions as to the impact of government spending on the economy. One thing, however, is tolerably clear, namely, the sharp contrast between industries geared to the war effort and those catering to civilian needs: in the war decades the industrial pattern of Lombardy was deeply altered, and behind the change one must see both the pressure of taxation and the stimulus of massive government spending. We have, of course, no direct way of estimating, let alone measuring, the extent to which the expansion of war output compensated for the dramatic contraction of civilian output. And yet it is remarkable that in the period under discussion widespread unemployment was not among the many and not unwarranted grievances voiced by the Lombard subjects against their rulers. As far as government policy was concerned, scarcity rather than redundancy of labor was the keynote, and efforts were made over and over again to attract workers from abroad. We also know that those efforts were not lost, for the immigration of bricklayers, carpenters, miners, ironsmiths, and gunmakers from neighboring countries into the State of Milan is a well established fact, and one obviously connected with an expanding war output. 5. The conclusion of this brief inquiry, then, is that government spending for defence and war purposes played a major role in the course of Lombardy's industrial history; without it, the whole picture of the economy must be seriously incomplete and lopsided. Of course, even though war output may have been a powerful stimulant of economic activity, the price Lombardy had to pay for it should not be lost sight of. It is clear, on the one hand, that to the extent that the war effort absorbed factors of production normally allocated to civilian needs rather than factors which would otherwise have been idle, its cost had to be matched in full by sacrifices in private

VI 702

consumption and well being. There are reasons for believing, on the other, that Lombardy emerged from the long ordeal in 1659 with an economy seriously distorted in terms of skills and productive capacity and, as such, ill prepared for a quick return to normal peacetime conditions.

VII

Au dossier des migrations montagnardes: Fexemple de la Lombardie au XVIP siecle « Une fabrique d'hommes a Fusage d'autrui» : c'est ainsi que Fernand Braudel a defini, par une formule incisive, la montagne mediterraneenne aux debuts des temps modernes1. Qu'il s'agisse d'dmigration permanente, irreversible ou de deplacements temporaires, voire saisonniers, cette montagne, telle que l'evoquent les grandes pages de La Mediterranee et le monde mediterranean a Vepoque de Philippe II, nous apparait en effet comme un monde toujours aux prises avec des ressources insuffisantes et des lors contraint a «deverser sa surcharge d'hommes» — mercenaires suisses ou albanais, tacherons dauphinois ou castillans, debardeurs bergamasques ou colporteurs armeniens — vers les fermes, les chantiers de construction, les villes grouillantes du bas-pays2. C'est a ce dossier des migrations montagnardes ouvert par Fernand Braudel que je voudrais verser eici quelques fiches se rapportant a la Lombardie du milieu du xvn siecle. Une poignee de documents d'archives nous permettra d'observer en detail et a l'echelle locale ce flux et ce reflux d'hommes qui animaient la montagne mediterraneenne et d'en connaitre de plus pres le rythme, les directions et les ressorts. Dans les pages qui suivent, seules les migrations temporaires retiendront notre attention. A cet effet, parcourons de l'ouest a Test la rangee de vallees qui sillonnent le versant meridional des Alpes et des Prealpes et aboutissent a la plaine lombarde. A des altitudes relativement basses (a moins de 500 metres parfois) le paysage et le sol prennent deja l'aspect apre de la montagne: fortes denivellations, eboulements, terrains pierreux ronges par les torrents. L'agriculture est pauvre et la vie tres rude dans les villages enfouis au fond des vallees ou accroches a leurs coteaux. La grande plaine est cependant toute proche et son attrait, on le devine aisement, d'autant plus fort. C'est bien le cas de la vallee d'Ossola qui, par le Simplon, relie la Lombardie a Geneve et a Lyon. «La misere de cette vallee — lisons-nous dans un memoire de 1711 — il faut l'avoir vue pour la comprendre. Le peu de terrain plat qui s'etend a son centre c'est

VII 548 de quoi vous faire verser des larmes tant il est devaste par les torrents ( . . . . ) Le reste du pays est tout en montagnes, ravins et vallees pierreuses et ne porte fruit que deux mois de l'ann£e k ses habitants ; ce qui les contraint a s'en aller par le monde en quete de nourriture pour soi-meme aussi bien que pour leurs femmes et leurs jeunes enfants qui eux res tent au foyer... » 3 . Un siecle plus tot un magistrat, de retour de l'Ossola, remarquait plus laconiquement: « Les hommes de cette juridiction sont en general des paysans dont le plus grand nombre est oblige d'aller par le monde en quete de travail pour gagner de quoi vivre, le pays etant tout sterile » 4 . De Bognanco, nous apprend un autre document, les hommes « vont en d'autres lieux pour cultiver les terres d'autrui, la plupart d'entre eux n'ayant ni metier ni occupation pour gagner leur pain » 5 . Leurs voisins de Leventina, la vallee suisse qui grimpe vers le Gothard, trouvent un debouche a Milan ou un ancien privilege reserve a eux seuls le metier de porteur au croisement de la Porta Orientale 6 . Autour du Lac d'Orta la nature n'est guere plus aimable et elle repousse egalement ses hommes : « Tout y est montagne et en grande partie sterile, et on n'en tire aucun fruit; ce qui fait que les habitants de ces terres vont travailler en differentes contrees faisant divers metiers pour gagner leur vie et celle des miserables families qui vivent en les dits lieux » 7. Plus au sud, sur les derniers contreforts qui cement le Lac Majeur et a quelques lieues seulement de la plaine, Montrignasco est un village de 52 families ; mais dans 14 de ces foyers (soit un quart) le pere est signale comme « absent». Ces absents, nous precise-t-on, se trouvent « dans la Bergamasque ou ils travaillent comme cordonniers» (calzolari)8. A Invorio, a trois kilometres d'Arona, le cure affirme que sa paroisse compte 352 habitants dont 220 adultes : parmi ces derniers 46 sont absents 9 . Le hasard des recherches nous en a fait d'ailleurs rencontrer u n : c'est un savetier (zavatino) qui demeure a cette epoque a Trezzo sur la rive de l'Adda : « sa famille — lisons-nous — habite en montagne, & Invorio sur le Lac Majeur » 10 . Les villages ranges le long du bord occidental du lac entre Lesa et Baveno connaissent eux aussi Immigration temporaire: leurs habitants, a en croire un memoire de 1647, « passent la plupart du temps loin de leurs foyers en des pays lointains pour gagner leur vie en differents metiers » n . De l'autre cote du lac, meme situation : le manque de ressources chasse les hommes. Un memoire de 1588 sur Luino et la Valtravaglia nous le dit bien: «les hommes des dits lieux n'ont aucun emploi sauf ceux qui travaillent aux fours a chaux; nombreux sont ceux qui vont travailler dans le Royaume de Naples 12 ». Une liasse de documents de 1656 nous fournit des details k ce sujet 13 . II s'agit de « releves des hommes » (note delli huomini) dresses en une vingtaine de villages de la Valtravaglia: au total, 630 noms dont 209 (33 %) inscrits comme « absents ». D'autres temoignages de l'epoque nous apprennent d'ailleurs qu'il s'agissait surtout de masons qui allaient s'embaucher a Milan et jusqu'a Rome et

VII MIGRATIONS MONTAGNARDES

549

a Naples 14. A leur sujet on interroge un paysan de l'endroit: « Nous ne passons que l'hiver au foyer — affirme-t-il — et le reste de l'annee nous allons par le monde comme ouvriers du batiment, tel etant notre metier »15. Dans les montagnes de la vallee d'Intelvi «le sol est pauvre et pour vivre ces miserables sont bien obliges16 d'aller par le monde pour gagner de quoi nourrir leurs families » .17Tel tailleur de pierre se rend chaque annee a Turin pour huit mois ; pour tel magon le but est Crema; pour d'autres encore, l'Allemagne 18. Tout autour du Lac de Come la montagne grimpe en pentes raides ne laissant aux cultures que de minces terrasses, et ni la peche ni les activites de transport lacustre ne suffisent a combler les besoins d'une population trop nombreuse. Aussi faut-il emigrer, et on le fait en masse soit defmitivement, soit, et surtout, pour quelques mois de l'annee seulement. Bruno Caizzi nous en a porte des preuves nombreuses : en 1643, par exemple, dans les villages du centre du Lac, sur une population to tale de 6.965 ames on signale 866 hommes absents19, ce qui, rapporte a la seule population masculine adulte, peut bien representer un tiers d'absents. En 1647, & Bellagio et dans les hameaux voisins on recense 260 hommes de plus de quatorze ans: 109 d'entre eux (42%) sont indiques comme absents20. A Lezzeno, nous dit un memoire de 1637, « la plupart des hommes sont pecheurs et bateliers, mais il en est plusieurs qui vont a 21 Milan et en d'autres villes pour gagner leur vie comme boulangers ». Six ans plus tard, on y compte 93 absents sur un total de 555 ames 22. Dans un groupe de villages non loin de la, on releve 391 noms d'hommes dont 105 absents (27 % ) 2 3 ; a Sueglio, petit hameau accroche a 700 metres d'altitude sur la montagne qui surplombe Dervio, des 76 families qui le composent 26 sont temporairement privees de leur chef; et le fonctionnaire de nous preciser que 7 de ces absents se trouvent a Milan, 4 a Varese, 4 a Monza et le reste24 eparpille dans d'autres centres de la plaine et jusqu'a Venise . De la rive orientale du lac remontons le grand sillon de la Valsassina. Une enquete de 1647 nous fournit pour chaque village le nombre des capi di casat soit des chefs de famille : au total, 1.313 individus et autant de foyers distribues en 43 villages. De ces chefs de famille 213 (16 °/o) sont portes comme absents. Dans chaque village on interroge le « consul» au sujet de ces absences. « Us vont par le monde — repond Fun d'eux — travailler comme porteurs, metayers (mazadri) ou bergers, mais ils laissent au foyer femme et enfants ». Les absents, nous relate un autre interlocuteur, « reviennent chez eux deux fois par an et meme moins souvent, et il en est qui s'absentent un an entier et meme plus, mais leur mere ou leurs freres gardent la maison ». « II en est — remarque le consul d'lntrobio — qui habitent Milan et reviennent ici presque tous les ans et d'autres qui vivent a Florence et en des contrees lointaines et qui ne rentrent que tous les deux ou trois ans (....). Mais de toute

VII 550 facon ils laissent quelqu'un au foyer pour s'occuper de leur bien » 25 . Dans la Lombardie Venitienne, et notamment dans les vallees bergamasques, l'emigration apparait, aux debuts de l'age moderne, un phenomene tout aussi etendu. En Valtaleggio, aux dires du representant de la Republique de Saint-Marc, « on ne produit du grain d'aucun genre et la rnajorite des habitants s'en va par le monde et par l'ltalie, generalement k Rome et a Venise, gagnant leur pain comme marchands, aubergistes, chaudronniers et d'autres metiers encore; ils ne rentrent au foyer que tous les deux ou trois ans et y passent six mois ( ). Ceux qui restent au pays sont des pauvres qui gardent le betail. » La Valbrembana « est pierreuse et sterile, la recolte du ble ne suffisant que pour trois mois de l'annee, ce qui oblige la plus grande partie (des habitants) k quitter leur patrie ». De Onore, gros village d'un millier d'ames a 500 metres d'altitude, « chaque hiver les hommes et les garcons se rendent a Venise pour travailler comme porteurs»; d'habitude, dit-on, il en va « quatre cents et meme plus ». A quelques lieues de la, a Fino, « un quart des hommes se rendent l'hiver a Venise pour ouvrer la laine et s'erabaucher comme porteurs a cause de leur pauvrete » 26. Les temoignages que nous venons d'evoquer ne sont, il faut bien l'avouer, que des fragments d'une grande mosaique qui est loin d'etre complete; et les renseignements qu'ils nous fournissent ne sont necessairement pas toujours exacts ni surs, loin de la. Ces fragments suffisent cependant a nous mettre en presence d'un phenomene dont 1'ampleur est indiscutable; l'image de la montagne lombarde comme « fabrique d'hommes au service d'autrui » en ressort pleinement confirmee. On serait meme tente, sur la base des quelques chiffres releves au passage, de tirer des conclusions generales valables pour tout Tare des Alpes lombardes et d'evaluer k 30 % environ le nombre des hommes qui periodiquement descendaient vers la plaine en quete de travail, sans pour autant rompre toute attache avec le pays natal. Mais a de telles conclusions, s'appuyant sur des bases encore trop fragiles, il serait imprudent de faire pleinement confiance. D'autant plus imprudent qu'on est autorise a penser que la ou une agriculture chetive se doublait d'activites manufacturieres solides, le mouvement migratoire se trouvait du coup freine. Sur ce point deux vallees bergamasques presentent un contraste revelateur. D'un cote la Valbrembana « pierreuse et sterile » qui n'a d'autres ressources complementaires que la coupe du bois et la preparation du charbon de bois : la plupart des hommes, nous venons de le constater, « quittent la patrie et s'en vont par le monde », tout au moins pour une partie de l'annee. Dans la vallee voisine, la Seriana, par contre, malgre un sol non moins ingrat et des recoltes non moins insuffisantes, «peu d'hommes habitent dehors » (pochi habitano fuora). La raison ? En Valseriana « tout le monde s'emploie dans les trafics » et notamment dans la production du fer et des armes et «les pauvres tirent leur subsistance en travaillant aux

VII MIGRATIONS MONTAGNARDES

551

fourneaux et aux forges ». Et le fonctionnaire de nous preciser qu'il y a «trois grands fourneaux pour faire de 1'acier (azzale), sept grosses forges pour etendre le fer, huit meules pour aiguiser les armes et trois pour les brunir » 27. Bref, pour eviter toute conclusion prematuree, il faut tenir compte que la montagne lombarde est un monde tres varie : a une seule journee de marche les conditions economiques peuvent changer radicalement; une petite industrie bien etoffee absorbe en partie dans telle vallee la surcharge d'hommes qui, dans telle autre, alimente un courant migratoire important. II n'en demeure pas moins que, dans l'ensemble de la region, Immigration temporaire representait un element de premier plan et jouait un role qui ne saurait etre sous-estime. Le ressort qui chaque annee met en branle cet exode vers le bas-pays c'est evidemment, et avant tout, la pauvrete meme de la vie montagnarde. Qu'il s'agisse de l'Ossola ou de la Valtravaglia, de la Valsassina ou des vallees bergamasques, le refrain ne change pas : le sol est ingrat, la nature avare, les bouches a nourrir trop nombreuses, les possibilites d'emploi insuffisantes ; dans ces conditions 1'emigration s'impose comme une necessite peremptoire. Et cependant tout courant migratoire ne s'explique qu'en partie par la poussee aveugle du besoin: en fait, il s'aiguille vers des buts connus et repond a un appel determine. On sait, d'ailleurs, d'ou vient cet appel. De la28plaine, d'abord, ou s'etendent les grandes exploitations capitalistes ; c'est Ik que «au moment des moissons, la main-d'oeuvre residente ne suffisant pas a la besogne, il faut embaucher des etrangers » (forastieri)29; c'est la aussi que Ton remarque « des maisons de journaliers qui ne sont occupees que de temps a autre et non continuellement, parce que les journaliers s'en vont ailleurs a leur gre »30. Les grandes villes (Turin, Milan, Venise et meme Florence, Rome et Naples) rappellent elles aussi cette masse flottante de manoeuvres, macons, porteurs et artisans descendus de leurs montagnes31. Us s'y dirigent souvent par groupes serres de compatriotes et font bande a part, tels ces masons et ces tailleurs de pierre de la vallee d'Andorno (Biella) qui batissent le Milan de la Contre-Reforme et dont on se plaint « qu'ils vont et viennent» se refusant a se laisser32 encadrer dans la corporation milanaise des ouvriers du batiment ; ou ces porteurs tessinois evoques plus haut qui ont une place assuree a Tune des portes de la capitale lombarde; ou encore cette equipe formee de deux maitres de forge et trentesix ouvriers de la Valsabbia (Brescia) qui tous les ans se rendent jusqu'en Toscane et y travaillent pendant six mois 33 . Misere de la montagne surpeuplee et attrait de l'economie plus evoluee et prospere de la plaine et des villes, c'est entre ces deux poles opposes, entre ces deux secteurs d'une economie que Ton peut bien definir comme dualiste, que s'ecoule le courant des migrations lombardes. Ce courant n'est pourtant pas, le plus souvent, a sens unique: les montagnards, on s'en souviendra, se deplacent en gene-

VII 552 ral sans leur famille et reviennent periodiquement au foyer. Evidemment, cette montagne qui les repousse les rappelle aussi; cette plaine qui les attire ne les retient pas tous. Ce qui fait l'attrait singulier de la montagne, malgre' sa pauvrete, c'est avant tout, ainsi que le remarquait jadis Salvatore Pugliese, la petite propriete paysanne 34 : une maison, un bout de terre, un peu de betail peut-etre, parfois aussi un petit comptoir. Que cette propriete montagnarde rivee a une chetive agriculture de subsistance ne suffise pas a nourrir toutes les bouches ni a occuper tous les bras, le fait meme des migrations le dit assez. Mais il est non moins evident que pour le paysan-emigrant cette meme propriete', tout insuffisante qu'elle fut, representait une source partielle de revenu a laquelle il aurait du renoncer s'il avait quitte definitivement son pays natal. Bien des emigrants, on l'a vu, n'y renongaient pas malgre les grandes distances a franchir chaque annee, et les longues absences du foyer. Pendant ces absences, nous explique un texte de l'epoque, «ils font tout de meme cultiver leurs champs, car ils possedent tous quelques biens, qui plus, qui moins »35. C'est k leur famille que les absents confient le soin de la terre, « s'ils n'agissaient pas ainsi — remarque un fonctionnaire de la Valsassina — leurs terres iraient en friche et, ne contribuant plus a l'impot, elles seraient mises aux encheres par la communaute »36. Dans un village de la Valdintelvi on interroge un homme au sujet de son travail: « Mon metier — ditil — est celui de platrier (stuchadore) et j'ai aussi la boulangerie et l'auberge du village »; mais, ajoute-t-il aussitot, «je m'en vais travailler par le monde et laisse faire aux femmes, car ici je ne passe que tres peu de temps »37. Dans un village voisin la femme d'un absent affirme : « Je cultive mes biens de campagne et m'occupe aussi de l'auberge, car mon mari travaille a Turin depuis Paques comme tailleur de pierre et ne rentrera qu'a Noel comme d'habitude ». Et elle ajoute : « Dans notre pays il faut bien que les hommes en fassent autant s'ils veulent faire vivre leur famille, car la region est montagneuse et miserable »38. Immigration temporaire est done un complement; elle offre un revenu d'appoint a des families ancrees a une economie de subsistance qui ne saurait leur suffire; elle permet, comme le dit si bien un texte de l'epoque, de « compenser par le travail et l'argent etranger les deficiences trop grandes de la nature »39. Passons maintenant a l'autre pole du courant migratoire, c'esta-dire a la plaine et aux villes, et demandons-nous quelles possibilites effectives de travail et de gain attendent la-bas l'immigrant. Sontelles faites pour l'encourager a tourner definitivement le dos au pays natal et a renoncer, pour soi et pour les siens, au fragile appui que lui assure un morceau de terre en montagne ? Tout porte a penser qu'elles ne le sont pas. Dans la plaine presque toute la terre appartenait aux grands proprietaires fonciers, les seuls capables de fournir les capitaux indispensables k la grande culture 40 : l'achat et meme

VII MIGRATIONS MONTAGNARDES

553

le bail d'une petite ferme etait des lors pratiquement hors question. Restait le travail salarie soit dans les grands domaines de la plaine soit dans les villes. Quelles perspectives offrait-il a l'immigrant ? Je crois avoir montre ailleurs41 que dans la Lombardie du xvn€ siecle le salaire du tacheron (brazente) et du manoeuvre (lavorante), compte tenu de Firregularite de l'emploi dans l'agriculture aussi bien que dans le batiment, ne pouvait aucunement, a lui seul, fournir le minimum vital a un travailleur ayant charge de famille. Meme le macon et le tailleur de pierre, qui pourtant jouissaient de salaires considerablement plus eleves, avaient du mal a atteindre ce minimum indispensable. Dans ces conditions, la main-d'ceuvre agricole salariee et la masse des ouvriers du batiment devaient evidemment pouvoir compter sur d'autres ressources. Pour ce qui est des travailleurs qui residaient habituellement dans la plaine ou en ville, nous sommes encore mal renseignes, mais on peut tout de meme envisager a quelles sources supplementaires pouvait puiser leur mince budget familial: travail salarie de la femme et des enfants, parfois un lopin de terre a la lisiere d'une grande exploitation agricole ou aux abords de la ville, peut-etre aussi le braconnage ou la peche de riviere. Quant aux montagnards qui « s'en allaient par le monde », point de doute : c'est au pays natal, dans l'agriculture de subsistance, qu'ils puisaient les ressources indispensables pour completer des salaires insuffisants; c'est a une existence errante partagee entre deux economies, entre deux mondes profondement differents, que tenait, en fin de compte, leur vie.

NOTES 1. F. Braudel, La Mediterranee et le monde mediterraneen a Vepoque de Philippe II (seconde edition. Paris, 1966), tome I, p. 46. 2. Ibid., pp. 37-44. 3. A.S.M. (Archivio di Stato, Milan), Censo p.a., c. 311, doc. du 18/IX/1711. 4. A.S.M., Feudi Camerali p.a., c. 613, fasc. 11, « 1620. Notizie intorno alia Valle (d'Ossola) ». Par la suite l'abreviation Feudi tiendra lieu de A.S.M., Feudi Camerali p.a. 5. Feudi, c. 25, fasc. « Domodossola 1655 », doc. du 3/V/1655. 6. A.S.M., Miscellanea lombarda II, doc. n° 63 du 16/XII/1680. 7. Feudi, c. 31, doc. du 5/IV/1647 (Omegna). 8. Feudi, c. 31, doc. du 26/VI/1655. 9. Feudi, c. 563, fasc. 1, « fede del curato » du l/V/1656. 10. Feudi, c. 598, fasc. 6/d, doc. du 20/V/1647. 11. Feudi, c. 31, fasc. « Lago Maggiore », doc. du 1/III/1647. 12. Feudi, c. 303, fasc. 6, doc. du 20/11/1588. 13. Feudi, c. 619, fasc. 3, doc. du 21/11/1656. 14. Feudi, c. 24, fasc. « Valtravaglia», doc. du 21/1V/1655; et c. 59, doc. du 30/111/1633. 15. Feudi, c. 618, fasc. 14, doc. du 20/11/1651. 16. Feudi c. 422, fasc. 9, doc. du 21/VII/1676. 17. Ibid. 18. Feudi, c. 422, fasc. 9, doc. du 23/VII/1676.

VII 554 19. B. Caizzi, // Comasco sotto il dominio spagnolo (Como, 1955), pp. 179-80 et passim. 20. Feudi, c. 81, fasc. 14, doc. du 7/VI/1647. Cf. Caizzi, op. ciL, p. 182. 21. Feudi, c. 217, fasc. 6, doc. du 15/X/1637. 22. B. Caizzi, op. cit., p. 179. 23. Feudi, c. 408, fasc. g, doc. du 10/VI/1647 (Nesso). 24. Feudi, c. 28, fasc. « Riviera di Lecco », notifica di Sueglio du 23/IV/1655. 25. Feudi, c. 616, fasc. 3, enquete du 4/V/1647. 26. Archivio di Stato, Venise, Sindici Inquisitori in Terraferma, busta 63, «Descrizione fatta da Zuane da Leze, Capitano di Bergamo, della Citta e Territorio del 1596 », ff. 197 v°, 199, 222. 27. Ibid., ff. 200 et 216. 28. Cf. F. Braudel, op. cit., t. I, pp. 42, 66, 67; S. Pugliese, Cvndizioni economiche e finanziarie delta Lombardia nella prima meta del secolo XVIII (Turin, 1924), p. 66. 29. Feudi, c. 544, fasc. 5, doc. du 3/II/1617 (S. Fiorano Lodigiano). 30. Feudi, c. 481, fasc. 5, doc. du 7/III/1640 (Regina Fittarezza Lodigiano). 31. F. Braudel, op. cit, t. I, pp. 40, 41, 44, 307. 32. Cf. R. Valz Blin, Memorie dell'Alta Valle d'Andorno (Biella, 1959), p. 409; D. Sella, Salari e lavoro nelVedilizia lomburda durante il secolo XVII (Pavia, 1968), pp. 32-36. 33. Archivio di Stato, Venise, Senato, dispacd rettori Brescia, filza 43, au 3/X/1641. 34. Cf. S. Pugliese, op. cit., p. 71. 35. Feudi, c. 619, fasc. 6, doc. du 31/111/1633 (Bosco Valtravaglia). 36. Feudi, c. 616, fasc. 3, doc. du 4/VI/1647 (Margno). 37. Feudi, c. 422, fasc. 9, doc. du 23/VII/1676 (Laino). 38. Ibid., doc. 21/VII/1676 (Osteno). 39. A.S.M., Censo p.a., c. 311, doc. du 18/IX/1711, cit. 40. F. Braudel, op. cit., t. I, p. 67; Pugliese, op. cit., p. 72. 41. D. Sella, op. cit., pp. 19-24.

VIII

THE TWO FACES OF THE LOMBARD ECONOMY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

To the student of "transitions to modern industrial society" Lombardy presents a rather intriguing historical problem. On the one hand, here is a region which, initially eminent in both Italy and Europe on the strength of its manufactures and intensive, sophisticated agriculture, suffered serious setbacks and even irreparable losses in the 17th century, thus constituting, it would seem, a clear-cut example of a "failed transition". On the other hand, in the late 19th century Lombardy, of all Italian regions, experienced the earliest, most rapid, and most successful process of industrialization, and became the heartland of industrial Italy. It is of course, quite possible that Lombardy's late 19th century industrial rebirth was an entirely fresh beginning, rather than the resumption of an earlier, temporarily imterrupted, historical process. This assumption of discontinuity which underlies most of the literature on the economic history of Lombardy, is on closer, scrutiny, however, only partly warranted. Links, albeit tenuous and obscure, exist between the prosperity of old and the recent record of succes. I Until the beginning of the 17th century Lombardy, in both Spanish and Venetian sections, was one of the most prosperous and economically advanced areas not only of Italy but of western Europe, a rare model of pre-industrial economic success. Between about 1620 and 1660, however, the economy of Lombardy, and especially that of the Spanish-ruled State of Milan, experienced disastrous losses. By 1660 famines, epidemics, and warfare combined with the loss of foreign markets to render a country, termed by an English visitor ca. 1600 "the Paradise of Christendome", an area where much farmland had reverted to waste, population had declined by 20 per cent, and urban manufactures had virtually vanished.1 Losses were especially severe in, although not confined to, the cities. Excise yields dropped 50% between 1620 and 1650,2 the plague of 1630 sawa loss of 30 to 40% in the urban population, from which neither Cremona, nor Como, nor Lodi recovered for at least a century; the silk industry, traditionally the core and pride of Milan's economic life, was practically dismantled, plummeting from 3000 to 300 looms in twenty years; the wool industry died out in its chief center, Como, and suffered setbacks in Milan and Monza as well; and similar fates struck the making of mixed cotton fabrics, the so called fustians, in Cremona, 3the linen industry in Lodi, and the manufacture of armor in Milan and also Brescia. What is worth stressing about the Lombard cities is that their economy and notably their manufactures failed either to recover even a fraction of their past prosperity or to generate replacements. Milan, Como, and Cremona exhibited no 1. 2. 3.

Cf. CM. Cipolla, "The Economic Decline of Italy", in B. Pullan ed., Crisis and Change in the Venetian Economy (London, 1968), pp. 127-30. C.G. Cavazze della Somaglia, Alleggiamento dello Stato di Milano (Milan, 1653), p. 684. Cf. Cipolla, art. cit., and the literature cited therein. Also, D. Sella, "Industrial Production in Seventeenth-Century Italy : A Reappraisal", Explorations in Entrepreneurial History (1969).

VIII 12

resilience, remaining essentially centers of administration and consumption into the late 19th and even early 20th centuries. Rural Lombardy, on the other hand, presents a sharply different, although less well-known story: unlike that of the cities, it is one of remarkable endurance, adaptation, and resilience. By 1600 the Lombard countryside4 had made impressive progress toward a modern complex, market-oriented economy. The plain, with its elaborate network of irrigation canals, water meadows, sophisticated rotation systems from which the fallow had been eliminated, dairy industry, and large capitalistic estates, represented a nearly unique achievement. Besides ensuring a generous supply of food and flax to the cities, it also fed a brisk export trade, to the Swiss Confederacy and to other less richly endowed districts of north Italy. Even in the more traditional upland and hill region north of Milan the market economy had made deep inroads. Wine and silk were produced for sale and the peasant family engaged in a variety of handicraft industries —flax-cottonfabrics, coarse woollen cloth, small metallurgy — on a parttime basis. The Lombard countryside, both lowlands and uplands, did not escape troubles and tribulations in the period 1620-1660. The great plague of 1630 may have had a less severe impact than in the cities, but the famines of 1628 and 1648 apparently hit the countryside no less fiercely. The prolonged downward trend in grain prices after 1630, serious manpower shortage, and staggering fiscal pressure drove down agrarian rents by as much as 50% on the large estates of the plain5, while much land was being abandoned and allowed to revert to waste. The uplands and hill region probably suffered less, but there too scattered evidence suggests a deep and widespread malaise.6-7 For all that, the basic structure of the rural economy, unlike its urban counterpart, survived intact despite losses and contractions in the crises of the 1630's and 40's. From the end of the 17th century onwards land reclamation and irrigation resumed their earlier momentum, while vast tracts of marginal, swampy land were converted to rice fields.8 In the hill zone, the mulberry tree and the vine gained ground at the expense of heath and waste.9 In regards to industrial activities in the countryside10, the record is mixed: while there was no noticeable progress in iron metallurgy and in the making of coarse woollens, after the mid-17th century the production of mixed cotton fabrics and of silk yarn very definitely expanded. By the middle of the 18th century the Gallarate 4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Information on conditions in rural Lombardy is more widely scattered and harder to come by than information on the cities. The following books have proved especially useful: C.T. Smith, An Historical Geography of Western Europe before 1800 (New York, 1967) ; S. Publiese, Condizioni economiche e finanziarie delta Lombardia nella prima metd del secolo XVIII (Turin, 1924) ; K.R. Greenfield, Economics and Liberalism in the Risorgimento (Baltimore, 1934) ; E. Sereni, Storia del paesaggio agrario italiano (Bari, 1961) ; S. Zaninelli, Una grande azienda agricola delta pianura irrigua lomdarda nei secoli XVIII e XIX (Milan, 1964) ; and G. Doria, Uomini e terre di un borgo collinare dal XVI al XVIII secolo (Milan, 1968). Cf. also A. De Maddalena, "II mondo rurale italiano nel Cinquecento e nel Seicento", Rivista storica italiana (1964). Many of the statements contained in this paper, however, are based on my own archival research. Detailed documentation will be supplied in my forthcoming book on the economy of 17th-century Lombardy. On rents cf. A. De Maddalena, "I bilanci dal 1600 al 1647 di una azienda fondiaria lombarda", Riv. internaz. di scienze econ. e commerc. (1955) ; id., "Contribute alia storia deH'agricoltura nella bassa lombarda", Archivio Storico Lombardo (1958) ; Doria, op. cit.. D. 132. A. Frumente, Imprese lombarde nella storia delta siderurgia italiana, vol. II (Milan, 1963), pp. 102, 108. B. Caizzi, // Comasco sotto il dominio spagnolo (Como, 1955), pp. 133, 164. Pugliese, op. cit, pp. 34, 35 ; De Maddalena, "II mondo rurale", p. 381 ; G. Aleati, "Tre secoli all'interne di una possessio ecclesiastica", Boll, delta Soc. Pavese di Storia patria (1948), p. 31. De Maddalena, "II mondo rurale", pp. 389 ff.; Doria, op. cit., p. 63 ; S. Zaninelli, Storia di Monza e delta Brianza: Vita economica e sociale (Milan, 1969), p. 66. Cf. Sella, "Industrial Production", pp. 237-44.

VIII 13

district, producing over 100,000 bolts of fustian annually,11 had far surpassed Cremona at its zenith two centuries before; and around 1750 there were nearly 800 silk mills in the hill zone as against a paltry 34 in the city of Milan.12 II The striking contrast between the dying urban and the more vital rural economies deserves greater attention than it has generally received, especially in the context of the problem of transition to modern industrialization. When in the second half of the 19th century modern factories sprang up in Lombardy, they did so in those very districts where rural industries had a long and unbroken tradition. The modern cotton mills first clustered around Gallarate; the modern silk industry became established in the hills of the Brianza ; metallurgy developed around Lecco and Brescia. Why then, did the Lombard cities prove unable to maintain their early industrial role ? why did the countryside have a more successful record ? 13 There is, of course, no shortage of explanatory hypotheses. With the exception of the hypothesis concerning increased labor costs resulting from the demographic crisis of 1630 and guild restrictions on labor supply, all of the arguments — Spanish misgovernment, crushing taxation, and destructions and stoppages resulting from wars — apply to the countryside as much as, and indeed more than, they do to the cities. As for the alleged "betrayal of the bourgeoisie" and its trading of the profits and risks of the counting house for landed property and feudal power, this may well, if it did occur at all, have disguised strategic decisions far more sensible and fruitful than historians have generally supposed. For it can be argued that the bourgeoisie abandoned the sinking ship of the urban economy and channelled capital and enterprise toward the countryside, where post-war reconstruction, works of irrigation and reclamation, and the diffusion of cottage industries and power-driven silk mills presented fresh and in the long run far more promising opportunities. What was it, then, that apparently diverted capital and enterprise away from the cities ? One broad fact is clear enough: from the early 17th century the goods traditionally produced by Lombardy's urban craftsmen sold poorly on foreign markets, and on the home market were rapidly being discarded in favor of foreign imports. The success and prosperity of Lombardy's urban manufactures had been based on their precocious rise in the late Middle Ages, when the skills and the knowhow of the Lombard (and other Italian) craftsmen and merchants found no parallel abroad. Hence, the Lombard cities enjoyed a protective shield behind which their industries could prosper without undue concern for costs, productivity, and innovation. The dramatic collapse of the manufactures of Milan, Como, Lodi, Cremona, and Brescia ca. 1600 in the face of foreign inroads by English worsteds, French silks, German linen and fustians, and Dutch firearms, clearly indicates that their craftsmen and merchant-manufacturers, earlier virtually unchallenged, were ill-prepared to meet the competition. One suspects that centuries of success created complacency and blunted inventiveness and the ability to adapt and to innovate. In the second place, there is no reason for dismissing the 17th century complaints about the high costs that allegedly bedeviled Lombard manufacturers, even though formal proof of this still eludes us.14 The relative (and much admired) affluence of the 11. B. Caizzi, Industria, Commercio e Banca in Lombardia nel secolo XVIII (Milan, 1968), p. 89. In 1560 Cremona had produced 62,600 pieces of fustian (U. Meroni "Cremona fedelissima", Annali delta Biblioteca Governativa e Libreria Civica di Cremona, X (1959), p. 15 n.) On the origins of the cotton industry in the Gallarate district cf. P. Bondioli, Origini dell'industria cotoniera a Busto Arsizio (Varese, 1936). 12. P. Verri, Considerazioni sul commercio dello State di Milano (1763) ed. C.A. Vianelle (Milan, 1939), p. 90 ; Caizzi, Industria, Commercio e Banca, p. 99. 13. The recent literature on the subject is reviewed in G. Quazza, La decadenza italiana nella storia europea, (Turin, 1971), pp. 52-62 ; also in L. Bulferetti, "II problema della decadenza italiaza", in Nuove questioni di storia moderna (Milan, 1964), vol. II, pp. 803-45. 14. For cost of labor arguments cf. Cipolla "The Economic Decline of Italy", pp. 135-40.

VIII 14

Lombard cities must have made for high living costs and hence high wages, a situation compounded, presumably, by the rigid guild controls on the labor supply ; lastly, traditional prohibitions against potentially competitive rural industries prevented, or at least hindered, the tapping of cheaper manpower sources. Conditions in the countryside contrasted sharply with those prevailing in the cities. With production geared to foodstuffs, raw materials, and simple, low-grade manufactured goods, the countryside had never enjoyed the protective shield afforded the cities by the relative superiority of their technology and skills. The absence of guilds and, more importantly, the well-documented scope and intensity of the seasonal migration of labor, meant that labor mobility was not impeded.15 Part-time employment of peasant labor during slack periods in the agricultural cycle by rural Lombard handicraft industries meant relatively low labor costs which the city, with a fully specialized labor force totally dependent on wages, could not match. In the course of the 17th century, moreover, urban legislation of medieval vintage, restricting quality production (silk and high-grade woollens) and the free export of raw materials and foodstuffs, was gradually, if fitfully, relaxed, in response both to the pressing fiscal needs of the state and to the changing attitude of a ruling class in which the landed interests loomed incrasingly large., All these circumstances gave the rural economy a greater toughness and resilience than its urban counterpart in the face of the severe tensions and strains that developed in the course of the 17th century. And the very same phenomenon which hurt the cities — namely the closing of the technological gap between Lombardy and Europe north of the Alps — tended in at least one important respect — demand abroad for raw silk and semi-finished silk yarn — to favor the countryside. Proliferation of silk throwing mills from the second half of the 17th century onwards was a successful response to a changing economic milieu, and foreshadowed the leading role of Lombard silk16mills in the first spurt of industrialization during the last quarter of the 19th century. In the final analysis, various developments under way since the middle of the 17th century reinforced and heightened certain features of the Lombard rural economy which, although not totally absent before, had been overshadowed and indeed dampened by the very success of the cities and their restrictive policies. Agriculture's increasing market orientation and growing specialization in reponse to market signals, and the diffusion of industrial activity in select rural districts, all worked in the direction of a modernized and increasingly diversified social and economic structure, which one day would prove receptive to the demands and the rewards of the factory age. In the 17th century, in fact, there emerged a class of wealthy land-owners who, while not insensitive to the trappings of gentility, had an eye for the profits to be reaped from18 commercial farming, the dairy industry, the silk trade, mining, and metallurgy. The complexity and sophistication of agriculture also gave rise to a class of substantial tenants — the forerunners of that "rural bourgeoisie" which will loom so large in the Lombardy of the Risorgimento — which, in the darkest hours of the 17th century crisis, did much to rescue many a large estate from disaster. A rung below them was a host of rural merchants and middlemen controlling the complex (and still largely unexplored) mechanism of trade in foodstuffs, cattle, silk, and flax. Lastly, the diffusion of rural handicraft industries created a large skilled or semiskilled labor force dependent, at least in part, on wages for their living and accustomed to the long hours and the discipline of the silk mill, the loom, and the forge. Nevertheless, despite rural recovery and momentum, the fact still remains that 15. D. Sella, "Au dossier des migrations montagnardes : l'exemple de la Lombardie au XVIP siecle", in Melanges en Uhonneur de Fernand Braudel: Histoire economique du monde mediterraneen (Toulouse, 1973), p. 547 ff. 16. L. Cafagna, "The Industrial Revolution in Italy, 1830-1914", in Fontana Economic History of Europe (London, 1971), vol. 4, ch. 6. 17. Rural industries in medieval Lombardy are discussed in P. Toubert, "Les statuts communaux et l'histoire des campagnes lombardes au XIV e siecle", Melanges d'archeologie et d'histoire de I'Ecole francaise de Rome (1960), pp. 488-501. 18. Frumente, op. cit, p. 86.

VIII 15

industrial progress in Lombardy was very slow until the late 19th century, when the modern factory made its belated appearance. Why such delay ? While it is always risky to try to explain why something fails to happen, or happens later than we expect, one can nevertheless detect in the very fabric of the Lombard economy at least two features which are likely to have retarded the advent of modern industrialization. One was the limited size of the home market for simple manufactured goods, a function more of widespread poverty and imperfect occupational specialization than of pre-1860 political divisions. Rural poverty with its mass of low-paid day laborers was persistent on the plain, employment and earnings, subject to the vagaries of crops and weather, were notoriously unstable, and wages were permanently held down by migrant workers from the surrounding mountains. In the hill zone more widespread peasant ownership and a cottage industry supplementing family income probably created better conditions, but insofar as the peasant family here drew part of its livelihood from subsistence farming it was only partially integrated into the market economy and thus represented a limited outlet for consumer goods. Limitations of the home market presumably provided little incentive for the realization of economies of scale such as the modern mechanized factory could generate. A further retarding influence can be traced to the very success of Lombard agriculture, which from the late 17th century on continued to offer attractive investment opportunities. The growth of silk output from 700,000 lbs. in 1740 to nearly 4 million lbs. in 185019 is a case in point, and so are the expansion of irrigation, the transformation of marginal land into rice fields, and the vigorous growth of dairy farming all through the 19th century. As long as this kind of development remained highly profitable and attracted large amounts of capital, the incentive to turn to industry must have remained comparatively weak. The case of 17th century Lombardy suggests that its cities, despite undeniable achievements in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, were economically fragile and vulnerable. Despite their role in spreading the market network and supplying capital and enterprise to the rural economy, the distant origins of modern industrial society are found not in the cities, but in the countryside. In the latter, in fact, is a record, however blurred and fragmentary, of slow progress and continuity. The thread that links the prosperity of the Renaissance to the industrialization of the late 19th century ran for a time through the countryside, rather than the cities. How typical, how unique, was Lombardy's historical experience ? As far as Italy as a whole is concerned, Lombardy was then, and has remained ever since, an exception; if we restrict comparisons to north Italy, similarities and parallels are more easily found — in Piedmont and Emilia, however, rather than in Venetia. Finally, if we adopt a European perspective, Lombardy's experience might lose even more of its uniqueness and could be profitably compared to others, and notably to that of the Low Countries.

19. Pugliese, op. cit., p. 42 ; Greenfield, op. cit., p. 44.

IX

An Industrial Village in Sixteenth-Century Italy

1. - In medieval and early modern times the Lombard prealpine valleys that lie between Lakes Como and Garda and north of a line stretching from Lecco to Brescia (1) formed one of the largest iron mining districts in the Italian peninsula. Admittedly, with an annual output which, at the end of the sixteenth century, probably stood at about 3, 500 tons, (2) those valleys contributed but marginally to Europe' s total production of iron - a production which at the time may have reached the 100, 000 ton mark. (3) Nevertheless, there is little doubt that, small though its output may have been, iron did play a crucial role in shaping the economy of the region and that it significantly affected the lives of the people in that rugged, inhospitable and otherwise barren area. Such work as has been done on the subject enables us to see at least the broad contours of the iron industry in the region. (4) It was an industry that ran the whole gamut from the mining pit high on the mountainside to a galaxy of small village smithies down in the valleys where iron was finally fashioned into all sorts of hardware; it was an industry which by 1600 made use of relatively advanced technology, and notably of the blast furnace and of power driven bellows and tilt hammers and which called for a remarkable range of specialized skills - a fact contemporaries liked to stress when they enumerated with obvious pride the numerous trades involved in iron making (miners, charcoal makers, muleteers, furnace and forge masters, nailmakers, gunsmiths, etc.); lastly, Lombard metallurgy was clearly market oriented, a fact borne out by the high degree of specialization attained by individual valleys: Valcamonica was renowned for its cutlery and farm implements, Valtrompia for its firearms, Valsassina for iron wire, nails, and ammunition. To this region belongs the village discussed in this essay. The pages that follow will hopefully add to our still inadequate knowledge of the region itself and give us a sense of the importance which the metal industry had for a village community in shaping not only its occupational pattern but also its social structure. 2. - The village in question is Laorca (or La Orcha according to its sixteenth-century spelling): it is located 5 km. north of Lecco at the southeastern tip of Lake Como, along

IX -38-

the road which from Lecco itself climbs the short, steep Gerenzone valley all the way up to the watershed of Colle di Balisio where Valsassina, a major mining district until the nineteenth century, begins its more leisurely descent toward the northern shores of Lake Como. In 1579 this otherwise obscure rural community formed the object of an ecclesiastical status animarum, that is to say a listing of inhabitants or parish census drawn up by the local pastor. (5) To the historian' s delight, that census happens to be particularly accurate and to contain an amount of information such as is seldom found in similar documents . In that census the entire population of Laorca appears divided into case (literally, "houses" in the sense of physical dwellings) rather than fuochi (hearths or households) as was more commonly done in status animarum

of the time. Yet, a close examination

of the document leaves no doubt that here "house" coincides with "household": not only is every recognizable family or coresident group listed as occupying a separate casa, but within each casa all the residents are identified on the basis of their relationship to the head of the house. This can best be illustrated by two typical entries of the parish register on whose pages the listing of Laorca' s inhabitants was actually recorded: (6)

In the house of Madona Catarina Mazuchoni lives she, a widow known as La Vidalla

36 years old

Ambrosio her son

11 years old

In the house of Mr Alexandro di Bellavite, iron worker, lives he

30 years old

Franceschina his wife

26 years old

Zovan his son

5 years old

Maria his daughter

8 years old

Within each household, as these two examples indicate, each individual was identified by his or her name, relation to the head of the household, and age. Our register, moreover, provides in most cases (as similar listings often do not) a very valuable piece of informa-

IX -39tion, namely the occupation of the head of the household and, less consistently, that of other adult males living with him. 3. - Before we turn to an analysis of this information, it may be well to note in passing that, from a strictly demographic standpoint, Laorca looks quite normal by early modern standards: its 492 residents (247 males and 245 females) were grouped in 90 households, with a mean household size of

5.46; as for the age structure, 40. 6 % of its population

was under fifteen years of age, while a mere 3 % was sixty or above. More surprising is the occupational distribution of the 90 heads of household: as shown in Table 1, iron related occupations held pride of place, as iron workers and iron merchants together accounted for 3/4 of the total, while agriculture represented but a negligible proportion. TABLE 1 Occupation of heads of household N

%

58

64.5

iron merchants (mercanti di ferro)

9

10.0

farmers (lavoratori di terra)

4

4.4

iron workers (lavoratori di ferro)

other occupations (7) unknown

7

7.8

12

13.3

90

100.0

While the above data leave no doubt that the making and trading of iron represented the mainstay of this village community, they provide no assurance that the labor force as a whole (heads of household plus other adult males) was predominantly engaged in iron related occupations. As a matter of fact, it is conceivable that adult males who were not heads of household engaged in other occupations, such as farming or service trades. It is crucial, therefore, that we look at the latter group. According to our document, Laorca had 125 men over the age of twenty; of these 78 (or 62 %) were heads of household, while the remaining 47 were sons or brothers

IX -40-

living in. Our source reports an occupation for only 29 of these, thus leaving a large margin of uncertainty as to the actual occupation of this group. Nonetheless, it is significant that out of 29 cases in which an occupation is reported 24 were iron workers and 4 were iron merchants. Even in this group, therefore, iron related trades loomed large, and this confirms their overwhelming predominance in the economy of Laorca, or rather the fact that, as a community, Laorca exhibited an astonishing degree of specialization, with a large majority of its population making a living out of the iron trade. An obvious corollary of this, of course, is that the community itself could have been viable only insofar as it traded with the outside world. 4. - While our listing of inhabitants reveals the existence of a rural community ultimately dependent on the production and sale of hardware for its survival, it provides no clear information as to the precise nature of its industrial base. On our part, we can safely rule out the possibility that the workers of Laorca engaged in the mining and smelting of iron ores, for we know that both the mines and the blast furnaces were located further north in the higher reaches of Valsassina. (8) Most likely, then, what the Laorca workers did was to transform the metal extracted and smelted higher up in the mountains into such simple finished goods as nails, tools, wire, or gunshot for which the surrounding area was renowned; it is also possible that their main task was to process crude iron into semifinished goods (such as iron sheets or bars) intended for the smithies and the wire-drawing workshops of nearby Lecco or for the needle-makers of the Monza district or for the armorers of Milan. (9) What about the individuals listed as "iron merchants" ? Were they mere middlemen who saw to it that the hardware manufactured by their fellow villagers reached market or were they merchant-manufacturers directly involved in the manufacturing process, possibly under a putting-out arrangement whereby they supplied raw materials to the workers to be turned into finished goods besides, of course, taking care of the marketing? Our register offers no direct clue on these two questions. The first alternative, however, seems highly improbable in view of the fact that Laorca was so close to the market town of Lecco. Under the circumstances, it would have been very strange indeed for as many as nine merchants to have their permanent residence in Laorca: if their main function had merely been to bring the locally produced hardware to market, Lecco would seem to be a more likely place for them to reside; the more so as the actual shipment to Lecco could have been easily handled either by the metal workers themselves or by a few carters.

IX -41-

The second alternative, then, looks more probable. It is also supported by one interesting fact: according to our source, in the four largest households headed by an iron m e r chant other adult male members (either brothers or sons of the merchant himself) are listed as "iron workers". This strongly suggests that in those houses iron goods were not only stored and traded, but also manufactured. In other words, there is every reason to b e lieve that the Laorca iron merchants (or at least four out of nine) combined a commercial with a manufacturing r o l e . This being the case, it is not too farfetched to suppose that some of them also commissioned or put out work to the numerous fellow villagers who are listed as "iron workers". 5. - Our listing of inhabitants also sheds some light on the vexed question of the size and structure of the family in early modern times. (10) In Laorca, as previously indicated, the mean household size (MHS) was 5.46. Although rather high, this is well within the range observed elsewhere in this period (11) and does not point to exceptionally large and complex domestic groups. Laorca' s MHS, however, conceals wide differences between individual families and, more importantly, between groups of families arranged according to the occupation of the head (Table 2).

TABLE 2 Mean household size (MHS) according to occupation

Occupation of head

N of households

N of individuals

MHS

iron workers iron merchants

58

308

5.32

9

104

11.55

other and unknown

23

80

3.48

The mean size of households headed by individuals outside the iron industry or by individuals whose occupation is unknown (3.48) deviates considerably from the mean for

IX -42the entire community (5.46), because here are included twelve households with a woman as their head, and these women were mainly widows who lived either alone or with one or two coresidents: their presence, then, accounts for the relatively low MHS. More striking is the deviation from the village mean of the nine households headed by iron merchants. Their average size was more than twice the village mean and this discrepancy put them in a class apart in terms of size. As shown in the table below, seven out of those nine households were uncommonly large, with more than ten members each; by contrast, of the remaining 81 households only four had ten members or more.

TABLE 3 Size distribution of households by occupation

Household members Occupation of head

iron merchants

N

1-3

4-6

7-9

9

1

ironworkers

58

17

24

13

1

other

23

13

8

2

10-12

4

13-15

16-19

1 3

2 1

How can we account for the wide disparity in household size between the merchant group and the rest of the village? It certainly did not reflect the presence of large number of servants or apprentices, for in none of the mine merchant households are these mentioned. There is little ground, on the other hand, for assuming that higher fertility or l o wer infant mortality contributed significantly to the larger size of the merchants' households: taken together, the latter included a total of 104 individuals 27 of whom (that is, 26 %) were children under ten years of age; in the village as a whole, on the other hand, 138 children in the same age group represented 28 % of the total population. In the final analysis, the exceptionally large size of most merchants' households

IX -43-

reflected their more comple structure. As shown in Table 4, only one of them was a "simple" or nuclear family, while four were of the "extended" family type and the remaining four were "multiple" family households. (12) By contrast, among the ironworkers as well as among the rest of the population nearly three-fourth of the households were of the simple type.

TABLE 4 Type of household by occupation

occupation

solitaries

iron merchants

simple

extended

multiple

1 (11%)

4 (45 %)

4 (45 %)

iron workers

2 (3 %)

42 (72 %)

10 (18 %)

4 ( 7 %)

all other

4 (17%)

16 (70 %)

3 (13 %)

To illustrate the kind of household the iron merchants of Laorca could preside over, it may be useful to look more closely at the actual composition of two of them. (13) The household of Antonio della Crotta, a 45-year old iron merchant, is an example of the extended family type as it included not only his wife and seven children, but also his elderly mother and two unmarried brothers, 35 and 27 years old respectively (both listed as "merchants"). The household of iron merchant Jacomo de Invernici, on the other hand, belongs to the multiple family category: Jacomo and his wife lived with their four sons (all of them identified as "iron workers"), three daughters-in-law, and eight grandchildren (abiadeghi). 6. - At the end of this brief excursion in a sixteenth-century Lombard village, three conclusions seem warranted. The first is to the effect that manufacturing could, even in those days, entirely dominate the economy of a rural community. Although the extent to which metallurgy dominated the economy of Laorca was no doubt exceptional, we are thereby reminded once again that rural communities could, and often did, harbor craftsmen and merchant-manufacturers. Clearly, the subject of rural industries deserves close

IX -44-

scrutiny especially in the case of Italy where the emphasis on urban industries has for too long led to a neglect of their rural counterpart. (14) A second conclusion is that in Laorca the large, complex, patriarchal family, so often regarded as typical of past centuries, was in no way prevalent: (15) a clear majority of the villagers, as has been seen, lived in simple or nuclear families much as their descendants do today. Lastly, it seems clear that differences in household size and structure reflected different economic roles, large, complex households being almost exclusively those headed by merchants. One would like to go further, of course, and try to determine why the iron merchants of Laorca showed a definite preference for the large, and indeed very large, household. Our source is, alas, of little help at this point. Tentatively, however, one can venture the supposition that iron merchants could afford to live with their adult children or married brothers and their offspring both because their circumstances made it possible for them to own spacious houses and because the nature and size of their business (which often enough combined, as will be recalled, trade and manufacturing) were such as to allow for, and indeed encourage, the active participation of more than one able-bodied man. By contrast, the much more modest resources of most iron workers and village tradesmen must have forced them to live in cramped quarters and to send their children out into the world to fend for themselves as soon as they were able to earn a living.

IX -45-

NOTES 1. From west to east the valleys in question are Valsassina, Brembana, Seriana, Camonica, Trompia and Sabbia. 2. For a general view and bibliography cf. D. Sella, "The Iron Industry in Italy, 1500 1650," inH. Kellenbenz (ed) , Schwerpunkte der Eisengewinnung und Eisenverarbeitung in Europa 1500 - 1650 (Cologne-Vienna, 1974), pp. 91 ff. 3. Cf. H. Kellenbenz, "The Organization of Industrial Production, " in Cambridge Economic History of Europe, v. V, p. 501. 4. The chief authority on the subject is A. Frumento, Imprese lombarde nella storia della siderurgia italiana, v. 2: II ferro milanese fra il 1450 e il 1796 (Milan, 1963). See also A. Fanfani, "L' industria mineraria durante il dominio spagnolo, " in his Saggi di storia economica italiana (Milan, 1936), and L. Mazzoldi, "L'economia dei secoli XVII e XVIII, " in Storia di Brescia edited by Fondazione Treccani degli Alfieri, v. III. 5. The document is in Archivio della Curia Arcivescovile di Milano, Archivio spirituale , sez. X, vol. 22 (pieve di Lecco). 6. These two entries are respectively the 45th and 46th in the Laorca listing. 7. These include 2 leathermakers or tanners, 1 carpenter, 1 mason, 1 innkeeper, 1 morraro and 1 brostolotto. The meaning of the last two vernacular terms is obscure and neither is listed in the standard dictionaries of the Lombard dialects. Professors G. Vigo and A. Stella of the University of Pavia have kindly suggested to me that morraro may stand for molaro (cutler); the other term remains a puzzle. 8. Cf. Frumento, op.cit., pp. 63, 65. 9. The making of needles and pins is attested in Monza and nearby villages in the sixteenth century: cf. C M . Cipolla, "Per la storia della popolazione lombarda nel secolo XVI", in Studi in onore di Gino Luzzatto, v. II (Milan, 1950), pp. 152 -153. On the Milan armor industry cf. B. Thomas and O. Gamber, "L'arte milanese dell'armatura," in Storia di Milano edited by Fondazione Treccani degli Alfieri, v. XI, pp. 699 929. 10. On this question cf. P. Laslett, "Introduction, " in P. Laslett and R. Wall (eds.), Household and Family in Past time (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 5 - 10. 11. For late sixteenth-century Lombard cities mean sizes of between 4 and 7 have been proposed by various authors (cf. D. Sella, "Premesse demografiche ai censimenti austriaci," in Storia di Milano cit., v. XII, p. 461 for the relevant literature). In a number of English villages in that period, mean sizes of between 4.75 and 5.30 have been identified by Laslett, " Mean Household Size in England since the sixteenth century," in Laslett and Wall (eds.), op.cit., p. 130.

IX -46-

12. I have basically followed the classification proposed by Laslett, " Introduction" cit., pp. 2 9 - 3 1 : n solitaries" are individuals (mostly widows) who lived alone and formed a separate household; " simple" refers either to married couples with or without offspring, or to widowed parents with children; " extended" family household consists of a conjugal family with the addition of one or more relatives other than offspring; " multiple" family household is a domestic group which includes two or more conjugal family units connected by kingship or marriage. 13. These two entries are respectively the 17th and the 11th in the listing. 14. Some work has, of course, already been done. Examples are Cipolla's article and a few other titles referred to above. Nonetheless, the literature on Italian rural industries is still small and in no way comparable to that available for Europe north of the Alps. The latter is discussed in a classic article by H. Kellenbenz, "Industries rurales en Occident de la fin du Moyen Age au XVIIIe sie*cle." Annales. Economies, Socie'te's, Civilizations (Sep. - Oct. 1963), pp. 833 -882. 15. This confirms recent findings in other parts of Europe: cf. P. Laslett, The World We Have Lost (New York, 1965), pp. 88 - 91; and C. Klapisch and M. Demonet, "A uno pane e uno vino: The Rural Tuscan Family at the Beginning of the Fiftheenth Century," inR. Forster and O. Ranum (eds.), Family and Society: Selections from the * Annales' (Baltimore, 1976), p. 45.

X

PROFILO DEMOGRAFICO E SOCIALE DI UN COMUNE RURALE LOMBARDO: BALSAMONEL 1597

In queste pagine si presentano alcuni risultati preliminari e parziali di una piu ampia indagine, tuttora in corso, sulla struttura demografica e sociale di un gruppo di comuni rurali lombardi sul finire del Cinquecento. L'indagine stessa si fonda essenzialmente su un tipo di documento ecclesiastico ben noto agli studiosi di storia della popolazione, e cioe lo "stato delle anime" (l). Tale documento e, in sostanza, un elenco nominativo di tutti i componenti di una singola parrocchia in un dato anno. Quando uno "stato delle anime" venne redatto dal parroco con la cura meticolosa prevista dalle norme emanate da S. Carlo Borromeo nel 1574 (e non tutti i parroci si dimostrarono ugualmente diligenti in proposito), esso ci presenta la totalita della popolazione laica ripartita in case e, alPinterno di queste, in "fuochi", vale a dire in gruppi di convivenza o aggregati domestici in cui i membri della famiglia vera e propria coabitano con eventuali dipendenti quali i servitori o gli apprendisti; per ogni "fuoco" e poi indicata la professione o il rango sociale del capofamiglia e, per ogni individuo, l'eta e il rapporto di parentela o di dipendenza con il capofamiglia. Lo "stato delle anime" fornisce infine delle informazioni di carattere strettamente pastorale che non interessano ai fini della presente ricerca, e cioe se un individuo e "comunicato" o "cresimato".

(*) Per questo tipo di documento cfr. G. Aleati, La popolazione di Pavia durante il dominio spagnolo, Milano, 1957, pp. 137-43; F. Saba, Una parrocchia milanese agli inizi del secolo XVII: S. Lorenzo Maggiore. Materiali per una storia demografica, "Nuova Rivista Storica", LIX (1975), pp. 435 sgg.; e per questioni metodologiche P. Laslett, The Study of Social Structure from Listings of Inhabitants, in An Introduction to English Historical Demography & cura di E.A. Wrigley, New York, 1966, pp. 160-208.

X 334 1. L'AMBIENTE

Lo "stato delle anime" preso qui in esame (2) porta la data del 1597 e si riferisce a Balsamo, piccolo comune della pieve di Desio a una decina di chilometri a nord di Milano e a meta strada circa fra la metropoli lombarda e il borgo di Monza. Siamo quindi al margine meridionale dell'altipiano dove, nel secolo XVI, in assenza di irrigazione, predominava la coltura promiscua di cereali, viti e, in misura crescente, gelsi. Agricoltura, questa dell'altipiano, relativamente povera, in netto contrasto con quella della vicina pianura irrigua che si stendeva a sud della Martesana e del Naviglio Grande. Un documento del 1560 caratterizzava infatti i terreni "di sopra de li naviglij", cioe non irrigati, come "non di tanta cavata... et la maggior parte tristi", vale a dire scarsamente produttivi (3). E lo stesso documento individuava la radice prima dei bassi rendimenti dei terreni proprio nella scarsita di acqua e quindi nella carenza di prati e di bestiame: "per non raccogliersi feno non se gli puono tenir bestiami da latte et cosi cessa la grassa", vale a dire la concimatura. I bassi rendimenti in fatto di cereali erano pero compensati, almeno in parte, oltre che dalle colture arboree (viti e gelsi), anche dalla presenza di modeste produzioni artigianali quali la tessitura di stoffe di tipo corrente e la fabbricazione di aghi, che offrivano alia popolazione contadina una fonte supplementare di reddito, per quanto esigua (4). Quanto al regime fondiario prevalente in quella plaga, si ha motivo di ritenere che, se anche l'affitto in denaro tipico della pianura irrigua non vi era del tutto sconosciuto, prevaleva pero il contratto misto in base al quale il locatario (massaro) pagava un canone fisso in grano, ma era tenuto anche a cedere al proprietario parte o anche la totalita dei frutti delle colture arboree. Secondo un'inchiesta della meta del Seicento re(2) Archivio arcivescovile di Milano, Archivio Spirituale, sez. X, Visite pastorali, Pieve di Desio, vol. 20: "1597. Status animarum omnium loci Balsami Plebis Desij". (3) II documento e pubblicato in G. Coppola, L'agricoltura di alcune pievi della pianura irrigua milanese nei dati catastali della meta del secolo XVI, "Contributi dell'Istituto di storia economica e sociale dell'Universita Cattolica del S. Cuore", vol. 1 (1973), pp. 284-6. Il saggio del Coppola tratta brevemente a pp. 187 e 210 di alcune caratteristiche dell'alta pianura asciutta, per la quale cfr. anche S. Zaninelli, Vita economica

e sociale,

in A A . V V . , Storia

di Monza

e della Brianza,

M i l a n o , 1 9 6 9 , vol. I l l ,

pp. 54-9. (4) Per la prima meta del secolo XVI cfr. CM. Cipolla, Per la storia della popolazione lombarda nel secolo XVI, in Studi in onore di Gino Luzzatto, Milano, 1950, vol. II, pp. 152-3; per l'inizio del secolo XVII, D. Sella, Crisis and Continuity: the Economy of Spanish Lombardy in the Seventeenth Century, Cambridge, Mass., 1979, pp. 16-19.

X Profilo demografico e sociale di un comune rurale lombardo

335

lativa alia localita di Grontorto nella pieve di Desio, "li massari... et pigionanti pagano fitto a grano a ragione di 16 moggia per ogni cento pertiche... per terzo, cioe formento, segale et miglio", mentre la "foglia dei moroni" (gelsi) "e del Patrone tutta" in un podere, ma viene divisa a meta in un altro. Sempre secondo la stessa inchiesta, toccava infine al proprietario di prowedere le scorte e segnatamente le sementi, gli attrezzi e i buoi da lavoro (5). 2 . LA POPOLAZIONE

Dallo "stato delle anime" preso qui in esame risulta che nel 1597 Balsamo contava 563 abitanti (esclusi il parroco ed eventuali altri ecclesiastici i cui nomi non figurano nel documento) distribuiti in 18 case e in 81 "fuochi". In questa popolazione (vedi Tabella 1) i maschi costituivano il 48,7% del totale, le femmine il 51,3% ; in altri termini, si davano 95 maschi per ogni 100 femmine. Rapporto, questo, non molto diverso da quello riscontrato nella grossa parrocchia milanese di S. Lorenzo di fuori nel 1610 (96/100) (6) e in un gruppo di parrocchie a Pavia nel 1660 (98/100) (7). Dalla Tabella 1 risulta anche che i giovani d'ambo i sessi sotto i 15 anni rappresentavano una percentuale molto elevata (41,4%) del totale, mentre esigua era quella dei vecchi dai 60 anni in su (3,4%). Si tratta comunque di percentuali che non si scostano sensibilmente da quelle attestate in altre popolazioni dell'Europa preindustriale (8). Questa particolare distribuzione della popolazione per eta, tipica delle popolazioni di antico regime, era, come e noto, la risultante dell'azione congiunta di una forte natalita e di una forte mortalita. Dai dati offerti dal nostro "stato delle anime" non e possibile ricavare una stima anche (5) Archivio di Stato, Milano, Feudi camerali p.a., cart. 500, fasc. 12, "Informationes secundae pro bonis Grontorti" del 14 agosto 1656. (6) Saba, art. cit., p. 440. (7) Aleati, op. cit., p. 28. (8) D.C. Coleman, Labour in the English Economy of the Seventeenth Century, in Essays in Economic History, a cura di E.M. Carus-Wilson, vol. II, Londra, 1962, p. 296, da le seguenti percentuali per la popolazione sotto i 15 anni: 34 a Sorrento nel 1561, 40 a Verona nel 1585, 41 a Carpi nel 1591, 38,4 per l'Inghilterra nel 1695. A Laorca presso Lecco nel 1579, 4 1 % della popolazione aveva meno di 15 anni e 3 % piu di 60 (D. Sella, An Industrial Village in Sixteenth-century Italy, in Wirtschaftskraefte und Wirtschaftswege: Festschrift fur Hermann Kellenbenz, vol. Ill,

Norimberga, 1978, p. 39; a Pavia nel 1660 questi due gruppi di eta costituivano il 33% e il 4% rispettivamente (Aleati, op. cit., p. 28).

X 336 TABELLA 1 Popolazione di Balsamo classificata per sesso e per eta Dati assoluti Classi di eta

0 - 4

5- 9 1 0 - 14 1 5 - 19 20-24 25-29 30- 34 35-39 40-44 45-49 5 0 - 54 55 - 59 60-64 65-69 70 +

maschi

femmine

Dati percentuali totale

maschi

femmine

totale 12,8 13,9 14,7 11,2

1,1 0,2 0,7

6,4 5,9 8,0 6,9 3,7 4,3 3,7 3,5 2,5 2,7 1,8 0,5 0,7 0,2 0,5

48,7

51,3

100,0

36 45 38 24 31 19 13 16 16 11 11 3 6 -1 4

36 33 45 39 21 24 21 20 14 15 10 3 4 1 3

72 78 83 63 52 43 34 36 30 26 21 6 10 2 7

6,4 8,0 6,7 4,3 5,5 3,4 2,3 2,8 2,8 2,0 2,0 0,5

274

289

563

9,2 7,7 6,0 6,3 5,3 4,7 3,8 1,0 1,8 0,4 1,2

grossolana del quoziente di mortalita, ma il rapido assottigliarsi della piramide delle eta non lascia dubbi sul fatto che a Balsamo ogni coorte di eta pagava un alto tributo alia morte. Quanto alia natalita, si puo tentarne una stima rapportando il totale dei bambini di un anno o meno al totale della popolazione. In proposito il nostro documento registra 17 individui di un anno di eta e nessuno di eta inferiore ad un anno; il che fa pensare che con la dicitura "d'anni 1" il compilatore indicasse anche i bambini che non avevano ancora compiuto il primo anno al momento della raccolta dei dati. Se tale supposizione e esatta, si dovrebbe concludere che a Balsamo nel 1597 il quoziente generico di natalita era del 30 per mille. Si tratta di un quoziente piuttosto basso per un'epoca in cui in varie citta italiane si sono riscontrati, sulla base dei registri dei battesimi, quozienti compresi fra il 35 e il 50 per mille con una prevalenza dei valori intorno al 40 per mille (9). Ma nel caso di Balsamo il quoziente del 30 per mille va sicuramente corretto onde tener conto dei bambini nati (9) Cfr. CM. Cipolla, Storia economica delVEuropa preindustriale, Bologna, 1974, p. 19.

X Profilo demografico e sociale di un comune rurale lombardo

337

nei dodici mesi precedenti la stesura dello "stato delle anime", ma premorti ad essa. Quanti potevano essere? Per Pavia nel secolo XVII si sono potuti calcolare quozienti medi di mortalita infantile (morti nel primo anno di vita per mille nati) del 200 per mille circa (10); per Fiesole nello stesso secolo i quozienti oscillano fra 150 e 350 per mille ( u ) . Sembra logico pertanto aumentare il quoziente di natalita di Balsamo di un 20-25 % e fissarlo intorno al 36-37 per mille. Quoziente, questo, che rientra nel ventaglio dei valori osservati altrove, ma che si colloca pur sempre verso il limite inferiore del ventaglio stesso. Anche questa conclusione va tuttavia accolta con cautela, perche i nostri calcoli si riferiscono ad un anno isolato (il 1597) e non necessariamente normale o tipico e perche, in una popolazione di piccole dimensioni come quella di Balsamo, anche poche nascite in piu o in meno in anni vicini al 1597 potrebbero portare a quozienti sensibilmente diversi. Soltanto ulteriori ricerche potranno illuminarci in proposito. C'e tuttavia un dato che sembrerebbe corroborare l'ipotesi che effettivamente il quoziente di natalita a Balsamo era basso per una popolazione preindustriale, ed e l'eta media delle donne al matrimonio. E? ormai assodato che, nei regimi demografici di antico regime, uno dei fattori che influiva piu sensibilmente sul quoziente di natalita era appunto l'eta alia quale, in media, le donne si maritavano: in proposito e stato osservato che 'Tage au mariage des filles est la veritable arme contraceptive de l'Europe classique" e 'la clef de la fecondite en structure demographique ancienne" (12). Per conoscere l'eta media delle donne al matrimonio si e proceduto innanzitutto a ricavare dallo "stato delle anime" lo stato civile di tutte le donne fra 15 e 55 anni. Il fatto che praticamente tutte le donne fra 15 e 19 anni di eta erano nubili e che nella successiva classe di eta meno della meta risultano coniugate ci assicura subito che a Balsamo i matrimoni precoci dovevano essere rari. Ma possiamo andare oltre questa prima constatazione e, awalendoci del procedimento proposto da J. Hajnal (13), calcolare dai (10) Aleati, op. cit., p. 94. ( n ) Cipolla, Storia economica, cit., p. 20. Per la Francia del Sei e Settecento si sono calcolati quozienti di mortalita infantile intorno al 250 per mille (cfr. J.L. Flandrin, Families in Former Times: Kinship, Household and Sexuality in Early Modern France, trad. R. Southern, Cambridge, 1979, p. 199). (12) P. Chaunu, La civilisation de l'Europe classique, Parigi, 1966, p. 204. ( 13 ) J. Hajnal, Age at Marriage and Proportions Marrying, "Population Studies", VII (1953), pp. 129-30. E' quasi superfluo sottolineare, con lo Hajnal, che il computo da soltanto valori approssimativi.

X 338

dati della Tabella 2 l'eta media al matrimonio: essa risulta di 24,2 anni. Eta, come si vede, piuttosto avanzata che ci autorizza a far rientrare il caso di Balsamo in quel ''regime matrimoniale europeo" quale e ampiamente documentato per la Francia e Plnghilterra del secolo XVII (14); eta che non contrasta, d'altra parte, con quel quoziente di natalita relativamente basso di cui si diceva poco fa (15). TABELLA 2 Stato civile delle donne per classi di eta V;ilori assoluti

Classi di eta 1 5 - 19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54

Valori percentuali

nubili

coniugate e vedove

nubili

coniugate e vedove

38 12 4 3 1 2 2 —

1 9 20 18 19 12 13 10

97 57 17 14 5 15 13 0

3 43 83 86 95 85 87 100

3 . "FUOCHI" E FAMIGL1E

Se per alcuni caratteri generali (distribuzione per sesso e per eta, natalita, eta delle donne al matrimonio) la popolazione di Balsamo non si differenzia molto da altre popolazioni dell'Europa occidentale nei primi secoli dell'eta moderna, le cose cambiano nettamente non appena ci

( 14 ) J. Hajnal, European Marriage Patterns in Perspective, in Population in History: Essays in Historical Demography, a cura di D.V. Glass e D.E.C. Eversley, Londra, 1965, pp. 101-43. Vale la pena di sottolineare la notevole differenza nel comportamento delle donne appartenenti a famiglie del patriziato milanese: nella prima meta del Seicento l'eta media al matrimonio era infatti di 19,6 anni. (D. Zanetti, La demografia del patriziato milanese nei secoli XVII, XVIII, XIX. Con una appendice genealogica di Franco Arese Lucini, Pavia, 1972, p. 87. (15) Non e forse un semplice caso se a Pavia, dove nel 1700 l'eta media delle donne al matrimonio puo essere calcolata a 22 anni circa, il quoziente di natalita si aggirava sul 50 per mille, a un livello cioe nettamente piu alto di quello calcolato per Balsamo. Cfr. Aleati, op. cit., p. 35 (per i dati sullo stato civile dai quali ho desunto l'eta media al matrimonio) e p. 62 (per il quoziente di natalita).

X Profilo demografico e sociale di un comune rurale lombardo

339

volgiamo ad esaminare le dimensioni e la composizione degli aggregati domestici o "fuochi". Come si e osservato in precedenza, nel 1597 i 563 abitanti di Balsamo erano distribuiti in 81 "fuochi", con una media di 6,9 abitanti per "fuoco". E' una media decisamente alta: nel contado toscano agli inizi del secolo XV si avevano 4,5 abitanti per "fuoco" ( 16 ); in un largo numero di comuni dell'alto milanese nel 1541, 3,3 soltanto ( 17 ); a Laorca, in quel di Lecco, nel 1574, la media era di 5,5 ( 1 8 ); nella parrocchia milanese di S. Lorenzo di fuori nel 1610, di 3,9 ( 19 ); in numerosi villaggi inglesi nel secolo XVII, di 4,7 ( 20 ); in un comune del sud della Francia nel 1644, di 5,5 (21)- Anche se dalla popolazione di Balsamo si escludono i servitori (27 individui in tutto designati come "famigli", "servi" o "serve") e si considerano soltanto i conviventi legati da rapporti di parentela, si ottiene pur sempre una media di 6,6 che e nettamente superiore a quella osservata altrove. Dopo quanto si e detto circa la natalita relativamente bassa che sembra caratterizzare il comune di Balsamo e improbabile che Peccezionale ampiezza dei "fuochi" rifletta famiglie particolarmente prolifiche. In proposito bastera osservare che nella gia ricordata parrocchia milanese di S. Lorenzo di fuori, dove nel 1610 si avevano 3,9 abitanti in media per "fuoco", i fanciulli sotto i 10 anni di eta costituivano il 25,5 delFintera popolazione ( 22 ); a Balsamo, dove i "fuochi" avevano consistenza quasi doppia, lo stesso gruppo di eta rappresentava una percentuale non molto diversa e precisamente il 26,7% (vedi Tabella 1). Se la forte consistenza dei "fuochi" di Balsamo non puo essere spiegata ne con la presenza di un elevato numero di estranei alia famiglia vera e propria quali i servitori, ne con una eccezionale fertilita delle coppie, la spiegazione va cercata nell'alta frequenza sia di aggregati domestici in cui, accanto al nucleo formato da genitori e figli (aggregato domesti-

( 16 ) C. Klapisch, Household and Family in Tuscany in 1427, in Household and Family in Past Time, a cura di P. Laslett, Cambridge, 1972, p. 275. (17) Cipolla, art. cit., p. 151. Va notato che nel 1541 la popolazione lombarda recava ancora 1'impronta delle gravi perdite provocate dalle guerre del primo trentennio del secolo {ibid., p. 147). (18) Sella, art. cit., p. 39. (19) Saba, art. cit., p. 441. (20) P. Laslett, Mean Household Size in England since the Sixteenth Century, in Household and Family in Past Time, cit., p. 130. ( 21 ) J.N. Biraben, A Southern French Village: the Inhabitants of Montplaisant in 1644, in Household and Family in Past Time, cit., p. 240. (22) Saba, art. cit., p. 440.

X 340

co nucleare), convivevano altri parenti quali un avo o uno zio o un nipote (aggregato domestico esteso), sia di aggregati in cui convivevano piu coppie di sposi (con o senza prole) imparentate fra loro in senso verticale o in senso orizzontale (aggregati domestici multipli) (23). Considerata sotto questa angolatura, la popolazione di Balsamo si presenta distribuita come in Tabella 3. TABELLA 3

Struttura dei "fuochi" Tipo di fuoco

n° dei fuochi

°/0 dei fuochi

totale conviventi

nucleare esteso multiplo solitari

44 15 17 5

54 18 22 6

215 75 268 5

81

100

563

media per fuoco 4,9 5,0

15,8 1,0

6,9

Colpisce subito in questa tabella la profonda differenza numerica che corre fra "fuochi" nucleari ed estesi da un lato e "fuochi" multipli dall'altra: questi ultimi, mentre rappresentano un quinto circa degli aggregati domestici, assorbono quasi meta dell'intera popolazione. Ma c'e di piu: le dimensioni medie dei "fuochi" nucleari ed estesi di Balsamo sono del tutto conformi a quelle teste ricordate per altre localita italiane e non italiane; le dimensioni medie dei "fuochi" multipli, invece, formano una classe a se stante che ci scosta radicalmente dalla norma e che e sufficientemente numerosa da spingere in su, in modo decisivo, la media generate per Balsamo. E' chiaro quindi che in questo comune rurale lombardo siamo in presenza di due regimi famigliari nettamente differenziati. 4 . REGIMI FAMIGLIARI E FUNZIONI ECONOMICHE

La distribuzione della popolazione di Balsamo in aggregati domestici tanto diversi per dimensioni e per struttura interna non era affatto casuale. (23) Nel distinguere i vari tipi di aggregati domestici mi sono attenuto alia tipologia proposta da P. Laslett nella sua introduzione a Household and Family in Past Time, cit., p. 31.

X Profilo demografico e sociale di un comune rurale lombardo

341

Cio risulta in modo inequivocabile non appena i vari tipi di "fuoco" vengono correlati con la professione o la qualifica sociale del capofamiglia. In fatto di professioni, il nostro "stato delle anime" ne elenca tre principali: massaro, bracciante e pigionante. Ci sono poi degli artigiani (4 tessitori, 1 sarto, 2 fabbri, 1 falegname), due osti, un mugnaio (molinaro), un vetturino (carocchiere) e due "signori". In un solo caso il nome del capofamiglia non e seguito da alcuna qualifica professional o sociale. Le qualifiche usate nel nostro documento non richiedono molte delucidazioni. Si osservera tuttavia che "signore" e "signora" si riferiscono sicuramente a individui di rango sociale superiore a quello del resto della popolazione e probabilmente a dei possidenti. "Brazzanti" sono evidentemente i lavoratori agricoli awentizi o giornalieri, mentre "massaro" sta ad indicare, come si e accennato in precedenza, il locatario di un podere. Piu problematico e il termine "pisonante" (pigionante). Esso compare di frequente negli stati delle anime dei comuni rurali lombardi di quel tempo, e in altri documenti coevi si parla talvolta di "pisonanti over brazanti" come se fossero sinonimi (24). Ma la gia ricordata inchiesta su Grontorto suggerisce che nella pieve di Desio il termine "pigionante" aveva significato diverso da "bracciante": "li massari... et pigionanti pagano fitto a grano", si legge nelTinchiesta e cio induce a pensare che, almeno in quella plaga, la figura del pigionante si awicinava a quella del massaro piu che a quella del bracciante. Detto cio, resta da accertare in che cosa il pigionante si differenziava dal massaro. In mancanza di indicazioni esplicite nei documenti del tempo, si puo ragionevolmente supporre che, mentre a Balsamo il massaro teneva in affitto un intero podere, il pigionante era Paffittuario di un modesto appezzamento di terra non appoderata. E' una supposizione, questa, che e corroborata dalla ben diversa consistenza numerica dei "fuochi" intestati a massari e a pigionanti quale risulta dalla Tabella 4. Nella Tabella 4 i diversi tipi di "fuoco" sono raggruppati in base alia qualifica del capofamiglia. I dati della tabella parlano chiaro: i "fuochi" intestati a massari fanno decisamente spicco con una media di oltre 15 conviventi per "fuoco", e si tratta in prevalenza di "fuochi" multipli; per contro, quelli dei braccianti, dei pigionanti e degli artigiani contano in media 4-5 conviventi soltanto e sono prevalentemente di tipo nucleare o, in un minor numero di casi, di quello esteso. In altre parole, i due regimi famigliari di cui si diceva poco fa riflettono funzioni economiche diverse nelFambito del (24) Un es. in Archivio di Stato, Milano, Feudi earneralip.a., cart 290, informazione su Legnano del 28 luglio 1649.

X 342 TABELLA 4

Distribuzione dei "fuochi"per qualified del capofamiglia

qualifica massari braccianti pigionanti artigiani signori ignota

n° fuochi

totale conviventi

media per fuoco

solitari

18 33 15 12 2 1

280 165 52 58 7 1

15,6

- -

3,0 3,5 4,8 3,5 1,0

81

563

6,9

nucleari

estesi

multipli

1 2 1 1

2 23 9 10 —

2 7 4 1 1 —

14 2 1 —

5

44

15

17

comune rurale: la grande famiglia "patriarcale" appare legata, in un modo che restera a lungo tipico della pianura padana, al podere affidato al massaro (o, in altre zone, al mezzadro); awentizi, artigiani e pigionanti vivono invece in famiglie per lo piu nucleari cui si associano in certi casi uno o piu parenti (25). Nel caso dei massari la convenienza a formare aggregati domestici particolarmente numerosi che raggruppavano due o piu fratelli con le rispettive consorti e figlioli e che spesso abbracciavano tre e, in un caso, addirittura quattro generazioni (26), era evidentemente dettata dall'esigenza di disporre di una manodopera stabile adeguata ai bisogni di un podere nel quale la diversita delle coltivazioni e la cura assidua delle col(25) Cio risulta chiaramente, per le campagne emiliane nel secolo XIX, dal saggio di C. Poni, Family and 'Podere' in Emilia Romagna, "Journal of Italian History", I (autunnd 1978), pp. 201-34; si vedano in particolare i dati a p. 204 dove le dimensioni delle famiglie dei mezzadri e dei braccianti emiliani ricordano da vicino quelle riscontrate a Balsamo per i massari e i braccianti. Sulle grandi famiglie dei massari ancora diffuse nell'alta Lombardia nel primo Ottocento cfr. K.R. Greenfield, Economics and Liberalism in the Risorgimento, nuova ed. riveduta, Baltimora, 1965, pp. 13-14. La correlazione fra composizione dei "fuochi" e professioni e stata recentemente osservata anche in un comune delle Prealpi dove l'attivita dominante era la lavorazione del ferro, da Sella, art. cit., e in ambiente urbano da X. Toscani, Famiglie e professioni in una parrocchia cittadina agli inizi del Seicento, "Annali di storia pavese", 2-3 (1980), p. 141. (26) E' il caso del "fuoco" (che occupa il 21 posto nel nostro documento) al cui vertice stava una Maddalena da Monte "massara"; con lei convivevano due figli con le rispettive consorti, una nuora, 15 nipoti (abiadegbi) di cui uno sposato con un figlio, e unfamiglio. In tutto, 24 conviventi e 4 generazioni.

X 343

Profilo demografico e sociale di un comune rurale lombardo

ture arboree si traducevano in una sostenuta domanda di lavoro per gran parte dell'anno; nel caso dei braccianti e degli artigiani, di gente cioe che viveva di salario, tale esigenza non sussisteva e, anzi, i figli erano probabilmente indotti a lasciare la casa paterna ancora adolescenti per cercare lavoro altrove — il che spiega non soltanto Tesigua consistenza numerica dei loro "fuochi", ma anche lo scarso numero di quelli in cui coabitavano piu di due generazioni (vedi Tabella 5). Quanto ai pigionanti, se e vero che a Balsamo si trattava di contadini che affittavano piccoli appezzamenti di terra non appoderata, non si stenta a capire perche le loro famiglie non si differenziavano gran che, quanto a dimensione e a composizione, da quelle dei braccianti. TABELLA 5

Generazioni present! net "fuochi" classificati per professioni

professioni massari braccianti pigionanti artigiani sign or i ignota

n° fuochi

1

generazioni per fuoco 2 3

18 33 15 12 2 1

4 1 2 1 1

8 26 12 9 1 —

81

9

56

9 3 2 1 -

15

4 1 — 1

5 . CONTADINI E POSSIDENTI

Lo "stato delle anime" di Balsamo ci consente di cogliere un altro aspetto interessante di questo piccolo comune rurale. In esso la popolazione era ripartita in 18 case di abitazione, con una media di 4,5 "fuochi" e di 31 anime per casa. II paese era dunque formato da grandi caseggiati rurali capaci di ospitare parecchie famiglie, oltre al bestiame, agli attrezzi agricoli e ai prodotti della terra. Ma piu che l'aspetto fisico del villaggio ci interessa qui l'aspetto giuridico e precisamente il fatto che nessuna delle 18 case era di proprieta dei contadini del luogo. Senza eccezione alcuna, esse sono infatti indicate come appartenenti a dei "signori" — e fra questi figurano nomi grossi di milanesi quali un Dugnani, due Visconti, un Litta, un "Cavaglier Pozzo". In due casi soltanto il "signore" proprietario o un suo parente risiede nella casa che porta il suo no-

X 344

me (27); in tutti gli altri il proprietario aveva il proprio domicilio altrove e probabilmente nella capitale lombarda. II fatto che tutte le case di abitazione appartenessero a "signori" anziche a contadini conferma quanto i termini "bracciante", "massaro" e "pigionante" (termini che si riferiscono tutti a lavoratori agricoli dipendenti) facevano gia sospettare, e cioe che a Balsamo, sul finire del secolo XVI, la proprieta contadina era inesistente e che la terra, non diversamente dalle case di abitazione, apparteneva tutta a gente di rango sociale piii elevato e che risiedeya per lo piu in citta. A questo punto sarebbe imprudente generalizzare e affermare che la situazione riscontrata a Balsamo vigeva in tutto Palto milanese. La vicinanza di Balsamo alia metropoli lombarda certamente favori il diffondersi della proprieta "signorile", ed e verosimile che, se esaminassimo localita via via piu distanti dalla citta, la situazione si presenterebbe piu sfumata. Ma il caso di Balsamo offre pur sempre una chiara testimonianza di queirimponente processo, in atto fin dalFinizio del Quattrocento e forse anche da prima, in virtu del quale crescenti estensioni di terra passarono nelle mani del patriziato e della borghesia di Milano (28).

(27) Nella casa del Signor Andrea Rho abitava la Signora Giulia Rho insieme ad un nipote, un servo e due serve. Nella casa dei Signori Litta formava fuoco a se il Signor Carlo Litta insieme ad una serva. (28) Su questo processo mi limito a ricordare: CM. Cipolla, Condizioni economiche e gruppi sociali in Pavia secondo un estimo cinquecentesco, "Rivista Internazionale di Scienze sociali", LI (1943), pp. 264-87; Id., Per la storia delle terre della "bassa" lombarda, in Studi in onore di Armando Sapori, Milano, 1957, pp. 667-72; Coppola; art. cit., pp. 217-21; Zaninelli, loc. cit.; e A. De Maddalena, L'immobilizzazione della ricchezza nella Milano spagnola: moventi, esperienze e interpretazioni, "Annali di storia economica e sociale", VI (1965).

XI

Household, Land Tenure, and Occupation in North Italy in the Late Sixteenth Century The purpose of this article is to contribute to the growing, yet still fragmentary body of literature which, in recent years, has gone beyond the mere measurement of the mean size of pre-industrial households and the description of their different types and has focused on the links between household size and structure and the socio-economic context.1 To this end the article will look at five communities in late sixteenth-century Lombardy, drawing its evidence from as many listings of inhabitants {status animarum)^ three of which refer to villages of the plain (Desio, San Giuliano, and Inzago), one to a village of the hillzone (Villa-d'Adda), and one to the market town of Gallarate.2 All five listings were compiled in 1574 by local parish clergy in response to the detailed instructions issued in that year by the then archbishop of Milan, This is a revised version of a paper read at the Economic History Workshop of Indiana University in Bloomington. I am indebted to the participants in the workshop for their comments and criticisms, and most notably to Professors George Alter, Ann Cormichael, Elizabeth Hoffman, Helen Nader, James C. Reilly, and Elise Rotella. The research on which this article is based was made possible by a grant from the Graduate School, University of Wisconsin, Madison (project no. 180806). 1 For a survey and a critical discussion of the literature on the history of the family since the publication of P. LASLETT and R. WALL eds., Household and Family in Fast Time (Cambridge, 1982), see M. ANDERSON, Approaches to the History of the Western Family, 1500-1914 (London, 1980). 2 The five manuscript listings are in ARCHIVIO DELLA CURIA ARCIVESCOVILE, Milan, Archivio Spirituale, Sez. X, Pieve di Desio, vol. 7 (for Desio); Pieve di Gorgonzola, vol. 12 (for Inzago); Pieve di San Giuliano, vol. 12 (for San Giuliano); Pieve di Brivio, vol. 12 (for Villa d'Adda); and Pieve di Gallarate, vol. 23 (for Gallarate). This article appeared in The Journal ofEuropean Economic History, 1987, pp. 487-509, published by the Bank of Rome.

XI

Carlo Borromeo.3 The fact that those five communities are all located within 50 kilometres at most of one another will rule out any broad generalization applicable to the rest of north Italy. On the other hand, the fact that those communities belong to the same region and that the listings were drawn up according to the same guidelines, for the same purpose, and in the same year, ensures a high degree of homogeneity and consistency. The five listings to be examined here are unusually detailed. Besides the names of all persons living in the parish in 1574, they include, as similar documents of that period often do not, a clear indication of where a household (fuoco, i.e., hearth or co-resident group) ends and another begins, the age of each household member, the occupation or status of the head of the household (capo di casa), and the relationship of each household member to the head — whether spouse, son, daughter, brother, sister, in-law, or servant. Clearly, these are exceptionally rich sources in that they enable us not only to know the size and structure of households, but also to relate these, at least in a rough way, to the occupational distribution of the population and to the kind of economy prevailing in each community. Moreover, knowing the age of all the individuals listed in the censuses can be useful for understanding the developmental cycle of the household. Unfortunately, there is no way of testing the accuracy and reliability of the five censuses against other independent evidence. All one can do, under the circumstances, is to fall back on internal evidence, and I have done so by analyzing the age and sex structure of the five communities (Table 1). It stands to reason that, unless their age and sex composition is more or less consistent with that of other early modern communities, there is a strong presumption that our censuses contain either gross errors in the registration process or some bias on the part of the clergy who compiled them. 3

Borromeo's instructions have been published as an appendix to E. FASANO GUARINI, "Gli stati d'anime milanesi al tempo di Carlo e Federico Borromeo", in Lefonti delta demografia storica in Italia (Rome, 1972), vol. I, pp. 127-154. 488

XI Household, Land Tenure, and Occupation in North Italy

TABLE I DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION BY AGE AND SEX Percentages

N of individuals Age

M

F

Total

M

F

Total

DESIO

0-14 15-59 60+ unknown Total Sex ratio: 101/100

213 286 24 2 525

208 287 20 2 517

421 573 44 4 1042

20.4 27.4 2.3 0.2 50.3

20.0 27.5 2.0 0.2 49.7

40.4 54.9 4.3 0.4 100.0

INZAGO

0-14 15-59 60+ unknown Total Sex ratio: 99/100

217 320 43 16 596

211 339 31 18 599

428 659 74 34 1195

18.2 26.8 3.6 1.3 49.9

17.6 28.4 2.6 1.5 50.1

35.8 55.2 6.2 2.8 100.0

SANGIULIANO 0-14 15-59 60+ unknown Total Sex ratio: 116/100

271 374 29 5 679

243 329 13 0 585

514 703 42 5 1264

21.4 29.6 2.3 0.4 53.7

19.2 26.1 1.0 0.0 46.3

40.6 55.7 3.3 0.4 100.0

VILLA D'ADDA 0-14 15-59 60+ Total Sex ratio: 84/100

174 196 30 400

203 259 16 478

377 455 46 878

19.8 22.3 3.4 45.5

23.2 29.5 1.8 54.5

43.0 51.8 5.2 100.0

493 666 61 4 1224

413 715 54 4

906 1381 115 8 2410

20.5 27.6 2.5 0.2 50.8

17.1 29.7 2.2 0.2 49.2

37.6 57.3 4.7 0.4 100.0

GALLARATE

0-14 15-59 60+ unknown Total Sex ratio: 103/100

1186

As shown in Table 1, three of our communities had normal sex ratios. In Villa d'Adda, however, women outnumbered men by a considerable margin (84 men for 100 women), while the opposite was true of San Giuliano (116/100), but in both instances the imbalance can be plausibly explained, as will be seen in a moment, on the basis of the different economic structure of the two communities. As regards the age structure, the high proportion (3543%) of children under 15 (the combined effect of a high birth rate and a high infant and child mortality) is not out of line with the 489

XI

proportion found in other communities of early modern Europe: 38.7% in Prato in 1470,41% in Carpi in 1579, 38.9% in the Parma countryside in 1594, 40% in Verona in 1585, 34.9% in Ealing in 1599, and 38.4% in a number of English villages in 1695.4 If our listings suffer from inaccuracy, it is in the recording of the age of adults, as revealed by the frequency with which ages ending in either 0 or 5 (20, 25, 30, 35, etc.) turn up in the listings as opposed to those ending with intermediate digits. This is not uncommon in documents of this kind and reflects not only the fact that a good many individuals had no precise notion of their own age, but also the fact that the parish priests, while instructed to use the utmost care in recording the age of children and adolescents in order to ensure that they would receive first communion at the appropriate age, were simply asked to give only a reasonable estimate in the case of adults.5 Such lack of precision, however, need not represent a major stumbling block as long as one makes use (as will be done here) of five- or ten-year cohorts when dealing with questions involving the age structure of the population under study. 1. The setting Three of the five communities discussed in this paper are located in the plain around Milan: Desio is 10 km. due north of that city, Inzago 25 km. to the east, and S. Giuliano 12 km. to the southeast. Desio is now part of the urban sprawl north of Milan and its economy is wholly industrial and commercial, but in the 4

These percentages are derived from C. KLAPISCH, "Decline* demografico e struttura della famiglia: Pesempio di Prato (fine XIV sec. - fine XV sec.)", in G. DUBY and J. LEGOFF eds., Famiglia e parentela neWltalia medievale (Bologna, 1977) p. 183; D.C. COLEMAN, "Labour in the English Economy of the Seventeenth Century", in E.M. CARUS-WILSON ed., Essays in Economic History, vol. II (London, 1962), p. 296; M. ROMANI, Nella spirale di una crisi: popolazione, mercato e prezzi a Parma tra Cinque e Seicento (Milan, 1975), pp. 50-51; and P. LASLETT, "The Study of Social Structure from Listings of Inhabitants", in E.A. WRIGLEY ed., An Introduction to English Historical Demography (New York, 1966), p. 204. 5 For Borromeo's instructions cf. note 3 above. 490

XI Householdy Land Tenure, and Occupation in North Italy

past it was part of that distinctive agricultural region known as alto milanese (Milan's high plain) characterized by dry farming and interculture, that is to say, by the presence on the same field of grain crops and tree crops (vines and/or mulberry trees). By the late sixteenth century most farmland in the area was owned by absentee landlords from Milan who let their medium-sized farms to tenants know as massari for nine-year periods under a form of contract that combined a fixed rent in kind (i.e., payable in grain) and a share (usually half) of the wine and silk produced on the estate. Inzago and San Giuliano, on the other hand, belong to the low plain, then as now the pride of Lombard agriculture: an extensive network of irrigation canals had made possible since the fifteenth century the adoption of convertible husbandry whereby arable land (under wheat, rice, or flax) was periodically turned into artificial meadows, thus dispensing (in a way that was not possible in the dry uplands) with the need for the periodical fallowing of the fields. The presence of luscious, well-watered meadows, in turn, meant that livestock played a key role in farming and that dairy products were as important as grain in the local economy. Farm units of the irrigated plain were in general much larger than those north of Milan; their absentee owners let them to massari for fixed rents that were paid partly in grain (for the arable fields) and partly in money (for the meadows where they grazed their livestock). In San Giuliano, alongside massari^ one finds also a few fittabili, a term that denoted at the time the tenant of a large farm primarily devoted to stock raising and one who paid rent entirely in money.6 Despite some differences attributable to local farming practices, 6

On Lombard agriculture at the time cf. D. SELLA, Crisis and Continuity: The Economy of Spanish Lombardy in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1979) and the bibliography cited therein; on agrarian contracts and definitions of massaro and fittahile cf. G. GIORGETTI, Contadini e proprietari neWItalia moderna (Turin, 1974), ch. VI; G. CHITTOLINI, "Alle origini delle 'grandi aziende' della bassa lombarda", Quaderni storici, 39 (1978), pp. 830-831; and E. ROVEDA, "Una grande possessione lodigiana dei Trivulzio fra Cinquecento e Settecento", in M. MIRRI ed., Ricerche di storia moderna, vol. II (Pisa, 1979), pp. 33, 111-112. 491

XI

Desio, Inzago, and San Giuliano had a great deal in common: a market-oriented agriculture, absentee ownership, large farm units run by tenant farmers, and, lastly, the presence of day labourers {brazzanti andpigionanti)^ who were hired for wages by the tenant farmers at peak times.7 The other two communities belong to quite different economic contexts. Villa-d'Adda, the smaller of the two, is a village perched on the hills on the left bank of the Adda river, at about 35 km. northeast of Milan. Poor soils and the uneven lay of the land precluded the more profitable farming of the plain and left room only for what was largely a subsistence type of farming, with some wine and perhaps silk providing a tenuous link with outside markets.8 Not surprisingly, tenant farmers are not mentioned in the Villa-d'Adda listing, but peasant owners (agricultori) are a clear confirmation that the place held little attraction for absentee landowners. Nor is it a mere coincidence that, as mentioned before, in Villa-d'Adda women outnumbered men by quite a margin: this imbalance is to be ascribed to the permanent emigration of young males either to the cities or to the large estates of the plain where the emigrants could hope to find employment as day laborers.9 Gallarate, 40 km. northwest of Milan, presents a totally different picture. It was then a thriving market town which a 1578 7

Brazzanti or braccianti is the standard term for landless day labourers. The term pigionanti (literally "renters") is no longer used in Lombardy, but, judging from a 1550 contract quoted by ROVEDA, "Una grande possessione" cit., p. 112, it referred to day labourers who lived on the landlord's premises and paid rent accordingly. According to GIORGETTI, Contadini e proprietary cit., p. 325, pigionanti enjoyed a somewhat more stable employment relationship than braccianti. 8 Cf. SELLA, Crisis and Continuity cit., p. 5. 9 On migration from the mountains and the hills to the plain cf. F. BRAUDEL, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Engl. transl. (New York, 1972-73), pp. 25-52, 334-338; also D. SELLA, "AU dossier des migrations montagnardes: l'exemple de la Lombardie au XVIIe siecle", in Melanges en Vhonneur de Fernand Braudel (Toulouse, 1973), vol. I, pp. 547-554; and R. MERZARIO, II paese stretto: strategie matrimoniali nella diocesi di Como, secoli XVI-XVIII (Turin, 1981), pp. 100,134. 492

XI Household, Land Tenure, and Occupation in North Italy

document describes as "a place of traffic" whose residents "are nearly all artificers" and where "a great market is held every Saturday whereto commodities are brought from diverse parts, as well as cattle and other things".10 The distribution of households by occupation bears out the predominantly commercial and artisanal character of the Gallarate economy: in the 1574 census, out of 469 households 61 were headed by merchants (many of them cattle merchants) and as many as 235 by shopkeepers and craftsmen such as weavers, tailors, furriers, hat makers, shoemakers, smiths, ropemakers, and so on. Tenant farmers were not totally absent, but, with a mere 14 households, they represented only 3 percent of the occupational spectrum. The fairly homogeneous economic structure of the three villages of the plain and the contrast provided by Villa-d'Adda on the one hand and Gallarate on the other are borne out by the data in Table II. It will be noticed that in the first three communities tenant farmers and their families represented between 10 and 23 percent of all households and between 22 and 38 percent of the population; by contrast, Villa-d'Adda had no tenant farmers and in Gallarate the latter formed but a negligible group. In the plain (and especially in the low plain) day labourers loomed large and in one village (San Giuliano) claimed half of the households; in Villa-d'Adda and Gallarate, on the other hand, they were a clear minority. As for tradesmen (under this heading I have included merchants and shopkeepers as well as craftsmen), they held pride of place in the market town of Gallarate, with 62.9 percent of all households and 67.5 percent of the entire population, while elsewhere they represented less, and sometimes much less, than onethird of both households and population. Finally, a word about the other two occupational groups: gentry and "services". As for the gentry, no geographical pattern is discernible. "Services" (by which is meant public officials, lawyers, notaries, physicians, bar10

Quoted in SELLA, Crisis and Continuity cit., p. 14. 493

XI

TABLE II DISTRIBUTION OF HOUSEHOLDS AND MHS BY OCCUPATION OF HEAD N

H ouseholds

%

N

Individuals

%

MHS

DESIO

gentry services tradesmen tenant farmers labourers unknown Total

11 5 54 31 49 37 187

5.9 2.6 28.9 16.6 26.2 19.8 100.0

64 39 301 257 221 160 1042

6.1 3.7 28.9 24.7 21.2 15.4 100.0

5.8 7.8 5.6 8.3 4.5 4.3 5.6

INZAGO

gentry services tradesmen tenant farmers labourers unknown Total

8 1 68 24 111 23 235

3.4 0.4 28.9 10.2 47.2 9.8 99.9

61 5 355 264 426 84 1195

5.1 0.4 29.7 22.1 35.7 7.0 100.0

7.6 5.0 5.2 11.0 3.8 3.7 5.1

SAN GIULIANO gentry services tradesmen tenant farmers labourers unknown Total

1 — 25 48 105 30 209

0.5 — 12.0 23.0 50.2 14.3 100.0

14 — 152 484 470 144 1264

1.1 — 12.0 38.3 37.2 11.4 100.0

14.0 — 6.1 10.1 4.5 4.8 6.0

VILLA DADDA gentry services tradesmen peasant owners labourers unknown Total

3 4 28 49 24 53 161

1.9 2.5 17.4 30.4 14.9 32.9 100.0

21 21 159 298 99 280 878

2.4 2.4 18.1 34.1 11.2 31.8 100.0

7.0 5.2 5.7 6.1 4.1 5.3 5.5

GALLARATE

8 25 296 13 73 54 469

1.7 5.3 62.9 2.8 15.6 11.5 99.8

51 125 1627 85 314 208 2410

2.1 5.2 67.5 3.5 13.0 8.6 99.9

6.4 5.0 5.5 6.5 4.3 3.8 5.1

gentry services tradesmen tenant farmers labourers unknown Total

ber-surgeons, teachers, and clergy) were heavily concentrated, as one would expect, in Gallarate. 2. The size and structure of households In the five communities under discussion the mean size of households (MHS), as shown in Table III, falls between 5 and 6 494

XI Household, Land Tenure, and Occupation in North Italy

TABLE III MHS AND RANGE OF SIZES

DESIO IN2AGO SAN GIULIANO VILLA D'ADDA GALLARATE

Population

Households

MHS

Range of sizes

1042 1195 1264 878 2410

187 235 209 161 469

5.6 5.1 6.0 5.5 5.1

1-21 1-25 1-24 1-14 1-17

individuals. This is somewhat higher than the corresponding MHS documented in fifteenth-century Tuscany (4.4) and early sixteenth-century Lombary (3.3), but it must be borne in mind that these two areas still bore the mark of recent epidemics and also, in the case of Lombardy, of recent devastations wrought by warfare.11 Our MHS is also higher than that found in a large sample of English communities in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (4.7), but is close to the mean size obtaining in much of central France (around 6.0) and in southern France (5.5), in a number of Dutch villages of the seventeenth century (5.3), and in the Parma countryside in 1593 (5.1).12 In short, one feels justified to say that our five communities do not constitute abnormal cases when compared to available data for other parts of Europe, although they clearly belong to the upper side of the spectrum. What is distinctive about the five Lombard communities, however, is the far greater dispersion of family size around the 11

Cf. D. HERLIHY and C. KLAPISCH-ZUBER, Les Toscans et leurs families (Paris, 1978), p. 472: MHS was 4.42 in 1427. In Lombardy in 1541 it was around 3.3 according to C M . CIPOLLA, "Per la storia della popolazione lombarda nel secolo XVI", in Studi in onore di Gino Luzzatto (Milan, 1950), vol. I, p. 151. 12 On England cf. P. LASLETT, "Mean Household Size in England since the Sixteenth Century", in LASLETT and WALL eds., Household and Family, cit., p. 133; on France, P. GOUBERT, "Family and Province: A Contribution to the knowledge of Family Structures in Early Modern France", Journal of Family History, II (1977), pp. 182-188; on Holland, A.M. VAN DER WOUDE, "Variations in the size and structure of households in the United Provinces of the Netherlands in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries", in LASLETT and WALL eds., op. cit., p. 307; for Parma, ROMANI, Nella spirale di una crisi cit.,

pp. 43-45.

495

XI

mean: while in the English sample 89 percent of the parishes had between four and six members,13 in Lombardy only 40-50 percent of the households fell in that range and a sizeable percentage was either larger or smaller: as many as 10 to 16 percent had one to three members and nearly half had more than six (Table IV). TABLE IV PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION OF HOUSEHOLDS BY SIZE

DESIO INZAGO SAN GIULIANO VILLA D'ADDA GALLARATE

1-3

4-6

7-9

9.4 16.5 9.8 8.7 12.8

45.1 37.3 35.1 47.4 49.6

27.5 20.7 25.1 29.4 24.4

10-12

13-15

16+

8.2 9.9

7.8 7.2 11.1 6.4 3.4

2.0 8.4 8.8 — 1.4

10.1

8.1 8.4

The lesser degree of homogeneity among Lombard households, when they are classified on the basis of size, reveals itself as well when they are classified on the basis of type. This is done in Tables Va and Vb where households (and the individuals living in them) are sorted out according to the typology established by the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure.14 According to that typology, there are five main types of households: solitaries, no family household (two or more coresident relatives or unrelated persons), simple family household (married couple with or without children, widow or widower with children), extended family household (a simple family plus one or more relatives living in), and multiple family household (two or more married couples related to one another either vertically or horizontally). The first obvious fact in Tables Va and Vb is the predominance of the simple family household: about 60 percent of all households were of such type and something like 50 percent of the entire 13 14

496

J.L. FLANDRIN, Families in Former Times, Engl. transl. (Cambridge, 1979), p. 55. LASLETT and WALL eds., Household and Family, cit., p. 31.

XI Household, Land Tenure, and Occupation in North Italy TABLE Va DISTRIBUTION OF HOUSEHOLDS BY TYPE DESIO

1. Solitaries 2. No family 3. Simple family 4. Extended family 5. Multiple family Total Subtotal 4+5

1.6% (3) 3.2% (6) 66.3% (124) 17.7% (33) 11.2% (21) (187) 28.9% (54)

5.1% (12) 4.2% (10) 61.3% (144) 18.7% (44) 10.6% (25) (235) 29.3% (69)

SAN GIULIANO

VILLA D'ADDA

GALLARATE

2.9% (6) 2.9% (6) 59.3% (124) 17.2% (36) 17.7% (37) (209) 34.9% (73)

3.7% (6) 0% (0) 60.8% (98) 23.0% (37) 12.4% (20) (161) 35.4% (57)

1.9% (9) 3.2% (15) 67.2% (315) 20.0% (94) 7.7% (36) (469) 27.7% (130)

TABLE Vb DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION BY TYPE OF HOUSEHOLD

1. Solitaries 2. No family 3. Simple family 4. Extended family 5. Multiple family Total Subtotal 4+5

DESIO

INZAGO

SAN GIULIANO

VILLA D'ADDA

GALLARATE

0.3% (3) 1.9% (20) 58.9% (614) 19.7% (205) 19.2% (200) (1042) 38.9% (405)

1.0% (12) 2.3% (27) 49.3% (589) 22.4% (268) 25.0% (299) (1195) 47.4% (567)

0.5% (6) 1.3% (17) 46.0% (581) 19.0% (240) 33.2% (420) (1264) 52.2% (660)

0.7% (6) 0% (0) 54.1% (474) 27.4% (241) 17.8% (157) (878) 45.2% (398)

0.4% (9) 1.9% (46) 60.5% (1459) 24.0% (578) 13.2% (318) (2410) 37.2% (896)

population lived in them. And yet, even though the type of household we now regard as "normal" or "modern" loomed larger than any other type, the percentage of more complex structures is striking: about 30 percent of all households were either extended or multiple (Table Va, line 4 + 5). This is a very high proportion indeed if compared to 8-9 percent of comparable households in 497

XI

England and 7-10 percent in northern France in the eighteenth century, but is not far removed from the percentages observed in France south of the Loire in that same period, in eighteenthcentury Tuscany and nineteenth-century Emilia.15 The true importance of extended and multiple family households in the five Lombard communities is even better appreciated if one considers how population was distributed among the different types. As shown in Table Vb, in three of our four rural communities nearly half the population lived in complex households. And while in none of the communities the proportion of multiple family households went beyond 18 percent, the percentage of people living in them could be as high as one third (as was the case in San Giuliano). By contrast, in the market town of Gallarate only 7.7 percent of all households were of the multiple type and only 13.2 percent of the population lived in them. As one would expect, household size and structure were not unrelated. To be sure, an occasional simple family household could be very large: in Desio the household of Adam Castelletto, the local magistrate (podestd), included thirteen persons: the magistrate himself and his wife, four sons, three daughters, one lodger, and three servants; in Inzago, Antonio Zisevanno, a tenant farmer, lived with his wife, six sons and three daughters. These, however, were exceptions. On the average, extended family households were substantially larger than simple family households, and multiple ones, in turn, were much larger (in Inzago nearly twice as large) than extended family households (Table VI). Not surprisingly, the largest households I have come across in the course of this study were of the multiple type. Both were in Inzago 15 FLANDRIN, Families, pp. 68, 71; GOUBERT, "Family and Province", pp. 182-188 (30-40% of all households in central and southern France were not mononuclear); F. MCARDLE, "Another Look at 'Peasant Families East and West'", Peasant Studies Newsletter, III, 3 (1974), p. 11 (in 1767 at Altopascio, Tuscany, 36% of all households were either extended or multiple); D.I. KERTZER, "European Peasant Household Structure: Some Implications from a Nineteenth-Century Italian Community", Journal of Family History, II, 4 (1977), p. 338 (in Bertalia, Emilia the proportion was 33%).

498

XI Household, Land Tenure, and Occupation in North Italy

TABLE VI MEAN HOUSEHOLD SIZE BY TYPE

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Solitaries No family Simple family Extended family Multiple family

DESIO

INZAGO

1.0 3.3 4.9 6.2 9.5

1.0 2.7 4.1 6.1 12.0

Gl^NO

1.0 2.8 4.7 6.7 11.3

Jl^A 1.0 — 4.8 6.6 7.8

GALLARATE 1.0 3.1 4.6 6.2 8.8

and included twenty-five persons each. In one of them an 80-yearold tenant farmer, Cristoforo Cesarano, lived with his wife, four married sons and their wives, thirteen grandchildren, one nephew and his wife. The other consisted of three married brothers (a grain merchant, a tanner, and a shoemaker), their elderly mother, their respective wives, their eight children, two nephews, and a retinue of eight individuals identified as either servants (servi), journeymen (famei), or apprentices (garzoni). The distribution of households by size and by structure was not random, but to a large extent reflected different economic and/or social roles. This pattern has often been observed elsewhere. In the fifteenth century, sharecroppers' households in the Florentine countryside were on average significantly larger and more complex than those of small owners and hired labourers.16 In Florence itself the largest households were those of the aristocracy and of members of the major guilds.17 In the late sixteenth century, in the countryside around Parma the MSH was five, but sharecroppers' households were roughly twice as large.18 Two centuries 16

C. KLAPISCH and M. DEMONET, "The Rural Tuscan Family in the Fifteenth

Century", in R. FOSTER and O. RANUM eds., Family and Society (Baltimore, 1976), p. 54. 17

C. KLAPISCH, "Household and Family in Tuscany in 1427", in LASLETT and WALL

eds., Household and Family cit., pp. 276-277. 18 ROMANI, Nella spirale di una crisi cit., p. 43 n. The same contrast between sharecroppers' and day labourers' households still existed in 19th-century Emilia: cf. C. PONI, "Family and podere in Emilia Romagna", Journal of Italian History > I, 2 (1978), p. 204. 499

XI

later, the sharecroppers of the Nivernais in central France lived in households that were more numerous and more complex than those of small owners and artisans,19 while in Lower Austria a similar contrast has been found between peasant owners and landless peasants.20 On the other hand, in late seventeenth-century nothern France and England social status rather than land tenure seems to have determined the size and composition of the household: in France government officials and magistrates headed the largest households, while in England the gentry did.21 In our five Lombard communities the link between household size and socio-economic roles is no less visible (Table VII) with two groups standing out on account of the size of their households: gentry and tenant farmers. By contrast, day labourers conTABLE VII MEAN HOUSEHOLD SIZE BY OCCUPATION a) SERVANTS INCLUDED b) SERVANTS NOT INCLUDED

gentry: services: tradesmen: tenant farmers: small owners: day labourers

a)

b) a)

b) a)

b) a)

b) a)

b) a)

b) unknown:

a)

b)

DESIO

INZAGO

5.8 4.4 7.8 6.8 5.6 5.3 8.3 7.9 — 4.5 4.5 4.3 4.2

19

, I T ^ M rO i GIULIAN

JD'ADDA l n ^

GALLARATE

7.6 4.5 5.0 4.0 5.3 4.9 11.0 10.2

14.0 3.0 — — 6.1 6.0 10.1 9.4

7.0 3.3 5.2 5.2 5.9 5.6

6.4 4.7 5.0 4.5 5.5 5.3 6.5 6.5

— 3.8 3.8 3.6 3.2

— 4.5 4.5 4.8 4.4

r

— 6.1 6.0 4.1 4.1 5.3 5.2

— 4.3 4.3 5.1 4.9

L.K. BERKNER and J.W. SHAFFER, "The Joint Family in the Nivernais'\ Journal of Family History, III, 2 (1978), pp. 157,162. 20 Cf. L.K. BERKNER, " T h e Stem Family and the Developmental Cycle of the Peasant Household: An Eighteenth-Century Austrian Example'*, American Historical Review, LXXVII, 2 (1972), pp. 406-408. 21

500

FLANDRIN, Families cit., pp. 56, 90.

XI Household, Land Tenure, and Occupation in North Italy

sistently appear on the low side of the spectrum. The case of the gentry need not detain us long: not only did they represent a negligible minority, but the size of their households reflected, not surprisingly, the presence of numerous servants. In San Giuliano, for instance, the only gentry household included fourteen people of whom eleven were servants. 3. Tenants and day labourers Of special interest are the two large groups whose MHS shows the sharpest contrast: tenant farmers (generally over the eightperson mark) and day labourers (generally around four). How do we account for the difference? If we focus on the three villages of the plain (Desio, Inzago, and San Giuliano) where those two groups loomed especially large, we can find the answer in the prevailing structure of their respective households (Table VIII). Taking the three communities together, TABLE VIII DISTRIBUTION OF HOUSEHOLDS BY TYPE (TENANTS AND DAY LABOURERS ONLY)

N

DESIO %

N

INZAGO %

SAN GIULIANO N %

N

TOTAL

25,000 scudi a month, the new tax was no small additional burden, for it roughly equalled the entire yield from pre-existing taxes. Somewhat surprisingly, this sudden doubling of the tax load created no great commotion, but was apparently absorbed without much protest by the Lombard taxpayers, most likely because they realized full well that it would have been futile to oppose the will of their new master. Besides, as the economy entered a prolonged expansionary phase, the new burden of 300,000 scudi a year came to represent, in the long run, a declining share of the national product and was thus easier to bear. What did cause, if not a commotion, at least a chorus of recriminations, protests, and complaints was rather the question of how the new burden was to be apportioned among the nine provinces of the State of Milan and, within each province, between town and country and between distinct groups of taxpayers. According to precedent, the mensuale should have been raised on the basis of the existing fiscal system whereby each province was responsible for a fixed percentage of the total tax load and was then expected to decide how to raise its own share by whatever combination of excise duties, land taxes, of poll taxes it saw fit to impose on its people. It was a system that had long been in place and that originally had roughly reflected each province's ability to pay. Within each province the traditional approach had been to resort to indirect taxation (in the form of excise duties) in the case of the towns, and to direct taxation (in the form of a land and/or poll tax) in the case of the countryside (contado). With the passing of time, however, the apportionment between provinces had become grossly distorted, as it had not been periodically revised and updated to take into account in-

XIII Spanish Rule in Milan

207

evitable shifts in the economic fabric of the entire state. As for the apportionment between towns and rural districts within each province, this had been ridden with inequities from the start, because the decision of how to spread the tax load had been traditionally left to the urban oligarchies who, in keeping with the medieval notion that the countryside is subject territory and, as such, fair game for the town to exploit, had systematically saddled their rural districts with a disproportionate share of the burden. As a spokesman for the rural taxpayers put it: "Since the countryside is totally under the rule of the city, and the latter seeks nothing else but to pay as little in taxes as possible, it has been easy for the towns to unload most of the burden on the countryside and to harass the wretched rustics." Faced with a new tax (the mensuale) of unprecedented magnitude, every group of taxpayers argued that until now it had paid more than its fair share; that the doubling of the share would simply make existing inequities even more intolerable; that existing assessments ought to be reviewed and modified so as to spread the total burden more equitably. In response to such outpouring of protests and recriminations, Governor Gonzaga, possibly in order to calm things down and to buy time, ordered in 1543 a complete review of the assessment system. More precisely, he ordered a fresh, analytical valuation (estimo) of all private assets, moveable and immoveable, none excepted, with a view at determining the actual distribution of wealth around the state and at arriving at a more equitable distribution of the entire tax burden. Needless to say, while the laborious compilation of the estimo was under way, the Spanish fisc proceeded to collect taxes, year after year, on the basis of the old assessments. The preparation of the new valuation took nearly sixty years to complete, because from the start it ran into a formidable barrage of appeals, petitions, dilatory tactics, and legal chicanery erected by a small army of lawyers and sundry experts hired by different groups of taxpayers. Predictably, this long story of bitter infighting, legal maneuvres, and emotion-charged accusations is prodigiously tedious and would deserve little more than a footnote in the annals of history were it not for the fact that it brought to the surface all the latent fractures of a fragmented society and resulted, in the end, in a number of significant changes not only in the fiscal system, but also, and more importantly, in the distribution of power and influence in Lombard society itself.

XIII 208 The first notable change was the decision to consider merchant wealth (as measured, on a annual basis, by gross sales) as directly taxable like any other form of wealth. Despite the spirited and strenuous opposition of the merchant guilds, in 1594, for the first time, their wealth was made to contribute its fair share of total taxes. The significance of this innovation cannot be underestimated. Since the days of the medieval commune the merchant class, then dominant in the common councils, had enjoyed the undisputed privilege of being exempt from direct taxation and, accordingly, from the gaze of the assessor of taxes. As this precious privilege was erased, as it was in 1594, an important pillar was removed from under the structure of urban privilege and a first step was taken toward the modern concept of fiscal equality. A second major change was made in connection with the land tax. Traditionally, as indicated earlier, all land had been made to contribute to the public till through direct taxation, but actual assessments had been left entirely in the hands of the small oligarchies that ran things in each provincial capital. True to the spirit of the medieval city-state as well as to their own narrow intersts, the city fathers had manged to shift most of the tax burden onto the owners of land who did not live in town and had done so by ruling that land owned by city residents was to be taxed at a much lower rate than the rest and was exempt from the onerous obligation of military billets. Rural people, needless to say, had never been consulted on these matters. Now, in the face of all that outcry over the estimo, Spanish authorities decided that rural taxpayers should be heard, and to that end, in 1561, elected bodies made up exclusively of rural residents (congregazioni del contado) were set up with the right to be consulted before any valuation was finalized and also to appeal to the central government in case their legitimate grievances had been ignored. Here was a limited, but highly significant step away from the policies of the medieval city-state with its total subordination of country folks to their urban superiors. In practice, did the new representative bodies achieve anything? or were they merely cosmetic devices to let off steam, but without any real clout? The answer is that they did achieve something. It was, for instance at their urging, that merchant wealth was declared taxable; in some instances, moreover, they succeeded, even after the new valuation was in place, in securing modest modifications of the tax rolls that favored the countryside at the expense of the city; they even managed,

XIII Spanish Rule in Milan

209

if not to abolish, at least to limit one of the most objectionable privileges enjoyed by urban residents, namely that farm land owned by them was assessed separately and taxed at lower rates than land owned by rustics. On this point victory was only partial: at the end of the sixteenth century special tax treatment was abolished for all land acquired by townsmen after 1572. A further gain was scored in 1597 when the government ruled that, in the future, towns, while still exempt from military billets, would have to refund in part the cost of hosting troops in rural communities. And in 1633 Governor Feria went a step further and initiated the practice of requisitioning quarters for the troops even in the towns.2 All in all, no great revolution, but a gradual, limited challenge to some of the most cherished privileges traditionally enjoyed by the towns and, by implication, to the very foundations of a political and social regime characterized by the domination of town over country. The complete suppression of that old regime was, of course, still a long way into the future and it would be left to the Austrian Habsburgs in the late 18th century to finish in a deliberate, systematic manner what the Spanish Habsburgs had initiated almost accidentally and without any coherent vision of reform in mind. And yet, limited in scope as the overhaul of the tax system under Spanish rule certainly was, it deserves attention for it effected a very significant shift in the distribution not only of the tax load but also of power between town and country. Specifically, it undermined the towns' traditional right to unload most of the tax burden on the peasants* shoulders, while providing the countryside, for the first time, with a forum in which its grievances and demands could be formally presented and debated. Under the circumstances, it is little wonder that the towns fought so hard and so long to defend the old dispensation. What is especially remarkable in all this is that the countryside, traditionally relegated to a subordinate, passive role vis-a-vis the towns, was so quick to make effective use of the new opportunity offered to it and to carve for itself a narrow, but not negligible niche in the political structure. This, I submit, was an entirely new development with far reaching implications for the future. Let me mention but one. During and after the deep crisis that swept Lombardy between roughly 1620 and 1660, virtually the only signs of vitality and resilience that one can detect come from the countryside rather than from the towns.27 It is reasonable to assume that such vitality and resilience reflected not only

XIII 210 a lighter, more equitable tax burden, but also the new assertiveness, the new sense of independence that had been born in the course of the longdrawn battle over the tax system.

Notes

1

S. Pugliese, Le condition economiche efinantiarie delta Lombardia nella prima metd del secoloXVIII (Turin: Bocca, 1924), 3. 2

The historiography on Lombardy in the Spanish period is discussed in L. Bulferetti, "L'oro, la terra e la society un'interpretazione del nostro Seicento "Aithivio storico lombardo (1953), 5-66. 3

C. Cantu, La Lombardia nel secoloXVII: Ragionamenti (Milan, 1854), 63.

4

C. Cattaneo, Notitie naturali e civili sidla Lombardia (Milan, 1844), xdL Cantu, La Lombardia, 16.

6

See, for instance, R. Villari, "II riformismo e Pevoluzione delle campagne italiane nel Settecento, attraverso studi recenti," Studi storici, 5 (1964), 164; R. Romano, "L'ltalia nella crisi del secolo XVII/1 Studi storici, 9 (1968), 736-7; B. Caizzi, "Le classi sociali nella vita milanese," in Storia di Milano (Milan: Treccani, vol. XI, 341. For a critique of this school of thought see D. Sella, Crisis and Continuity: The Economy of Spanish Lombardy in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979), 148-173. G. Polit^Aristocmtia epotere nella Cremona di Filippo II (Milan: SugarCo, 1976), 451-456. F. Chabod, Lo Stato e la vita religiosa a Milano nelVepoca di Carlo V (Turin: Einaudi, 1971; 1st e d 1934). 9

G. Luzzatto, Storia economica. Uetd modema (2nd ed., Padua: Cedam, 1938), 111-118; also A. Visconti, Storia di Milano (Milan: Ceschina, 1945), 462-465. 1

See the seminal article by G. Aleati e C. M. Cipolla, "II trend economico nello Stato di Milano durante i secoli XVI e XVII: il caso di Pavia," Bollettino delta Societd pavese di storiapatria (1950), 1-16; and for a review of recent literature, D. Sella and C. Capr^IlDucatodi Milano dal 1535al 1796 (Turin: UTET, 1984), 109-116; also G. Coppola, "Economia e sodeta nello Stato di Milano dalla meta del XVI agli inizi del XVU secolo "'wLacitttirituale. La cittdelo Stato di Milano nelTettideiBonvmeo (Milan: Angeli, 1982), 181-188.

XIII Spanish Rule in Milan

211

11

For details see Sella, Crisis and Continuity, 29-35. The administrative structure is discussed in A. Wscor^Lapubblica amministrazione nello Stato di Mttano durante ilpredominio straniero (1541-1796) (Rome: Atheneum, 1913), and M. Bendisdoli, Tolitica, amministrazione e religione nelTet& dei Borromei," in Storia di Milano, vol. X, 69-118. 13 The definitive work on the subject is U . Petronio, II Senate di Milano (Milan: Giuffre, 1972). 14 F. Arese, "Le supreme cariche del Ducato di Milano," Archivio storico lombardo (1970), 76-81. 15 See Chabod, Lo Stato, 143. 16 Petronio, H Senato, 45-10. 17 Chabod, Lo Stato, 161-164; and Petronio, // Senato, 102-108 and 132-152. 18 The quotation is in J. H . Elliott, The Revolt of the Catalans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 8. 19 The instructions have been published in full as an appendix to Bulferetti, "L'oro," 48-65. 20 SzeG.Parkery7heA7rnyofFlandersandtheSpanishRoad, 1567-1659 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972). 1 Arese, "Le supreme cariche," 67-69. 22 On the patriciate see D. Zanetti, La demografia del patriziato milanese nei secoli X V n , XVffl e XIX con un'appendice genealogica di F. Arese (Pavia: Funi, 1972) and the recent essay by F. Arese, "Nobilita e patriziato nello stato di Milano" in Dallo Stato di Milano allaLombardia contemporanea, e d S. Pizzetti (Milan, 1980), 71-96. O n the legal profession and its increasing identification with the patriciate see M. C. Zorzoli, Universitd, dottori, giweconsulti. Uorganizzazione della 'Facolta legate' di Pavia nelVetd spagnola (Padua: Cedam, 1986), 339-358. 12

The intricate story of themefisiiale and theestimo has been admirably reconstructed by G. Vigo, Fisco e societd nella Lombardia del Cinquecento (Bologna: II Mulin, 1979). 24 Vigo fisco 160. 25 See E. Verga, 'La Congregazione del Ducato e Pamministrazione della antica provinda di Milano (1571-1759)," Archivio storico lombardo (1895), 382-407; and C. Porqueddu, "Le origini delle istituzioni 'provinciali' nel prindpato di Ydm^Annali di storiapavese (1980), 9-36. 26 Vigo, Fisco, 168; and Sella and Capra, H Ducato, 58. 27 For a full discussion see Sella, Crisis, 105-134.

XIV Coping with Famine: The Changing Demography of an Italian Village in the 1590s The article seeks to identify the causes of depopulation in a Lombard village at the close of the sixteenth century, when Italy, like much of Europe, experienced severe demographic losses as a result of recurring food shortages spread over nearly a decade. A close analysis of two listings of inhabitants indicates that the key factor responsible for a decrease in numbers was not, as has often been too readily assumed, higher mortality, but rather a drastically reduced level of nuptiality. Confronted with a Malthusian crisis of major proportions, the villagers in question responded by postponing or forgoing marriage on a scale sufficient to reduce their numbers by about 15 percent. This case study thus confirms the view that in early modern times population could be deliberately controlled in the face of prolonged hardships. IN THE 1590s MOST EUROPEAN NATIONS experienced an uncommon combination

of food shortages, rampant inflation, deteriorating living standards, and severe demographic losses. While the intensity and the precise timing of all those troubles differed from country to country, the fact that virtually the whole of Europe was affected has led a number of scholars to speak of a "European crisis" to characterize the closing decade of the sixteenth century.1 North Italy was very much part of this grim, indeed tragic, picture.2 The strong recovery its economy had posted in the half-century or so after 1540 with the end of the Italian wars was abruptly derailed by a sequel of poor harvests that started in 1588 and extended through the 1590s with outright famine conditions developing in 1591-92, in 1596-97 and in 1600-13despite the massive importation of Baltic grain.4 The skyrocketing food prices triggered by persistent dearth were accompanied by, and presumably were the cause of, severe demographic losses. In sharp contrast with the preceding half-century when population had been rising across the board despite the temporary ^ e e Peter Clark, ed., The European Crisis of the 1590s. Essays in Comparative History (London:

Allen & Unwin, 1985). 2 For an excellent overview and bibliography see N. S. Davidson, "Northern Italy in the 1590s" in Clark, European Crisis, 157-76. 3

Dante Zanetti, Problemi alimentari di una economia pre-industriale. Cereali a Pavia dal 1398

al 1700 (Turin: Boringhieri, 1964), chap. 4; idem, "Note sulla rivoluzione dei prezzi," Rivista

Storica Italiana (1965): 875-78; Gian Luigi Basini, 5M/ mercato di Modena tra Cinque e Sekento.

Prezzi e salari (Milan: Giuffre, 1974), chap. 3; and Mario Romani, Nella spirale di una crisi: popolazione, mercato e prezzi a Parma tra Cinque e Seicento (Milan: Giuffre, 1975), pt. 3. 4

Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II,

trans. Sian Reynolds, 2 vols. (New York: Harper, 1973), 1:599-602.

XIV 186 setback caused by the plague in 1576, fragmentary data for the 1590s consistently point to substantial losses.5 The population of Milan which had soared from about 60,000 souls in 1541 to 110,000 in 1587, apparently suffered some losses in the early 1590s and then stagnated around the 100,000 mark to the end of the century.6 In Cremona losses were more serious: the 46,193 souls counted in 1583 were down to 37,377 by 1599 (a 19 percent loss).7 The city of Bologna, whose population had risen from 55,000 in 1568 to 72,400 twenty years later, was down to 59,000 by 1595 (again, a 19 percent loss) with a mild recovery occurring in the next five years; by 1600, at any rate, with 62,844 souls, Bologna was still well below its 1589 peak, and the same holds true of the surrounding countryside where population dropped from 147,000 to 128,000 between 1587 and 1595. 8 The story was no different in Parma: 25,369 souls in 1586, 20,892 in 1594, and (mainly as a result of immigration from the countryside) 23,910 in 1596.9 For Modena and the surrounding province only two figures are available, but they, too, show a downward trend: 40,774 "mouths" (i.e. people over the age of three) in 1590 as against 33,950 five years later, with a net loss of about 17 percent.10 Scarce and spotty though the evidence is, it nonetheless points unmistakably to a Malthusian crisis of major proportions. Uncertainty arises, however, as soon as one tries to identify the mechanisms responsible for such reductions in numbers. Was it primarily a rise in mortality, the work, that is, of Malthus' "positive checks," or did people adopt some form of preventive checks to curb fertility as they faced hunger and malnutrition or as they feared that the worst was still to come? Or was it a combination of both?11

5 For broad outlines of Italian demography in the sixteenth century see Athos Bellettini, "La popolazione italiana dall'inizio dell'era volgare ai nostri giorni," in Storia d'ltalia, 9 vols. (Turin: Einaudi, 1973), 5: 509; and Carlo M. Cipolla, "Four Centuries of Italian Demographic Development," in D. V. Glass and D. E. C. Eversley, eds., Population in History (London: Methuen, 1965), 570-73. 6 Domenico Sella, "Premesse demografiche ai censimenti austriaci," in Storia di Milano, 16 vols. (Milan: Fondazione Treccani, 1953-66), 12: 462. 7 Ugo Meroni, Cremona fedelissima (Cremona: Atheneum, 1957), 4. 8

Athos Bellettini, La popolazione di Bologna dal secolo XV alVunificazione italiana (Bologna:

Zanichelli, 1961), 25-26, 47-48. 9 Romani, Nella spirale, 10-11. 10 Gian Luigi Basini, L'uomo e il pane (Milan: Giuffre, 1970) 14, 17. n I n his classic essay "Les crises de subsistance et la demographie de la France d'Ancien Regime," Population 1 (1946): 643-50, and again in "Demographic Crises in France from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century," in Glass and Eversley, eds., Population in History, 507-22, Jean Meuvret has conclusively shown that during a subsistence crisis lasting about one year a sharp fall in births usually combined with soaring mortality to reduce population size; as soon

XIV Coping with Famine

187

In the available literature there are numerous indications that mortality did play a role. Death from starvation on a large scale was reported in the Bergamo province for the years 1589-91;12in 1592 alone nearly 3,000 persons were said to have died in Modena for lack of food, while in the preceding years deaths from all causes had stood at about 600 per annum; again in 1592 starvation was held responsible for about 1500 deaths in the Modena countryside.13 For other localities one can only guess what mortality levels may have been like as apparently no burial registers have apparently survived. Contemporary estimates must be taken with a grain of salt, but even though they tend to be grossly exaggerated, they leave no doubt that in the 1590s mortality often reached exceptional levels.14 High mortality, however, was not the sole, and probably not the chief cause of demographic decline. In recent years evidence has emerged indicating that of equal and possibly greater importance in accounting for a reduction in numbers was the drop in natality.15 In Parma and in several rural communities nearby births at the close of the century were a good 20 percent below the level attained a decade earlier;16 in Bologna, the number of births per year dropped from about 2,700 in the 1580s to about 1,500 in the early 1590s; at Carpi, a small community near Bologna, the shortfall was of the order of 30 percent.17 While the fall in natality is thus a well established fact and has recently been acknowledged as playing a decisive role in the demography of the crisis, little is known about its causes. Was the drop in the number of births mainly a consequence of the parental stock being thinned out by high mortality? Or did it reflect lower fertility in a population faced with hunger? And if so, how can we account for the drop in fertility? It is not the object of this paper to try to answer these questions for the several localities referred to above, let alone for north Italy as a whole. The as the crisis was over, however, natality quickly picked up while the number of deaths sagged. He concluded that "those terrifying crises may have been, from a demographic standpoint, fully reabsorbed within a few years." In the 1590s, however, when food shortages and famine conditions persisted over a decade, no such quick recovery could be expected. 12 Bortolo Belotti, Storia di Bergamo e dei Bergamaschi, 2 vols. (Milan: Ceschina, 1940), 2:261-62. 13 Basini, L'uotno e il pane, 17-18. 14 A typical example is provided by Athos Bellettini, "Ricerche sulle crisi demografiche del Seicento," Societa e Storia, 1 (1978): 38 n. 4: a chronicler asserted that in 1590 alone "40,000 persons died in Bologna and the surrounding countryside." The figure is obviously unrealistic: Bellettini has shown that Bologna and its district had 238,515 souls in 1587 and 202,645 in 1595: this amounted to a loss of 36,000 lives over an eight year period. 15 The role played by low levels of births in bringing down population totals in the 1590s has been stressed and documented by Bellettini, "Ricerche," 39-41. l6

Romani, Nella spirale, 80.

17

Bellettini, "Ricerche," 41.

XIV 188 evidence on which such answers would have to be based is not yet available and may never be. Its more limited purpose is rather to answer them for a small, obscure rural community, Villa-d'Adda, located on the left bank of the river Adda which in those days marked the border between the Venetian Republic and the Spanish-held State of Milan. Even though it was in Venetian territory, Villa-d'Adda belonged to the archdiocese of Milan - a circumstance responsible for the fact that the documentation I use is found in the Milanese episcopal archives. The documentation consists of two listings of inhabitants (status animarum) drawn up in 1574 and 1602 respectively by the local pastor according to the instructions originally issued by the archbishop of Milan, Carlo Borromeo, in 1574.18 Listings of inhabitants are a precious if, alas, notoriously hard-to-find-tool for determining not only the exact size of a community at a given point in time, but also the age and sex structure of its population, its occupational distribution, and the size and structure of its households. For the purpose at hand one should ideally be able to compare the situation in 1602 (when the "crisis" was coming to an end) with that around 1588 (when the crisis got under way), but in the absence of any listings for the late 1580s we will have to make do with the one for 1574. This is less of a handicap than might appear at first, for, as I hope to show in due course, the changes in the size of the community can be traced mainly to the fifteen years or so before 1602, that is to say to about 1588. It is less of a handicap also because we can confidently assume that the years 1574-88 saw no major disturbances such as might have significantly altered Villa-d'Adda's size: in those years food prices rose, but registered none of the dramatic fluctuations that were to characterize the 1590s; on the other hand, if what happened to the rest of north Italy in the 1570s and 1580s is any indication, the population of Villa-d'Adda must have been gently on the rise (possibly by 6-7 percent) between 1574 and 1588, the more so as the whole Bergamasque province to which it belonged was spared the visitation of the plague that struck north Italy in 1576.19 II Villa-d'Adda is a fairly large village located thirteen miles west of Bergamo at an elevation of about six hundred feet on the first ridge of hills that mark the end of the great Lombard plain to the south and the beginning of the 18

The two listings are in ARCHIVIO DELLA CURIA ARCIVESCOVILE DI MILANO, Archivio spirituale,

Sez. X, Visite pastorali, Pieve di Brivio, vol. 12. On the criteria used in the compilation of listings of inhabitants in the Milan archdiocese at the time see Elena Fasano Guarini, "Gli stati d'anime milanesi al tempo di Carlo e Federico Borromeo" in Lefonti della demografia storica in Italia, 2 vols. (Rome: Comitato per lo studio della popolazione, 1972), 1:127-54. t9 Belotti, Storia di Bergamo, 2:241.

XIV Coping with Famine

189

Bergamasque Pre-Alps. From the 1574 listing we can form a rough idea of the nature of the economy; in that year, out of a total of 108 heads of household whose occupation is recorded fortyrnine were farmers (and probably small owners), 24 were farm laborers, 28 were engaged in a variety of crafts and trades (weaving, carpentry, tinkering, retail trade, and flour milling); finally, one head of household was a priest, three were "gentlemen*' and three were notaries. What we have here, then, is a farming community that also supported a small assortment of non-farming activities. As to the kind of agriculture that was being practiced there, some inference can be drawn from what is known from other sources about Lombardy's hillzone at the time:20 arable farming was probably on a modest scale, given the layout of the land, and insufficient to meet all the community's needs for cereals; vineyards and mulberry trees, on the other hand, provided the necessary exports for securing grain from the breadbasket of the nearby plain. In 1574 Villa-d'Adda numbered 878 souls distributed in 161 households with a mean size of 5.4 individuals each; in 1602, roughly a generation later, its population was down to 755 individuals living in 160 households with a mean size of 4.7. Between those two dates, then, the village had lost 123 inhabitants or 14 percent of its people. Such a loss could have resulted from emigration, higher than normal mortality, declining fertility, or any combination of these three variables. Without specific information on emigration and without baptismal and burial records for the years 1574-1602 there is no direct, easy way to assess the role each variable may have played. And yet, a close analysis of the two listings may help us reach some reasonably firm, if not absolutely precise, conclusions as to what happened and why. We can start by noticing that between 1574 and 1602 the number of households remained virtually the same (161 and 160 respectively). From this we can confidently infer that the loss of 123 individuals was not due to the exodus of entire households or that if such exodus did take place, new families moved in to replace those that had left.21 The permanent piecemeal emigration of individual household members, on the other hand, would seem a more plausible explanation for Villa-d'Adda's demographic decline in light of the fact that, while the number of households hardly changed, their 20

Domenico Sella, Crisis and Continuity: The Economy of Spanish Lombardy in the Seventeenth

Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), 9-10. 21 A comparison of surnames in the two listings would have been the obvious course to follow in order to measure the turnover of families. Unfortunately in the sixteenth century not all families were identified by a surname, but rather by the Christian name and patronymic of the head. At any rate, of the 69 surnames recorded in 1574 only 24 appear in 1602, while at the latter date 41 surnames were recorded that are not found in 1574. This may well indicate a very considerable turnover somewhat reminiscent of seventeenth-century Clayworth and Cogenhoe as analyzed by Peter Laslett, Family Life and Illicit Love in Earlier Generations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 65-67. However, the large percentage of households without surname rules out any firm conclusion for Villa-d'Adda.

XIV 190 average size did - from 5.4 to 4.7, as mentioned above. But it is equally plausible to ascribe this reduction in size to a rise in mortality or a decline in fertility. In order to choose between these three alternatives (permanent emigration of isolated individuals, higher mortality, or lower fertility) one must look at the changes in the age and sex structure of the population between 1574 and 1602 (Table 1). At both dates the sex distribution for the entire population appears heavily skewed in favor of women (84 men per 100 women in 1574, 80 men per 100 women in 1602), and the imbalance between the sexes appears even greater among people of reproductive age (15 to 49 years of age) where it stands at 74/100. This strongly suggests that at both dates the ranks of adolescent and adult males were being depleted as a result of the permanent emigration of individuals who left the village in order to make a living in a more favorable setting. The fact, moreover, that the imbalance was slightly greater in 1602 might be interpreted as evidence that the exodus of boys and men intensified somewhat as time went by. Table 1 Distribution of Population by Age and Sex (Summary Data)

1574

1602

(a) Number of Persons F

Total

Sex Ratio

0-4 174 203 15-49 176 239 50 + 50 36 All Ages 400 478 Unknown

377 415 86 878

86/100 74/100 138/100 84/100

Age

M

F

Total Sex Ratio

96 112 181 247 59 59 336 418 1

208 86/100 428 74/100 118 100/100 754 80/100 1

M

(b) Percentage 5 F

Total

0-4 19.8 23.1 15-49 20.1 27.2 50 + 5.7 4.1 All Ages 45.6 54.4

42.9 47.3 9.8 100

Age

M

F

Total

12.7 14.9 24.0 32.8 7.8 7.8 44.5 55.5

27.6 56.8 16.6 100

M

Before we accept this last conclusion, however, it is worth noticing in Table 1 that the change in the overall sex ratio is entirely accounted for by a shift in the oldest age cohort (people over fifty). Does that reflect heavier

XIV Coping with Famine

191

male emigration twenty or twenty-five years before 1602 when those emigrants were in their prime? Or is it simply a random shift due to the relatively small number of individuals involved? It is hard to decide, but the important point is that, regardless of its cause, the change in the overall sex ratio was slight and is in no way sufficient to account for the shortfall of 123 souls in 1602. As soon as we turn to the distribution by age, a much more dramatic change becomes noticeable, namely the drop in the number of children under fifteen: while the size of the population of reproductive age (15 to 49 years old) hardly changed between 1574 and 1602 (415 and 406 individuals respectively), the number of children fell from 377 to 208 - a net loss of 169 individuals or nearly 20 percent of the 1574 total. This loss is more than enough to account for the overall decline (123 individuals) in the size of the community between 1574 and 1602. To put it differently, by 1602 Villa-d'Adda was smaller because the average household had fewer children (Table 2). Table 2 Mean Number of Children per Household

N of households N of children age 0-4 Children per household

1574

1602

161 377 2.3

160 208 1.3

This sharp reduction in the number of children stands in contrast with the basic stability of the population of reproductive age and is further proof that piecemeal emigration was not the main cause of depopulation. If some 120 individuals had indeed left the village permanently, most of them would have been young adults (and most likely young men) and we would notice (as we do not) a thinning out of the latter's ranks rather than of the children's as well as a shift in the sex ratio among people of reproductive age. That ratio, however, remained unchanged at 74/100 (Table 1). Ill What caused so sharp a drop in the number of children in the last quarter of the sixteenth century? The answer must be sought either in rising infant and child mortality or in the decline of fertility or in a combination of both. Without the benefit of burial registers, however, we cannot measure changes in mortality and without baptismal registers any attempt at gauging fertility changes would seem futile. But, in fact, even in the absence of baptismal records, the latter obstacle is not entirely insuperable.

XIV 192 To measure changes in fertility we can use (as demographers often do when dealing with countries where data on births are inadequate)22 the ratio of children 0-4 years of age per 1000 women of childbearing age (15 to 49 years of age), at least as a crude approximation. This is done in Table 3: Villa-d'Adda clearly experienced a very significant drop in the fertility ratio. That ratio fell from 375 to 315 per thousand, that is to say by about 16 percent, while the number of children age 0-4 fell from 90 to 78, a 13 percent drop. At this point we can also venture that the decline in fertility was not confined to the five years immediately preceding 1602, for the two preceding cohorts (5 to 14 years of age) were even more severely depleted: together they included 278 individuals in 1574 as against 130 in 1602, with a net loss of about 55 percent (see Tables 6A and 6B). Table 3 Fertility Ratios

N of women 15-49 N of children age 0-4 Children per 1000 women

1574

1602

239 90 375

247 78 315

And yet, useful though the ratios in Table 3 may be in alerting us to the problem of declining fertility, they are far from conclusive, for their validity for the purpose of comparisons over time depends on infant and child mortality remaining roughly the same between 1574 and 1602 - and there is no assurance that it did. It is conceivable, in other words, that the lower 1602 ratio conceals a rise in mortality among children born in the five years prior to the census - not an unlikely occurrence in pre-industrial times when outbreaks of disease or spells of famine could take a heavy toll of young lives; an occurrence, one should add, that our listing, by its very nature, could not possibly have recorded. On the other hand, it is equally conceivable that the lower ratio reflects a rise, over a number of years and for whatever reason, in female celibacy due to deferred marriages or to fewer women marrying at all (again, not uncommon occurrences during hard times in early modern Europe) or to longer intervals between births.23 22 See J. T. Kraus, "Changes in English Fertility and Mortality, 1781-1850," Economic History Review 11 (1958-59): 67. 23 The critical role of changing ages at marriage and of changing birth intervals as regulators of demographic growth in pre-industrial Europe has been thoroughly analyzed by E. A. Wrigley, "Family Limitation in Pre-industrial England," Economic History Review, 19 (1966). For more recent discussions see Roger Schofield, "The Relationship between Demographic Structure and Environment in Pre-industrial Western Europe" in W. Conze, ed., Sozialgeschichte der Familie in der Neuzeit Europas (Stuttgart: Klett, 1976), 147-60, and Michael W. Flynn, The European Demographic System, i500-1820 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), 27-34.

XIV Coping with Famine

193

Table 4 Marital Status of Women of Childbearing Age

1574

1602

All Women

Married & widows

Single

% Single

15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49

51 35 56 31 22 26 18

3 13 47 20 19 24 18

48 22 9 11 3 2 0

Total

239

144

95

Age

All

Women

Married & widows

Single

% Single

94.2 69.9 16.1 35.5 13.6 7.7 0.0

38 39 43 37 35 28 27

3 13 22 17 19 16 20

35 26 21 20 16 12 7

92.1 66.7 48.8 54.0 45.7 42.8 25.9

39.7

247

110

137

55.5

In the absence of burial registers, changes in the level of infant and child mortality are bound to elude us; in the absence of baptismal records we cannot accurately measure birth intervals. However, changes in female celibacy can be detected by comparing the information our two listings provide on the marital status of women in 1574 and 1602.24 This is done in Table 4 and the evidence speaks clearly enough: whereas in 1574 single women 15-49 years of age represented 39.7 percent of all women in that age group, by 1602 they represented 55.5 percent.25To put it differently, while the number of women of childbearing age was slightly higher in 1602 than in 1574 (247 as against 239), the number of married women (including widows) was 24 Our two listings do not provide systematic information on the marital status of women the way a modern census does. When a woman is listed as either mother, wife, daughter-in-law, or mother-in-law of the household head, her marital status is clear enough. It is more difficult to decide what a woman's status was when she is listed as household head or as sister, daughter, niece or aunt of the head of household, but there is no mention of a husband or of her being a widow. In such cases I have presumed the woman to have been single unless she is recorded as having children. In doing so I have probably somewhat overstated the proportion of single women, as a few women presumed single may have been married but were separated from their husbands. Since, however, the same presumption has been applied to both listings, a comparison between the two can still be regarded as valid. 25 The fact that in 1574 roughly 60 percent of women were married is consistent with the pattern found in other western European countries, albeit on the high side (see Flynn, European Demographic System, 27). The same applies to the mean age at which Villa-d'Adda women married. From the data in Table 4 one can calculate (following John Hajnal, "Age at Marriage and Proportions Marrying," Population Studies, VII [1953]: 129-30) the mean age at marriage of women who married before age 45: the result is 25.8 in 1574 and 28 in 1602. Again, these figures are consistent with the European marriage pattern in pre-industrial times as presented by John Hajnal, "European Marriage Patterns in Perspective" in Glass and Eversley, Population

in History, 101-6.

XIV 194 Table 5 Marital Fertility Ratios

Year

1574

1602

N of married women (& widows) age 15-49 N of children age 0-4 Children per 1000 women

144 90 625

110 78 709

substantially lower (110 as against 143). The implication is that by 1602 the average woman in Villa-d'Adda married later than her predecessors in 1574 or that more women did not marry at all. Nor can this marked change in nuptiality be ascribed to a growing shortage of eligible males such as might have resulted from greater outmigration of men at reproductive age. As will be recalled from Table 1, the sex ratio of the population at reproductive age remained the same in the two listings. In an age when legitimate fertility was the norm a rise in female celibacy was bound to have, over the years, an impact on the overall level of fertility, even though the women who did marry continued to bear roughly the same number of children as married women had done before. But did the fertility of married women remain, in fact, the same? Table 5 provides the answer and it is a somewhat unexpected one: marital fertility was higher in 1602 than in 1574. But as the pool of married women had shrunk considerably by 1602, fewer children 0-4 years of age were actually around in 1602. The rise in marital fertility indicated in Table 5 is rather puzzling, for in an age of uncontrolled marital fertility and at a time when, as shown in Table 4, marriages were being postponed, one would expect marital fertility to have declined on average as fewer women married in their twenties and early thirties when fertility is presumably at its highest. To be sure, the ratios in Table 5 should not be taken too dogmatically as precise measurements of marital fertility, because, given the relatively small number of both women and children involved, the variations in the ratios may well be random. It is, however, quite possible that, as fewer women married in the face of economic hardships, those who did marry belonged to the less destitute layers of village society and, as such, could provide better nutrition for their young offspring after breast-feeding was over (thus reducing the chances of children dying from malnutrition in the first few years of life); or they could afford to wean their infants at an early date (thus reducing the span of temporary sterility induced by prolonged lactation). Whatever the case may have been (and our listings do not allow us to be more specific), the point is that in our search for an explanation of the

XIV Coping with Famine

195

sharp reduction in the number of children we must look neither in the direction of rising infant and child mortality nor of lower marital fertility, but rather in the direction of falling nuptiality as revealed by the larger proportion single in 1602. Table 6A Distribution of Population by Age and Sex in 1574

F

M

All

Age

N

%

N

%

N

%

0-4 5-9 10-4 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 65-69 70 +

48 74 52 38 17 35 28 31 18 9 12 8 13 5 12

5.5 8.4 5.9 4.3 1.9 4.0 3.2 3.5 2.1 1.0 1.4 0.9 1.5 0.5 1.4

42 81 80 51 35 56 31 22 26 18 18 2 9 1 6

4.8 9.2 9.1 5.8 4.0 6.4 3.5 2.5 3.0 2.1 2.1 0.2 1.0 0.1 0.7

90 155 132 89 52 91 59 53 44 27 30 10 22 6 18

10.3 17.6 15.0 10.1 5.9 10.4 6.7 6.0 5.1 3.1 3.5 1.1 2.5 0.6 2.1

Total

400

45.5

478

54.5

878 100.0

The latter, then, holds the key to the depletion of the child population in Villa-d'Adda that we have noticed in 1602: while in that year and in the four preceding years married women bore on average as many (and possibly more) children as their counterparts had done in 1574, there were fewer of them around either because on average marriage was delayed or because a growing number of women did not marry at all. Had the proportion single and the fertility ratio remained the same, by 1602 there would have been 150 married women instead of 110 and 94 children 0-4 years of age instead of the 78 actually recorded in the 1602 listing. When did the trend toward deferring or forgoing marriage set in? A look at the age structure of the child population in 1574 and 1602 (Tables 6A and 6B) may provide a clue. Between those two dates the 0-4 cohort was not the only one to experience losses; the same holds true, and to an even

XIV 196 greater extent, of the two age cohorts comprising children 5-14 years of age. In 1574 those two cohorts numbered 287 children; in 1602 only 130, a drop of about 55 percent. One is therefore led to conclude that the decline in Table 6B Distribution of Population by Age and Sex in 1602

M

F

All

Age

N

%

N

%

N

%

0-4 5-9 10-4 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 65-69 70 + unknown

32 37 27 28 34 33 27 26 11 22 18 11 10 9 11 -

4.2 4.9 3.6 3.7 4.5 4.4 3.6 3.4 1.5 2.9 2.4 1.5 1.3 1.2 1.5 -

46 28 38 38 39 43 37 35 28 27 22 12 9 10 6 1

6.1 3.7 5.0 5.0 5.2 5.7 4.9 4.6 3.7 3.6 2.9 1.6 1.2 1.3 0.8 0.1

78 65 65 66 73 76 64 61 39 49 40 23 19 19 17 1

10.3 8.6 8.6 8.7 9.7 10.1 8.5 8.0 5.2 6.5 5.3 3.1 2.5 2.5 2.3 0.1

Total

366

44.6

419

55.4

755 100.0

overall fertility extended over about fifteen years prior to 1602. This brings us back to about 1587, that is to say to the beginning of the food crisis. Besides, if one considers (Table 4) that in 1602 a higher proportion single is noticeable in every age cohort including the oldest (45-49 years of age), one is also led to conclude that the rise in female celibacy got under way in the 1580s, at a time when women who were 45-49 years old in 1602 had been in their middle or late twenties and when, under normal conditions, a majority of them would presumably have married. One final question: is the observed drop in nuptiality sufficient to account for the overall reduction in Villa-d'Adda's population? The answer seems to be a qualified yes: over a fifteen-year period the additional 42 women who remained single could have borne on average three children each for a total of 126 children - a number roughly equal to the shortfall (131 individuals) recorded for the entire population. A qualification, however, is in order here.

XIV Coping with Famine

197

As mentioned earlier, it is quite likely that between 1574 and 1588 the population of Villa-d'Adda experienced a natural increase of about 6 percent or some fifty individuals. This would give a population total of about 930 people in 1588 and a shortfall of about 180 by 1602. It is quite likely that those fifty "unaccounted for" individuals represent the victims of malnutrition and starvation. IV If the evidence provided by our two listings of inhabitants has been correctly interpreted, Villa-d'Adda responded to the crisis of the 1590s primarily by adopting "preventive checks": by deferring or forgoing marriage on a large scale it was able to achieve over a fourteen-year period a reduction of about 15 percent in the number of mouths to feed. No less important than the reduction in total numbers is the fact that, in the process, the dependency ratio shifted in favor of population of working age: in 1574 children under 15 had accounted for nearly 43 percent of the total; in 1602 only 28 percent were under 15 (Table 1). This lesser burden of dependency must have been crucial as the village struggled to get back on its feet after the storm had subsided. Was Villa-d'Adda's response to the scourge of famine typical? It is too early to answer, but it is unlikely that what happened there was an isolated, unique phenomenon. The lower levels of natality attained in the Bologna and Parma districts in the 1590s strongly suggest that a similar demographic strategy was adopted elsewhere too. At any rate, the case of Villa-d'Adda confirms what has been asserted for other areas of Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, namely that deliberate adjustments in the level of nuptiality were a "powerful mechanism" for regulating the rate of population growth26 and that postponing marriage was "the true contraceptive weapon" in early modern Europe.27

26

Schofield, "The Relationship," 150. Pierre Chaunu, La civilisation de I'Europe classique (Paris: Arthaud, 1966), 204.

27

XV

Wool, Paper and Iron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys [Author's translation of his essay, "Le attivita manifatturiere nelle valli bergamasche" originally published in Storia economica e sociale di Bergamo. II tempo della Serenissima. Un secolo in controtenden^a, eds A. D e Madalena, M.A. Romani,

M. Cattini (Bergamo: Fondazione per la storia economica e sociale di Bergamo, 2000), pp. 83-97.] At the dawn of the early modern age manufacturing in the Bergamo Valleys experienced a robust expansion, notably in the field of metallurgy, woolen cloth and silks. They were all industries of considerable size that could well compare with their more celebrated counterparts in Milan, Venice, Florence and other major Italian cities. Yet, unlike the latter, were able to overcome the long crisis of the 17th century by successfully confronting the growing international competition and adapting to changing market conditions. Their vitality must be ascribed to lower labor costs and to the absence of guild restrictions and conservatism, but also to the intense and frequent contacts that the population of the valleys continued to have with the foreign markets, thanks both to seasonal migration and to the fair of San' Allessandro, as the latter was for centuries one of the leading commercial hubs in both Italy and Europe. And yet, all these favorable conditions would not have been fully put to good use without the pressure of an entrepreneurial class capable of seizing the opportunities offered by favorable market conditions, as well as capable of attracting skilled labor and capital from more traditional, but less rewarding, sectors of the economy.

In his 1593 report submitted to the Senate of the Venetian Republic (of which Bergamo and its surroundings were part), Alvise Priuli, the governor of the area, portrayed the local population as "absolutely loyal subjects and very industrious and, as a consequence, very well off" and he attributed their well-being to the "huge amounts of capital which they invest for the most part in the woolen

XV 2

Wool, Paper andiron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys

industry, but in part also in iron mining [...] in the surrounding valleys."1 Nor was Priuli' s assessment an isolated one. Similar observations on the industriousness of the Bergamasque people can be found in a Status Ecclesiae Bergami probably drawn up in 1576: to the rugged nature of the territory {iresparies monies occupant), the local people ascribed the fact that "many of them, after abandoning their homes, go to faraway lands in order to make a living with their hard work and frugality." But the document also noted other sectors of the economy: notably, sheep raising, from which the people drew both raw wool and cheese; and iron mining and wool making, thanks to which many men supported themselves, their wives and children.2 A decade earlier a Venetian governor had reported that "the riches of these valleys consist far more in the industriousness of their people as they travel abroad and trade, than in the fertility of the land which yields a very small amount of cereals." To compensate for this, the governor went on to say, "in the valleys a large quantity of woolen cloths are being produced [...] and these are shipped to different parts of the world."3 Along the same lines, in 1620 the captain of Bergamo, Giovanni Vendramin, after underlining the "barrenness" of the Bergamasque territory and the consequent shortage of the harvest, observed that "this shortage is offset by industry to a large extent, and I have been told by merchants in this territory that the woolen industry flourishes to the point that, with the raw wool imported from abroad, a considerable amount of money is being generated, up to one million and a half of gold. And ironware, on its part, generates important gains, and on that industry 8,000 and more people depend for their living."4 Meager subsistence farming, strong migration flows, important industrial activities: these, in short, were the salient features of the Bergamasque territory such as they are reported to us from the early modern age. And it is on the third feature - industrial activity - that I will focus attention in the following pages. It must be said at once that "ferrarezza" (mining and transformation of iron) and the woolen industry do not exhaust the range of industrial production in the territory. Even though metallurgy and wool textiles ranked highest in the Bergamo production spectrum, occasional information witnesses to the presence, especially in the valleys, of other lesser, but by no means negligible, activities.

1 Rela^ioni dei Button veneti in Termferma, XII, Podestaria e capitanato di Bergamo, ed. A Tagliaferri (Milan, 1978), p. 195. 2

Biblioteca Civica Correr, Codice Dona dalle Rose, 177, c. 259.

3

Rela^ioni dei Rettori, p. 76.

4

Ibid., p. 374.

XV Wool, Paper andiron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys In Nembro, in the Lower Seriana Valley, as Da Lezze observed in his celebrated descri^ione, "there is local production of flint stones for sharpening iron ware. These flint stones are found in Monte di Prata Longa [...] and are exported to Hungary, Germany, France and Italy" Nor could this be a small line of business if it be true that Nembro, "where flint stones were manufactured, was a large village of 3,000 souls, many of whom were men of great wealth worth 10-15,000 scudi, and many of the local people made a living in a variety of specialized tasks, some as miners, some as stone cutters, others at polishing and sharpening stones, others yet at shipping them to market."5 The extraction and the transformation of flint stones will continue to prosper in the next centuries, and to the export markets mentioned by Da Lezze others will be added in the 17th and 18th centuries, notably England and America.6 According to Maironi Da Ponte, the industry of flint stones represented the primary source of employment for the people of Prata Longa and was based on a remarkable division of labor: "the strongest persons," according to Maironi Da Ponte, "devote themselves to extracting the stone from the mountains and the rest are divided in several classes, some specializing in cutting the stone, others in transforming it into different shapes, others yet in placing them in crates and in handling the shipments."7 At the start of the 18th century the documents hint at the existence of another industry — knitwear (known as "goggiaria" or "gocchiaria") in Lovere, Castro and Sovere. Various orders of the Venetian governors remind people of the obligation to have stockings duly marked by the official of the excise of gocchiaria* but no other more precise information has emerged that would enable us to evaluate the importance of this manufacture. Nor are we in a position to determine how far back it went in time.9 The reference to the excise and to the stockings shipped across Lake Iseo assure us, at any rate, that it was not a manufacture for the exclusive use of the local peasants or of the narrow local market.

5

G. D a Lezze, Descri^ione di Bergamo e suo territorio 1596, eds V. Marchetti and L. Pagani,

FSTB, VII (Bergamo, 1988), p. 352. 6 D. Cugini, "Le pietre delle Valli bergamasche. Un millenario primato d'ltalia ", in Bergomum, n.s., VII (1933), p. 89 (pp. 73-93). 7 G. Maironi D a Ponte, Di^ionario odeporico o sia storico-politico-naturale dellaprovincia bergamasca, I—III (Bergamo 1820), p. 17. 8 Biblioteca Civica Bergamo, ACBG, Proclami, vol. XX, no. 79, 108, 241. 9 The existence of gocchiaria (knitting), however, is documented in Lovere as early as the early sixteenth century. See Giovanni Silini, E viva Sancto Marcho. Lovere al tempo delle guerre d} Italia

(Bergamo 1992), p. 224.

3

XV 4

Wool, Paper andiron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys

Also poorly documented before the 18th century is the manufacture of linen. In 1596 there were 100 looms concentrated in Bergamo and surroundings and an unreported number at Piazzolo and Gorlago.10 A 1754 report, on the other hand, informs us that "the linen business was of utmost importance" and that "by the end of the year there was no peasant home that did not produce a few yards of linen, thanks to the fact that each had its own loom in the house." However, the same report lamented the decline of production due, it would seem, to the introduction of a new tax.11 In 1766 in the Bergamo territory the number of linen looms stood at 1,251 and by 1790 at l,540.12 These were modest, although not negligible, figures, if we keep in mind that at the close of the 18th century the entire Venetian State was home to as many as 28,163 linen looms.13 At any rate, it is difficult to say whether the Bergamo output was intended for the use of the local peasantry or was meant for wider markets. It seems likely, as Caizzi has observed, that linen fabrics from the Bergamo territory were essentially of low quality and that they found an outlet on the small country markets.14 Even in the case of papermaking, information is lacking before the 18th century. In 1725, by contrast, eight paper mills were reported in existence, a small number compared to the 102 paper mills spread over the entire Venetian State.15 In 1745, thanks to recent tax exemptions, fourteen paper mills were in operation and were scattered, for the most part, in the valleys and, specifically, in Valle Seriana (Alzano, Villa d' Ogna) and in Valle Brembana (Zogno)^ By 1754 Bergamasque paper had achieved " the highest reputation' and was being sold in the towns of Austrian Lombardy, as well as in many other towns, whether under Venetian rule or not.17 Following the Milanese decree that prohibited the export of rags, the number of paper mills in the Bergamo territory registered a noticeable drop, so much so that by 1790 only nine were still in operation.18 In the spectrum of manufacturing activities which brought 10

G. Da Lezze, Descri^ione di Bergamo, pp. 183, 267, 401. Relation! dei Rettori cit., p. 719. 12 L. Pagani, "Le condizioni demografiche ed economiche di Bergamo e del suo territorio secondo 1' anagrafe veneta del 1766 , \n.A.tti deWateneo di science, lettere e arti di Bergamo, XLII (1980- %2\tabeUa 12, p. 114 (pp. 7 9 - 118). 13 J. Georgelin, Venise au siele des lumires (Paris (1978), p. 398. 14 B. Caizzi, Industrie e commercio delta Repubbtica veneta net secolo XVIII (Milan 1965), p. 173. 15 I. Mattozzi, Produ^ione e commercio delta carta nello Stato vene^iano settecentesco. Uneamenti e problemi (Bologna 1975), p. 34. 16 B. Caizzi, Industrie cit., p. 178 e Rela^ioni dei Rettori cit., p. 661. 17 Ibid., p. 717. 18 L. Pagani, "Le condizioni demografiche" cit., see tabella 14, p. 118. 1x

XV Wool, Paper andiron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys life to the Bergamasque province we must add the production of silk yarn, and to it we shall return later on. The foundation of the economy of the Bergamasque valleys, however, ultimately rested on iron metallurgy and especially on the woollen industry On this point, our sources, as will be recalled, are unanimous. By the way, a document of the early years of the 17th century which lists "the commodities that are exported and thanks to which foreign money comes in"19 fully supports this source: against all exports estimated at 1,379,000 ducats, metal goods represented a little over one tenth (150,000 dc), and woollen textiles more than half (800,000 dc). One Venetian governor of the province was not exaggerating when (in 1610) he defined the wool industry as the backbone of the Bergamasque economy.20 As for metallurgy, we know that it processed ores excavated in the Brembana, Seriana and Scalve valleys where 84 mines were in operation in 1620 and 80 in 1766.21 The ores were subjected to a first transformation into cast iron, (ferro crudo in the document of that period) in the blast furnaces scattered throughout the valleys (11 in 1620, 8 in 1703, 9 in 1749 and as many in 1766).22 Cast iron was subsequently refined in nearly fifty forges and the malleable iron (known as ferro ladino) so produced was transformed into barrel hoops, wheels for wagons, horse coaches, small carriages, saws for cutting timber, military hardware,23 swords, lances, and daggers, and all these were intended primarily for export abroad: "for the needs of the province." "All that is needed is one ninetieth of the iron ware produced in the province, while the rest is exported to other countries," is written in a document of 1767.24 Among the export markets our

19 Published in B. Belotti, Storia di Bergamo e dei bergamaschi, I—III (Milan 1940), in particular II, p. 439 n. 20 Quotation in B. Polese, Introdu^ione a Rela^ioni dei Button cit., p. XIX. The importance of the markets north of the Alps is well borne out by the intense activity of Bergamasque cloth makers at the fairs of Bolzano, on which see A. Danesi, "Aspetti e problemi di un'impresa mercantile laniera del Bergamasco nel Sei e Settecento" in J\tti del V y\teneo di science, lettere ed arti di Bergamo, 38 (1973-74), pp. 530-31 (pp. 523-36). 21 B. Belotti, Storia di Bergamo, II, p. 433 and Archivio di Statodi Venezia, Cinque Savi alia Mercan^ia, Diversorum, busta 373, doc. 21 April 1767. 22 The figure for 1630 in Belotti, op. cit., II, p. 433; and the figure for 1703 In Caizzi, op. cit., p. 186; and for 1749 in Rela^ioni dei Rettori, p. 685; for 1766 in L. Pagani, "Le condizioni demographiche," Table 12, p. 144. 23 Rela^ioni dei Rettori, p. 685. 24 From the document quoted above in note 21.

5

XV 6

Wool, Paper andiron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys

sources mention, besides Venice, are the Papal State, Piedmont Savoy, the State of Milan, The Kingdom of Naples and, occasionally, Spain and the Grisons.25 It is not easy to quantify with precision the size of Bergamasque iron production, but a few scattered bits of information over two centuries enable us to determine at least a few orders of magnitude. In 1749 the total annual output of the nine active blast furnaces was estimated at 400,000 pesi (about 3,250 metric tons) from which one ought to conclude that the average output per furnace would have been of about 360 metric tons per furnace.26 However, the estimate of 400,000 pesi is certainly a very rough one and too high, because the blast furnaces were hardly capable of reaching an annual output of 360 metric tons. A document of the early 17th century indicates, in fact, a production of 2,000 cavalli of 14 pesi each, which translates into an annual production of 224 metric tons as the average output of the blast furnaces of the Valle di Scalve.27 And Ugo Tucci has proposed an even more cautious estimate of 160-200 tons per furnace during the 18th century,28 at a time when the total European production of cast iron did not exceed 130,000 metric tons per year.29 Although of modest size, metallurgy represented undoubtedly an important element in the economy of the Bergamasque territory. Suffice it to remember that each blast furnace provided work to "300 workers", some assigned "to excavating the mineral, others to cutting timber or transportation, and others yet to tending the fires or to various mechanical works."30 A labor force, therefore, of about 3,000 individuals to whom one should add as many who were employed in some fifty forges. Thus, that Venetian magistrate, who in 1620 asserted that "Bergamasque metallurgy provided employment to 8,000 workers including those who take care of charcoal making, carriage drivers and others,"31 could not have been far from the truth. Out of a total population of about 150,000 souls this was no paltry figure. 25

Information drawn from ASV, Senato, Dispacci rettori, Bergamo, f. 1. (on 27 June 1602), f. 2. (on 4 June 1604) and f. 3. (on 15 June 1605), f. 82 (2 January 1704) and from Kela^ioni dei Kettori, p. 685 (for 1749). 26 See A. Frumento, Le Repubbliche Cisalpina e Italiana con particolare riguardo a siderurgia, armamenti, economia (Milan 1985), note on p. 75. 27 Museo Correr, Codice Donalalle Rose, \11', p. 332, "notta delferro sifabrica nella Valle di Scalve questo anno 1601". 28 U. Tucci, "L'industria del ferro nel Settecento. La Val Trompia", in BJcerche storiche ed economiche in memoria di Corrado Barbagallo, II (Naples 1970), p. 433. 29 See J. Goodman and K. Honeyman, Gainful Pursuit: The Making of Industrial Europe. 1600- 191'4 (London 1988), p. 172. These authors, too, estimate at about 200 tons the average annual output of a blast furnace in the seventeenth century. 30 From the document quoted in note 21. 31 Kela^ioni dei Rettori, p. 374.

XV Wool, Paper andiron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys Since the late 16th century, and probably even earlier, Bergamasque metallurgy was decidedly oriented to production for the market, more than to local production. We are assured of that by the statements quoted above, but also by the type of technology used. The Bergamasque valleys (much as, by the way, the Brescian ones) were, as is well known, among the first European areas where, toward the end of the Middle Ages, the "indirect" process of metallurgy had been imported from the Austrian lands. This process was one in which the extracted mineral was first transformed into cast iron in the blast furnace before moving to the transformation into pure iron in the forge. With the older "direct" process the transition from mineral into pure iron took place in the basso fuoco without the intermediate step that produced cast iron. The blast furnace that liquifies iron is described to us from Da Lezze toward the end of the 16th century as a "large container made of stones and built over some water stream which operates the large bellows that start and keep the fire going, and with the force of that fire iron is separated from its slag, [...] and once it has hardened, it is taken to the forge to make steel and to be transformed into iron objects."32 The indirect process meant higher productivity and the possibility of production on a large scale and in a continuing form for periods of nearly 6 months. As such, it was technically superior to the old direct methods. But its practical application implied large investments of fixed capital (the blast furnace itself, the large bellows, the hydraulic wheel to keep the latter in motion), but also circulating capital (money for a large labor force, accumulation of large stocks of mineral and of charcoal for the duration of one campaign of fusion which could extend over several months), and, therefore, this process could be justified only when production was on a sufficiently large scale and could depend on large export markets.33 In the opposite case (as happened, for example, in certain zones of Tuscany or in the Ligurian Appenine), the old "direct" process continued to be used.34 If the use of a relatively advanced technology confirms the market orientation of the Bergamasque metallurgy, such orientation is also confirmed by the high degree of specialization of the labor force, not only in the sense that around the blast furnace a whole series of different specializations was formed, 32

Da Lezze, Descri^ione di Bergamo, p. 508. On the linkage between the indirect process and size of market, see R. Morelli, "Dal processo diretto al processo indiretto di fusione del ferro; cambiamenti socio-economici nella Toscana del Cinquecento," in Dal bassofuoco all' altofom((Picocccdmgs of the Conference in Val Camonica, 1988, eds N. Cuomo di Caprio and C. Simoni, Brescia 1989), pp. 121—6. 34 M. Calegari, "Origini, insediamenti, inerzia tecnologica nelle ricerche sulla siderurgia ligure d'antico regime," in Quaderni storici, 46, 1981, pp. 288—304 33

7

XV 8

Wool, Paper andiron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys

but also in the sense that individual localities specialized in distinct products. Valle Seriana Inferiore, for example, was renowned for the production of "large quantities of knives and similar tools [...] for Venice and similar markets"; Valle Seriana Superiore for the production of "swords, daggers, helbards, spits, large knives and other similar weapons," and it boasted of a daily output of 25 blades per craftsmen. Valle Averara, on the other hand specialized in making "nails for horse shoes and other things,"35 and Val Calepio in the manufacture of shovels.36 In Valle Brembana at the beginning of the 17th century large quantities of canon balls were produced for the Grisons. And in 1602, Gromo, in Valle Seriana, supplied as many as 20,000 blades to Spain.37 Bergamo in the mid 18th century was the site of a manufacturer of scythes imitating those of Stiria and Carinzia with an annual production of 20,000 units.38 But it was the woolen industry, as our sources never fail to stress, that represented between the 16th and 17th centuries the most important manufacturing activity in the Bergamasque territory, and it was an activity for the most part to be found in the valleys. To be sure, in Bergamo and in the surrounding villages it was not totally absent: in the suburb of S. Lorenzo, as a matter of fact, at the close of the 16th century there were produced on about 100 looms a special kind of tapestry (known as wall cloth or spallierd) that was still very much in demand all over the world. But light woolen fabrics were also produced known as sar%e, buratti, and me^elani?9 According to Da Lezze, at the close of the 16th century, total production stood at 8,500 panni alti (high grade cloth) and 18,000panni bassi (low grade cloth) for a total of 26,500 cloths, representing roughly one million meters of fabric. Of these 26,500 units, 15,000 were manufactured in Val Gandino, 5,000 in Valle Seriana, nearly 3,000 in Valle Brembana and 500 at Lovere.40 Needless to say, we are dealing with rounded figures, but they bring to light the definitely rural character of the Bergamasque textile industry. This, by the way, is clearly confirmed a century and a half later by a list of all the excise seals that were issued in the outskirts of "Bergamo and in the valleys in the year 1743...," that is to say a list of the cloths which had paid the export duty as prescribed by law and had been marked by the customs officials. At that time, the geography of the woolen industry does not 35

Da Lezze, Descri^ione di Bergamo, pp. 285, 357, 508-9. ASV, Deputati alle miniere. Lettere responsive Bergamo, busta 1 (24 November 1688). 37 See documents cited in note 25 above. 38 Caizzi, Industrie, p. 190 and Keia^ioni dei Kettori, p. 657. 39 Da Lezze, Descri^ione di Bergamo, p. 183. 40 Ibid., pp. 293, 308, 332, 346, 366. The size of woolen cloths was set by law at 60 braccia (about 36 meters) for panni bassi, as recorded in a proclamation of 26 January 1706 that reiterates older proclamations. 36

XV Wool, Paper andiron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys differ very much from the one reconstructed on the basis of Da Lezze for the end of the 16th century for a total of 20,298 cloths. The city of Bergamo, on the other hand, was reported as producing, at that time, 774 panni alti, 45 panni bassi and 3,119 sar%e. That means that Bergamo produced but one fifth of total production. Val Gandino (Gandino, Leffe, Casnigo) was still ahead with 7,775 bolts of cloth (for the most part of the high quality bolts), followed by Valle Seriana with 5,561 bolts, mostly of lower quality, and then Valle Brembana with 1800, largely of lower quality also. Lastly, Lovere produced 1,197 bolts (panni altz), twice as many or twice as much as it had produced a century and a half before.41 Even though we do not possess an uninterrupted series of annual output figures for the three centuries we are discussing, it is nonetheless possible, on the basis of the surviving data, to identify in broad terms the course of cloth production (see Table 1). Table 1. Production of Woolen Cloths in the Bergamasque Territory (1539-1770)

Year

Panni alti

1539

—

—

7-8,000

1559

8,785

16,480

25,265

1596

8,500

18,000

26,500

1664

2,000

22,000

34,000

1685

10,130

23,986

34,116

1701

14,396

21,552

35,918

1705

15,498

24,018

39,516

1710

9,368

15,197

24,835

1769

9,521

4,212

13,733

1770

10,931

5,403

16,334

Panni bassi

Total

One will notice the strong rise in production that occurred between 1540 and 1559, a consequence, one can assume, of the return of peace and normality after the unsettling political and military events of the early decades of the ASV, Cinque Savi alMercan^ia, n.s., b. 121, doc. of 12 February 1743.

9

XV 10

Wool, Paper andiron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys

century. The level of production attained in 1559 resurfaced in 1596, which leads us to think that in the second half of the century the woolen industry enjoyed a long stretch of stability In the second half of the 17th century or, at least, starting in 1664, production rose to levels that were largely higher than those it reached a century before and reached an all-time peak in 1705 with an output of more than 39,000 units. Thereafter a visible decline set in that lasted till the end of the century: with an output of about 15,000 cloths, the Bergamasque wool industry found itself at the 1540 level. In our series of data there is, however, a large gap stretching from 1596 to 1664, a gap which it has not been possible to fill, even in part. There is no doubt, at any rate, that in the years around 1630, when war, famine and plague devastated the land, the woolen industry experienced a drop in production. Mayor Marino Zorzi was well aware of this when he wrote in 1636: "this industry has experienced a decline due to the war, the famine and the plague."42 Nor are conditions likely to have much improved during the next decade when the calamitous condition caused in Central Europe by the Thirty Years War certainly resulted in a drop in the export of Bergamasque cloth. Yet, sooner or later the industry experienced a strong recovery. In 1664 production (34,000 bolts) had already gone beyond the levels it attained at the close of the preceding century. By the turn of the next century, as we have seen, it had produced nearly 40,000 cloths. This remarkable resilience is the more interesting in that it stands in sharp contrast with the irreversible decline of the woolen industry in the foremost centers of the peninsula during the 17th century. As is well known, Venice which had produced 28,000 bolts of cloth at the start of the 17th century, produced a mere 2,000 at the end; Florence saw its production drop from over 30,000 cloths to a few thousand, and similar downward trends are recorded for Milan and Como.43 In the Bergamasque valleys the decline of the industry occurred only during the 18th century when production dropped from nearly 40,000 units in 1705 to 15,000 sixty years later. What were the causes of such a downfall? In their frequent and worried analyses of the problem officials repeatedly stressed two facts: one was the gradual closing of traditional outlets, the other was the growing competition of foreign textiles of a new type. In 1711, at the earliest signs of the decline of woolen textiles production the Savi alia Mercan^ia (the Venetian department of commerce) called attention to "the vast quantity of 42

Rela^ioni dei Rettori, p. 446. CM. Cipolla, "II declino economico delTItalia"in Storia dell' economia italianpcd. Cipolla (Turin 1959), pp. 605—23; R.T. Rapp, Industry and economic decline in seventeenth-century Venice (Cambridge 1976); P. Malanima, La decaden^a di un' economia cittadine. l^industria di Firen^e nei secoli XVI-XVIII(Bo\ogna 1982). 43

XV Wool, Paper andiron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys cloth from Germany, Holland, England and other countries of North Europe and France [...] at lower costs than our own [...] which spread so much in this State as well as in neighboring states and throughout Italy," but they also pointed out that the woolen industry had been introduced in the Kingdom of Naples, that is to say in one of the traditional outlets of Bergamasque textiles.44 Some twenty years later, they complained of the "strict prohibition" to import Bergamasque cloth into the State of Milan,45 and in 1744 they protested against drastic protectionist measures enacted by Piedmont Savoy and by the Papal State in order to foster their own budding manufactures.46 It is hard to decide which role protectionism played against the growing competition of less expensive fabrics coming from the North in bringing about the decline of the Bergamasque woolen industry. It will help, however, to notice, on the basis of what Caizzi47 has written, that the long chain of excises that were raised in Venice, Verona, Desenzano and Brescia on the raw material intended for Bergamo, as well as on the fabrics that came from Bergamo, contributed to raising the costs of production relative to the costs of the new competitors, as the latter benefitted from generous tax exemptions and, in some instances, from subsidies granted by their respective governments whose products, as noted in a document of 1743, "would not be in such large number were they burdened with some taxes."48 So much so that when, in 1767, the Venetian government decided, belatedly, to lift some excise taxes, to suppress a number of excise barriers and to grant several other fiscal incentives, the Bergamasque woolen industry registered a noticeable recovery.49 The decline of the woolen industry during the 18th century undoubtedly represented a heavy loss for the Bergamo province and especially for its valleys. It could have had even more serious consequences in terms of employment and income if the economy of the region had not been able to fall back on a new industry: silk spinning. Its growth in the late 17th century and beyond was such as to offer a valuable compensation to the decline of the woolen industry. In the words of an 18th century source, "the ever larger production of silks is compensating for the decline of the woolen industry".50

44

ASV, Cinque Savi alia Mercan^ia, nuova serie, busta 1 2 1 , informa^ione o f 8 A p r i l 1 7 1 1 . Relation? dei Rettori, p. 446. 46 ASV, Cinque Savi allMercan^ia, n.s., busta 121, scrittura of 12 February 1743; see also ibid., busta 359, doc. 106 of 26 September 1755. 47 Caizzi, Industrie', pp. 22 and 79. 48 See document cited in note 46. 49 Cakzi, p. 83. 50 Quotation in Pagani, "Le condizioni demografiche", p. 96 45

11

XV 12

Wool, Paper andiron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys

The preliminary stages of silk-making had come into the Bergamo province during the second half of the 16th century, in the form of trattura (the unraveling of cocoons) and torcitura (the twisting of silk filaments into silk thread), earlier than the planting of mulberry trees and of the raising of silk worms. At that time, cocoons from the State of Milan and Cremona were shipped to the Bergamasque province to be transformed into silk threads which, in turn, were exported to the various centers of silk weaving.51 The quantities involved, however, must have been small if as late as the start of the 17th century in the list of "the things that are sent out of the province,"52 silk appears for a value of only 60,000 ducats, that is to say for a value far less than one tenth of the value of woolen cloth exports. Things changed starting in 1630 (and at an increasing pace after 1650) with the rapid spread of mulberry trees in the Bergamasque countryside53 (a development that one cannot help but interpret as an effort aimed at confronting the agrarian crisis which, as we know, characterized the central decades of the century).54 In 1666 the mayor of Bergamo was able to report, with obvious satisfaction, that "for some years now the silk business has grown vigorously and keeps developing as everyone makes every effort to plant new mulberry trees so as to be able to have more and more silk worms."55 And the spread of the mulberry tree continued uninterrupted during the 18th century.56 The growth in the number of mulberry trees went hand in hand with that of all the silk-related industries, that is to say with trattura and torcitura, and particularly with the manufacture of warp thread {prgan^ino or orsoglio). Until then, the finest organ^ino had always been the one known as alia bolognese, manufactured, that is produced mechanically, in the spinning mills activated by hydraulic wheels on the basis of a technology that has been in existence for centuries and was jealously preserved in Bologna.57 But in 1604 the Bologna silk mills had made their mark on Venetian territory, and specifically in Feltre

51

M. Petto, "Aspetti delTintroduzione e della diffusione del gelso nel bergamasco", in

Bergomum 83 (1979), pp. 187—204; and A. Pesenti, Vita e progresso delta provincia di Bergamo. Cenni storici, statistici e comparativi (Bergamo 1914), p. 110. 52

See note 19 above. Petto, 'Aspetti delPinttoduzione", pp. 193-4. 54 A. De Maddalena, "II mondo rurale italiano nel Cinque e nel Seicento", in VJvista storica italiana, 76 (1964), pp. 361-3. 55 Rela^ioni dei Rettori, p. 552; for 1680 see also p. 571. 56 Ibid., pp. 717 and 745. 57 On this point and for the information that follows, see C. Poni, 'Archeologie de la fabrique: la diffusion des moulins a soie Aalla bolognese dans les Etats venitiens du XVIe au 53

XVIIIe siecle", mAnnales:

economies, societes, civilisations, 6 (1972), pp. 1475—96.

XV Wool, Paper andiron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys and Padua, thanks to Ottavio Malpighi who had secured from the Venetian government a twenty-five year exclusive "patent" for the construction of hydraulic mills. As late as 1634, however, in the entire Venetian territory only Malpighi's two mills were in operation, but in that year the Venetian government authorized the construction of new mills in the entire territory under its rule and exempted their owners from the obligation to join the specific craft guild. In this way a new chapter in the history of the economic development of Terraferma was opened and in it the Bergamo province was to play a leading role. As for the entire question relative to the diffusion of the first hydraulic silk mills on Venetian territory, the reader should consult Carlo Poni's essay on the subject of the silk industry in Bergamo in the 17th and 18th centuries.581 think it appropriate at this point, however, to mention that in 1646 fifteen silk mills were reported in operation in the Terraferma and it is likely that some of them were located in the vicinity of Bergamo. It is certain that in 1681, out of a total of 89 mills scattered in the Venetian territory, as many as 41 were to be found in the Bergamasque territory. Less than one century later the Bergamo mills numbered 69 with an annual output of 250,000 lbs. of silk thread intended for export to France, Switzerland, Holland and England. Altogether, the working of silk in the Bergamo province was said to employ more than 12,000 workers. "Silk", we read in a report of 1787 when the number of mills had risen to 88, "is the largest source of the fortunes and of the well-being of that province". Production of organ^ino was valued at 1,200,000 ducats and the workforce assigned both to the stoves for trattura and to the hydraulic mills was estimated at 40,000 individuals.59 Even though these figures were a bit inflated, it is clear that by the fall of the Republic of St Mark the silk industry in the Bergamo territory had reached the leading role. It should be observed, however, that the Bergamo valleys were not the only location, nor the main beneficiaries, of this new dynamic phase in the economy of the region. The few sources at our disposal concerning the location of the Bolognese mills place them, as a matter of fact, mostly in the immediate vicinity of Bergamo (53 mills out of 77 in 1766), and to a lesser extent in localities of the plain or of the first pre-Alpine hills, in the vicinity, that is, of the countryside where mulberry trees were grown and where the trattura was performed.60

58

Carlo Poni, "Innovazioni tecnologiche e strategie di mercato: il setificio fra XVII e XVIII

secolo" in Storia economica e sociale di Bergamo (Bergamo, 2000) 59 60

Rela^ione dei Rettori, pp. 794-5. Pagani, "Le condizioni demografiche," p. 114, Table 12.

13

XV 14

Wool, Paper andiron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys

Viewed in its totality and in the arc of nearly three centuries, the total picture offered by the manufacturing activities in the Bergamo territory and especially in its valleys, appears to be decidedly characterized by its orientation toward international trade, by a strong dynamism which enabled that new branch of manufacturing to survive (in sharp contrast with urban manufactures) the crises of the central decades of the 17th century, and, lastly, by a distinctive ability to adapt and to innovate, as demonstrated by, for instance, the start of new manufactures such as silk spinning. But what were the causes of this unique industrial development? Undoubtedly, Bergamasque manufactures were favored by their rural and scattered structure that were not available to urban manufactures. This implied, at first sight, three advantages that were not available to urban industries: the presence of water streams with a steep slope, easier access to some raw materials, and,finally,cheap labor. The advantages offered by plentiful sources of energy are obvious enough. The rivers that ran through the Bergamasque valleys were used to activate the many water wheels used in a variety of industries located in those valleys. As Formaleoni observed in the late 18th century, the Serio river "was the soul of the local economy" for along its banks were located "large numbers of buildings, spinning mills, sledge hammers, fulling mills, and other machines that are so useful to the manufacture of [...] silk, iron, wool and timber, for with minimal effort and in a short time much work can be performed."61 The same could not be said of the cities of the plain such as Venice, Milan or Bergamo itself. Concerning the latter, Venetian authorities commented that "it lacked the necessary number of fulling mills, washing facilities, dye works, large frames for stretching cloth (which were indispensable for cloth making), whereas in the valleys all of these are plentiful."62 As regards raw materials, the advantage enjoyed by metallurgy in the valleys is clear due to the proximity of both the mine fields and the alpine forests in an age when the costs of transporting materials of low value per unit such as iron ores and timber were especially high. Quite different, on the other hand, was the case of the textile industry which, for the most part, made use of imported raw wool. Even though in the Bergamo valleys the raising of sheep was widespread, the wool produced there was considered of "poor quality" and known as "rustic" and was used only to make cloth of the lowest quality. For fabrics of average or fine quality (which represented the near totality of textiles produced in Bergamo), the raw wool used was imported from either Spain or the Levant. The so-called "Venetian wool" used was actually imported

V. Formaleoni, Descri^ione topogmftca e storica del bergamasco (Venice 1777), p.22. Cinque Savi alia Mercan^ia, busta 121, fascicolo 45, on 27 January, 1711.

XV Wool, Paper and Iron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys from the Balcan or the Levant.63 In any case, it was a raw material which, like other ingredients needed for cloth making, such as oil, alum, soap and dyes, had to absorb the cost of the long land transport from the Mediterranean ports. A cost, however, which did not affect the Venetian cloth industry and only minimally its Florentine competitors. To offset the high transport costs, the Bergamasque woolen industry, given its rural character, could avail itself of cheap labor. Even though we do not have analytical data that would enable us to compare the wages in the valleys with those in the city, we believe we are not mistaken in assuming that the former must have been significantly lower. Our assumption is based on the fact that in the countryside the cost of living was certainly lower than in the city. Moreover, as the Venetian Board of Trade (Savi alia Mercan^ia) put it, "in the countryside the cost of food and the rental of buildings is lower,"64 which allowed the peasant to survive on a lower rate of pay. Besides, in an area with scarce and insufficient agricultural resources, the labor force consisted in the "rustic and destitute"65 who, "lacking other sources of income"66 were forced "either to emigrate or to accept to work for low pay in non-farming activities." It is worth stressing the fact that in the valleys the labor force was not organized, as was that in the cities, into craft guilds capable of controlling the supply of labor by regulating the access to their ranks. Such guilds could act in support of wages, or even, as happened in Venice during the 17th century, remove wage rates from the free interplay of supply and demand. This was done by having legislation enacted whereby wage rates were set by the government with the so-called limita^ione delle mercedi, that is by legislative fiat.67 According to the Board of Trade itself this policy "was the cause of the ruin of the city's woolen industry in Venice",68 whereas in the Bergamasque province "wage rates are freely set by market forces".69 This may well have been a bit simplistic in that it ignored other factors that negatively affected the downfall of the industry. And yet, it is highly plausible that in a time of crisis, such as in the 17th century, of increasing foreign competition and plague, "the free wage rates" for the

63 Relation! dei Rettori, p. 645. On the importation of foreign wool see Da Lezze, Descri^ione di Bergamo, p. 184; Danesi, "Aspetti e problemi", pp. 529—30; and J.A. Marino, Pastoral Economics in the Kingdom of Naples (Baltimore 1988), pp. 214, 228-31, 235. 64 Cinque Savi alia Mercan^ia, busta 467, on 29 September 1636. 65 B. Museo Correr, Manoscritto Morosini-Grimani, busta 493 bis, fascicolo III, p. 98, on 15 May 1756. 66 From the document of 1711 cited in note 61. 67 Savi allMercan^ia, Risposte, reg. 159, scrittura del Collegio del Lanificio, on 3 June 1678. 68 Ibid., busta 126, fascicolo 62, on 29 March 1689. 69 From the document cited in note 66.

15

XV 16

Wool, Paper and Iron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys

rural labor force represented a non-negligible factor of competitiveness for the Bergamasque textile industry. The absence of a guild structure, if it contributed, as seems plausible, to keeping down labor costs, allowed a greater ability to adapt to the changing conditions of the international market. On this point, our sources are unanimous in stressing the fact that unlike what was happening in Venice, in the Bergamasque valleys manufactures enjoyed the widest rage of choices when it came to technology and to the kind of textiles they produced. "In the Bergamo district," so reads a 1719 report, "there is no guild structure [...] that would rule over the manufacture of wool textiles with precise laws and regulations."70 In another report it was noted that manufacturers in the valleys "operate any way they choose,71 away from the gaze of government officials, exempt from any regulations," and outside any form of servitude or subordination.72 Fully to appreciate the meaning of these words, it is worth remembering that in Venice the wool industry (just like any other major industry in the city) was strictly regulated in terms of wages and access to them, but also in terms of the choice of the quality of production, and specifically of the choice of raw materials, the number of threads in the warp (portate) and the workmanship used in each type of textile.73 While all those controls reflected the government's concern to avoid frauds and to safeguard the reputation of Venetian manufactures, they also imposed a rigid conservatism, made it hard to adapt rapidly to the changes in demand and ultimately stood in the way of any attempt at innovation. It is thus not surprising that the Venetian authorities themselves, when confronted with the collapse of the wool industry in Venice, ultimately came to realize that all those controls were counterproductive and that the absence thereof was what had ensured the competitiveness of rural manufactures of the Terraferma.74 In actual practice, in the second half of the 17th century, the government belatedly authorized the production of new kinds of fabrics named londrine or "fabrics imitating those made in Holland or England that are accepted everywhere to the consumers' general satisfaction and are virtually necessary to satisfy modern demand."75 Those were, it would seem, carded fabrics made of good Spanish wool, lighter than the traditional Venetian cloth, and especially in demand "due to a certain shine."76 But even 70 71 72 73 74 75 76

From the document cited in note 65. Cinque Savi alia Mercan^ia, nuova serie, busta 121, on 9 September, 1711. Ibid., on 18 August, 1719. R.T. Rapp, Industry and Economic Decline, pp. 156—7. Ibid., p. 160. Cinque Savi alia Mercan^ia, nuova serie, busta 121, on 9 March 1712. D. Sella, Commerci e Industrie a Venecia nel secolo XVII, (Venice—Rome 1981), pp. 119—21.

XV Wool, Paper and Iron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys though some attempt was made in Venice, near the end of the century, to launch the production of those new fabrics, the results were disappointing due to the guilds' obstructionism.77 Not so, by contrast, in the Bergamo valleys where since 1672 the production of londrine was widespread [...] "and growing [...], to the point that in these valleys the number of londrine produced is very impressive."78 And in 1673 the manufacture of scolti'm the style or fashion of Flanders had also started thanks to Pellegrino Sonzogno who "at great cost" had recruited abroad workers skilled in this kind of fabric, and within a decade had produced 2,200 cloths.79 Another enterprising Bergamasque, Nicolo Quieti by name, had started in 1683 the manufacture of baracani, flemish style, and had earned the applause of the Venetian Board of Trade.80 The liberty granted to Bergamasque manufacturers to operate outside the guild structure and to launch new products without being subjected to rigorous control over the quality of their products most likely represented one of the key reasons behind their success; and it is no mere accident that the extraordinary recovery of the Bergamasque wool industry during the second half of the 17th century coincided with the start of productions that imitated the English and Dutch textiles. This broad freedom of initiative was neither, by the way, peculiar to the 17th century, nor was it limited to the textile industry: since the start of Venetian domination in 1428 the valleys enjoyed, legally or de facto', various privileges and the latter, coming on top of "natural" advantages already mentioned (energy sources, raw materials, low labor costs), contributed to reinforce the dynamism and the competitiveness.81 There were, first of all, tax exemptions. Since 1428 Venice had supported, over against the claims of the city of Bergamo, the valleys' right to produce woolen cloths and to ship them abroad through Venice tax free.82 Broad tax exemptions, by the way, had been granted to metal goods as well83 and from the start the valleys had been authorized to import "cereals and wine [...] excise

77

Ibid., p. 65. ASV, Senato Terra,fil^a1224, scrittura dei Savi alia Mercan^ia, on 22 June 1697, attached to decree of 26 June 1697. 79 Savi alia Mercan^ia, Risposte, register 161 of 12 February, 1682. 80 Ibid., of 10 June 1683. 81 On the importance of exemptions of privileges in the pre-industrial age, see CM. Belfanti, "Rural manufactures and rural proto-industries in the 'Italy of the Cities' from the 16th through the 18th century", in Continuity and Change, 8 (1993), pp. 253—80. 82 Belotti, Storia di Bergamo, II., pp. 16-20. 83 Biblioteca del Museo Correr, Codice Dona dalle Rose, 177, p. 285, scrittura allegata ad una "informatione delta Valle di Scalve''' of 28 July 1601, which reads that "the valley has always been favored with privileges and with the free exercise of the iron trade". 78

17

XV 18

Wool, Paper and Iron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys

free [...] and exempting as well the fulling mills, foundries and mills."84 All such concessions were, perhaps, dictated by a shrewd "political plan aimed at fostering permanent jealousy between the district and the city,"85 but they also had well founded economic justifications and, in the final analysis, the safeguard of the competitiveness of the goods produced, primarily for export as we have seen. In the words of a document of 1601, admittedly concerning only Valle di Scalve, but applicable to the other valleys as well, "the rulers [...] of this state have always favored this Valley with privileges and the free export of their wares [...], because if those wares did not have freedom of export, inevitably their production would have to cease."86 This policy of concessions and fiscal exemptions was opposed repeatedly both by the city of Bergamo and by the tax farmers of Bergamo who were ill-disposed to watch so many wares pass tax-free right under their eyes. The valleys on their part knew how to defend those ancient privileges (either by legal means or, if necessary, by illegal means). An instance of tension occurred in 1643 when the Bergamo excise officers tried to collect the excise on shipments of oil, canvas and raw wool destined from the plain to Valle Seriana Superiore. A riot broke out and the officers were assaulted "by many people both on foot and on horseback while shouting, 'kill, kill, get hold of harquebuses!'" The excise officials survived by barricading themselves in a house while waiting for the mayor of Clusone, who managed to "calm down the riot," but at the same time he persuaded the excise officers that "the wares be allowed to go their way." To his superior he justified his intervention appealing to "the privileges granted to this valley by the government of Venice," and explaining that the local people would never tolerate "to see their privileges violated."87 Twenty years later a "conflict flared up between the valleys and the excise officials of Bergamo, as the latter claimed all wool must pay [the excise]." The conflict was peacefully resolved "in favor of the valleys" in the sense that "all kinds of wool, both local and imported, would not be forced to pay any excise whatsoever when entering the valleys," while exemption was denied to wool intended for the manufactures in the city of Bergamo.88 84

Da Lezze, Descri^ione di Bergamo, p. 385 mentions "the privileges of Valle Seriana and of the other valleys." 85 C. Correnti, "Indicazioni storiche e statistiche sulla provincia di Bergamo", in A^nnali universali di statistica, serie 2,1 (1844) p. 197 and pp. 168—216. 86 See "Informatione della Valle di Scalve", cited in note 82. 87 The incident is recorded in ASV, Capi del Consiglio dei X, Letfere di Rettori, Bergamo, busta 5, doc. 77 of 4 April 1643. 88 The 1662 conflict is recorded in Cinque Savi aliaMercan^ia, Basposte, registro 165, c. 368, and dated 6 June 1697.

XV Wool, Paper and Iron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys On top of the exemptions authorized by the State there were added those which the valley people managed to adopt on their own and the Venetian government could not, or would not, abrogate. An instance of this is provided by the supply of Spanish raw wool. Venetian law did not forbid its importation to the valleys, but controlled it in two ways: one consisted in setting aside the finest Spanish wool (the so-called refini) for the industry in Venice; the other consisted in requiring that all imported wool should transit through Venice.89 The first requirement apparently was not the object of dispute between Venice and the valleys, as the latter produced only "'low grade textiles' [...] and of a kind totally different from those made in Venice."90 These were textiles that did not compete with the Venetian luxury product, nor did they require the finest wool. Vigorously contested, on the other hand, was the obligation to buy Spanish wool only in Venice. According to those affected, such obligation involved, in the 16th century, a heavy burden on the cost of the raw material. On leaving Venice, such wool was hit by a heavy export tax which the Bergamasque wholesalers avoided by importing wool in contraband from the State of Milan where it arrived from Genoa or Leghorn.91 In 1626, 3,000 quintals were allegedly imported from there against the law, and the Venetian Senate, after acknowledging the practical impossibility of putting an end to contraband, chose to try the approach of reducing the excise tax: with a law of 25 July 1626 "the heavy tax was reduced from 18 to 6 ducats a bale, the excise which Spanish wool pays on leaving Venice."92 The new reduction with which the Republic of St Mark yielded to the wishes of the enterprising Bergamasque tax evaders seems to have had, at least in part, the desired result: ten years later in Venice it was generally agreed that the reduction of the excise had "resulted in reasonable quantities of wool to leave from here."93 The presence of rivers, access to raw materials, low labor costs and tax exemptions were essential factors behind the economic vitality of the Bergamasque valleys, but all of them would have been of limited use without the work of entrepreneurs capable of seizing the opportunities offered by international markets; capable also of shifting from traditional lines of 89

ASV, Senato Terra,fil^a1224, for a lengthy report from the savi alia mercan^ia attached to the decree of 26 June 1697. 90 From the document cited in note 64. 91 See B. Polese's introduction to Kela^ione dei Ikettori, p. XXII, and Danesi, "Aspetti e problemi", pp. 529—30. 92 The history of the legislation pertaining to the import of Spanish wool is sketched in Cinque Savi alia Mercan^ia, BJsposte, register 170, on 21 February 1709. The 1626 decree is in ASV, Senato Terra,fil^a253. 93 ASV, Cinque Savi alia Mercan^ia, BJsposte, register 151, on 18 November 1636.

19

XV 20

Wool, Paper andiron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys

production that had become less rewarding; capable, in short, of combining in the most productive way the factors of production. On the subject of entrepreneurship, the sources that have come to light so far are, alas, scarce and pretty scattered and the historiography is still very thin.94 Yet, that the entrepreneurial class represented a social group endowed with a keen business flair and with large financial resources is what our sources from that time reveal when they extol intellectual "subtlety and the huge capital resources" of the Bergamasques. A Venetian governor, after calling attention to the presence of many very well-to-do, pointed out at once that he was referring to "those of the district who engage in business" and contrasted them with the noblemen "who, since they did not engage in any business or trade, can be called only mediocre" in terms of money.95 In other words, in the Bergamasque society a business elite were at the top. About the rise and primacy of that elite of rich businessmen much work remains to be done by social historians, but even now one must keep in mind that two facts favored decisively the "merchant vocation of the Bergamasque district" in the sense that they were able to open new horizons and new opportunities. A pre-eminent role was certainly played by the fair of St Alexander which, since the high Middle Ages, was held every year in August at Bergamo's doors. We also know that in terms of importance in the modern age the Bergamo fair was considered among Italian fairs second in size (after the fair of Senigallia), and in third place among European fairs.96 With 210 shops in the 17th century, and over 500 in the 18th century, the Bergamo fair attracted merchants from all of Europe (Germans, Flemings and French),97 and this brought "honor and benefit to the Venetian State and income to the Bergamasque farmers, merchants and craftsmen."98 The fair, where commodities both of local production (such as woolen cloths, iron wares and silk thread) and imported production were traded, thus represented for centuries a valuable occasion for making acquaintances and for keeping in touch with the outside world and for getting to know foreign wares and markets.

94

However, one must mention the excellent essay by A. Danesi already cited in which the author summarizes the findings of his doctoral dissertation (alas, still unpublished) on the activities of the Bonduri family in Gandino. 95 Re/a^ioni dei Rettori, p. 19 5. 96 Pesenti, Vita eprogresso, p. 212. 97 E. Fornoni, Lafiera di Bergamo, (Bergamo 1903), pp. 25—30, and G. Rosa, "Dagli albori al tramonto della Fiera di Bergamo", in Rivista di Bergamo, 7, pp. 343—8. 98 C. Colleoni, Historia quadripartita di Bergamo et suo territorio (Bergamo 1617), now facsimile ed. (Bologna 1969).

XV Wool, Paper andiron: Industrial Production in the Bergamasque Valleys In the same direction and perhaps to an even greater extent another fact, mentioned at the start of this essay, was at work, namely, the massive migratory flow that characterized life in the valley In as much as such migration was temporary and seasonal, and we know that most emigrants "returned to their village bringing home with them some earnings,"99 it could not but result, in the long run, in an intense circulation of technical and commercial knowledge and, in the final analysis, a keen awareness of the opportunities for making money that were offered in distant countries where the tireless emigrants from the Bergamasque valleys went to seek their fortune.100

99 BNM, Cod. It. VII, no. 1187, c. 36t. (document of 1588). Nearly two centuries later a Venetian governor will observe that "the people of the valleys go to the State of Milan, Piedmont, Switzerland, France, the Papal States, Tuscany to earn their livelihood, and then at a certain time they come back to see their families again, bringing foreign money with which they feed them for the entire year" (Kela^ione deiRettori, p. 772). 100 At the close of this essay I wish to thank the American Philosophical Society and the University of Wisconsin—Madison for their generous support.

21

XVI

Qrisis and 'Transformation in "Venetian Trade [This is a revised version of an essay published under the title CI1 declino dell'emporio realtino' in ILa civilta venet(iana neWeta barocca, published by G. C. Sansoni (1959). The author himself prepared the translation.] The closing years of the sixteenth century found Venice prosperous and at peace. At the time, the Republic enjoyed the outward confidence of every Prince and was, one might say, in open amity with all; moreover it abounded in all the things which the fertility of the land, the industry of man, and a suitable location usually bestow on a well-regulated commonwealth . . . . Trade flowed into the city from all parts, so much so in fact . . . that she was deemed possibly greater at that time than she had ever been in days past.1 In these glowing terms did Nicolo Contarini recall his native city as she stood at the close of the sixteenth century, when peace and opulence seemed to disprove the dark omens under which the century itself had opened, and to erase the memory of the many trials with which its course had been strewn - from the icy panic which had swept Rialto as soon as its merchants had heard of a rich cargo of spices reaching Lisbon by a new route around Africa, to the humiliation of Agnadello, to the loss of Cyprus, to the plague of 15 76 with its 40,000 dead.2 1 Quoted from G. Cozzi, II doge Nicold Contarini. Ricerche sul patri^iato vene^iano agli ini%i del Seicento (Venice, 1958), pp. 311-12. 2 For this figure cf. D. Beltrami, Storia della popola^ione di Venecia da/lafinedel secolo XVI alia caduta della Kepubblica (Padua, 1954), p. 57.

XVI Crisis and Transformation in Venetian Trade 89 Venice had recovered remarkably well. By 1584, the Republic's finances, badly strained as they had been by the recent war effort, were once again on an even keel.1 Three years later, the foundation of the Banco di Rialto had restored confidence to the merchants' community, severely tried by the collapse of several private banks.2 In the 1590s, and down to 1603, anchorage-tax and customs receipts climbed to new heights,3 affording clear evidence of the resilience and enduring attraction of the old Adriatic port. The rich cargoes of spices, moreover, had returned to Venice as a result, both of Portugal's failure to keep the Atlantic route open, and of the revival of the traditional caravan routes in the Levant.4 The trade of Syria, [a Venetian consul could write from Aleppo in 15 97] can match the trade of any European city, as many nations from many divers parts bring hither a vast array of very rich commodities, spices, silk, indigo, cotton, cloth made of wool, silk and gold, and infinite other things. And he added not without pride: Of all the nations that trade in Aleppo the Venetians are greatest in sheer numbers, reputation, and the volume of their transactions; their annual trade is worth over two millions in gold.5 Beside the exotic commodities of the East Indies there came to Venice, in those years, large shipments of Mediterranean goods - cotton from Cyprus and Turkey, olive oil from Crete and Apulia, raisins from the Ionian islands, raw sugar from Egypt, wax and hides from the Balkans - and from Venice 1 U. Corti, 'La francazione del debito pubblico della Repubblica di Venezia proposta da G. F. Priuli', Nuovo Archivio Veneto (1894), pp. 331-64. 2 G. Luzzatto, 'Les banques publiques de Venise: siecles XVI-XVIII*, reprinted in Luzzatto's Studi di storia economica vene^iana (Padua, 1954). 3 Cf. F. C. Lane, 'La marine marchande et le traflc maritime de Venise a travers les siecles', in M. Mollat (ed.)> Les sources de Vhistoire maritime en Europe du Mqyen-dge au XVIIIe siecle (Paris, 1962), p. 13. 4 F. C. Lane, 'The Mediterranean Spice Trade: Further Evidence of Its Revival in the Sixteenth Century', American Historical Review (1940); also F. Braudel, Civilta e imperi del Mediterraneo neWetti. di ¥ Hippo II (Italian transl., Turin, 1953), pp. 568-80 and 593-602. 5 G. Berchet, Le rsla^joni dei consoli veneti nella Siria (Turin, 1896), pp. 79-80.

XVI

9° most of these were re-exported to the Italian mainland and, to an even greater extent, to Germany. At the close of the century Venice was more than a great trade centre linking the economies of Europe and Asia: she was also one of the leading manufacturing centres of the Italian peninsula and her range of industries included glassmaking, printing, sugar and wax refining, the silk and woollen industries. At the time, there were some 2,000 silk looms in the city, while the woollen industry could boast an average annual output of over 25,000 pieces of high quality cloth. And, of course, the two great textile industries fed a large export trade both to the Levant and to Europe.1 II All the prosperity Venice unquestionably enjoyed at the close of the sixteenth century could not, however, conceal the fact that the base on which it rested was somewhat narrower than in the past and that, accordingly, her economy had become more vulnerable. For one thing, in the course of the century, Venice had lost two of her previous customers, namely France and England, and her economic hinterland was thus basically reduced to northern Italy and Germany. For another, from the 15 70s onward, a growing proportion of the seaborne trade flowing into and out of the Lagoon came to be handled by foreign rather than by Venetian ships. The earliest loss had been that of the French customer. As early as 1468 the problem had been raised in France of "preventing the Venetians from selling spices in France'; 2 the first effective step to by-pass the traditional middleman, however, was not taken until 1536, when a commercial treaty between Francis I and Suleiman had won admission for French ships 1 On Venetian manufactures cf. H. Kretschmayr, Geschhhte von Venedig, Vol. Ill (Gotha, 1934), p. 168 ff.; G. Luzzatto, *La decadenza di Venezia dopo le scoperte geografiche nella tradizione e nella realta', Archivio Veneto (1954), p p . 175-80; Braudel, op. cit., pp. 457-58; A. Gasparetto, II vetro di Murano dalle origini ad oggi (Venice, 1958); and D. Sella, Commerci e Industrie a Venecia nel secolo XVII (Venice-Rome, 1961). 2 Cf. P. Masson, Histoire dit commerce franfais dans le "Levant au XVIIe siecle (Paris, 1896), p. xi.

XVI Crisis and Transformation in Venetian Trade 91 and merchants into the Turkish ports. 1 By the 1560s, if not earlier, emancipation was completed: 'in the past,' according to a French source of the time, 'we were forced to secure our spices, drugs, hides, and cotton from Venice . . .; but at present the realm is wholly supplied through Marseilles.'2 By the time France had developed an adequate commercial and shipping organization to handle her own imports from the Levant, England was ready to follow suit and to dispense with Venetian services. Her decision to do so was prompted by the disruption of normal trade connexions with the Mediterranean world. On the one hand, as a result of the War of Cyprus (1570-3), Venetian commercial activity was temporarily crippled; on the other, following the sack of Antwerp in 1576, the overland route between the North Sea and the Adriatic was blocked. Thereupon the English sailed south, and made straight for the eastern Mediterranean to fetch raisins, wine, and spices, and to sell such traditional English exports as cheap kerseys, hides, and tin.3 These turned out to be more than emergency sailings. From 1575 onwards, steps were taken to make the southern trades a permanent field of operation for English ships and merchants: a royal privilege of 1575 gave the Earl of Leicester a monopoly over all imports of wine and raisins, with the result that from that moment 'Venetian merchants had to give up that kind of trade almost entirely.'4 In 15 81, the Turkey Company was founded, and was granted full control over trade in the eastern Mediterranean; two years later, the Leicester patent was transferred to the newly founded Venice Company; and, in 1592, the two companies merged to form the Levant Company, into whose lap fell all trade with the Ionian islands and the Turkish ports.5 Despite the loss of the French and English markets, Venice 1 J. Billioud, Histoire du commerce de Marseille: de IJIJ a ijpp (Paris, 1951), p. 193. 2 Ibid., p. 196. 3 Cf. R. Davis, 'Influences de FAngleterre sur le declin de Venise au XVIIe

siecle*, in Aspetti

e cause del la decaden^a economica vene^tana nel secolo XVII

(Venice-

Rome, 1961), pp. 196-8. 4 A.S.V., S. Mr., busta 836b, 15 November 1587. 5 E. Lipson, The Economic History of England, Vol. II (London 1931), pp. 337 and 338.

XVI 92 could and did thrive in the late sixteenth century as a commercial centre. She could still hold a commanding position in the Levant, because she still catered for the needs of two rich and populous areas in Europe - northern Italy, and, more importantly, the German states. The latter probably formed the largest market for spices at the time; 1 they certainly were the largest importers of raw cotton, as the cities of Ulm and Nuremberg still held first place in Europe as homes of the fustian industry. Cologne, Frankfurt, and Nuremberg, moreover, absorbed from Venice vast quantities of Persian silk to feed their growing manufactures.2 As long as trade with Germany was brisk and expanding (and the receipts from the tax levied in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi in the 15 90s show that it was expanding), Venice could bask in the sun of prosperity, and could ignore the fact that her future depended to an increasing and dangerous degree on that of her German neighbours. It also came, more and more, to depend on foreign transport services. That dependence is clearly borne out by the contrasting trends in Venetian trade on the one hand and Venetian shipping on the other: while the former was on the upgrade till the end of the century, the size of the merchant marine flying the banner of St Mark was shrinking; in fact, it was roughly halved between 1560 and 1600.3 The decline of Venetian shipping can be ascribed partly to the tendency, fairly general in the Mediterranean world in the late sixteenth century, confronted as it was by a recrudescence of piracy, to rely more heavily on land transportation.4 In the 15 80s, for instance, a good deal of Spanish wool was imported 1 Cf. H. Kellenbenz, 'Autour de 1600: le commerce du poivre des Fugger et le marche international du poivre', A.nnales: Economiesy Societes, Civilisations (1956), pp. 2-8. 2 H. Kellenbenz, 'Le declin de Venise et les relations economiques de Venise avec les marches au nord des Alpes' (especially sections II and V), A.spetti e cause della decaden^a economica vene%ianay nel Secolo XVII (Venice-Rome, 1961); also, Sella, op. cit., p. 11. 3 Cf. F. C. Lane, Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders of the Renaissance (Baltimore, 1934), pp. 239, 261, for data on the size of the Venetian merchant marine in 1558; and Sella, op. cit., p. 105 for its size in 1600. For anchorage-tax receipts cf. Lane, *La marine marchande', op. cit., p. 13. 4 Braudel, op. cit., pp. 328-34.

XVI Crisis and Transformation in Venetian Trade 93 to Venice from Leghorn overland across the Apennine range, rather than directly from Spain by ship; 1 and in 1590 a new and successful commercial route was opened, that linked Spalato on the Dalmatian coast to Constantinople, thus avoiding the dangerous waters of the Greek archipelago.2 Basically, however, the decline of the Venetian commercial fleet reflected the fact that a growing proportion of the seaborne trade to and from Venice was being handled by foreign ships. 'Our own merchants/ a nervous official reported from Syria in 1596, 'lade their goods in English vessels';3 and six years later the Venetian Board of Trade summed up the alarming trend in these words: Foreigners and strangers from remote countries have become masters of all the shipping; the English in particular, after driving our men from the westward voyage, at present sail the Levantine waters, voyage to the islands and harbours in our own dominion . . . and have even secured permission to lade in this very city goods bound for the Levant.4 Northern ships were preferred, according to our sources, for two main reasons: they were 'faster and safer' than those owned and manned by Venetian subjects.5 The precise features responsible for their superior performance are not entirely clear and need not be discussed here.6 Suffice to say that there is considerable evidence to the effect that northern ships (English, but also Dutch) scored higher than those of Venice in design, armament, and seaworthiness, and that northern seamen proved more capable and efficient than their Mediterranean counterparts. The upshot was that, by the late sixteenth century, the very life and mounting prosperity of the Venetian harbour had come to depend to a large extent on the shipping services supplied by the recent intruders from the North. 1

Sella, op. cit., p. 16. Braudel, op. cit., pp. 331-3. 3 Berchet, op. cit., p. 87; see also A. Tenenti, Naufrages, Corsaires et Assurances maritimes a Venise, IJ92-1609 (Paris, 1959), p. 16. 4 A.S.V., S. Mr., reg. 141, 15 July 1602. 5 Ibid. 6 Cf. Sella, op. cit., pp. 17-21. 2

XVI 94 III The tide of commercial prosperity receded abruptly after the year 1602. For the next decade or so, the Venetian emporium was prey to a severe depression, and to one whose magnitude and sweep are abundantly illustrated by the plummeting figures for customs and anchorage-tax receipts, for raw silk and cotton imports, and for textile production, as well as by a landslide of bankruptcies involving some of cthe largest and most reputable firms', whose downfall, we are told, 'caused enormous damage to their creditors'.1 This sudden downturn basically reflected the diversion of much of the trade that had been flowing to and from Germany through the Venetian funnel, and its re-routing towards other ports. Commenting on the alarming drop in the customs receipts in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, a Venetian official wrote in 1608:

it is caused by the Flemings, the English, and the French, who now sail to the Levant to purchase silk, spices, cotton, and other commodities which they bring to Marseilles, Flanders and England, and from there to the Frankfurt fairs and other German localities.2 The primary reason for Venice being largely and suddenly cut off from the mainstream of trade between Central Europe and the Levant must, in turn, be sought in a drastic measure passed by the Venetian Senate late in 1602. In that year it was decided to revive the old legislation protecting Venetian shipping, and to reverse the recent policy of 'cajoling and showering favours on foreigners so that they would sail to Venice'.3 The new ruling stated that ships owned and manned by Venetian subjects were to have priority over foreign ships in lading merchandise in Venice; it further provided that, 1 A.S.V., S. Mr. reg. 142, 21 April 1610. Figures for customs receipts in 1609, showing a drop of over 30 per cent as compared to the late 1590s, are found in a Cronica by Girolamo Priuli preserved in the Vienna National Library, Cod. 6229. I am indebted to Professor G. Cozzi for this information. On other aspects of the recession cf. Sella, op. cit., p. 24. 2 A.S.V., Arte della Seta, busta 109/203, 8 August 1608. 3 The words are from Contarini's Historie as edited by Cozzi, op. cit., p. 363.

XVI Crisis and Transformation in Venetian Trade 95 normally, goods bound for Venice must be carried either in Venetian ships, or in ships belonging to the country where the goods originated or were first shipped - a blow clearly aimed at the Northerners who, in recent years, had handled so much of the trade between the Levant and Venice.1 This drastic 'navigation act' obviously reflected the restlessness of local shipowners in the face of growing foreign competition; it also reflected the government's understandable concern over the decay of the commercial fleet - a decay which, in an age when merchantmen could easily be adapted to war use directly affected the Republic's position as a naval power. But, understandable though it may have been, the new policy of discriminating against foreign ships had disastrous effects. It deprived Venice at once of the shipping services that had contributed so much to her commercial prosperity in the late sixteenth century. It forced English and Dutch shipmasters to look for more hospitable ports such as Leghorn and Goro: they could re-lade in Venice for an eastbound voyage only if no Venetian ship was on hand at a given time. Ultimately, as the contraction in anchorage-tax receipts after 1604 clearly shows,2 the new policy resulted in a considerable slowing-down of seaborne traffic in the Lagoon. As Professor Lane has aptly put it, 'instead of sacrificing its merchant marine in order to keep its position as a trade centre, Venice decided on a policy which sacrificed some trade in an effort to maintain its merchant marine.'3 The new protectionist policy did not go unchallenged. In 1604, for instance, the English ambassador in Venice asked the Republic to lift the ban of 1602 on foreign ships, only to meet a blunt refusal: were Englishmen permitted freely to sail their own ships 'to the Levant as well as to the West,' the Venetian Board of Trade candidly admitted, 'there is not the slightest 1 The 1602 statute is reprinted in G. Stefani, L,£ assicura^ioni a Venecia dalle origini alia fine delta Serenissima (Trieste, 1956), Vol. II, p. 367. The gist of the statute is clearly expressed by the formula 'Ponentini per Ponente et Levantini per Levante.' 2 Lane, *La marine marchande', op. cit., p. 14. 8 Lane, 'Recent Studies on the Economic History of Venice', Journal of Economic History (September 1963), p. 330.

XVI 96

doubt that this would greatly benefit them, but would irreparably damage the navigation, the seamen, and the ships of our city.'1 Six years later, at the trough of the depression, a fresh attempt to secure a more liberal policy was made by a group of foreign (largely Dutch) merchants and shipmasters, who argued that were they to be re-admitted to the eastbound voyages down the Adriatic sea . . . they would undoubtedly divert the traffic from rival ports, and trade would flourish once again in this city, which is the most conveniently located emporium in the world.2 Despite the spirited support of a considerable fraction of the Venetian Senate anxious to salvage the cosmopolitan character of the city, this second petition, too, proved unsuccessful: the requested "freedom to sail to the Levant' was refused on the ground that cwere it granted, everyone would lade in foreign vessels rather than in ours, as the former make the voyage more successfully.'3 IV Serious though the repercussions of the new protectionist policy may have been, the damage done to Venice's position as a world trade centre need not have been irreparable. In the first decade of the century, there was, in fact, a moderate increase in the number of Venetian-owned merchantmen, a fact suggesting a positive, if limited, response to the protection newly afforded by the law.4 Besides, the law itself did not ban foreign ships altogether, even from the routes connecting Venice to the Levant, but admitted them whenever no Venetian ship was ready to sail - and this was no rare occurrence.5 1 A.S.V., S. Mr., reg. 141, 9 December 1604. The English ambassador's request is in British Museum, Cotton MSS,y Nero B VII, p. 179, 'The points proposed by Sir Henry Wootton at Venice anno 1604.' 2 A.S.V., Senato, Mar,fil^a 187, sub 6 August 1610. 3 On the political aspects of the 1610 debate cf. Cozzi, op. cit., pp. 139-46. 4 Sella, op cit., p. 36. 5 Ibid., p. 40, n. 4.

XVI Crisis and Transformation in Venetian Trade 97 But other and more serious troubles were in store for the old Adriatic city, and they were such as to cripple its economy for half a century. First on the list was the definitive loss of the spice trade, or rather of such share of the trade as was still in Venetian hands. The loss itself was the consequence of the reopening of the Cape route in 1595 at the hands of Cornelis Houtman. As soon as the Dutch exploit became known, it was easy to predict that the old Levant routes would soon be doomed. As early as 1599, an English merchant in Aleppo could write of 'the utter overthrow of this trade' as of an impending and unavoidable event; 1 and his pessimism was echoed by that of the Venetian consul who, for his part, wrote to his superiors that 'it is commonly believed that merchants will soon be forced to give up business here (in Aleppo) on account of the many Dutch vessels that have gone to India/ 2 How soon this actually happened is hard to tell with any degree of precision: around 1610 Venetian sources already speak of the decay of the old spice trade through the Levant as well as of the purchase of those exotic condiments in Holland and England,3 although in subsequent years an occasional cargo of spices reached Venice from either Syria or Egypt.4 At any rate, by 1625 Venetian authorities must have considered the shift from the Levant to the Atlantic route as an irrevocable fact, for in that year, for customs purposes, they officially reclassified spices as 'western commodities'.5 A second source of trouble, and a far more serious one, lay in Germany, traditionally the largest outlet for Venetian exports and re-exports. As a result of the Thirty Years' War, her economy was crippled, her once flourishing commercial and manufacturing centres were laid to waste or badly damaged, 1 P. R. Harris, The Letter-Book of William Clarke, Merchant in Aleppo (1J981602), M. A. Thesis, London University (1953), p. 227. 2 Berchet, op. cit., p. 103. 3 A.S.V., Senatoy dispacci Inghilterra, 14 July 1611. 4 A.S.V,, Senato, dispacci consoli Egitto, 24 April 1627; the consul's report speaks of *the remarkable abundance of all kinds of spices and drugs coming hither from the Indies'. 5 Luzzatto, 'La decadenza di Venezia5, op. cit. p. 174.

XVI 98

and her foreign trade dwindled to a fraction of what it had been in the past.1 Trouble at one end of the Venetian commercial network was compounded by trouble at the other, as soon as the Republic became involved in the long Cretan war (1645-69) against the Ottoman Empire. The direct cost of the war was no doubt very high, as Venice, in a valiant but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to retain possession of the island of Crete, had to shift resources from trade, manufacturing, and private consumption into the war effort. We find an echo of this in an anonymous 'report on the City and Republic of Venice' written in the early 1670s: to meet the great needs of the recent war, [we are told] the Republic has increased customs and excise rates, tithes and every ordinary tax; the guilds have been more heavily assessed, public offices, communal lands, and church lands have been sold off. . . and admission to the aristocracy has been granted to anyone willing to pay 100,000 ducats. . . . This way commercial activity was much disrupted, because a great deal of money formerly employed in trade has been diverted into the purchase of noble status and the City has been greatly damaged thereby, the trade of merchandise being, as is well known, the very soul of the commonwealth.2 The long and bitter struggle, moreover, entailed no doubt an indirect, less tangible, but no less heavy cost, represented by Venice's rivals — English, Dutch, and French - consolidating their commercial position in the Turkish ports at the expense of the Venetians. In view of all this, it is hardly surprising that from the 1620s to the 1660s traffic in the Venetian harbour was at a low ebb, that the city's manufactures suffered badly, and that the Venetian merchant marine was further reduced in size.3 If 1 Kellenbenz, 'Le declin de Venise', op. cit. p. 160 and passim, 2 British Museum, Add. 10,1jo, 'Relazione della Citta e Repubblica di Venezia', p. 86. 3 In 1675, 68,019 bales (1 bale =120 kilograms) of merchandise entered the harbour as against 94,973 in 1610 (cf. Biblioteca Marciana, Venice, Cod. It. IJ$I, p. 55). On the depression of the woollen and silk industries, and of the merchant marine, cf. Sella, op. cit., pp. 107, 118, 126-30.

XVI Crisis and Transformation in Venetian Trade 99 Venice was not wholly paralysed as a trade centre, this was because the populous city itself still required large imports of foodstuffs and manufactured goods for civilian consumption as well as for military use, and because it continued to serve as entrepot for the mainland. Even this more modest, limited role, however, could easily have been lost. With the German and Levant trades reduced to a mere trickle, Venice was clearly in danger of finding herself in a dead corner. Western ships would hardly go to the trouble of sailing up the whole length of the Adriatic Sea to deliver their goods, but would rather call at either Genoa or Leghorn, both of which were only a few hundred miles from the Venetian mainland and from Venice herself. This very real danger was partly avoided, however, by an ingenious measure passed in 1626, introducing a new, heavy export duty on raisins from the Venetian-ruled Ionian islands but exempting from it such foreign ships as would first call at Venice fully laden. The measure itself was explicitly aimed at 'attracting trade away from Leghorn and Genoa',1 and it proved a success. In 1630, Venetian authorities expressed satisfaction that in the past four years some forty-five merchantmen from England and Holland had cast anchor in the Lagoon.2 Two years later, the Venetian Board of Trade could claim that the 1626 tariff policy chas yielded good results, as trade with the West has improved . . . and western ships do come in numbers to our harbour.' 3 They continued to do so: in 1646-7, according to Dutch sources,4 Venice absorbed onefifth of all the goods (mainly spices, textiles, naval stores, and gunpowder) shipped from Holland to the Mediterranean, and ranked third, among Mediterranean ports, after Leghorn and Genoa. By earlier standards this may not have been a cause of rejoicing, but in the troubled years of the mid-seventeenth century it revealed the enduring, if reduced, vitality of the old harbour. 1

A.S.V., Senato, Mar^fi/^a 289, memorandum of 7 February 1633 m.v. A.S.V., S. Mr. reg. 148, 18 July 1630. 3 A.S.V., Sena/o, Terra,fil%a391, 12 November 1636. 4 H. Waetjen, Die Niederlaender im Mittelmeerbegeit %ur Zeit ihrer hoechsten Machstellmg (Berlin, 1909), p. 355. 2

XVI ioo

V The end of the Cretan war in 1669 marked the end of the long commercial crisis, and the beginning of a period of slow recovery for Venice. Between 1670 and 1702 the receipts from the anchorage-tax (duly adjusted to allow for changes in rates) show an increase of about 70 per cent.1 A roughly similar upswing is revealed by the fewfigureswe possess on the amount of goods entering the harbour: 68,000 bales in 1675, 83,000 five years later, 110,000 in 1725.2 A definite improvement is also noticeable in the size of the Venetian commercial fleet, compared with what it had been in the lean years after the outbreak of the great German war.3 The undeniable, if slow, recovery in the late seventeenth century reflected only in part a return to the situation obtaining at the close of the previous century. No doubt, as Professor Kellenbenz has convincingly argued, trade with Germany was definitely on the upgrade in the later part of the seventeenth century, as political and economic conditions beyond the Alps were slowly returning to normal after the devastations of the Thirty Years' War.4 It is no less certain that, after 1669, every effort was made to reactivate normal trade connexions with the Ottoman Empire. As early as 1670, an English observer noticed that cthe Turks begin to come thither (Venice) in some numbers, and the state treats them with all kindnesses';5 and in 1685 a French source acknowledged the clear supremacy of Venetian over other Western merchants in Constantinople.6 Lastly, mention must be made of the recovery of some traditional industries in Venice such as silk, sugar refining, and glassmaking.7 1

Lane, 'La marine marchande', op. cit., p. 14. The figures for 1675 and 1725 are from Biblioteca Marciana, Venice, Cod. It. IJ$I, pp. 55 and 57; that for 1680 is from A.S.V., Senato, Mar>fil%a 649, 24 November 1683. 3 Sella, op. cit., p. 108. 4 Kellenbenz, *Le declin de Venise5, op. cit., p. 164. 5 Public Record Office, HMC Reports JJ, 'Viscount Faucomberg's Report to the King upon his mission to Italy', p. 221 (microfilm in the Istituto per la Storia della Societa e dello Stato veneziano, Venice). 6 F. Braudel et al.y 'Le declin de Venise au XVIIe siecle', in Aspetti e cause della decaden^a economica vene%iana> (Venice-Rome, 1961), p. 60. 7 Cf. Sella, op. cit., pp. 55 and 83. 2

XVI Crisis and Transformation in Venetian Trade 101 On the other hand, a number of activities which in the past had meant so much to Venice were, by the late seventeenth century, irrevocably doomed or vanishing. The spice trade, of course, had long ceased to be Venice's jealous possession; what spices still came to Venice for local consumption were all imported from Holland and England. Nor did Venice regain control of the Levant trade, with the exception of the Ionian islands (over which she ruled), and of Constantinople, where her luxury manufactures (and notably her elaborate fabrics woven of silk and gold thread) were much in demand.1 Elsewhere, the attempt to turn the clock back to the pre-war situation failed completely. In 1675 and 1677 respectively, the government decided to suppress the recently re-established consulates in Aleppo and Alexandria 'in view of the lack of business there'; 2 and in Smyrna, the great emporium for Turkish cotton, Venetian operators retained but a negligible position, compared with the English and the Dutch.3 Another irreparable loss was that of the woollen industry: in the last three decades of the century, annual output dipped from 5,000 to 2,000 cloths - a far cry from the 25,000 cloths a year produced at the close of the previous century.4 If, despite those losses, Venice did witness a commercial revival in the closing decades of the seventeenth century and beyond, this was because she increasingly found her raison d'etre as the regional port catering to the expanding needs of her own hinterland in the Po Valley. Servicing the mainland dominions was, of course, no novelty; what was new was the economic expansion taking place on the mainland. The story of that expansion is no doubt still imperfectly known, for historians have devoted far more attention to the rise and fall of Venice as a world market than to the more prosaic agricultural 1 The fact is attested by Saint-Didier, La ville et la republique de Venise (4th ed., The Hague, 1685), p. 81; C. Magni, Quanto di piit curioso e vago ho potuto raccorre per la Turchia (Parma, 1679), p. 54; and J. Savary de Bruslons, Le Parfait Negotiant, Vol. I, p. 412. 2 G. Berchet, La Kepubblica di Venecia e la Persia (Turin, 1865), pp. 83 and 86. 3 Braudel et al, art. cit., pp. 60 and 61. 4 Sella, 'Les mouvements longs de Pindustrie lainiere a Venise aux XVIe et XVIIe siecles', Annales (1957), p. 31.

XVI IO2

and industrial record of Venetia. Yet such glimpses as we catch of the economy of the Terraferma leave no doubt as to the direction of events. We have, for instance, a fairly detailed and complete list of the commodities entering the harbour of Venice in 1680.1 The grand total is 84,790 bales; of these over 11,000 represent: raw wool (7,390 bales), alum (2,148 bales), and various dyes (1,819 bales) which, in the main, were not intended for the declining Venetian cloth industry, but rather for the rising manufactures of the mainland. From an independent source we learn that in 1686 the combined annual output of the woollen industry in the areas of Padua, Treviso, and Bergamo stood at nearly 50,000 cloths and that it was expanding.2 We know, moreover, that in the 1680s paper loomed large, after silks, in Venetian exports to Constantinople3 as well as to England.4 As for its origin, we must look again at the Venetian mainland possessions, where as many as seventy-seven paper mills were found in operation early in the eighteenth century.5 Evidence of progress is more abundant and more impressive in the case of the silk industry: traditionally a large producer of raw silk, the Terraferma developed, in the course of the seventeenth century, into a major producer of high grade organzine by adopting the water-driven silk mill after Bologna's model. The first mill was built near Padua in 1604; its diffusion was slow until the 1640s, but by 1670 the Venetian mainland could boast an annual output of about 180,000 lbs. of organzine, while in the mid-eighteenth century 160 silk mills turned out twice that amount.6 Nor was progress confined to the making of organzine: in Vicenza the number of silk looms increased from 1

A.S.V., Senato Maryfil^a 649, 24 November 1683. A.S.V., Provveditori di Cotnun, busta 7, 26 March 1687. 3 Braudel et a/., art. cit., p. 69. 4 E. Headwood, 'Papers used in England after 1600', The Library (1931), p. 490; also A.S.V., S. Mr. n.s., busta 197/5, 5 July 1679, where paper is mentioned among the commodities normally laden in outgoing English ships. 5 Monumenta Chartae Papyraceae Historiam Ilhtstrantia, Vol. IV (Hilversum, 1955), p. 207, n. 17. 6 D. Sella, 'Contribute alia storia delle fonti di energia: i filatoi idraulici nella Valle Padana durante il secolo XVIF, in Studi in onore di Amintore Fanfatti, Vol. V (Milan, 1962), pp. 621-3. 2

XVI Crisis and Transformation in Venetian Trade 103 107 in 1675 to about 500 in 1712,1 and Bergamo seems to have been a not negligible centre of the silk industry in the later part of the century.2 Lastly, one should recall the growing exports of rice from Venetia, and notably from the Verona district and the Polesine, where its cultivation had been spreading since the late sixteenth century.3 From the 1640s, if not earlier, rice was a regular item in Dutch ships sailing out of the Lagoon after delivering spices, cured fish, and naval stores.4 Early in the eighteenth century, Ricard, in his well-informed trade handbook, placed rice at the top of the list of commodities to be found in Venice;5 and another source claimed that 'rice draws from remote countries considerable amounts of treasure to the Venetian State'.6 No less important was the fact that rice provided Dutch and English merchantmen with a convenient bulk cargo on their homeward voyage, and thus helped to make the long detour up the Adriatic sea worth while. Other things helped too, and they were the making of Venetian merchants and shipmasters. In the late seventeenth century, northern ships calling at Venice could find on her dockyards a variety of bulk commodities to lade, olive oil from Apulia, sulphur from the Marche, raisins from the Ionian islands, all of which were brought to Venice by local carriers plying the Adriatic and Ionian waters, and were temporarily stored there waiting for reshipment.7 By this means, northern 1 The figure for 1675 is in A.S.V., Senato, Terra, fil^a 918, 7 November 1675; that for 1712 in L. Brenni, La tessitura serica attraverso i secoli (Como, 1925), p. 119. 2 According to the document of 1675 referred to in the preceding note, Bergamo had at the time 295 silk looms; in 1680 the silk industry there was reported as expanding and employing 'several thousand people' (A.S.V., Collegio, rela^ioni, busta 36). 3 M. Lecce, La cultura del riso in Territorio Veronese (Verona, 1958), pp. 8 ff. 4 A.S.V., S. Mr., reg. 143, 13 May 1626: rice is mentioned among the commodities for which Dutch and English merchants sought a reduction of export duties. For shipments of rice to Holland in 1646-7 cf. Waetjen, op. cit., p. 225. 5 J. P. Ricard, Le Negoce d*Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1723), p. 550. 6 Lecce, op. cit., pp. 37 and 40. 7 In the late 1640s olive oil, sulphur, and raisins carried to Holland by Dutch ships were listed as coming from Venice (Waetjen, op. cit., p. 236). For shipments of olive oil from Venice to 'Flanders, Holland, Hamburg and England' cf. A.S.V., S. Mr., reg. 157, 12 and 18 May, 1 and 14 June 1672. Dutch

XVI 104

ships were spared the time-consuming trouble of making several calls at minor ports on their homeward voyage; and it was no doubt this kind of short-range transport activity, feeding into the larger stream of Dutch and English navigation, that largely accounted for the growth of the Venetian merchant marine in the last decades of the seventeenth century. VI Years ago, Professor Luzzatto, in outlining the history of the port of Venice from the Middle Ages to the present day, suggested that in the second half of the eighteenth century its trade was not greatly inferior in value to what it had been three centuries before, when the city of St Mark had stood at the zenith of her glory as a world market. The difference between the two epochs, he argued, lay less in the quantity or value of the commodities cleared in the harbour than in the radically altered role and relative position of Venice in the eighteenth century. Her role had by then become basically regional and her position an insignificant one, compared with the great international ports of a more recent vintage, such as Amsterdam, London, and Marseilles.1 In this long view of things it looks as if, ultimately, Venice had stood still in an expanding world; she had indeed survived, but had failed to grow. The preceding pages basically confirm Luzzatto's view of the history of the Venetian emporium - a history of continuity, but also of change. By concentrating on the dramatic period during which Venice was irrevocably unseated from her traditional position of supremacy, suffered heavy losses, and then began her slow and partial recovery, the present essay has tried to ships loading sulphur in Venice before sailing home, ibid., 12 September 1674. Those commodities were fetched by small Venetian craft known as marciliane especially built for the shallow waters of the Adriatic coast (ibid., reg. 165, 1 April 1697). 1 G. Luzzatto, *Le vicende del porto dei Venezia dal primo Medio Evo allo scoppio della guerra 1914-1918', in Luzzatto's Studi di storia economica vene^iana (Padua, 1954), pp. 17-20.

XVI Crisis and Transformation in Venetian Trade 105 cast light on the forces of change as well as on the process of adaptation which made survival possible. Change, as will be recalled, was forced on Venice by the final diversion of the spice trade, by the emergence of new and formidable competitors from the north, and by the declining importance of the trade current running from the Levant into Germany. Adaptation, on the other hand, was mainly induced by economic progress in the Venetian mainland possessions, but also by the rise on the North Sea shores of new economic giants, which offered an outlet for the produce of the Venetian mainland, as well as for Venice's luxury handicrafts and shortrange shipping services. What ultimately saved Venice from slow economic extinction was her ability to seize the new, if limited, opportunities which those new developments tendered to her: to serve, that is, as a link between her own mainland and northern Europe. The changing geography of her maritime trade clearly reflects her new role. In the past, its strongest branch had been the one stretching towards the Levant. In 1680, nearly half the harbour's traffic was with the West.1 In the first half of the eighteenth century, when an average of thirty English and of fifteen Dutch merchantmen called at Venice every year, Western trade was reported as being decidedly larger than that with the Levant,2 and the commodities involved primarily came from, or were destined for the Terraferma.3 1 A.S.V., Senate Mar, fil^a 649, 24 November 1683, out of a total of 83,590 incoming bales, 39,400 were 'from the West'. 2 J. Savary de Bruslons, Dictionnaire UniverseI de Commerce, Vol. IV (6th ed., Geneva, 1750), col. 508. 3 Luzzatto, art. cit., p. 20.

XVII

The Rise and fall of the Venetian Woollen Industry [This is a revised version of an article published under the title 'Les mouvements longs de Pindustrie lainiere a Venise', in Annales: Economies, Societe's, Civilisations, Vol. XII (1957).

Some of the earlier conclusions have been considerably modified in the light of new evidence. The author himself prepared the translation.]

Throughout the sixteenth century Venice remained one of the leading economic centres of the Italian peninsula, and indeed of all Western Europe. Difficulties and even partial losses no doubt there were. Early in the century, the rich spice trade had slipped from Venetian hands, and for over fifty years was to bring prosperity to Atlantic rather than to Mediterranean merchants and seamen. In the 1530s France, traditionally an important customer of Eastern commodities supplied from Venice, began to build her own commercial and shipping organization with the avowed aim of by-passing the Venetian middleman; and in the 1570s England followed suit. In 1571 the handsome colonial possession of Cyprus was lost to the Turks, and in the last quarter of the century the commercial fleet flying the banner of St Mark lost ground before the competition of English and Dutch merchantmen, on whose services Venetian traders themselves became increasingly dependent. And yet, in spite of these setbacks, the economic record as a whole was still impressive. Venice retained control of trade between the eastern Mediterranean and Germany, the largest market for Turkish cotton, Persian silk, and a variety of Mediterranean goods. Again, in the second half of the six-

XVII The Rise and Fall of the Venetian Woollen Industry 107 teenth century, spices, which had seemed irretrievably lost after the opening of the Cape route, began toflowagain through the caravan routes of the Levant, at whose terminal points of Cairo and Aleppo they were purchased by Venetian merchants. Moreover, the ancient reputation of Venetian luxury industries - silks, glassware, mosaics, leatherwork - remained unblemished, while Venice acquired a commanding position in newer fields such as printing and sugar-refining. Lastly, in the course of the sixteenth century, cloth-making was added to the city's range of industries, and the new addition, as will be seen, was an impressive one indeed: starting nearly from scratch, Venice was about to turn out, by the later part of the century, over 25,000 pieces of high quality woollen cloth a year, thus ranking among the largest single textile centres in Europe. Venice's economic prosperity, however, came to an abrupt end at the threshold of the seventeenth century: from about 1603, and more rapidly after 1620, the city was swept by a prolonged, disastrous crisis which affected both commerce and industry, with the woollen industry as one of the chief casualties in the debacle. Only after about 1670 were signs of recovery to be seen in the city of the Doges, as shipping, commercial activity, silk-making, sugar-refining, and a number of luxury handicrafts entered a period of unmistakable, if slow, revival. The one conspicuous exception was cloth-making: the industry that had done so much to strengthen the Venetian economy in the previous century failed to share in the general improvement of the late seventeenth century. Even after 1670, its output continued to shrink, until, by the close of the century, it had sunk back to the negligible level of two hundred years before.1 It is this remarkable and intriguing story of the rise and fall of a great industry that the present essay will attempt to sketch. 1 Cf. G. Luzzatto, 'La decadenza di Venezia dopo le scoperte geografiche nella tradizione e nella realta', Archivio Veneto (1954), pp. 162-81; further evidence in D. Sella, Comment e Industrie a Venecia nel secoio X]/II (Venice-Rome, 1961).

XVII 108

Crisis and Change in the Venetian Economy

II The course of the Venetian woollen industry in the sixteenth century has been known for some years, thanks to a precious document published by P. Sardella.1 We are now in a position

£

£

2

R K

NUMBER OF CLOTHS PRODUCED IN VENICE, 1516-1713

to trace its path for another century, on the basis of new evidence found in the Venetian State Archives.2 The broad picture is simple enough: the annual output of cloth in Venice 1 P. Sardella, 'L'epanouissement industriel de Venise au XVIe siecle', Annales (1947), p. 196. See also F. Braudel, Civiltd e imperi del Mediferraneo neWetci di Fitippo II (Italian transl., Turin, 1953), p. 458. 2 A.S.V., Inquisitorato alle Arti, busta 45: this is a printed document giving, year by year (from 1516 to 1712), the number of cloths brought to the Camera del Purgo to be washed, finished, and marked with the official seal. The same figures (but only as far as 1667) are in a manuscript document in A.S.V., Senato Rettori, ftI\a 72, sub 4 January 1669.

XVII The Rise and Fall of the Venetian Woollen Industry 109 soared from a paltry 2,000 pieces in the second decade of the sixteenth century to a peak of 28,729 pieces in 1602. Thereafter, the trend was reversed: with striking symmetry output tumbled, until by the opening of the eighteenth century it had returned to roughly the level of 2,000 cloths where it had stood two hundred years before. 1516-1713 Number of Cloths Produced in Venice, 1516 1517 1518 1519 1520 1521 1522 1523 1524 1525 1526 1527

1,310 2,182 2,150 2,802 3*639 4,701 3*376 4,413 4,389 1,990 3,444 4,967

1528 1529 1530

4,352 4,141

1531 1532 1533 1534

4,537 6,336 6,134 5,088

1535 1536

5,366 4,103

1537 1538

4,111

6,065

1539 1540

4,7X I 5,467 7,000

1541 1542

7,772 6,650

1543 1544

6,648

1545 1546 1547 1548 1549 1550 I55 1 1552

9,158 9,229 8,340 9,142 11,465 10,223 11,558 11,289 9»839 9,811

1556 1557 1558

14,603 16,489 17,399 14,613

1596 1597 1598

1559 1560 1561 1562 1563 1564 1565 1566 1567 1568

i4,53 2 16,626 20,335 16,107 19,360 20,066

1603 1604 1605

21,988

1606 1607 1608

20,833 18,778 23,318

1569 1570

26,541 9,492

1609 1610

157* 1572

12,181 14,896

1611 1612

1573 1574 1575 1576

13,686 21,296 25,501

1613 1614 1615 1616 1617

18,318 17,129 16,079 16,193 21,740 21,914

1577 1578 1579 1580 1581 1582 1583

17,569 14,151 14,736

10,183 13,861 2i,734 23,678 21,387 19,386 18,625 18,505

1584 1585 1586 1587 1588

20,577 21,450

1589 1590 1591 1592

19,183 20,607

23,94i 18,294 21,413

1553 1554

",974

1593 T594

1555

14,826

X

595

22,288 17,472 15,916

26,018 27,299

1599 1600 1601 1602

22,311 16,252 20,232 23,325

1618 1619 1620 1621 1622 1623 1624 1625 1626 1627 1628 1629

24,719 28,601 28,729 18,987 20,010

18,371 18,054 16,323 18,565 22,594 23,000 18,883

M,778 12,976 15,272 16,998 15,804 21,124 18,862 15,027

1630 1631 1632

13,275

1633 1634

i3,55i 13,102

1635

13,999

8,053 13,000

XVII no Number of Cloths Produced in Venice, 1516-1713—Contd. 1636 1637 1638 1639 1640 1641 1642 1643 1644 1645 1646 1647 1648 1649 1650 1651 1652 1653 1654 1655 1656 1657 1658 1659 1660 1661

12,723 12,531 13,640 11,359 11,719 12,945 14,519 I4,55o 12,492 9>346 9,436 9,789 10,853 8,890 10,082

n,459

10,086

ii,459

*°,933

10,111

9,33° 7,7i6

9,262 8,847 7,861 6,251

1662 1663 1664 1665 1666 1667 1668 1669 1670 1671 1672 1673 1674 1675 1676 1677 1678 1679 1680 1681 1682 1683 1684 1685 1686 1687

6,543 7,748 9,325 9,975 8,630 7,522 6,124 4,778 5,226 6,896 7,694 5,302 5,709 6,865 5,495 3,637 3,495 3,900 3,820 4,249 4,396 3,497 2,912 3,315 2,485 2,174

1688 1689 1690 1691 1692 1693 1694 1695 1696 1697 1698 1699 1700 1701 1702 1703 1704 1705 1706 1707 1708 1709 1710 1711 1712 1713

1,738 1,885 2,009 2,248 2,424 3,628 3,110 2,905 3,196 3,000 2,030 1,873 2,033 2,803 2,603 2,377 2,087 2,399 2,404 1,936 2,070 2,194 2,057 2,205 1,721 1,922

On closer scrutiny,however, the output curve reveals sor erestinig variations in its upward and downward slope: Peak years

No. of clothes

1521

4,701

1569

26,541

1602

28,729

1620

23,000

1665

9,975

1701

2,803

Average annual rate of change between peaks

+9'6o% +0-25% -I-IO% -1-25% -2'OO%

From about 1520 to 1569 figures climb dramatically at the annual rate of roughly 9 per cent, while over the next three decades the trend approaches stability. After the peak of 1602,

XVII The Rise and Fall of the Venetian Woollen Industry 111 on the other hand, output falls at the average rate of i per cent a year until the 1620s and at a slightly faster pace over the next forty years. From the mid-6os till the end of the century contraction of output proceeds at the accelerated rate of about 2 per cent a year. The main phases just outlined include, of course, a number of short-term fluctuations. Some of these can easily be ascribed to major disturbances such as the plagues of 1525, 1576, and 1630, the War of Cyprus of 1570-3, or the great crises that hit Europe in the 1620s and 1680s. But it is more difficult to determine the origin of other fluctuations, and only a close study of the business cycle in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries could throw light on the precise mechanism responsible for them. But let us go back to the long-term movements: one century of growth and one of decline, each subdivided into phases spanning several decades. What can be known about the forces and circumstances behind the bare quantitative record ? Ill The Venetian woollen industry, whose origins go back to the thirteenth century, remained a negligible part of the city's economy until the great upsurge of the sixteenth century. Traditionally, it had specialized in the making of high-grade fabrics, and notably of scarlet carded cloth woven of fine English wool.1 In the late Middle Ages, annual output never rose, so far as is known, beyond 3,000 cloths2 - a very modest total compared with that of other Italian towns, from which, according to Doge Mocenigo, around 1420 Venice used to purchase as many as 48,000 cloths a year, largely for re-export to the Levant.3 This absolute predominance of foreign over 1 N. Fano, 'Rfcerche sull'arte della lana a Venezia nel XIII e XIV secolo', Archivio Veneto (1936), pp. 73-213. In the sixteenth century, fine Spanish wool was gradually substituted for English wool. 2 A.S.V., Senato, delibera^ioni miste, reg. 59, decree of 15 September 1433: * e s t impossibile quod in hac civitate possint laborari panni 3000 et ultra . . . qui sunt necessarii pro nostra draparia.' 3 Cf. G. Luzzatto, Storia economica delPeta moderna e contemporanea, Vol. I (Padua, 1954), pp. 89-90.

XVII 112

local fabrics in Venetian export trade need not surprise us. Medieval Venice owed her prosperity to trade and shipping; it was in these, rather than in manufacturing, that capital was mainly invested. The more so, one may suppose, as the city of Venice was poorly fitted to serve as a manufacturing centre, except for a variety of luxury handicrafts, or for an industry such as sugar-refining which required proximity to the dockyards : scarcity of space on the crowded Lagoon islands, lack of water-streams to operate the fulling mills,1 a wide range of activities competing for the available labour supply - all of these were factors likely to discourage the development of a large woollen industry manned by thousands of artisans. Nevertheless, as we have seen, from the second decade of the sixteenth century onwards, cloth production suddenly entered a long period of phenomenal expansion. What forces stimulated that unexpected rise? What new opportunities attracted growing investments into a field which must long have seemed unpromising to a city of traders and seamen, but which was now about to form one of the pillars of the city's economy ? The answer is to be found in the exceptional circumstances prevailing in the first half of the sixteenth century. On the one hand, there was the sudden diversion of the rich spice trade to the Atlantic sea-route as a result of the Portuguese voyages around Africa. For Venice the loss was a heavy one and even more serious was its psychological impact. 'The news [of the Portuguese exploit]/ a chronicler wrote in 1509, 'has been received as a real catastrophe . . . and some of our wisest men were inclined to regard it as the beginning of the ruin of the Venetian State.' Ten years later, the re-routeing of the spice trade to Lisbon was a fact which 'everyone took for granted', but a deep-seated malaise still hung over Venice: 'Merchants . . . are very much dissatisfied and even desperate about [Portugal's] seaborne trade'.2 It is conceivable that, confronted 1 Venetian-made cloth had to be sent to the mills in Treviso for fulling (Fano, art. cit., p. 119). 2 R. Fulin, *I Portoghesi in India e i Veneziani in Egitto (dai Diarii di Girolamo Priuli)', Archivio Veneto (1881), pp. 162 and 264.

XVII The Rise and Fall of the Venetian Woollen Industry 113 with shrinking commercial opportunities, many a Venetian merchant chose to shift to some other kind of business. The long sequence of troubles and disturbances generated by the Italian Wars in the early decades of the century opened to Venice a number of unique and unexpected opportunities in the field of cloth-making. At various times, in that period, the leading textile centres in northern and central Italy were crippled by war, political turmoil, and foreign occupation. As a result of the devastations she suffered in 1512, Brescia lost many of her drapers and artisans, and, with them, her flourishing woollen industry.1 As late as 1540, Brescia's annual cloth output was down to a thousand pieces, as against 8,000 a generation before.2 Como, to whose workshops foreign merchants had traditionally brought raw wool from Germany, Provence, Spain, and England to have it woven into cloth, was threatened in 1507 by the war then raging between the Emperor Maximilian and King Louis XII. She saw normal trade connexions temporarily disrupted and her cloth production grinding to a halt.3 In Milan, the roll of new members joining the Drapers' Guild directly mirrors the extent of the crisis in war-ridden Lombardy: as against 158 new entries in the second decade of the century, only fifty are recorded in the 15 20s, and fifty-nine in the following decade.4 In that same period, Pavia, too, suffered heavy losses: her population dropped from 16,000 at the opening of the century to 7,000 in 1535.5 Desolation spread over much of Lombardy in those years. Pavia [reported the English envoys on their way to Bologna in 1529] looks miserable; along the highways children cry and die of hunger . . . Vigevano is nothing but 1 A. Zanelli, 'La devozione di Brescia a Venezia e il principio della sua decadenza economical Archivio Storico Lombardo (1912), p. 31. 2 A.S.V., Senato, miscellanea dispacci antichi, report from Brescia, 3 May 1540. 3 G. Mira, 'Provvedimenti viscontei e sforzeschi sull'arte della lana a Como (1335-1535)', Archivio Storico Lombardo (1937), pp. 397 and 399. 4 C. Santoro, Matricola dei mercanti di lana sottile di Milano (Milan 1940), p. 28. Cf. also A. Fanfani, Storia del lavoro in Italia (Milan, 1943), p. 99. 6 G. Aleati and C. Cipolla, 'II trend economico nello Stato di Milano durante i secoli XVI e XVII: il caso di Pavia', Bollettino della Societa Pavese di Storia 1?atria (1951), p. 4.

XVII ii4

ruins. . . . Never has Christendom seen a like desolation. . . . It will be years before Italy recovers her former prosperity.1 Four years later, the Venetian envoy in Milan wrote in much the same terms about a region once widely recognized as among the most prosperous in Italy: The State of Milan is full of misery and ruins. . . . Nor will it be possible to restore things as they used to be in a short time, for, with so many houses destroyed and so many people missing, there are no more industries.2 Florence did not escape the general disaster either: In Florence, [according to the Venetian ambassador writing in 1529] there used to be a great deal of business going on; among other things the city used to turn out every year over 4,000 pieces of fine cloth known as cloth of San Martino, besides 18,-20,000 cloths known zsgarbi made of Spanish wool. Nowadays production is practically at a standstill.3 Of the 270 draper's shops in existence in 1480/ only sixtythree were still open in 1537.5 Population figures clearly reflect the economic collapse: 72,000 people in 1510, but only 59,650 twenty years later.6 In those dreadful years, conly one Italian state managed to weather the storm that submerged all the rest, and that one state was Venice.'7 The city's population rose steadily: nearly 115,000 people in 1509, 130,000 by 1540, 158,000 m 1552, and 168,000 a decade later.8 Safe from direct war damage, unaffected by domestic strife, ready to welcome refugees from the troubled 1 Cf. C. Barbagallo, Storia unhersa/e, Vol. IV/i: Uet& del la Rinascen^a e della Ri'for'ma (Turin, 1936), p. 497. 2 Alberi, Le rela^ioni degli ambasciatori veneti, 2nd series, Vol. V, p. 333. 3 Ibid., pp. 420-1. 4 Luzzatto, Storia economical (Padua, 1954), Vol. I, p. 101. 5 R. Galluzzi, Istoria del Granducato di Toscana, Vol. I (Florence, 1781), p. 288. 6 G. Pardi, 'Disegno della storia demografica di Firenze', Archivio Storico Italiano (1916), pp. 192 and 195. 7 Barbagallo, op. cit., p. 507. 8 D. Beltrami, Storia della popola^ione di Venecia dalla fine del secolo XVI alia caduta della Repubblica (Padua, 1954), p. 59.

XVII The Rise and Fall of the Venetian Woollen Industry 115 Italian mainland, still in full control of a commercial network that reached deep into eastern Mediterranean countries, Venice found her own fortune in the very crisis then sweeping the Italian peninsula. As the traditional Italian sources of supply ran dry, the Venetians stepped in to fill the vacuum. Theirs was a striking success: for nearly fifty years the output of fine cloth kept rising and in 15 69, with over 26,000 pieces, was roughly ten times as large as it had been at the start.

IV By 1569, however, the great upswing was over: for the next three decades, and more precisely until the new peak of 1602, progress was slight - less than 1 per cent per year on the average, as against 9 per cent in the preceding half century of rapid growth. Two facts seem to account for this abrupt deceleration. On the one hand, in the second half of the century, as is now well known,1 there was a revival of the spice trade along the overland routes of the Levant, and Venetian capital presumably felt once again the powerful attraction of commercial enterprise. On the other hand and more importantly, as peace was restored to the Italian peninsula after 1559, industrial production in a number of towns gradually picked up, with the result that Venetian cloth-makers found themselves confronted with a host of competitors. Around 15 80 the woollen industry in Como was reported as booming; 2 in 1596, Bergamo could boast an output of 26,500 cloths, as against 7,000-8,000 in 1540.3 In Florence recovery was equally impressive - 14,700 cloths in 15 5 3, 20,000 in 15 60, and 33,312 in 1572 - and much of her growing output found its way to the Levant. A memorandum submitted in 1573 ky 1 Cf. Luzzatto, *La decadenza di Venezia', op. cit., and his discussion of Frederic C. Lane's well-known articles on the revival of the Venetian spice trade, reproduced in this volume. 2 B. Caizzi, II Comasco sotto il dominio spagnolo (Como, 1955), p. 84. 3 A.S.V., Senato, miscellanea dispacci antichi, report from Bergamo, 25 April 1540; A.S.V., Sindici inquisiiori di Terraferma, busta 63, 'Descrittione . . . del 1596'.

XVII n6 the Florentine drapers to their ruler shows them full of confidence, optimistic, ready - to use their own words - cto step up production even further, in view of the fact that all their cloths have sold out and that Alexandria and other Turkish ports are free and safe.'1 Clearly, the commercial agreements of 15 5 7 with the Ottoman Empire, which ensured the Florentines the same privileges as the Venetians had traditionally enjoyed in the Levant, were bearing fruit; and, of course, the War of Cyprus, by temporarily disrupting trade between Venice and the Turks, also played into Florentine hands. It was not long before the Venetians became painfully aware of the mounting tide of Italian competition in the Levant. As early as 1578, the Republic's representative in Constantinople sent an alarming report: There have begun to appear in this city cloths after the Venetian style brought here by the Florentines, and they are of excellent stuff with fine colours. . . . There is, therefore, reason for fearing that, owing to their competition, our own industry will lose both its reputation and its profits. Our merchants are very worried indeed.2 Twenty years later, the Venetian Board of Trade (Savi alia Mercan^ia) made similar complaints about cloth produced in Spanish-ruled Lombardy, and for the first time put their finger on the crucial problem of costs: A great deal of fine Spanish wool is wrought into cloth in foreign states, and notably in Como and other towns in the State of Milan, where cloth is being produced in increasing quantities in perfect imitation of our own fabrics, but with great advantages as regards wages and other things pertaining to production; those foreign fabrics are then shipped to the Levant by way of Ferrara and Ancona, and are vented more cheaply than ours.3 Disturbing though it may have been to Venetian exporters in the later part of the sixteenth century, Italian competition did 1 2 3

Galluzzi, op. cit., Vol. Ill, p. 418. A.S.V., Sena to, dispacci Constantinopoliy fil^a 12, 6 July 1578. A.S.V., S. Mr., risposte, reg. 139, 5 December 1597.

XVII The Rise and Fall of the Venetian Woollen Industry 117 not, however, have disruptive effects on the Venetian wool industry: it certainly set a ceiling on its expansion, but did not prevent it from holding its own. It is reasonable to assume that, despite its well-known handicaps, the Venetian industry managed to survive that early challenge, thanks to its widely recognized reputation for quality,1 and also to Venice's wellestablished commercial organization in the Levant - an organization which other Italian states could hardly match. V Things changed suddenly and for the worse after the year 1602: from then on, Venetian cloth production began the long, irreversible descent at the end of which, a century later, it was on the same low level from which it had risen in the 1520s. No blame could be put this time on the Italian competitors, for in the seventeenth century they fared no better than the Venetians: in the first half of the century Como in fact saw her cloth output tumble from 8,000 to a paltry 100 pieces,2 and Milan suffered serious losses as well.3 As for the Florentine industry, whose competition had given Venetian producers so much concern in the 1570s (when its output had stood at 33,000 pieces), its output was down at about 15,000 cloths in 1616 and at less than 6,000 by 1640.4 What, then, were the difficulties besetting Venice from the beginning of the new century? Why did she fail to benefit once again from her neighbours' troubles by filling the vacuum they had left? So far as we can tell, there were three main reasons for this: one was the deterioration of normal transport services between Venice and the Turkish ports; another was the contraction in the demand for cloth in the Levant; and a third was the entry of new competitors - England, Holland, and, in the later part of the century, the Venetian mainland. 1 C£, for instance, Fynes Moryson, A.n Itinerary, Vol. IV, (Glasgow, 1908), p. 123. 2 Caizzi, op. cit., pp. 104-5. 3 C. M. Cipolla, 'The decline of Italy', Ticonomic History Review, 2nd series (i952)> PP- I78-94 R. Romano, * A Florence au XVIIe siecle: industries textiles et conjoncture', Annales (1952), p. 508.

XVII n8

In the last quarter of the sixteenth century, as English and Dutch ships began to sail Mediterranean waters in growing numbers, they had quickly asserted their superiority over local carriers; so much so, in fact, that by the close of the century a large portion of Venice's maritime trade came to be handled by northern ships whose superior performance was candidly recognized by Venetian merchants and authorities.1 In 1602, however, a drastic measure had been passed which, in order to protect Venetian shipping interests, imposed severe restrictions on the use of foreign carriers between Venice and the Levant. As a result of this ill-fated 'navigation act', seaborne communications with the eastern Mediterranean ports were seriously hindered, and Venetian exporters were forced to rely, as a rule, on the less efficient ships flying the banner of St Mark.2 Early in the seventeenth century, on the other hand, disquieting reports began to reach Venice to the effect that the demand for cloth in the Ottoman Empire was slackening. 'Turkey has lost so much of her population and wealth on account of internal strife,' a Venetian consul wrote in 1611, 'that she now imports only a third of what she used to.' The poorer people apparently turned away from imported woollens and increasingly turned to 'padded cottons' produced locally.3 Later on, at the time of the Turco-Persian war (1623-38), conditions deteriorated even further, and it was noticed that consumers in the Levant tended to adopt fabrics that were 'greatly inferior both in quality and in price' to those traditionally supplied from Venice.4 Diminishing market opportunities in the East were likely, of course, to affect all cloth suppliers. This was true of the Venetian and other Italian industries; but it was true, in part, of the English woollen industry as well. The latter had 1 A. Tenenti, Naufrages, corsaires et assurances maritimes a Venise, IJ92-1609 (Paris, 1959), pp. 13-27; F. C. Lane, 'La marine marchande et le trafic maritime de Venise a travers les siecles', in M. Mollat ed., L,es sources de rhistoire maritime en Tiurope du Moyen-Age au XVIIIe siecle (Paris, 1962), p. 13. 2 For a detailed discussion of the new policy and its negative effects on Venetian trade, cf. Sella, Commerci e industries (op. cit.), pp. 34-45. 3 Berchet, h,e rela^ioni dei consoli veneti nella Siria (Turin, 1896), p. 131. 4 Barozzi-Berchet, Rela^ioni degli ambasciatori veneti, Turchia, Vol. I, p. 386.

XVII The Rise and Fall of the Venetian Woollen Industry 119 traditionally supplied the Levant countries with cheaper and coarser woollens known as kerseys1 intended for low-income consumers, while higher grade cloth had come mainly from Italy. In the first decades of the seventeenth century shipments of English kerseys dropped precipitously, and by about 1630 kerseys had practically disappeared from the Levant,2 their place being taken, we can presume, by locally produced substitutes such as 'padded cottons'. The English, however, managed to offset the loss of their traditional exports by entering the cloth market traditionally supplied by the Italians: in the late 15 90s, a few hundred pieces of English broadcloth made their first appearance in the Levant. By the 1620s an average of 6,000 pieces was annually shipped there from England, and for the next forty years broadcloth exports stabilized around that figure.3 This new development was particularly disturbing to Venetian interests on two scores. In the first place, here was a product which, unlike kerseys, directly competed with Venetian cloth; secondly, coming as it did at a time when demand was sluggish, whatever market English broadcloth was able to win was obviously at the expense of Venetian sales. The success scored by English textiles was mainly ascribed, in the first half of the century, to one thing: they sold more cheaply than Venetian fabrics. Admittedly English cloth was of 1 Kerseys (carisee) appear among Venetian re-exports to the Levant at least as early as the fifteenth century (cf. A.S.V., Senato> deliberation miste, reg. 58, 18 September 1430). The tariff of 1545, which slightly increased import rates on foreign fabrics, explicitly exempted kerseys (cf. S. Cognetti de Martiis, I due sistemi del/a politico, commentate vene^iana, Vol. 1 oiBiblioteca delPeconomista, fourth series, 1900, p. ccxxxvi). According to Braudel, op. cit., p. 456, in the late sixteenth century Mediterranean countries 'were literally flooded* by English kerseys; cf. also W. Brulez, 'L'exportation des Pays-Bas vers l'ltalie par voie de terre au milieu du XVIe siecle', Annales (1959), pp. 475-9. At the opening of the seventeenth century, in the Levant, kerseys were worn by the poor; the well-to-do dressed in broadcloth (S. Purchas, His Pitgrimes, Vol. Ill, Glasgow 1905, p. 86). From a Venetian source we learn that kerseys 'do not compete (non fanno concorsd) with Venetian cloth* (A.S.V., S. Mr. rispostei reg. 147, 26 June 1626). 2 B. E. Supple, Commercial Crisis and Change in England, 1600-1642 (Cambridge, 1959), p. 160 n.; also R. Davis, 'Influences de FAngleterre sur le declin de Venise au XVIIe siecle', in A.spetti e cause della decaden^a economica vene^iana nel secolo XVII (Venice-Rome, 1961), p. 205. 3 Davis, ibid.

XVII I2O

a somewhat inferior quality, but this did not seem to affect their popularity at a time when Levantine customers were reported to be reluctant to spend as much as they used to. In 1612, the Venetian ambassador in Constantinople could write that the English "bring hither . . . large quantities of kerseys and broadcloth and sell them very cheap to the great prejudice of our own trade'.1 Thirty years later, another Venetian diplomat spoke of'the great profit5 English merchants reaped 'by selling inferior cloth at such low prices as to spoil the trade of every other nation/ 2 In the second half of the century, when English cloth exports to the Levant rose to new heights,3 and Dutch fabrics made deep inroads into the Turkish market as well, their success was explained, not only in terms of lower prices, but also in terms of their being lighter and more attractive. The English, it was claimed, 'offer cloth that looks better and costs less than ours, and the Turks more and more grow fond of it.' 4 cIt is well known,' says another document, 'that Dutch woollens have displaced ours: being pleasant, light, and inexpensive, they have infected the mind of the Turks [hanno corrotto il genio de Turchi\ so that . . . the

latter no longer appreciate our draperies, which are heavy both

to buy and to wear [pesanti tanto nel comprarli quanto nel por-

tarliy** To restore the tottering fortunes of the Venetian cloth industry, it was deemed imperative, not only to cut prices, but also 'to experiment with new styles and patterns and to cater to the changing whims of fashion'.6 VI The decline, and eventually the collapse, of the Venetian woollen industry are evidence enough of its failure both to lower its 1

Barozzi-Berchet, op. cit., p. 213. Ibid., p. 386. Davis, loc. cit.: against an annual average of 6,ooo pieces for the period 1620-60, English broadcloth exports fluctuated between 12,000 and 20,000 pieces a year in the next forty years. 4 A.S.V., Senato Rettoriyfil%a jz, 30 December 1668. 5 A.S.V., Provveditori di Comun, busta 7, 5 January 1673 m.v. 6 Barozzi-Berchet, op. cit., p. 178 (report from Turkey for 1676). 2

3

XVII The Rise and Fall of the Venetian Woollen Industry 121 prices and to innovate. How can this twofold failure be explained ? As far as industrial conservatism is concerned, the blame would seem to belong to the rigid set of technical rules and prescriptions imposed on the industry in 1588 and strictlyenforced, with occasional and limited exceptions, until 1677.1 And yet, even after the old manufacturing code was lifted,2 the woollen industry failed to recover: in the last quarter of the century its downward course, far from being reversed, was accelerated - and this is the more surprising as, at the time, a number of other industries in Venice were making substantial, if slow, gains.3 The real trouble was, apparently, that the woollen industry, whether it was regimented or not, had to grapple with the problem of costs - and the latter grew, as time went by, increasingly intractable. One early source of difficulties may have been the 'navigation act' of 1602 which, as will be recalled, forced Venetian exporters to use national carriers, however inefficient these might be. The obligation imposed on our merchants to lade in Venetian ships, [says a document of 1640] puts them at a disadvantage compared with other nations, as our merchants are compelled to place their goods where they are the least safe; this way they are forced to give up their trade.4 Later in the century, another grievance was taxation, and notably the intricate web of excise and export duties levied both on raw materials and on the finished product. Petitions for tax reductions were frequently submitted by disgruntled cloth-makers and merchants, and government officials 1

A.S.V., S. Mr., n.s., busta 126, fascicolo 'Cesarotti*. The making of cloth 'after the English and Dutch style' was authorized in 1673 (A.S.V., Provveditori di Comun, busta 7, 28 March 1673); the annual output of'foreign draperies' in Venice between 1678 and 1698 was negligible and never rose beyond a few hundred pieces (A.S.V., S. Mr. n.s., busta 139, fascicolo Trocesso n. 3, Camera del Purgo\) 3 There was progress in the silk industry, glass-making, sugar-refining, and a variety of luxury handicrafts, and also in trade and shipping: cf. Sella, Commerri e Industrie^ (op. cit.), pp. 55, 72, 83, 86, 109, 131. 4 Barozzi-Berchet, op. cit., p. 403; also, A.S.V., S. Mr. risposte, reg. 146, 29 December 1625, and reg. 152, 12 September 1640. 2

XVII 122

themselves conceded at times that the cloth manufacture was 'exceedingly burdened' and that 'if some of the burdens were lifted, prices would fall and sales would increase accordingly/ l But by far the most common complaint was about labour costs. After the great plague of 1630 it was asserted that 'weavers' rates have gone up by as much as one third',2 and thirty years later an official report could still claim that 'our merchants have received great damage as a result of wages rising at the time of the plague and remaining high thereafter.'3 In 1671 a local merchant publicly denounced 'the excessive price' fetched by Venetian cloth, and went on to state that 'the rates our drapers must pay the workers are truly exorbitant; if they be lowered . . . cloth will sell more cheaply and the vent thereof will be augmented.'4 Wage rates, however, could not be easily adjusted down to competitive levels, because they were rigidly fixed by law: 'the old policy which guaranteed the workers a given rate of pay . . • has caused the ruin of our woollen industry.'5 Government approval was required to alter the wage schedule [limitations delle mercedi\ but the government itself may have been reluctant to take a step which, however necessary, was bound to be unpopular.6 In the documents, however, the problem of excessive labour costs is often seen in a somewhat different light: rather than high wage rates, the target of criticism is the workers' inefficiency relative to the pay they are entitled to. 'The workers,' 1

A.S.V., S. Mr. n.s., busta 126, 29 March 1689. Numerous petitions for tax reductions in A.S.V., Provveditori di Comun, busta 57 and reg. 7. 2 A.S.V., S. Mr., busta 467, 29 September 1636. 3 A.S.V., Senato Kettori^fil^a 72, 30 December 1668. 4 Scrittura inedita di Simon Giogalli (1671), ed. E. Cicogna (Venice, 1878), p. 16. A similar opinion was expressed by a group of merchants who claimed that the Venetian cloth industry could be salvaged only by lowering prices, and 'this can easily be done by lifting some fiscal burdens and correcting extravagant labour costs' so as to make Venetian cloth competitive; English and Dutch textiles, they claimed, 'sell at very low prices' (A.S.V., Senato Reftori, fillet 82, 21 January 1671, m.v.). * A.S.V., S. Mr. n.s., busta 126/62, 15 June 1689. 6 At the close of the century, for instance, the Board of Trade yielded to a request for a wage rise submitted by the silk weavers, in spite of the fact that the request itself was considered as being 'unfavourable' to the interests of the industry (A.S.V., S. Mr., busta 477, 25 September 1696).

XVII The Rise and Fall of the Venetian Woollen Industry 123 we are told in one place, 'being legally entitled to a given wage [sicuri, per i decreti, di una determinata mercede\ care little about

doing a good job, for they get paid anyway regardless of their performance.'1 From another source we learn that the draper 'has little say in the making of the cloth, although, as owner of the capital and anxious to get a good product in order to improve his sales, he ought to be free and absolute master'; everything is rather left to the discretion of the artisans working for him, and these 'work as they please with little concern for the perfection of the product.' 2 Responsibility for this sorry state of affairs would seem to lie, in turn, with the powerful craft guilds in which Venetian spinners, weavers, and dyers were compulsorily enrolled. By setting their own standards of workmanship, and by denying the employers a free hand in the choice of the artisans as well as direct control over the artisans' performance, the guilds allegedly acted as a powerful drag on the efficiency of labour. To remedy those evils, the drapers on one occasion petitioned (in vain, as it turned out) the government for 'complete freedom in hiring workers of their choice', claiming that guildmembers refused 'to follow the draper's instructions in their work.' 3 A similar request was submitted in 1696 by an enterprising Fleming who had come to Venice some years earlier 'with fourteen highly trained artisans' to launch the manufacture of 'cloth after the Dutch style', but had been 'discouraged by the spirited opposition he had met in the city and had been forced to betake himself to the Treviso area': 4 this time he asked for, and actually secured, 'permission to keep the workers on his own premises, to hire and pay them without any conceivable outside interference' and insisted on 'his manufacture and workers being in no way molested by the Venetian guilds.' 5 1

A.S.V., S. Mr. n.s., busta 126/62, 29 March 1689. A.S.V., Provveditori di Comutt, reg. 7, 5 January 1673 m.v. A.S.V., S. Mr. n.s., busta 126/62, 18 March 1690. The Board of Trade, after conceding that the matter was 'very serious', ruled it inadvisable for the time being to alter traditional practices'. 4 A.S.V., S. Mr., busta 467, petition submitted by Pietro Comans in 1683. 5 A.S.V., S. Mr. n.s., busta 125/63, 16 January 1696 m.v. This second petition was favourably received on 1 February 1696 m.v. (A.S.V., S. Mr., busta 467). 2

3

XVII 124 Naturally enough, Venetian entrepreneurs made envious comparisons with conditions prevailing outside their own city: in the Venetian mainland, for instance, where the cloth industry was doing well late in the century,1 and where, it was claimed, "artisans work for lower wages . . . and are free from the guilds' fetters';2 in England, Holland, and France where 'we see nothing but freedom'. Here they meant 'freedom to reward the artisans according to their skill and merit and at rates that have been freely agreed upon.' 3 VII It is, of course, far from easy to decide how much truth there was in the various complaints about taxation, the wage schedule, and the guilds' interference, as we have no direct way of comparing conditions in Venice with those obtaining elsewhere. Moreover, those complaints, and notably those about the guilds, reflecting as they often do the merchants' viewpoint, are not entirely above suspicion. Lastly, it is certain that the situation abroad was not so idyllic as disgruntled Venetians were inclined to think. That the Venetian woollen industry was undersold by its foreign rivals is clear enough; that differences in labour costs, in particular, played a decisive role is quite plausible in view of the labour-intensive character of the industry. What is really debatable is the claim, so often 1 A.S.V., Provveditori di Comun, busta 7, 26 March 1687: the progress of clothmaking in the Republic's mainland dominions is here considered as 'one chief cause of the diminution of cloth production in Venice*. Total output in the mainland for 1686 was reported at 49,944 cloths; of these, 34,116 were ascribed to the Bergamo district; next came that of Treviso with 10,042. Production in those areas, however, consisted primarily of low-grade woollens (panni bassi); as such, it may have been a less serious threat to the Venetian industry than was claimed at the time. The situation possibly changed in later years as the mainland's industries succeeded in producing cloth in imitation of English and Dutch fabrics (A.S.V., S. Mr. risposte, reg. 165, 22 June 1695). Woollens produced in the mainland sold largely on the domestic market, but also in Spain (A.S.V., Provveditori di Comun, busta 7, 15 February 1673 m.v.), in the Levant (A.S.V., S. Mr. loc. cit.), and in Germany (cf. G. Canali, 'II Magistrato mercantile di Bolzano e gli Statuti delle Fiere', Archivio per /'A/to Adige (1942-3), p. 102). 2 A.S.V., Arte della Seta, busta 110/209, 13 May 1675 and 16 January 1685 m.v. 3 A.S.V., S. Mr. risposte, reg. 159, 3 June 1678.

XVII The Rise and Fall of the Venetian Woollen Industry 125 made by contemporaries, that labour costs were too high in Venice either because they were pegged by law at excessive levels, or because the guilds stood in the way of any attempt to use manpower more productively. For this would amount to arguing that, had it not been for a misguided wage policy or for the guilds' obstructive practices, the Venetian woollen industry would have survived the challenges of the seventeenth century. This is unlikely. After all, as will be recalled, the spectacular rise of cloth production in Venice had occurred at an exceptional time, when most Italian textile centres were crippled and competition from Northern Europe was still far in the future; in short, when the Venetian woollen industry virtually enjoyed a monopolistic position. On the other hand, as we have seen, that rise came to a stop, and eventually gave way to an irreversible decline, as soon as that exceptional position was lost. Nor did the belated adoption of more liberal policies succeed in reversing the trend.1 The conclusion seems inescapable that conditions in Venice were basically unfavourable to the life of a large cloth industry, save in the exceptional circumstances which obtained for a time during the sixteenth century. A wiser wage policy, more flexible labour contracts, a freer hand for the merchantdrapers might conceivably have retarded the industry's downfall in the seventeenth century, but they could hardly have overcome some disadvantages built into the very structure of the city itself. Not only, as mentioned before, did Venice lack certain facilities, such as ample space and water streams. We have every reason to believe that the city was, and continued to be in the seventeenth century, at a serious disadvantage as regards the labour supply - guilds or no guilds. The presence in it of scores of wealthy households, whose lavish spending in the 1 Various privileges (implying the right to imitate foreign fabrics) were granted in the 1670s to individual cloth-makers; in 1679 'the manufacture of Dutch cloth* was permitted to all interested drapers (cf. Sella, Commerci e Industrie, (op. cit.), pp. 119-20); in 1696, as mentioned above, P. Comans was even exempted from the guilds' control. The results, however, were disappointing (ibid., p. 120).

XVII 126 Baroque Age is well known and is attested to this day by their magnificently built and sumptuously furnished palaces, was bound to keep living costs high and thus set a relatively high floor for wages. In conjunction with the enduring, if reduced, vitality of the harbour and of a number of luxury and transforming industries, it was also bound to ensure a considerable range of employment opportunities and thus to keep the labour force in a strong bargaining position and make it less docile than the drapers would have liked. It is no mere coincidence that the manufacture of cloth held its ground and even expanded in the Venetian-ruled mainland where cheap rural labour was available. But neither is it a coincidence that Venetian cloth output fell most sharply in the last three decades of the century, at a time, that is, when the old harbour experienced a marked revival, and the making of elaborate silks and delicate glassware, as well as sugar-refining, were prospering. Clearly, Venetian capital, enterprise, and manpower were being channelled once again into traditional fields, in which either the city's locational advantage was crucial, or exquisite workmanship and artistic taste were far more important assets than an abundant supply of cheap labour.

INDEX Africa North: IV 61 West: II 14-15 agriculture: II 23-5; VII 552-3; XI491-3 alum: II43 Americas: II 11-13, 15 West Indies: II 12, 14 arms: I 243-4; III 100-101 armor: III 98, 100 artillery: II20 cannons: II 39; VI700 demand: 1245 firearms: II 15; III 100; VI 700-701 Baltic trade: II25 Barbon, Nicholas: II23 birth rate/ fertility: XIV 186-94, 196 Bodin, Jean: II 13 books: II 16 Brazil: II 14 Brescia: I 244; III 95, 98; XVII 113 business organization: II 60-63 capital: II 55-63 financiers: II 55-6, 59-60 fixed: II 59 partnerships: II 60-63 clock-making: II 30, 33-5 coal: II45, 67 Como, Lake: VII 549; XVII 113, 115 copper: II42-3 cotton: II 6; IV 63-4 Cretan War: XVI 98-100 Elba: III 91, 95, 98-9, 104-5 England: II 66-7 English shipping: XVII 118-19 English wool: XVII 119-20 finance: VI 699 flint stones: XV 3 Florence: XVII 114 Gallarate: X I 4 9 2 ^ , 506 "general crisis" thesis: II 4 0 ^ 1 Genoa: 1235; II 16,21

geography of industry: II 64-72 guilds: XV 15-17 Hondschoote: II 15,28,69 interest rates: II 63 iron: II42; IX 3 7 ^ 1 iron production: III 96-102; XV 5-8 iron technology: II 48-51; III 101-5 iron workers: IX 4(M1; XV 7-8 mining: III 91-6 labor costs: XVII 122-4 household: IX 41-4; XI 494-501 labor-saving technology: II48-51 migration: II 53-5; VII passim rural labor: II 52-3; XI 501-5 Laorca [La Orcha]: IXpassim; XI 507 leather import: IV 66-70 production: II 7 Ligorno [Leghorn]: IV 60-64 Lille: II 15,28,69 linen: II 6, 14-5; XV 4 flax:IV 64 London: II 19, 24 luxuries: II 10 luxury production: II 26-33, 70; V 6 Madrid: II 19 mercury: II 48 metal metallurgy: II 46-7 trades: II 7 Milan: II 20; XVII 114 mortality: XIV 192-3 "new draperies," see worsteds Ossola valley: VII 547-8 paper: 1242-3, 247-8; II 16; XV 4-5 Pavia: XVII113-14 Philip: IIII22 Poland: II24-5 printing: II 30-33

2 rice: XVI 103 Rome: II19, 20-21, 58-9, 61 rural economy: VIII 14-15 Seville: II 11, 24 shipping: XVI 9 1 - 3; XVII 118, 121 ships Dutch fluyt: II 47 Navigation Act, Venice: XVI 94- 6 building: II 25, 45, 62, 65- 6 silk: 1238- 42, 248- 9; II 6, 26- 8; V 7- 9; VIII 11, 12-15 French silk-makers: II 16 orsoglio alia bolognese: V 1 silk mill: I 241; II 50 slave trade: II 14- 5 Spain: II 68- 9 spice trade: XVI 97; XVII 112- 13 subsistence economy: VII 552- 3 sugar: IV 67- 8 tax exemptions: XV 17-18 textiles

INDEX demand: 1246 industries: II 6 timber: I I 4 3 - 5 shortage: II44 transportation: II 47- 8 urbanisation II: 16-26 Valassina: VII 549- 50 Valbrembana:VII550-51 Venice: 1235; II21, 24, 69; IV 65- 8 Villa-d' Adda: XI 492- 4, 505- 6; XIV passim villas: I I 2 1 - 2 wages, real: II 17 warfare: II 35- 9 fortifications: II 37 personnel: II 36- 7 wool industry: I 237- 8; II 6, 15, 66; IV 64; XV 2 - 3 , 8 - 2 1 ; XVIIpassim worsteds (also " new draperies" ): 1246- 7; II28- 9