323,955 research outputs found
Le carte di S. Gregorio in Conca: un archivio per il territorio
No full textLe carte del monastero di S. Gregorio in Conca di Morciano sono analizzate sotto il profilo diplomatistico e del complesso archivistico, nonché alla luce delle problematiche politico-religiose della Romagna del secolo XI
Studio di fattibilità per la valorizzazione turistica dell'area montana della Conca di Oropa
No full textLa Conca di Oropa, area di notevole valore paesaggistico, ambientale e culturale, offre al turista e all’escursionista molteplici possibilità ed attività, in occasione di escursioni giornaliere o anche per soggiorni più lunghi. Distinguiamo nella Conca due aree, la parte bassa di pertinenza del Santuario o comunque toccata necessariamente dai flussi turistici in arrivo al Santuario, e la parte alta che costituisce una realtà a sé e con caratteristiche proprie di alta montagna, sebbene collegata al Santuario soprattutto grazie alla funivia. Al contrario dell’area del Santuario, la gestione della parte alta della Conca di Oropa coinvolge molteplici soggetti, tra cui i principali sono il Comune di Biella, la stessa Amministrazione del Santuario che è proprietario dei ter-reni e di molti immobili, e la Fondazione Funivie di Oropa.
Questo lavoro nasce dalla volontà di dare un impulso al turismo biellese con la riqualificazione dell’area della Conca alta di Oropa, le cui strutture versano attualmente in uno stato di degrado per troppi anni dimenticato. La Provincia di Biella e in particolare il suo Ufficio per il Turismo, si sono impegnati per trovare le risorse necessarie a realizzare questo studio.
I temi coinvolti nella progettazione sono:
• Il collegamento tra il Santuario e il complesso di Oropa Sport
• Il recupero paesaggistico
• L’offerta ambientale, culturale e della formazione
• La ricettività turistica
• L’offerta gastronomica
• L’offerta sportiva e ricreativa
• Il tema della promozion
Nobility and Economy in 19th Century Italy: Investments, Enterprises and Innovations
No full textThe history of 19th century Italy is marked by the national unification process, which can be considered completed only after the annexation of Rome in 1870. Until Italy’s unification in 1861, the domestic market maintained a high degree of fragmentation at a national level and each regional state operated under a different economic policy. Only Piedmont was independent, while the others were directly or indirectly dominated by Austria.
Nevertheless, in the first half of the century, the northern regions were moving forward in a first wave of industrialisation. Faster circulation and transmission of technological innovations and scientific achievements were undertaken and successfully linked northern Italy to Paris, Lyon, Mulhouse, London, Manchester, Zurig, etc. Part of this progress was due to the strong commercial and economic relationships which merchants and industrialists exploited all over Europe. Businessmen from France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany were also coming to Italy and establishing their businesses in Milan, Turin, Genoa. Subsequently, the contribution of self-made men and of the bourgeois (first involved in the silk and cotton sectors and later in mechanics, banking, and new industries) played a decisive role.
However, until Unification, in the northern regions a large proportion of capital, investments and improvements in the agricultural sector and agro-food production, as well as, increasingly, in railways and infrastructures, industrial and financial sectors – came from noblemen. They were fighting side by side with the bourgeoisie for the independence and unification of Italy and often followed similar investment strategies, sharing the same initiatives and ventures. They aimed to expand Italy’s trade, fostering the economic progress and applying scientific and technological innovations to agriculture and industry. Several noblemen played a natural leading economic role, as they were the richest, heirs to large properties and estates and to complex administration systems originating from early modern times and updated to meet the new managerial necessities. They held a strong scientific interest (and sometimes scientific knowledge), and belonged to wide, national and international social (and political) networks which were easily transformed into economic relationships.
During the century, the nobility’s capital structure changed partially, moving from land into industrial, financial and mostly urban estates. Noblemen belonged to that part of the population which owned most of the national wealth and while they tried to increase their properties and assets, they promoted national economic progress. Starting from the last decades of the century, when a national economic policy was embraced, an increasing amount of capital, mostly coming from the upper classes, financed the construction of infrastructures, the national debt, urban development, the foundation of national and local banks and of large stock companies. Noblemen from central and southern regions, which were still tied to an agricultural economy and were mostly lagging behind in the industrialisation process, joined and invested in national initiatives and businesses. As wealth had been distributed very much unequally throughout the whole century, and was still mostly concentrated in the upper class, economic development would probably not have occurred at the same level without the contribution of the nobility’s capital.
The paper will present the initial results of a broad, ongoing research into primary sources. The literature on the topic has focused on several cases of Italian entrepreneur noblemen, or on nobility estate management, and has shed light onto their dynamic role. Their contribution, however, has generally been perceived as not particularly influential in the economic process, as noblemen were generally conservative on a social level and the 19th century is usually identified as the century of the irreversible decline and loss of political and economic power by the aristocracy compared to the rise of the bourgeoisie. The role of the nobility’s investments and capital in Italy’s economic development deserves and requires broader attention and investigation.
The essay will first focus on the management of properties and large estates, where noblemen acted as a sort of ‘corporate director’, governing a complex structured enterprise. Then the paper will concentrate on the nobility’s investments and enterprises during the first half of the century: agriculture innovations and experimentation, railway construction, public debt, textile industries and banking seem to have been the investment sectors preferred by noblemen. In the last section the article will investigate how – after Unification and particularly during the agrarian crisis (1873-1896) – noblemen increased the diversification of their capital and investments, from land to other uses, such as investments in the financial sector and in joint-stock companies (transport, communication, public utilities, banking, insurance, overseas ventures, new sectors and industries).
The paper will consider both the initial results of a broad, ongoing research into primary sources and the literature on the topic, while attempting to provide some reflections on important issues such as: were the nobility’s capital and investments important for Italy’s economic development? In which sectors did the nobility prefer to make direct investments? Was innovation firmly supported by the nobility’s interest in scientific advancements and technological progress?
The paper will deal with all of these questions and aims to underline the rise of the nobility’s involvement in the financial, commercial and industrial activities and business opportunities, shedding light on its contribution to 19th century Italian economic development
Wine Production, Markets and Institutions in Italy Between Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: A Historical Survey
No full textItaly is currently the world’s largest producer of wine in terms of volume. Together with France and Spain - the other two main wine-producing countries – the peninsula makes up about 80% of the total EU offer, which in turn covers 60% of global production. This large production capacity was acquired by the country during the 19th century. Production went from 19 million hl in 1861 to an average of 31.27 million hectolitres in the 1880s; it then reached 31.95 million in the next decade (despite the outbreak of vine diseases), and finally it reached an average of 46 million hl between 1901 and 1914, with a significant increase in exports. This essay seeks to retrace the economic transformation of Italian wine production during the century before the First World War. It focuses on the domestic and international markets, which were characterised by strong fluctuations due to changes in trade relations with foreign countries and the difficulties resulting from the spread of diseases affecting the vines. It also highlights the innovative efforts, the qualitative improvements of the product and the creation of institutions aimed at promoting the national industry – which when combined created the basic structure of Italian wine geography. Though already relevant before, in the second part of the century the wine sector would acquire growing value in the country’s economy
Nobility and Agricultural Innovation : agribusiness, management and investments in Northern Italy (1815-1861)
No full textTraditionally, scholars have underlined how, for much of the 19th century, the endurance, or the survival, of the nobility’s social and economic power was still based on large-scale land ownership, which usually represented the majority of the nobility’s assets and in many cases was extended or reinforced (e.g. thanks to public sales of former common properties or of expropriated Catholic Church estates). Nevertheless, the contribution of nobility to the improvement of land and production has been undervalued, as élites mostly tried to maintain the old agrarian structure exploiting peasant work and conserving their social power as long as possible.
By contrast, according to our research results, it seems that until Unification, in the northern area, a large proportion of capital, investments and improvements in the agricultural sector and agro-food production (as well as, increasingly, in railways and infrastructures, industrial and financial sectors) – came from noblemen. Many of them aimed to expand Italy’s trade, fostering the economic progress and applying scientific and technical innovations to agriculture. Some played a natural leading economic role, as they were the richest, heirs to large properties and estates and to complex administration systems originating from early modern times and updated to meet the new managerial necessities. Finally, they all belonged to wide, national and international social (and political) networks which could be useful for their business and which still deserve an in-depth attention and a broader investigation.
The main objective of the paper is to reassess the contribution of nobility in 19th century Northern Italy economic transformation (particularly, but not only, in Lombardy), focusing on their investments in land and innovation and their involvement in agri-business. The aim is to propose new evidence that noblemen followed an entrepreneurial behaviour, supported the progress of science and techniques and influenced the foundation of new enterprises and economic institutions.
Through an ongoing wide and long research on primary sources as fiscal sources, notarial deeds and family archives (part of a research project led by Silvia Conca Messina and jointly funded by Cariplo Foundation and Lombardy Region), the paper addresses the question whether nobility involvement in the agri-business was only a mean to achieve rents with the less effort, maintaining their social status, or was instead– as we affirm - the result of an entrepreneurial behaviour laying on a sort of class-expertise. The essay first focuses on the management of properties and large estates, where noblemen acted as a sort of ‘chief manager’, governing a complex structured enterprise. Then the paper concentrates on the role and type of investments aiming at the improvement of land and cultivation, livestock and production. Moreover, the contribution enlightens how and why landlords introduced agriculture innovations and experimentation (silk, wine, especially), according to the transformation of the local and international demand and markets
Tra azienda e comunità locali : opere e provvidenze sociali dei cotonieri lombardi nel 19. secolo
No full textPasta in local and global contexts. A difficult challenge for Italian enterprises.
No full textToday Italy is the world’s largest pasta producing country with an estimated output of more than 3.3 million tons in 2013 which represents around 25-30% of the world’s total pasta production and 73% of E.U. production. The current importance of the pasta industry has deep roots in Italy’s economic history and way of development. After unification (1861), several small pasta producers operating in the domestic market shifted to the factory system and extended exportation from Italy to remote foreign markets (such as the Americas). After World War II the crucial expansion of the European and global markets led food enterprises to expand production. Nevertheless, during the late 20th century and the early 21st century, the process of globalization represented a difficult challenge for Italian enterprises, due to the limits of the Italian system of capitalism, the lack of a strong national industrial policy and the emergence of large foreign corporations (Danone, Nestlé, Krafts) which took control of international markets.Aujourd’hui l’Italie est le plus grand pays producteur de pâtes dans le monde. En 2013, sa production a été estimée majeure de 3,3 millions de tonnes, et représente environ le 25-30% de la production de pâtes du monde et le 73% de la production dans l’UE. L’importance actuelle de l’industrie des pâtes a des racines profondes dans l’histoire et dans le modèle italien de développement. Surtout après l’Unification (1861), plusieurs petits fabricants de pâtes, qui opéraient dans le marché italien, introduisent des systèmes mécanisés de fabrication et accroissent l’exportation sur les marchés étrangers (comme les Amériques). Après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, le marché international en expansion pousse les entreprises alimentaires à développer leur production. Néanmoins, la globalisation pendant la fin du 20e siècle et le début du 21e siècle a représentée pour les entreprises italiennes un défi difficile à relever, à cause des limites du capitalisme italien, de l’absence d’une politique industrielle nationale et de l’émergence de grandes entreprises étrangères (Danone, Kraft, Nestlé), qui ont pris le contrôle des marchés internationaux
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