76 research outputs found
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
The Italian way of industrialization: the case of the agricultural and food industries
No full textThe agricultural and food industries should deserve major attention in the reconstruction of the Italian case of industrialization. Starting from an overview of the most significative studies on Italy economic development, the presentation highlights the possible contribution offered by the research on the sector to complete our understanding of the Italian way of industrialization
Settant'anni di pasta italiana : produzione, consumi, internazionalizzazione dal secondo dopoguerra a oggi
No full textL’Italia è oggi il primo produttore di paste alimentari a livello mondiale. Nel 2016 la produzione è stata di circa 3,3 milioni di tonnellate (fatturato 4,7 miliardi di Euro), cifra che rappresenta quasi il 72% di quella dell’Unione Europea e il 23% del totale mondiale. Nello stesso anno, le esportazioni dal paese hanno raggiunto all’incirca il 57% della produzione nazionale (1,9 milioni di tonnellate), per un valore che può essere calcolato in più di 2 miliardi di Euro (AIDEPI 2016). Questo primato è il risultato di una crescita di tutto rilievo acceleratasi soprattutto dopo il 1990, ma le sue premesse sono state costruite nel corso dei due secoli passati.
Non disponiamo tuttavia di studi che ricostruiscano in modo esaustivo le vicende e le dinamiche storiche del comparto a livello nazionale, sebbene importanti approfondimenti siano stati condotti, soprattutto di storia d’impresa, anche sulla spinta di un recente e diffuso interesse per il settore agroalimentare nel suo complesso.
L’intervento intende delineare, anche sulla base di dati raccolti da statistiche ufficiali e periodici specializzati, alcuni dei più significativi momenti di svolta e di cambiamento nella storia dell’industria delle paste alimentari in Italia nel corso del Novecento
Angelo Salmoiraghi e la nascita dell'ottica industriale in Italia
No full textAngelo Salmoiraghi è considerato uno dei fondatori dell’ottica industriale in Italia. Dal 1873 al 1939 diede un contributo decisivo allo sviluppo dell’industria degli strumenti di precisione applicati alla topografia, alla navigazione marittima e aerea e a ogni uso civile.
Iniziò a lavorare con lo scienziato Ignazio Porro e, tra il 1871 e il 1873, sostenuto tra gli altri da Francesco Brioschi, riuscì a raccogliere il capitale necessario per avviare la Salmoiraghi, Rizzi e C., ditta che rilevò la Filotecnica. Nonostante la concorrenza dei forti produttori europei, Salmoiraghi ampliò man mano la sua impresa, realizzando svariati strumenti di geodesia, astronomia, binocoli, telemetri, termometri, cronometri, barometri, microscopi, bussole e altre apparecchiature.
Queste strumentazioni di alto valore e qualità rifornivano il Ministero della Guerra, l’Istituto geografico militare, osservatori e università, ma la bassa ricettività del mercato interno lo spinse a ricercare nuovi
sbocchi all’estero, attraverso l’apertura di uffici di rappresentanza in varie città europee e delle Americhe (Città del Messico, Buenos Aires, Montevideo). Sorretto da una fiducia incrollabile nelle potenzialità delle applicazioni industriali dell’ottica, ampliò la gamma delle produzioni della Filotecnica raggiungendo un alto grado di perfezionamento attestato da numerosi premi e riconoscimenti
From migration to cruise holidays : sailing the oceans in the 19th and early 20th centuries
No full textThe aim of the research is to highlight the key factors that sustained the shift from ocean liners to cruise ships. The contribution tries to analyse in a comparative international perspective: the company strategies; innovation in technology and shipbuilding; marketing strategies; the role of the states; credit availability; increasing demand of tourism activities and leisure
Welfare aziendale, relazioni industriali ed economia. Per una comparazione tra l’esperienza italiana e quella tedesca
No full textL’articolo propone alcune riflessioni sull’esperienza di welfare in Italia e in Germania in una prospettiva storica comparativa. L’economia sociale di mercato si afferma nella Germania occidentale del secondo dopoguerra soprattutto perché il movimento sindacale tedesco concorre all’istituzionalizzazione delle misure di politica sociale delle aziende all’interno di un assetto, regolato dallo stato, fondamentalmente cooperativo delle relazioni industriali. In Italia, al contrario, i decenni successivi alla guerra sono caratterizzati da una forte conflittualità e l’attuazione dell’art. 46 della Costituzione sulla partecipazione dei lavoratori alla gestione delle aziende trova l’opposizione degli imprenditori e il disinteresse dei sindacati. Il welfare aziendale in Italia sarà una concessione unilaterale e temporanea dei vertici di alcune aziende, mentre in Germania i lavoratori partecipano direttamente alla sua determinazione, nonostante le riserve delle classi imprenditoriali.The aim of the article is to present some reflections on corporate welfare in Italy and Germany in a comparative historical perspective. The social market economy succeeds after World War II in West Germany also because the German trade union movement contributes to the institutionalization of social policy measures of the companies, within a framework of cooperative industrial relations regulated by the state. In Italy, by contrast, the decades following the war are characterized by a strong social conflict. The implementation of Art. 46 of the Constitution (which states the participation of workers in management of companies) is opposed by the employers, while the trade unions are not interested in it. The corporate welfare in Italy will be a unilateral and temporary concession of the chiefs of some companies, while in Germany workers are directly involved in its determination, despite the mistrust of the business classes
Strategie d’impresa nella Lombardia ottocentesca : il caso di Francesco Antonio Turati (1802-1873)
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