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State and Society in Liberal Italy, 1862–1890

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Italy’s Social Revolution

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Abstract

‘Who is eating all the money? The poor don’t seem to be benefiting much. What we need, gentleman, is a nationalization of the assets of charities and their deposit in the patrimony of the state.’

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Notes

  1. Adapting the social indicators used by Morris, which focus on literacy, infant mortality, and life expectancy, Giovanni Federico and Gianni Toniolo estimate that in 1870 Italy was a socially ‘backward’ country and in 1910 it still ‘lagged more than a generation behind the most advanced European countries in terms of standard of living’. In their league table of European countries, Italy was one of the ‘worst’ performers. See their chapter on Italy in Patterns of European Industrialization: The Nineteenth Century, ed. R. Sylla and G. Toniolo (London and New York, 1991), pp. 197–217, 200–1; and D. M. Morris, Measuring the Conditions of the World’s Poor: The Physical Quality of Life (New York, 1979).

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  2. ISTAT, Cento anni di sviluppo economico e sociale dell’Italia, 1861–1961 (Rome, 1961), tables on pp. 58–9; S. Somogyi, La mortalità infantile nei primi cinque anni di età in Italia, 1863–1962 (Palermo, 1967), table on p. 42; J. Vallin, ‘Mortality in Europe from 1720 to 1914: Long-term Trends and Changes in Patterns by Age and Sex’, in The Decline of Mortality in Europe, ed. R. Schofield, D. Reher, and A. Bideau (Oxford, 1991), pp. 38–67.

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  12. See R. Scaldaferri, ‘L’origine dello “stato sociale” in Italia, 1876–1900’, Il pensiero politico, XIX (1986), pp. 223–40.

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  13. See C. Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism: 1870–1925 (London, 1967), p. 12 (n. 2) on the difficulties of applying the terms ‘moderate/conservative’ to the Right and ‘democratic/progressive’ to the Left.

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  15. See G. Policastro, Crispi e Mussolini (Mantua, 1928), pp. 26–7.

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  19. C. Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, pp. 45, 65.

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  20. L. Izzo, La finanza pubblica nel primo decennio dell’unità italiana (Milan, 1962), pp. 106–7.

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  21. Ibid., pp. 108–9.

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  22. V. Zamagni, The Economic History of Italy, 1860–1990 (Oxford, 1993), p. 37.

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  23. See Marcello De Cecco and Antonio Pedone’s discussion of the ‘debtor state’ in Storia dello stato italiano dall’unità a oggi, ed. R. Romanelli, (Rome, 1995), pp. 270–3; see also, V. Zamagni, Il debito pubblico in Italia dal 1861 al 1987 (Rome, 1988). For estimates of the total level of public indebtedness for the whole of the period, see F. A. Répaci, La finanza pubblica italiana nel secolo 1861–1960 (Bologna, 1962), table 32, p. 113.

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  24. R. Romanelli, Il commando impossibile: Stato e società nell’Italia liberale (Bologna, 1988), pp. 56ff.

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  25. L. Izzo, La finanza pubblica, pp. 23–32, on the unification of financial administration by Pietro Bastogi.

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  26. Répaci has ‘corrected’ the official figures, which show a surplus in 11 of the 37 1/2 budgets between 1861 and 1898; F. A. Répaci, La finanza pubblica, pp. 15, 27, and table 2 on 28–9.

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  27. G. Toniolo, An Economic History of Liberal Italy, 1850–1918, trans. M. Rees (London and New York, 1990), pp. 61–3.

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  28. F. A. Répaci, La finanza pubblica, table on p. 30; L. Izzo, La finanza pubblica, pp. 23–45 on the disastrous policies of Quintino Sella and Marco Minghetti.

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  29. L. Valiani, L’Italia dal 1876 al 1915: La lotta sociale e l’avvento della democrazia (Turin, 1960), pp. 403–4 and 419–33; F. A. Répaci, La finanza pubblica, table on p. 30; and see R. Romanelli, L’Italia Liberale, 1861–1900 (Bologna, 1979), table on pp. 448–9, based on P. Ercolani’s calculations in Lo sviluppo economico in Italia: Storia dell’economia italiana negli ultimi cento anni, vol. 3, Studi di settore e documentazione di base, ed. G. Fuà (Milan, 1969).

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  30. L. Izzo, La finanza pubblica, pp. 43–5, 71–7, quotes on 43, 71; on the tax on the grinding of wheat and corn, see D. Mack Smith, Italy: A Modern History (Ann Arbor, Michigan and London, 1959), pp. 86–7.

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  31. Italy was a nation of high indirect taxation, with taxes falling disproportionately on consumption rather than on income or property. According to D. Mack Smith, Italians could expect to pay over 30 per cent of their individual incomes in taxation, a percentage which was ‘probably a higher proportion than anywhere else in the world’. Naturally, taxes on foodstuffs affected the poor most severely. D. Mack Smith, Italy: A Modern History, pp. 86–7, 105.

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  32. L. Izzo La finanza pubblica, p. 161.

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  33. For a breakdown of the budget, see MAIC, DGS, Risultati dell’inchiesta sulle condizioni igieniche e sanitarie nei comuni del regno: Relazione generale (Rome, 1886), p. cclxii.

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  34. F. Della Peruta, ‘Le opere pie dall’unità alla legge Crispi’, p. 189.

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  35. R. M. Russo, La politica dell’assistenza: Storia dello sviluppo capitalistico e del sottosviluppo assistenziale in Italia dal 1860 ai giorni nostri (Rimini and Florence, 1974), p. 26.

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  36. F. Nitti, L’assistenza pubblica in Italia, p. 27.

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  37. State, Economy, and Society in Western Europe, 1815–1975: A Data Handbook in Two Volumes, vol. 1: The Growth of Mass Democracies and Welfare States, ed. P. Flora et al. (Frankfurt, London, and Chicago, 1983), p. 127.

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  38. Quoted in A. Lyttelton, ‘Shifting Identities: Nation, Region and City’, Italian Regionalism: History, Identity and Politics, ed. C. Levy (Oxford and Washington, DC, 1996), pp. 33–52, 39.

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  39. S. D’Amelio, La beneficenza nel diritto italiano, pp. 118–20.

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  40. S. Sepe, ‘Stato e opere pie: La beneficenza pubblica da Minghetti a Depretis, 1873–1878’, Quaderni sardi di storia, n. 4 (July 1983–June 1984), pp. 179–205; M. Piccialuti Caprioli, ‘Opere pie e beneficenza pubblica: Aspetti della legislazione piemontese da Carlo Alberto all’unificazione amministrativa’, in Rivista trimestrale di diritto pubblico, 3 (1980), pp. 963–1040; G. Farrel-Vinay, Povertà e politica, ch. 5.

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  41. G. Farrel-Vinay, pp.171, 172–3.

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  42. On 20 March 1865, the legislature introduced six laws on administrative unification as ‘enclosures’ within one overarching law. ‘Allegato A’ contained the new law on the functions of provincial and municipal governments. The testo unico was the fundamental law, consisting of a unified collection of all the relevant norms contained in previous legislation.

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  43. The text appears in Min. Interno, CR, Commissione Reale d’Inchiesta sui Brefotrofi (CRIB), Inchiesta sui brefotrofi e studi di legislazione comparata sui provedimenti per l’assistenza della infanzia abbandonata (Rome, 1900), p. 88; this inquest is discussed in Part III of this book.

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  44. This number includes those within the Veneto, which were added in 1867. On the 1861 inquest, which published its results in 15 volumes, from 1868 to 1873, see P. Castiglioni, Le opere pie del Regno d’Italia secondo la statistica del 1861 (Rome, 1873), pp. 10–17; M. Piccialuti Caprioli, ‘Il patrimonio del povero: L’inchiesta sulle opere pie del 1861’, Quaderni storici, 45 (December, 1980), pp. 918–41.

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  45. F. Della Peruta, ‘Le opere pie dall’unità alla legge Crispi’, p. 194.

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  46. ACS, L’inchiesta sulle condizioni sociali ed economiche della Sicilia, 1875–1876, in 2 volumes, ed. S. Carbone and R. Crispo, vol. 2 (Rome, 1963), p. 1112.

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  47. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 562–75.

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  48. Ibid., p. 1045. See also D. Mack Smith, Modern Sicily after 1713 (New York, 1968), pp. 456–8 for details of the sale of church latifondi, which Mack Smith estimates to have amounted to about half a million acres; and L. Riall, Sicily and the Unification of Italy: Liberal Policy and Local Power, 1859–1866 (Oxford, 1998), ch. 4 on the brokerage of power by local mayors and municipal councils.

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  49. L’inchiesta, vol. 1, containing interviews, esp. pp. 381–7.

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  50. It is important to note the gendered nature of orphan relief: while institutions gave girls training in mothercraft skills, morality and religion, and in the ‘more feminine’ tasks of sewing, weaving, and silk-making, they offered boys the opportunity to acquire a humanistic education and some competence in a trade or craft. The Relazione sullo stato morale dell’Orfanotrofio Maschile di Milano (Milan, 1884) shows that authorities wished to educate their ‘sons’ in the virtues of manliness and work. Founded in 1530 by a local philanthropist, the orphanage was located in a monastary near the church of the San Sepolchro. Though boys had to wear uniforms, and were subjected to a harsh discipline involving public humiliation and solitary confinement as standard punishments for bad behaviour, they also received instruction in design, music, and the arts (p. 63). In addition, they learned and practised a trade in the orphanage’s bottega. Upon their release at the age of 18, alumni received a quarter of all their accumulated earnings, a complete set of new clothes, and a bit of money to give them a good start in life on the outside (p. 75).

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  51. See P. Gavitt, Charity and Children in Renaissance Florence: The Ospedale degli Innocenti, 1410–1536 (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1990), pp. 256–9 for a discussion of the origins and practice of the sposalizio. The author also refers to the visual representation of this act in the famous fifteenth-century Pellegrinaio frescoes at the Ospedale della Scala in Siena. See also, A. Groppi, I conservatori della virtù: Donne recluse nella Roma dei papi (Rome and Bari, 1994), pt 2, ch. 4. First created in the seventeenth century, the conservatorio was so-called because its social function was to conserve the honour of women. Under very rigid ecclesiastical control, these establishments gave refuge to lone women, who were all seen as potential prostitutes, in an attempt to eliminate promiscuity and prostitution. Widows, ‘repentent’ ex-prostitutes, and abandoned and abused girls with ‘sordid’ family backgrounds were given shelter in these institutions which isolated them from the outside world and subjected them to a strict religious ‘education’ and work discipline.

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  52. L’inchiesta, vol. 2, p. 1112. Other prefects also reported that the perceived need to rescue orphaned women from vice meant that many institutions in Sicily arranged marriages between ‘young girls of 18 and old men of 80’; see ibid., p. 1113. In so doing, these charities felt that they were providing an important service to the community by satisfying accepted social custom and serving their ancient traditions. The figure of the lone woman was a very threatening one in patriarchal Sicily in the nineteenth century.

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  53. In his L’ostetricia, la ginecologia e la chirugia in Piemonte dalle origini ai giorni nostri (Saluzzo, 1973), T. M. Caffaratto refers to a dispute that began in 1876 between one opera pia, the Regia Opera di Maternità in Turin, and government officials. After public authorities initiated a modernization drive within the maternity hospital, which was still run along ‘medieval’ lines, they encountered great resistance. The case went from the prefect to the deputazione provinciale, then to the consiglio comunale, then to the interior ministry and, finally, to the consiglio di stato. After many deliberations, the case then went back to the province’s commission of special affairs, who sent it back to the interior ministry. After ten years of review, the interior ministry finally made a judgement that the treatment of patients within the institution did not meet modern medical standards, so the hospital needed to be reorganized. Even after arbitration, however, efforts at reform still dragged on slowly (pp. 119–120).

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  54. G. Farrel-Vinay, Povertà e politica, p. 163; see also, F. Della Peruta, ‘Le opere pie’, pp. 198–9.

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  55. L. Valiani, L’Italia dal 1876 al 1915: La lotta sociale e l’avvento dello democrazia (Turin, 1960), pp. 403–4, 419–33.

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  56. C. Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, p. 46.

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  58. See ApC, Documenti, Legislatura XIII, Sessione 1876–77, pp. 21–9, for Nicotera’s presentation and his bill (n. 152) on the reform of the law on beneficent institutions; see also, G. Farrel-Vinay, pp. 226–31.

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  59. F. Della Peruta, ‘Le opere pie’, p. 207.

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  60. See above, note 43.

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  61. Min. Interno, CR, Atti della Commissione Reale per l’Inchiesta sulle Opere Pie (hereafter ACRIOP), Statistica delle opere pie e delle spese di beneficenza sostenute dai comuni e dalle provincie, vol. 1: Piemonte (Rome, 1886), pp. 1–5 for details of the establishment of the commission by Depretis.

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  62. A. Cherubini, Storia della previdenza sociale, p. 40.

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  63. Min. Interno, CR , ACRIOP, Relazione A.S.E. il presidente del consiglio, ministro dell’interno, sui lavori della commissione (Rome, 1884), contains the full history of the inquest’s investigations and details of the difficulties of research, esp. pp. 6–12.

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  64. S. Sepe, Amministrazione e storia: Problemi della evoluzione degli apparati statali dall’unità ai giorni nostri (Rimini, 1995), p. 308; see also S. Lepre, ‘Opere pie anni ‘80: L’inchiesta conoscitiva economico-morale-amministrativa presieduta da Cesare Correnti’, Istituzioni e borghesie locali nell’Italia liberale, M. Bigaron, ed. (Milan, 1986), pp. 146–75.

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  65. Min. Interno, CR, ACRIOP, Abruzzi e Molise, Puglie, Basilicata, Calabrie e riassunto generale per il regno (Rome, 1897).

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  66. Farrell-Vinay, ch. 7, esp. 237–41; 276–8.

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  67. The commissioners were well aware of the lack of comparability between the 1861 and 1881 statistics. For example, because of changes in the definition of opere pie, they dissuade readers from assuming that there had been a massive increase in the number of institutions since 1861: see the last volume, ACRIOP, Abruzzi e Molise, Puglie, Basilicata, Calabrie e riassunto generale per il regno, p. 41.

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  68. A. Cherubini, Beneficenza e solidarietà: Assistenza pubblica e mutualismo operaio, 1860–1900 (Milan, 1991), p. 37 and table 1 on p. 38.

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  69. Répaci, La finanza pubblica, table 11, p. 52.

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  72. Ibid., table 6.2 on pp. 45–6, 48; Farrell-Vinay, table 7.3.1, p. 256.

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  73. Min. Interno, CR, ACRIOP, Lombardia: Statistica delle opere pie al 31 dicembre 1880 (Rome, 1887), pp. 5, 8.

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  75. Min. Interno, CR, ACRIOP, Veneto (Rome, 1887), p. 2; Toscana (Rome, 1888), p. vi ; Campania (Rome, 1891), p. vi; Abruzzi e Molise, Puglie, Basilicata, Calabrie, p. 6; and see ACRIOP’s Relazione del Direttore Generale della Statistica (Rome, 1889), pp. 7–8.

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  78. These figures include the administrative and personnel costs for the treasury. S. Sepe, Amministrazione e storia, p. 58.

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  79. The search for salvation was the raison d’être of these voluntary associations, which concentrated their activities on the celebration of masses and the commemoration of the dead. The primary function of these devotions was to intercede on behalf of brothers and sisters and secure their easy passage into paradise.

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  80. Camera dei deputati, Discorsi parlamentari di Francesco Crispi, vol. 3 (Rome, 1915), pp. 388–437, esp. 388–408.

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  81. Ibid., pp. 388–408.

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  87. Ibid., pp. 35–7.

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  88. Ibid., ch. 4 by S. Sepe, pp. 157–8.

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  89. F. Della Peruta, ‘Le opere pie dall’unità alla legge Crispi’, pp. 209, 213.

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  90. R. Romanelli, L’Italia liberale, 1861–1900, pp. 349–50; these views are echoed in Il commando impossibile. See also G. Farrell-Vinay, Povertà e politica, pp. 320–4 for an overview of other positive appraisals of the 1890 law.

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  94. See Camera dei Deputati, Discorsi parlamentari di Giovanni Giolitti, vol. 2 (Rome, 1953), pp. 568–74, 571 for details of the new era of fiscal conservatism after 1889. This resulted neither in a balanced budget nor in reductions in public expenditure; Répaci, table 3, p. 30. However, efforts to keep social spending to a bare minimum were far more successful.

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  113. The tendency amongst revisionist historians has been to avoid describing the process of nation-state-building in either Liberal Italy or Imperial Germany as a failure. In this regard, see D. Blackbourn and G. Eley, The Peculiarities of German History: Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Oxford, 1984), chs 6 and 7; and J. A. Davis, ‘Remapping Italy’s Path to the Twentieth Century’, Journal of Modern History, 66 (June, 1994), pp. 291–320, for a review of recent reappraisals. Revisionists posit that the historian should avoid judgement because every nation’s route to modernity is unique. Despite the strengths of this argument, it would be disingenuous to think that scholars can simply ignore the overwhelming reality of the collapse of parliamentary democracy and the rise of fascism in both countries. The word ‘failure’ may be flawed in some respects, but it may also be appropriate, so long as the historian seeks to explain, rather than to blame.

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  1. University of London, UK

    Maria Sophia Quine (Lecturer in Modern European History Queen Mary)

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© 2002 Maria Sophia Quine

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Quine, M.S. (2002). State and Society in Liberal Italy, 1862–1890. In: Italy’s Social Revolution. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403919793_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403919793_3

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