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The Economic Expansion of Lombardy, 1300–1500: A Study in Political Stimuli to Economic Change*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Douglas F. Dowd
Douglas F. Dowd
Affiliation:
Cornell University
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Extract

Lombardy underwent an agricultural revolution (and a connected process of general economic growth) in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The basis for this transformation was a series of fundamental institutional changes. These latter—consisting most importantly of the transfer of control over the land into new hands—must in turn be attributed essentially to the policies of the Visconti and Sforza dukes who, through direct or indirect means, encouraged, initiated, facilitated, and acquiesced in the processes by which the change took place.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , June 1961 , pp. 143 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1961

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References

1 Milone, Ferdinando, L'ltalia nell' economia delle sue regioni (Turin: Edizioni Scientifiche Einaudi, 1955), pp. 96–97.Google Scholar This book is the definitive economic geography of Italy.

2 The term “Lombardy” as used here refers to the State of Milan, ruled by the Dukes of Milan. The first Duke of Milan (Gian Galeazzo Visconti) was named in 1395, but the Visconti dynasty had controlled the area for a century or so before that year. The last Visconti duke died in 1447. His rule was followed by the abortive Ambrosian Republic, an attempt to regain the commune, and, in 1450, by the first Sforza Duke, Francesco, a condottiere. The rule of the Sforza ended in 1535, as that of the Spanish military government began.

3 See Simeoni, Luigi, Le Signorie (2 vols.; Milan: Casa Editrice Dottor Francesco Vallardi, 1950)Google Scholar, especially Chs. VII-IX, Vol. I. In addition to Milan, the leading states of the time were, or were to become, Venice, Florence, the Papacy, and the Kingdom of Naples.

4 The duchy's rule was never again as extensive as under Gian Galeazzo. See Chabod, Federico, Lo Stato di Milano nella prima metà del secolo XVI (Rome: Edizioni dell' Atteneo, 1955), pp. 3–6Google Scholar for a delineation of the boundaries of the state as of 1500.

5 See, for example, the essays by Postan, M., Lopez, Robert S., Carus-Wilson, E., and Nef, John U., in Postan, M. and Rich, E. E. (eds.) The Cambridge Economic History of Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952), IIGoogle Scholar, Chs. IV, V, VI, and VII, respectively.

6 Ibid., p. 351.

7 Carlo M. Cipolla, as later references will only partially reveal, has been engaged in a persistent and rewarding effort to examine the economic history of Lombardy (and elsewhere in Italy) in the light of modern issues. The interpretation of the signoria, noted above will be found in his “I precedenti economici,” in Milano, Storia di (Milan: Fondazione Treccani degli Alfieri, 1957), VIII (hereafter: Milano VIII), 345–50.Google Scholar

8 Pugliese, Salvatore, “Condizioni economiche e finanziarie della Lombardia nella prima metà del secolo XVIII,” in Miscellanea di storia italiana (Turin: Fratelli Bocca Librai di S.M., 1924)Google Scholar, serie terza, XXI, 25. For a detailed statement of the physique of Lombardy, see Milone, L'ltalia nell economia, pp. 96–134. Greenfield, Kent R., Economics and Liberalism in the Risorgimento—A Study of Nationalism in Lombardy, 1814–1848 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1934)Google Scholar, Part I, is concerned with late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century conditions, and is interesting for comparative purposes.

9 For the detailed figures, see Pugliese, “Condizione economiche …,” p. 38. Corresponding figures for the twentieth century may be found on p. 39 of the same work. The latter, as might be expected, show a significant increase in effective utilization of land surface.

10 Apart from the mountain areas, land tenure in Lombardy was characterized by medium to large-size estates, the size tending to increase toward the plain. Typically, these lands were owned by absentees, and farmed by some form or another of share-cropper, small tenant, or large renter. Share-cropping predominated in the hills, and renting on the plain, characteristically, but with exceptions in both areas. Share-cropping took the form of the so-called massaria, a type of communal, or collective share-cropping; and, as time went on, as communications improved and specialization increased, the massaria tended to be replaced by the mezzadria, a more individualistic version of the same institution, which had itself long existed in Italy. Although there was much highly fragmented tenancy on the plain before our period begins, the typical pattern that developed during the expansion was the large renter—he may be called a capitalistic renter—who hired agricultural labor, and managed his rented lands. His labor force was in large part the former small tenant population, dispossessed by the process of change. See Carlo Cipolla, “Ripartizione delle colture nel pavese secondo le ‘misure territoriali’ della metà del ‘500,” in Studi di economia e statistica, (Università di Catania), serie I, I, 258, and Greenfield, Economics and Liberalism, …, pp. 5, and 27–28.

11 “The spade was the characteristic instrument of cultivation,” even in the eighteenth century. Greenfield, ibid., p. 4.

12 To say a portion of land was devoted to a particular crop does not mean it was specialized, in that crop. Thus the vine and the mulberry tree were interspersed in cultivated fields, for example. See, for example, Cipolla, “Ripartizione …,” pp. 257–59. What Cipolla shows here as true for the small region fanning out to the north and east from Pavia was generally true of the entire region then, as in some areas of Italy it still is.

13 For a more extended discussion of the marcite, and associated questions, see Pugliese, “Condizioni economiche …,” p. 25, Milone, L'Italia nell’ economia …, pp. 115–24, and Robertson, C. J., “Italian Rice Production in its Regional Setting,” Geography, XX, Part I (March 1935), 22.Google Scholar See also Greenfield, Economics and Liberalism, …, p. 13, who points out that both the natural fertility of the soil, and the slope of the terrain were greatly supplemented by “patient removals and transfers of earth …by generations of cultivators….”

14 Giulio Cesare Zimoli, “Canali e navigazione interna dalle origini al 1500,” Milano VIII, 867–68. For a more detailed discussion of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, see Biscaro, Gerolamo, “Gli antichi ‘navigli’ milanesi,” Archivio Storico Lombardo, serie quarta, X, anno XXXV (1908), 285 ff.Google Scholar I have relied heavily on Zimoli's discussion for what follows. See also Agnelli, Giovanni, “La viabilità nel Lodigiano, ecc.,” Archivio Storico Lombardo, serie quarta, I, anno XXXI (1940)Google Scholar, for a general examination of transportation facilities in the area.

15 Mickwitz, Gunnar, “Italy,” in Clapham, J. H. and Power, Eileen (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1942), I, 324.Google Scholar The impression given by Mickwitz is misleading. The Muzza, was built by the Milanese, but ”sotto la podesteria del lodigiano Amizano Carrentano”,—at the behest of a podestà, or chief magistrate from the Lodi area—this being the time when communes deliberately placed themselves under the effective administration of magistrates from other communes. Drawing from, paralleling, and emptying back into the Adda River, the Muzza, served Lodi more than Milan. See Zimoli, “Canali …,” p. 871. See also Bey, Ismail Sirry, Irrigation in the Valley of the River Po (Cairo: National Printing Department, 1902).Google Scholar

16 Zimoli, “Canali …,” p. 876. Sirry Bey (Irrigation, …, p. 62) argues that it was used for navigation as early as 1257, but Zimoli appears to be more reliable.

17 Zimoli, “Canali …,” pp. 879–80. The strategic importance of Pavia, located on the Ticino just above its junction with the Po, was that it was the furthest point inland continuously navigable from the Adriatic.

18 Cipolla, Milano VIII, 352–53. Also see , Cipolla's “Per la storia delle terre della ‘bassa’ lombarda,” in Studi in onore di Armando Sapori (Milan: Istituto Editoriale Cisalpino, 1957), I, 670Google Scholar, hereafter referred to as Sapori I.

19 Ibid., p. 671.

20 All this, and much of what follows has been brought out by Cipolla in an important study, “Comment s'est perdue la propriété ecclesiastique dans I'Italie du Nord entre le XIe et le XVIe siècle,” Annales-Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations, Vol. 2, No. 3 (July-Sept. 1947), 317 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The above discussion is based upon pp. 317–18 and the text and Footnote 3 on p. 326 (which contains a valuable table).

21 Ibid., pp. 318–19.

22 Cipolla, Milano VIII, p. 350.

23 Sapori, I, 669. See also Cipolla, Annales, p. 319, and Milano VIII, 357–58, where he discusses the dramatic impact and spread of this process—and the development of a new institution (the consegna) that changed custom into law—in the fifteenth century.

24 Cipolla, Milano VIII, 350.

25 See Sapori I, 670, and Cipolla Milano VIII, 350–51.

26 The intense activity of the building industry in the fifteenth century was a direct outcome of the prosperity of the period, which led to a buzz of both urban and rural building, including an absolutely new phase of dwellings for the peasantry, inter alia. See Cipolla, Milano VIII, 361–62.

27 Verri, Pietro, Considerazioni sul commercio dello Stato di Milano (a cura di Vianello, C. A.) (Milan: Università L. Bocconi, 1939), pp. 14–15Google Scholar, text and footnotes. Verri was an eighteenth century economist-reformer of Lombardy, one of several, and probably the most acute.

28 The discussion here follows Borlandi, Franco, “Note per la storia della produzione e del commercio di una materia prima. Il guado net Medio Evo,” in Studi in onore di Gino Luzzato (Milan: Giuffrè, 1949), I, 297–324.Google Scholar Woad provided a blue dye, and madder (la robbia), to be mentioned, a tomato red dye.

29 Whereas the madder plant yielded one crop in two years, which destroyed the plant (the dye coming from the root), woad gave four to five crops a year (and the dye comes from the leaves). Ibid., p. 308.

30 Ibid., pp. 304–5.

31 The largest single outlet was England in the fifteenth century, a market skilfully exploited by the famous mercantile and financial house of Borromei of Milan. See Biscaro, Gerolamo, “Il Banco Filippo Borromei e compagni di Londra (1436–1439),” Archivio Storico Lombardo, serie quarta, XIX, anno XL (1913), 114–16Google Scholar for a discussion of the trade in dyes, and pp. 37–126, and pp. 283–314 for a fuller discussion of this enterprise.

32 For a fuller discussion of the conflict, see Pugliese, “Condizioni economiche …,” pp. 35–38. For a discussion of the interdependence of water, meadow, forage, cattle, manure, sewage, and rice, see C. H. Robertson, “Italian Rice Production …,” pp. 22–23.

33 My entire account is based on the excellent study of Aleati, Giuseppe, “Una dinastia di magnati medioevali: gli Eustachi di Pavia,” in Studi in onore di Armando Sapori (Milan: Istituto Editoriale Cisalpino, 1957), II, 747–57.Google Scholar It may be noted that by the close of the sixteenth century, Pasino's then noble descendants had repudiated his businesslike, and relatively humble beginnings.

34 Cipolla, Milano VIII, 363–64; and in Sapori I, 668. By the close of the sixteenth century a different significance must be attributed to the emphasis on agricultural activity. Beginning then, and particularly in the seventeenth century, the two major factors keeping capital on the land were (1) the general weakness and the spreading stagnation of industry and trade, and (2) the contributing factor of Spanish rule, which emphasized the noble qualities of land ownership and frowned on all other economic activities. Bruno Caizzi, who has done as much as anyone to set the record straight in these matters, particularly in his several volumes on Como, may be consulted conveniently in his illuminating essay, “I tempi della decadenza economica di Cremona,” Sapori II, 1011–19.

35 It is only recently that the older notion, that prosperity ceased with the opening of the sixteenth century, has been laid to rest. Of the many new writings that might be cited, those of Aleati and Cipolla seem most pointed. See Aleati, Giuseppe, La Popolazione di Pavia durante il dominio spagnolo (Milan: Guiffrè, 1957), esp. pp. III–28Google Scholar, Aleati and Cipolla, “L'economia milanese e lombarda nei secoli XVI e XVII,” in Milano XI, and Cipolla's general article on Italy, “II declino economico dell’ Italia,” in Cipolla, Carlo M. (ed.), Storia dell’ economia italiana (Turin: Edizioni Scientifiche Einaudi, 1959), p. 605 ff.Google Scholar; also in slightly different form in the Economic History Review, second series, Vol. 5 (1952), as “The Decline of Italy: The case of a fully matured economy.”

36 A most useful examination of this problem is Ettore Verga, “Le corporazioni delle industrie tessili in Milano—loro rapporti e conflitti nei secoli XVI–XVIII,” Archivio Storico Lombardo, serie terza, XIX, anno XXX (1903), 64–125.Google Scholar