Page 173 - Mediterranea-ricerche storiche, n. 48, aprile 2020flip

To contain and control: work organization and poor government in the... 173

2. The case studies

The Real Albergo dei Poveri of Palermo

The idea of establishing a charitable institution to accommodate poor
people in Palermo was originally proposed in 1733 during the last years
of Austrian domination of Sicily . Palermo, like other European cities
4
already benefited of poor and destitute assistance since middle age.
Ecclesiastical bodies or lay brotherhoods operated these structures, but
they did not respond to any political plan except to the Christian duty of
helping the needy. Moreover, these were small structures, often attached
to churches or monasteries, capable of accommodating a few people.
The broad process of cultural change and administrative reforms
that took place all over Europe – and, of course, in the Kingdom of
Naples and Sicily too – with the Enlightenment, stimulated a new idea
of poor assistance . The enthronement of Charles of the House of
5
Bourbon (1734), and his administrative reforms of the Kingdom,
finally permitted the establishment of the institution in 1743 with the
start of the building of the Real Albergo dei Poveri . The works were
6
completed in 1772 under the new king Ferdinand. There was a feeling
that the state was changing to a sort of police state, focused on social
control that clearly came to the fore, as it did in the rest of Europe .
7
However, it was certainly through the rules on pauperism and health
control, on the other side, that the settlement of Real Albergo dei Poveri
and its Real Opificio delle Sete (Royal Silk Manufacture) responded to
the change that was taking place in the role and in the very meaning
of the state in the eighteenth century .
8

4 L. Bianchini, Della storia economico-civile di Sicilia. Libri due, Stamperia Reale,
Napoli, 1841; T. Dispenza, I problemi della produzione e del commercio della seta in Sicilia
e la Scuola pilota dell’Albergo dei Poveri di Palermo alla fine del Settecento, «Atti
dell’Accademia di Scienze Lettere e Arti in Palermo», n. 11, 1990, pp. 115-193.
5 G. Giarrizzo, Illuminismo, in R. Romeo (Edit.), Storia della Sicilia, Società editrice
per la Storia di Napoli e della Sicilia, Palermo,1980; Id., Sicilia e Napoli nel ‘700, in I
Borbone di Napoli e i Borbone di Spagna, Guida, Napoli, 1986; A. Di Gregorio. V.E. Sergio:
una versione siciliana del mercantilismo, «Mediterranea. Ricerche Storiche», n. 5, 2008,
pp. 317-350.
6 L. Bianchini, Della storia economico-civile di Sicilia cit., libro II, p. 7.
7 M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish: the Birth of Prison, Vintage Book, New York,
1979; D. Lazzarich, G. Borrelli, I Borbone a San Leucio: un esperimento di polizia
cristiana, in A. Ascione, G. Cirillo and G.M. Piccinelli (eds), Alle origini di Minerva
Trionfante. Caserta e l’utopia di S. Leucio. La costruzione dei Siti Reali borbonici,
Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali, Roma, 2012, pp. 347-374.
8 M. Garbellotti, Per carità. Poveri e politiche assistenziali nell’Italia moderna, Carocci,
Roma, 2013.

Mediterranea - ricerche storiche - Anno XVII - Aprile 2020
ISSN 1824-3010 (stampa) ISSN 1828-230X (online)