Page 200 - Mediterranea-ricerche storiche, n. 48, aprile 2020flip

200 Beatrice Zucca Micheletto

and working conditions of poor children in workhouses. According to
several studies grounded in the seminal work of Foucault, during
the eighteenth century the notions of punishment and discipline
strengthened and the idea that poor, vagrants, and beggars should be
monitored, relegated in controlled spaces and put to work, gained the
attention of the authorities in several European countries (‘Great
Confinement’). An influential theoretical contribution to the issue was
provided by the pamphlet La Mendicità sbandita of the Jesuit André
Guevarre, a well-known work by the authorities in France and in Italy
(which included the duchy of Savoy and Piedmont). Between the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, therefore, in England,
Germany, France and Italy poorhouses and workhouses proliferated
with the aim to confine poor people, considered a threat to social order,
and to put them at work.
Charity institutions, workhouses and almshouses have received a
great attention from Italian scholars. In early modern times, these
institutions, which enjoyed great popularity across the Italian
peninsula, provided relief to people in need: from orphans and
abandoned children, to lone or endangered women, to vagrants and
beggars. Scholarly literature has focused on the policies enacted by
these institutions, which of course varied according to the categories
of people towards whom relief was targeted, and was shaped by
specific ideologies of masculinity and femininity. Scholars have also
devoted their attention to the socio-economic profile of individuals and
families receiving aid . A second strand of literature focuses on
1
benefactors and those involved in the administration of these
institutions . Overall, these studies underscore that work was a
2
crucial aspect in relief policies. But the picture is more dynamic and
complex: activities, time devoted to, and modalities of work varied from
city to city and from institution to institution, influenced also by
economic and social factors. Several studies grounded in economic
history highlight that charity institutions, in Italy and Europe,
provided cheap and disciplined labour force and served as reference

1 Among recent works: V. Zamagni (a cura di), Forme di povertà e innovazioni
istituzionali in Italia dal Medioevo ad oggi, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2000; A. Groppi, Il welfare
prima del welfare, Viella, Roma, 2010; A. Cantaluppi, W. Crivellin, B. Signorelli (eds.),
Le figlie della Compagnia. Casa del Soccorso, Opera del Deposito, Educatorio duchessa
Isabella fra età moderna e contemporanea, Compagnia di San Paolo, Quaderni
dell’Archivio Storico, Torino, 2011.
2 S. Cavallo, Charity and Power in Early Modern Italy: Benefactors and Their Motives
in Turin 1541-1789, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995

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