Page 202 - Mediterranea-ricerche storiche, n. 48, aprile 2020flip

202 Beatrice Zucca Micheletto

This latter is also the point of view adopted by the present article
that focuses on preindustrial charity institutions in Savoy-Piedmont
State. It is certainly true that workhouses exploited their inmates’
work, and treated them ambiguously. However, this article suggests
that an in-depth analysis of the individuals that, in different ways,
were involved in the working system of these institutions, the nature
of the work they were required to perform and the social and
economic ties that bonded them with their peers and families and
with other institutions can nuance this assessment and bring to light
a more complex situation. Indeed, the majority of the charity
institutions here considered emphasized the fact that poor should be
trained so as to gain some kind of skill and enter the labour market
as soon as possible. Although with important differences between
girls and boys, and among institutions, a temporary stay at a charity
could be an occasion for children to learn a job and even join the
guilds at a favourable condition. At the same time, this system was
profitable also for artisans and entrepreneurs enlisted by the
institutions for organizing work and training the poor, since it
endowed them and their families with economic privileges and social
prestige. By focusing on the economic actors involved in these
charities as well as on the range of economic activities performed,
this article improves our understanding of the work of the poor and
shows its multi-layered features and multiple consequences on the
life of the inmates.

The multiple meanings of work performed by poor

One of the oldest charity institutions in Turin was the Ospedale di
San Giovanni, established and managed by the municipality, which
received, and took care of abandoned children and orphans . Another
9
Turinese charity institution was the Albergo di Virtù, founded
originally by the Compagnia di San Paolo and placed under the

(2005), pp. 409-441 ; M. Martinat, Travail et apprentissage des femmes à Lyon au XVIII e
siècle, «Mélanges de l'École Française de Rome, Italie et Méditerranée MEFRIM», 123, 1
(2011), pp. 11-24; R. Schalk, From orphan to artisan : apprenticeship careers and
contract enforcement in The Netherlands before and after the guild abolition, «The
Economic History Review», 70, 3 (2017). On the versatility of apprenticeship see: P.
Wallis, Apprenticeship and training in premodern England, «Journal of Economic
History», 68, 3 (2008), pp. 832-861; B. Zucca Micheletto, A large “umbrella”. Patterns of
apprenticeship in eighteenth-century Turin, in M. Prak, P. Wallis, (eds.), Apprenticeship
in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2019, pp. 78-105.
9 S. Cavallo, Charity and Power cit.

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