Page 205 - Mediterranea-ricerche storiche, n. 48, aprile 2020flip

Working in and for charity institutions: patterns of employment and actors 205

Moreover these institutions required their inmates to perform some
kind of paid and/or unpaid work and contribute therefore to the
support of the institution itself, everyone according to his/her
capacity, ability, age and physical strength. As specified in its
regulation, the aim of these activities were twofold: to ‘facilitate the
support of the inmates with the product of their work and train them
in earning their livelihoods when they left the institution’ . At the
14
Ospedale di Carità no one was excluded from this commitment, and
even partially disabled individuals were expected to perform some kind
of work. In this perspective, as suggested also by Angela Groppi’s
research on the Ospizio Apostolico of Rome, the work of the poor had
a further meaning: charity relief was not given as a free and unconditional
present but it entailed duties, and especially the obligation for the
beneficiaries to contribute to the economy of the institution which hosted
them, according to their physical possibilities .
15
The crucial role acquired by the enhanced ideology of work
affected also the way in which the Piedmontese charity institutions
were funded: they no longer appealed to traditional private charity,
receiving instead consistent funds from the state ‘as enterprises
devoted to the public good’, since they aimed to find solutions ‘to
social problems such as unemployment, public order, juvenile
delinquency and prostitution’ . In the same perspective, as it will be
16
clear in the last section of this article, during the eighteenth century
a growing number of economic and fiscal privileges were granted by
the authorities to these institutions, and especially to their economic
activities, as well as to the entrepreneurs, artisans and merchants
who were directly involved in them. Furthermore, the idea that the
work of the poor was a way to cope with social and economic
problems and that it could be channeled towards the achievement of
the public good gained popularity among the kingdom’s charity
institutions, as testified by the numerous textile manufactures that
were renewed or set up from the middle of the eighteenth century in
mid-to-small towns of Piedmont and Savoy (i.e. Mondovi, Asti,
Savigliano, Racconigi, Nice, Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne etc..). Some of
them received special economic support by the central power or were

14 F. A. Duboin, Raccolta per ordine di materie delle leggi, cioè patenti, manifesti ecc..
pubblicate sino all’8 dicembre 1789 sotto il felicissimo dominio della Real Casa di Savoia
(…) Torino, Marcio Tip., 1818-1869, tomo 12, vol. 14, libro 7, Arti introdotte nell'Ospedale
della Carità, pp. 250-251.
15 Contrary to what happened for the Turinese Ospedale di Carità, the Roman
institution required also to inherit the majority of the goods and assets belonging to the
inmates. A. Groppi, Il welfare prima del welfare cit.
16 S. Cavallo, Charity and power, cit. p. 227.

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