Page 207 - Mediterranea-ricerche storiche, n. 48, aprile 2020flip

Working in and for charity institutions: patterns of employment and actors 207

31 boys and 45 girls: boys were trained in crafts such as ribbon-
making, shoemaking, carpentry and wool or silk weaving. Girls were
instructed as silk-veil makers (fabbricanti di garze), in sewing linens
and gloves, or in less skilled activities such as spinning silk thread .
18
In 1732, two entrepreneurs, Brunetta and Benissone, who produced
Bolognese style veils and silk cloths, were allowed to employ
apprentices from the Albergo in their workshop . By 1798, fourteen
19
masters and merchants worked in the institution’s workshops, setting
up to 119 looms. External workers and apprentices were also
employed there, and 88 among these latter received patronage by the
institution. Much like apprenticeship contracts with private masters,
the agreements concluded for training in the charity institutions’
workshops specified that the master had to teach the children ‘like a
good father’ and could not ask them to perform jobs that were not
connected with the craft, i.e. personal errands or service activities for
the master’s family. Apprentices received 4 or 5 soldi per day; they
were not paid during holidays, absences or illnesses, and during the
initial three-month trial period (‘di tolleranza’). Trained silk and wool
sock-makers in the Ospedale di Carità, on the other hand, worked
gratuitously for the first twenty days of their contract, afterwards they
would receive 5 soldi per day during their first four years, which would
rise to 6 soldi for the following two years. Apprentices were required to
adapt to the working conditions and working hours established by the
Ospedale for all the inmates . The administration also expected the
20
wage to be spent on clothes, although there is evidence that, despite
the regulations, inmates used their salary to purchase foodstuffs or
other goods with the complicity of guards and porters who could
access the outside world.
Most almshouses dedicated to girls and women neither hosted
workshops, nor allowed their inmates to leave the premises for
training or working. Individuals admitted at the Soccorso, Deposito
and Forzate were occupied in sewing, mending, starching and ironing,
in spinning and manufacturing clothes and buttons under the
supervision of internal mistresses. They produced for commissioned
orders and for the institution (‘a beneficio della casa’), and when they
received a salary, the charity would withhold a part. However, since

18 Ast, sez. riun., Albergo di Virtù, Fondazione e dotazione dell'opera, 1700-1750,
vol. 5. According to the available sources, girls were hosted in the Albergo only until the
early eighteenth century.
19 F. A. Duboin, Raccolta cit., tomo 13, vol. 15, libro 7, Regio Biglietto (...) pel quale
dànnosi alcuni giovani dell’Albergo quali apprendisti alla manifattura di lustrini e di veli
di Bologna (…), p. 213.
20 Ast, sez. riun., Insinuazione di Torino, a. 1757, l. 2, f. 819r-823r.

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