Page 210 - Mediterranea-ricerche storiche, n. 48, aprile 2020flip

210 Beatrice Zucca Micheletto

protests, two royal decrees dated 1758 established that children
trained as silk sock-makers in the Ospedale had to be admitted as
guild masters after four years as apprentices and a shorter period as
journeymen (two years instead of the three years required by the
guild), and without the usual charges (3 lire for apprentices and 4 lire
for journeymen). Similarly, shoemakers trained at the institution had
to work for only three years as journeymen (instead of four) and were
exempt from paying the apprentices and journeymen fees (of 2 and 4
lire) and from the mastery fee (equal to 40 lire after the presenting the
chef-d’oeuvre and 8 lire for the syndic of the guild) . Comparable
30
privileges were granted to children trained in silk weaving at the
Albergo di Virtù: according to the guild’s 1738 statutes, former
apprentices of the Albergo, or men who married girls trained there,
were exempt from the 50 lire fee charged to new masters. In 1753, all
former apprentices of the Albergo, irrespective of trade, were exempted
from guild fees and given the right to enter as journeyman . Children
31
could therefore enjoy concrete advantages from their stay in the
institution: some kind of training, and the access to the local guilds at
favorable conditions. The case of Maria Maddalena Cerato, a young
widow and mother of two children, formerly a servant but described in
our sources as a ‘beggar’ is representative. In July 1772 her elder son,
Carlo Giuseppe, aged 7 years old entered the Ospedale di Carità and
started an apprenticeship which allowed him to leave the institution
when he reached 15 years of age with a permission for ‘working as a
silk weaver in the workshop of the widow Gattié’ . A similar pattern
32
concerns Carlo Domenico Ollivero, journeyman shoemaker and
absent from the city, and his wife Lucia, who worked in the silk sector.
His eldest son, aged 12 entered the Ospedale di Carità in January
1779 and stayed there until 1784 when he obtained an authorization
to work with the master locksmith Morizio Ferrero. The second child
of the couple entered the institution in 1781, aged 11, and left it six
years later in order to join the workshop of wig-maker Osio .
33
This pattern has been detected also for girls. Giacinta Maria
Monelli, for example, spent eight years at the Opera delle figlie dei

30 Asct, Ospedale di Carità, cat. XI, fasc. 3 ; F. A. Duboin, Raccolta cit., tomo 16, vol.
18, libro 9, Regie patenti (…) a favore de' giovani ricoverati nell'Ospedale di Carità di
Torino che apprendono ivi l'arte di calzettajo, p. 893.
31 F. A. Duboin, Raccolta cit., tomo 16, vol. 18, libro 9, Memoriale a capi dell'Uni-
versità de' mastri mercanti fabbricatori di stoffe d'oro, d'argento, e seta (…), pp. 322-326;
Ibid., tomo 13, vol. 15, libro 7, Regie patenti (…) a favore de’ giovani che ne fanno il
tirocinio nell’Albergo di Virtù di Torino, pp. 215-216.
32 Asct, Ospedale di Carità, cat. VI, Libri delle informazioni per ricoveri, vol. 40, f. 526.
33 Ibid., vol. 38, f. 21.

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