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Working in and for charity institutions: patterns of employment and actors 211

Militari, an eighteenth-century institution for soldiers’ daughters: she
was trained in silk weaving and, upon leaving the Opera, she was
granted a royal patent which allowed her to establish an independent
business . Similarly, Maria Margherita Revella, housed at Ospedale
34
from infancy, learnt the art of weaving silk and taffetas. She left the
institution in 1753 to marry (with a charity dowry of 60 lire), and the
following year she was admitted as a mistress in the taffeta weavers’
guild, while Anna Francesca Ferrari was trained in the same craft at
the Albergo di Virtù and became mistress in May 1781 . Despite this
35
evidence, we can actually ask how representative was this pattern for
girls: as it will be explained in the next section, the attitudes of the
institutions toward the professional patterns of young children were
influenced by specific ideals of masculinity and femininity.

The double standard: girls between protection of their sexual
honor and work

Our analysis of the individuals involved in the charity institutions
could not be complete without paying attention to differences in
treatment between girls and boys. The fate of poor children depended
on which institution they entered, certainly, but the way they were
treated and how they were trained was defined by a gendered ‘double
standard’. While boys might be sent daily to one of the city’s
workshops, this was more problematic for girls, whose sexual honour
and conduct had to be constantly monitored: therefore, girls were
customarily trained within the institution. While boys’ training was
aimed at giving them the means to earn their living independently,
often leading also to guild membership, this was not the case for girls,
who were trained in a limited set of trades or domestic activities
considered appropriate for their future as wives and mothers. Female
apprentices who finished their training were not automatically allowed
to leave: if they lacked a suitable place to live (i.e. in a family of sound
morality or with a relative) or were not betrothed, they could be forced
to spend their entire lives in the institution.
For boys, therefore, the stay in the institution was very often a
transitory phase of their life, that came to an end with a permission to
leave definitively (‘licenza assoluta’) at around 14-15 years of age,
when they were expected to be able to fend off for themselves. Things

34 Ast, sez. I, Materie economiche, Commercio, II add., m. 20bis
35 Ast, sez. riun., Insinuazione di Torino, a 1758, l. 2, f. 85r-86v ; ibid., Consolato di
Commercio, Registro dei taffetieri, vol. 66, f. n.n.

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