Page 214 - Mediterranea-ricerche storiche, n. 48, aprile 2020flip

214 Beatrice Zucca Micheletto

observed, and especially during work, common meals and during
sleeping time (when girls and boys were separated) . These difficulties
41
explain, at least partially, the high rate of mobility of young people who
entered these institutions, and, for the Ospedale di Carità, explain also
why some families rejected the idea of leaving their babies and children
there, and preferred to receive relief at their homes.

Working for the inmates

Another important group of people worked in the charity
institutions providing a range of services and economic activities for
the care and the well-being of inmates or for the ordinary management
of the institution. According to a report issued in 1766, at the
Ospedale 244 women and 211 men were employed in specific tasks
for the advantage of the institution (‘ad uso dello Spedale’). Cobblers,
tailors, seamstresses and weavers of both sexes sewed and mended
clothes, linen and shoes for the inmates; others performed cleaning
chores, or took care of the ill and disabled. Men were also barbers and
apothecaries, they worked in the stables, in the sacristy or in the
Treasury of the Ospedale, while women were employed as laundresses
or cooks, provided food and drink or manufactured communion
wafers . Forty years later, in 1809 during the French domination, the
42
Ospedale employed 17 women and 10 men as nurses for the care of
the inmates and 3 men in the apothecary; 75 men and 99 women were
servants or gardeners in the estate of the Ospedale, while 60 men and
68 women worked as servants or workers for the maintenance of the
institution’s premises. In addition there were 3 porters, 3 butchers, 3
carters, 2 gravediggers and a small group of male clerks: 1 penmen at
the archives; 1 officer (‘huissier à la commission administrative’) and
3 civil servants (‘commis au bureaux’) . It remains unclear whether
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these workers were external laborers or else they were chosen among
the inmates. Similarly, the criteria according to which these were
chosen remain unknown. Evidence from other institutions shows that

41 For a detailed analysis of a typical working day at the Ospedale di Carità see: B.
Zucca Micheletto, Temps pour travailler, temps pour éduquer : le travail des pauvres dans
les institutions de charité (Turin, XVIIIe siècle), in C. Maitte, D. Terrier (eds.), Les temps
du travail. Normes, pratiques, évolutions (XIVe-XIXe siècle), Presses Universitaires de
Rennes, Rennes, 2014, pp. 81-99. Asct, Ospedale di Carità, cat. I, fasc. 31, Distribuzione
del tempo per li poveri nei giorni di lavoro e nei giorni di festa.
42 Ast, I sez., Materie ecclesiastiche, Luoghi pii di qua da monti, m. 18, f. 8, Stato
generale delle persone.
43 Asct, Ospedale di Carità, cat. XI, fasc. 6, État de travails. In French in the text.

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