Page 219 - Mediterranea-ricerche storiche, n. 48, aprile 2020flip

Working in and for charity institutions: patterns of employment and actors 219

set up new manufacturing activities and business. In other cases, the
key role played by the central power is even more explicit: in
September 1731, the board of directors of the congregazione della
carità of the city of Chieri, petitioned the king in order to set up a
textile factory to employ its poor inmates. Significantly, the
congregazione obtained the privilege, but it did not provide the master.
Instead, they explicitly asked to the Consolato di Commercio to appoint
‘un buon mastro nell'arte suddetta’ (an expert master in the craft) .
52
In sum, despite the great variety of patterns, entrepreneurs,
merchants and artisans working for the charity institutions were
embedded in the local social networks and were linked to the higher
authorities and institutions.
In the last part of my article I will deal with the case of the already
cited wool cloth manufacturer from Antwerp, Cornelio Wanderkrik,
whose professional and personal life in the city shows that the
opportunity to manage a business within the charity institutions was
a key to integration. The sources reveal that Cornelio arrived in Turin
following the invitation by virtue of the royal edict of April 1701.
Although a foreigner (he clearly was not a subject of the king), he was
able to establish a wool manufactory at the Ospedale di Carità, where
inmates were employed to spin wool thread to be woven into cloth.
In July 1720, after almost two decades of activity in the Pied-
montese city, he was granted several economic and symbolic privileges
which allowed him to expand his business. In his petition Cornelio
explained that, alongside woollens, he was able to introduce in the
duchy of Savoy the production of a specific kind of good-quality
blankets (wool covers). In his words, these ‘commodities and goods
have never been produced before in the country’. So he asked and
obtained from the king the right to supply the army with clothes
produced in his mill for the next three years, while committing to
employ all the poor people of the Ospedale, resorting to external
workers only if the labour force provided by the institution was
insufficient. In addition, Cornelio obtained a large loan (10,000 lire),
the right to build a follone (a fulling mill) near a channel, and an
additional sum of 2500 lire necessary for its construction. He also
obtained the right to use the tools belonging to the Ospedale for
spinning and weaving wool as well as fiscal and custom exemptions
for selling his cloths in all the state .
53

52 F. A. Duboin, Raccolta cit., tomo 16, vol. 18, libro 9, Memoriale a capi della
congregazione di carità (…), pp. 855-857.
53 Ast, sez. riun., Ufficio di finanze, Regi Biglietti poi Patenti, vol. 2, ff. 11v-13r.

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