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Table of contents :
Front Matter....Pages i-xiv
Introduction....Pages 1-6
“Millain The Great”....Pages 7-34
Social Stratification and Professional Groups....Pages 35-60
The Pulsing Heart of Europe....Pages 61-91
The Second Rome....Pages 93-121
The Stronghold of the Monarchy....Pages 123-150
Conclusion....Pages 151-154
Back Matter....Pages 155-249

Citation preview

Spanish Milan

Spa n ish M i l a n A C i t y w i t h i n t h e E m pi r e , 1 5 35 – 170 6

Ste fano D’Amico

SPANISH MILAN

Copyright © Stefano D’Amico, 2012. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2012

All rights reserved. First published in 2012 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-43439-8

ISBN 978-1-137-30937-2 (eBook)

DOI 10.1057/9781137309372 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

D’Amico, Stefano, 1963– Spanish Milan : a city within the empire, 1535–1706 / Stefano D’Amico. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–1–137–00382–9 (alk. paper) 1. Milan (Italy)—History—1535–1859. 2. Naples (Kingdom)— History—Spanish rule, 1442–1707. 3. Spaniards—Italy—Milan—History. I. Title. DG658.1.D37 2012 945⬘.21107—dc23

2012006116

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: October 2012 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

For Aliza and Luca In loving memory of my mother Anna D’Amico Allegri (1933–2007)

C on t e n ts

List of Figures

ix

List of Tables

xi

Acknowledgments

xiii

Introduction: A Forgotten City

1

1

“Millain the Great”: Population and the Urban Fabric

7

2

Social Stratification and Professional Groups: Toward a Growing Polarization

35

The Pulsing Heart of Europe: Urban Manufactures and Trading Networks

61

The Second Rome: Religious Reform and Ecclesiastical Institutions

93

3 4 5

The Stronghold of the Monarchy: Administration and Political Dynamics

123

Conclusion

151

Notes

155

Bibliography

209

Index

243

Figu r es

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 4.1

Map of Milan by Antonio Lafréry, 1573 Map of Milan by Marco Antonio Barateri, 1629 Palazzo Marino and St. Fedele Urban parishes within the walls, 1610 The true portrait, life, death, facts, and miracles of Saint Carlo Borromeo 5.1 Map of the Duchy of Milan by Giovanni Giorgio Settala, 1592 5.2 Philip II and the coats of arms of his reigns

10 15 18 19 99 124 127

Ta bl es

2.1 Socio-occupational groups in Milan in 1576 and 1610 2.2 Parish of St. Tecla, years 1574, 1582, and 1610 (socio-professional categories) 3.1 Number and distribution of domestic staff in Milan in 1576 and 1610 3.2 Parish of St. Tecla: number and distribution of domestic staff

36 60 68 68

Ac k now l e dgm e n ts

This book is the product of many years of work and would not have

been possible without the help, advice, or simple friendship and support coming from many people. First of all, I want to thank Domenico Sella, whose work inspired me to pursue the study of Spanish Milan while I was still a student at the University of Milan. I later had the pleasure and honor of meeting Domenico, a uniquely kind, generous, and intelligent soul—and his mentoring and scholarly assistance were fundamental during my first years in the American academic system. For the advice and support in the initial stages of research for this book, I am eternally grateful to Elena Brambilla, Carlo Capra, Lucia Sebastiani, Giovanni Muto, Giovanni Vigo, Franco Ramella, and the late Claudio Donati and Cesare Mozzarelli. I also want to extend a personal thank you to Alex Grab, whom I met in the Milanese archives and who, with great humor and humility, initiated me to the mysteries of American universities. As a work of synthesis, this book strongly relies on the contributions of a new generation of brilliant scholars, many of whom began their career with me at the University of Milan and whom I am honored to call friends. Among these researchers, I would like to thank Gianvittorio Signorotto, Cinzia Cremonini, Vittorio Beonio-Brocchieri, Antonia Abbiati, Massimo Giannini, Chiara Continisio, Mario Rizzo, Giovanni Liva, Stefano Levati, Luca Mocarelli, Flavio Rurale, Paola Curatolo, Lucia Aiello, Marco Ostoni, and Renzo Corritore. Within this group, special thanks go to Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño and his wife Montse for their wonderful hospitality during my research trips to Madrid. And to my old friend and colleague Giuseppe De Luca, my warmest sentiment and thanks—I cannot even begin to quantify his help and advice in all practical and theoretical matters of work and life. I am grateful to the staff of the Archivio di Stato, Archivio Storico Civico, Archivio della Curia Arcivescovile, and Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan for their invaluable assistance during my research. I also thank the Civica Raccolta Bertarelli in Milan, for the permission to use some of their maps and views of Milan in my book.

xiv

A c k now l e d g m e n t s

A short-term research grant from the Newberry Library in May 2005 allowed me to access their extraordinary collection, and to write part of the first chapter of this book. I want to thank the library’s staff, and especially Paul Gehl, for their help during a very pleasant, productive, and unforgettable month in Chicago. This work would never have been completed without the generous financial support of Texas Tech University that helped fund invaluable research trips to libraries and archives. In particular, I would like to thank the College of Arts & Sciences and Dean Lawrence Schovanec for granting me a Scholars Incentive Award in spring 2011, allowing me to work almost full time on this manuscript. I would also like to thank Allan Kuethe, Bruce Daniels, Jorge Iber, and Randy McBee, who, as chairs of the history department since I began my service at Texas Tech, have offered financial, academic, and personal support in pursuing my research projects. My former and current colleagues, especially Jeffrey Mosher, John Howe, Mark Stoll, Julie Willett, Ron Rainger, David Troyansky, Ed Steinhart, Catherine Miller, and Will Gray, have always made the environment of the history department friendly and stimulating. My dear colleagues and friends, Paul Deslandes, Patricia Pelley, Miguel, Susie, and Diego Levario, often with the help of good food and hearty wine, have cheered many of my days in Lubbock, Texas. I finally want to thank my parents-in-law, Wai and Ming Wong, for their constant support, and my father Giuseppe D’Amico, whose encouragement and material assistance during my trips to Milan have been fundamental for the completion of this work. This book is dedicated to Aliza, my amazingly beautiful and smart wife, who, besides much improving the quality of my manuscript through her editing, has always offered to me her full love and support, and shared with me every moment of joy and sadness in the last twenty years. And to Luca, my ten-year-old son, who, with his hugs, laughter, and curious questions, has often interrupted me during my writing sessions, reminding me of the real meaning of life. This work is just a small token of my unconditional love. Sections of this book first appeared in “Crisis and Transformation: Economic Organization and Social Structures in Milan, 1570–1610,” Social History 25 (2000), 1–21, used here with the permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd, http://www.tandfonline.com; and in “Rebirth of a City: Immigration and Trade in Milan, 1630–59,” Sixteenth Century Journal 32 (2001), 697–721, used here with the permission of Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, Inc.

I n t roduc t ion A Forg o t t e n C i t y

M

ilan, located in one of Europe’s most fertile plains, at the intersection of the trade routes that linked the Italian peninsula to the countries north of the Alps, represented one of the main European economic and political centers throughout the late medieval and Renaissance periods. The city’s enormous wealth lay not only in the rich agriculture of its hinterland and on its role as entrepôt between the north and the south, but also on its celebrated manufactures—wool, silk, gold thread, and arms and armors. At the end of the sixteenth century, with a population of over 120,000 inhabitants, Milan ranked as the fourth largest European city. Since 1535, the Lombard capital also played a fundamental strategic role within the Spanish Empire, and between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was at the forefront of the Catholic reformation under Carlo and Federico Borromeo. Despite its economic, political, and religious importance however, Milan remains the least studied of the major early modern European cities. If the scarcity of studies is particularly stunning within the AngloAmerican historiography, even the work of Italian scholars has come to the forefront only recently when researchers recognized the importance of the city.

The “Leyenda Negra” of the Spanish Domination The neglect of Milan as a subject of study finds its origins in the negative connotation that has characterized the period of Spanish rule over the peninsula since the Italian Risorgimento. Antispagnolismo (anti-Spanish sentiment) began spreading in Italy already in the late fifteenth century as a rejection of Aragon’s hegemony and found an effective target in the Borgias.1 During the almost two centuries of Spanish control over the peninsula, the emphasis on the indolence, cruelty, intolerance, and obscurantism that characterized the Iberian crown became a tool of political and religious propaganda used by the enemies of the monarchy.

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During the late seventeenth century, the idea of the decline of Spain and its empire came to be commonly accepted across northern Europe and was also absorbed by Italian intellectuals. At the beginning of the following century, Ludovico Antonio Muratori introduced the concept of a period of Italian decline between the middle of the sixteenth century and the last decades of the seventeenth century. In the Napoleonic years, the decline of the Italian states would become strictly associated with the period of foreign, and specifically Spanish, rule. This perception would be amplified in the following decades during the process of Italian unification.2 In this period characterized by liberal and nationalistic ideas, the Spanish empire came to represent a symbol of oppression of many peoples and countries, responsible for spreading feudalism, corruption, intolerance, and conformity, and ultimately causing long-lasting economic and cultural crises.3 The 1825–27 publication of Alessandro Manzoni’s historical novel The Betrothed, set in seventeenth-century Lombardy—a seminal work in the construction of an Italian national identity—codified the vision of the Spanish rule as a dark age of decadence for Italy. The historical essay entitled Storia della Colonna Infame, on the Milanese plague of 1630–31 and the trial organized against the individuals accused of purposely spreading the disease throughout the city, that appeared as an appendix to a new edition of the novel in 1840, reinforced even more the features of ignorance, intolerance, and corruption that would characterize the perception of the Spanish government for more than a century.4 For generations of Italians, the city of Milan as portrayed by Manzoni, a city characterized by disease, poverty, riots, an oppressive nobility, and rapacious Spanish officials, would symbolize a dark age of their history. After the unification of Italy, the illustrious literary critic Francesco De Sanctis defined the seventeenth century as the period of the “malgoverno papale-spagnolo” (Papal-Spanish misgovernment), identifying the alliance between Rome and Madrid as responsible for the conformism and decline of Italy during a period of dynamism and growth in the northern European countries.5 Despite the appearance of important, but isolated, historiographical contributions to a more balanced interpretation of the Spanish years, this vision of the Spanish period as antimodern, as a transitional dark age between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, characterized by obscurantism and decadence and the oppressive rule of Madrid on its Italian subjects, would persist until the 1970s.6 Until recently, in fact, Italian historians have referred to this period as the period of “Spanish domination,” a term implying an exploitative and arrogant rule, a characterization of the empire unacknowledged by Spanish and Belgian scholars.

I n t r oduc t ion

3

Kings and Patricians—from Coercion to Compromise Only after the mid-1980s were there clear signs of a renewed interest in the Spanish period: the works of Cesare Mozzarelli and later Gianvittorio Signorotto, and the proceedings of two important conferences in the early 1990s would introduce in the historiographical debate a new generation of historians and a completely new image of the political dynamics in Spanish Lombardy.7 The participation of Spanish scholars enhanced the results of the debate and helped place the history of Milan in the larger context of the empire. The importance of the Italian provinces within the monarchy was in fact rediscovered in those years. As Anthony Pagden stated in 1990, [T]he Spanish Golden Age of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was in part the product of an extended political association with Italy. It is impossible to understand the political culture of the Spanish Monarchy, or the significance it had for southern Europe, without some understanding of the place within of Italy, and in particular the southern Italian states.8

The emphasis on the conflict between national components, between an oppressive Spanish government and an exploited native population, which had characterized the historiography until then, has been supplanted by the analysis of the shared interests and compromises that linked them together. While the patrician nature of Milan had already been recognized in the 1970s, the Milanese local elites and institutions had been studied almost exclusively as a source of resistance to the central government. More recent studies have focused instead on the interaction between the center and the periphery, the court of Madrid and the provincial elites.9 Following the new trends in the discourse on the development of the modern state, categories such as centralization and rationality have been replaced by the interaction of multiple actors and noninstitutional structures and practices. Patronage, personal relations, extralegal actions, earlier considered obstacles to the process of state building, have now been accepted as an integral part of it. The administrative action of the government is as important as the negotiations of conflicts, and negotiation and mediation usually have priority over coercion. Corruption has recently been studied as a political tool, an essential part of the political process. The early modern state, or the “modern State of the old regime” as defined by Giuseppe Galasso, was still characterized by a web of family relations and religious and corporative bonds.10 The court, central and provincial, as the heart of production of political languages and behaviors, as the hub of patronage and social mobility, source of consensus and stability, has become the preferred objects of

4

Spa n i s h M i l a n

analysis.11 The new studies on the political and religious dynamics of the Lombard state have therefore focused on the analysis of the interactions among Milan, Madrid, and Rome. The new works on the religious history of Milan have departed from the traditional hagiographic approaches to stress the political aspect of the relations and exchanges between the Ambrosian church and its representatives, the Holy See, and the royal court in Madrid.12 The strategic and military role of Milan within the empire has recently been at the center of several works. Despite the fact that Geoffrey Parker had already in 1972 highlighted the importance of Lombardy within the Spanish road to Flanders, only in the 1990s did Italian and Spanish historians follow his lead.13 New studies have demonstrated how military and political issues were strictly intertwined and so were their representatives and their roles in the public administration. The military is studied now as a key player constantly interacting with all the other elements of historical development.

A Declining Economy? If the political and cultural aspects of the Spanish period were viewed with a particularly negative lens, the economic side also did not escape this critical assessment. The emphasis on indolence, lack of productive spirit, and oppressive taxation traditionally ascribed to the Spanish Empire merged in the middle of the twentieth century with new historiographical trends that identified in the process of refeudalization and the so-called betrayal of the bourgeoisie—the decision of merchants-entrepreneurs to withdraw from manufacturing and trade, and redirect their investments toward real estate and titles of nobility—central issues in the history of southern Europe in the Spanish period. Because of these factors and the contemporary rise of the northern European countries, Italy and its major cities, at the height of continental economy since the Middle Ages, would lose their primacy at the end of the sixteenth century. In 1952, with a study based primarily on his research on Spanish Lombardy, Carlo Maria Cipolla first defined the debate.14 Between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Italian goods and services became less competitive on the international markets and were replaced by the much more inexpensive products offered by manufactures in Holland, England, and France. According to Cipolla, the reasons for the collapse could be partially explained by increasing taxation, but above all they could be attributed to the high cost of labor and the inelasticity of the organization and the methods of production caused by the excessive power of the guilds. In the face of competition from the new Atlantic powers, the economy of the Italian cities, dominated by the archaic guild hierarchies and a merchant elite increasingly inclined to transfer its capital

I n t r oduc t ion

5

from industrial activity to real estate, suddenly stagnated and began a progressive decline.15 In addition, the cities and their guilds hindered the development of a proto-industry in the countryside, which, with its peasant labor and reduced costs, was one of the successful strategies adopted by the new industrial regions in central and northern Europe. Since the 1970s, however, Cipolla’s traditional interpretation of the seventeenth century as a period of irreversible crisis has been called into question by some more recent works studying the main Italian urban centers.16 In the case of Lombardy, Aldo De Maddalena and Domenico Sella emphasized the elements of vitality and continuity in the regional economy.17 Sella, in his seminal study Crisis and Continuity: The Economy of Spanish Lombardy in the Seventeenth Century, argued that the seventeenth-century crisis primarily affected the urban economies while the economy of the countryside, liberated from the control of the cities, proved quite resilient and capable of ensuring the overall vitality of the region to some extent. Sella, like most other scholars, also delineated two different phases in the development of the Lombard economy: an expanding trend affecting the regional economy and, in particular, the urban industries from the middle of the sixteenth century through the second decade of the seventeenth; and a period of sharp decline that began with the European economic crisis of 1619–22 and worsened with the terrible plague of 1630–31.18 During this second phase, the urban manufactures, restricted as they were by the rigid rules and regulations imposed by the guilds and burdened with high labor costs and high taxation, proved incapable of competing with the rising industries of northern Europe. By contrast, the more dynamic and flexible manufactures located in the countryside made steady progress at the expense of their urban counterpart. Therefore, even Sella, although stressing the elements of continuity and growth in the regional economy, continued to portray the Lombard cities, and Milan among them, as stagnant and atrophic. Sella’s work and the recent interest of economic historians in the concept of “economic regions” have inspired several new scholars to follow this more global approach with a focus on the new rural dynamics, the economic and political actions of the local communities, and the development of a rural proto-industry.19 Since the 1990s, however, some important works have also analyzed Milanese social, economic, and financial structures, questioning the city’s decline, and offering a novel interpretation of Milan’s role in the organization of a new regional economy.20

A City within the Empire While the studies on the State of Milan have recently multiplied, most of them have privileged a general, regional approach, and only a few scholars have focused on the capital city, usually analyzing very specific

6

Spa n i s h M i l a n

aspects.21 Synthesizing my previous work on the social and economic structures of the city, and the recent studies on the economic, religious, and political dynamics affecting the Lombard capital, the purpose of this book is above all to provide a broad overview of the main features of Spanish Milan and their transformations during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A “biography” of Spanish Milan fills a serious historiographical gap in early modern European urban history and represents the basis for future studies on the subject. In addition, through the combined analysis of the demographic, social, economic, religious, and political characters, it is my intent to demonstrate how Milan, far from being a declining and atrophic city, took advantage of its essential strategic role within the Spanish Empire. It managed to adjust to the new economic climate and promptly recovered from plagues and warfare, preserving a leading economic and political role, at least until the last decades of the seventeenth century. Instead of representing the primary factor of decadence, Spanish rule provided new opportunities for wealth and prosperity to the city of Milan and its elites. The Spanish imperial system supported the urban industrial sector, represented an enormous market for Milanese goods, provided diplomatic and military power to back its commercial interests, and offered positions of power to the city’s elites. The relative prosperity and the very resilience of Milan during a period of economic and political crisis for the Italian peninsula can be at least partially explained by its privileged position within the framework of the new imperial superpower. While other former powerful Italian cities, such as Florence, for example, remained isolated within the limits of the obsolete regional state, Milan took advantage of its new important strategic and financial functions within the Spanish empire and used its extended network to maintain a primary economic and political role in Europe.

1

“M i l l a i n t h e Gr e at ” Popu l at ion a n d t h e Ur b a n Fa br ic

L

ocated in the heart of the Po Valley, the city of Milan was the center of one of the most prosperous European regions. Fertile land, advanced agricultural techniques, abundance of natural resources, and a strategic position as a bridge between Italy and northern Europe made Lombardy a highly praised region throughout the continent. Writing on the State of Milan in 1595, Giovanni Botero wondered, “Is there a Duchy more abundant in victuals, grain, rice, livestock, cheeses, wines, and flax, more replete with artificers and traffic, more densely populated, or more conveniently located?”1 The English traveler William Thomas, visiting Lombardy in 1549, wrote that “such another piece of ground for beautiful cities and towns, for goodly rivers, fields, and pastures, and for plenty of flesh, fowl, fresh-water fish, grain, wine, and fruits is not to be found again in all our familiar regions.”2 In 1611, another Englishman, Thomas Coryate, admired the countryside around Milan from the top of the city’s cathedral: The territory of Lombardy, which I contemplated round about from this tower, was so pleasant an object to mine eyes, being replenished with such unspeakable variety of all things, both for profite and pleasure, that it seemeth to me to be the very Elysian fields, so much decantated and celebrated by the verses of Poets, or the Tempe or Paradise of the world. For it is the fairest plaine, extended about some two hundred miles in length that ever I saw, or ever shall if I should travel over the whole habitable world: insomuch that I said to my selfe that this country was fitter to be an habitation for the immortall Gods then for mortall men. 3

Milan was located almost exactly at the center of its state, between the mountainous north, rich in timber, iron, and migrant labor, and the fertile south, characterized by highly productive agriculture and farming.4 In addition, for centuries, the city had been a major commercial entrepôt, representing a crossroads between central Italy and northern

8

Spa n i s h M i l a n

Europe, through easy alpine passes, and also between the great port cities of Genoa, on the Tyrrhenian Sea, and Venice, on the Adriatic.5 Extensive investments in infrastructures, especially in the creation of canals that could further improve agriculture and lower transportation and transaction costs, further enhanced the major natural and geographical assets of this region. A system of canals called Navigli, constructed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by the Visconti and the Sforza, connected Milan with the major regional rivers, the Po, the Ticino, and the Adda, and with the prealpine lakes. The Naviglio Grande, whose construction was ordered in 1359 by Galeazzo II Visconti and which was opened for navigation in 1475, connected the city to the Po in Pavia and fed the moat around the medieval walls. The Naviglio della Martesana, opened by Francesco Sforza in 1457, led from Milan to the Adda River and to Lake Como.6 Built to transport the materials necessary for the construction of the new cathedral, these canals facilitated the trade of grain, wine, cattle, spices, and fish. Goods from all over the region and from abroad could easily reach the city with low transportation costs. In the early seventeenth century, the Flemish traveler Franciscus Scotthus, during his stay in Milan, expressed his wonder regarding the abundance of industrial goods, the number of markets, and the variety of the food supply: It is in truth a wonderful thing to see the great abundance of goods to satisfy all human needs that one can find here and I am sure that in no other part of Europe there is such amount of food and at minor cost ( . . . ) As if in other cities one can find two or at most three places, where similar goods are sold, in Milan there are one hundred of them, including twenty-one main ones, that every four days are full of the afore mentioned goods ( . . . ) infinite merchandises are taken here from everywhere, mainly from Germany, France, Spain and the Port of Genoa.7

The prosperous markets and the abundance of merchandise were reflections of a thriving metropolis that visitors considered among the largest and most populated in Europe.

“A Great and Massive City” This city is the most populous in Italy, large and full of all sorts of merchandise. It is not too much unlike Paris, and has much the appearance of a French city. It lacks the palaces of Rome, Naples, Genoa, Florence; but in size it beats them all, and in its crowds of people it comes up to Venice.8

With these words, Montaigne described Milan in his Journey to Italy in October 1581. Montaigne spent only one day in the Lombard capital, but his description epitomizes the main features of the city in the eyes of

“M i l l a i n t h e G r e at ”

9

visitors. What most impressed the travelers who arrived in Milan was its size and economic prosperity. These elements made up for the scarcity of beautiful buildings, more easily found in other Italian cities. Milan was not as attractive a city as Venice, Florence, Rome, or Naples and did not have a university like Padua and Bologna. French, English, and German travelers did not usually spend more than two or three days in Milan, while they devoted weeks and sometimes months to Rome or Venice.9 Despite its shortcomings, however, even a quick visit would convince a visitor of the uncommon size of Milan. While Rome was characterized by its religious role (the holy), Florence by its beauty (the beautiful), Venice by its wealth (the wealthy), and Bologna by its university (the learned), Milan was known by all foreign visitors for its size (the great). Since Bonvesin della Riva had first described Milan in his De Magnalibus Mediolanensi in 1288, the city had lived up to and enjoyed this fame.10 More than two centuries later, the chaplain Antonio de Beatis, who accompanied Cardinal Luis of Aragon on his journey around Europe in 1517–18, considered Milan to be “no smaller than Paris, particularly in circuit.”11 In the middle of the sixteenth century, Leandro Alberti wrote that “this very noble city has great size and is to be considered among the great of Europe, and its size is increased by the large and long suburbs that surround it ( . . . ).”12 In 1654, Richard Lassels began with these words the section on Milan in his Description of Italy: “This towne is surnamed the Great, and deservedly, seing it is sayd to carry neere eight miles compasse in its circuit.”13 The construction of a new, 11-kilometer-long circle of walls in 1548 definitely helped to consolidate this image, opening a new period in the city’s urban development.14 In 1480, the Florentine Giovanni Ridolfi had described Milan as a city without walls. The medieval walls had, in fact, become absorbed by the urban fabric and were often invisible from the outside.15 The walls had lost their defensive and fiscal functions, and patrician families had been using sections of them to build towers for their homes. In order to facilitate the transfer of goods from the Navigli to the center, many merchants had also requested and obtained permission to open doors through the walls in correspondence with their loading and unloading stations. The suburbs outside the medieval walls had grown to an impressive size in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In 1492, the Venetian ambassadors Giorgio Contarini and Polo Pisani noted the large population of Milan, “especially in the suburbs outside the city, some of which are two-miles long: and those make the city more beautiful, as the city’s perimeter without the suburbs measures only five miles and, with them, more than seven.”16 The project for the construction of new walls had already been announced at the end of the fifteenth century. Besides strengthening the city militarily, making tax collection more effective, and offering protection to the suburbs, the new walls could extend the

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prince’s authority and offer work to the urban poor. However, Francesco Sforza decided to invest the existing resources on the fortification of the castle, and it was not until 1507 that the temporary French government started building the first section of a new circle of walls.17 The project was finally accomplished in 1548 by the Spanish governor Ferrante Gonzaga, who ordered the construction of a new, 11-kilometer-long circle of walls, based on the project of the military engineer Gian Maria Olgiati.18 The new walls were conceived primarily for their important fiscal function, while their length made them extremely difficult to defend. As Gonzaga himself emphasized in a report to Charles V, “[T]he city walls for their security will attract many more people and guard against all frauds that are currently committed in matter of duties.”19 The new walls, completed by 1560, were shaped like a human heart, to symbolize the perfect circulation of goods and human beings within the city (see figure 1.1). They also symbolized the new military role of Milan as the “stronghold” of the Spanish empire. 20 With these walls, Milan acquired the size and physiognomy that would characterize it until the early nineteenth century. After the construction of the walls, neither the Spanish authorities nor the patrician institutions undertook any important projects for the following 150 years. The church sponsored the only notable buildings, especially in the central decades

Figure 1.1 Map of Milan by Antonio Lafréry, 1573 (Collezione Civica Bertarelli, Milano, P.V.g. 6–13).

“M i l l a i n t h e G r e at ”

11

of Counter-Reformation zeal at the turn of the sixteenth century.21 From an analysis of city maps from the mid-sixteenth to the late eighteenth century, Milan clearly went through the period of Spanish rule without any significant changes in its urban fabric. The city occupied a surface of about 770 hectares (1,902 acres), 30 percent of which, almost entirely between the medieval and the Spanish walls, was covered by gardens and cultivated land. 22 The total number of houses represents another sign of continuity: 5,498 in 1587, and 5,927 two centuries later. 23

Urban Population and Demographic Trends Most sixteenth-century travelers compared Milan with Paris and estimated its population to be around 300,000. Even though the city population never did reach that size, Milan had been one of largest cities in western Europe since the Middle Ages: inhabitants numbered approximately 150,000 at the end of the thirteenth century, and still more than 100,000 two centuries later.24 However, the Spanish domination began in a period of serious demographic crisis. The city, already a victim of the Italian Wars, suffered a strong downfall in 1524–25, when a long period of famine was followed by a terrible epidemic of plague.25 Contemporary chroniclers such as Burigozzo, Bugati, and Magnocavallo report casualties up to 100,000, even though a more careful analysis of the archival sources suggests a more likely estimate of about 50,000 deaths, around half of the city’s population.26 Ascanio Centorio wrote that after the summer of 1524, the effects of the plague “covered the city with grass as there was nobody stepping on it or walking in the streets”27 Impoverished and depopulated, Milan still had to cope with the impact of the continuous wars and famines, and widespread emigration. Famine lasted until the spring of 1527 and trade languished. Most workshops remained shut and were frequently robbed by soldiers. Conditions were difficult in the countryside as well, and thriving packs of wolves made life dangerous. Only in 1531 did a good crop put an end to the famine and make possible a gradual recovery, which coincided with the official beginning of Spanish domination.28 The only information we have concerning the population of Milan during those years is the figure of 11,415 hearths provided by Beloch for 1542. That figure, using a multiplier of 5 people per hearth, would give us a population of approximately 57,000.29 This seems to be confirmed by the number of deaths in the city: applying a mortality rate of 32 per 1,000 to the average of 1,737 people deceased annually in the years 1540–44, we would have a population of approximately 54,000.30 The process of recovery, although hindered until 1559 by military operations, proved to be very strong: using mortality as an indicator once

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again, by 1555 the population of Milan had probably reached around 80,000. This trend is confirmed by the cases of other Lombard cities. The population of Pavia decreased from 16,000 at the end of the fifteenth century to 5,000 after the pillaging of the city in 1529.31 In the following years the city recovered extremely quickly, and, in 1546, it could already count 14,000 inhabitants, a figure that would not change until the end of the century. In the countryside, the demographic boom seems to have been even more marked, and in the contado of Milan, the population tripled in the period between 1542 and 1574.32 This astounding recovery was definitely helped by migratory flows from neighboring states. From the end of the 1530s, thousands of peasants from the Piacenza, Brescia, and Ferrara regions arrived in Lombardy to take advantage of the favorable conditions there.33 In 1562, the city of Milan was hit by a new, widespread disease, probably influenza, which caused a few thousand deaths.34 Later, in 1569, the entire state was affected by another serious famine, with prices of flour and bread skyrocketing and people starving in the countryside. The capital city became the destination for thousands of migrants from the contado, and the urban authorities had to spend more than 70,000 scudi for the care of the poor.35 Fostered by this new cohort of immigrants, the recovery of the Milanese population was complete by the early 1570s. We are able to reconstruct population figures for these years more precisely because of the richer ecclesiastical documentation introduced by Carlo Borromeo and the new spirit of the CounterReformation. Parish priests were required to control the administration of sacraments more strictly and, to better monitor their flocks, they frequently issued Status Animarum, lists of every household residing in the parish.36 These new sources make the task of the historical demographer much easier, at least until the middle of the seventeenth century, when the zeal of the parish priests seems to have faded away. Based on these sources, the population of 1574 had clearly surpassed the figure at the beginning of the century and stood at more than 115,000.37 In August 1576, however, the plague reappeared in the northern suburbs of Milan and struck the city harshly in the following four months. The losses, though not catastrophic, were remarkable: Besta estimated 17,329 victims, while Bugati reported a total of 18,320.38 Besta also remarked how during the time of the epidemics natality had remained high with 5,300 births. Although this figure should be taken with a grain of salt, there is no reason to doubt the strong recovery that followed the plague. In a period characterized by a prosperous urban economy constantly attracting new immigrants from the countryside, the city population was quickly replenished. Already in 1578, Besta could write how “no man could now say looking at the multitude of people that the plague was in Milan as, for God’s goodness, the city

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is again as populated and wealthy as it used to be.”39 In the 1580s, despite a series of famines in the second half of the decade that caused a particularly high mortality rate, the urban population continued to grow.40 According to two censuses, based on parish records issued around 1590, Milan counted more than 130,000 people.41 We can assume that this remarkable growth was mainly the result of strong migratory flows. Attracted on the one hand by the job opportunities opened by the plague and on the other by the protection offered by the city in times of famine, thousands of people moved to the capital city from the surrounding areas, but also from more remote districts. In 1587, official documents reported a multitude of poor foreigners entering the state and the city.42 It is therefore not surprising that, as reported in the new censuses, the population had grown strongly in the peripheral parishes, which were more affected by recent immigration, while in the city center, the population either stayed the same or declined slightly. In the following years, the population remained stable. The terrible famine that hit northern Italy in the early 1590s affected Lombardy as well, but left Milan almost unscathed in terms of population.43 Once again, the capital city probably absorbed the migratory flows from the lesser cities and the countryside of the state.44 A last serious famine in 1597 closed the negative period with relatively small losses for the city.45 In 1602, the population was once again close to 120,000, and in 1610, it had increased to more than 125,000.46 In the following years, the city’s population did not grow anymore and most likely decreased slightly until the famine of 1628–29 and the plague of 1630–31 when it began a sharp decline. The stagnation of the urban economy caused the massive immigration to stop and in this period the lesser towns and the borghi of the state seem to have grown more than the capital city.47 In any case, considering also the effects of the famine, on the eve of the great plague of 1630, the population of Milan was probably around 120,000. It is extremely difficult to evaluate the losses during the epidemics with some degree of precision. The estimates of the contemporaries, ranging from 120,000 to 180,000 deaths, are clearly unreliable. Still, the number of casualties must have been remarkable. Besta and Sella agree on a total of 60,000–70,000 victims; however, these numbers seem excessive.48 A census executed in 1631, months before the end of the plague, counted about 50,000 people, but did not include all the people who had escaped to safety out of the city.49 During the Florentine plague of 1479, Marsilio Ficino had written, “[A]bove all escape from the pestilential place early, go far, and return late” and the advice was always valid and widely followed.50 Not only did the wealthy families leave the city for their rural villas, but urban workers and recent immigrants also went back to their villages of origin in large numbers.51 In 1632, free from the epidemics, Milan started a steady recovery, and in 1633, the

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population had surpassed 70,000. In 1635, Count Onofrio Castelli wrote: “Having spent in Milan the year 1630 and the following four, I have seen the quick transformation from an almost depopulated city to a city that we can still recognize as Milan.”52 Sustained by migratory flows from the declining lesser towns of the state and the countryside, devastated by the Franco-Spanish War, the recovery continued gradually in the following years—around 80,000 people by 1636, 100,000 by the mid-1640s, and 110,000 by 1655.53 In 1666, Gualdo Priorato reported a population of about 140,000 for the city and its suburbs, and the estimate, although probably rounded up, seems to be reliable.54 With the Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659, the city had once again reached the preplague levels with a population of about 130,000. However, as the countryside reached new levels of prosperity after the end of the hostilities, immigration to the city probably decreased and hindered further growth. The population of the city would remain largely stable until the end of Spanish domination, slightly more than 125,000 in 1688, and around 130,000 in 1715.55

The Urban Fabric: Housing Structures and Population Density The area between the old medieval walls and the new Spanish walls was actually only sparsely populated and had a clear rural aspect with garden and fields (see figure 1.2). In the 240 hectares (593 acres) enclosed by the medieval walls on the other hand, there were very rare green areas and population density was extremely high.56 In fact, approximately 100,000 people resided in the center of the city, while just around 25,000 lived in the much wider area (1,309 acres) enclosed by the two circles of walls. The parishes of the so-called Corpi Santi, outside the Spanish walls, which boasted a population of 10,000–12,000 people during the Spanish period, were characterized by a definite rural aspect, with the only exception being the heavily built borghi outside Porta Ticinese and Porta Comasina. It was in the Corpi Santi, where the blossoming trees in spring were an impressive sight, that most of the fruit and vegetables that were supplied to the city were produced.57 Population density was very high: in 1610, each house hosted an average of 19.3 people. The peculiarity of the Milanese pattern becomes clear when compared to other European cases: in the same year, Genoa housed 8 people in each home, Lyon 8.5, and Madrid 8.7.58 Not all the urban areas were equally crowded: in the patrician parishes, buildings usually hosted only the family of the owner or tenant, and the average house population rarely surpassed 10 individuals. On the other hand, in the borgo of Porta Ticinese, extreme misery determined the highest concentration with an average of about 30 people. In general, however,

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Figure 1.2 Map of Milan by Marco Antonio Barateri, 1629 (Collezione Civica Bertarelli, Milano, P.V.g. 2–10).

population density tended to grow as one approached the center, reaching remarkable levels in proximity to the cathedral square: in parishes such as St. Tecla (Metropolitana), St. Raffaele, St. Satiro, and St. Stefano in Brolo, the average population per house was always higher than 22 units, with peaks higher than 100 people. Especially within the medieval walls, the urban fabric was characterized by large two/three-story buildings, lining the streets in close ranks. In the middle of the seventeenth century Gualdo Priorato wrote how “most Milanese contrade are broad, long and bright. Houses, having abundant space, are more wide than tall. Their façades are mostly ignoble from the outside, with small entrances, but their interiors are magnificent, full of comforts, with gardens, courtyards and vegetable gardens.”59 Most buildings, made mainly by bricks and wood, were located around square or rectangular internal arcaded courtyards.60 The latter usually housed a well and a latrine, and sometimes stables, warehouses, and poultry pens. From the courtyard, a staircase led to

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the upper floors where all the dwellings opened over a railing.61 Spaces were mainly inside the blocks, with multiple courtyards linking several buildings and, sometimes, different streets. Most dwellings did not include more than two or three rooms, often on two floors, and in the case of craftsmen, included the workshop.62 Noble houses were not necessarily larger. The famous Venetian architect Vincenzo Scamozzi noticed that Milanese palaces cared more about substance than esthetic, with limited architectural style on the outside and small and simple rooms on the inside.63 Aristocratic residences usually conformed to a specific structure with some clear distinctive features. The four wings of the palace surrounded an arcaded courtyard and the back wing, which housed the summer apartments, divided the courtyard from a garden.64 The interior was organized following a common pattern: The pianterreno of the front and side wings was used for business, storage, and kitchens; the ground floor of the back wing was used for the use of the owner and his family during hot summer weather—the rooms usually gave on a small private garden or vineyard. The piano nobile was completely occupied by the family’s private quarters, the more public rooms toward the street, the bedrooms to the rear.65

Their specificity was not necessarily represented by their size, but by the stone used to build them and by distinctive features such as more imposing façades, glass on windows, decorated courtyards, private wells, chapels, and a more diversified use of internal spaces.66 Despite the attempts by the last Sforzas to open up and beautify the city and introduce the element of urban decorum so important to the Renaissance aesthetic, Milan still could not compete with the splendor and harmony of Florence, Rome, or Venice. Milan lacked public squares and open spaces. Piazza del Duomo, the main cathedral square, which in the late nineteenth century would become the wide-open, monumental heart of the city, was at the time occupied by several building structures that did not allow any perspective view.67 The only free areas in the urban fabric were the broli, initially gardens, often in front of churches, later turned into markets; enclosed church cemeteries or small church squares, belonging to the church and usually closed by little stone columns; and private sites, contiguous to aristocratic palaces and closed by columns and chains. Larger open spaces could only be found in a system of internal squares represented by the courtyards of some of the city’s buildings, such as the palace of the archbishop, the seminary, the hospital, and the Swiss and Brera Colleges. In Milan, there were not even examples of palaces open onto a square. No aristocratic family invested money to open a square in front of their residence and, in fact, the façades of Milanese palaces were not designed to be admired from a distance.68 This lack

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of traditional squares led Carlo Borromeo, after the plague of 1576, to locate the only available areas for outdoor religious ceremonies in the major crossroads.69 This lack of space in the center of the city gave the impression of a closed, massive city without a clear architectural plan. Vincenzo Scamozzi considered Milan a heavy city, with no harmony or sense of proportion. Scamozzi did not even appreciate the palaces and churches that filled the city, and described the cathedral as a confusing pile of marbles without a real project behind it.70 The Englishman Gilbert Burnet observed how the Milanese buildings were “big and substantial; but they have not much regular or beautiful architecture.”71 The French traveler Deseine noted the enormous size of the city and its buildings, but lamented the lack of a clear architectural plan in most Milanese palaces and the limited decorations and the absence of glass on most windows.72 William Thomas wrote how for notable or sumptuous buildings it (Milan) may not be compared with Venice, Rome, or Florence. For albeit the houses be great and fair within, yet outwardly it is nothing of that beauty and pomp that those other cities be, by reason that for the most part the Milanese building is all of brick ( . . . ).73

Among the palaces, the only building to receive universal praise for its immense size was the palace built by the Genoese banker Tommaso Marino in the 1540s in the center of the city (figure 1.3). Of course, not everybody shared these negative judgments and Milan did have some admirers. If some travelers lamented the absence of space and perspectives, others emphasized the pragmatic character of the city. In 1543, Pedro de Gante had already observed that, while the houses were large and flat, the city was full of shops offering any good one might desire.74 An anonymous French traveler remarked in 1606 how “space is not wasted with gardens and empty lots, but is completely filled with multistory buildings inhabited by gentlemen and merchants, but above all by craftsmen of all sorts.”75 In Domenico Peri’s famous tract Il Negotiante written in 1638, Peri described Milan as a concrete city, whose beauty was related to its function as a productive and commercial center.76 In 1603, Pietro Duodo, a Venetian ambassador, argued that while the façades of Milanese palaces were not impressive, visitors could enjoy the amazing beauty of their large courtyards.77 André Thevet compared Milan to the most beautiful cities he had seen, such as Paris, Rome, and Constantinople; and Johann Heinrich von Pflaumern, in his Mercurius Italicus, written in 1625, believed that Milan should be considered the eighth wonder of the world for its grandiose architecture (which he described as very similar to the German style), its fortifications, and its beautifully decorated marble

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Figure 1.3 Palazzo Marino and St. Fedele (Collezione Civica Bertarelli, Milano, P.V.m. 74–51).

artwork.78 Despite Scamozzi’s harsh criticism, the Duomo, still in construction, remained a must-see for all visitors. Jouvin considered the Duomo to be the most superb building in Europe because, although smaller than Saint Peter, it was entirely made of marble.79 Besides the cathedral, there were a number of smaller churches erected in the city to impress visitors. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, the 230 ecclesiastical buildings spread throughout the urban fabric demonstrated clearly that Milan represented one of the main centers of the Catholic world.

Urban Space and Social Topography The urban territory was divided into parishes, grouped in six districts corresponding to the six main city gates.80 Before 1569, the urban parishes numbered 88, but in the following years, the pastoral reform introduced by Carlo Borromeo reorganized the parish map, with a large number of suppressions and annexations.81 Still in 1587, the Venetian ambassador Bonifacio Antelmi counted 81 parishes, probably referring to the parish priests, who often numbered more than one in the major parishes.82 Clearly, already by 1592, the city was divided into 69 parishes and only minor variations would follow until the end of the Spanish rule. In 1610, there were 70 parishes: 51 were located entirely within the medieval walls, 11 had part of their territory between the medieval and Spanish walls, and 8 were outside the urban walls, in the Corpi Santi (see figure 1.4).83

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1 Metropolitana (S. Michele sotto il Duomo) 2 S. Salvatore in Xenodochio 3 S. Raffaele 4 S. Paolo in Compito 5 S. Pietro all’ Orto 6 S. Giorgio al Pozzo Bianco 7 S. Babila 8 S. Stefano in Borgogna 9 S. Maria alla Passarella 10 S. Vito in Pasquirolo 11 S. Stefano in Brolo 12 Ss. Cosma e Damiano 13 S. Pietro in Cornaredo 14 S. Martino in Nosigia 15 S. Stefano in Nosigia 16 S. Vittore ai Quaranta Martiri 17 S. Andrea alla Pusterla 18 S. Donnino all Mazza 19 S. Primo 20 S. Bartolomeo

Figure 1.4

21 S. Simpliciano 22 S. Carpoforo 23 S. Eusebio 24 S. Protaso al Castello 25 S. Silvestro 26 S. Giovanni alle Quattro Facce 27 S. Marcellino 28 S. Tommaso in Terra Mara 29 S. Protaso ad Monachos 30 S. Michele al Gallo 31 S. Maria Segreta 32 S. Giovanni sul Muro 33 S. Maria alla Porta 34 S. Nicolao 35 S. Pietro sul Dosso 36 S. Martino al Corpo 37 S. Pietro alla Vigna 38 S. Lorenzino 39 S. Maria Podone 40 S. Vittore al Teatro 41 S. Mattia alla Moneta

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42 S. Maria Beltrade 43 S. Sebastiano 44 S. Maurilio 45 S. Ambrogino in Solariolo 46 S. Giorgio al Palazzo 47 S. Sisto 48 S. Maria al Cerchio 49 S. Pietro in Camminadella 50 S. Vincenzo in Prato 51 S. Lorenzo Maggiore 52 S. Pietro in Campo Lodigiano 53 S. Michele alla Chiusa 54 S. Vito al Carrobbio 55 S. Fermo 56 S. Alessandro in Zebedia 57 S. Giovanni in Conca 58 S. Satiro 59 S. Giovanni in Laterano 60 S. Nazaro in Brolo 61 S. Calimero 62 S. Eufemia

Urban parishes within the walls, 1610.

Even though the perception of the parish as a harmonious community of rich and poor had already disappeared by the end of the fifteenth century, parishes were still considered central to urban identity. Sansovino and Martinoni in their Venice’s city-guide (1663) described the urban parishes as “many cities joined together in one.”84 Parishes remained the fundamental units in the urban fabric. Besides their religious role, they had important functions in the creation of social and political networks and as centers of local administration.85 While the six city gates

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represented the main fiscal and military districts and the constituencies for several civic magistrates, the parishes were in charge of civic tax sharing, police, water supplies, garbage collection, hygiene, and urban decorum.86 When compared to other early modern European cities, the space organization of Milan presents some interesting characteristics. The traditional dichotomy opposing a center characterized by aristocratic residences and a more popular periphery must at least be softened.87 The urban spaces of Milan could be divided in four concentric circles: a commercial center around the cathedral and the city hall (Broletto), overpopulated and full of shops and traffics, inhabited mainly by welloff craftsmen, merchants, and retailers; a residential belt, just outside the center, containing the major patrician settlements and the residences of the great merchants and professionals; the area around the Navigli, transportation hub and industrial core of the city, inhabited by a mass of small craftsmen and workers, mostly employed in the textile and leather industries; and a periphery, between the canals and the Spanish walls, characterized by popular settlements, where “in terms of numbers, citydwellers prevailed over citizens.”88 Besides this concentric breakdown, there was also a radiocentric division that saw trade and commercial activities concentrated around the arteries connecting the center to the city gates. Between these axes, further from the bustle, we find residential neighborhoods within the medieval walls, and mostly rural areas outside the Navigli.

The City Center The Broletto nuovo, the city hall, represented the center of the city’s radial system since the urban plan of 1228.89 All the major city arteries from the six main gates (porte) and the five minor ones (pusterle) led to it. Besides being the seat of the civic administration and the symbol of civic pride, the Broletto represented the center of the urban economy and finance and the meeting point of merchants and businessmen. Its square, surrounded by shops and offices of notaries and moneychangers, was the seat of the grain market and, in 1605, the building itself became the city’s public granary.90 Just east of the Broletto, the cathedral (Duomo) and the contiguous Royal-Ducal Palace, residence of the Spanish governor and seat of the major state offices, symbolized ecclesiastical and secular power, and represented the neural poles of the city center. The Duomo square was an extremely interesting and lively space where various urban actors and institutions coexisted and performed, and different demands of spiritual, secular, and economic nature were fulfilled. Without a doubt, the Piazza del Duomo represented the center of urban sociability.91

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The area around the cathedral and the Broletto also represented the center of the city’s commerce, enlivened by all sorts of shops and activities. In 1603, stopping in Milan on his way to London, Pietro Duodo, the Venetian ambassador, remarked how in this area “streets acquire an extraordinary beauty” due to the number and the attractiveness of the shops.92 In 1677, the Polish noble Thomas Billewicz noticed how in every street, the first floor of all buildings was occupied by shops.93 Foreign travelers and visitors usually lodged in one of the many inns they could find in this area. Inns were also very important places within the urban commercial organization: many foreign merchants lodged and kept their warehouses there.94 They were also centers of sociability for the lower strata of the urban population that apparently used to spend a substantial portion of their incomes there.95 In 1602, the current governor, Count of Fuentes, denounced the abuse of dining in the inns, “devouring in an hour the earnings of an entire week,” and prohibited it to all urban dwellers under threat of harsh punishments.96 People could still buy their food there but they had to consume it at home. In 1587, there were 58 inns in Milan and the most famous was, without a doubt, the Osteria dei Tre Re, a meeting point for merchants and travelers from various countries, located just a few steps from the Cathedral Square, in the parish of St. Giovanni in Laterano.97 Richard Lassels described it as the best and hansomest Inn in Europe. Its built like a palace four squaire wise with three open galleries upon stone pillars round about it, and one over an other. The master of it is an honest Swisser and so are the faithfull and diligent servants to the number of twelve chamberlans, who wait carefully on you.98

The inn was also popular with German and French travelers, although they often complained about the poor furnishing, the dirty beds, and the confusion created by the 200 guests.99 From 1556 to 1730, the Osteria dei Tre Re, a real city landmark, also served as delivery station for the mail service between Milan and Germany.100 A multitude of artisans and small traders populated the buildings around the central square, especially in the tangle of streets and alleys located on the southwestern side of the cathedral. Besides retail shops, warehouses and workshops were also widespread. As Peter Stabel effectively explains, “[T]he shop offered a combination of private (house), semi-private (shop and workshop) and public space (the street and the display outside the house). It formed a transition from the private to the public sphere, while guaranteeing at the same time the transparency of exchanges desired by the guilds.”101 Most of the people residing in the center were well-off master craftsmen or small merchants, mainly employed in the textile sector,

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particularly in the production of silk and gold cloths, in large workshops with large number of apprentices. In the parish of the cathedral, Santa Tecla, 147 (5 percent of the whole parish population) apprentices and journeymen lived with their masters in 1574.102 The center was not reserved solely for wealthy representatives of the urban industry and trade. The area around the Duomo and the Ducal court was in fact filled with stalls and small shops where a mass of retailers and peddlers was the protagonist of a permanent market. Under the coperti dei Figini and delle Bollette, haberdashers, innkeepers, bakers, druggists, and fruit sellers displayed their goods.103 This area was the center of popular activity, attended by the urban poor, by “spongers and vagrants who stay on the cathedral’s steps trying to sell their goods.”104 The cathedral square, as well as the castle and the city gates, was the preferred stage of mountebanks and charlatans, who attracted large crowds of passers-by and beggars.105 The square, seat of the important wine, fish, and poultry markets, was also the meeting point of the malosari da servitori, brokers who hired servants on behalf of families who requested them. Recent immigrants looking for a job knew that the main square provided the best opportunities and gathered there in large numbers. The hustle and bustle extended also inside the cathedral where it was common to see masons hewing stones and women spinning, sewing, and selling fruit in the middle of the church.106 Behind the Duomo, in the Verzaro square, one found the largest urban food market, with dozens of shops and stalls selling poultry, fresh and salted fish, fruit and vegetables, dairy products, and bread. From there started the contrada of St. Michele, the center of the activity of the pateri, retailers of second-hand clothes and haberdashery: in 1601, out of the 89 members of the guild, 45 lived here.107 Since the end of the fifteenth century, the Veneranda Fabbrica della Duomo, the institution that supervised the building of the cathedral, had owned the market structures, as well as several houses in the area.108 In the early seventeenth century, 70 percent of the city’s masters of the guilds of pateri, offelari (sweets makers), and barbers rented their workshops from the Fabbrica.109 The fact that this powerful institution controlled most of the retail space around the cathedral made any attempt to gentrify the area extremely difficult. Despite several ordinances by the Spanish governors prohibiting the occupation of the square and its use as a market, only in the 1680s, after the payment to the Fabbrica of a large amount of money in exchange for the renunciation of rental retail spaces, was a certain measure of urban decor introduced in the city center.110 Not far from the Verzaro, another landmark stood out in the urban fabric: the great city hospital, erected by Francesco Sforza in 1456. During his stay in Milan in 1677, Theodor Billewicz showed surprise

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at the annual revenues of the hospital—90,000 scudi —that allowed the hospital to care for 4,000 patients in the city and as many outside it.111 English visitors commented that the structure looked more like a magnificent monastery or a princely palace than a hospital, and on how it was more suitable to host a royal court than the city’s poor.112 At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the French traveler Alexandre Rogissart believed the Milanese hospital to be the greatest in the world.113

The C ONTR A DE

DELLE

A RTI

The commercial center extended from the Duomo to Cordusio and included a well-defined craft area with streets monopolized by specific guilds. This feature, although certainly not uncommon in old regime cities, was particularly striking in Milan.114 Paolo Morigia, one of the most prominent Milanese chroniclers of the late sixteenth century, wrote: It is worth seeing the union of all trades in this city. One can see all goldsmiths and jewelers gathered in two streets, all those making armors and coats of mail in another; those whom make swords and daggers and arquebuses in another; the same can be said about the union of all other trades.115

The concentration of the more specialized crafts in specific streets seems to have increased even more at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Gualdo Priorato wrote that under the governorship of the Count of Fuentes (1600–10) “on his order, with much prudence the crafts were located in separate streets, each one inhabited by those sharing the same profession, without confusing different kinds of shops.”116 Around the Broletto, several contrade were named after the craft that characterized each street: goldsmith (orefici), arm makers (armaroli), silver workers (argentari), sword makers (spadari), spur makers (speronari), gold merchants (mercanti d’oro), perfumers ( profumeri), fustian merchants ( fustagnari), feather workers ( pennacchiari), and hat makers (berrettari). Besides implementing new rules of urban decor, the organization of these streets made guild members easier to control and represented a landmark for foreign visitors and buyers.117 All travelers and visitors were impressed by these Contrade delle Arti, and they always described them in splendid terms.118 At the end of the sixteenth century when the city enjoyed remarkable economic prosperity, this concentration was particularly clear for the metal industry: in the four contiguous parishes of St. Michele al Gallo, St. Mattia alla Moneta, St. Maria Beltrade, and St. Satiro, more than 25 percent of the families were employed in the sector; half the

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population of St. Michele al Gallo practiced the art of the goldsmith on the homonymous street.119 The crisis of the urban economy and the weakening of the guilds after the plague of 1630 had a strong impact on this rigid organization of the professional settlements. The Contrade delle Arti went through a period of turmoil when the authorities made desperate attempts to reestablish harmony and unity.120 In the second half of the century however, some sort of reorganization probably occurred: French traveler Albert Jouvin described “three or four wide and straight streets where are concentrated all the cloths and jewels shops, besides those selling all kind of foreign goods.”121 At the end of the seventeenth century in the area around St. Satiro southwest of the cathedral, most craftsmen were devoted to the production of horse harnesses and chains.122 Besides a few important merchant families, primarily artisans resided in the area to the east of the Duomo, behind the so-called Camposanto, where the construction yard of the cathedral was located. These households were usually relatively wealthy and employed mainly in the textile industry, above all in the spinning and weaving sectors. In the parishes of St. Vito in Pasquirolo, St. Maria alla Passerella, St. Giorgio al Pozzo, and St. Stefano in Borgogna, from 25 to 50 percent of the heads of household were employed in the wool and silk manufactures. North of the Duomo resided another remarkable textile settlement: the large group of the wool shearers lived in the homonymous street in the parishes of St. Salvatore in Xenodochio and St. Protaso ad Monacos. In this last parish, there were 13 households with shops in 1560, while in 1576 in St. Salvatore there were 23 families of shearers.123 In the same area, one of the liveliest commercial areas in the city, resided most of the Milanese printers and booksellers. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, 15 members of the guild lived on the contrada di St. Margherita.124 At the end of the seventeenth century, the contrada di St. Margherita and the nearby contrada del Lauro were still among the most lively streets in the city, completely lined with shops.125

The Residential Neighborhoods The area around the Duomo and the Broletto was the heart of the Milanese economy, with a clear prevalence of the more representative sectors, the textile and metal manufactures, and a concentration of the more specialized crafts.126 However, while all the major shops and warehouses were located in the city center, only lesser merchants lived in the area next to their shops. Wealthier merchants and businessmen, like the aristocrats, preferred to reside in more secluded and quieter neighborhoods, far away from the confusion and the noise of the city center and the commercial streets. They clearly followed the advice of Leon Battista

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Alberti in terms of their residential choices. Alberti had in fact written in De Re Aedificatoria: The best means of dividing a city is to build a wall through it. This wall . . . should form a kind of circle within a circle. For the wealthy citizens are happier in more spacious surroundings and would readily accept being excluded by an inner wall and would not unwillingly leave the stalls and the town-center workshops to the marketplace traders; and that rabble . . . of poulterers, butchers and cooks, and so on, will be less of a risk and less of a nuisance if they do not mix with the important citizens.127

It is in this second circle just outside the center that we find the aristocratic residential neighborhoods. As in Florence and Ferrara, the origin of these enclaves was related to the urban planning of the Renaissance. The first such neighborhood in Milan was the one around the church of St. Maria delle Grazie, where the old families loyal to the Sforzas resided in the late fifteenth century.128 In the sixteenth century, aristocratic cores became more common: St. Fermo, St. Giovanni alle Quattro Facce, St. Martino in Nosigia and St. Lorenzino are examples of almost entirely aristocratic parishes. Patrician settlements, however, seldom coincided with the parish unit: the parish of St. Fermo, for example, was only the center of a wider area of noble residences that included the contrade of the Olmo, the Stampa, St. Vito, and part of St. Maria alla Chiusa. There were also aristocratic islands, with prestigious palaces, in other parishes characterized overall by lower-class population: that is the case of the contrade dei Cusani, St. Marcellino, Brera, St. Eusebio, and Borgo Nuovo in St. Bartolomeo. Patrician residences also lined the middle section of the Corsi of Porta Romana, Porta Vercellina, and Porta Orientale.129

The Area of the Castle Northwest of the center, the great castle built by the Visconti and the Sforza was still the symbol of the political and military role of Milan. Its size and its square, large enough to contain six thousand armed men impressed all visitors. The neighborhood around the castle and its garrison hosted most of the Spanish population of Milan. In the contiguous parishes of St. Giovanni sul Muro and St. Nicolao, in 1610, lived 12 noblemen and 4 high-ranking officers of the army, all of Spanish nationality.130 In this area most of the activities depended on the needs and the functions of the military citadel. The open area in front of the castle was always very busy with all sorts of people and activities. Especially in the summer heat, citizens of all social classes also used it for an evening stroll.131

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The multiform population of the neighborhood included, besides many soldiers and their families, civilian and military officers, a myriad characters frequently living on the margins of legality, who could offer all sorts of services. Innkeepers and small retailers, coach drivers and porters, horse dealers and farriers, tavern-keepers, and prostitutes made up a variegated mosaic. This area, more than any other in the city, suffered from a bad reputation and an extremely high crime rate.132 The area of Porta Comasina, west of the castle, was decidedly characterized by lower-class settlements. In the parish of St. Carpoforo, around 1590, one-quarter of the population—751 individuals divided in 226 households—was labeled as poor.133 Most of them were families led by women or old men who were unable to earn a living, but the standard of living of their neighbors, hundreds of small craftsmen and textile workers, was probably not much higher. Almost two centuries later nothing had changed and the area was still one of the poorest in the city: in the parish of St. Simpliciano, in 1768, the poor represented slightly less than half the population.134 Also in the parish of St. Marcellino, despite a few patrician enclaves, the landscape was similar. Besides the omnipresent textile workers, the main feature of the parish appeared to be the many households of masons. Their number can be explained by their proximity to the crocetta del Ponte Vedro, the major meeting and hiring point for workers of the building industry.135 People and buildings were particularly numerous along the great arteries that united the city center to the six main gates. Shops, peddlers, and carts full of goods coming from the countryside gave life to a permanent activity, especially around wider sections of the streets called carrobi, one for each of the gates, where teams of porters were available for hire and daily food markets took place. The Corso of Porta Comasina was lined with shops of small craftsmen and retailers. Still in the 1670s, Carlo Torre wrote that one should not be surprised to see on this Corso, so many numerous peoples, dealing with various practical activities [as] the largess of the city allows on all its corsi such activities, so that citizens can have an easy way to get the services and supplies they need, without having to go to the center ( . . . ).136

The Ponte Vedro was also one of the city’s hiring centers for porters, who, with coach drivers and boatmen, took care of the transportation within the urban walls. Small communities of these workers shared geographical origins and helped to ease the arrival and the settlement of new immigrants. The porters from Orasso, for instance, usually resided in St. Maria alla Porta or St. Paolo in Compito, while those from Valtellina

“M i l l a i n t h e G r e at ”

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were concentrated in the central parish of St. Tecla.137 Their dwellings were never far from the gathering places, usually located in the nerve centers of the urban commercial activities: Broletto, Verzaro, and Cordusio in the center; Balla, Carrobio of Porta Ticinese, Ponte Vedro, and Bagutta, on the main arteries; Laghetto and Conca of St. Marco on the Navigli.138

The Industrial Districts Although most of the economic activities, especially in terms of distribution, were localized around the center and on the great commercial arteries connecting it to the gates, productive cores were spread throughout the city, especially in the area around the Navigli. The textile industry was the most widespread in the urban fabric. Moving away from the center, an increasing number of lesser masters, journeymen, and poor workers, mainly spinners and weavers, operated in their homes on the orders of merchant entrepreneurs. However, there were distinct industrial areas specialized in specific stages of the productive cycle. For example, in 1560, in a few contiguous streets in the parish of St. Bartolomeo, there was a concentration of wool carders: 17 masters (15 with their own workshops) and 7 workers.139 This settlement, along with that of the shearers in the center, seems to point to a localization of the wool industry in the central and northern sections of the city. Until the wool industry began its decline at the end of the sixteenth century, most of the wool merchants resided in the same neighborhoods, especially in the parishes of Porta Nuova. This was probably a strategy of settlement functional to a still medieval productive organization: in the previous centuries, merchant residences and warehouses were in fact located outside the urban center, in the direction of the main commercial routes.140 In the case of the wool industry, the pride of Milanese economy throughout the middle ages, a localization on the way to Como and the Alpine passes would be easy to explain. For many activities most of the production took place in the area of the Navigli. The proximity of water sources was fundamental to the operation of fulling mills in the textile manufactures.141 Water was also essential for the leather industry, which was in fact concentrated around the so-called Vetra, an area in the parishes of St. Lorenzo Maggiore, St. Michele alla Chiusa, and St. Pietro in Campo Lodigiano.142 Dyers as well tended to reside and work along the canals, once again with a specific concentration in the southern parishes of Porta Ticinese. The southern part of the city was apparently the most populated and lively. The area in front of St. Lorenzo and the carrobbio of Porta Ticinese hosted important fish and vegetables markets and, not far, the Balla was the seat of the dairy market and oil warehouse.143 The section between the medieval and the Spanish walls was characterized by

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important productive cores: in 1610, 95 battifogli worked in the borghi of St. Lorenzo Maggiore and a multitude of textile workers, most of them women, in the peripheral section of St. Eufemia.144 More than 50 percent of the workshops of bindellari were located in the outer districts of Porta Romana and Porta Ticinese.145 The walls themselves had an important function in the urban productive chain. Besides being used for growing mulberry trees, washermen and workers of the textile and leather industries used the walls to spread out their products during specific phases of the working process.146 Also, for health reasons, the city’s butchers were concentrated in proximity to the walls and in particular in the area of Porta Ticinese and Porta Comasina. Outside the gate of Porta Ticinese, next to the salt market, there was a market of horses and cattle every Saturday. Another market for a wider range of animals was located at the gate of Porta Romana.147