- Political Philosophy, Commons, Common Property, Poverty, Vagrancy and Mobility, Second Scholasticism, and 19 moreHistory of commons, commoning, communal property, History of Political Thought, History of Philosophy, Filosofía, Karl Marx, History of Law, Early Modern Philosophy, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Commons (Political Science), History of Poverty, Feminist Theory, Early Modern History, Italian Studies, Governmentality, Homelessness, Gender and Sexuality, Italian Theory, Gender Theory, and Gender Studiesedit
Sulle soglie della modernità, la povertà fa la sua comparsa sulla scena pubblica. E la fa, almeno inizialmente, in posizione di soggetto. Soggetto politico: perché il problema che pone non è più quello religioso della salvezza, ma quello... more
Sulle soglie della modernità, la povertà fa la sua comparsa sulla scena pubblica. E la fa, almeno inizialmente, in posizione di soggetto. Soggetto politico: perché il problema che pone non è più quello religioso della salvezza, ma quello secolare della conservazione della stabilità sociale. Le autorità municipali del Vecchio Continente cominciano allora a elaborare una serie di normative tendenti a una riorganizzazione radicale dei sistemi di assistenza, tradizionalmente demandata alla carità dei privati o all’iniziativa ecclesiastica. Il libro di Coccoli prende in esame i dibattiti che accompagnarono questo delicato passaggio, caratterizzato dalla laicizzazione della figura del povero e dalla necessità per i governi di affrontare politicamente la problematica dell’indigenza, divenuta una “questione sociale”. Un saggio storico che non manca di offrire spunti al presente, vista anche la crescente rilevanza che il tema della povertà assume nella nostra attuale congiuntura.
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Nella vulgata tradizionale, Machiavelli è l'autore semi-leggendario che per primo ha affrancato la sfera politica dalle rigide regole della religione, della morale e del diritto, aprendo così la via a una teoria del potere inteso come... more
Nella vulgata tradizionale, Machiavelli è l'autore semi-leggendario che per primo ha affrancato la sfera politica dalle rigide regole della religione, della morale e del diritto, aprendo così la via a una teoria del potere inteso come pura volontà di potenza. In questo modo, il segretario fiorentino viene solitamente indicato come il capostipite della letteratura sulla cosiddetta "ragion di Stato". Machiavellismo e ragion di Stato, ormai già un classico negli studi sull'argomento, si incarica precisamente di rovesciare questo luogo comune: da un lato, contrapponendo il paradigma "guerriero" del discorso del machiavellismo a quello "economico" dei teorici della ragion di Stato; dall'altro, mostrando come quest'ultimo affondi le sue radici nel concetto di ratio status medievale - un concetto che dunque precede di gran lunga l'opera di Machiavelli. Tradotto in coincidenza con il cinquecentesimo anniversario de Il Principe, e impreziosito da una nuova prefazione scritta per l'occasione dall'autore, Machiavellismo e ragion di Stato accompagnerà il lettore in un viaggio affascinante alle origini del pensiero politico moderno, svelandone insieme la sorprendente attualità.
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Un’attenzione sempre meno cursoria e più approfondita ha riacceso, in tempi relativamente recenti, l’interesse per la Casa di correzione per giovani discoli del San Michele, fondata a Roma nel 1703 da Clemente XI. In essa è sembrato di... more
Un’attenzione sempre meno cursoria e più approfondita ha riacceso, in tempi relativamente recenti, l’interesse per la Casa di correzione per giovani discoli del San Michele, fondata a Roma nel 1703 da Clemente XI. In essa è sembrato di poter vedere una tappa, la prima, di un percorso che avrebbe portato più di un secolo dopo alla nascita del regime penitenziario moderno. In questo articolo si cercherà invece di rovesciare la prospettiva, facendo del San Michele non solo e non tanto il punto d’origine di una traiettoria a venire ma il punto di caduta di dinamiche giuridiche, istituzionali, religiose e culturali più antiche. Si tratterà insomma di leggere il correzionale clementino nel contesto del suo tempo, ricercando nelle esperienze e nelle discorsività coeve gli elementi che ne consentano un’adeguata comprensione.
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When dealing with the lot of the poorer sorts under early modern plague legislations, most of the recent and less recent scholarship has tended to frame the issue mostly in the (obviously relevant) terms of the repression and... more
When dealing with the lot of the poorer sorts under early modern plague legislations, most of the recent and less recent scholarship has tended to frame the issue mostly in the (obviously relevant) terms of the repression and marginalization of the different classes of the poor (beggars, vagrants, prostitutes etc.). However, another, more benign aspect was at least equally relevant. This paper argues that, once the attention is shifted away from the repressive facet of plague regulations, a whole different side of the relationship between city authorities and the poor begins to appear. A mixed set of legal, medical, religious and political values presided over a "moral economy" that regulated the distribution of resources to the lower classes, thus revealing the (normally) implicit social compact that kept those at the top and those at the bottom of society together. Using some of the most relevant early modern Italian plague tracts as sources, I firstly make a list of the main forms of assistance provided to the poor by early modern city governments; I then try to disentangle the different (and sometimes conflicting) values underlying this moral economy of epidemics; finally, I show how this peculiar arrangement could give the poor some degree of agency.
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SOMMARIO: 1. Tra politico e impolitico.-2. L'economia morale della quarantena: sopravvivenza di una logica politica?-3. Politicizzare il virus? Uno sguardo sul presente. Come si politicizza un evento (apparentemente) impolitico o... more
SOMMARIO: 1. Tra politico e impolitico.-2. L'economia morale della quarantena: sopravvivenza di una logica politica?-3. Politicizzare il virus? Uno sguardo sul presente.
Come si politicizza un evento (apparentemente) impolitico o pre-politico? Come si inserisce un evento fisico o biologico in un'impalcatura sociale, economica o istituzionale? E più a monte: come si trac-ciano i confini tra umano e non umano, cultura e natura, storia e mondo? Guardare a questa serie di questioni dal vertice ottico dell'insor-genza epidemica, e delle risposte approntate a livello micro e macro per farle fronte, può essere utile per cominciare ad accennare una risposta.
Come si politicizza un evento (apparentemente) impolitico o pre-politico? Come si inserisce un evento fisico o biologico in un'impalcatura sociale, economica o istituzionale? E più a monte: come si trac-ciano i confini tra umano e non umano, cultura e natura, storia e mondo? Guardare a questa serie di questioni dal vertice ottico dell'insor-genza epidemica, e delle risposte approntate a livello micro e macro per farle fronte, può essere utile per cominciare ad accennare una risposta.
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Nel Discorso sull’origine della disuguaglianza ci sono due direttrici di pensiero apparentemente opposte, eppure curiosamente convergenti: da una parte, un ordine di idee e dei parametri valutativi ereditati - più o meno consapevolmente -... more
Nel Discorso sull’origine della disuguaglianza ci sono due direttrici di pensiero apparentemente opposte, eppure curiosamente convergenti: da una parte, un ordine di idee e dei parametri valutativi ereditati - più o meno consapevolmente - dalla riflessione teologica patristica e forse dalla canonistica più antica, che Rousseau sicuramente conosceva; dall’altra, un’indagine piuttosto acuta del presente e delle sue trasformazioni. Da un lato una tradizione che vedeva nella proprietà una conseguenza del peccato originale, e nel lavoro una condanna divina; dall’altro il sorgere della società moderna, le enclosures, lo sradicamento delle comunità rurali, l’affermarsi di un nuovo ordine giuridico e la creazione coatta di un mercato del lavoro. Se interpretiamo il secondo Discorso rousseauiano non come una ricostruzione della «origine della società e delle leggi» tout court, ma come analisi critica della nascita della società e delle leggi moderne, il quadro si complica e si arricchisce di nuove e interessanti sfumature.
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In his (recently published) 1972-73 course at the Collège de France, Foucault dealt with the emergence of correctional imprisonment in 19th century Europe, tracing its roots back to the religious milieu of Puritanism. However, as shown by... more
In his (recently published) 1972-73 course at the Collège de France, Foucault dealt with the emergence of correctional imprisonment in 19th century Europe, tracing its roots back to the religious milieu of Puritanism. However, as shown by more recent scholarship, the phenomenon was already on its way two centuries earlier, when a number of institutions aimed at amending people’s behavior (bridewells, houses of correction, lettres de cachet) began to flourish throughout the continent. Beyond their differences, what they seemed to share was a common interest in the private good of the convicted rather than in the common good of society, as well as a closer attention to those acts that can be better described as moral misbehaviors (debauchery, idleness, adultery etc.) rather than as actual crimes.
I would thus argue that a relevant nurturing ground of this institutional constellation can be found in the traditional notion of fraternal correction and in its 16th and 17th centuries revision by Catholic theologians and preachers. As canonically defined since the writings of the Church Fathers, fraternal correction is the reciprocal duty of reproaching one’s neighbor with the purpose of reforming him or preventing him from sinning. However, mainly through the works of Counter-Reformation’s standard-bearers (especially, but not uniquely, those of Jesuits and Oratorians), the interpretation of fraternal correction underwent a process of “verticalization”, gradually becoming the sole responsibility of superiors towards inferiors – of fathers towards their sons, of prelates towards their flock, of princes toward their subjects. Within this context, the concept of correction was able to move from the religious domain to the secular one, designing a normative landscape that was quite different from the traditional one of penal punishment, and that was going to be the condition of possibility for the birth of the aforementioned correctional institutions.
I would thus argue that a relevant nurturing ground of this institutional constellation can be found in the traditional notion of fraternal correction and in its 16th and 17th centuries revision by Catholic theologians and preachers. As canonically defined since the writings of the Church Fathers, fraternal correction is the reciprocal duty of reproaching one’s neighbor with the purpose of reforming him or preventing him from sinning. However, mainly through the works of Counter-Reformation’s standard-bearers (especially, but not uniquely, those of Jesuits and Oratorians), the interpretation of fraternal correction underwent a process of “verticalization”, gradually becoming the sole responsibility of superiors towards inferiors – of fathers towards their sons, of prelates towards their flock, of princes toward their subjects. Within this context, the concept of correction was able to move from the religious domain to the secular one, designing a normative landscape that was quite different from the traditional one of penal punishment, and that was going to be the condition of possibility for the birth of the aforementioned correctional institutions.
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24 Maggio, ore 15.00 - Macro Asilo, Via Nizza 138, Roma - Il seminario si prefigge lo scopo di raccontare la storia del Brasile durante il periodo dittatoriale a partire dall'analisi congiunturale e dall'azione politica poste in essere... more
24 Maggio, ore 15.00 - Macro Asilo, Via Nizza 138, Roma - Il seminario si prefigge lo scopo di raccontare la storia del Brasile durante il periodo dittatoriale a partire dall'analisi congiunturale e dall'azione politica poste in essere dai gruppi sociali subalterni. A quelle latitudini, il tentativo di recuperare una delle tante storie costantemente spezzate dall'iniziativa delle classi dominanti non può andare disgiunta dall'analisi dell'apporto fornito a tali gruppi dalla religione, "modalità centrale della coscienza" dei soggetti posti ai margini della storia e che, nel caso brasiliano, attraverso la Chiesa e la sua scelta preferenziale per i poveri, è divenuta anche veicolo di coscientizzazione politica.
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13 Aprile, ore 11.00 - Macro Asilo, Via Nizza 138, Roma - Nel capitolo 24 del I libro del Capitale, dedicato alla "cosiddetta accumulazione originaria", Marx introduce la figura del "proletariato eslege", che trae con sé una "duplice... more
13 Aprile, ore 11.00 - Macro Asilo, Via Nizza 138, Roma - Nel capitolo 24 del I libro del Capitale, dedicato alla "cosiddetta accumulazione originaria", Marx introduce la figura del "proletariato eslege", che trae con sé una "duplice libertà": quella concreta, conquistata emancipandosi dal dominio feudale e corporativo, e quella solo formale, prodotta dalla cattura nel dispositivo capitalistico del lavoro salariato. Tale figura, per lungo tempo dimenticata nel cassetto della storia, oggi si manifesta nuovamente, soprattutto nei paesi postcoloniali, nell'emergenza di una costellazione di "dannati della terra", sottoposta ai processi di governamentalità neoliberale che tendono a sostituire le politiche sviluppiste e post-sviluppiste degli ultimi decenni. Si tratta della riattivazione di nuovi processi di accumulazione originaria, che mutano profondamente la soggettività del povero messo al lavoro, sfruttando però la flessibilità e informalità delle pratiche storicamente associate alla sua figura. È infatti in quella "makeshift economy" dei poveri, attiva al di là dei regolamenti formali del mercato del lavoro, che il nuovo capitalismo delle piattaforme sembra trovare il suo terreno di coltura. È allora possibile partire proprio dalla figura della "povertà" per ripensare un futuro soggetto dell'emancipazione?
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23 febbraio, ore 17 - MACRo, via Nizza 138, Roma. "Se nel corso dei secoli la letteratura italiana si è occupata di raffigurare la povertà, spesso cercando di produrre un calco della realtà sociale nel solco del cosiddetto realismo, a... more
23 febbraio, ore 17 - MACRo, via Nizza 138, Roma. "Se nel corso dei secoli la letteratura italiana si è occupata di raffigurare la povertà, spesso cercando di produrre un calco della realtà sociale nel solco del cosiddetto realismo, a partire dal secondo dopoguerra essa è stata costretta ad affrontare il discorso sulla povertà da prospettive inedite. Quasi anticipando la domanda di Spivak, Can the subaltern speak? (1988), scrittori e poeti italiani si sono infatti interrogati sul perché “dare voce” ai poveri e in che modo. Nel corso del seminario rifletteremo proprio sul senso e sulle modalità del “dare voce”, sui meccanismi di potere in gioco e sulla lingua stessa della povertà, prendendo in considerazione un campionario di testi eterogenei: i Racconti siciliani di Danilo Dolci e i Contadini del sud di Rocco Scotellaro; la riflessione teorica di Pier Paolo Pasolini sul dialetto; le notazioni poetiche di Amelia Rosselli sulla «difficilissima lingua del povero»; il diario del pittore-contadino Pietro Ghizzardi intitolato Mi richordo anchora o quello del cantoniere semianalfabeta Vincenzo Rabito, pubblicato soltanto di recente con il titolo Terra matta; infine le traduzioni di Joyce Lussu delle voci delle cosiddette minorities."
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18 gennaio, ore 17 - MACRo, Via Nizza 138, Roma. "Nell’Europa d’Ancien régime, in particolare a partire dal XV secolo, si acuì la repressione di comportamenti considerati devianti come il vagabondaggio e l’intervento nei confronti dei... more
18 gennaio, ore 17 - MACRo, Via Nizza 138, Roma. "Nell’Europa d’Ancien régime, in particolare a partire dal XV secolo, si acuì la repressione di comportamenti considerati devianti come il vagabondaggio e l’intervento nei confronti dei poveri attraverso sia politiche punitive che con creazione di istituzioni di carità e di beneficenza, con la duplice funzione del mantenimento dell’ordine e del controllo sociale. Con la Rivoluzione francese, per paradossale che possa apparire, si mantenne una continuità con la legislazione precedente, seppur in un nuovo e mutato paradigma, che prevedeva il diritto all’assistenza dei poveri e dei mendicanti, correlato dal dovere del lavoro e dalla repressione del vagabondaggio. Prima di reprimere la mendicità – questa era la nuova teoria dei rivoluzionari filtrata dall’Illuminismo – bisognava assicurare al mendicante sano il lavoro e a quello invalido la sussistenza. In questo quadro di tocquevilliana continuità, emerge come cesura il “momento giacobino” che tenta di rompere il dispositivo foucaultiano del “sorvegliare e punire”, proponendo un’idea diversa di lotta alla povertà che, tuttavia, finirà inevitabilmente per essere offuscata dalla reazione termidoriana e dal trionfo dell’ordine borghese napoleonico."
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6 dicembre ore 17.30, MACRo - Via Nizza 138. "Interrogare il modo in cui, dall’Ottocento, le nostre società hanno iniziato a pensare sé stesse come “civiltà del lavoro” significa vedere, da una parte, come la condizione-lavoro è stata... more
6 dicembre ore 17.30, MACRo - Via Nizza 138.
"Interrogare il modo in cui, dall’Ottocento, le nostre società hanno iniziato a pensare sé stesse come “civiltà del lavoro” significa vedere, da una parte, come la condizione-lavoro è stata isolata, nel più vasto campo della povertà, in quanto ambito di sapere e di politiche di sicurezza sociale. E poi, dall’altra parte, ripercorrere forme e significati di quel poderoso processo di soggettivazione che si chiamerà “classe operaia”. Entrambi questi versanti concorrono infatti a istruire una genealogia spuria del modo in cui la figura del lavoratore è divenuta tanto centrale nei nostri modelli di cittadinanza e sistemi di riconoscimento sociale, funzionando al tempo stesso come dispositivo di governo e di emancipazione sociale".
"Interrogare il modo in cui, dall’Ottocento, le nostre società hanno iniziato a pensare sé stesse come “civiltà del lavoro” significa vedere, da una parte, come la condizione-lavoro è stata isolata, nel più vasto campo della povertà, in quanto ambito di sapere e di politiche di sicurezza sociale. E poi, dall’altra parte, ripercorrere forme e significati di quel poderoso processo di soggettivazione che si chiamerà “classe operaia”. Entrambi questi versanti concorrono infatti a istruire una genealogia spuria del modo in cui la figura del lavoratore è divenuta tanto centrale nei nostri modelli di cittadinanza e sistemi di riconoscimento sociale, funzionando al tempo stesso come dispositivo di governo e di emancipazione sociale".
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Tavola rotonda su "L'inizio del lavoro" di Federico Tomasello con Giuseppe Allegri, Alessandro Arienzo, Federica Castelli, Alberto De Nicola, Biagio Quattrocchi, Anna Simone. 5 dicembre ore 17.30, MACRo - Via Nizza 138
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The expression of “reason of state” is currently used to denote recourse to force or, at any rate, to exceptional instruments in order to keep personal command, to guarantee state preservation or the maintenance of law and order within... more
The expression of “reason of state” is currently used to denote recourse to force or, at any rate, to exceptional instruments in order to keep personal command, to guarantee state preservation or the maintenance of law and order within society in extraordinary cases. However, reason of stategoes back to the language and the political culture of the late Renaissance period, bearing a wider and more complex meaning. When we focus on the Italian tradition, where it firstly appeared, reason of state was described as follow: “Stateis a stable rule over a people and Reason of State is the knowledge of the means by which such a dominion may be founded, preserved and extended. Yet, although in the widest sense the term includes all these, it is concerned most nearly with preservation (conservazione), and more nearly with extension than with foundation” (Botero 1589).
From Giovanni Botero’sDella Ragion di Stato (1589) right up to ScipioneChiaramonti (1635), reason of state refers to a variegated textual corpus that, besides the explicit reference to the exertion of force, sets up various codes of political conduct aimed at a broader conception of State preservation. This goal is not merely achieved through derogatory policies or extraordinary means, but it is chiefly pursued through ordinary government. In the context of the Counter-reformation, Italian reason of state linkedprincely rule with state administration and governance and ruler’s prudential reason was slowly backed up by a set of practical knowledges: city planning, statistics, political geography, demographics, accounting to name a few.
Thus, Italian reason of state tradition constitutes an autonomous and alternative path with respect to the group of theories, which, in certain European regions, gave rise to the experimentation of sovereignty. Nonetheless, in its very broad sense, it participated in the processes of the so-called modern political rationalization, in a way that is still to be fully investigated, and exercised its influence in various languages and European regions.
Ragion di Stato, Raison d’État, Razon de Estado, Staatsräson: from the end of the Sixteenth-century onwards this expression is in fact translated and adapted to particular regional situations. The differentlanguages and experiences ofEnglish royal (or parliamentary) absolute prerogative, of Germancameralism andpolizei,of French raison d’étatand police, the growing relevance of the “interests of state” in countries such as France, England, the Netherlands:these were allintertwined and concurred to shape the modern idea of the State.
The aim of the conference istwo-fold.
On the one side, it aims at analysing the different theories of reasonof state that were developed in EarlyModern and Modern Europe. We will thus focus on England, France, Germany and the Netherlands in order to highlight their respective specificities as well as their conceptual and historical proximities. We will then compare these experiences with the Italian tradition and contrast them with the contemporary theories of sovereignty in order to clarify their mutual influences and their political, juridical and philosophical backgrounds.
On the other side, the conferenceaims at investigating the relevance of different conceptions of “reason of state” for our contemporary democratic states and societies.In fact, any conception of reason of state seems to bear with itadistinction between moral or juridical normativity (the Right, the Law), the effectivity of ordinary political action, and the necessity to face political and social emergencies.However defined, reason of state is therefore “an art” for governing the State.The changing nature of the State in contemporary globalized democracies poses the question of investigating the changings in the reasons of (the) states.
From Giovanni Botero’sDella Ragion di Stato (1589) right up to ScipioneChiaramonti (1635), reason of state refers to a variegated textual corpus that, besides the explicit reference to the exertion of force, sets up various codes of political conduct aimed at a broader conception of State preservation. This goal is not merely achieved through derogatory policies or extraordinary means, but it is chiefly pursued through ordinary government. In the context of the Counter-reformation, Italian reason of state linkedprincely rule with state administration and governance and ruler’s prudential reason was slowly backed up by a set of practical knowledges: city planning, statistics, political geography, demographics, accounting to name a few.
Thus, Italian reason of state tradition constitutes an autonomous and alternative path with respect to the group of theories, which, in certain European regions, gave rise to the experimentation of sovereignty. Nonetheless, in its very broad sense, it participated in the processes of the so-called modern political rationalization, in a way that is still to be fully investigated, and exercised its influence in various languages and European regions.
Ragion di Stato, Raison d’État, Razon de Estado, Staatsräson: from the end of the Sixteenth-century onwards this expression is in fact translated and adapted to particular regional situations. The differentlanguages and experiences ofEnglish royal (or parliamentary) absolute prerogative, of Germancameralism andpolizei,of French raison d’étatand police, the growing relevance of the “interests of state” in countries such as France, England, the Netherlands:these were allintertwined and concurred to shape the modern idea of the State.
The aim of the conference istwo-fold.
On the one side, it aims at analysing the different theories of reasonof state that were developed in EarlyModern and Modern Europe. We will thus focus on England, France, Germany and the Netherlands in order to highlight their respective specificities as well as their conceptual and historical proximities. We will then compare these experiences with the Italian tradition and contrast them with the contemporary theories of sovereignty in order to clarify their mutual influences and their political, juridical and philosophical backgrounds.
On the other side, the conferenceaims at investigating the relevance of different conceptions of “reason of state” for our contemporary democratic states and societies.In fact, any conception of reason of state seems to bear with itadistinction between moral or juridical normativity (the Right, the Law), the effectivity of ordinary political action, and the necessity to face political and social emergencies.However defined, reason of state is therefore “an art” for governing the State.The changing nature of the State in contemporary globalized democracies poses the question of investigating the changings in the reasons of (the) states.
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In 1692, pope Innocent XII ordered an immediate ban on public beggary, reorganizing at the same time the three main hospices of Rome to provide shelter for the poor forced to move away from the streets. The declared purpose of the order... more
In 1692, pope Innocent XII ordered an immediate ban on public beggary, reorganizing at the same time the three main hospices of Rome to provide shelter for the poor forced to move away from the streets. The declared purpose of the order was to better fulfil the Christian duty of mercy in both its dimensions, corporal and spiritual as well: as the papal bull held it, the whole thing was about «taking care of the salvation of [the poor’s] souls, as well as of their bodily needs». The newly formed «Ospizio apostolico» was thus meant to supply the needy with food, clothes etc., but also, and more important, with a strict discipline and a supervised religious education. In line with this ideal duality, two «jurisdictions» were created: the first one, entrusted to an ad-hoc Congregation composed by a mix of ecclesiastical and lay notables, was given authority over temporal (i.e., administrative) issues; while the second one, commended to the religious order of the Scolopian Fathers, was intended to deal with spiritual matters.
The plan and the regulations of the papal hospice were published in 1693, along with an apologetic pamphlet – La mendicità proveduta nella città di Roma – devised to justify the operation and to overcome objections raised by those attached to a more traditional concept of charity. One of the main line of argumentation was based on what is known to be one of the most widespread delusions among this kind of institutions: the somehow utopian idea that they could sustain themselves just through the income derived from the work of their inmates. Work is conceived here, primarily, as a medium for the moral improvement of the poor; but it was also seen as capable of generating, like a sort of by-product, a surplus revenue sufficient to cover the administrative costs of the hospice, taking the weight of poor relief off the community.
Focusing on this case study in the first half-century of its life, and contrasting its official self-representation with the registers documenting the reality of its day-to-day activities, in my intervention I will point out:
i) how the aforementioned, self-imposed constraint – i.e., the necessity to make money from inmates’ industry in order to justify the very existence of the institution – will eventually reverse the order of priority originally attached to work-discipline, overshadowing its moral purposes to the benefit of its economic dimension. Indeed, the archive records show very well how the main concern of the hospice administrators gradually shifted from «taking care of the poor’s souls» to extracting a profit out of their hands. This means to call into question those old explanations – but still not completely disappeared from the scholarship on the subject – which held that institutions such as the workhouse were born to respond to the demands of a rising capitalism in need of a docile workforce; on the contrary, here it was the very institutional logic of the hospice which begot the first seeds of a profit-driven rationality.
ii) how this transformation from a disciplinary to an economic institution was all but unhindered. Soon enough, conflicts arose: a) between the Congregation, concerned about maximizing the net gain of the enterprise, and the Scolopian Fathers, who defended instead its original spiritual function; b) between the central administration of the hospice and its inmates, who resisted the increasingly stricter regulation imposed on them while trying to raise their productivity; c) and, finally, between the Ospizio in its newly redefined role as an economic agent and the wider productive community of the city, fiercely hostile to exclusive rights and patents granted by the popes to the hospice in hopes of realizing its dream of self-sufficiency.
The plan and the regulations of the papal hospice were published in 1693, along with an apologetic pamphlet – La mendicità proveduta nella città di Roma – devised to justify the operation and to overcome objections raised by those attached to a more traditional concept of charity. One of the main line of argumentation was based on what is known to be one of the most widespread delusions among this kind of institutions: the somehow utopian idea that they could sustain themselves just through the income derived from the work of their inmates. Work is conceived here, primarily, as a medium for the moral improvement of the poor; but it was also seen as capable of generating, like a sort of by-product, a surplus revenue sufficient to cover the administrative costs of the hospice, taking the weight of poor relief off the community.
Focusing on this case study in the first half-century of its life, and contrasting its official self-representation with the registers documenting the reality of its day-to-day activities, in my intervention I will point out:
i) how the aforementioned, self-imposed constraint – i.e., the necessity to make money from inmates’ industry in order to justify the very existence of the institution – will eventually reverse the order of priority originally attached to work-discipline, overshadowing its moral purposes to the benefit of its economic dimension. Indeed, the archive records show very well how the main concern of the hospice administrators gradually shifted from «taking care of the poor’s souls» to extracting a profit out of their hands. This means to call into question those old explanations – but still not completely disappeared from the scholarship on the subject – which held that institutions such as the workhouse were born to respond to the demands of a rising capitalism in need of a docile workforce; on the contrary, here it was the very institutional logic of the hospice which begot the first seeds of a profit-driven rationality.
ii) how this transformation from a disciplinary to an economic institution was all but unhindered. Soon enough, conflicts arose: a) between the Congregation, concerned about maximizing the net gain of the enterprise, and the Scolopian Fathers, who defended instead its original spiritual function; b) between the central administration of the hospice and its inmates, who resisted the increasingly stricter regulation imposed on them while trying to raise their productivity; c) and, finally, between the Ospizio in its newly redefined role as an economic agent and the wider productive community of the city, fiercely hostile to exclusive rights and patents granted by the popes to the hospice in hopes of realizing its dream of self-sufficiency.
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In his (recently published) 1972-73 course at the Collège de France, Foucault dealt with the emergence of correctional imprisonment in 19th century Europe, tracing its roots back to the religious milieu of Puritanism. However, as shown by... more
In his (recently published) 1972-73 course at the Collège de France, Foucault dealt with the emergence of correctional imprisonment in 19th century Europe, tracing its roots back to the religious milieu of Puritanism. However, as shown by more recent scholarship, the phenomenon was already on its way two centuries earlier, when a number of institutions aimed at amending people’s behavior (bridewells, houses of correction, lettres de cachet) began to flourish throughout the continent. Beyond their differences, what they seemed to share was a common interest in the private good of the convicted rather than in the common good of society, as well as a closer attention to those acts that can be better described as moral misbehaviors (debauchery, idleness, adultery etc.) rather than as actual crimes.
I would thus argue that a relevant nurturing ground of this institutional constellation can be found in the traditional notion of fraternal correction and in its 16th and 17th centuries revision by Catholic theologians and preachers. As canonically defined since the writings of the Church Fathers, fraternal correction is the reciprocal duty of reproaching one’s neighbor with the purpose of reforming him or preventing him from sinning. However, mainly through the works of Counter-Reformation’s standard-bearers (especially, but not uniquely, those of Jesuits and Oratorians), the interpretation of fraternal correction underwent a process of “verticalization”, gradually becoming the sole responsibility of superiors towards inferiors – of fathers towards their sons, of prelates towards their flock, of princes toward their subjects. Within this context, the concept of correction was able to move from the religious domain to the secular one, designing a normative landscape that was quite different from the traditional one of penal punishment, and that was going to be the condition of possibility for the birth of the aforementioned correctional institutions.
I would thus argue that a relevant nurturing ground of this institutional constellation can be found in the traditional notion of fraternal correction and in its 16th and 17th centuries revision by Catholic theologians and preachers. As canonically defined since the writings of the Church Fathers, fraternal correction is the reciprocal duty of reproaching one’s neighbor with the purpose of reforming him or preventing him from sinning. However, mainly through the works of Counter-Reformation’s standard-bearers (especially, but not uniquely, those of Jesuits and Oratorians), the interpretation of fraternal correction underwent a process of “verticalization”, gradually becoming the sole responsibility of superiors towards inferiors – of fathers towards their sons, of prelates towards their flock, of princes toward their subjects. Within this context, the concept of correction was able to move from the religious domain to the secular one, designing a normative landscape that was quite different from the traditional one of penal punishment, and that was going to be the condition of possibility for the birth of the aforementioned correctional institutions.
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MACRO-Museo di Arte Contemporanea di Roma
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[This is a conference presentation based on a more extensive, forthcoming article] The recent explosion of interest in the notion of informality among scholars of the Global North has signalled its usefulness even for the analysis of... more
[This is a conference presentation based on a more extensive, forthcoming article]
The recent explosion of interest in the notion of informality among scholars of the Global North has signalled its usefulness even for the analysis of supposedly formalised Western milieus. Within this new trend, studies on urban and housing informality in Northern cities are proliferating, focusing on informal uses of vacant properties that eschew the strict dichotomy of licit and illicit.
Surprisingly, however, early modern historians have shown little interest in informal housing practices in ancien régime societies, as if they had not occurred before the Industrial Revolution. In fact, despite a rich and robust body of scholarship on the different modes of residential accommodations in early modern European cities, we still know very little about how (or even whether) individuals or groups resorted to the appropriation of portions of abandoned urban space to reshape them according to their sheltering needs. When the housing habits of the poorer sections of the resident population are considered, most scholarship seems to be under the impression that even the most destitute could have access to lodging in one form or another.
This paper argues that this was not always the case. Sometimes poverty could be so severe as to make it impossible to opt for even the cheapest solution, and when one’s situation prevented him or her from drawing on the social resources of credit, charity and the neighbourhood, informality seemed to be the only option left available. Drawing from some seventeenth-century sources preserved in the archives of the main Roman criminal court, the Tribunale del Governatore, I try both to offer a tentative typology of housing informality in an ancien régime city, and to assess the specificities of early modern contexts as to how formal property ownership was defined. The paper’s aims are threefold: to draw scholars’ attention to a rather promising but so far relatively overlooked topic; to present some methodological considerations on how to apply the category of informality to early modern urban societies; and to prove how informal housing tactics could represent a salient component of the survival strategies of the most dispossessed even in a more distant past.
The recent explosion of interest in the notion of informality among scholars of the Global North has signalled its usefulness even for the analysis of supposedly formalised Western milieus. Within this new trend, studies on urban and housing informality in Northern cities are proliferating, focusing on informal uses of vacant properties that eschew the strict dichotomy of licit and illicit.
Surprisingly, however, early modern historians have shown little interest in informal housing practices in ancien régime societies, as if they had not occurred before the Industrial Revolution. In fact, despite a rich and robust body of scholarship on the different modes of residential accommodations in early modern European cities, we still know very little about how (or even whether) individuals or groups resorted to the appropriation of portions of abandoned urban space to reshape them according to their sheltering needs. When the housing habits of the poorer sections of the resident population are considered, most scholarship seems to be under the impression that even the most destitute could have access to lodging in one form or another.
This paper argues that this was not always the case. Sometimes poverty could be so severe as to make it impossible to opt for even the cheapest solution, and when one’s situation prevented him or her from drawing on the social resources of credit, charity and the neighbourhood, informality seemed to be the only option left available. Drawing from some seventeenth-century sources preserved in the archives of the main Roman criminal court, the Tribunale del Governatore, I try both to offer a tentative typology of housing informality in an ancien régime city, and to assess the specificities of early modern contexts as to how formal property ownership was defined. The paper’s aims are threefold: to draw scholars’ attention to a rather promising but so far relatively overlooked topic; to present some methodological considerations on how to apply the category of informality to early modern urban societies; and to prove how informal housing tactics could represent a salient component of the survival strategies of the most dispossessed even in a more distant past.
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Three allegoric images stood out from the frontispiece of Giovanni Filippo Ingrassia’s tract on the 1575-6 plague of Palermo: two bags full of money, some pyres, and a landscape dominated by the grim figures of two or three gallows. A... more
Three allegoric images stood out from the frontispiece of Giovanni Filippo Ingrassia’s tract on the 1575-6 plague of Palermo: two bags full of money, some pyres, and a landscape dominated by the grim figures of two or three gallows. A verse by some Maurizio Martello helped make the message clearer: Ignis, furca, aurum sunt medicina mali. The fire symbolized the need to burn and destroy all infected objects; the gallows stood for the penal threat necessary to keep potential transgressors in line; the money was required to pay for the huge expenses undergone by the city in order to enforce its sanitary policies. When dealing with the lot of the poorer sorts under plague legislations, most of the recent and less recent scholarship has tended to focus on the second of these three aspects, framing the issue mostly in the (obviously relevant) terms of the repression and marginalization of the different classes of the poor (beggars, vagrants, prostitutes etc.). However, as Ingrassia himself recognized, the third element – money – was at least equally relevant, since a substantial amount of the total expenditure faced by the city had consisted in “alms given for the support of so many poor people”. This paper argues that, once the attention is shifted away from the repressive facet of plague regulations, a whole different side of the relationship between city authorities and the poor begins to appear. A mixed set of legal, medical, religious and political values presided over a “moral economy” that regulated the distribution of resources to the lower classes, thus revealing the (normally) implicit social compact that kept those at the top and those at the bottom of society together. Using some of the most relevant sixteenth and seventeenth-century Italian plague tracts as sources, I firstly make a list of the main forms of assistance provided to the poor by early modern city governments; I then try to disentangle the different (and sometimes conflicting) values underlying this moral economy of epidemics; finally, I show how this peculiar arrangement could give the poor some degree of agency.
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The concept of charity has been widely used in European early modern political theory, taking on a wide range of meanings and functions. However, very little attention has been dedicated to the subject, and almost no secondary literature... more
The concept of charity has been widely used in European early modern political theory, taking on a wide range of meanings and functions. However, very little attention has been dedicated to the subject, and almost no secondary literature exists on it. This paper thus aims at filling this gap through an examination of the most relevant political texts, from the perspective of the definition of charity they employ and its connections with other related notions. Its main purpose is to enrich our understanding of early modern political vocabulary, while also providing a touchstone for assessing potential contemporary survivals of such a multifarious concept.
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In occasione del tredicesimo compleanno della rivista e del passaggio alla doppia versione online e cartacea grazie alla collaborazione con Aracne Editrice, "Filosofia italiana" promuove una giornata di studi organizzata con il sostegno... more
In occasione del tredicesimo compleanno della rivista e del passaggio alla doppia versione online e cartacea grazie alla collaborazione con Aracne Editrice, "Filosofia italiana" promuove una giornata di studi organizzata con il sostegno del Dipartimento di Filosofia dell'Università Sapienza di Roma, del Dottorato in Filosofia della medesima Università e dell'Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici di Napoli. Verrà discusso il tema della "Filosofia italiana in questione" insieme a Marcello Mustè, Massimiliano Biscuso, Massimo Ferrari, Renata Viti Cavaliere, Federica Pitillo, Federica Buongiorno, Antonio Lucci, Caterina Zanfi, Alessandra Aloisi, Libera Pisano, Lorenzo Coccoli, Giulio Goria, Giulio Azzolini, Stefania Pietroforte, Ambrogio Garofano.
Roma, 18 maggio 2018 dalle ore 9.30, presso il Dipartimento di Filosofia "Villa Mirafiori" dell'Università Sapienza di Roma (Via Carlo Fea, 2) - Aula XII
Roma, 18 maggio 2018 dalle ore 9.30, presso il Dipartimento di Filosofia "Villa Mirafiori" dell'Università Sapienza di Roma (Via Carlo Fea, 2) - Aula XII