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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 November 2017
Combining family history and the analysis of political elites, this article explores the development of the urban elite of Turin (Piedmont) in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, through an analysis of the transformations in the kinships forming the ruling class, with particular regard to their structures and strategies for social and economic reproduction. The deep changes that affected this group and eventually led to its extinction and replacement by a new elite are addressed. It is argued that, alongside institutional rearrangements determined by the Dukes of Savoy, the inheritance strategies pursued by the kinships in order to preserve their economic and political role played a crucial part in their demise.
Combinant histoire de la famille et analyse des élites politiques, cet article explore le développement de l’élite urbaine de Turin (au Piémont) aux XIVe et XVe siècles. Les modifications intervenues au sein des groupes de parenté formant la classe dirigeante sont mises en évidence, tout particulièrement leurs structures et stratégies de reproduction économique et sociale. De profonds changements les ont affectés, les conduisant finalement à l'extinction, une nouvelle élite surgissant à leur place. L'auteur soutient que, parallèlement aux réaménagements institutionnels réalisés par les ducs de Savoie, les stratégies d'héritage mises en œuvre par ces groupes de parenté pour préserver leur rôle économique et politique ont joué un rôle crucial dans leur disparition.
Dieser Beitrag verknüpft Familiengeschichte mit der Analyse politischer Eliten und untersucht die Entwicklung der städtischen Elite in Turin (Piemont) im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert. Im Zentrum steht die Analyse der Transformationen innerhalb der Verwandtschaften, die die herrschende Klasse bildeten, unter besonderer Berücksichtigung ihrer Strukturen und Strategien bei der sozialen und ökonomischen Reproduktion. Diese Gruppe war von tiefgreifenden Veränderungen betroffen, die schließlich dazu führten, dass sie unterging und durch eine neue Elite ersetzt wurde. Die These lautet, dass neben den durch die Herzöge von Savoyen bestimmten institutionellen Umstrukturierungen die Vererbungsstrategien, die von den Verwandtschaften verfolgt wurden, um ihre politische und ökonomische Rolle zu erhalten, für ihren Niedergang eine ausschlaggebende Rolle spielten.
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7 Barbero, A., ‘La vita e le strutture politiche nel quadro della bipolarità signore-comune’, in Comba, R. ed., Storia di Torino, Volume II: Il basso Medioevo e la prima età moderna (1280–1536) (Turin, 1997), 543–82Google Scholar. For European comparisons with the development of capital cities and its effect on the local society, see Boucheron, P., Menjot, D. and Monnet, P., ‘Formes d’émergence, d'affirmation et de déclin des capitales. Rapport introductif’, in Boucheron, P. ed., Les villes capitales au Moyen Âge (Paris, 2006), 13–56 Google Scholar; Smurra, R., Houben, H. and Ghizzoni, M. eds., The far-sighted gaze of capital cities: essays in honour of Francesca Bocchi (Rome, 2014)Google Scholar, with particular reference to parts I and II.
8 This political shift has not been examined in depth, but studies of late medieval Turin generally relate it to the influence of the newly established university and the ducal reform of the council (see note 29). See Barbero, ‘La vita e le strutture politiche’, 548–53; M. T. Bonardi, ‘La città si abbellisce: trasformazioni urbanistiche e commerciali’, in Comba ed., Storia di Torino, II, 585–97, here 591–2; I. Naso, ‘La scuola e l'università’, in Comba ed., Storia di Torino, II, 597–616, here 601.
9 Providing an exhaustive report of this historiography is far beyond the space and the purpose of this article, thus I can only refer to the most important trends in research. For the main approaches to the history of family and kinship, see Anderson, M., Approaches to the history of the Western family, 1500–1914 (Cambridge, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Annales de Démographie Historique: Famille et parenté 41, 2 (2001)Google Scholar; Guerreau-Jalabert, A., Le Jan, R. and Morsel, J., ‘De l'histoire de la famille à l'anthropologie de la parenté’, in Schmitt, J.-C. and Oexle, O. G. eds., Les tendances actuelles de l'histoire du Moyen Age en France et en Allemagne (Paris, 2003), 433–46Google Scholar.
10 With a particular focus on family structures and relationships the essential Italian studies are Herlihy, D. and Klapisch-Zuber, C., Tuscans and their families: a study of the Florentine catasto of 1427 (New Haven and London, 1985)Google Scholar; Delille, G., Famille et propriété dans le royaume de Naples (XVe–XIXe siècle) (Rome, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For works linking family and kinship to the political elites, see Carocci, S., Baroni di Roma: dominazioni signorili e lignaggi aristocratici nel Duecento e nel primo Trecento (Rome, 1993)Google Scholar; Grubb, J. S., Provincial families of the Renaissance: private and public life in the Veneto (Baltimore and London, 1996)Google Scholar; Benadusi, G., A provincial elite in early modern Tuscany: family and power in the creation of the state (Baltimore and London, 1996)Google Scholar; Mineo, E. I., Nobiltà di stato: famiglie e identità aristocratiche nel tardo medioevo: La Sicilia (Rome, 2001)Google Scholar; Bellavitis, A. and Chabot, I. eds., Famiglie e poteri in Italia tra medioevo ed età moderna (Rome, 2009)Google Scholar.
11 These studies go back to the longstanding debate on the restructuring of kinship ties among the higher social strata; recent research has claimed that strict patrilineal systems only developed at the end of the Middle Ages, challenging Georges Duby's thesis of the formation of the patrilineage in the twelfth century; see Duby, G., Hommes et structures du Moyen Âge (Paris, 1973), 145–66, 267–98, 395–422 Google Scholar. For an updated debate, see Aurell, M. ed., Le médiéviste et la monographie familiale: sources, méthodes et problématiques (Turnhout, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Sabean, D. W., Teuscher, S. and Mathieu, J. eds., Kinship in Europe: approaches to long-term development (1300–1900) (New York and Oxford, 2007)Google Scholar.
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13 Padgett, ‘Open elite?’.
14 The main studies of late medieval Turin were collected in the volumes Comba, R. and Roccia, R. eds., Torino fra Medioevo e Rinascimento: dai catasti al paesaggio urbano e rurale (Turin, 1993)Google Scholar and Comba ed., Storia di Torino, II. Barbero, A., Un'oligarchia urbana: politica ed economia a Torino fra Tre e Quattrocento (Rome, 1995)Google Scholar is entirely focused on the local elite. For recent works on the Duchy of Savoy between the late medieval and early modern period, see Barbero, A., ‘The feudal principalities: the west (Monferrato, Saluzzo, Savoy, Savoy-Acaia)’, in Gamberini, A. and Lazzarini, I. eds., The Italian Renaissance state (Cambridge, 2014), 177–96Google Scholar; and Vester, M. ed., Sabaudian studies: political culture, dynasty, and territory: 1400–1700 (Kirksville, 2013)Google Scholar.
15 On the Studium generale in Turin, see Naso, I. ed., Alma felix universitas studii Taurinensis: lo studio generale dalle origini al primo Cinquecento (Turin, 2004)Google Scholar. On the ducal council, see A. Barbero, ‘Il mutamento dei rapporti fra Torino e le altre comunità del Piemonte nel nuovo assetto del ducato sabaudo’, in Comba ed., Storia di Torino, II, 373–419, here 394–409.
16 S. A. Benedetto, ‘La crescita demografica e l'immigrazione’, in Comba ed., Storia di Torino, II, 423–48, here 433–6.
17 The noun ‘kinship’ is used throughout this article to denote an extended grouping or network of related persons.
18 Most elite families strengthened their alliances through marriage, often resorting to marriages between nobles and rich populares. Only the most prestigious noble lineages sought alliances with the nobility of Piedmont. Individual examples of upward social mobility through marriage existed, though – given the functioning of the council – they never created an ‘open elite’ as in Florence. See Padgett, ‘Open elite?’ and Molho, A., Marriage alliance in late medieval Florence (Cambridge, MA, 1994)Google Scholar. For an examination of the marriage patterns of the Turin elite, see Gravela, M., Il corpo della città: politica e parentela a Torino nel tardo medioevo (Rome, 2017)Google Scholar.
19 The notion of economic trustworthiness as an essential requirement for full citizenship and political participation is mainly due to the works by Giacomo Todeschini; see his Visibilmente crudely: malviventi, persone sospette e gente qualunque dal medioevo all'età moderna (Bologna, 2007), esp. 241–69Google Scholar; Franciscan wealth: from voluntary poverty to market society (New York, 2009)Google Scholar; and Come Giuda (Bologna, 2011)Google Scholar. Further studies on the relationship between economic inequality, fiscal responsibility and forms of citizenship are collected in Lenoble, C. and Todeschini, G. eds., Cittadinanza e disuguaglianze economiche: le origini storiche di un problema europeo (=Mélanges de l’École française de Rome: Moyen-Âge 125, 2 (2013)Google Scholar) and Vallerani, M. ed., Fiscalità e cittadinanza (=Quaderni storici, 49, 3 (2014)Google Scholar).
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22 Family and patrimony were actually viewed as a whole entity in medieval society, this indissoluble connection having also been made by jurists like Albericus de Rosate and Bartolus of Saxoferrato with the explicit definition ‘Familia id est substantia’. See G. Rossi, ‘I fedecommessi nella dottrina e nella prassi giuridica di ius commune tra XVI e XVII secolo’, in Cavaciocchi ed., The economic role of the family, 175–202, here 176.
23 Archivio Storico della Città di Torino (hereafter ASCT), Ordinati, vol. 1–83.
24 On the functioning of city councils in Italian communes, see Tanzini, L., A consiglio: la vita politica nell'Italia dei comuni (Rome and Bari, 2014)Google Scholar.
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27 On Italian aristocracies, see Bordone, Castelnuovo and Varanini eds., Le aristocrazie dai signori rurali, and E. I. Mineo, ‘State, orders and social distinction’, in Gamberini and Lazzarini eds., The Italian Renaissance state, 323–44; for a recent comprehensive study of Italian nobility and its political nature, see Castelnuovo, G., Être noble dans la cite: les noblesses italiennes en quête d'identité (XIIIe–XVe siècle) (Paris, 2014), esp. 33–92Google Scholar. For a wider European analysis, see Morsel, J., L'aristocratie medieval: Ve–XVe siècle (Paris, 2004)Google Scholar and for a less sharp opposition between Italian and French nobility, Dutour, T. ed., Les nobles et la ville dans l'espace francophone (XIIe–XVIe siècles) (Paris, 2010)Google Scholar. See also van Steensel, A., ‘Beyond the crisis of the nobility: recent historiography on the nobility in the medieval Low Countries II’, History Compass 12 (2014), 273–86Google Scholar.
28 This process matches what happened in other Italian cities, where ‘la politique citadine anoblit’; see Castelnuovo, Être noble dans la cité, 81.
29 This system experienced very limited changes. A reform in 1433 divided the council in three groups instead of two, essentially accepting the current organisation. The core of the elite was represented in the first two groups, while the third played a less relevant role. See Barbero, ‘La vita e le strutture politiche’, 544–57.
30 Similar mechanisms have been studied for Genoa, Asti and Belluno. See Grendi, E., ‘Profilo storico degli alberghi genovesi’, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome: Moyen-Âge, Temps modernes 87, 1 (1975), 241–302 Google Scholar; Bordone, R., ‘Progetti nobiliari del ceto dirigente del comune di Asti al tramonto’, in Bordone, R. and Sergi, G. eds., Progetti e dinamiche nella società comunale italiana (Naples, 1995), 279–326 Google Scholar; Law, J. E., ‘Guelfs and Ghibellines in Belluno c. 1400’, in Gentile, M. ed., Guelfi e ghibellini nell'Italia del Rinascimento (Rome, 2005), 603–24, here 609–10Google Scholar.
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32 Padgett, ‘Open elite?’, 367, provides data on the generally high longevity rates of noble lineages across Europe. However, significant examples of short-lived lineages exist, as shown in Payling, S. J., ‘Social mobility, demographic change, and landed society in late medieval England’, Economic History Review 45, 1 (1992), 51–73 Google Scholar, where the majority of aristocratic lineages did not last more than three generations (two after the 1350 demographic crisis).
33 ASCT, Ordinati, vol. 99, fo. 1r. In the 1560s the noble kinships of the Beccuti and da Gorzano eventually extinguished.
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37 Torino e i suoi Statuti, 69. Emancipation was extremely unusual in Turin, especially among the elite families, in which only eight certain cases were observed in the two centuries covered by this study. It was instead a more frequent practice in Florence and other parts of Tuscany, where it was used by merchant families to protect property from possible financial failures of the head of the household; see Kuehn, T., Emancipation in late medieval Florence (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Leverotti, F., ‘Dalla famiglia stretta alla famiglia larga: linee di evoluzione e tendenze della famiglia rurale lucchese (secoli XIV–XV)’, Studi storici 30, 1 (1989), 171–202 Google Scholar.
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42 Their adult sons are mentioned in ASCT, Collezione V, vol. 1029, fos. 33r–v, 40r–41v.
43 Studies on the affective family flourished after the publication of Stone, L., The family, sex and marriage in England, 1500–1800 (London 1977)Google Scholar. Recent contributions on the study of emotions and of affective bonds in the family, especially in relation to gender are Nagy, P. ed., Émotions médiévales (=Critique, 716–17 (2007))Google Scholar; Fine, A., Klapisch-Zuber, C. and Lett, D., ‘Liens et affects familiaux’, Clio: Femmes, genre, histoire [online], 34 (2011), 7–16 Google Scholar; Broomhall, S. ed., Authority, gender and emotions in late medieval and early modern England (Basingstoke, 2015)Google Scholar.
44 Between 1360 and 1460, the best documented period, elite families were fined more than 40 times for verbal and physical conflicts that broke out mainly for economic reasons and involved siblings who had divided their wealth. Most of these episodes, though, occurred before 1415–1420, since after this date the increase of impartible inheritance reduced the risk of such disputes. Predictably, the prevalence of economic factors, namely the distribution of property, was a common source of family issues across different social classes and geographical areas, as shown by the studies collected in Aurell, M. ed., La Parenté déchirée: les luttes intrafamiliales au Moyen Âge (Turnhout, 2010)Google Scholar. For litigation arising over transmission of wealth in wills, though in a later period and legal context, see Bonfield, L., Devising, dying and dispute: probate litigation in early modern England (Farnham, 2011)Google Scholar.
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46 Gravela, Comprare il debito della città. Considerable expenses to provide soldiers and resources to the princes or to reinforce the city walls were frequently discussed by the council in these years, as well as complaints from citizens for financial losses due to the interruption of trade (ASCT, Ordinati, vols. 31–40).
47 Barbero, ‘Il mutamento dei rapporti’, 388–93.
48 Through the fideicommissum the testator appointed an heir who was entrusted with passing the inheritance on to another one, preserving thereby the unity of the patrimony. See Chauvard, J.-F., Bellavitis, A. and Lanaro, P. eds., Fidéicommis: procédés juridiques et pratiques sociales (Italie-Europe, Bas Moyen Âge-XVIIIe siècle) (Mélanges de l’École française de Rome: Italie et Méditerranée modernes et contemporaines 124, 2 (2012))Google Scholar. Primogeniture was established in Turin in the late seventeenth century, see Cavallo, S., Charity and power in early modern Italy: benefactors and their motives in Turin, 1541–1789 (Cambridge, 1995)Google Scholar.
49 S. A. Benedetto, ‘Le strutture della proprietà fondiaria e l'insediamento rurale’, in Comba ed., Storia di Torino, II, 449–76, here 449–55.
50 Siena's equivalent of the cadastre only listed immovable property: Cherubini, G. ed., ‘La “Tavola delle possessioni” del comune di Siena’, Rivista di storia dell'agricoltura XIV, 2 (1974), 5–14 Google Scholar. In Provence, few towns registered movable wealth, and only did so discontinuously, whereas in the cities of the kingdom of Valencia it constituted only 5 per cent of taxable wealth; see M. Hébert, ‘Le système fiscal des villes de Provence (XIVe–XVe s.)’, 57–81, here 76 and A. Furió, ‘L'impôt direct dans le villes du royame de Valence’, 169–99, here 190, in Menjot, D. and Martínez, M. Sánchez eds., La fiscalité des villes au Moyen Âge (Occident méditerranéen): 2. Les systèmes fiscaux (Toulouse, 1999)Google Scholar. The most striking case, though, is the livre de Vaillant of Lyon (the name itself suggests the link between property and social acknowledgment), a fiscal source exclusively including owners of immovable possessions; see Rossiaud, J., Lyon 1250–1550: réalités et imaginaires d'une métropole, texts compiled by Gaulin, J.-L. and Rau, S. (Seyssel, 2012), 159 Google Scholar.
51 ASCT, Collezione V, vol. 1041, fos. 17r–18v; vol. 1047, fos. 15r–16r; vol. 1052, fos. 12v–13v. Beatrice married a nobleman of the nearby town of Savigliano: Archivio di Stato di Torino (hereafter AST), Corte, Paesi, Paesi per A e B, T, m. 5, n. 66, fos. 10r–12v. Ludovico became abbot of San Solutore minor, a monastery just outside the city walls: Archivio Arcivescovile di Torino (hereafter AAT), sezione VI, Protocollo 25, fos. 60v–61r.
52 ASCT, Collezione V, vol. 1079, fo. 11r; vol. 1086, fo. 11r; vol. 1098, fos. 2r–v.
53 For similar developments see above, note 12.
54 Co-residence was often likely to exacerbate the discord between brothers or between a widow and her adult sons, as the woman could become a hindrance to her children's succession. See Klapisch-Zuber, C., Women, family, and ritual in Renaissance Italy (Chicago, 1985), 117–31Google Scholar.
55 The analysis showed a strong trend towards preservation of the family house within the lineage, also in compliance with the statutes. Torino e i suoi Statuti, 74.
56 Rossi, M. C. and Garbellotti, M. eds., Adoption and fosterage practices in the late medieval and modern age (Rome, 2016)Google Scholar.
57 Originally coming from the city of Asti, members of the da Gorzano lived between Turin and the Susa valley; see Bordone, R., ‘L'aristocrazia militare del territorio di Asti: i signori di Gorzano’, Bollettino storico-bibliografico subalpino LXIX, 2 (1971), 357–447 Google Scholar and LXX, 2 (1972), 545–87; Gravela, M., ‘L’élite torinese nel secolo XIV: credito, partecipazione politica e patrimoni di un'oligarchia finanziaria’, Bollettino storico-bibliografico subalpino CXI, 2 (2013), 404–9Google Scholar.
58 The system of kinship cooperation of the da Gorzano has been examined in Gravela, Il corpo della città.
59 Torino e i suoi Statuti, 74.
60 Nicola was the richest in the kinship, with houses, land, and money invested in loans. ASCT, Collezione V, vol. 1034, fos. 25r–v; vol. 1038, fos. 32v, 87r–87bisr. At the same time he played a series of leading political roles, first holding a seigneurial office in the 1370s and later becoming one the most influential councillors between 1390 and 1410.
61 AAT, sezione VI, Protocollo 19, fos. 88r–89r; Archivio Capitolare di Torino, Pergamene, n. 512; ASCT, Collezione V, vol. 1043, fos. 53r–54r.
62 AST, Corte, Paesi per A e per B, Lucento, n. 14; Merlin, P., ‘Amministrazione e politica tra Cinque e Seicento: Torino da Emanuele Filiberto a Carlo Emanuele I’, in Ricuperati, G. ed., Storia di Torino, Volume III: Dalla dominazione francese alla ricomposizione dello Stato (1536–1630) (Turin, 1998), 111–82, here 137Google Scholar.
63 AAT, sezione VI, Protocollo 28, fos. 99r–100r.
64 ASCT, Collezione V, vol. 1066, fos. 115r–v; vol. 1081, fo. 1r; vol. 1088, fo. 1r. Even in the lists of councillors, in which Girardo appeared in the 1460s, exclusively his mother's surname is used, an additional proof of the switch of surname: ASCT, Ordinati, vol. 79, fos. 125r–126v; vol. 80, fo. 3r.
65 P. Merlin, ‘Torino durante l'occupazione francese’, in Ricuperati ed., Storia di Torino, III, 7–55, here 50.
66 Absence of paternal kin and the husband's lower rank seem significant factors, as they are observed in all the cases attested in Turin. For similar dynamics of transmission of the surname through women in early modern England, see Capern, A. L, ‘The landed woman in early-modern England’, Parergon 19, 1 (2002), 185–214 Google Scholar.
67 D. W. Sabean and S. Teuscher, ‘Kinship in Europe: a new approach to long-term development’, in Sabean, Teuscher and Mathieu eds., Kinship in Europe, 1–32, here 9–10.
68 Mineo, ‘Formazione delle élites urbane’; Mineo, Nobiltà di stato; Lanaro, ‘“Familia est substantia”’; Chauvard, La circulation des biens à Venise, 323–95; B. Derouet, ‘Political power, inheritance, and kinship relations: the unique features of southern France (sixteenth–eighteenth centuries)’, in Sabean, Teuscher and Mathieu eds., Kinship in Europe, 105–24; Chacón Jimenez, ‘Patrimoine et mariage’. See also S. Teuscher, ‘Politics of kinship in the city of Bern at the end of the Middle Ages’, in Sabean, Teuscher and Mathieu eds., Kinship in Europe, 76–90.
69 Howell, M. C., The marriage exchange: property, social place, and gender in cities of the Low Countries, 1300–1550 (Chicago and London, 1998)Google Scholar; on the changes in the representation of kinship around 1500, see Teuscher, S., ‘Flesh and blood in the treatises on the Arbor Consanguinitatis (thirteenth to sixteenth centuries)’, in Johnson, C. H., Jussen, B., Sabean, D. W. and Teuscher, S. eds., Blood and kinship: matter for metaphor from Ancient Rome to the present (New York, 2013), 83–104 Google Scholar.
70 The Borgesio passed from seven councillors in 1365, to six in 1415 and finally one in 1468; the Beccuti in the same years occupied seven, seven and two seats; the da Gorzano four, five and eventually one.
71 For the careers of jurists, see Rosso, P., Rotulus legere debentium: professori e cattedre all'Università di Torino nel Quattrocento (Turin, 2005)Google Scholar.
