Early Modern Sicily

Castroreale is a Sicilian centre in Valdemone. It was one of the most populated
communities of this large area. In the 15th century, it hosted a Jewish community
formed, in particular, by physicians, artisans and merchants of cloth. All were in
commercial relations with Messina and its urban patriciate. Castroreale was also
home to a significant number of neophytes, who were persecuted by the Inquisition
in the first decades of the 16th century.

Most of the italian cities in the old régime closed the access to the government positions to anybody  but a restricted group of listed families, with regard to their antiquity, nobility, prestige.
The access criteria to the senate of Palermo was different: the city was open to newcomers (foreign merchants, small landowners, jurists, professional men), and no formal rule - except being a citizen - checked for the nobility of the city governors. The members of the senate were considered “nobles” due to their money, power and, most of all, to their way of living, that imitated the style of the ancient noble families.

The century and a half preceding the expulsion of Jews from Sicily registered an increasing of the anti-Jewish violence phenomena. The main causes are related to periods of economic, political and social crisis and to the development of a new type of religious attitudes spread by the preaching of mendicant orders and a new vision of the ‘other’ in European society.

The budget of the city. The archive of the accountant in Palermo (XVI-XIX century)
The archive of the city's accountants during the early modern period is of great interest. Palermo was one of the most populated cities of the Sicilian Kingdom, and the main fiscal contributor of the Spanish Monarchy; from the second half of the XVI century the Monarchy tried to improve its control of the administration of the city's patrimony, through the reformation of the accountant's office and the book-keeping (double entry) system.  By the study of these books it is possible to shape and understand the administration system of the city's properties. The main income was formed by indirect taxation, and the expenses by salaries, services, but mainly by the food provisioning system. Buying the food for the city increased an enormous public debt and the city's administrators (merchants and noble landowners) mixed their private business with the public provisioning system and the public debt bonds market.

In A. Chillura, G. Mandalà, L. Camilleri (eds), La Biblioteca Lucchesiana di Agrigento e il dialogo interreligioso, Agrigento, Biblioteca Lucchesiana, 2018. ABSTRACT: La Biblioteca Lucchesiana di Agrigento è donata al popolo agrigentino il 16 ottobre 1765 dal vescovo Andrea Lucchesi Palli (1692-1768), il quale destina un edificio a sede della biblioteca e vi lega i suoi beni; all’atto della donazione (17 ottobre 1765), secondo un computo approssimativo, la biblioteca contava ca. 9.200 volumi, tra i quali 180 manoscritti latini, greci e italiani, 32 manoscritti arabi, 410 tra incunabuli e cinquecentine, 180 libri rari o di pregio, un fondo cospicuo che ai temi religiosi univa uno spiccato interesse verso le discipline laiche, in accordo agli indirizzi dell’Accademia palermitana del Buon Gusto.
Il presente contributo intende fare luce sulla storia della biblioteca e dei suoi manoscritti arabi, seguendo il filo rosso che lega questa straordinaria collezione alla Spagna. Grazie all’ausilio della ricerca storica, paleografica e codicologica sono qui chiarite le vicende di questi codici che viaggiano tra Islam e Cristianità: da Granada – passando per Alcalá de Henares – alla Real Biblioteca del monastero di San Lorenzo dell’Escorial, e da qui prima a Palermo e poi ad Agrigento.

La Biblioteca Lucchesiana di Agrigento è donata al popolo agrigentino il 16 ottobre 1765 dal vescovo Andrea Lucchesi Palli (1692-1768), il quale destina un edificio a sede della biblioteca e vi lega i suoi beni; all’atto della donazione (17 ottobre 1765), secondo un computo approssimativo, la biblioteca contava ca. 9.200 volumi, tra i quali 180 manoscritti latini, greci e italiani, 32 manoscritti arabi, 410 tra incunabuli e cinquecentine, 180 libri rari o di pregio, un fondo cospicuo che ai temi religiosi univa uno spiccato interesse verso le discipline laiche, in accordo agli indirizzi dell’Accademia palermitana del Buon Gusto.
Il presente volume raccoglie gli atti del convegno internazionale tenutosi presso la Biblioteca Lucchesiana il 10 novembre del 2016. Articolato in due sezioni, la prima intende fare luce sulla storia della biblioteca e dei suoi manoscritti arabi, seguendo il filo rosso che lega questa straordinaria collezione alla Spagna. Grazie all’ausilio della ricerca storica, paleografica e codicologica sono qui chiarite le vicende di questi codici che viaggiano tra Islam e Cristianità: da Granada – passando per Alcalá de Henares – alla Real Biblioteca del monastero di San Lorenzo dell’Escorial, e da qui prima a Palermo e poi ad Agrigento. La seconda sezione è dedicata al patrimonio culturale arabo-islamico nel territorio di Agrigento, letto e interpretato attraverso le testimonianze archeologiche, storico-archivistiche e artistiche.

The analysis of the notarial records of Palermo allows the reconstruction of the economic interests of the Jews of Messina in the city of Palermo during the fifteenth century, especially the trade relations with their coreligionists in Palermo, local Christians and foreign merchants, and to propose a definitive settlement of some of those in the city.

Las reinas consortes de los soberanos de la Corona de Aragón eran dotadas de una cámara (es decir, un conjunto de posesiones y rentas permanentes) de manera que pudieran sobrevivir aún tras el fallecimiento del marido. Sin embargo, la ley permitía que las soberanas gozaran de estas rentas directamente después de la boda, sin esperar la viudez. Isabel la Católica obtuvo estas posesiones en Sicilia y Cataluña desde 1470 hasta 1504. La Camera reginalis de
Sicilia era un territorio administrado directamente por las reinas y no formaba parte de la
Corona, sin embargo, después del fallecimiento de las soberanas estas ciudades volvían al reino de Sicilia. Su gestión solía ser homogénea y ya desde 1420 fue elegida Siracusa como capital, donde se establecieron oficiales, procuradores y órganos centrales. El aspecto que me
parece más interesante es que durante el siglo XV, concretamente bajo el regimiento de Blanca de Navarra, María de Aragón y Juana Enríquez, fueron puestas en marcha diferentes medidas que transformaron gradualmente la fisonomía política, jurídica y económica de la
institución. Ésta adoptó normas, cargos y organismos colectivos que ya existían en la Corona
central de Sicilia y en la corte de Palermo, asemejándose a la estructura administrativa de los reinados. En cambio, en las villas catalanas de Tàrrega y Vilagrassa, igualmente concedidas a Isabel, permaneció la estructura de gobierno existente, es decir, Universitates con una
personalidad jurídica propia, mientras que los municipios perdieron su autonomía originaria y los órganos representativos cesaron de tener la summa potestas reconocida. A pesar de estos cambios jurisdiccionales, los municipios mencionados seguían teniendo una clase dirigente
poderosa y una precisa tradición histórica de gobierno, lo que obviamente afectaba a la gestión reginal. Mi proyecto doctoral pretende reconstruir la gestión de estos organismos institucionales, detectando las diferencias administrativas y jurídicas.

The Sicilian provisioning system in the early modern period (XVI-XVIII centuries) remained broadly unchanged from the institutional point of view during the entire period extending from the Viceroyalty to the end of the ancien régime. The system sought to establish a mechanism that guaranteed both the subsistence of large and small cities, each with its own highly distinct institutional identity, and, at the same time, the income of the great aristocratic landowners that were interested in the international grain market and the domestic market. Cities and large wheat producers were sometimes in contrast, while other times they worked synergistically, depending on whether the communities were feudal or state property and whether they were located in the producing or the consuming areas of the diversified island territory. In cities large and small, a set of economic mechanisms, social practices and political conflicts unfolded around the urban "abbasto" system: the bread production process, influenced both by the need for financial stability and by policies to support subsistence; grain and flour distribution for the urban area, with the consumer price system of mete run by the local political elites; contracts for the procurement of supplies, mostly wheat, but also wine, oil, meat and cheese. In addition to Palermo and Messina, notable for their demographic, commercial and political importance, a few medium-sized centres of the Kingdom  allow us to focus more closely on the economic dynamics and the protagonists of the supply and redistribution mechanisms of the victualling system.