Abstract
This chapter introduces the reader to a local universe that, with a change in perspective, becomes also the site from which more distant horizons can be viewed. Here one finds a description of the political system of the community, its spatial dimension, territorial asymmetries, the interweaving of formal and informal powers, and the crucial role played therein by kinship configurations—which from this point on will figure centrally in the book’s narrative strategy. This chapter reconstructs the role of kin groups as collective actors in the politico-administrative structure of the local community. It explains how the collective fiscal responsibility of the locality served to define kin groups’ contours, their hierarchical cohesion, and even the forms of territorial segmentation that they assumed.
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Notes
- 1.
Historical events in the Fontanabuona have been described by a local historian of the early twentieth century; see R. Leveroni, Cicagna. Appunti di storia religiosa e civile (Chiavari, 1912).
- 2.
The other districts, which were all in the coastal zone, were Borgo, Borzoli , Amandolesi, Olivastro and Pessino. The community was absorbed into the Genoese state by means of this division into districts and chapels.
- 3.
The sources are: for 1535, Agostino Giustiniani, “Descrittione della Lyguria,” in id., Castigatissimi Annali … (Genoa, 1537); for 1607, the Republic’s census in ASG, Manoscritti e libri rari, ms. 218 and id., Senato-Litterarum,filza 600; for 1646, Archivio della Curia Vescovile di Genova, “Visita del Cardinale Durazzo.” The overall comparison for the Republic as a whole between 1535 and 1607 is in E. Grendi, Introduzione alla storia moderna della Repubblica di Genova (Genoa, 1976), 48.
- 4.
Giustiniani , Castigatissimi Annali; see also D. Galassi, M. P. Rota and A. Scrivano, Popolazione e insediamento in Liguria secondo la testimonianza di Agostino Giustiniani (Florence, 1979), 140–41 for the Giustiniani quotation.
- 5.
ASG, Senato-Litterarum, filza 524.
- 6.
See Grendi, “Capitazioni e nobiltà genovese”; Bitossi , “Famiglie e fazioni a Genova”; Doria and Savelli , “‘Cittadini di governo’ a Genova.”
- 7.
ASG, Manoscritti e libri rari, ms. 218 and Magistrato delle Comunità, reg. 767, “Libro della nuova Caratata del Borgo osia luogo di Rapallo.” Of the taxpayers listed, 132 persons “can neither read nor write,” and ninety-seven were able to hold public office (ASG, Magistrato delle Comunità, reg. 770).
- 8.
ASG, Senato-Litterarum, filza 600 and id., Magsitrato delle Comunità, reg. 713 (caratata of 1612).
- 9.
For this issue see my article “Produzione olivicola, prelievo fiscale e circuiti di scambio in una comunità ligure del XVII secolo,” Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria 22 (1982): 123–62.
- 10.
I derive the concepts of “marginally productive land” and the “marginality of land” from E.R. Wolf, “Tipi di comunità latino-americane,” in L’antropologia economica, ed. E. Grendi (Turin, 1972), 67–94.
- 11.
ASG, Senato-Litterarum, filza 515 (for the year 1580).
- 12.
Raggio, “Produzione olivicola.”
- 13.
ASCR, Libro Rosso, I, c. 123v.
- 14.
ASCR, Distagli della Magnifica Communità di Rapallo, reg. 1. Decisions still took effect if there were only five votes in favor, “even in cases when one of the district representatives could not or decided not to participate” (ASG, Manoscritti e libri rari, ms. 763, “Capitoli della Communità di Rapallo.”
- 15.
ASG, Senato-Atti, filza 1674. The sindaci of the Fontanabuona accused the tax farmer of the borgo of having increased their tax bill, committed other infractions when collecting payments, and imprisoned debtors.
- 16.
Ibid. Genoa made a record of the fact that “those of the Fontanabuona are usually not forthcoming and unwilling to pay,” and then authorized each of the districts to appoint their own tax farmer.
- 17.
ASCR, Distagli. Due to overlapping criminal jurisdictions , the Fontanabuona owed 225 lire to Chiavari annually.
- 18.
ASG, Magistrato delle Comunità, reg. 835. In 1608 a request from the villages of Chiavari described a similar situation: the vicariate was divided into ten “parts,” but nine were located in the villages, such that the borgo only paid 100 scudi out of 1,000 owed for the vicariate (ASG, Senato-Atti, filza 1696).
- 19.
ASCR, Avarie d’Oltremonte, filza 1.
- 20.
I have not been able to locate the statutes of Oltremonte, but besides those of Rapallo described above, see those of the chapel of Sant’Ambrogio (district of Borzoli), approved by the Senate in 1608; ASG, Senato-Atti, filza 1694. The statutes of Chiavari of 1582 are in ibid., filza 1643.
- 21.
ASG, Manoscritti e libri rari, ms. 763. In 1636 it was claimed that the town’s agents easily corrupted those of the districts “by means of friendship, interest on debts, and many other things” (ASCR, Libro Rosso, I, c. 123v).
- 22.
These are key themes in G. Levi, L’eredità immateriale (Turin, 1985).
- 23.
Archivio Notarile di Chiavari (hereafter, ANC), Notary Lorenzo Leverone, filza 1786.
- 24.
ASCR, Avarie d’Oltremonte, filza 1.
- 25.
Ibid.
- 26.
ASG, Senato-Atti, filza 1442.
- 27.
ASCR, Actorum Communitatis et Universitatis Rapalli, filza 1.
- 28.
In 1648 the taxes of the chapel of San Maurizio di Monti were apportioned separately by the Pendola , Castagneto , Bezassa and Chichizola , Castruzzo , and Queirolo kin groups (ASCR, Elezione Agenti di Borzoli, filza 2). In 1671 the twenty-nine household heads of the Molfino kin group of San Massimo enjoyed the “ability to appoint a separate family tax collector each year” (ASCR, Elezione Agenti di Olivastro, filza 2); a similar privilege was conceded to the Solimano , Devoto , and Queirolo kin groups of San Lorenzo. In 1704 three decrees were issued in favor of the Pastene and Orezzi kin groups of the village of Lanzi (chapel of San Pietro di Novella), authorizing them to create “separate” tax registers (ASCR, Actorum Communitatis, filza 7).
- 29.
The examples are all taken from ASCR, Avarie d’Oltremonte, filza 1.
- 30.
G. Delille , Famille et propriété dans le royaume de Naples (XVe–XIXe siècles) (Rome, 1985) (Italian trans. Famiglia e proprietà nel Regno di Napoli [Turin, 1988]). However, Delille’s model is almost entirely constructed around demographic and economic variables, and kin group behaviors are explained with reference to the reproduction of a kinship and social system based on lineage groups. As I will try to show, kinship was both an articulated and stratified reality, and a language (or idiom), and together these two dimensions permitted the construction and representation of binding and exclusive relations, through kin groups functioning as social, political, and ceremonial units.
- 31.
The terms casata and parentella were used as synonyms, but the first was less frequent, and was sometimes substituted by the term famiglia—in the following example all three terms are used to designate the ensemble of the household heads whose surname was Fopiano.
- 32.
There are scattered references for various years between 1570 and the late seventeenth century; see ASG, Senato-Litterarum, filza 512; ibid., Antica Finanza, filza 668; ASACR, Foliatium Communitatis Rapalli, filza 1.
- 33.
ANC, Notary Bartolomeo Fopiano, filze 2717–18; Leveroni, Cicagna. I reconstructed village structures from the caratata of 1642: ASG, Magistrato delle Comunità, reg. 769. The Fopiano had seven houses in Mortasco, thirty-one in and around Monleone, and thirteen in Piancassolo and Isolalonga; all of the kin group’s lands were concentrated in the area between these villages.
- 34.
ASCR, Avarie d’Oltremonte, filza 1.
- 35.
We are fortunate to have found, gathered in a single bundle, a portion of the documentation produced by the 1709 investigation and all of the documentation on the Fontanabuona from 1759 to the end of the century; see ASG, Magistrato delle Comunità, filza 499/2.
- 36.
ASG, Senato-Litterarum, filza 506.
- 37.
ASG, Senato-Atti, filza 1392.
- 38.
Ibid.
- 39.
ASG, Senato-Atti, filza 1414; ibid., Senato-Litterarum, filza 506.
- 40.
ASG, Senato-Litterarum, filza 610.
- 41.
ASG, Magistrato delle Comunità, reg. 835.
- 42.
ASCR, Atti notarili di Carlo Lencisa, filza 10.
- 43.
In 1614 the newly appointed captain ordered the notaries to turn over copies of sales contracts and tax assessments for the previous ten years and ordered inhabitants to report all of their property holdings (ASCR, Criminalium, filza 15). In 1621 the inspectors (sindicatori) authorized officials to break down the doors of tax debtors who refused to give entry to collectors (ibid., filza 19).
- 44.
ASG, Antica Finanza, filza 1398.
- 45.
In general, this situation informs state -building models such as those described in Tilly’s edited volume The Formation of National States by showing how state structures could develop simultaneously and in close interdependence with informal local structures.
- 46.
ANC, Notary Gio Batta Arata senior, filza 6353; ibid., Notary Lorenzo Leverone, filza 1809.
- 47.
ASG, Senato-Atti, filza 1828.
- 48.
ASG, Finanza Pubblica, filza 2604. The captain wrote that “I summoned the officials and collectors from all of the villages, ordering them to show me their registers, so that I could see if these would clarify matters … but I discovered that they collect in a confused way, not based on proper registers or documentation, but according to what they have done for the past hundred years.” Table 3.4 lists the wealth of the principali from the Fontanabuona in 1626, first showing their total worth as estimated by central authorities, and then the wealth estimate of local officials and confirmed by the captain. In the town of Rapallo there were forty-one people who owed a direct tax, with an average assessed worth of 38,000 lire (13,000 according to the local assessment); seventy-two people in the other four districts owed payments on an average worth of 25,000 lire (8,000). The principali of the Fontanabuona thus stood up well in a wealth comparison to the elites from the coastal areas of the captainate . The wealth of the principali of Chiavari, which was the third wealthiest town of the Republic (after Savona and Taggia) was more consistent: there, 131 persons were assessed on a combined wealth of 3,945,000 lire. For the general situation of all of the Ligurian communities, see E. Grendi, “La distribuzione della ricchezza privata nel territorio della Repubblica dei Genovesi attorno al 1630,” Miscellanea Storica Ligure 15, 1 (1983): 301–13.
- 49.
ASCR, Actorum Communitatis et Universitatis Rapalli, filza 1.
- 50.
ASCR, Avarie d’Oltremonte, filza 1. The lists of the inhabitants were drawn up mainly by collectors from the kin group; more specifically, by collectors from the various territorial sections of the kin groups. The lists would be expanded in subsequent years and the numbers of persons subject to taxation would be fixed at 970 in 1657; this would serve as the only basis for tax apportionment from then until the fall of the Republic. In 1793 agents from the Fontanabuona asserted their “privilege and long-standing custom [of apportioning the fiscal burden amongst themselves], on the basis of 970 taxable units as established in the year 1657” (ASG, Magistrato delle Comunità, filza 499/2).
- 51.
ASCR, Avarie d’Oltremonte, filza 1.
- 52.
On the issue of how custom and tradition were used for purposes of political legitimation see the essays in The Invention of Tradition, ed. E. J. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (Cambridge, 1983) (Italian trans. L’invenzione della tradizione [Turin, 1987]).
- 53.
ASG, Magistrato delle Comunità, filza 499/2.
- 54.
Leveroni, Cicagna.
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Raggio, O. (2018). A Local Universe and Its Horizons. In: Feuds and State Formation, 1550–1700. Early Modern History: Society and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94643-6_3
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