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State Cash Resources and State Building in Europe 13th-18th century

 | 
Katia Béguin
, 
Anne L. Murphy

Political Construction and the Management of Public Resources

From Communal to State Finance: a New Fiscal Pact in the Early Modern Papal States

Mauro Carboni

Texte intégral

Introduction

  • 1 ‘Ainsi, vers 1600, contrairement à ce que l’on pourrait croire, l’État Pontifical n’était pas, du p (...)
  • 2 The term ‘financial revolution’ was introduced by Dickson in his masterful study The financial revo (...)
  • 3 A high wave of innovative research has documented the key role played by the Papal States in the fi (...)

1Following in Jean Delumeau’s footsteps,1 recent scholarship has largely revised the traditional view of the sixteenth-century Papal States and has identified Rome and its communities as active and creative participants both in the European state-building process and in the financial revolution of the early modern period.2 In establishing firmer control over territories in central Italy the papacy was able to bank on the traditions of Italian city republics, which the popes managed to update and recast in the context of a territorial state. The impersonal character attributed to the state by republican regimes was better suited to the papacy, as an electoral monarchy, than the personal features of princely rule.3

  • 4 On the constant centre–periphery interplay and the inherently contractual nature of early modern fi (...)

2This chapter will argue that the sixteenth-century papacy succeeded in forging a new fiscal pact between central and local authorities by updating and renewing the traditional pattern of contractual relations rather than dismantling it. The northern legazioni of Bologna and Romagna and their evolving financial relations with Rome will provide the main testing ground. Boundless in theory, papal absolutism was ‘limited’ in practice and left considerable liberties to subject communities. Popes preferred to advance their sovereignty by consent, and resort to coercive measures was rare and limited to instances of open defiance. The military campaigns against Bologna (1506), Perugia (1540) and Ferrara (1598) were exceptional and short-lived episodes. Blending conservatism and innovation, papal rule remained inherently composite but from a financial standpoint Rome was able to turn this seeming liability into an asset. The contractual nature of relations established mutual bonds and trust and guaranteed adequate cooperation. Central authority established its exclusive right to impose tributes while local powers were granted a large degree of autonomy in selecting fiscal instruments, the types of wealth to be taxed and the means of collecting resources.4

I. An In-Depth Transformation of Finance

3From the mid-fifteenth century the papacy was engaged in two difficult intertwined struggles: to consolidate its Italian domains – threatened by external aggression as well as internal political disintegration – and to shore up its finances, sapped by involvement in costly wars and the drying up of the flow of ‘spiritual’ revenues from all over Catholic Europe. The Protestant storm added dramatic urgency to an already critical situation. Papal finances emerged from this crisis largely transformed. Although ‘spiritual’ revenues continued to provide a contribution to the Treasury, it was temporal revenues that took the lead. In about half a century, from 1526 to 1576, income from papal Italian lands doubled, jumping from about 330,000 scudi in 1526 to over 706,000 scudi in 1576. Over the same period the yield of spiritual receipts dropped 10% – from 265,000 to 239,000 scudi – and their share fell 20 percentage points from 45% to 26% of overall revenues. Fiscal receipts nearly doubled again by the end of the second decade of the seventeenth century, surging to almost 1.4 million scudi in 1619. Temporal revenues posted an additional 50% gain in the decades that followed, reaching about 2.2 million scudi in 1657. The overall flow of revenues ran out of steam thereafter and stabilized around that figure. The contribution brought in by spiritual receipts made little progress and by the 1650s its share was down to less than one-fifth, and was to sink to a little over one-tenth by the early 1670s (table 1 and figure 1).

Table 1. Fiscal income and public debt in the Papal States (1526–1672)

Year

Temporal revenues (scudi)

% of total income

Total revenues (scudi)

Overall public debt (scudi)

1526

329,986

55.4

594,986

2,796,210

1576

706,426

74.7

945,315

7,040,650

1592

1,181,131

73.8

1,601,195

10,520,678

1619

1,374,520

76.8

1,790,520

15,975,623

1657

2,222,003

82.8

2,684,515

30,723,339

1672

2,243,441

88.3

2,541,039

37,784,307

Sources: R. Masini, Il debito pubblico pontificio a fine Seicento. I Monti camerali, Rome, Edimond, 2005, p. 49; L. Pezzolo, ‘Government debts and trust. French kings and Roman popes as borrowers 1520–1660’, Rivista di storia economica, XV, 1999, pp. 238, 244; D. Strangio, Il debito pubblico pontificio. Cambiamento e continuità nella finanza pontificia dal periodo francese alla restaurazione romana 1798–1820, Padua, CEDAM, 2001, pp. 67–68.

Figure 1. Papal spiritual and temporal revenues (1526–1672)

Figure 1. Papal spiritual and temporal revenues (1526–1672)

4As popes succeeded in establishing stricter control over their territories in central Italy, the system of taxation was subject to considerable revision, designed to extract more resources, to establish new centrally controlled bureaucratic procedures and to introduce a degree of equality and uniformity. However, the efforts did not meet with equal success in these three areas.

5From the early decades of the sixteenth century the urgency of administrative and financial reorganization was such that it produced a concerted effort at establishing administrative rights, at asserting fiscal sovereignty and at casting a more effective fiscal net across papal lands. Since nearly all taxation had been administered and exacted at the municipal level, existing fiscal rights and procedures had to be documented and, possibly, revised. Roughly, between the 1530s and the 1550s, local authorities across the land produced and submitted a tremendous wealth of descriptions of existing local rights and practices. For instance, on 10 March 1555 the Senate of Bologna submitted for the approval of Pope Julius III a thorough documentation of all tributes levied in the city and the territory subject to it. The origins and destination of each tribute were spelled out, as well as how it was assessed and collected.

6Existing systems of municipal taxation were largely left in place to cover the costs of local administrations. But the introduction of new taxation as well as additions to existing dues became the exclusive preserve of the sovereign. In practice local boards were subordinated, without exception, to state authority on fiscal matters. Most new taxation took the form of centrally issued state-wide tributes. Several new taxes started as extraordinary levies, but, once introduced, most tributes tended to become ordinarie, i.e. permanent. A model example was the so-called sussidio triennale, issued by Pope Paul III as a temporary – three-year – tribute, then twice reiterated and finally made permanent in 1552, to become popularly known as eternale. Between 1529 and 1600 no less than nineteen new state taxes were introduced, mostly compacted in three rounds: four tributes were issued between 1529 and 1539, another four between 1555 and 1559 and an additional ten between 1588 and 1600.

7Most of these imposts were lesser taxes, such as danni dati (proceeds of justice), archivio (public records), legna (wood), carte da gioco (cards), pesi e misure (weights and measures), pelli e cuoi (leatherworks) and so on. Only a handful – five – had a major financial impact in practice: Triennale (1543, real estate), quattrino (1555, meat), cavalli morti (1559, subsidy for the army), foglietta (1588, wine) and galere (1588, subsidy for the upkeeping of the fleet). At the end of the sixteenth century the combined yield of these five tributes represented almost 50% of temporal revenues.

8The domains in central Italy shouldered a large share of this growing tax burden. For instance, between 1576 and 1678 the three northern provinces of Umbria, Marca and Romagna provided roughly two-fifths of papal temporal revenues, but while their share remained fairly stable – actually dropping a little from 39.6% to 38.1% – yet the actual sums raised from their communities expanded in a spectacular fashion, posting a threefold leap: from 295,000 scudi to 969,000 scudi (table 2).

Table 2. State taxes paid by the northern provinces of the Papal States

Year

Umbria

(scudi)

% of state

revenues

Marca

(scudi)

% of state

revenues

Romagna

(scudi)

% of state

revenues

1576

68,144

9.6

137,609

19.4

89,436

12.6

1589

107,361

9.3

162,239

14.1

139,436

12.1

1619

133,879

9.6

237,819

17.2

150,832

10.9

1657

240,766

10.8

405,397

18.2

220,369

9.9

1678

251,645

9.9

394,170

15.5

323,501

12.7

Source: E. Stumpo, Il capitale finanziario a Roma fra Cinque e Seicento. Contributo alla storia della fiscalità pontificia in età moderna 1570–1660, Milan, A. Giuffrè, 1985, pp. 129–139.

9The spectacular increases posted by fiscal receipts across papal territories from the early decades of the sixteenth century onwards conceal two very different trends. On the one hand state dues spiralled upwards; on the other the proceedings from local taxation stagnated or barely moved. Evidence from the surviving balance sheets of the main communities of the Romagna confirms that in the central decades of the sixteenth century a remarkable shift took place: fiscal income in the towns of Imola, Faenza, Forlì, Cesena, Rimini and Ravenna expanded at a very fast pace, posting a fifteenfold increase between 1513 and 1656. The lion’s share of this increase, however, went to benefit state coffers; in fact, on average, the share of state revenues jumped from less than half to about four-fifths (figure 2).

Figure 2. State revenues collected in the main towns of the Legazione di Romagna, 1513–1656

Figure 2. State revenues collected in the main towns of the Legazione di Romagna, 1513–1656

Sources: Archivio di Stato di Roma (ASRoma), Camerale I, Tesoreria di Romagna, bb. 6, 15, 16, 18, 26.

10A telling example is provided by the financial vicissitudes of the communities of Forlì and Imola. Between 1577 and 1656 Forlì’s overall fiscal proceedings posted an increase in excess of 60%, from 55,000 lire to over 88,000 lire, but state and local tributes moved at different speeds. In fact, communal income reported a 20% drop – from 23,000 lire to less than 18,000 lire – whereas state fiscal claims more than doubled, from 32,000 lire to 70,000 lire. The share of revenues claimed by the state jumped by over 20 percentage points, from 58% to 79%. (figure 3). In Imola the trend was even more unfavourable to the local fisc. Between 1587 and 1656 overall fiscal income registered a modest increase of less than 10%, from 55,000 lire to 60,000 lire. But state claims almost doubled from 36,000 lire to 66,000 lire. The share of state revenues posted an increase of 10 percentage points between 1587 and 1608, moving from 65% to 76%, but jumped to an unsustainable 110% in 1656. By then Imola’s obligation to the provincial treasurer exceeded what the city was able to collect from its inhabitants (figure 4).

Figure 3. Fiscal receipts in Forlì, 1577–1656

Figure 3. Fiscal receipts in Forlì, 1577–1656

Sources: Archivio di Stato di Forlì (ASFo), Comune, Tabella Comunale e Camerale; Revisione dei conti e bilanci comunali sottoposti all’approvazione del Legato di Romagna.

Figure 4. Fiscal receipts in Imola, 1587–1656

Figure 4. Fiscal receipts in Imola, 1587–1656

Sources: Archivio Storico Comunale di Imola (ASCI), Campioni comunali, nn. 10–15.

11More favourable to local authorities was the situation in Bologna, whose size, position and traditional liberties allowed communal authorities to retain greater latitude for autonomous financial action and to secure a larger share of fiscal income. No doubt Bologna was better off than the towns of nearby Romagna, yet the long-term trend was hardly different. Between the 1550s and the 1650s overall fiscal receipts tripled from around 300,000 lire to almost one million lire. But whereas the yield of local duties doubled, the yield of state tributes proceeded more than twice as fast. As a result the share of revenues appropriated by state coffers climbed from about a third to over a half (figure 5).

Figure 5. Fiscal receipts in Bologna, 1554–1650

Figure 5. Fiscal receipts in Bologna, 1554–1650

Sources: M. Carboni, ‘Camere delle città e Camera apostolica: l’evoluzione dei rapporti finanziari fra centro e periferia nello Stato della Chiesa in età moderna’, in Studi Storici Luigi Simeoni, L (2000), pp. 12–13; M. Carboni, ‘La finanza pubblica a Bologna in età moderna’, in A. Prosperi (ed.), Bologna nell’età moderna (secoli XVI–XVIII). 3/I Istituzioni, forme del potere, economia e società, Bologna, Bononia University Press, 2008, pp. 744–745.

12To manage fiscal resources, make payments and transfer money, the Apostolic Chamber relied on a network of provincial treasuries, which were farmed out – commonly for a nine-year period – to merchant bankers, who acted as pro tempore treasurers. By and large these treasurers were professionals who banked on wealth and connections to guarantee smooth operations and a steady flow of resources, and provided hefty payments in advance. In the main, local treasurers did not collect taxes but relied on an indirect system: subjects paid dues to local authorities who in turn had to pay fixed sums to the treasurer, handling money in the province on behalf of the Apostolic Chamber.

13The issuance of the De bono regimine bull and the establishment of the Congregazione del Buon Governo in 1592 completed the process of subordination of local to state government. Every year, communities – with very few exceptions – had to submit the tavola (a provisional budget of income and expenditures) which had to be authorized by the Congregazione. In this way the central government was able to monitor the actual flow of fiscal resources, to control municipal indebtedness and, possibly, to discourage financial malpractice at the local level. In practice the outcome was mixed at best, since excessive state obligations were at the root of the very financial evils the Buon Governo was aiming to eradicate.

  • 5 ASRoma, Buongoverno, s. IV, Romagna, vol. 1004.

14Since state dues were fixed and apportioned in advance, communal authorities sat between treasurers and taxpayers. But, as the fiscal belt tightened, the financial position of communes became increasingly untenable. Fiscal obligations to provincial treasurers frequently exceeded what was collected and had to be supplemented by other means. Not surprisingly payments fell into arrears and local debt started to pile up. In 1656 a report to the Buon Governo revealed an alarming sea of red ink. With the possible exception of Faenza, no community of the Romagna managed to balance the books (figure 6). The report revealed that some communities, such as Rimini, had not balanced the books in thirty years, while others had piled up huge deficits and debts. The township of Imola reported expenditures almost twice as large as the documented fiscal income, while tiny Savignano had already mortgaged all it could and was on the brink of insolvency.5

Figure 6. Fiscal income and public expenses in selected communities (1656)

Figure 6. Fiscal income and public expenses in selected communities (1656)

Source: ASRoma, Buongoverno, s. IV, Romagna, vol. 1004.

II. The Path of Cooperation and Its Limits

15The popes recognized the composite nature of the realm over which they presided and the limits of their coercive options. In the main they preferred to advance their sovereignty by consent and cooperation through the signing of pacts and agreements rather than by the exercise of dictatorial power. Acceptance of papal sovereignty did not translate into the dismantling of local governing practices but rather in their updating. In practice papal authority could hardly do without the active cooperation of local elites.

16New state taxation was aimed, at least in theory, at introducing relevant innovations, the most important of which was universal application to territories as well as individuals, regardless of previous status and privileges. In practice, its application fell considerably short of that end. A universal and uniform system of taxation upon territories as well as an equal division of the tax burden between economic activities and social groups failed to emerge. Instead, growth of fiscal pressure went hand in hand with papal ability to forge alliances with local elites and the mosaic pattern of immunities and privileges was not rolled back. Once again the sussidio triennale, commonly heralded by historians as the most significant attempt to introduce a new and uniform tribute across the land, provides an exemplary tale. Although conceived as a model state tax, affecting all communities without exceptions and exemptions, its application was subject to negotiations with local authorities, which managed to reduce its weight and, more importantly, won the right to assess and levy the tribute as they saw fit. Each community had to pay a precise share of the burden but could choose how to apply the new tax. For example, most communities in Romagna placed at least part of the burden on real estate, while Bolognese authorities opted to shield landowners and to collect it by way of various duties instead (for example, on grain, gates and silk).

17In its relentless quest to extract ever more resources from its domains, the papacy accepted the mediation of local authorities, leaving the actual implementation to local boards. The contractual nature of the relations between popes and the various components of the state is evident from the ability of communities to assume responsibility for the assessment and collection of taxes by any means they thought fit. Nowhere is this pattern more obvious than in Bologna, the second-largest city of the Papal States. Annexed in 1506, Bologna was able to secure terms, which guaranteed that papal will, in fiscal matters, would be mediated through city offices and city officials. Deference and loyalty to the pope/king paid handsome dividends.

18Not surprisingly, fiscal geography mirrored power relations within the state, among and within communities, rather than demographic strength, economic well-being and taxable wealth. The triennale was assessed at 62,000 scudi in the Marca but at 42,000 in Umbria, despite the fact that the latter had more inhabitants (300,000 against 280,000) and an overall more prosperous urban economy. Even more spectacular was the advantage enjoyed by the Legazione of Bologna, which was at first assessed at a 30,000 levy, reduced to 24,000 scudi in 1547, despite a population in excess of 200,000. Even more telling is the fact that while Bologna was able to secure an additional sizeable 50% rebate, which reduced the charge levied in the province to just 12,000 scudi, the neighbouring province of Romagna was charged with a 20% increase, perhaps to compensate for the loss caused by the discount granted to Bologna.

  • 6 ASRoma, Camerale I, Tesoreria di Romagna 112/42, bb. 15, 18, 26.

19Within-provinces differences could be equally puzzling. In the 1550s the township of Imola paid 4,800 scudi, Faenza 4,400, Forlì 3,800 and Cesena 5,300, although both their economic conditions and overall population were roughly the same. A century later, revised rates reveal very little change in actual distribution: Imola was assessed at 6,162 scudi (+28%), Faenza at 6,325 (+44%), Forlì at 5,462 (+44%) and Cesena at 7,618 (+44%).6 Substantial differences in treatment characterized urban and rural areas, as well as different social groups within cities. In the main the fiscal screw advanced in a regressive fashion: communities lacking political clout, country folks and the urban lower classes ended up shouldering most of the burden.

III. Borrowing, Another Consensual Solution

20As temporal revenues soared, so did the ability of the Apostolic Chamber to mobilize additional financial resources through borrowing. To be sure, in keeping with the tradition of Italian city-states, affluent subjects were far readier to lend money to the government than to accept regular taxation. The new system of papal debt proved to be remarkably efficient. It generated an ever-larger number of issues which were run separately. In little more than a century-and-a-half the Treasury had authorized 187 separate issues. The overall debt increased at a rapid pace throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. From 1526 to 1576 papal funded debt nearly tripled, jumping from 2.8 to 7 million scudi. It more than doubled by 1619, reaching 16 million scudi, and more than doubled again by 1672, leaping to 37.8 million scudi (table 3).

Table 3. Papal States’ overall debt and servicing costs, 1526–1672

Total debt (scudi)

Debt service (scudi)

Debt service cost

(%)

Debt service/revenues (%)

1526

2,796,210

211,207

7.5

35.5

1576

7,040,650

404,227

5.7

42.8

1592

10,520,678

739,285

7,0

52.9

1619

15,975,623

826,801

5.2

46.2

1657

30,723,339

1,313,062

4.3

48.9

1672

37,784,307

1,582,163

4.2

62.2

Sources: R. Masini, Il debito pubblico pontificio a fine Seicento. I Monti camerali, Rome, Edimond, 2005, p. 49; L. Pezzolo, ‘Government debts and trust. French kings and Roman popes as borrowers, 1520–1660’, Rivista di storia economica, XV, 1999, pp. 238, 244; D. Strangio, Il debito pubblico pontificio. Cambiamento e continuità nella finanza pontificia dal periodo francese alla restaurazione romana 1798–1820, Padua, CEDAM, 2001, pp. 67–68.

  • 7 L. Pezzolo, ‘Government debts and trust…’, op. cit., pp. 247–254.

21Establishing credibility meant winning and maintaining the trust of lenders, and the issuing of papal bonds (commonly known as luoghi di monte) was tailored to that end. As debtors popes were readier than other rulers to adopt policies conducive to trust: providing binding sets of guarantees, limiting discretion and accepting responsibility for financial obligations incurred by their predecessors. Expanding revenues and contractual limits to papal power both reassured perspective creditors and enhanced the Apostolic Chamber’s ability to borrow increasingly large sums of money at declining interest rates. Between the mid-sixteenth and mid-seventeenth century nominal interest paid on redeemable bonds nearly halved from over 7% to just 4%. Considering that bonds traded regularly above par on the secondary market, the rate of returns investors were willing to accept was even lower, a clear indication that the papal government had fully succeeded in asserting itself as one of the most reliable borrowers in Europe. Indeed in the second half of the seventeenth century the papacy was able to raise money at less than half the cost shouldered by contemporary French and English monarchs.7

22That said, it must be pointed out that papal financial needs rose faster than fiscal income. As the index plotted in figure 7 reveals, between 1576 and 1672 fiscal receipts expanded more than 2.5 times – from 100 to 268 – yet their gain was less than the threefold increase of expenditures – from 100 to 297. Both were dwarfed by the surge of cumulated indebtedness, which posted a fivefold leap – from 100 to 536. Despite the declining cost of borrowing, the weight of debt servicing rose dangerously and became rapidly the largest single charge on papal income. At the outset it absorbed a little more than one-third of papal revenues, by the end of the sixteenth century its share increased to about half, but by the early 1670s it claimed almost two-thirds of revenues (table 3). As the fiscal yield stalled, the high cost of debt servicing began to turn into a suffocating noose.

Figure 7. Papal income, expenditures and debt, 1526–1672 (1576 = 100)

Figure 7. Papal income, expenditures and debt, 1526–1672 (1576 = 100)

Conclusion

23Success in expanding and modernizing state finance in the sixteenth century came at a price. It underscored the contractual nature of relations. The papal predicament was that the cornerstone of the new system – close cooperation with local elites – stood in the way of further advances. Class immunities persisted, as did municipal and provincial privileges. Papal attempts to widen the state fiscal base and to introduce more equitable forms of taxation made little headway; fiscal reforms ran aground precisely because they required the cooperation of the very groups that had most to lose from them. By the mid-seventeenth century, as the system approached its upper limits, the contractual character of papal power ceased to be an asset, and became an insuperable barrier to both greater financial integration and economic development. Static revenues and greater debt service paved the way to a progressive paralysis and apathy. The close cooperation with local elites which had contributed to a greater flow of both revenues and loans started to operate in reverse, acting as a brake to change.

Notes

1 ‘Ainsi, vers 1600, contrairement à ce que l’on pourrait croire, l’État Pontifical n’était pas, du point de vue de la concentration de l’autorité, en retard sur les autres États Européens’ (J. Delumeau, ‘Les progrès de la centralisation dans l’État Pontifical au XVIe siècle’, Revue Historique, 26, 1961, p. 404). Cf. idem, Vie économique et sociale de Rome dans la second moitié du XVIe siècle, Paris, E. de Boccard, 1957–1959.

2 The term ‘financial revolution’ was introduced by Dickson in his masterful study The financial revolution in England: a study in the development of public credit, 1688–1756, London, Macmillan, 1967, pp. 285–286. In the last thirty years historians have taken the British financial revolution out of its original isolation, turning it into a stage of a much wider and longer European process reaching back to the Renaissance. Among the most exciting contributions and collections are J. Tracy, The financial revolution in the Habsburg Netherlands. Renten and renteniers in the country of Holland, 1515–1565, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1985; A. Calabria, The cost of empire. the finances of the kingdom of Naples in the time of Spanish rule, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991; M. t’Hart, The making of a bourgeois state. War, politics and finance during the Dutch Revolt, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1993; Richard Bonney (ed.), Economic systems and state finance, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995.

3 A high wave of innovative research has documented the key role played by the Papal States in the financial revolution of the early modern era. Among the most important contributions are P. Partner, ‘Papal financial policy in the Renaissance and the Counter-Reformation’, Past and Present, 88, 1980, pp. 17–62; E. Stumpo, Il capitale finanziario a Roma fra Cinque e Seicento, Milan, A. Giuffrè, 1985; A. Gardi, ‘La fiscalità pontificia fra Medioevo ed età moderna’, Società e Storia, 33, 1986; F. Piola Caselli, ‘Crisi economica e finanza pubblica nello Stato Pontificio tra XVI e XVII secolo’, in A. Di Vittorio (ed.), La finanza pubblica in età di crisi, Bari, Cacucci, 1993, pp. 141–179; L. Pezzolo, ‘Government debts and trust. French kings and Roman popes as borrowers, 1520–1660’, Rivista di Storia Economica, XV, 1999, pp. 233–261; P. Partner, ‘The papacy and the Papal States’, in R. Bonney (ed.), The rise of the fiscal state in Europe, c. 1200–1815, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999; M. C. Giannini, L’oro e la tiara. La costruzione dello spazio fiscale italiano della Santa Sede (1560–1620), Bologna, Il Mulino, 2003; R. Masini, Il debito pubblico pontificio a fine Seicento. I Monti camerali, Rome, Edimond, 2005; F. Guidi Bruscoli, Papal banking in Renaissance Rome. Benvenuto Olivieri and Paul III, 1534–1549, Aldershot, Ashgate Publishing, 2007; M. Carboni, ‘Public debt, guarantees and local elites in the Papal States (16th–18th centuries)’, Journal of European Economic History, 38, 2009, pp. 149–174; D. Strangio, ‘Public debt in the Papal States, 16th to 18th century’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 43, 2013, pp. 511–537.

4 On the constant centre–periphery interplay and the inherently contractual nature of early modern fiscal relations in Italy, recent research has provided a number of important contributions, such as: A. Molho and P. Schiera (ed.), The origins of the state in Italy, 14th–16th centuries, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1994; L. Mannori, Il sovrano tutore. Pluralismo istituzionale e accentramento amministrativo nel Principato dei Medici (secoli XVIXVIII), Milan, Giuffrè, 1994; L. Pezzolo, Una finanza d’ancien régime. La repubblica veneta fra XV e XVIII secolo, Naples, Edizioni scientifiche italiane, 2006; S. Tabacchi, Il Buon Governo. Le finanze locali nello Stato della Chiesa (secoli XVIXVIII), Rome, Viella, 2007; A. Bulgarelli Lukacs, La finanza locale sotto tutela, Venice, Marsilio, 2012.

5 ASRoma, Buongoverno, s. IV, Romagna, vol. 1004.

6 ASRoma, Camerale I, Tesoreria di Romagna 112/42, bb. 15, 18, 26.

7 L. Pezzolo, ‘Government debts and trust…’, op. cit., pp. 247–254.

Table des illustrations

Titre Figure 1. Papal spiritual and temporal revenues (1526–1672)
URL http://books.openedition.org/igpde/docannexe/image/3977/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 266k
Titre Figure 2. State revenues collected in the main towns of the Legazione di Romagna, 1513–1656
Crédits Sources: Archivio di Stato di Roma (ASRoma), Camerale I, Tesoreria di Romagna, bb. 6, 15, 16, 18, 26.
URL http://books.openedition.org/igpde/docannexe/image/3977/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 96k
Titre Figure 3. Fiscal receipts in Forlì, 1577–1656
Crédits Sources: Archivio di Stato di Forlì (ASFo), Comune, Tabella Comunale e Camerale; Revisione dei conti e bilanci comunali sottoposti all’approvazione del Legato di Romagna.
URL http://books.openedition.org/igpde/docannexe/image/3977/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 123k
Titre Figure 4. Fiscal receipts in Imola, 1587–1656
Crédits Sources: Archivio Storico Comunale di Imola (ASCI), Campioni comunali, nn. 10–15.
URL http://books.openedition.org/igpde/docannexe/image/3977/img-4.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 102k
Titre Figure 5. Fiscal receipts in Bologna, 1554–1650
Crédits Sources: M. Carboni, ‘Camere delle città e Camera apostolica: l’evoluzione dei rapporti finanziari fra centro e periferia nello Stato della Chiesa in età moderna’, in Studi Storici Luigi Simeoni, L (2000), pp. 12–13; M. Carboni, ‘La finanza pubblica a Bologna in età moderna’, in A. Prosperi (ed.), Bologna nell’età moderna (secoli XVI–XVIII). 3/I Istituzioni, forme del potere, economia e società, Bologna, Bononia University Press, 2008, pp. 744–745.
URL http://books.openedition.org/igpde/docannexe/image/3977/img-5.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 104k
Titre Figure 6. Fiscal income and public expenses in selected communities (1656)
Crédits Source: ASRoma, Buongoverno, s. IV, Romagna, vol. 1004.
URL http://books.openedition.org/igpde/docannexe/image/3977/img-6.jpg
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Titre Figure 7. Papal income, expenditures and debt, 1526–1672 (1576 = 100)
URL http://books.openedition.org/igpde/docannexe/image/3977/img-7.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 81k

Auteur

Mauro Carboni is Assistant Professor of Economic History at the School of Economics, Management and Statistics of the University of Bologna (Forlì Campus). He holds a PhD from Michigan State University. His research has focused on various subjects related to public finance, credit and the economic activities of charitable institutions in early modern Italy. He has recently published: Il credito disciplinato. Il Monte di pietà di Bologna in età barocca, Bologne, Il Mulino, 2014; (with M. Fornasari) ‘Learning from others’ failure: the rise of the Monte di pietà in early modern Bologna’, in The history of bankruptcy. Economic, social and cultural implications in early modern Europe, Abingdon, Routledge, 2013, pp. 108–125; (with Nicholas Terpstra) ‘The material culture of debt’, Renaissance and Reformation, special issue 35 (3), 2012; ‘Papal debt, guarantees and local elites in the Papal States (16th–18th centuries)’, Journal of European Economic History, 38, 2009, pp. 149–174.

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