Complexity and Efficiency: Milan in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Luciano Maffi and Luca Mocarelli
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Luciano Maffi: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Chapter Chapter 2 in Italian Victualling Systems in the Early Modern Age, 16th to 18th Century, 2021, pp 37-68 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract In Milan, the complex system of food supply was one of the key points through which public authority organised city and state life. The analysis of the correlation between victualling administration, the market, and guilds is of primary importance, as it represented a fundamental objective of social control, and a significant goal for political power. The State of Milan was a very dynamic area, characterised by a persistent sectoral diversification, thanks to the production of dairy, the cultivation of mulberry and silkworm, and maize cultivation. However, even in the presence of such an advanced economic reality, the supply of Milan was complicated, both by the size of the city and by the very high density of the population of the State: this to the point that Milan was self-sufficient in terms of cereals only in the years of good harvests.

Keywords: Food supply; Victualling system; Early modern Milan; Cereals markets; Cereals consumption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palscp:978-3-030-42064-2_2

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-42064-2_2

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