Milanese finance, 1348-1700

For a considerable time, approaching the State Finance of Milan under the Spanish domination, the interest of historians has been directed towards the rise in the burden of taxation which has been regarded as one of the main causes of the economic decline of Lombardy during the Austrias age and one of the primary components of the related leyenda negra. This prevailing paradigm - based chiefly on complaints manifest in contemporary sources and heavily influenced by a negative consensus reached in the XIX century - has been called into question over the last three decades. Due to source-based studies, the attention for state finance and fiscal system in the Duchy under the Austrias is progressively losing its historiographical bias and assuming a more fitting perspective, broadened to shed light on all their effective and deep interrelations with social, political and economic aspects. Thus public finance is turning out a crucial element of the state-building process, started steadily in the XIV century under the Viscontis and the Sforzas and not eclipsed by foreign domination; it entails far-reaching changes in the administrative machinery, in the equilibrium of social groups, in the balance between town and country and in the relationships between central authority and local communities. Similarly, the nexus with economy is showing a wide array of interactions; the approach concentrated on overemphasizing fiscal effects hampering economic growth is being replaced by an outlook aimed at encompassing the varied linkage between the manifold components of the state finance and all the forces, protagonists and variables of economic life. This enables delving into the real consequences on the whole productive and trade world; increased fiscal pressure appears at present more as an evenly balanced burden between town and country than as a factor that boosts productive costs; expanded public debt seems to be a multi-functional opportunity of investments for a large plurality of subjects rather than a useless consumption of capitals; and the collection and management of taxes look like the training ground for the local providers of financial services