Nobility and Economy in 19th Century Italy: Investments, Enterprises and Innovations

The history of 19th century Italy is marked by the national unification process, which can be considered completed only after the annexation of Rome in 1870. Until Italy’s unification in 1861, the domestic market maintained a high degree of fragmentation at a national level and each regional state operated under a different economic policy. Only Piedmont was independent, while the others were directly or indirectly dominated by Austria. Nevertheless, in the first half of the century, the northern regions were moving forward in a first wave of industrialisation. Faster circulation and transmission of technological innovations and scientific achievements were undertaken and successfully linked northern Italy to Paris, Lyon, Mulhouse, London, Manchester, Zurig, etc. Part of this progress was due to the strong commercial and economic relationships which merchants and industrialists exploited all over Europe. Businessmen from France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany were also coming to Italy and establishing their businesses in Milan, Turin, Genoa. Subsequently, the contribution of self-made men and of the bourgeois (first involved in the silk and cotton sectors and later in mechanics, banking, and new industries) played a decisive role. However, until Unification, in the northern regions a large proportion of capital, investments and improvements in the agricultural sector and agro-food production, as well as, increasingly, in railways and infrastructures, industrial and financial sectors – came from noblemen. They were fighting side by side with the bourgeoisie for the independence and unification of Italy and often followed similar investment strategies, sharing the same initiatives and ventures. They aimed to expand Italy’s trade, fostering the economic progress and applying scientific and technological innovations to agriculture and industry. Several noblemen played a natural leading economic role, as they were the richest, heirs to large properties and estates and to complex administration systems originating from early modern times and updated to meet the new managerial necessities. They held a strong scientific interest (and sometimes scientific knowledge), and belonged to wide, national and international social (and political) networks which were easily transformed into economic relationships. During the century, the nobility’s capital structure changed partially, moving from land into industrial, financial and mostly urban estates. Noblemen belonged to that part of the population which owned most of the national wealth and while they tried to increase their properties and assets, they promoted national economic progress. Starting from the last decades of the century, when a national economic policy was embraced, an increasing amount of capital, mostly coming from the upper classes, financed the construction of infrastructures, the national debt, urban development, the foundation of national and local banks and of large stock companies. Noblemen from central and southern regions, which were still tied to an agricultural economy and were mostly lagging behind in the industrialisation process, joined and invested in national initiatives and businesses. As wealth had been distributed very much unequally throughout the whole century, and was still mostly concentrated in the upper class, economic development would probably not have occurred at the same level without the contribution of the nobility’s capital. The paper will present the initial results of a broad, ongoing research into primary sources. The literature on the topic has focused on several cases of Italian entrepreneur noblemen, or on nobility estate management, and has shed light onto their dynamic role. Their contribution, however, has generally been perceived as not particularly influential in the economic process, as noblemen were generally conservative on a social level and the 19th century is usually identified as the century of the irreversible decline and loss of political and economic power by the aristocracy compared to the rise of the bourgeoisie. The role of the nobility’s investments and capital in Italy’s economic development deserves and requires broader attention and investigation. The essay will first focus on the management of properties and large estates, where noblemen acted as a sort of ‘corporate director’, governing a complex structured enterprise. Then the paper will concentrate on the nobility’s investments and enterprises during the first half of the century: agriculture innovations and experimentation, railway construction, public debt, textile industries and banking seem to have been the investment sectors preferred by noblemen. In the last section the article will investigate how – after Unification and particularly during the agrarian crisis (1873-1896) – noblemen increased the diversification of their capital and investments, from land to other uses, such as investments in the financial sector and in joint-stock companies (transport, communication, public utilities, banking, insurance, overseas ventures, new sectors and industries). The paper will consider both the initial results of a broad, ongoing research into primary sources and the literature on the topic, while attempting to provide some reflections on important issues such as: were the nobility’s capital and investments important for Italy’s economic development? In which sectors did the nobility prefer to make direct investments? Was innovation firmly supported by the nobility’s interest in scientific advancements and technological progress? The paper will deal with all of these questions and aims to underline the rise of the nobility’s involvement in the financial, commercial and industrial activities and business opportunities, shedding light on its contribution to 19th century Italian economic development.