Complexity and Efficiency: Milan in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

In Milan the complex system of food supply is something more than a law regulations and an administrative structure, representing one of the key points through which public authority organizes city and state life. The analysis of the correlation between the Annona system, the market and the guilds, has a primary importance, representing a fundamental objective of social control, and a significant goal for political power. On the issue of supply, different interests intersect - those of cities and rural areas, of public administration and owners, corporations and consumers. For these reasons to study the Annona it is necessary to extend the analysis out of the city borders. In this context, the urban supply is very important and not always easy, even considering the great agricultural and economic development of the State of Milan, a very dynamic area characterized by a persistent sectoral diversification. In the Po Valley in the south of Milan, in fact, since the Middle Ages a particularly advanced agriculture has established itself where the dairy activity has a great space, while the plain and the hill north of Milan had great progress, in particular from the seventeenth century, thanks to the cultivation of mulberry and silkworm, which is soon joined by maize cultivation. However, even in the presence of such an advanced economic reality, Milan is nevertheless complex, both for the size of the city and for the very high density of the population of the State, such as to make it self-sufficient in cereal terms only in the years of good harvests. The Annona in Milan was very flexible and deeply embedded in the society. In addition to examining institutions responsible for the food supply, the study considers their interaction with the complex reality where they worked. The case of Milan is interesting because, before the plague of 1630, Lombardy was one of the most urbanized regions of Europe. In this context, the urban food supplies were essential and difficult, even considering the great agricultural and economic development of this region. In Milan the Annona has institutionalized since the middle ages, and has kept considerable importance through the modern age. The study presents the political and social context of Milan and its state, the topic of urban consumption of cereals and the markets of official bargaining for these commodities. It explains the rules of its organization and how the prices are fixed, verifying the presence of the alternative markets and the circuits outside the official markets. It is clear that in such situation the Annona and market opposition it is a simplification because, if the Annona certainly reflects market logics and prices, it is also a functional tool for the interests of the Milanese upper classes. In the course of the modern age the ruling class has increasingly moved towards the land ownership. The Annona and the regulated market in Milan are only one aspect, however significant, of a much more complex system composed by different markets and protagonists. In order to better understand the market and the particularity of Milan case study, only a comparison with other case studies will make it possible.