Guilds reappraised: Italy in the early modern period

The article presents the main results of a collective research programme of national interest carried out between 1997 and 2002 and encouraged by the desire critically to reconsider Cipolla’s view that guilds were one of the main reasons for the decline of the Italian economy during the seventeenth century. The Italian research group decided to support specific research on situations in individual towns by setting up a database, which has made it possible to substantiate many of the claims that were emerging about the function and history of guilds. The article, starting from database informations, contributes to international debate on guilds and provides new insights on Italian case with special regards to the relationship between guilds and economic trend, guilds and technical progress, guilds and apprenticeship. In particular it emphasized that the dynamic role played by guilds did not diminish, but rather was redefined to highlight both their mercantile function as new markets began to develop and their ability to coordinate decentralized production in a pre-industrial environment. It seems necessary to clear urban guilds of the accusation that they were responsible for a lengthy crisis since they were crucial in a deeper and quite well-defined process of reorganization.