Costruire la città. Edilizia e vita economica nella Milano del secondo Settecento

The book is the result of several years of study and archive research and afterward a very favourable reception by Italian scholars will be published in English by Ashgate. The book is comprised of an introduction and four chapters. The introduction gives the many reasons for the research, examines existing historiographical publications on the subject, and gives a brief outline of the structure of the book. The first chapter sets the demographic-economic scene of Milan in the second half of the eighteenth century, showing how the city fitted into the regional economy of Lombardy, so as to give a clear picture of the context and economic atmosphere in which building was carried out. The second chapter concerns the demand for building. It presents the protagonists of the building boom which occurred in Milan at the time of the Enlightenment, public bodies and private individuals alike, and also investigates the economic and institutional-political factors which made it possible. Not only new buildings are considered, but also the enormous business of maintenance, both of buildings and work in progress on infrastructures such as canals and roads. Chapter three covers the principal elements of supply, beginning with the making and commercialisation of building materials, their productive horizons and organizational arrangements. Building activity in Milan is then dealt with in full, from the way in which the contractors (the most important figures in the sector) worked, to a detailed exploration of the composite world of the work itself, its characteristics and rewards. The fourth and last chapter deals with the economic significance of the building trade, from its “pre-keynesian” use to the links with the real estate market, and from its relationship with the world of credit to its interaction with the local economy. The purpose of this is to weigh up the importance of the sector in the Milanese economy of the day, not only from the aspect of production and employment, but also with reference to its multiple effects.