Page 34 - Changing Living Spaces

Luca Mocarelli and Paolo Tedeschi

the foundations were even laid for the creation of new industrial districts
in the Alpine valleys.
Our work allows scholars concerned with the factors affecting live-
lihood outcomes, sustainability, and social and demographic change to
obtain some evidence from past privatizations. It also shows how the
mismanagement of natural resources produced negative environmen-
tal impacts from the very beginning of industrial development (in this
case, the Italian one). Finally, it shows that privatization processes had
different effects, sometimes negative, depending on the assets affect-
ed by the new regulations that favoured private landowners instead of
communities.

The Management of the Lombard Alpine Common Real Estate
Before its Privatization
At the end of the eighteenth century, in some villages of the Alpine val-
leys, there were institutions called vicinie, formed by the members of fam-
ilies who had lived in the village since the Middle Ages or, since 1764 in
the Republic of Venice, by residents who came from families that had
lived there for at least fifty years. These institutions owned real estate or
had rights to it and managed it through public assemblies. Participation
in these assemblies was compulsory: if absence was not justified (e.g. in
the case of illness or work outside the village), financial penalties were
provided. Local statutes specified when the assembly was to be convened
and the majority required for valid decisions, such as rules for electing
people who had to ensure the proper use of common resources. It was the
case of the people managing the common real estate and the ‘guardians’
who checked compliance with the rules for the use of the common prop-
erties, especially the correct way and time of their use. These people made
sure that the decisions of the inhabitants about the use of the ‘commons’
and the distribution of its fruits were respected.1
The common real estate consisted of: (a) forests, which provided raw
materials for heating, cooking, buildings, forges, (using charcoal) and
tanneries (using the tanning agent); (b) pastures, which provided fodder

1 About the management of the ‘commons’ in Italian ancient States during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries see, among others: Lorenzini (2020), Bo-
nan and Lorenzini (2019), Ongaro (2016), Mocarelli (2013; 2015), Tedeschi (2011;
2013; 2014), Alfani and Rao (2011), Barbacetto (2008), Pieraccini (2008), Casa-
ri (2007), Conte (2002), Corona (1997), Scarpa (1996), Cacciavillani (1988), Farolfi
(1987), Pitteri (1985), Guidetti and Stahl (1976), and Tocchini (1961).

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