Politiche istituzionali e piani di assistenza ai poveri. Il lavoro come forma di carità nella prima età moderna (XVII-XVIII secolo)

Abstract

As is well known, forced labour was a fixture of almost every poor relief institution that popped up throughout Europe from the late 16th century onwards. Those institutions were not primarily conceived at the time as places of punishment: instead, they were intended to provide the poor with actual assistance, be it of the material or the spiritual kind. Considering a series of discourses produced by a handful of prominent Italian thinkers and institutions between the end of the 17th and the first half of the 18th century, this contribution is intended to show how labour could be framed then in terms of charitable provision to the poor, while also highlighting the issues this peculiar framing implied.

Keywords

• charity
• labour
• poor relief
• work ethic
• muratori