Sale or gratuitous transfer? Conveyance of family estates in a manufacturing village: Lumezzane in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article illustrates various characteristics of the real-estate market in Lumezzane, a village in the Lombard Prealps between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. It reveals the types of property sold, the objectives of the buyers and sellers, the prices paid and, in some cases, the credit arrangements undertaken. The research indicates the relationship between the credit market and the type of manufacture in the region. Particular institutions, most notably religious foundations known as the Luoghi Pii, as well as private individuals, provided capital to artisans in the absence of banks. This availability of credit at favourable rates allowed artisans to produce manufactured goods at a competitive price even in difficult economic times. The importance of industry in the region both influenced strategies of inheritance and limited the need for the type of out-migration that characterized most Alpine regions during the period.