Wealth Inequalities and Population Dynamics in Early Modern Northern Italy

Abstract

An analysis of the wealth and population of early modern Ivrea—based on the estimi, or property tax, records; the correzioni degli estimi, a continuous series of tax records rarely found elsewhere and hardly ever used before; the census of 1613, another unique and informative source; and other archival records—finds that the city's concentration and distribution of wealth was resilient even in face of acute demographical shocks (such as the plague of 1630) and that inequalities in property underwent a slow increase even in economically stagnant areas during the seventeenth century. The article places these findings in a European perspective, and it debates Jan van Zanden's hypothesis of a positive relationship between inequality in wealth and demographical/economic growth before the Industrial Revolution.