Metadata: Historical miscellany
Collection
- Country:
- Italy
- Holding institution:
- State Archive of Milan
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archivio di Stato di Milano
- Postal address:
- via Senato 10, 20121 Milano
- Phone number:
- +39 027742161
- Web address:
- http://www.archiviodistatomilano.beniculturali.it/
- Email:
- as-mi@beniculturali.it
- Reference number:
- Miscellanea storica. Boxes 29; 37; 74
- Title:
- Historical miscellany
- Title (official language):
- Miscellanea storica
- Creator/accumulator:
- Historical Miscellany
- Date(s):
- 1400-1899
- Date note:
- Jewish-related material dates from 1464-1597
- Language:
- Italian
- Extent:
- 3 boxes
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The "Historical miscellany" fonds is made up of documents from different eras and sources, covering a period from the 15th to the 19th century. These are clearly materials collected at the end of the various inventory processes and placed in this fond for different reasons. The 94 envelopes contain undated documents which are therefore difficult to place in context, incomplete documents or copies of documents that were selected while discarding material and material specifically chosen to meet the needs of historical curiosity or of specific interests.
Category 2 (Correspondence 15th-16th centuries) contains various letters from the 15th to the 16th century and documentation concerning census and commerce, mostly from the Sforza archives. Envelope no. 5 includes a file of documents entitled "Jews 1464-1534". As well as supplications and requests of individual Jews from Crema, Bassignana and other places of the Duchy, it contains the copy of the Jewish condotta of 8 April 1513 signed by Duke Massimiliano Maria Sforza and the text of the Constitutions granted in 1508 by Duke Massimiliano Sforza to the Jews of the Duchy of Milan, and the Privilege of 23 August 1533 by Duke Francesco II to the Jews of the Duchy of Milan. The latter gave permission to the Jews to settle freely in any locality of the Duchy, with the exception of the city of Milan, for the duration of eight years, to carry weapons and not to wear any distinctive mark. Any harassment against them was expressly forbidden, they were also exempted from giving accommodation to troops and from having to pay to the duchy officials offers in salt or coins. It also recognised their right to celebrate their rites in private (at home or in the synagogue), to lend money on pawn, to rent houses and own a cemetery. It then specified a whole series of detailed rules concerning the method of exercising the loan on pawn.
Category 5 (Protocols 1536-1596) is made up of of a single folder, no. 29, containing protocols, papers from various chancelleries, minutes, notes and “lettere d’udienza”. In the folder are two minutes of the Secret Council of 15 March and 23 August 1596 relating to the expulsion of the Jews from the Duchy of Milan. (see also “Worship - ancient part”). The first refers to the payment of the share of public debt owed to Jews, which Philip II had divided among each city of the Duchy. The expulsion was conditional on paying this debt. The second report, dated 23 August 1596, is related to the pressures by Cardinal Bonelli, who tried to postpone again the expulsion process, to which the sovereign was strongly opposed.
There is also a report of the Secret Council of 7 October 1551 in which the city of Vigevano demanded that the Jews residing in the city be obliged to wear a sign of recognition, as was already the case in Lodi. This annotation, reported by Renata Segre in her essay “Gli ebrei lombardi nell’età spagnola” (The Lombard Jews in the Spanish Age), would demonstrate the introduction in Lombardy of the rules on the Jewish badge, well before the “grida” of 2 September 1566 (see the record in “Worship - Ancient part”).
Category 7 (Government Acts) comprises documents of the 16th-19th centuries, classified according to the Peronian method in the following subjects: Escheat, Agriculture, Census, Worship, Fiefs, Finances, Civil and Criminal justice, Military, Foreign powers, Sovereign powers, Studies, Treasury, Civic offices, Judicial offices, Royal offices. Under the title Worship, envelope 37 contains a file entitled "Jews, commissioner for the Marranos, redemption of slaves (16th century)”, which includes some documents of interest. The memoir of Senator Monforte deals with the post of Conservator of the Jews (the magistrate who was in charge of civil jurisdiction in disputes between Christians and Jews and who was in charge of collecting the tax for the Crown established by the condotta). In 1581 the Regent Leonardo Herrera had been allowed to renounce the post of Conservator of the Jews of the State of Milan (which he had obtained in 1573, on the death of the previous conservator, Clemente Pietra) in favour of his son Don Fernando Battista Herrera. Since he lived in Spain, he appointed as his lieutenant Guido Visconte, one of the masters of the ordinary revenue of the State. On Visconte's death, Herrera appointed Senator Monforte in his place.
An undated plea follows, by Giovanni Vuystring (probably Vuystinck), who was commissioner of the Marrani of Pavia, and had had some assets confiscated. Being in considerable difficulty, he asked for financial help. The folder also includes an unsigned and undated letter in which are mentioned a Jew with a wife and daughter who live in the parish of Santa Margherita and who probably intend to be baptised; a letter dated 28 November 1536 to the Castellano of Cremona on the conservator of the Jews, at the time Caterina Stampa countess of Lodrone and Giovanni Angelo Rizzo (see also the series “Worship - ancient part”).
In folder 49, a document dated 21 May 1593 has been identified that mentions Giacob Sacerdote, a Jew from Verona, a horse trader, accused and convicted of illegally selling horses also in Pavia and Milan.
The 9th category (General correspondence 16th-19th centuries) includes folder 74 in which miscellaneous acts were collected, mainly relating to the Spanish period and therefore to the expulsion of the Jews from the duchy. In particular, there is letter dated 20 December 1569 in which the king of Spain, through the governor of the duchy, asked that the “grida” of 2 September 1566, which sanctioned a change of direction in the politics of the duchy towards the Jews, be abrogated. The act had introduced the obligation for Jews to wear a distinctive sign and had banned the trade of money at interest, with the aim of actually abolishing pawn shops. In 1569 – the year the condotta expired - a long debate started about its renewal. The Jews demanded that the condotta be renewed with the abolition of the obligation of a badge and the restoration of the right to trade in money. The condotta was renewed, with successive extensions until 1597, but all the restrictions introduced remained in force.
Most of the documents of Unit 74, however, concern 1597, the year of the definitive expulsion of the Jews from the Duchy of Milan. The papers deal with Bartolomeo Caranza, a lawyer who in 1593 and later turned to the King of Spain to get the job of carrying out an investigation into the Jews of the Duchy, aimed at determining their expulsion. Following this are many documents dated April-June 1597, concerning the methods of departure and the appointment of some representatives of the Jewish Community of the Duchy of Milan, who were chosen to remain in the territory even after the decree of expulsion, to resolve all the economic and debt collection issues. They were granted the right to live in Milan and in other cities of the duchy, with the express prohibition of being harassed. There is also documentation on the payment of Jews' credits by the various cities of the state.
- Archival history:
-
The law of 1875, included in the Regulation of 1911, established that the archives of the central magistracies of pre-unification states should form, within the individual Archives, the section of State Acts. The other fonds had to be divided into three more sections, namely Judicial Documents, Administrative Documents, Notarial Deeds. All the remaining archives should form special sections.
Until 1963 the fonds of the State Archives of Milan were then assigned to the various sections, which changed over time [among them we point out the Historical-diplomatic, the Administrative and Financial, the Judiciary, the Military, the Confidential archive; in 1919, after the management of Luigi Fumi, sections of State Acts and Administrative Acts, Judicial Proceedings, Archives of the reigns of the Visconti and Sforza, Religion fonds and collections; in 1950 the First sections (State Acts i.e. Peronian Government Acts), Second (Administrative Acts), Third (Judicial Acts), Fourth (Special Collections), Fifth (Purchases, Gifts, Transfers)].
Following the loss of a large quantity of documents, series and entire fonds during the Second World War and with the transfer of new large archives, including the Notarial Archive and the Cadastral Archive, the fonds were reorganised.
The General Guide to the State Archives describes the fonds of the AS MI in the 1980s, grouping them, where possible, according to the historical period (Ancien Régimes, Napoleonic, Restoration, Post-unitary). The Acts of Government fonds (15th-19th century) could be inserted in any of these historical periods, for its peculiar characteristics, and is considered in its own right. The Diplomatic fonds is also presented in its own right, including the Diplomatic Archive (consisting of the fonds with the oldest documentation) and the Historical Section (containing miscellaneous material and collections). The remaining fonds are identified by type or according to the creator body (Fascist archives, Notaries, Cadastres, Pious and Charitable institutions, Religious corporations; Family and individuals' archives, Different archives, Collections and miscellaneous).
In terms of order and arrangement, the archival history of the pre-unification fonds of the AS MI was characterised by the so-called Peronian system, a particular type of organisation by subject implemented in the 18th and 19th centuries by the Milanese archivists, who created the complex of fonds named Government Acts; to the latter were added the documentary aggregations carried out in the 18th and 19th centuries that produced collections and miscellaneous sections.
See also http://www.lombardiabeniculturali.it/archivi/soggetti-conservatori/MIAA00017D/
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
The fonds is mentioned several times in the volumes of the Milan State Archive Yearbook as "Miscellanea of the Historical Section”, "Historical Miscellany" or simply "Miscellanea" (sometimes qualified with the adjective "ancient"), often in pairing with the "Autographs" collection, with which it shares evidently heterogeneous character. The fonds was then subjected to a progressive dismantling starting in the early twentieth century, with a view to reintegrating the documents to pertinent fonds. Between 1909 and 1910 there was an initial filing of this heterogeneous material which led to the assessment of 174 envelopes with documentation from the 14th to the 18th century, presumably from the Sforza archive, to which other documents were added from the Archive of the Magistrate of Health in Milan. From around 1917 the breaking up and relocating of the material was started, overseen by Beno Della Croce, the first archivist at the AS MI, who certainly continued this operation in the second post-war period. On the basis of information on the fonds’ history found in the inventory (formerly Hall Inventory No. 110) probably completed around the middle of the 20th century, we arrive at the number of 114 surviving envelopes. These are simple notes on the relocation of the papers: in addition to the Sforza fonds, some pieces were relocated to the Military section, modern part of the Government Acts; other envelopes - what remains of the papers of the Directorate-General of Police, located for a few years after the Second World War in the Miscellanea - formed the fonds Directorate-General of Police. Currently (2006) the Historical Miscellany comprises 94 envelopes. This is what remains of the original number - or rather, of the number "fixed" by the summary inventory of 1917 - taking into account the numerous operations of replacing documents to pertinent fonds.
http://www.lombardiabeniculturali.it/archivi/complessi-archivistici/MIBA002613/ According to these mentions in the Yearbook of the AS MI of 1919, a composite and diverse origin of the fonds seems likely. In all probability, the following material has been merged with the Miscellanea: material that is difficult to locate because it is not dated or because it remained in the envelopes as a result of selections aimed at creating Peronian fonds, ordered by subject (but not only); material knowingly set aside to meet the needs of historical curiosity or of particular interest.
- Access points: locations:
- Bassignana
- Crema
- Milan
- Pavia
- Vigevano
- Access points: persons/families:
- Carranza, Bartolomé, 1503-1576
- Francesco II Sforza, Duke of Milan, 1495-1535
- Sforza, Massimiliano, 1493-1530
- System of arrangement:
- In analogy with the "Government Acts" fonds, the "Historical Miscellany" was arranged in 22 categories: 1. Plague; 2. Correspondence 15th-16th centuries; 3. Appointments; 4. Cicco Simonetta; 5. Protocols; 6. Seals; 7. Government acts; 8. Municipalities - Families; 9. General correspondence 16th-19th centuries; 10. Antonino Arguis; 11. Napoleonic courts; 12. Napoleonic Ministry of War; 13. Napoleonic penal code; 14. Napoleonic Code of Commerce; 15. Public debt of the Napoleonic era; 16. Laws, decrees, circulars of the Napoleonic era; 17. Exhibitions; 18. Forced loan; 19. Notifications, circulars; 20. Milan Agrarian Congress; 21. Different documents; 22. Posters, notices.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Contemporary Jewish Documentation Center - Milan
- Author of the description:
- Rori Mancino; Centro di documentazione ebraica contemporanea; 2018