IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/don/donwpa/082.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Famines in late Medieval and Early Modern Italy: A test for an advanced economy

Author

Listed:
  • Guido Alfani

Abstract

This paper analyzes how advanced Medieval and Early Modern Italian economies attempted to cope with famines. First, it provides an overview of the occurrence of famines and food shortages in Italy from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, underlining the connections with overall climatic and demographic trends. Second, it focuses on the 1590s famine (the worst to affect Italy in the period), providing a general discussion and interpretation of its causes and characteristics, and describing and evaluating the strategies for coping with the crisis that developed within the Republic of Genoa and the Duchy of Ferrara. The article argues that when such a large-scale food crisis as that of the 1590s occurred, public action played a key role in providing relief.

Suggested Citation

  • Guido Alfani, 2015. "Famines in late Medieval and Early Modern Italy: A test for an advanced economy," Working Papers 082, "Carlo F. Dondena" Centre for Research on Social Dynamics (DONDENA), Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi.
    • Handle: RePEc:don:donwpa:082
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: ftp://ftp.dondena.unibocconi.it/WorkingPapers/Dondena_WP082.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hatcher, John & Bailey, Mark, 2001. "Modelling the Middle Ages: The History and Theory of England's Economic Development," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199244126.
    2. Guido Alfani, 2011. "Population Dynamics, Malthusian Crises and Boserupian Innovation in Pre-Industrial Societies: The Case Study of Northern Italy (ca. 1450-1800) in the Light of Lee’s "Dynamic Synthesis"," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, issue 2, pages 23-56, April-Jun.
    3. Guido Alfani, 2013. "Plague in seventeenth-century Europe and the decline of Italy: an epidemiological hypothesis," European Review of Economic History, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(4), pages 408-430, November.
    4. Guido Alfani, 2010. "Climate, population and famine in Northern Italy: General tendencies and Malthusian crisis, ca. 1450-1800," Working Papers 027, "Carlo F. Dondena" Centre for Research on Social Dynamics (DONDENA), Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi.
    5. Donatella Strangio, 1998. "Di fronte alla carestia in età preindustriale," Rivista di storia economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 2, pages 161-192.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alfani, Guido, 2015. "Economic Inequality in Northwestern Italy: A Long-Term View (Fourteenth to Eighteenth Centuries)," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 75(4), pages 1058-1096, December.
    2. Paolo Malanima, 2018. "Italy in the Renaissance: a leading economy in the European context, 1350–1550," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 71(1), pages 3-30, February.
    3. Bruno Chiarini & Elisabetta Marzano, 2014. "Urbanization and Growth: Why Did the Splendor of the Italian Cities in the Sixteenth Century not Lead to Transition?," CESifo Working Paper Series 5038, CESifo.
    4. Guido Alfani & Matteo Di Tullio, 2015. "Dinamiche di lungo periodo della disuguaglianza in Italia settentrionale: una nota di ricerca," Working Papers 071, "Carlo F. Dondena" Centre for Research on Social Dynamics (DONDENA), Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi.
    5. Edoardo Demo & Roberto Ricciuti & Mattia Viale, 2018. "Decomposing Economic Inequality in Early Modern Venice (ca. 1650-1800)," HHB Working Papers Series 12, The Historical Household Budgets Project.
    6. Fraser Summerfield & Livio Di Matteo, 2021. "Influenza Pandemics and Macroeconomic Fluctuations in Recent Economic History," Working Papers 210002, Canadian Centre for Health Economics.
    7. Arthi, Vellore & Parman, John, 2021. "Disease, downturns, and wellbeing: Economic history and the long-run impacts of COVID-19," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    8. Lars Boerner & Oliver Volckart, 2009. "Currency unions, optimal currency areas and the integration of financial markets: Central Europe, 14-16thcenturies," Working Papers 9012, Economic History Society.
    9. Guido Alfani & Francesco Ammannati, 2014. "Economic inequality and poverty in the very long run: The case of the Florentine State," Working Papers 070, "Carlo F. Dondena" Centre for Research on Social Dynamics (DONDENA), Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi.
    10. Alfani, Guido, 2020. "Pandemics and asymmetric shocks: evidence from the history of plague in Europe and the Mediterranean," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 478, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    11. Martina Cioni & Giovanni Federico & Michelangelo Vasta, 2021. "Spreading Clio: a quantitative analysis of the first 25 years of the European Review of Economic History [Plague in seventeenth-century Europe and the decline of Italy: an epidemiological hypothesi," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 25(4), pages 618-644.
    12. Paul Slack, 2022. "Perceptions of plague in eighteenth‐century Europe," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 75(1), pages 138-156, February.
    13. Alfani, Guido & Gierok, Victoria & Schaff, Felix, 2022. "Economic Inequality in Preindustrial Germany, ca. 1300–1850," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(1), pages 87-125, March.
    14. Bas van Bavel & Daniel Curtis, 2015. "Better understanding disasters by better using history: Systematically using the historical record as one way to advance research into disasters," Working Papers 0068, Utrecht University, Centre for Global Economic History.
    15. Fabian Siuda & Uwe Sunde, 2021. "Disease and demographic development: the legacy of the plague," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 1-30, March.
    16. Guido Alfani, 2022. "Epidemics, Inequality, and Poverty in Preindustrial and Early Industrial Times," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(1), pages 3-40, March.
    17. Prados de la Escosura, Leandro & Rodríguez-Caballero, C. Vladimir, 2022. "War, pandemics, and modern economic growth in Europe," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    18. Hervé Dumez & Alain Jeunemaître, 2005. "La démarche narrative en économie," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 56(4), pages 983-1005.
    19. Leonardo Ridolfi, 2017. "Six centuries of real wages in France from Louis IX to Napoleon III: 1250-1860," LEM Papers Series 2017/14, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    20. Stephen H. Rigby, 2010. "Urban population in late medieval England: the evidence of the lay subsidies," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 63(2), pages 393-417, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Famine; mortality crises; subsistence crises; Italy; early modern period; 1590s; markets integration; grain trade; agrarian innovation.;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:don:donwpa:082. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Amy Johnson (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.dondena.unibocconi.it/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.