Stefano D'Amico

Select Publications

Le contrade e la citta: Sistema produttivo e spazio urbano a Milano fra Cinque e Seicento

The book, based on an extensive archival research, discusses the social and economic history of Milan between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. D'Amico not only reconstructs family and professional structures, but draws a social topography of the urban space and explores patterns of residential mobility. He places particular emphasis on the world of the master artisans and small-scale merchants, and the marginal populations of the poor and women, who progressively increased their role in the urban workforce. In reconstructing the social stratification of the city, D'Amico also highlights the transformation of the productive system, and the shifting of Milan from an industrial into a commercial center, making significant contributions not only in the fields of Italian social and urban history, but also in the historiographical debate on the seventeenth century crisis.
 

Spanish Milan. A City within the Empire, 1535-1706

This book represents the most extensive and comprehensive work on the city of Milan, one of the major urban centers in early modern Europe. After providing a general description of the city, D'Amico reconstructs the urban economy and its reorganization between sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. At the same time he pays close attention to the social consequences of economic change, especially the growing polarization of urban society as industry gave way to commerce as the main force of urban dynamism. He then completes the book with a thorough examination of religious and politcal change during the same period. D'Amico creates a vivid "biography" of Spanish Milan, where patronage, religious bonds, corporative links and financial ties replace the traditional cast. Debunking long-held claims, D'Amico demonstrates with cogent arguments how the web of informal relations - entwined with both Madrid and the Holy See - ensured resilience and vitality to the Lombard city during the Spanish Age and beyond.