Renta y rendimiento: tipos de inversión económica en el Reino de Nápoles

Abstract

The author provides a historiographic synthesis to propose a chronology of choices of capital investments in Naples during the period of Spanish dominion. During the first half of the sixteenth century (Giulio Fenicia), a diminution of international Mediterranean commerce originating in Naples takes place, giving way to commerce focused exclusively on the needs of Spanish realms. During the second, half of the sixteenth century (Roberto Mantelli), a massive investment of Neopolitan capital in the state's rents comes into play, an investment assured primarily by Genoes and titled nobility. In the first half of the seventeenth century (Rosario Villari), a refeudalization of the rural areas takes place, building from first steps under the administration of the crown of Naples, and gaining renewed impetus from other administrative corners of the Spanish crown. During the second half of the seventeenth century (Michèle Benaiteau), there is a decrease in tensions between the seigneurs and their vassals, most particularly after the population reduction in the wake of the plague of 1656; in the following century, a peaceful transition from a «moral economy» to a «commercial economy» takes place in the exploitation of lands. Following this periodization, it is the reign of Philip II that emerges as the point where economic investment becomes the dominant factor. To attribute this to ideological and cultural rigidity stemming from the Spanish monarchy's dominance seems an oversimplification. To give just one example, the export of wheat from Sicily and Pouilles, which thrived in the beginning of the sixteenth century, decreased thereafter due to the sizeable increase in population (Maurice Aymard). Nonetheless, it is clear that the crown of Naples, once integrated into the Spanish monarchy, favored the state's rents and the reinvigoration of feudal systems. This conception should always be contemplated from the vantage point of a social structure that resulted from a constant and instable process of negotiation between the monarchy, urban nobility, rural seigneurs and their vassals. In bringing about and maintaining this compromise, office holders too had a crucial part to play.