Italy faced the same problems also during the 19th century, with pre-industrialisation and

industrialisation, along with the problem of urbanisation, when farmers and mountain dwellers were looking for less precarious work and life conditions.

This phenomenon of urbanisation was a real disorder, a scandal for aristocrats and moderates, and remedies were sought in the guidelines projected by Luis Vives in his work, De subventione pauperum (On how to meet the needs of the poor, 1526): these remedies offered welfare assistance, education, and work in the French ‘Hopitaux Generaux’ and in the English ‘Work houses’.

The problem was also up for debate in the Kingdom of Sardinia during the 19th century. However the perspective leaned decisively towards 'prevention'.32

According to a Roman priest and future Cardinal, C. L. Morichini (1805 -1879), the term 'preventive' includes the entire gamut of charitable undertakings on behalf of the poor of Rome: hospitals, institutions for foundlings, orphans, the elderly, widows; alms-collecting and first-aid organizations, schools. Ideally these charitable undertakings took care of a poor person from birth, throughout his education, in moments of difficulty and unemployment, and finally, in old age and sickness. “All the efforts made by people motivated by an intelligent kind of charity are directed toward separating the really poor from the pretender, toward preventing the onset of misery rather than going to its aid, and toward instilling people’s thinking with the need to have a spirit of foresight, economy, the acquisition of virtue”. 33

Count Charles Hilarion Petitti of Roreto (1790-1850), a Piedmontese and enlightened conservative, among the provisions more suited to remove the general causes of beggary, indicated some which were openly preventive:

Promote and favor the elementary instruction of the people of the lower classes by directing them especially toward true religious and moral principles which convey to a human being the clear conviction that he has an obligation to work for his own livelihood, and which make him realise the profit he gets from following them. Promote, favor and encourage the opening of ‘savings banks’… These ‘savings banks’ familiarise a person with the idea that he needs an insurance for the future and that he also needs to economise; they keep him away from vices, and they guarantee reserve funds which can help him, should he be pressed by some need, without being forced to rely on public or private charity.

Likewise, promote, protect and encourage ‘mutual aid societies’ among the workers.34 Following these indirect suggestions…, an enlightened, attentive and paternal government is able to provide good morals, tranquility, strength and comforts, for the entire population .35

d’Etudes Forèziennes sur l’Histoire de la Pauvreté, sous la direction de M. Mollat, (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne

1974); A. Monticon, ed., La storia dei poveri. Pauperismo e assistenza nell’età moderna., (Rome: Edizioni Studium

1985), 12, 300 pages. (with a well thought-out bibliography)

32 Cf. D. Maldini, “Classi dirigenti governo e pauperismo 1800-1850”, in A. Agosti and G. M. Bravo, eds. Storia del

movimento operaio del socialismo e delle lotte sociali in Piemonte, 1. Dall’età preindustriale alla fine dell’ottocento,

(Bari: De donato 1979), 185-217.

33 Degl’Istituti di pubblica carità e d’istruzione primaria in Roma. Saggio storico e statistico di Monsig. D. Carlo Luigi

Morichini, (Rome: Stamperia dell’Ospizio Apostolico at Pietro Aurelj 1835), 1st Edition, 10-11. The work would be

expanded and published in a further two editions with a slightly modified title: Degl’Istituti…primaria delle prigioni in

Roma… New edition, (Rome: Tip. Marini and co. 1942), 2 .; Degli istituti di carità per la susstinenza e l’educazione

dei poveri e dei prigionieri in Roma. Libri tre del Cardinale Carlo Luigi Morichini….latest Edition. (Rome: Chamber

printing press establishment 1870) 816 pages. Cited from the 1835 edition.

34 Saggio sul buon governo della mendacità, degli istituti di beneficenza e delle carceri, by Count D. Carlo Ilarione Petiti

di Roreto, 1. (Turin: Bocca 1837), 40-42.

35 C.I. Petiti di Roreto, Saggio sul buon governo, 1. 45