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This paper aims at offering a reconstruction of the salient features of the most important formal institution introduced by European states in the Early Modern Period with the aim of recognizing and protecting the intellectual property of the inventors. Such institutions went under different names – 'Privilegio' in Venice, 'Patent' in England, 'Privilège' in France, 'Cedula de privilegio de invençion' in Spain – and, in general, took the form of the concession of a special prerogative to the inventor by the sovereign or the republic, by virtue of which he could exploit, in economic terms, his own invention through holding a monopoly. The article starts with the origins of the privileges for invention, of which the first examples are to be found in the Middle Ages, but whose official 'genesis' is commonly identified with the Venetian law of 1474. The fundamental characteristics of the Venetian system, which was later imitated by other European states, are analysed. In the following section, the adoption of this model by those other states – Spain, France, England, and the Netherlands – is illustrated. In fact, the majority of these would make legislation on intellectual property an instrument of mercantilist policy, under the same conditions as prevailed in Venice. Further, we will examine some of the opportunities that the diffusion of these measures offered to those involved and the way in which they – as craftsmen, merchants, and speculators – took advantage of the business of privileges. Finally, before concluding, some thoughts on the changes made in the policy of privileges given the transformations that took place in the course of the eighteenth century, in order to understand the 'adaptive' capacity of these institutions.

Au début de la période moderne, l'Italie du centre et du nord était fortement urbanisée et elle se caractérisait par la dominance d'un système corporatif urbain puissant et profondément enraciné. Il faisait obstacle à toute expansion de manufactures purement rurales; des activités industrielles rurales apparaissent cependant dans les territoires où, grâce à une structure institutionnelle particuliére, la campagne n'est pas directement soumise à une ville ou encore au moment où les corporations urbaines commencent à perdre de leur pouvoir. Certaines de ces manufactures rurales, surtout celle de la soie, deviennent extrêmement importantes dans les étapes préliminaires au processus d'industrialisation. Mais les régions de l'ltalie du centre et du nord, où naissent ces formes de proto-industrie rurale, ne semblent avoir connu ni croissance de la population, ni cette dégradation sociale que postulait l'une et l'autre Franklin Mendels dans sa 'theorie de la protoindustrialisation'.

In the second half of the XVIIIth century the population increase in Mantua seems to be ruled by primitive mechanisms, considerably différent from those ruling the contemporary population growth among european northern and italian southern population, but somewhat similar to those at the basis of the demographic development of the cities in Austrian Lombardy. At Mantua, the natural balance remains substantially negative for the whole period ; infantile end juvenile mortality, with the consequent weak weight of the younger classes on the population in the whole, and a prevailing presence of females and of clerical personnel are the outstanding features of the urban demographic structure. However the backwardness of the city demographic milieu is it also resuit of the poverty of the economic environment.

La moda è un'istituzione sociale storicamente determinata che alimenta il cambiamento attraverso un turn over in innovazione e novità e che diventa semprepiù pervasiva a seconda dell'entità della quota di popolazione che ha le risorse – siano esse economiche, culturali o sociali – per accedere alla moda stessa. Una forte e decisa spinta all'incremento delle opportunità a tale accesso si è avuta tra la seconda metà dell'Ottocento e la seconda metà del Novecento. Sono già state fornite esaurienti illustrazioni delle cause di ordine economico e sociale che hanno prodotto tali progressi, mentre minore attenzione è stata dedicata alle modalità di interazione tra moda e sistemi politici. Se è vero, come ha affermato Yuniya Kawamura che "In alcune società dove l'ideologia dominante è antipatica al cambiamento e al progresso sociale, la moda non può esistere", allora il secolo compreso tra il 1860 e il 1960, in cui in Europa si sono succeduti governi liberali, regimi socialisti e nazisti, dittature fasciste e, infine, regimi democratici, offre l'opportunitàdi analizzare questo tema in una stimolante prospettiva comparativa.

In the European society of the Ancien Régime lifestyle was an effective
pointer to the social class to which a family and its members belonged.
Social hierarchies were reflected in patterns of consumption: the upper
classes had a definite need for ostentation, since lavish spending made
their position at the top of the social scale manifest. Clothing had a
decisive function in this connection: clothes were undoubtedly the most
visible marks of high living, embodying a whole series of status
signals – the quality of the cloth, the richness of the accessories, the
colours – clearly identifying the social rank of the wearer. Yet a number
of recent studies on pre-industrial consumerism have shown that in
England – chiefly, but not alone among European societies – a taste and
feeling for consumer goods caught on among other social classes besides
the upper. It follows that the correspondence between clothing – or more
broadly, a consumer pattern – on the one hand, and rank, on the other,
is not something one can apply mechanically. The web of connections
between dress and social hierarchy in early modern Europe was highly
complex and varied, as the ensuing remarks briefly suggest.