ATDTDA 724-747 Italy

[Glenn Scheper]

Part 3 of 9.

In Italy there is no legal right in the poor to be supported by the parish or 
commune, nor any obligation on the commune to relieve the poorexcept in the case 
of forsaken children and the sick poor. Public charity is exercised through the 
permanent charitable foundations (opere pie), which are, however, very unequally 
distributed in the different provinces.

Charitable institutions take, as a rule, the two forms of outdoor and indoor 
relief and attendance. The indoor institutions are the more important in regard 
to endowment, and consist of hospitals for the infirm (a number of these are 
situated at the seaside); of hospitals for chronic and incurable diseases; of 
orphan asylums; of poorhouses and shelters for beggars; of infant asylums or 
institutes for the first education of children under six years of age; of 
lunatic asylums; of homes for the deaf and dumb; and of institutes for the 
blind. The outdoor charitable institutions include those which distribute help 
in money or food; those which supply medicine and medical help; those which aid 
mothers unable to rear their own children; those which subsidize orphans and 
foundlings; those which subsidize educational institutes; and those which supply 
marriage portions. Between 1881 and 1898 the chief increases took place in the 
endowments of hospitals; orphan asylums; infant asylums; poorhouses; almshouses; 
voluntary workhouses; and institutes for the blind. The least creditably 
administered of these are the asylums for abandoned infants; in I887, of a total 
of 23,913, 53.77% died; while during the years 1893-1896 (no later statistics 
are available) of 117,970 51.72% died. The average mortality under one year for 
the whole of Italy in 1893I 896 was only 16-66%.

The great majority of Italians97 ~I2%are Roman Catholics. Besides the ordinary 
Latin rite, several others are recognized. The Armenians of Venice maintain 
their traditional characteristics. The Albanians of the southern provinces still 
employ the Greek rite and the Greek language in their public worship, and their 
priests, like those of the Greek Church, are allowed to marry. Certain 
peculiarities introduced by St Ambrose distinguish the ritual of Milan from that 
of the general church. Up to 1871 the island of Sicily was, according to the 
bull of Urban II., ecclesiastically dependent on the king, and exempt from the 
canonical power of the pope.

Though the territorial authority of the papal see was practically abolished in 
1870, the fact that Rome is the seat of the administrative centre of the vast 
organization of the church is not without significance to the nation. In the 
same city in which the administrative functions of the body politic are 
centralized there stifi exists the court of the spiritual potentate which in 
1879 consisted of 1821 persons.

In 1855 an act was passed in the Sardinian states for the disestablishment of 
all houses of the religious orders not engaged in preaching, teaching or the 
care of the sick, of all chapters of collegiate churches not having a cure of 
souls or existing ~ in towns of less than 20,000 inhabitants, and of all private 
~ a benefices for which no service was paid by the holders.

The property and money thus obtained were used to form an ecclesiastical fund 
(Cassa Ecclesiastica) distinct from the finances of the state. This act resulted 
in the suppression of 274 monasteries with 3733 friars, of 61 nunneries with 
1756 nuns and of 2722 chapters and benefices.

Constitution and Government .T he - Vatican palace itself twith St Peters), the 
Lateran palace, and the papal villa at Castel Gandolfo have secured to them the 
privilege of extraterritoriality by the law of 1871. The small republic of San 
Marino is the only other enclave in Italian territory. Italy is a constitutional 
monarchy, in which the executive power belongs exclusively to the sovereign, 
while the legislative power is shared by him with the parliament. He holds 
supreme command by land and sea, appoints ministers and officials, promulgates 
the laws, coins money, bestows honors, has the right of pardoning, and summons 
and dissolves the parliament. Treaties with foreign powers, however, must have 
the consent of parliament. The sovereign is irresponsible, the ministers, the 
signature of one of whom is required to give validity to royal decrees, being 
responsible. Parliament consists of two chambers, the senate and the Chamber of 
Deputies, which are nominally on an equal footing, though practically the 
elective chamber ~s the more important. The senate consists of princes of the 
blood who have attained their majority, and of an unlimited number of senators 
above forty years of age, who are qualified under any one of twenty-one 
specified categoriesby having either held high office, or attained celebrity in 
science, literature, &c. In 1908 there were 318 senators exclusive of five 
members of the royal family. Nomination is by the king for life. Besides its 
legislative functions, the senate is the highest court of justice in the case of 
political offences or the impeachment of ministers.

The party system is not really strong. The suffrage is extended to all citizens 
over twenty-one years of age who can read and write and have either attained a 
certain standard of elementary education or are qualified by paying a rent which 
varies from 6 in communes of 2500 inhabitants to 16 in communes of 15p,ooo 
inhabitants, or, if peasant farmers, I6s. of rent; or by being sharers in the 
profits of farms on which not less than 3, 4s. of direct (including provincial) 
taxation is paid; or by paying not less than 16 in direct (including provincial) 
taxation. Others, e.g. members of the professional classes, are qualified to 
vote by their position.

In every country the bureaucracy is abused, with more or less reason, for 
Unprogressiveness, timidity and red-tape, and Italy is no exception to the rule. 
The officials are not well paid, and are certainly numerous; while the manifold 
checks and counterchecks have by no means always been sufficient to prevent 
dishonesty.

The former existence of so many separate sovereignties and fountains of honor 
gave nse to a great many hereditary titles of nobility. Besides many hundreds of 
princes, dukes, marquesses, counts, barons and viscounts, there are a large 
number of persons of patrician rank, persons with a right to the designation 
nobile or signor-i, and certain hereditary knights or cavalieri.

A royal decree, dated February 1891, established three classes of prisons: 
judiciary prisons, for persons awaiting examination or persons sentenced to 
arrest, detention or seclusion for less than six months; penitentiaries of 
various kinds (ergastoli, case di reclusione, detenzione or custodia), for 
criminals condemned to long terms of imprisonment; and reformatories, for 
criminals under age and vagabonds. Capital punishment was abolished in 1877, 
penal servitude for life being substituted. This generally involves solitary 
confinement of the most rigorous nature, and, as little is done to occupy the 
mind, the criminal not infrequently becomes insane. Certain types of dangerous 
individuals are relegated after serving a sentence in the ordinary convict 
prisons, and by administrative, not by judicial process, to special penal 
colonies known as domicilii coatti or forced residences. These establishments 
are, however, unsatisfactory, being mostly situated on small islands, where it 
is often difficult to find work for the coatti, who are free by day, being only 
confined at night. They receive a small and hardly sufficient, allowance for 
food of 50 centesimi a day, which they are at liberty to supplement by work if 
they can find it or care to do it.

As in most civilized countries, the number of suicides in Italy has increased 
from year to year.

To secure fairly uniform efficiency in the various corps, and also as a means of 
unifying Italy, Piedmontese, Umbrians and Neapolitans are mixed in the same 
corps and sleep in the same barrack room.

The Alpine frontier is fortified strongly, although the condition of the works 
was in many cases considered unsatisfactory by the 1907 Commission. The 
fortresses in the basin of the Po chiefly belong to the era of divided Italy and 
are now out of date; the chief coast fortresses are Vado, Genoa, Spezia, Monte 
Argentaro, Gacta, Straits of Messina, Taranto, Maddalena. Rome is plotected by a 
circle of forts from a coup de main from the sea, the coast, only 12 m. off, 
being flat and deserted.

It will be seen that the revenue is swollen by a large number o taxes which can 
only be justified by necessity; the reduction and still more, the readjustment 
of taxation (which now largely falls or articles of primary necessity) is 
urgently needed.

The way in which the taxes press on the poor may be shown by the number of small 
proprietors sold up owing to inability to pay the,. land and other taxes.

Currency.The lira (plural lire) of 100 centesimi (centimes) is equal in value to 
the French franc.

The forced paper currency, instituted in 1866, was abolished in 1881, in which 
year were dissolved the Union of Banks of Issue created in 1874 to furnish to 
the state treasury a milliard of lire in notes, guaranteed collectively by the 
banks. Part of the Union notes were redeemed, part replaced by 10 lire and 5 
lire state notes, payable at sight in metallic legal tender by certain state 
banks.

It was not till 1865 that the administrative unity of Italy was realized. Up to 
that year some of the regions of the kingdom, such as Tuscany, continued to have 
a kind of autonomy; but by the laws of the 20th of March the whole country was 
divided into 69 provinces and 8545 communes.

Yours truly,
Glenn Scheper
http://home.earthlink.net/~glenn_scheper/
glenn_scheper + at + earthlink.net
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