«Nell’interesse dell’augustissima casa»: Asburgo, Lombardia austriaca e feudi imperiali nell’età delle riforme

In the mid-eighteenth century, numerous imperial fiefs still existed along the borders or within the territories of Austrian Lombardy. These were small entities directly dependent on the Holy Roman Empire and therefore enjoyed full jurisdictional and fiscal autonomy. Such a condition made them perfect refuges and bases of operation for bandits and smugglers, who plagued Habsburg lands, systematically jeopardizing public security and fiscal revenues. These issues, in the midst of ongoing reforms, could not fail to be taken seriously, and their resolution became, in the eyes of the Austrian authorities, an unavoidable necessity.

This book aims to reconstruct the policies implemented by the Habsburgs toward these fiefs with the objective of suppressing the aforementioned phenomena. These policies were part of a broader process of territorial, fiscal, and jurisdictional rationalization and standardization, as well as the dismantling of still vast and diverse pockets of privilege and autonomy. However, such policies had to contend, on the one hand, with entrenched local dynamics and specificities, and on the other, with the only apparently straightforward—yet often delicate—coexistence of imperial and royal prerogatives within the House of Austria.