Famine as a resource. Merchants and institutions in naples 1763-64

The article tells the story of the Neapolitan famine of 1763-64 following the traces of the merchants involved in the grain supply of the capital city and identifying the role they played in various ways in the definition of the strategies carried out by public institutions to tackle the emergency. By shifting the focus from the political “macroactors” – the government, the city – to the social “micro-actors”, the linear narrative of an institutional failure, whether attributed to the Annona’s obsolescence or to the interference of the central government, gives way to a more intricate story. The famine looks like an opportunity for the political and social affirmation of a rising class, of businessmen, who play differentiated strategies depending on their roles and the degree of their relationship with the institutions themselves, and according to goals that are not always confined to economic rationality.