STORIA DI BOLOGNETTA del Prof. SANTO LOMBINO (quinta parte). Demographic trends
The success of the new settlement built by Marco Mancino was by no means assured, and all the nobles who had asked the royal court for permission to build a new town could to attract their feud "habitaturi et citatini" in sufficient number to constitute a new land and increase their weight in the baronial arm of the Sicilian parliament. Already the first few decades, however, showed that both Beccadelli in requesting the grant, using it as Mancino had no time in half as well: the new town began to be filled in a slow but growing, reaching in 1616 the 180 townspeople (residents), 192 in 1623, 255 in 1636 and about 350 by mid-century, and finally between 250 and 310 inhabitants until the middle of the eighteenth century. After an increase
secular note, then an apparent decrease, probably due to the precarious socio-economic situation, linked to the performance of harvests, and together with the sanitation situation is very difficult, marked by wetlands and therefore malaria epidemics. Malaria was in fact one of the major problems of the population of the young town, which had the lower part of some land with little slope where water stagnated and prospered where the Anopheles mosquito. Not for nothing the people the nearby town of Marineo Ogliastresi gave to the epithet of Panza, in that the development of a bloated stomach was one of the effects of malarial infection.
Year Population Source 1606 111 1616 180
Ristretto Ristretto Ristretto
1623 192 1636 255 1648 351 I reveal I reveal
I reveal
1682 249 1714 273 1737 262 I reveal I reveal
1748 I reveal
313 1798 1268 V.Amico-Sacco
1806 1382 Census 1459 Census 1831
1861 1867 Census 1815 Census 1871
1881 1978 1901 2053 Census
Census
Detector 1636
To know the stages of demographic developments in the country are useful number of souls and property, declarations of heads of households (or capidicasa), called Reveal, collected periodically by the officials of the English viceroy from 1501. These statements, which concerned both the composition of the household or fire (Hearth), and income, were binding on all subjects, except for the feudal lords, clerics and residents of large cities, however, being made not only for statistical purposes, but especially fiscal and military, they have been by more parties, and for good reason, assumed a limited power. For
Ogliastro, the first document is currently available is the "New number and description of the soul and faculties", drawn up October 31, 1636 in front of Andrea Agliata, captain of arms of sargenzia Termini Imerese, in charge of the census of population and his property. The detector begins with the joint statement of three experts in "Seminerio, vineyards, mages "of S. Mary Agliastro by the name of Francis and Camille Carrillo, (60 years, married), Simon son of Sylvester Anthony (50 years old, married with one child, the owner of land Casaca), and Gandolfo Alia d'or 'Elia (59enne, married, no dependent children). These are three of the older townspeople in the community, are considered particularly relevant in the assessment of agricultural goods. To them we owe the parameters value for the three types of land in the area, valued as follows: "... every mile of vineyards Ponno you buy or sell for ten ounces, while a body of fallow land is assessed two ounces, a body of earth work, then coltivabile, ventiquattro.
Sono registrate individualmente le dichiarazioni di 72 capifamiglia, età media tra 36 e 37 anni, a nome di altrettanti fuochi, con l’aggiunta di 2 “anime di clero”. Ogni capofamiglia presenta i componenti il suo nucleo familiare, indicandone il nome, il rapporto con lui e l’età per i figli maschi, utile ai fini dell’eventuale servizio militare.
La popolazione complessiva risulta di 255 abitanti, di cui il 54% maschi. Dei capi di casa censiti, sei si professano nullatenenti, mentre altri diciannove (tra cui sette vedove) affermano di non possedere alcun bene e sono classificati “mise”, abbreviazione di “miserabilis” .
Households are composed of on average about four people. Only in one case reaching the nine components: it is the family of Alexander Salvaggio of 63 years, owner of six houses Terrane, which in addition to his wife and the mother claims to have borne five sons and one daughter, and is composed of seven people that represented by Geronimo Salvaggio of 35 years, married, to live with his mother, two daughters and three sons. The focus of the widow Philippa Corsello, "miserabilis" includes but four other people, including a son, an aunt and two grandchildren. It follows from these data that the cases of large families are not the rule, and that rarely exceed 5:00 to 6:00 children. As can be seen from the cases cited, the extended families are the result of co-residents of individual families are aggregated to the family, not the cohabitation of several families. When a new couple is formed, it does not stay in the same house of the family 's home of one of the spouses, but went to live separately from it. It is therefore customary behavior different from what happens in the case of sharecropping families of north-central Italy.
heads of home does not register the trade or profession, because it is implied that, in almost all of the field workers and / or cattle ranchers and their close associates: There are indeed traces of other activities work. As for the elements present in the statements are divided into stable assets (land, houses) and mobile (working animals or livestock) and measured in ounces and tan: is one on which others can hang on the taxes, that is, debts, usually Rights of wealth that must be paid to the Marquis of Ogliastro or other lords or monasteries, for property right (iure proprietatis), or in the form of tax. Other tributes have repayment obligations for "many relief et terragi," that is envisaged in the leases of land. At the end of each statement, the difference between assets (income) and burdens (output), lets you know limpio, or the actual income or fortune net.
Martino Passantino, with an income of 285 ounces, is the most revealing of the wealthy. 55 years old, married to Melchior, with whom he has a son aged 19, so age is compatible with a possible military recruitment, two sons and a daughter aged child registered as a "spinster." He has headed a house in the land of Ciminna Terrana, four corpses covered in vineyards ("Migliaro a vine) in the district or Saletta Ladder, 8 remains of 10 bodies of fallow and wheat. The entry is movable record 8 "plow-boi", three cows in herd, herd of two beasts, five mules retina. Outgoing states 219 once ed otto tarì. Se il valore delle entrate ammonta a 505 once, le uscite sono quasi la metà, cioè 219,8 onze e corrispondono a censi da pagare al convento di S. Francesco d’Assisi della terra di Ciminna,45 onze di debiti nei confronti di tale Giuseppe di Daì, mentre più di 174 once le deve al marchese di Ogliastro sia per censi sia per “soccorsi et terragi”.
Martino Passantino è seguito, seppure alla lontana, dal già ricordato Alessandro Salvaggio , a nome del quale si censiscono “sei casette terrane, vari poderi, sette mula di retina” per un ammontare di 275,8 once; tolte once 122,17 di gravezze, resta un limpio cioè un reddito netto di 152,21 once. Lo segue Simone Sylvester, quoted above as an "expert" on land, which owns large estates and pays Casaca to 74.8 ounces of taxes, ending with a total income of 126.24 ounces per year.
Unlike the case of the Cali Onofrio, thirties married with two children, 10 ounces that pays annual rent to the Marquis of Ogliastro "for so many lughieri of a house where this Habita" and has a net income of 5 ounces year. Just the same net income of Nicasio The Time of Blasi, thirties married with three children, who "holds a dui in the vineyard of thousands of Gurp Cuda cons of this land bordering a portion of the vineyard and Rocco Rizzo Simuni lu the Calabrian as for plants that fruit is the currency of ten ounces. He is charged as a movable herd of seven cows valued at 21 ounces and two old horses of the value of four. About 14 ounces is the limpio Philip Badami, 35, with his wife and dependent children, which is endowed with a three spot in the sands of tears ... cons of Filaccina.
