Being an engineer and being an architect in eighteenth-century Italy: professional identity as a reflection of political fragmentation

Abstract

Italy in the eighteenth century was a constellation of states, each with its own particular characteristics. Italian engineers and architects, like those in the rest of Europe, defined their competencies by progressively differentiating their roles, thanks as well to a long period of peace between 1748 and the French revolution that Italy enjoyed. Their professional profiles depended on the various forms of recruitment, from theoretical education to practical training provided by the state or the corporations, which brings us to the history of universities, academies andthe creation of pedagogical institutions, both in the military and in the civilian sphere. If in Europe, and above all in England and in France, the process of differentiation between the two professional figures at the end of the 1700s appeared to be advanced, professional roles in Italy were conditioned either by the hegemonic presence of the central administration and of the local aristocracy or by the land and commercial middle classes. It was not until the Napoleonic age that we find a clear notion of the separation and identification of the two roles, along with a clear-cut intention to use uniform methods of recruitment based on competence and merit. Although the results were not the same everywhere, the basis was laid for new and more informed ways to practice the professions.