Corruption in Spanish Italy

Abstract

Although the term “corruption” had a distinctly moral connotation in the Renaissance that distinguishes it from contemporary definitions of corruption, Renaissance conceptions of corruption and ideas for limiting it were closely associated with and likewise emerged out of Spanish Italy: the Kingdom of Naples, the Kingdom of Sicily, and the Duchy of Milan. There, not unlike the rest of early modern Europe, corrupt practices were embedded in virtually every aspect of administration and politics. When politicized, such corruption could cause scandal and prompt investigations that retrospectively illustrate the intrinsic corruptions of the patrimonial state. Nevertheless, the Spanish Crown, in conjunction with the logic of good government and often in response to petitions to correct abuses, distinctively pursued a substantial program of anti-corruption. Foremost among that program were the periodic visitas [inspections] that reviewed the conduct of officials. Although the visita was originally a Castilian institution that was employed throughout the empire into the eighteenth century, the visitas were notably prodigious in Spanish Italy. From the 1530s to the 1680s, the two dozen visitas conducted in Naples, Sicily, and Milan led to the punishment of thousands of officials who had committed a variety of corrupt acts.