L’istruzione nelle Legazioni pontificie tra Restaurazione e Unità nazionale

The area of the Legazioni, covering in the last decades of the papal rule the 31% of the population of the Pope’s state and the provincial/diocesan territory of Bologna, Ferrara, Ravenna and Forlì, is the context in which the author has studied the schools and educational institutions (excepted the University), taking into the right consideration the ample inquiries carried out by the papal Government itself (through the Congregazione degli Studi) in 1826, 1834, 1850-52 and 1858-59. It is a considerable documentation, still unpublished or not much valorized, which allows to form general frames and to look inside to local situations. The bigger phenomenon in the period is a diffused growth of education in the Legazioni (11 dioceses analyzed) with a more even distribution of schools on the territory, although with inner differences: Imola and Ferrara, for instance, have the majority of male schools, in respect of Bertinoro and Comacchio where they lack; female schools (as all over Italy), even if in a growing trend, are wherever less than the male ones. Among the acquisitions emerged from the research we must note the quality and the typology of the studies; the laicization of the teaching corps; the conspicuous role carried out by privates in financing primary and secondary schools which are supported by the poor municipal finances. The statistic and cartographic (in a booklet aside) equipments correctly represent the quantitative and space dimension of the considered phenomena.