Famiglia e patrimonio nobiliare nella Lombardia del Settecento: i Visconti di Modrone

Based on the family archive, the essay deals with how the members of the Visconti di Modrone family (an important dynastic lineage of Milan) faced some typical events of aristocratic demography and status, during the late 17th and 18th centuries: the risk of family extinction, the expansive policy of primogeniture and the search of alternative placement for other sons, the internal divisions between relatives about the heritages, the need of a prominent position in public life. The work emphasizes the increasing number of female marriages during the 18th century, and the separation of the family in two branches, with different possibilities of the cadet line compared with the firstborn ones. Some cautions adopted to prevent that patrimony would fragment are highlighted, such as successful wedding alliances, landed investments and agricultural management, and constraints in inheritance rules – the ‘fedecommesso’ or a jointed possession of the partible patrimony –. Thanks to these efforts, the noble family conserved and increased its estate, mostly consisting of urban buildings and agrarian estates carefully distributed in high and low Lombardy districts.