Il privilegio delle armi. La Milizia Nazionale nel Ducato di Mantova (secoli XVI-XVIII)

In the early modern territorial states, in connection with the military revolution, alongside professional armies one of the characteristic phenomena was the establishment of 'militias': permanent, low-cost reserve armed forces recruited by sovereigns through selective levies of subjects. That military service, free in principle, was encorauged by tax and judicial privileges in addition to the coveted port of arms. In this essay focused on the Duchy of Mantua, a small State with a high strategic value, the author, using unpublished primary sources in a comparative key with the renewed historiography on the 'military', offers an in-depth analysis of the Milizia Nazionale created by the Gonzaga and maintained under the House of Habsbourg. The Mantuan militia, employed in various tasks - garrison, territorial defence, civil protection, fight against crime - was a precocious and long-lasting institution, given its structure mirroring the hierarchies and the patronage system of the ancient régime society.