Rappresentanza civica e sistemi elettivi a Milano: scenari premoderni

The long path of the Milanese local institutions from the late Middle Ages to the Austrian Restoration testifies to the duration of a mainly descriptive perspective on civic representation. According to this, the composition of the representative body prevails on both the way its members are selected and the type of activity they are expected to perform on behalf of the community. What matters most is the capability of the body to faithfully mirror local society with its plural corporate texture and its inner power hierarchies. As the political constitution of the State of Milan changes from that of a city-State, though having a seigneurial government at its top, to that of a Duchy part of a composite Monarchy, and finally to that of a sister-Republic or Reign, so do the community profiles which are to be represented as politically relevant. Consequently, the size and composition of the main civic body changes significantly, from a very large socially mixed assembly to a few dozens noblemen council, to a small college of property owners. As for the means and procedures of selection, they maintain for the whole period typically combined features, including choice of electors by city-quarters, draw, submission of candidates by the representatives in office, designation by higher level officials or by the sovereign himself. The list does not include, however, any type of vote directly expressed by the individuals that make up the represented community, not even in consequence of the ‘imported revolution’ by the French Army. Therefore, though we may detect some signs of a transition to a more modern form of local representation, this still remains out of our sight during the entire first half of the Nineteenth Century.