Milizie lombarde in età moderna (secoli XVI-XVIII)

Lombard Milizie in the early modern period (16th to 18th centuries) The military revolution of the early modern age, which involved a dramatic rise in expenses on war, imposed on European states the need to recruit low-cost armed forces for internal defense. In Italy, as elsewhere in Europe, this gave rise to local corps called milizie, which could be regarded as a kind a national army and were considered by Machiavelli more reliable than mercenary soldiers. These milizie were organized in infantry, cavalry and even artillery corps and were often employed as garrisons in fortified places or as guards at the town-gates; they could also be charged with patrolling the highways and became, in some cases, guerrilla units. To attract voluntary recruits, governments would not only allow militians to bear arms, but grant them fiscal and legal privileges. Officer status was reserved for noblemen and patricians. This article focuses on two Lombard examples of such corps: one, based in Mantua, has never been studied; the other, the Milanese, is better known, especially as regards the eighteenth century. While the Mantuan milizia was an early establishment and underwent little change under Habsburg rule, the Milanese one was of more recent origin; the Austrian government abolished its rural branch but supported the urban milizia, which was under patrician control and whose decline was therefore slower.