PREFACE
An event of such great historical and military significance, as the Italian Victory on November 4, 1918 was, should already be sufficiently valid to put the question of Italy's right to South Tyrol to rest, inasmuch as it is a right derived from force of arms and from bloody self-sacrifice, and therefore is no less valid than the right by which other countries have obtained territories. But unfortunately the passing of time and the degeneration of customs have caused the Italians' memories to slowly erode, causing them to forget the historical and moral significance of the Victory. Meanwhile South Tyrol has become a subject of discussion, while the lack of public powers and the general indifference of the Italians is allowing a linguistic minority to claim – with words, outrages and attacks – the right to rescind their destiny from that of Italy. Hence the necessity of recalling those events of more remote origin which form the true basis of Italy's right to the land of South Tyrol, beyond the Victory attained forty-four years ago, and which even transcend the sanctity of the principle according to which the political boundaries of national states must coincide with geographical boundaries: I am speaking of the historical, cultural and economic traditions through which Italy expressed its moral presence in South Tyrol in past centuries.
Italy was in Bolzano and was at the Brenner long before November 4, 1918: I intend to demonstrate that South Tyrol is not German land, but Latin and Neo-Latin land, utilizing just a few more in-depth considerations than those commonly acquired. I do not pretend to be saying anything new when I remind the reader, for example, that the German ethnic group in South Tyrol is not a homogeneous group, but is the result of a mixture of bloodlines in which the Germanic element is in fact very negligible: the majority of Tyroleans are of Neo-Latin origin, very much the same as the people of Trentino and the so-called Ladins; their ancestry is built upon a composite Rhaetian foundation (not Germanic), invigorated by Italian nuclei that flowed from the south in different periods. The 'Germanness' of this region does not derive from ethnic contributions made by negligible immigrant groups from Germany (the Bavarii, and later the Bavarians, Swabians, etc.), but rather from political conditions imposed upon our region by Germans over the course of eight centuries, during which time the population was subjected to progressive Germanization, first periodically and finally systematically. That the population of South Tyrol is of predominantly non-German ancestry is easily demonstrated – besides the specific studies made first by Tolomei, Battisti and later by others – by the fact that the overwhelming majority of surnames in South Tyrol are of Neo-Latin origin and in part are of pure Italian form.
So when today we speak (more or less inappropriately) of an ethnic right, on the basis of which we must defend and preserve the language, culture and folklore characteristic of South Tyrol, we forget that these characteristics are anything but original and instead were mainly acquired through a process of linguistic assimilation which, with the disappearance of the political conditions that created them, are susceptible not to conservation but to further changes. In spite of all this, the dogma of a South Tyrol "homogeneously German in language and traditions, torn from its German motherland" continues to live and persist. The most renowned minds from beyond the Alps devote themselves to this dogma and show no willingness to abandon it: from the most varied political and cultural associations established both in Germany and in Austria, to largely subsidized publications of all kinds, to periodicals and the daily press, they beat the drum of a German South Tyrol in a climate of renewed Pan-Germanism. At this point a question is asked: what do we do on our side? Little to nothing. In the face of an aggressive and well-fed "culture" on the German side, Italy officially opposes the culturame (cultural trash) of the pseudo-intellectuals and pseudo-politicians permeated by that "greed of servility" triggered by defeat: they doubt and sometimes even disregard or deny Italy's right to South Tyrol.
Italy officially denies protection and encouragement to the few serious, thoughtful and documented scholars, ignoring them or even opposing their activities which they perform with Franciscan humility. In response to this severe shortage, which is doing great harm to the cause of South Tyrol, we established the "Quaderni della Clessidra" series, which aims at disseminating in a plain and accessible form that which Italians can not ignore, but on the contrary must constantly remind themselves of, lest they abandon a struggle which for South Tyrol is not merely a matter of political positions, but above all moral positions. Ferruccio Bravi opens the series with a monograph on the "Bolzano Fairs" (Fiere di Bolzano. The subject, previously treated by others in a discontinuous and fragmentary form, has found in him a careful and watchful documenter, as well as a dispassionate and witty exhibitor who manages to deal with a lively and dry matter in and itself arid and flat. We hope that this initiative obtains a well-deserved success that can benefit us, not those of us of the "Vetta d'Italia", but to all the Italians and to South Tyrol. We will draw comfort and encouragement by multiplying our energies and our efforts so that the seed sewn by other major scholars will not be lost.
Andrea Mitolo
Bolzano, November 4, 1962
LEGENDARY ORIGINS: FROM HENRY THE SAINT TO THE POVERELLO OF ASSISI
A tradition based on a writing from the late eighteenth century asserts that the establishment of the Bolzano fairs dates back to the beginning of the 11th century as a result of a mercantile charter granted by Emperor Henry II, known also as Henry the Saint. This German emperor was known among the Germans for his meekness and mirrored virtue, but he was even better known among the Italians for having ousted Arduino, the last king of Italy, and for the ferocity with which he had repressed the anti-German revolt in Rome in the year of his coronation. In any case, the claim which asserts that the origins of the Bolzano markets derive from this imperial sanction must be relegated to the world of fantasy: if one keeps in mind that at the dawn of the 11th century our city was nothing more than an obscure village wedged between the fog and the marshes, it is easy to imagine that the Emperor, descending and climbing the Adige Valley alongside his holy wife Cunigunde, did not even notice the four slums divided by a crossroads which, with its church, at that time constituted the whole of Bolzano. No less dubious is certain indirect documentation according to which Bolzano would have been a mercantile city as early as 1070; at that time the city was perhaps similar to Petramala (an insignificant country town), which Dante sarcastically called a "grand city", or like Novgorod in the days of Nikolai Gogol, built around a "magnificent puddle". The enlargements of the primitive core of the village during the twelfth century were so negligible that we could hardly set up a fair or a local market of any importance in those narrow walls. Therefore the suggestive tradition according to which St. Francis of Assisi would have lived for some time in Bolzano with his father Bernardone, a rich cloth merchant, and would have served Mass at the altar of San Ingenuino on the site where the Franciscan convent was later built, although generally accepted, likewise has no basis.
ITALIAN CHARACTER OF THE FIRST FAIRS
Without lingering too much on poorly-documented legends and traditions, let's turn our attention to the first certain direct documentation of the Bolzano fairs, which dates back to the beginning of the twelfth century. These are scarce and fragmented elements from which it can be easily deduced that in Bolzano, no less than in other Italian cities, the oldest nundinal manifestations were of an Italian character. It is sufficient to mention a particular privilege enjoyed in ancient times by the community of Riva del Garda, which sent its representatives to Bolzano with its own standard; the presence of the Rivans in Bolzano was the "conditio sine qua non", the condition without which the fairs could not take place. This circumstance seems to confirm the local character of these fairs, which were able to emerge from the narrow sphere of the regional economy only later, in the late thirteenth century, when great trade flows and exchanges between the north and south of Europe developed. Following this development, the economic fortune of Bolzano became linked to its geographical position, since it is situated on the great commercial artery that connects Italy to the lands beyond the Alps. This reality created the conditions for the economic function of a Bolzano destined to become a point of juncture – a "bridge" as one would say today – of the Latin and Germanic nations; of course we mean a juncture of respective commercial interests, and not of the two peoples themselves, who remained fatally separated – in spite of the pan-Europeanist delusions of some people – by profoundly different cultures and traditions, as well as by an insuppressible natural barrier.
FROM MEINHARD THE MARAUDER TO HENRY THE LOAFER "KING"
The political conditions of South Tyrol in the second half of the thirteenth century led to a halt in the natural evolution of the mercantile fortunes of Bolzano. The dominion of the counts of Tyrol, which overlapped with the lordship of the bishops of Trento and Bressanone – vassals of the Holy Roman Empire since the dawn of the 11th century – created profound upheavals throughout the region between the Brenner and Lake Garda: usurpations, massacres, raids and ruins marked the emergence of their new masters – the Tyrolean counts – and reached its culmination at the end of the twelfth century with Meinhard II, who was excommunicated three times like the tyrant Ezzelino III, with whom he had much in common. Bolzano, a theater of the extreme struggle between the bishop of Trento and the count of Tyrol, rose against the usurper Meinhard in 1277; but after a brief siege it was forced to surrender. The surrounding wall was demolished, the tower ruined, the town reduced to a pile of rubble; most of the inhabitants perished in the massacres or found refuge by escaping. A disastrous fire reaped new destruction and casualties in 1291. After so many vicissitudes, the city began to rise again; it was revived and even its commercial life was resumed. Once the memory of the horrors linked to the conquest of Meinhard had been extinguished, the people of Bolzano became accustomed to the new order of things. Besides, the new Tyrolean count Henry of Carinthia was quite tolerable: he reigned but did not rule, as was proper to a sovereign such as he. Previously he had been deposed from the throne of Bohemia. Count Henry was well-liked: he was a pleasure-loving spendthrift who loved banquets and hunting, was in debt up to his neck, lived and let live. It was in this climate of blissful relaxation that businesses once again flourished and the Italians flowed back to Bolzano.
THE ERA OF DANTE: THE WHITES, THE BLACKS... AND THE ROSSI
While Bolzano rose again, another city further south was in ruins: Florence, "the divided city", upset by the fury of the Guelph factions, soon became prey to the first arrival. Like Dante, many Florentines from the White Guelph party left the banks of the Arno river and took their fortunes to the north, bearing the memories of their homeland and a desperate nostalgia in their hearts. It was in these years, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, that the Florentine community of Bolzano expanded: alongside their many fellow citizens driven towards South Tyrol by the natural expansion of the merchant class, the Florentine exiles were united with those Italians who were not involved in politics at all, but sought to conclude their affairs in peace. Among the long-standing Florentines in Bolzano was Lambertuccio Frescobaldi, a merchant banker and also a poet, a relative of that braggart Berto who – according to Don Compagni – "made very rude comments to Giano della Bella". Friendly with both White and Black Guelphs, he never chose a side in the great disputes. Frescobaldi did not write poetry in South Tyrol: instead he made a lucrative business as a banker of the counts of Tyrol. After his death, after 1304, another important merchant family from Florence ascended to great fortune: the Rossi family, originating from the neighborhood of Santa Felicita, who possessed the gabelle (a tax on goods), exchanges and "casane" (loan shops) in Bolzano, Egna, Trento and later also in Innsbruck. The casina – a bank or lending house – was a peculiar institution of the Florentines, who introduced it to Bolzano around 1290 (and was owned by a lender named "Caspar"); the institution already existed in Merano since 1287 – where the Florentine community was already as numerous as in our Bolzano – and was run by a "Filipus Tuscanus de Florentia" and the brothers Morsello and Nasone.
LAVISHERS AND USURERS: THE FLORENTINE MERCHANTS
It is to the Rossi family, whose name was later germanized to Botschen, that we in part owe the embellishment of the city of Bolzano, which rose from the ashes in 1277 and 1291. Their munificence is attested by the family crest found in San Giovanni in Villa; here, as well as in the city churches, many pious foundations were named after them. Numerous other Florentines practiced trade in Bolzano during the age of Dante: they felt at home in this city, as Italians among Italians, because in those years Bolzano was still Italian and had not yet been contaminated by the language and customs of the Germans. In this second mercantile homeland, they were enriched and did not hesitate to spend money to contribute to the restoration of the city which was reborn even grander and more beautiful than ever before, built around a long street known as Via dei Portici. They invested huge amounts of capital by purchasing or constructing buildings; they become owners of vast rustic funds in the countryside of Bolzano as well as in the area of Merano and Burgraviato; the stable assets of local magnates and bourgeois families were mortgaged. Even Castel Macina, owned by the Count of Tyrol, engulfed in debt, was foreclosed by a banking company in Florence which was in charge of the dazio (direct tax) and which had installed a bank with such infamously high interest rates on loans that tradition coined the term "Strozzini" ("Loan sharks", named after the Strozzi banking family).
THE FAIRS OF VIA DEI PORTICI
During the time of the Rossi and Frescobaldi families there were only two fairs in Bolzano: the Fair of Mezza Quaresima (half-way through Lent) and the Fair of St. Egidius, later called St. Bartholomew. Later two more were added: the Fair of St. Andrew, established around 1357, and the Fair of Corpus Domini which originated from the Pentecost Market of Merano, which was transfered to Bolzano at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The four celebrations alternated at almost regular intervals throughout the year and lasted at least two weeks each. The opening was more solemn and less sensational than today: just like in Rome, Naples and other centers of the Peninsula, the great fairs of Bolzano were announced by a festive ringing of bells and proclaimed by a magister nundinarum festively preceded by a picturesque drummer who accompanied his cadenced step in procession. The market was held at Via dei Portici, the main street of Bolzano, where the "fonteghi" (covered markets) and department stores overflowed with all types of goods: along the so-called "portici italiani" or "Italian porticoes" (to the north) there were precious silks from Lucca, fabrics from Milan and Florence with the seal of the Arte della Lana (wool guild of Florence), oriental products imported from Venice, objects of exquisite workmanship created by the artisan workshops of Tuscany, Naples, Rome and the distant Calabria; on the opposite side, along the "portici tedeschi" or "German porticoes", they had objects of gold and wrought iron, leather and embossed leather, goods of all kinds from the northern countries. Shop signs were rare and not inspired by the bad taste of excessive bilingualism. At the markets the negotiations were conducted in Italian, in German or in dialect, without Freudian hindrances or inhibitions; because at that time bigoted politicians were not yet born and the pretended "right" to ignore the Italians in Bolzano was yet to come.
ABUSES AGAINST THE ITALIAN MERCHANTS
The promising development of the Bolzano fairs suffered a severe blow towards the end of the fifteenth century, coinciding with a grave political event: the opening of hostilities against Venice, in 1487, by Sigismund, Archduke of Austria. Politically established in lower Trentino, and present also in Bolzano with their merchants, Venetian power constituted a constant threat to the Habsburg dominions on the Italian side of the Alps. This war, short and overwhelming, had an unfortunate epilogue in Calliano (Trentino) where the Serenissima was beaten and humiliated. In Bolzano, already in April of that year, Sigismund had imprisoned a few hundred Venetian merchants; after the battle of Calliano, he delivered a second blow by issuing a privilege for the Bolzano fairs which in substance was damaging to the Italian merchants. The new mercantile charter, issued in 1488, stated verbatim in Article 4: "Given that the Welschen (that is, the Italians) buy many houses and rent them to people of little importance, we declare that they must personally live in their own homes or else give them to people who are more suited to business and to the needs of the city." This restrictive provision, apparently of little importance, inspired a series of unfair measures that the local authorities enacted to the detriment of the Italians from 1488 until about the second half of the sixteenth century. With a zeal worthy of a better cause, the Germans among the civic administration took vigorous measures to prevent the influx of Italians to Bolzano and to oust those who already lived there, revoking the statute of 1448 which had granted the right of citizenship to Italians and Ladins. As a result of the new policies, even those Italian merchants who owned homes in the city and were regularly enrolled in the register of inhabitants were treated as foreigners and deprived of all benefits enjoyed by the citizens of Bolzano.
OUT WITH THE ITALIANS: THE CITY BECOMES GERMAN
"Send the Italians away" – anweck pack'n zum taiffl – was the fashionable slogan: a municipal resolution in 1524 gave a practical application to this slogan by strictly denying Italians the right to reside in Bolzano. The resolution, reaffirmed three times between 1524 and 1568, was still in force in 1579: indeed it was in this year that the city refused residence to a group of Italian tradesmen (Raffaele Marco of Florence, Domenico Avancini of Riva, Cristiano Visintin of Trento, and many others) who planned to set up a credit institute and a silk-processing industry in Bolzano where many Italian and German workers would have been able to find employment. The refusal was motivated by the fear that these planned activities would encourage other Italians to come to Bolzano, which would "seriously jeopardize the German character of the city". In fact, Bolzano had only become German over the course of the last one hundred years: ever since 1483, the year in which that disastrous fire destroyed the old city, the new buildings had been constructed in the Gothic style, which elsewhere had already ceased to be fashionable, especially in Italy where Giorgio Vasari had referred to the style as "a curse". The common language of Bolzano was Italian until about the middle of the fifteenth century – as Felix Fabri of Ulm reported, and as was confirmed by Gian Pirro Pincio – but was replaced with the coarse and rough Tyrolean dialect. Thus Bolzano became German in both architecture and language. The city assumed a different character, the Italian community declined, commercial activities and fairs (which the citizens relied upon for their well-being) stagnated. The attitude of the German Tyroleans at that time was not dissimilar to the attitude of some Tyroleans today who, rather than live alongside Italians, would prefer to reduce the city of Bolzano to the miserable squalor of a village devoid of resources, merely for the sake of making it entirely German.
IRREPRESSIBLE REALITY: THE ITALIAN PRESENCE IN BOLZANO
Despite difficulties and discriminatory measures, the vital Italian nuclei still remained noticeable in Bolzano in the middle of the sixteenth century. Many houses were still in the possession of Italian tradesmen who tended to live around Via dei Portici. The development of the fairs resumed, although everywhere our markets were in a bit of a decline: Venice once again tried to penetrate the economy in South Tyrol, aiming at the monopoly of Italian and German mercantile activities. Also, the presence of "commedianti welsch" – Italian comedic actors and singers – in fair time from the middle of the century is indicative of a fairly considerable Italian element in the city. The Italian community became even more numerous at the beginning of the seventeenth century: this is confirmed by a request made to Bolzano by tradesmen in the spring of 1609, who attempted to obtain the appointment of a judge of Italian nationality to resolve mercantile disputes. This aspiration was widely met in 1633 through the establishment of the Mercantile Magistrate of Bolzano, a special court with attributes and structures similar to those of the pre-existing commercial courts in other cities of Italy. Overall, there are favorable indications concerning the large number of Italian merchants during the first decades of the seventeenth century; it is not possible to establish the exact number – in old Bolzano the custom of "counting" each day like we do today was still unknown – but it can be surmised on the basis of reliable documentation that the Italian commercial houses of the city, in relation to the German ones, at that time had a ratio of three to one, more or less similar to today.
CLAUDIA DE' MEDICI AND THE MERCANTILE MAGISTRATE
An Archduchess of Austria hailing from an illustrious Tuscan family, Claudia de' Medici, the widow of a Habsburg and regent of the County of Tyrol, between 1633 and 1635 granted privileges and franchises to merchants attending the Bolzano fairs. As a result of these privileges – which among other things placed Italian and German tradesmen on an equal footing – the Mercantile Magistrate of Bolzano was born, an institution which for more than two centuries would go on to become a valuable instrument of economic prosperity not only for the city, but for the whe entire province of Tyrol. The Mercantile Magistrate exercised extensive jurisdictional powers in the field of trade and fairs, especially for the settlement of disputes between exhibitors; it was governed by two consuls – magistrates of the first and second class – each one assisted by two consiglieri (counselors). Consuls and counselors – alternatively Italian and German – were elected by the body of Contrattanti (Negotiators) constituted by the most reputable fair-goers listed in a register; the candidates for the posts also had to be enrolled in the register and their election had to be ratified by the Provincial Government. The administrative staff, constituted by cancellieri, attuari (assisted by notai in more recent times), bidelli, cursori, etc., was also elected. The Mercantile Magistrate also had a printing house, established in the city by the typographer Carlo Girardi, probably a Venetian, in 1659; it was the first printing house in Bolzano, built one hundred and seventy years after Aldo Manuzio (not only was the art of printing established late in South Tyrol, but everything arrived late in South Tyrol, especially during periods when Italian activities were stagnant). The complexity of the Magistrate's structures was matched by the extreme agility of the judicial proceedings, as was demanded by the practical spirit of the tradesmen, who even back then detested red tape and the subtleties of the quibblers; to them – with rare exceptions – it was even forbidden to enter the mercantile forum. Another category of men who were excluded were those shrewed Tyroleans who were dedicated to the trade of cattle, wine, fodder and other rustic merchandise. This exclusion was more than justified: refusing to accept within its walls those typical "ornaments" of the Tyrolean countryside, the Magistrate was in fact being consistent with its official business motto, which was "Ex merce pulchrior" ("Greater prosperity through trade").
LANGUAGE EXCLUSIVELY ITALIAN UNTIL UNTIL 1787
Concerning the activities conducted by the mercantile forum for over two hundred years, there remains an impressive documentation consisting of some fifty codes and about five hundred bundles of judicial and accounting documents largely bound in volume. Except for a few insertions, these writings were written exclusively in Italian until 1787; after this year – due to the Germanization policy of Emperor Joseph II – the German language gradually replaced Italian until it became the sole official language in 1809. Italian was also the language used in the original texts of the sovereign patents granted to the Magistrate, from the "carta claudiana" of 1635 – inspired by the mercantile ordinances of the city of Verona – to the various reconfirmations of Claudia's successors before the Josephine reforms; these original copies are unfortunately no longer available, having been stolen by Tyrolean National Socialists during the last war. The offices of the Magistrate were generally held by Italians: between 1633 and 1800 more than half of the consuls and counselors and almost all the chancellors and actuaries were of Italian nationality. Among the chancellors there were also three ascendants of Antonio Rosmini, the philosopher from Rovereto. The great extent of the Italian mercantile element in Bolzano can be seen even more clearly by observing the register of contractors in which the names of tradesmen from all over Italy are listed: there is a very high number of people from Rovereto, Trento, Lombardy and Lucca; the presence of Florentines, Marchesans, Romans and Umbrians is noteworthy; Calabrians, Puglians, Triestines, Dalmatians and Sicilians are also present. More numerous than all the others are the Veronese, who represented almost half of the Italian contractors in 1638, and during two centuries of mercantile life in Bolzano they gave 71 consuls and 170 councilors to the Magistrate.
ITALIAN ART AND MERCANTILE PATRONAGE IN BOLZANO IN THE 18TH CENTURY
The art of printing was introduced in South Tyrol more than a century after the invention of fused characters. The first South Tyrolean printing press was founded in Bressanone around 1560 by Donato Fezio, a priest from Val di Sole; the city of Bolzano had to wait another hundred years before having its own printing house. Here too typographic art was introduced by an Italian, Carlo Girardi, in the year 1661. The contribution of the Veronese was decisive not only in the field of commerce, but also in the artistic field, where they flourished. Noteworthy are the traces of the activity carried out in Bolzano by artists coming from rich merchant families of Verona, such as Perotti, Balestra, Pezzi and others. It was Francesco Perrotti who designed the sumptuous headquarters of the Mercantile Magistrate, located between Via Argentieri and the "portici italiani", which is currently home to the Chamber of Commerce. The building was constructed between 1708 and 1728 by the civic architects of Bolzano, Giovanni and Giuseppe Delai, originally from Lombardy; in the spacious rooms of the building we can still admire works by Veronese and Lombard artists, which includes precious paintings of sacred, profane and allegorical subjects. Many works of Italian art created with the money of Italian merchants date back to the period of greatest prosperity of commerce in Bolzano, whose munificence was in stark contrast to the proverbial stinginess of the civic administration. Among the most important are: the chapel built by the procurers in the Dominican Church between 1640 and 1685, with altars and paintings (the altarpiece is by Guercino) all made by Italian sculptors and painters; the altar, offered by "merchants at the market junction" to the Chapel of Sant'Antonio inside the Franciscan Church, made by the sculptor and architect Giovanni Battista Bianchi, one of many Veronese artists who left a lasting footprint in Bolzano. Mercantile patrons also financed musical and theatrical manifestations of an Italian character, which managed to dominate the cultural tastes of a public that had by now become very germanized. Opere buffe by Paisiello and Cimarosa, remakes of Goldoni's comedies (La Pamela Nubile) and many others completely extinguished every gloomy memory of German culture.
DECLINE OF THE FAIRS
Having reached its greatest prosperity in the first decades of the eighteenth century, the Bozano fairs began to decline towards the middle of the century for various reasons: competition from funneled traffic on new roads open to Grisons and the Carnic Alps, the lack of support from the government authorities and, above all, the evolution of the maritime situation in the Adriatic. Venetian power in this sea was by now losing its position to the advantage of Austria, which inaugurated its own maritime policy in the Adriatic: in 1719 Trieste and Fiume were declared free ports and the "Compagnia Orientale" (Oriental Imperial Privileged Company) was born, which took over trade between the Adriatic and the Danube; later, in 1729, the Austrian government planned to manipulate customs tariffs in order to favor transit through Trieste and Fiume and to divert Italian goods directly to Villach, bypassing Tyrol. The Mercantile Magistrate of Bolzano tried to defend itself by sending a commission to Innsbruck and Vienna with the task of preventing the government from doing this; various wines and other gifts made convincing arguments, as the commissioners managed to obtain from the government an extension of the old tariffs with relative ease and a commitment to leave the communication routes with Trieste in a state of neglect and thus render them unusable. Special reductions and tax exemptions were then given to the city by the Government, which at the same time provided to reactivate the communication routes between the port and the hinterland. As a consequence, traffic on the Brenner route was increasingly deserted; the turnover of the Bolzano fairs underwent a progressive decline and reached a state of alarm when, in 1780, Maria Theresa of Austria imposed onerous tariffs on the city. Three years later, Joseph II entered the scene with his reforms and it all came to an end.
JOSEPH II: RESTORER AND KILLER OF COMMERCE
A disconcerting figure full of contradictions, Joseph II was a product the Enlightenment era: he imagined himself to be an enlightened sovereign, but in practice he was a clumsy innovator who, eager to give a personal touch to the structures of his Empire, ran over institutions, traditions and statutes like a steamroller; in his opinion the whole universe, from one end to the other, had to be reformed and made German. The supporters of the Josephine reforms had justly aroused apprehensions among the merchants of Bolzano who, already in a state of decline, were now resigned to suffer the fatal blow from the new master: however, against all odds, the first act of Joseph II towards the merchant class was magnanimous: in 1783 he abolished the Theresian gabelle (a tax on goods), provoking enthusiasm and praise. The merchants blessed the imperial deity and hailed him as the "restorer of the pristine freedom of commerce" and dedicated a long-winded and flattering ode, as well as a rhetorical cast monument – which can still be found today in the Palazzo Mercantile – that depicts the Austrian Kaiser in the act of handing the caduceus to a rather battered Mercury, prostrated at his feet. All seemed well, but within a year Joseph II very much regretted this gesture, which was all too common of Habsburg "generosity". Thus he imposed upon the Magistrate a new regulation that de facto abolished the Statute of Claudia, arrogating mercantile interests (among other things) to the Government. The provision was a cold blow to the merchants, who demanded a repeal, but this time the pathetic gifts and appeals of the ambassadors did not work: the Kaiser was unmoved by the dismay of the merchants. Finally, the Emperor topped it all off by inaugurating in Bolzano those holy principles of ethnic discrimination which from that time forward would poison the relations between the two nationalities: German and Italian.
INGLORIOUS END OF THE FAIRS AND THE MERCANTILE MAGISTRATE
Joseph's measures, which had completely blocked the remaining resources of Bolzano's commerce, were repealed in 1792 by his successor Leopold II, who restored the old Statute of Claudia. This resipiscence did not repair the damage however, nor did it prevent the imminent collapse of the city's commerce: after so many vicissitudes, the fairs and the Magistrate had lost their original vitality and the merchant class had fallen into decay, caused especially by the exodus of Italians, who were provoked by obstruction and discrimination. The latter circumstance led directly to the rise of a sordid Tyrolean merchant class led by the Gumer family, which had given the city a three-time-confirmed burgomaster and a mercantile consul, later a counselor and builder of the Magistrate. Having become bourgeois and trade magnates, the Gumer family degenerated and became notorious in the newspaper headlines and in gossip columns as protagonists of spicy stories which completely discredited the merchant class of the time: in 1780 Franz von Gumer got involved in Freemasonry and founded the first lodge in Bolzano to house the elite merchants; seven years later Franz and Anton Maria Gumer were engulfed in debt and overwhelmed by resounding failure; during the Italic period, when Bolzano briefly returned to the Kingdom of Italy, the Gumer family together with other merchants were involved in the well-known Mademoiselle Menz episode and in the "English subsidy" scandal. In this climate of cabal and intrigue the commerce of Bolzano was in agony and, with it, also the Mercantile Magistrate which, expropriated and Germanized to its core, was reduced to an obscure institution devoid of content and vitality. The great events of the Napoleonic period overwhelmed it: suppressed, restored, remodeled, it resumed its slow agony under Austrian rule; by this point the fairs had completely disappeared and the statutes were suppressed; it completely lost its raison d'etre and the Austrian government finally decreed its inglorious end in 1850.
SOME WORDS ON THE CURRENT FAIRS
After about one hundred and fifty years the Bolzano fairs have come back to life. This post-war period has revived democracy: a democracy bringing "novelty" and vanity. Of course, today's Fair is very different than the original: moved to the edge of the city, it has been set in an enormous concrete cage upon which we read the words "Fiera-Messe", written in both Italian and German, as demanded by the principles of bilingualism. There are no more bells and no drums at the opening. Instead there is a long, never-ending speech by the Mayor: a speech in the name of pan-European patriotism and "loving each other", hollow and convoluted phrases in line with the dogmatic anti-rhetorical rhetoric of our day. Next to the Mayor there is a vestige of the good old days, the magister nundinarum, who however is no longer Italian as he was back then: now he is a German of the timeless Walther dynasty. Hard and compassionate, he pretends not to pretend and cheats time by spying on the compact boredom of the authorities, from His Excellency onwards, resigned to undergo the full the German version of the speech. Someone chuckles while telling a joke about such a Minister – a stone's throw away – who imposes taxes on others yet does not pay them himself... After that there is applause, clammy handshakes, a fleeting visit to the pavilions and finally the joyful exit towards the official banquet which concludes "the austere ceremony". As for the fair itself, there is not much to say. The novelties are those of the year to come: by representatives from the other side of the Alps – always impaled on the Stand as if it were a Panzer's turret – ready to "amaze the bourgeois" with the progress of German technique. Nothing survives of the dynamism of the old fairs. Today's fair seems to be dominated by a slumbersome formalism: as soon as it opens, it becomes tired and manages to survive for about ten days. And business? It's all a steal. It is sufficient to open an observational journal to learn that "this year the turnover at the Fair exceeded all previous records". They say this every year, to the consolation of the taxpayer and to the greater glory of the "economic miracle".
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