Round table comments

Round table comments Guido Alfani Bocconi University, Italy This is a section of La mobilità sociale nelle società preindustriali: tendenze, cause ed effetti (secc. XIII-XVIII) / Social mobility in pre-industrial societies: tendencies, causes and effects (13th-18th centuries)(DOI: 10.36253/979-12-215-0667-9) by Angela Orlandi Firenze University Press Florence 2025 https://doi.org/10.36253/979-12-215-0667-9.30

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This brief article expands on the Prolusion given to the LV Settimana Datini, clarifying some additional aspects and proposing a few examples of upward socio-economic mobility. Particular attention is given to two topics: the importance of the acquisition of nobility for social ascension in medieval and early modern times, and the connections between historical processes of social closure, economic closure, and political closure.

social mobility socio-economic mobility wealth social closure political closure super-rich

It is available online at https://doi.org/10.36253/979-12-215-0667-9.30

References Alfani, Guido. 2023. As gods among men. A history of the rich in the West. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Del Negro, Piero. 1984. “La distribuzione del potere all’interno del patriziato veneto del Settecento.” In I ceti dirigenti in Italia in età moderna e contemporanea, ed. Amelio Tagliaferri, 311-35. Udine: Del Bianco. Kula, Witold. 2001. The problems and methods of economic history. Aldershot: Ashgate. Weber, Max. 1978[1956]. Economy and Society: An outline of interpretative sociology. Berkeley: University of California Press.