THE CATASTI ONCIARI OF 1742

The catasti are among the most important sources for the study of the social and economic history of Southern Italy. Until mid-18th century the ancient catasti were evaluations of the possessions of the citizens and the revenue of their activities, to establish the amount of taxes due and this kind of fiscal levy was called "battaglione". However, it was possible for the Universitates (the municipalities) to pay taxes with a simpler method, called "gabella" which was basically a tax on consumer goods. For this reason only a minority of municipalities, until 1740, chose to pay taxes with the "battaglione" method, and for many places there are no ancient catasti.

However all this changed with a Law by Charles II Bourbon of 4 October 1740, ordering the catasto system for the whole kingdom. In the following two years 1741 and 1742 the Regia Camera della Sommaria gave out instructions on how to make these catasti, and on 28 September 1742 the final ordnance was to deliver the catasto fiscal census within four months. Over ten years later many "universitates" had not accomplished the job, so the king sent his Commissioners in May 1753 to close the works where the municipalities had not been able to do the catasto by themselves.

The result was a kind of census of all the population of Southern Italy with all their ages, profession and property, including houses and lands with extension and boundaries, big animals (horses, cows, oxen, donkeys, sheep, goats), debits, rents, credits. A kind of Domesday book, that each universitas (municipality) had to make out in two copies, one to be kept at the universitas for further updates, the other to be sent to Naples to the regia Camera della Sommaria, the central tax authority of the Kingdom. Since then, many of the copies that were held locally have been destroyed or delivered to province archives. The copies that were sent to Naples are now kept in a special section containing thousands and thousands of books, most of them still not studied.

In the lists here supplied, however incomplete and certainly not without mistakes, of the onciari books existing in Naples, the places are listed alphabetically divided by Province and are followed by the official date when the book was finished. The books can be requested for study in the Archive of Naples, and the archive has a photographic section that can release microfilms or prints from microfilms of whole books. For a thorough family and demographic study a very good knowledge of handwritten Italian and acquaintance with land use regulations, measures, names of places of the mid 18th century is advisable.