Peter Leopold’s reform of Tuscany (1774): management, organization and regulation at the local level

The eighteenth century is considered a crucial period in terms of the rise of the modern State. During this century, the logic of organization of several large European Empires began to emerge in the fragmented Italian panorama through the Lorena family's domination of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Peter Leopold of the Lorena dynasty inherited the Grand Duchy in 1765 and implemented his Reform of the Municipalities in 1774. This Reform contributed to modernizing the State and undermined most of the ancient privileges that had been established by the previous rulers of the Grand Duchy. The aim of this paper is to highlight both the government/organizational drivers of that Reform, and the relationship between central and municipal levels of governmental organization, including insights drawn from Michel Foucault's conception of governmentality in interpreting the implications of the Reform. The study is based on primary source materials from the State Archives of Florence and Galeata, and contributes to the extant, yet scarce literature on public sector management and organization of the period, and enriches understandings of the economic and accounting issues that were rationales for the Reform.