Entre Hacienda Real y poderes localeslos intentos de reformar las finanzas municipales del reino de Nápoles en los siglos XVI y XVII

Résumé

The most important efforts to reform the urban finances realized in the Kingdom of Naples at the time of Spanish rule were done between 1570 and 1630. The increasing financial needing, due to an enormous military expense, obliged the Spanish Monarchy to make any attempt in order to insure the regularity of the tax collection and to provide the Hacienda real of a huge offer of low rate loans. But, despite all the attempts done, the Hacienda real never succeeded in obtaining a full control of the urban finances of the Kingdom of Naples because of the strong opposition of the leading élites both of the capital city, Naples, and of the provinces of the Kingdom. The opposition was caused by the fact that the economic interests of the leading élites were deeply affected by all kind of reform since, until that time, it was the only social group to manage the urban finances without any true control by the central powers. At the beginning the third decade of the XVIIth century, the urban oligarchies of the kingdom of Naples succeeded in stopping any attempt of reform, offering in change to the Spanish Monarchy to collect the taxes with regularity and to accept the increasing of the fiscal pressure. Given the very nature of the functions they perform, so, local taxation mechanisms link local realities to the needs of the central authorities and deepening the knowledge of these systems is a way to understand the nature of urban finances as an área of fight of interests between Hacienda real and local powers.