Alessandro Buono

Attività didattica

Incarichi di responsabilità didattica di moduli/insegnamenti

Registro lezioni

Orario lezioni

Ricevimento

Modalità: DATE DI INIZIO DEI CORSI 2024-25 Lunedì 17 febbraio 2025 • STORIA MODERNA I Microsoft Teams: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/team/19%3A_hN1VM7FjTMbnBXl5Yno0YJ6rKiXewCxyozhLLV1jnU1%40thread.tacv2/conversations?groupId=f782ea25-cdf3-4a24-bd4d-8823f7d83b73&tenantId=c7456b31-a220-47f5-be52-473828670aa1 Martedì 11 marzo 2025 • STORIA DELLE CULTURE E DELLE MENTALITÀ IN ETÀ MODERNA Microsoft Teams: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/team/19%3AgLE2LBDGGSVj6BCV9WXdB0kCZpx11C-LhJr9VwACIyw1%40thread.tacv2/conversations?groupId=b2696927-784b-4406-be19-e5669b106909&tenantId=c7456b31-a220-47f5-be52-473828670aa1

Luogo: Ufficio: Palazzo Carità, Via Pasquale Paoli, 15 - 2° piano, ala Sud, Studio 15

Orario: Si prega di contattarmi via email per prendere un appuntamento per il ricevimento, sia in presenza sia a distanza tramite l’applicazione Microsoft Teams. Orari di Ricevimento Martedì, 10:00-12:00 o altrimenti su appuntamento

Interessi di ricerca

My research focuses on the social and legal history of early modern Europe, with particular attention to the relationships between people, things, and institutions. My work lies at the intersection of institutional history, documentary culture, theories of property, and practices of belonging, adopting a comparative perspective.
A central area of my research concerns the management of lying inheritances and vacant successions in various early modern contexts across Europe and the Americas. I have studied in particular the functioning of the courts responsible for the administration of unclaimed estates, highlighting how sovereign intervention in the handling of heirless property was not limited to patrimonial acquisition, but was also accompanied by a social, moral, and legal function of care and guardianship.
Closely connected to this line of inquiry is the study of identification and registration practices in Ancien Régime societies. I have developed a theoretical and historical analysis of personal identity, understood not as a natural attribute nor as a purely bureaucratic datum, but rather as a juridical and social relation subject to constant validation and reaffirmation. In various publications, I have proposed an interpretation of identity as a form of possession, akin to a real right, whose proof was constructed through acts of use, public recognition, and testimonial evidence. This approach has made it possible to clarify the procedures by which, in judicial and administrative contexts, belonging was determined and rights were allocated, revealing the structurally negotiated nature of such processes.
Another major focus of my research concerns mobility, citizenship, and the legal condition of foreigners in the territories of the Spanish Monarchy and in certain Italian states such as the Duchy of Milan, the Republic of Venice, and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Through the analysis of intestate or contested succession cases, I have explored the tensions between competing jurisdictions in defining hereditary legitimacy, as well as the ways in which “belonging” was constructed, contested, or acknowledged. In this context, residence, local embeddedness, and interaction with communities and institutions played a decisive role in qualifying—or disqualifying—individuals from access to inheritance rights, revealing the interplay between legal status, territorial identity, and sovereign authority.
In parallel, I have investigated the history of documentary practices as instruments of governance and sources of legal production. I have focused in particular on the use of fiscal, judicial, and parish records in the Spanish Empire as forms of anticipatory administration, aimed not merely at the registration of facts, but at the production of legitimacy, the management of conflict, and the definition of responsibility. From this perspective, documentation emerges as a dynamic space of mediation between centre and periphery, between legal norms and local practices, between oral traditions and written evidence.
Another strand of my research addresses the role of intermediary figures in surveillance and local administration in both urban and rural early modern contexts—such as parish elders, community consuls, ward captains, and neighbourhood officers. I have analysed these actors’ functions in managing proximity and public order, in information gathering, and in operations of identification and seizure, interpreting them as inter-hierarchical figures bound by dual loyalties: to the superior authorities who entrusted them with office, and to the local communities from which they drew legitimacy. Studying these figures allows us to reassess historical forms of sovereignty and to understand the multilevel nature of power in premodern societies.
This body of work is grounded in microhistorical analysis of documentary sources and engages in continuous dialogue with legal historiography, historical anthropology, and legal theory. It aims to contribute to a social history of property, identity, and responsibility by uncovering the historically situated ways in which legal ties were forged, belongings were constructed, and access to rights was defined across diverse times and contexts.

Pubblicazioni

• Responsibility and Presence in Early Modern and Contemporary Societies. On the Limits of Property and Membership (Buono, Alessandro; Cerutti, Simona; Schijman, Emilia - 2024 - 1.1 Articolo in rivista)
• How to claim things with rites. Care for the dead and inheritance rights in early modern Europe [and beyond] (Buono, Alessandro - 2024 - 2.1 Contributo in volume (Capitolo o Saggio))
• El deber de cuidado. Cosas y personas abandonadas en el léxico constitucional y en las prácticas de justicia del antiguo régimen (Buono, Alessandro - 2024 - 1.1 Articolo in rivista)
• The Danger of Ruin and the Irresponsible Owner. Inheritance Disputes in the Spanish Empire [Kingdom of Guatemala, 17 th Century] (Buono, Alessandro - 2023 - 1.1 Articolo in rivista)
• IL QUASI POSSESSO DELLA CONSANGUINEITÀ. LE REGISTRAZIONI PARROCCHIALI DI ANTICO REGIME COME TRASCRIZIONE DI ATTI DI POSSESSO DI STATO (Buono, Alessandro - 2023 - 2.1 Contributo in volume (Capitolo o Saggio))
• The King Heir. Claiming vacant estate succession in Europe and in the Spanish World [13th-18th centuries] (Buono, Alessandro - 2020 - 1.1 Articolo in rivista)
• Sous tutelle. Biens sans maître et successions vacantes dans une perspective comparative, XIIIe-XXe siècles / Under Guardianship. Properties without Owner and Vacant Successions in a Comparative Perspective, 13th-20th Centuries (Gabbiani, Luca; Buono, Alessandro - 2020 - 7.1 Curatela)
• « Tener persona ». Sur identité et identification dans les sociétés d’ancien régime (Buono, Alessandro - 2020 - 1.1 Articolo in rivista)
• Eredi rituali e conflitti giurisdizionali nella Monarchia spagnola di antico regime (Buono, Alessandro - 2019 - 1.1 Articolo in rivista)
• "Tratándole como paysano y él a ellos". Pertenencia local, redes supralocales y transmisión de bienes entre el Nuevo y el Viejo Mundo [siglo XVII] (Buono, Alessandro - 2019 - 1.1 Articolo in rivista)

Tutte le pubblicazioni di Alessandro Buono su ARPI, l'archivio della Ricerca dell'Università di Pisa