The communities and the comuni: The implementation of administrative reforms in the Fiemme valley (Trentino, Italy) during the first half of the 19th century

Abstract

This paper examines transformations in the common management of lands in a valley of the Trentino Alps during the process of Austro-Hungarian state centralization in the first half of 19th century. The main aspects of this process involved an administrative transformation that led to the abolition of all legal and institutional competences of the rural communities and their replacement with modern municipal corporations, and new forest legislation. The hypothesis proposed here is that state intervention did not cause the end of common institutions, but instead caused a general redefinition of who could use these lands and how these lands could be used. These transformations were not simple top-down impositions, but the results of conflicts and negotiations within local communities and between them and the central government.