Marginalia. Examples of human misery from the Registri dei Morti in the age of the Sforza

Abstract

In the mid‐Fifteenth Century, Francesco Sforza, become new Duke of Milan, carried out hospital reform and introduce the systematic compilation of the Registry of deaths. This Registry reflects the will of the ducal government to check population mortality and morbidity and suspicious or traumatic deaths in one of the most important cities in Europe, not only for healthcare reasons but also to supervise and to defend the economic value of human capital of the duchy. Today these records open up a significant breakthrough on the causes of individual deaths of marginalized classes of the society, often forgotten by ancient sources.