La contabilità per lo studio dei consumi nobiliari. Evidenze dalle fonti etnee (secoli XVIII-XIX)

This paper aims to underline the crucial contribution that the analysis of the bookkeeping sources brings to the study of aristocratic consumption. The bookkeeping sources allow to investigate the noble lifestyle and permit to check, both from a qualitative and a quantitative point of view, the different categories of expense by which the aristocracy underlined her own status. The case analysed – that was the eminent Sicilian lineage of Paternò – permitted to verify the composition and the evolution of the family expenses during the XVIII and the XIX centuries. In particular, we underlined the relations between the evolution of consumption and the changes in the family structure. The analysis of bookkeeping sources, in effect, permit to show the modifications of the typology and the bearing of consumption on varying of the head and of the objectives of the family.