La ricchezza della natura: risorse forestali e scambi nelle Alpi orientali della prima età moderna

In early modern Europe, the demand for a strategic raw material for pre-industrial society and the exhaustion of resources local to cities provided the incentive to progressively expand the supply basins and attracted merchants to the most remote forests that could supply conifers in particular. The expansion followed the watercourses backwards, from the plains to the sources, and the worksites moved progressively towards the most remote forests of the Eastern Alpine range, centred around an extensive network of river tributaries, with catchment basins that partly extended beyond the borders. Despite the high costs of labour, infrastructure, and transportation, these routes were the most rapid and reliable for getting timber to the main market, Venice, where demand was high throughout the modern age. This essay focuses primarily on the common woodlands of a group of villages in the Tesino valley, on the border between the County of Tyrol and the Republic of Venice and analyzes the different actors involved in their management between 15. and 17. centuries and the role of the Venetian patriciate in their exploitation.