Élites trasversali nell’età moderna. L’ascesa delle famiglie popolari: i Lauro Grotto

In the early modern age, there is a conflict between the nobility and the popular class for participation in the political life of the cities. The popular class claims everywhere a political role, pursuing a more formal “corporative” organization on the model of the nobility, structured with so-called nobiliter viventes on the top, who try to discriminate against the other kind of the popular people, asking for the institutionalization of a “piazza dei civili”. Even in Salerno, the ceto civile seeks to distinguish itself from the generic people and craftsmen, especially by modeling habits, wealth choices and family strategies to the examples offered by the aristocracy. The lineage of Lauro Grotto - born from the fusion between the families Lauro and Del Grotto - appears on the city scene of Salerno in the mid-sixteenth century, consolidates in the seventeenth century with remarkable matrimonial operations, reaches the apogee of his wealth and prestige in the eighteenth century. On the identity level, the Lauro Grotto family cemented his family self-awareness and his elite status around two core foundations: the doctorate in law and the possession of the “Neapolitan citizenship”, which guaranteed wide taxable prerogatives throughout all the Kingdom. With such features, the Lauro Grotto family is enrolled in the transversal elite that dominates the city of Salerno and the Kingdom, beyond the simple distinction between noble class and popular class.