To contain and control: work organization and poor government in the Hospicio de Pobres of Mexico City and Real Albergo dei Poveri of Palermo in Eighteenth Century

The research aims to compare two different institutions: The Real Albergo dei Poveri of Palermo and the Hospicio de Pobres of Mexico City. The Real Albergo dei Poveri was established in 1772 (nevertheless its construction started 30 years earlier), where a silk manufacture, the Real Opificio delle Sete (Royal Silk factory), was established in 1790 to exploit the workforce hosted in the institution. The Hospicio de Pobres of Mexico City was settled in 1774 hosting a textile (cotton and wool) manufacture. Both the institutions were established in the same period and under the same theoretical impulse. The idea was born within that broad process of cultural change and administrative reforms that took place all over Europe and, of course, in the Bourbon New Spain. The enthronement of Charles of Bourbon in the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily in 1734 and subsequently in the Kingdom of Spain (1759), and his hand in the administrative reform, could be considered the fil rouge of the research.