Pellagra in Veneto and the Responsibility of the Habsburg Government

Written by an unknown author

Another characteristic of Austrian colonialism in occupied Veneto was the imposition of monoculture and the endemic spread of pellagra. The causes of this disease were long debated by medical science, resulting in three different theories: biological, toxicological, alimentary. However, the relationship between pellagra and a diet based on corn had been known since the beginning of the nineteenth century and the same Habsburg authorities knew about it, thanks to the results of medical investigations that revealed such a link.

However, the agricultural policy of the Habsburg Empire directly encouraged a monoculture of corn in Veneto. The imposition or incentivization of agricultural monoculture is a characteristic instrument of colonial policies of economic exploitation, which at the same time seeks to turn a territory into a consumer basin for the products of the dominant State and export area of raw materials (thus usually of low value) and produced with little diversification (i.e. monoculture), so as to obstruct a favorable negotiation. As with many British and French colonies outside Europe, the Veneto was pushed to sell all that it produced (the farmsteads) at low prices and only to the country that exploited it, and forced to purchase, at a high price, all other necessary foodstuffs from the same exploiter country. Therefore, for Austria, the monoculture of corn was both an instrument of economic enrichment and a political tool to keep Lombardy-Venetia in a state of underdevelopment and therefore in a position of subjection.

In addition, during Habsburg rule there arose a thriving trade in alcoholic beverages adulterated with toxic percentages of methanol, produced in Austria and marketed in Veneto. Although pellagra was caused primarily by a diet based only on corn (polenta), also alcoholism, due to a type of adulterated liquor, favored the emergence and worsening of the disease, as doctors of the period had discovered. The tolerance of the Habsburg authorities towards this type of trafficking, which contributed to the enrichment of dishonest Austrian producers, caused the spread of alcoholism in Lombardy and especially in Veneto, where many poor and unaware farmers bought liquor sold at a very low price. It is estimated that the average rate of alcohol consumption in Veneto at that period exceeded 120 liters per capita per year for adult men.

Those two causes meant that pellagra, already present in the Veneto area in the previous century, would acquire a very high diffusion rate. It is estimated that in the period between 1815-1866 at least 1/5 of the inhabitants of Veneto were afflicted with pellagra, but the percentage rose to 1/3 among the rural population. This disease damages your mind along with your body, leading to a state of progressive dementia until death. The incidence of pellagra in Veneto, rampant in the period of 1815-1866, was one of the main causes of the economic and social collapse of this region under Habsburg misrule. The evil of pellagra, for the same reasons, also spread enormously in Lombardy, Friuli and to a lesser extent Trentino, so that during the rule of the Habsburgs these three regions contained about 90% of all pellagrins living in Italy. It is believed that in 1866 Veneto had about 100,000 sufferers of pellagra, but many others existed in the neighboring regions. This may help give you an idea of how many pellagrins there were in the Italian territories of the "House of Austria" in the period of 1815-1866.

The Viennese government remained motionless in the face of this phenomenon, which was the object of study and intervention only on the part of the new Italian state after 1866, when Venetia was finally liberated during the Third Italian War of Independence. Suffice it to say that in the period of 1870-1879 alone there were fifty studies on pellagra, far more than the amount of studies that took place in Lombardy-Venetia during the entire period of Habsburg domination.


Final Comments

There is no doubt that the Habsburg tax burden was extraordinary. In addition to what was said earlier, it is important to remember two simple facts:

1) Lombardy-Venetia had 1/8 of the population of the Habsburg Empire, but provided 1/3 of the tax revenue.

2) The Kingdom of Sardinia in 1859 had a tax burden close to 25% of its GDP. During that same time, Lombardy-Venetia under the Habsburgs had a tax burden of 58% of its GDP, more than double that of the Kingdom of Sardinia.

No form of self-government was ever granted to Italians in Lombardy-Venetia under Habsburg rule. First of all, the Habsburg Empire remained until its end a strongly centralized state, so that the chief legislative and administrative power belonged to the Viennese government, in which the inhabitants of Lombardy-Venetia had no role whatsoever. Moreover, the theoretically “local” governmental positions of Lombardy-Venetia were in fact appointed by the Emperor, and in their highest levels they were always allocated to Austrians. Only minor positions, with very limited powers, were entrusted to Italians. This situation, denounced even by moderates like Carlo Cattaneo, was a major cause of the hostility of the Lombard-Venetian subjects against Habsburg rule.

Trade between Lombardy-Venetia and central Europe was set up by the Habsburg authorities and by Habsburg law in such a way so as to be more functional to Austrian economic needs than to Italian needs. The Habsburg government in fact intended to transform Lombardy-Venetia into a typical colony, useful both as a marketing area for their products, as well as for the subordinate production of raw materials. In fact, Venetian commerce languished under Habsburg rule, reduced primarily to exporting sunny agricultural commodities (cereals, wine, raw silk) without any significant exportation of artisan or industrial products. This led to the spread of a monoculture of corn, which greatly contributed to the spread of pellagra.