Dalla carità alla "pubblica beneficenza". L'assistenza ad Ascoli nell'età napoleonica

By the time of the annexation of the Marca pontificia by the Kingdom of Italy (April 1808), public assistance in Ascoli had taken the form of various institutions designed to meet the needs of specific societal segments. Specifically, women, children, and the sick composed the privileged categories around which, over time, the various civic structures of public and private charity were erected. With the advent of the Napoleonic government, public assistance came under the direct control of state entities (called Congregazioni di carità) to ensure greater organization and consistency of care and to guarantee more prudent management of financial resources. Moreover, the Napoleonic government assigned strategic importance to public welfare reform, driven by the need to deal effectively with the problem of poverty and its corollaries of vagrancy, begging, and crime, all phenomena capable of undermining public order and stability in a government that was struggling to satisfy popular demand. This strategic emphasis led it to adopt a series of tougher measures for the fight against such marginalization. However, the overarching French plan to eliminate mendicancy would have many practical and organizational obstacles to overcome before it could be fully realized - a challenge also heightened by the atmosphere of general uncertainty that characterized the last years of the Kingdom.