Giovanna Tonelli, The Annoni and the Carenna in seventeenth-century Milan, in David Jaffé, Rubens’s Massacre of the Innocents. The Thomson Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Skylet Publishing/The Art Gallery of Ontario, 2009, pp.154-177, 182-192.
This essay analyses the economic and social climbing of the Carenna family and their Annoni in-laws the merchant bankers who had been running the transport and exchange of goods between the Po Valley and Antwerp since the early 16th century, with branches in both Milan and Antwerp. Originally from Annone in Brianza, three of the Carenna brothers lived in Milan and grew to prominence in the shadow of the Annoni. The fourth, Giacomo Antonio (the owner of Rubens’s Massacre of the Innocents now in the Art Gallery of Ontario) moved in Antwerp. At the beginning of the 1630s the Carenna brothers became shareholders in both the Antwerp and the Milan branches, a first step towards independence. Carenna’s Antwerp branch and Annoni’s upward career received substantial impetus from their willingness to service the Spanish Crown: during the 1630s and the 1640s they acted as mediators in transferring money to pay the army, and were ennobled as a reward. The Milanese branch of the Carenna, working mainly as bankers, was raised to the nobility only at the beginning of the 18th century.
The inventories of the houses of Giovanni Pietro Annoni in Milan and in Vittuone (1627) and of Stefano Carenna in Milan and in Annone di Brianza (1680), published in the appendix, provide an insight in the lifestyle of these merchants.
See also:
- Giovanna Tonelli, Materiali per lo studio di famiglie mercantili milanesi in età moderna, Brescia, CLUB, 2008
- Giovanna Tonelli, Materiali per lo studio delle relazioni commerciali e finanziarie fra Milano e i Paesi d’Oltralpe nella prima metà del XVII secolo, Brescia, CLUB, 2008
These Working Papers are available online at http://www.giovannatonelli.it/en/doc.html.
This website will also feature any research updates on the Annoni and Carenna families.
