ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the 1500s, Rome was in seventh place according to number of inhabitants in respect to the largest Italian cities.' A century later the number of inhabitants was close to 100,000 and Rome was by then the the fourth largest Italian city, after Naples, Venice and Milan.2 Conversely, in the 1600s demographic growth began to slow down establishing itself at more contained levels. During the plague of 1656, Rome registered a slight decrease of 10 per cent in number of inhabitants. In the space of a few months the population of Rome calculated at the beginning of the year at 121,000, had been reduced to 99,000. By 1658, however, there had already been a rapid recovery and the population of Rome had risen to 103,000, and 15 years later Rome had returned to the population levels prior to the plague.3 A lista animarum drawn up in 1673 indicated that the population at the time was distributed throughout the land in 82 parishes.4 The gradual increase in population continued throughout the subsequent years, to reach a peak of 140,000 inhabitants at the end of the century. In the 1700s, however, there was another decrease and the population seemed to establish itself at around 132,000 inhabitants thus reaching a level which then remained substantially stable for a long period of time: in 1820 Rome still had around 135,000 inhabitants.5 Immigration played an important role, and tended to favour the influx of male population rather than female population. The services required in the offices of the Holy See, the aristocratic courts and the court of cardinals attracted labour from the surrounding countryside, and the numerous building sites constantly going up in the city almost exclusively made use of male labour.6 Despite the moderate population increase urban agglomeration expanded visibly and the number of
inhabitants per household decreased. The 5.5 inhabitants per dwelling calculated at the beginning of the 1600s went down to 4.3 within a time span of only 100 years. 7 The building regulations established in 157 4 by Gregory XIII provided for the construction of popular housing, as well as churches and palaces for the nobility.8
