ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Italy, or rather Central and Northern Italy, was still one of the more highly developed regions of Western Europe, with an exceptionally high standard of living for that time. Towards the end of the same century, that is around 1680, Italy had become a backward and depressed area; her manufacturing industry had collapsed, there were too many people for the available resources; agriculture had become by far the most productive section of the economy. To study this tragic example of economic decline there are no very elaborate statistics. However, there is enough information to make it possible at least to understand in a general way how far things had changed.
