Lay-Religious Associations, Urban Identities, and Urban Space in Eighteenth-Century Milan

Religious life was integral to the social and political organization of eighteenth-century Milan. The composition and character of lay-religious activities reflect not only official hierarchies within the city but also unofficial bonds and identities, such as those of neighbourhood. They reveal the multiple identities of neighbourhood, parish, trade and family, but equally the tensions between collective forms of piety and the new religious values and aesthetic adopted by the Milanese elites during the late Enlightenment.