Contraband of ideas: books across the border

Routes, carriers and buyers

A book printed in Capolago reached its readers in Milan by the same routes as other contraband. The frontier between Ticino and Lombardy ran across mountains, valleys and two lakes, and for centuries the inhabitants of the border villages had lived in part from carrying goods past the customs posts, as Chapter A.IV describes for the early modern period. Salt, tobacco, coffee, sugar and textiles moved north or south according to the differences in duties. Forbidden books joined these flows. Viganò describes the network of patriots who moved sacks of forbidden books and packets of conspiratorial correspondence across the border. When the Mazzinian Luigi Dottesio was stopped at Maslianico near Como on 12 January 1851, on his way out of Ticino, he was carrying papers of the Tipografia Elvetica.¹ Mazzini's network in Lugano avoided the post, which the Austrian authorities opened, and used trusted messengers, among them the marronai, itinerant chestnut-roasters who travelled between Ticino and the Lombard towns, and the members of the Gatti family.²

On the Lombard side the books were distributed by booksellers, students, priests and members of the professions who belonged to patriotic circles. Prices were high, because the risk premium of every carrier and intermediary was added to the cost of printing. The readers were the educated middle class of Milan, Como, Bergamo and Brescia. For the Austrian police the possession of such books was evidence of political disloyalty. For the readers it was a form of participation in a national movement that could not yet act openly. The trade thus had a double character: it was a commercial activity with prices, credit and debts, and at the same time a political act with criminal consequences.

Censorship and the police

The Austrian system of censorship in Lombardy-Venetia was preventive and centralized. A book printed abroad required permission before it could be sold, and that permission was refused for a long list of forbidden works. While the frontier customs offices were instructed to search for books, the police kept informers in Lugano itself. Most informers were Italians, but some were Ticinese, and Martinola identifies the conservative landamano Giovan Battista Quadri as the source of reports transmitted to the Milanese police between 1830 and 1832.³ Austrian diplomacy repeatedly asked the cantonal government to suppress particular publications. The cantonal authorities occasionally ordered seizures or prosecuted printers for insults against foreign sovereigns. Ruggia's difficulties, mentioned above, were typical. The presses responded with editions that carried no printer's details and plainly false dates, so that Austria found it harder to retaliate against the printer in Ticino. Conversely, works printed elsewhere sometimes bore the false imprint "Lugano", which the bibliographer Callisto Caldelari later distinguished from genuine Ticinese editions.⁴

Notes

1. Viganò, introduction (above), on the "sacchi di libri proibiti" and "plichi di corrispondenza cospirativa" and on Dottesio, "fermato a Maslianico, presso Como, in uscita dal Ticino, il 12 gennaio 1851, con carte dell'Elvetica". On smuggling across the Sottoceneri in general see Chapter A.IV. ↩
2. Martinola, "I mazziniani del Ticino" (above), on the marronai and the Gatti family as messengers used to avoid the post. ↩
3. Romano, review of Martinola (above), citing Giuseppe Martinola, Gli esuli italiani nel Ticino 1791– 1847 (Lugano 1980), p. 143, on "il personaggio di Giovan Battista Quadri che fra il 1830 e il 1832 trasmetteva rapporti alla polizia milanese", and p. 144, where the informers are said to have been "solitamente italiani, ma anche indigeni". ↩
4. Viganò, introduction (above), on texts "pubblicati tuttavia senza note tipografiche e con date palesemente false, per evitare ritorsioni dell'Austria" and on Caldelari's distinction between works printed in Ticino and those "pubblicate all'estero ma sotto la falsa dicitura 'Lugano'". See also Rinaldo Caddeo, Le edizioni di Capolago (1830–1853) (Milano 1934). ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of August 2025.