Workshops, contracts, confraternities and notaries: how emigration was organized
The family workshop and the partnership
The basic unit of the building emigration was the family workshop. A master took his sons, nephews and sons-in-law with him, trained them on the building site and, as they grew older, gave them responsibility for parts of the work.1 The workshop owned little in the way of fixed capital. Its assets were tools, drawings, pattern books, the master's reputation and a network of clients. These assets passed from one generation to the next within the family, and the drawings of several lake families have survived in archives because they were kept as working documents by successive generations.
Where several masters worked together for longer periods, they often formed a partnership (compagnia). The partners agreed on their contributions in labour and money, on the division of profits and on the settlement of accounts at the end of the season or the contract. Such partnerships were concluded before a notary in the home village or at the place of work, and they were frequently limited to one commission. They resembled the Italian commenda and compagnia of the merchant world in their structure. Capital and labour were combined for a defined venture, and liability and profit shares were fixed in advance.
Recruitment followed kinship and neighbourhood. A boy from Bissone or Carona, who had usually learnt to read and reckon from the parish priest between the ages of six and ten, would leave home between ten and fifteen as a garzone (apprentice or helper) in a workshop that often belonged to a relative or a fellow villager. The apprenticeship of a stonemason lasted four or five years, after which the young man worked as a lavorante (journeyman) and eventually, if he succeeded, as a maestro with his own team.2 The same pattern appears in the teams of stucco-workers in Bavaria and Austria, where the account books of monasteries and courts list masters and assistants with the same surnames season after season. The workshop thus functioned as a school, an employment agency and an insurance scheme at once, since a sick or injured member could count on the support of his relatives.
The building contract
The legal core of the building emigration was the contract with the client. In Italian it was called capitoli or convenzione, and in German-speaking lands Akkord, Verding or Spanzettel.3 Such contracts typically defined the work to be done by reference to a drawing or model, the materials and who supplied them, the price as a lump sum or by measure, the schedule of payments, the lodging and board of the workers, travel money and the deadline. Many also contained provisions on the inspection of the work by experts (periti) and on the resolution of disputes by arbitration. Payment in instalments was the rule. A first sum was paid on signature to cover travel and the purchase of materials, further payments followed at defined stages, and the balance was due after inspection and acceptance of the work. This structure required the master to finance part of the work himself and exposed him to the risk of late payment or dispute. For this reason the contracts of the larger workshops were drafted with care, often by notaries or ecclesiastical administrators on the client's side. The masters in turn learnt to insist on written terms.
Essentials. A typical early modern building contract of a lake master contained the following elements, which remain the core of construction contracts today: (1) a description of the works by reference to a drawing or model; (2) the allocation of materials between client and contractor; (3) the price, as a lump sum or by measure and valuation; (4) an advance payment and a schedule of instalments tied to stages of the work; (5) board, lodging and travel for the team; (6) deadlines and sometimes penalties; (7) inspection by experts and acceptance; and (8) arbitration of disputes. The allocation of financing risk between client and master was the economic heart of the contract, because the master bore the costs of labour until the next instalment arrived.
Notes
- Laura Damiani Cabrini, "Maestranze artistiche", Dizionario storico della Svizzera (DSS), version of 20 March 2015, https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/it/articles/047823/. ↩
- Repubblica e Cantone Ticino, OltreconfiniTI, "Artisti e artigiani in tutta Europa", https://www4.ti.ch/can/oltreconfiniti/dalle-origini-al-1900/storia-dellemigrazione-ticinese/ artisti-e-artigiani-in-tutta-europa. ↩
- Literature on Baroque building in southern Germany and on Lombard building contracts. ↩
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.