L'Associazione siciliana pel bene economico di Palermo

The Sicilian Association for Economic Welfare started in Palermo in 1895, on the initiative of a group of private citizens, aiming at improving both the moral situation and the economy of Sicily. The purpose was also to protect the harmony and cleanliness of Palermo, improve the efficiency of its services, the development of public transport toward other Italian and foreign towns, together with the promotion of its natural environment, of the climate and of the monuments of this part of Italy. This Association, conceived by Giuseppe Lanza Count of Mazzarino, member of one of the noblest Sicilian Families, numbered about a hundred people, many of whom are now famous as the most renowned in the scientific, artistic, economic and cultural fields in the 19th century. The Association acted either by means of direct participation, including payment of expenses, or by involving national and local authorities, or even by editing booklets.

Its activities lasted up to 1920, when the history of the whole Italy was going into a peculiar direction. This study aims not only at informing about this nearly unknown event in the history of Sicily, but also to investigate the features of this association against the other contemporary aggregations (political parties, religious congregations, conversation clubs, cultural circles). Above all, this work reflects on the transition from a way of living connected to the memories of the age-old Kingdom of Sicily and its feudal views towards a much wider horizon predicting a great national state on the way to modernization. The author points out the originality of the basic ideas of the association, which, in the flow of history, may be considered a forerunner of the American club services of the twentieth century (Rotary, Lyons, Soroptimist, etc). [Publisher's text].