Abstract
The essays collected in this volume draw from the history of law and institutions, history of art and urban planning, geography and cartography, economic and social history, and propose a reflection on center-periphery relations, the hybridization between cultures, and the adaptation of “external” models in the definition, construction and control of urban, rural and state space. The subject of this interdisciplinary investigation is mainly the city of Milan, the Lombard region and the area of Canton Ticino between the end of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth century: a period marked by important political-legal transitions, during which on the one hand the efforts of state authorities were aimed at implementing new legislative references for spatial and territorial organization, and on the other hand phenomena of resistance and opposition to this new legislation emerged.