Abstract

The article analyses the social and urban transformations in a small town of southern Italy, Avellino, between 1806 and 1875. The overthrow of the feudal system favored the formation of a new class provided with economic and political power, linked to the possession of the land. The members of the landed gentry held indeed political leadership of the town over the time span considered, favoring the generation change in the name of the family. With the modernization of the ruling elites, also Avellino assumed the image of a city increasingly modern and bourgeois, by means of its local administrators.