The Roman Annona and its Market in the Eighteenth Century

In Rome’s territory, certain news of one organization called ‘Abundance’ date back to the 15th century. All this materialised in the formation and growth of a politically controlled system of circulation of foodstuffs, and particularly of wheat, known today as a victualling system. This chapter aims to contribute to the debate on food supply and on the role played by rationing systems with reference to Rome’s case, focusing attention on actors and wheat circuits. In the 1805, bankruptcy petition of the Annona, represent the consequence of having maintained for a long time a system no longer functional to the needs for transformation of the State and that had the ultimate reasons in the disappearance of an entire model of economic policy, and in the diffusion of free-swinging principles underlying the new capitalist economic system.