La confisca nella prassi lombarda settecentesca : la vicenda del conte Biancani

After a brief introduction about the seizure’s legislation and the historical evolution in the Duchy of Milan, the essay explores how the confiscations chancellery worked inside the Extraordinary Magistrate by investigating the documents collected in the sections “Finanza confische” and “Finanza apprensioni” of the State Archive of Milan. Besides, the paper focuses on earl Biancani’s confiscation proceedings, an important event of lombard chronicles in the first half of the eighteenth century, ended with a clamorous death sentence. The Biancani’s affair, reconstructed with the support of a lot of State Archive’s documents about this long confiscation proceeding, which carried on until the end of the eighteenth century, symbolizes very well the conditions of application of the seizure penalty, that struck repeatedly not only the offender, but also the members of his family until the end of the age of Enlightenment.