Technical Plants and Enviromental Wellbeing in Milanese noble residences (1550-1650)

Renaissance treatises show how much their writers were sensitive to themes related to the salubriousness of the environment in which people lived. Thus the question arises as to what provisions were made in this regard in the field of housing, focusing attention on technical plants and on a limited geographical and temporal area. The present study has investigated, with particular regard for the diffusion, construction techniques and costs, the features of the technical plants (supply of drinking water, collection and drainage of rain and waste water, latrines and cesspools, heating, bathrooms) that noble Milanese residences were equipped with in the period 1550-1650 so as to guarantee health and comfort, and what devices were suggested, and often adopted, to optimise the efficiency of these systems. The documents analysed have also shown how sensitivity to such matters was common ground, at least on the level of those who could afford to own a home.