Oscar Gaspari, History of the USCI. Statistical Union of Italian Cities 1905-1987. La rete degli statistici comunali, Gavardo (BS) Liberedizioni, 2022, pp. 240, € 20,00, Isbn 9791280148605.
The Statistical Union of Italian Cities (Usci) – founded by the mayor of Florence in 1905, and by Ugo Giusti, head of the municipal statistics office, who was its secretary – had close ties, both with the National Association of Italian Municipalities (Anci), established in Parma in 1901 and closed in 1925, and with national statistics, especially in the years of Giovanni Montemartini. The reference model was the German organisation Verband Deutscher Städtestatistiker.
The Union collaborated with national statistics – censuses of 1911 and 1921 – which regularly financed it, and had among its supporters Luigi Sturzo, at the time the vice president of Anci. Its suppression in 1927 was caused by the centralism of both the public administration, amplified by fascism, as well as Corrado Gini, the first president of Istat, which had been founded the previous year. A contribution to the end was also the competence for cost-of-living index numbers, assumed autonomously by the Union since 1920 and officially by Istat in 1927.
The Usci was, and still is, known for the Statistical Yearbook of Italian Cities, edited on their own in six editions, between 1906 and 1916 (I-VI) and subsequently by the General Confederation of Autonomous Authorities and the National Institute of Town Planning in 1929 and 1934 (VII and VIII), always under the leadership of Giusti who, after fostering the re-founding of the ANCI in 1946, also tried to re-found the Usci, which was not reborn until 1987 as the Statistical Union of Italian Municipalities.
Download the table of contents:
Gaspari_Estratto da Storia USCI
Oscar Gaspari is an expert for the chair of History and Political Institutions at the LUMSA in Rome. He studies, highlighting international perspectives, both urban realities and the situation of mountain territories, also through biographies of prominent figures, focusing in particular on the activities of local autonomy organisations. His most significant recent works include: La Lega delle Autonomie 1916-2016. Cento anni di storia del riformismo per il governo locale, Bologna, Il mulino 2016.
