This dissertation explores the intersection between scientific practices and political economy from the time of Maria Theresa's and Joseph II's reforms in the Habsburg State of Milan to the Cisalpina and Italian Republics. It is structured in four parts, corresponding to the themes of "appropriations", "technologies", "spaces" and "soils". Each of these parts comprises of two chapters, with the exception of the last one on "soils". Part I, named "Appropriations", explores how the Società Patriotica took on board the practices and debates which originated in the context of French Physiocracy, such as economic milling and the question of the scale of land-holdings, and analyses how they were appropriated to fit the political economy of the State of Milan. Part II, titled "Technologies", takes into account the attitudes of Milanese reformers, public officers and naturalists towards mechanical arts and, in general, towards technology for the achievement of the felicità and utilità pubblica. Part III of the dissertation has been named "Spaces". It focuses on the travels of naturalists Domenico Vandelli, Paolo Sangiorgio and Lazzaro Spallanzani, using them as starting points to examine the significance of natural history practices, such as travelling and collecting, for an understanding of contemporary political economy. Part IV, titled "Soils", examines a series of texts about the management and making of salnitro, showing their relevance in the context of the newly founded Italian Republic. Overall, the thesis aims to acknowledge the complexity, as well as the intellectual debts, of the production of political economy and scientific knowledge in the State of Milan, and pushes forward the debate on the Italian Enlightenment, by opposing those narratives which have represented it as a marginal and peripheral case in the broader and more "international" European Enlightenment.

Désireux de conquérir et de dominer le Milanais, François Ier (1515-1521) Francesco II Sforza (1522-1525) et Charles Quint (1526-1530) sont tous trois confrontés à un terreau politique à haut potentiel centrifuge, ce que nous appelons un « champ de forces et de luttes ». Notre enquête comparative de leur exercice successif de la domination met en lumière trois stratégies originales d’exercice direct, de délégation du pouvoir et d’intégration/médiation par les élites ou le popolo. Car chacun des princes et de leurs serviteurs conçoivent, à leur façon, leur propre pouvoir, les limites juridiques, géographiques et symboliques de celui-ci, et de celles des sujets dominés. Chacun a sa cartographie propre des rapports de force en ses terres d’origines, à Milan, en Italie, et en Europe. Très important, chaque modèle n’est pas statique mais en production, en tant que fruit d’une dialectique continue entre son héritage et une réalité chaque jour inédite, entre ses forces internes et l’influence extérieure, entre ce qu’il croit, et dit être, et ce qu’il exprime au quotidien. Dans ce contexte, la capacité d’adaptation du politique, ses modalités et ses limites face à l’inconnu et l’inédit devient cruciale afin de faire prévaloir ses attentes et défendre ses gains politiques. / Eager to conquer and dominate the State of Milan, Francis I (1515-1521) Francesco II Sforza (1522-1525) and Charles V (1526-1530) all three face a political ground with high centrifugal potential, what we call a "field of forces and struggles". Our comparative survey of their successive exercise of domination highlights three original strategies of direct exercise, delegation of power and integration/mediation by the elites or the Popolo. In their own way, each of the princes and their servants conceive their own power, its legal, geographic and symbolic limits, and the quality of dominated subjects. Each has its own mapping power relations in its origins land whether in Milan, France and Spain. Very importantly, each model is not static but in production, as a result of continuous dialectic between its heritage and a reality each day renewed, between its internal forces and external influences, between what he believes, and said to be, and that it expresses every day. In this context, the policy of adaptability, its terms and limits of the unknown and the unexpected becomes crucial to uphold its expectations and defend its political gains.