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Anna Canalis di Cumiana

1680–1769

Born
23 Apr 1680, Turin
Country of birth
Duchy of Savoy, today Italy
Died
1769, Pinerolo
facts
9
sources
1
images and files
0

Facts and their sources

Tap a fact to see where it comes from.

  • Birth23 Apr 1680, TurinProbableDisputed1 competing claim1 source
  • Death1769, PineroloProbableDisputed1 competing claim1 source
  • ParentFrançois Maurice Canalis, Comte de CumianaConfirmed1 source
  • TitleLady of the BedchamberConfirmed1 source

A life in time

  1. Born · Turin

    Birth, Turin

  2. Died · Pinerolo

    Death, Pinerolo

What was it like?

The world around Turin, 1680: who ruled, who else was alive, how people lived. This is general history, not a record about the family, and every item shows where it comes from.

Simple peasants wore sturdy, locally-made garments of brown or white wool and stiff cloth for everyday tasks.

Known for

Titles held

  • Lady of the Bedchamber
Fashion

Everyday peasant clothing

Simple peasants wore sturdy, locally-made garments of brown or white wool and stiff cloth for everyday tasks.

Feast day attire

For feast days and Sundays, people increasingly wore finer, brightly colored fabrics that were imported rather than produced in the village.

Music

Hunting horns in religious and public life

Hunting horns were used for communication and public celebration, with performances traditionally occurring during mass on Saint Hubert's Feast Day. This ancient sound helped connect the congregation and audience to nature during these open-air events.

Hurdy-gurdy as a popular folk instrument

The hurdy-gurdy was a common instrument used by ordinary people for centuries to accompany singing, dancing, and popular entertainment. It was also famously associated with Savoyard street performers and children who traveled across Europe with their music and puppets.

Getting around

Horse relay postal systems

Organized postal routes allowed authorized travelers or couriers to use relay stations to swap tired horses for fresh ones, significantly increasing their travel speed.

Mountain travel and daily distances

Alpine crossings required switching to mules or porters because carriage roads often ended at the base of the mountains. Travelers covering long distances usually managed about 20 to 40 kilometers per day.

Daily life

Education and social life

While public education systems were introduced by 1661, daily social interaction for the rural population primarily took place in stables during the evening, which served as a shared space for work and exchange.

Around 1690–1699

Forced lodging of soldiers

Ordinary families often had to provide their own heating, bedding, salt, and cooking materials for quartered soldiers. Soldiers could forcefully enter these homes, sometimes destroying doors with muskets.

Food

Simple Daily Meals and Rare Meat

For many ordinary people, the daily meal was simple and focused on survival, often consisting of dark bread, wine, and soups made with vegetables like cabbage, turnips, or onions. Meat was a rare luxury, eaten mostly during festivals or when money allowed.

Around 1690–1699

Survival Diet During War and Famine

During times of war and famine around the 1690s, the rural poor in mountainous provinces were sometimes forced to survive on ground shells and nuts mixed with small amounts of oats or barley.

Prices and wages
Around 1676–1678

Wheat prices doubled during a food crisis

During a severe food crisis in Turin between 1676 and 1678, the price of a measure of wheat rose from less than 43 soldi to 105 soldi.

Daily wages and food costs in Turin

Ordinary workers in Turin earned daily wages of just a few dozen soldi, making a single measure of wheat cost as much as six to ten days of labor during price spikes.

Work

Common jobs in the Duchy of Savoy

Common occupations included domestic servants, laborers, masons, bakers, and shoemakers for immigrants, while native city dwellers often worked in tailoring, weaving, or bureaucracy. Women frequently worked as domestic servants, washerwomen, seamstresses, or shopkeepers.

Hardships of the common people

During times of famine and war, survival for the poorest was so dire that they lived on ground shells and nuts mixed with a small amount of oats or barley. Additionally, during military occupations, peasants were often forced to provide heating, bedding, salt, and cooking materials for quartered troops.

News and letters

Slow mail and high-stakes information delivery

Communication was physically limited by geography and weather, as letters between Turin and Paris took about a week to arrive. Because information only moved as fast as a person could travel, a intercepted letter could be more valuable than the money a traveler carried.

State-controlled postal relay networks in Savoy

In the Duchy of Savoy, the state had claimed an exclusive right to the postal service since 1604, although it was managed through contracts until 1718. Ordinary travelers and official couriers moved at different speeds, with official messages prioritized via dedicated relays of horses.

During their lifetime

  1. 1686

    1686 ban on Reformed religion

    Following pressure from Louis XIV, Duke Victor Amadeus II issued an edict on 31 January 1686 that prohibited the Reformed religion and forced Waldensians to choose between conversion or exile.

  2. 1690

    Famine during 1690s war occupation

    Due to war-related requisitions and bad harvests starting in 1690, families in the mountainous Tarentaise and Maurienne provinces were reduced to eating ground shells and nuts mixed with small amounts of oats or barley.

  3. 1695

    Hospice for the Poor established in 1695

    In 1695, Duke Rinaldo I established the Hospice for the Poor to manage the large influx of beggars and unemployed people in the city of Modena.

  4. 1702

    French forces occupied Modena in 1702

    French troops occupied Modena in August 1702, forcing Duke Rinaldo and his court to flee to Bologna during the War of the Spanish Succession.

  5. 1707

    Duke Rinaldo returns to Modena, 1707

    Duke Rinaldo returned to Modena in February 1707 after the French withdrawal, following an intense bombardment of the city.

  6. 1720

    Company of Charity founded in 1720

    In February 1720, Lodovico Antonio Muratori founded the Company of Charity in his parish to support the sick and needy of Modena.

Family

Parents

Spouses

Ancestors and children

Open the full tree

Four generations back to the right, the children to the left. The number beside a child counts the generations of descendants known after them.