License to beg in early 18th-century Verona. Unused. Unrecorded.

[License to beg] / [Verona]. Rectores Veronae, Et Provisores Sanitatis, Concediamo licenza alla sottoscritta persona d’andar mendicando per questa Città, e Territorio giust’ai prescritti, dovendo restar sempre fuori dalla Chiese, ed astenersi dal questuare in altri luoghi dopo suonata l’Avemaria della sera. S.l. [Verona or Venice?]: s.n., s.a. [c. early 18th century]. [15.5 x 11.8 cm], [1] f. thick laid paper, with woodcut image. Well preserved.
 
 
Unrecorded, unused ‘license to beg’ from early 18th-century Verona, a rare ephemeral survival from what once would have been an extensive system for regulating mendicants. The license is printed on very thick paper, which suggests that it was intended to be sturdy enough to be carried on one’s person. 
 
The text states: “We grant permission to the undersigned to go begging in this City and Territory as prescribed, always having to remain outside the churches and to abstain from begging in other places after the evening Ave Maria has been rung.”
 
The license was issued at the Verona Office of Health. It was never filled out.
 
Heading the document is a woodcut of St. Zeno displaying a shield with a cross, i.e., the arms of Verona.
 
 
This item is not located by OCLC, KVK or ICCU/OPAC. Johns Hopkins holds a very similar item datable to c. 1715.