ABSTRACT: In this study we want to investigate a specific cultural dimension of every social community: the religious one, and the sub- communities it leads to establish. In this inquiry we intend to reflect on Cristian catholic communities, constituted and developed in order to satisfy specific and particular religious or para-religious needs. For religious needs we mean those ones met by presbyteries (priests), through the administering of sacraments; for para-religious needs, instead, we refer to those ones the fulfillment of which is in the hands of the believers themselves, like, for instance, the assistance to needy people, deceased sepulture, organization of religious celebrations annually held in the churches of territorial pertinence, pilgrims shelter, assistance to detainees, hospitals building and maintenance, etc. The communities that adopt the satisfaction of such needs as their operative goal are named Confraternities or Companies. Our investigation refers to the centuries-old Confraternity of SS. Trinità, which is one of the earlier laical Companies founded within the Cristian community of Siena – still active today – privileging the gathering of pieces of information arising from reading data disclosed in the annual Balance sheets (Rendiconto finanziario). Therefore, our attention is mainly devoted to those Balance sheets composed in the 1897-1900 period, with the aim to show both formal modifications to those accounting documents in the analysed period and the substantial continuity in the administrative directives pursued by the Confraternity in the same time frame.
KEYWORDS: Laical Companies, Balance sheets, Governance
