A general picture of the Milanese associations in the XVI-XVII Centuries. The religious heritage of the brotherhoods was reshaped in the contest of the catholic renewal promoted by the Archbishop Carlo Borromeo. The changes were added to the stability of the structures and of the ritual forms inherited from the past, at the same time as the religious factor went on relating closely to the relationship networks and the needs of security linked to the occupational groups and to the estates hierarchy.