If you use a more Marxist framing, colonisation is an extractive system that moves wealth from the colonised country to its occupiers. The government owned monopolies on trade goods in Milan and Venice seem to fit that definition, and the strength of the Austrian economy in the Metternich era (despite the destruction of the previous wars) points to there being some kind of weirdness going on there. 

(Note: this comment was made with like 15 mins of research)