Anglo-American Conference of Historians 2009: Cities
Institute of Historical Research, 2 - 3 July 2009
The political development of the Italian City-State from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance
Chair: tbc
The emergence and evolution of city-states in Italy is widely recognised as a key development in the
history of pre-modern Western Europe. It is also a defining phase in the history of Italy, the
enduring legacy of which is still apparent today.
This panel will look at the exercise of power and the temper of political life in Italian cities in this critical period. The papers will focus attention on the characteristic institutional forms that emerged in cities at this time – the twelfth/thirteenth-century Commune, and the fourteenth/fifteenth- century Republic and Principality.
Drawing on the latest research, including their own, the contributors will highlight the key characteristics of Italian Communes, Republics and Principalities and consider connections and relationships between them over space and time.
Abstracts
The commune
Edward Coleman (University College Dublin)
Government by a commune was established between c.1080 and c.1130 in almost all north Italian cities. A century later communes were given constitutional recognition by the German emperor, Frederick I, under the terms of the Peace of Constance (1183). However by the end of the thirteenth century most communes had given way to one-party or one-family rule. This paper will discuss the successes and failures of the communal regimes in this period in areas such as public order, relations with the church and economic policy, It will also look at why communal elites were concerned to create a sense of civic identity and self-image for the urban community and how they went about doing so.
Communes and lordships
John Law (University of Swansea)
Students of Florence and the Medici have long been interested in the
relationship - or tension - between the commune's republican tradition and
Medici lordship 'in the making' in the fifteenth century and beyond. Less
familiar is the situation in the majority of the cities of northern and
central Italy, where communes had succumbed to lordships - signorie - from
the thirteenth century. To what extent did the communal tradition - and
communal institutions - survive, or were they overwhelmed by signorial
authority? This paper will explore some of the source material that may
throw light on the balance between 'communes' and 'despots', and will ask if
'diarchy' - or dual government - existed. It will suggest that a clear,
constitutional, definition cannot be reached but that the sources and issues
involved in reaching that 'open' conclusion can be revealing.
The principality
Trevor Dean (Roehampton University)
Did the fifteenth-century principality have a negative or positive effect on Italian cities? This paper will address this question by examining the development of cities in three states of northern Italy: a large regional state (Lombardy under the Visconti and Sforza dukes), a small regional state (the duchies of Ferrara and Modena under the Este) and a single city (Mantua under the Gonzaga). The themes to be explored will range from building projects and economic policies to the promotion of art/learning and the division between capital and subject cities.
