Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T01:40:32.301Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Political Conflict in the Italian City States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Extract

POLITICAL OPPOSITION IN ITALIAN CITY STATES WAS NOT FOR MEN who valued themselves more than they valued politics. The stakes were too high. Exile or loss of life and property were too often the penalties. The difficult legal circumstances which attended organized political opposition went back to the early commune, to the fervour of the civil struggles that began late in the 12th century. These were to affect the character of the opposition down to the 16th century. If the contenders in political strife sometimes expressed a readiness to compromise, they revealed, just as often, an inability to do so. And in critical times the desire for the physical elimination of political opponents easily emerged.

Major rivalries of the 11th and 12th centuries inadvertently favoured the rise of local government. The communes – rendered bolder in many cases by their quickening economies – profited from the conflicts between papacy and empire, between the emperor and the German princes, and between the episcopal and comital powers in Italy. As imperial authority waned, local groups all over north and central Italy pressed forward to take over the administration of their own affairs.

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1968

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Volpe, G., ‘Question fondamentali sull’rigine e svolgimento dei comuni italiani (secoli x‐xiv)’, in his Media Evo Italians, new ed., Florence, 1960 Google Scholar; Solmi, A., Il comune nella scoria del diritto, Milan, 1922 Google Scholar; Chiappelli, L., ‘La formazione storica del comune cittadino in Italia’, Archivio storico italiano (ASI), 86, 88 (1928, 1930 Google Scholar); Ottokar, N., ‘II problema della formazione comunale’, in Questioni di scoria medioevale, ed. Rota, E., Como‐Milan, 1946 Google Scholar.

2 Astuti, G., Lezioni di storia del diritto italiano: la formazione dello stato modern in Italia, I, Turin, 1957 Google Scholar.

3 Woolf, C.N.S., Bartolus of Sassoferrato, Cambridge, 1913 Google Scholar; Ercole, F., Da Bartolo all Altbusio: saggi sulla scoria del pensiero pubblicistico del rinascimenio italiano, Florence, 1932 Google Scholar; and Ullman, W., De Barton sententia: Concilium repraesentat mentem populi, in the sixth centenary papers, Bartolo da Sassoferrato, 2 vols., ed. Segoloni, D., Milan, 1962, II, pp. 707–33.Google Scholar

4 Cognasso, F., ‘Le origini dells signoria lombarda’, Arcbivio storico lombardo(ASL), Ser. VIII, 6, 1956, p. 12.Google Scholar

5 Salzer, E., Ueber die Anfänge der Signorie in Oberitalien, Berlin, 1900, pp. 20–11, 66 ffGoogle Scholar.; Hanauer, G., ‘Das Berufspodestat im 13 Jahrhunderts’, Mittheilungen des Instituts für Oesterreicbiscbe Geschichtsforschung, XXIII, 1902, pp. 377 Google Scholar ff. V. Franchini, Saggio di ricerche sull'istituto del podestà, Bologna, 1912; Sestan, E., ‘Ricerche intorno ai primi podestà toscani’, ASI, LXXXII, 2, 1924, pp. 177254.Google Scholar

6 Schevill, F., Siena, The History of a Medieval Commune, new ed., New York, 1964, pp. 215–16.Google Scholar

7 On the corporate movement see Valsecchi, F., Comune e corporazione nel medio evo italiano, Milan, 1948 Google Scholar; de Vergottini, G., Arti e popolo nella prima metà del sec. xiii, Milan, 1943 Google Scholar; Niccolai, F., ‘I consorzi nobiliari ed il comune nell'alta e media Italia’, Rivista di scoria del diritto italiano(RSDI), XIII, 1940, pp. 116–47, 292342.Google Scholar

8 Romanin, S., Storia documeniata di Venezia, III, Venice, 1855, pp. 2531 Google Scholar; Avogadro, G. A., ‘La congiura Tiepolo‐Querini’, Archivio veneto, II, 1871, pp. 214–18.Google Scholar

9 Fasoli, G., ‘Ricerche sulla legislazione antimagnatizia nei comuni dell'alta e media Italia’, RSDI, XII, 1939, pp. 86133, 240–73.Google Scholar

10 E.g., Ottokar, N., II comune di Firenze alla fine del Dugento, and ed., Turin, 1962 Google Scholar; Vitale, V., II comune del podestà a Genova, Milan‐Naples, 1951 Google Scholar; Fiumi, E.. Fioritura e decadenza dell'economia fiorentina’, ASI, CXV‐CXVII, 1957;Google Scholar Cristiani, E., Nobilthà e popolo nel comune di Pisa, Naples, 1962 Google Scholar; also the formulation of questions in Sestan, E., ‘Le origini dells signorie cittadine’, Bullettino del-L'istituto storico italiano per il medio evo, LXXIII, 1961.Google Scholar

11 Popolo: the commoners of substance viewed as a political order in conflict with the nobility. Guilds and military companies were the popolo’s chief means of expression, agitation and combat. Noblemen who joined the popolo changed neither the ultimate social character of alignments nor the issues which divided the two sides.

12 Though some students hold that the great feudal nobility seldom went into trade. Fiumi, op. cit.

13 Ghiron, I., ‘La Credenza di Sant'Ambrogio, o la lotta dei nobili e del popolo in Milano, 1198–1292’, ASL, III–IV, 1876–77.Google Scholar

14 Revealed by the nobility’s habit of turning violently against noble houses which enjoyed the favour of the populace.

15 Donaver, F., La storia della repubblica di Genova, Genoa, 1913, I, p. 48 Google Scholar.

16 Tempesti, F., ‘Provenzan Salvani’, Bullettiso sense di storia patria (BSSP), 43, I, 1936, p. II;Google Scholar and implications in Sestan, E., ‘Siena avanti Montaperti’, BSSP, LXVII, 1961, pp. 5661, 71–2.Google Scholar

17 Volpe, G., ‘Il podestà nei comuni italiani del zoo’, article of 1904 in op.cit. Google Scholar

18 Vitale, op. cit., pp. 55–8.Google Scholar

19 Shown by what happened to local governing councils in communes which definitively passed under signorial or even distant republican rule. Cf. Ventura, A., Nobiltà e popolo nella società veneta del' 400e' 500, Bari, 1964 Google Scholar.

20 As at Siena in 1371 and Florence in 1378.

21 The so‐called reforms were very often illusory, e.g., the results of the Spinola‐Doria regime in Genoa in the later 13th century: Poggi, F., ‘Le guerre civili di Genova dalle origini del comune al 1528’, Atli della società ligure di storia patria, LIV, 3, 1930, esp. pp. 4757.Google Scholar

22 Vitale, op. cit., p. 41.Google Scholar

23 So I infer from Goria, A., ‘Le lotte intestine in Genova tra il 1305 e il 1309’, in Miscellanes di storia ligure in onore di Giorgio Falco, Milan, 1962, pp. 253–80.Google Scholar

24 Berengo, M., Nobilie e mercanti nella Lucca del Cinguecento, Turin, 1965, pp. 83107.Google Scholar

25 Although here too there were rivalries which scholars have often not emphasized enough.

26 Obscurely‐born signori, like Jacopo d ' Appiano (a notary) and Francesco Sforza, were very much the exception.

27 Lawyers, international merchants and bankers had already managed in many cases to work their way into the commune. At Genoa and Pisa the influence of the great mercantile and maritime interests had long been considerable.

28 Although actually the popolo had not previously held de jure a political share in the commune.

29 Schevill, op. cit., pp. 204–5; and Silva, P., Il govern di Pietro Gambacorta in Pisa, Pisa, 1912, pp. 101–3Google Scholar, for the equivalent Pisan magistrate.

30 Bowsky, W., ‘The Bunn Governo of Siena (1287–1355): a Mediaeval Italian oligarchy’, Speculum, XXXVII, 3, 1962, pp. 368–81;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Hicks, D., ‘Sienese Society in the Renaissance’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, II, 4, 1960, pp. 412420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 On which see Brucker, G., Florentine Politics and Society, 1343–1378, Princeton, 1962.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32 Rinuccini, F., Ricordi storici dal 1282 al 1460, ed. Aiazzi, G., Florence, 1840 Google Scholar, p. elx, for an exemplary case involving three Florentine ‘grand councillors’. Guicriardini held that ‘free debate’ in such councils ‘is the principal instrument of sedition’, in his Considerazioni inform ai Discorsi del Machiavelli, Chap. II.

33 Of the sort given to sixty years of Florentine history by N. Rubinstein, The Government of Florence Under the Medici (1434 to 1494), Oxford, 1966.

34 Thus, e.g., the conspiracy of Bocconio in 1300.

35 Romanin, op. cit., IV, p. 170 Google Scholar

36 Macchi, M., Istoria del consiglio dei dieci, Turin, 1848, I, pp. 265–6Google Scholar.

37 Maranini, G., La costitutione di Venezia dopo la serrata del maggior consiglio, Florence, 1931, pp. 476–77.Google Scholar

38 Kretschmayr, H., Geschichte von Venedig, 3 vols., new ed., Stuttgart, 1964, II, PP. 71, 181–3.Google Scholar

39 On which see the excellent article by Lazzarini, V., ‘Marino Faliero: la congiura’, Nuovo archivio veneto, XIII, 1897, pp. 5107, 277–373.Google Scholar

40 Romanin, op. cit., IV, pp. 420–21Google Scholar; Kretschmayr, op. cit., II, pp. 367–8, 479, 653–4Google Scholar.

41 As seen in Lanzani, F., Scoria dei comuni italiani dalle origin al 1313, Milan, 1888 Google Scholar; Valeri, N., L'Italia nell'etè dei principati, Verona, 1949 Google Scholar; and Simeoni, L., Le signorie, Milan, 1950.Google Scholar

42 E. g., anziani, sapientes, Consiglio di credenza.

43 As emphasized by Picotti, G. B., ‘Qualche osservazione sui caratteri delle signorie italiane’, Rivista storica italiana, XLIII, 4, 1926, pp. 730.Google Scholar

44 Sorbelli, A., La rignoria di Giovanni Visconti a Bologna, Bologna, 1901, pp. 190198 Google Scholar.

45 In the new history by a team of historians: Cognasso, F., Santoro, C., Catalano, F., etc., Storia di Milano, VI, Milan, 195556, p. 467.Google Scholar

46 Limitations of space have prevented the treatment of industrial organization, such as the formation of workers’ guilds in the 14th century. The commune considered these to be conspiratorial and they were universally outlawed, See the excellent study by Ullmann, W., ‘The Mediaeval Theory of Legal and Illegal Organizations’, The Law Quarterly Review, 60, 07 1944 , pp. 285–91.Google Scholar

47 The outstanding example was Venice, where the penalty for serious conspiracy was nearly always capital punishment.

48 Ghisalberti, C., ‘Sulla teoria dei delitti di lesa maestà nel diritto comune’, Archivio giuridico, CXLIX, 1955, pp. 100179.Google Scholar

49 E.G., the return of the nobles to Milan in 1257–58, the exile and pardon after a few days of forty Genoese Guelfs (January, 1289), and the pardon of the Spinola clan of Genoa in 1311.