Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T06:23:41.734Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

City and Countryside in Siena in the Second Half of the Fourteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

William Caferro
Affiliation:
Adjunct professor of History at Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT 06430–7524

Abstract

This article reopens the classic debate about the relationship between the city and the countryside in medieval/Renaissance Italy. It examines city-countryside relations in Siena in the second half of the fourteenth century and compares them with what we know of Siena≈s northern neighbor, Florence. It argues that Sienese policy was moderate and even-handed and, despite similar pressures, less harsh than that of the Florentines. The difference is explained by the fact that Siena was economically far less potent and thus ever mindful that its own fate was intrinsically linked with that of the countryside.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1994

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

REFERENCES

Becker, Marvin, “Problemi della finanza pubblica fiorentina della seconda metà del Trecento e dei primi del Quattrocento,” Archivio Storico Italiano, 133 (1965), pp. 433466.Google Scholar
Becker, Marvin, “Economic Change and the Emerging Florentine Territorial State,” Studies in the Renaissance, 13 (1966), pp. 739.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, Marvin, Florence in Transition (Baltimore, 1968), vol. 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowsky, William M., The Finance of the Commune of Siena, 1287–1355 (Oxford, 1970).Google Scholar
Bowsky, William M., A Medieval Italian Commune, Siena under the Nine 1287–1355 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, JudithC, In the Shadow of Florence: Provincial Society in Renaissance Pescia (Oxford, 1982).Google Scholar
Caferro, William, “The ‘Companies of Adventure’ and the Decline of Siena: A Study of the Impact of Mercenary Bands on a Fourteenth Century Commune” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1992).Google Scholar
Caggese, Romolo, “La repubblica di Siena e il suo contado,” Bulletino senese di storia patria, 13 (1906), pp. 3120.Google Scholar
Caggese, Romolo, Classi e comuni rurali nel medio evo italiano (Florence, 1907; 1909), vols. 1 and 2.Google Scholar
Catoni, Giuliano, “I ‘Regolatori’ e la giurisdizione contabile nella repubblica di Siena,” Critica Storia, 1 (1975), pp. 4670.Google Scholar
Chittolini, Giorgio, La formazione dello stato regionale e le istituzioni del contado (Turin, 1979).Google Scholar
de la Roncière, Charles, “Indirect Taxes or ‘Gabelle’ at Florence in the Fourteenth Century: The Evolution of Tariffs and the Problems of Collection,” in Rubinstein, Nicolai, ed., Florentine Studies (London, 1968), pp. 140192.Google Scholar
Fiumi, Enrico, “Sui rapporti tra città e contado nell≈età comunale,” Archivio Storico Italiano, 114 (1956), pp. 1868.Google Scholar
Fiumi, Enrico, “Fioretura e decadenza dell≈economia fiorentina,” Archivio Storico Italiano, 115 (1957), pp. 385439; 116 (1958), pp. 443–510; 117 (1959), pp. 427–502.Google Scholar
Fiumi, Enrico, Storia economica e sociale di San Gimignano (Florence, 1961).Google Scholar
Ginatempo, Maria, Crisi di un territorio. Il popolamento della Toscana senese alla fine del Medioevo (Florence, 1988).Google Scholar
Herlihy, David, and Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane, Tuscans and their Families (New Haven, 1985).Google Scholar
Hicks, David L., “Sources of Wealth in Renaissance Siena,” Bulletino senese di storia patria, 93 (1986), pp. 942.Google Scholar
Isaacs, A. K., “Le campagne senesi fra Quattrocento e Cinquecento: regime fondiario e governo signorile,” in Cammarosano, P., ed., Contadini e proprietà nella Toscana moderna (Florence, 1979), vol. 1, pp. 377403.Google Scholar
Jones, Philip J., “Communes and Despots: The City-State in Late-Medieval Italy,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 15 (1965), pp. 7196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirshner, Julius, and Molho, Anthony, “The Dowry Fund and the Marriage Market in Early Quattrocento Florence,” Journal of Modern History, 50 (09. 1978), pp. 403438.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lisini, Alessandro, ed., Provvedimenti economic della repubblica di Siena nel 1382 (Siena, 1895).Google Scholar
Lisini, Alessandro, ed., Il costituto del comune di Siena volgarizzato nel MCCCIX–MCCCX (Siena, 1903), vols. 1 and 2.Google Scholar
Martines, Lauro, Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy (New York, 1979).Google Scholar
Meek, Christine, Lucca 1369–1400 (Oxford, 1978).Google Scholar
Molho, Anthony, Florentine Public Finances in the Early Renaissance 1400–1433 (Cambridge, MA, 1971).Google Scholar
Morandi, Ubaldo, “L≈ufficio della dogana del sale,” Bulletino senese di storia patria, 70 (1963), pp. 6291.Google Scholar
Pagnini, G. F., Della decima ed altre gravezze imposte dal comune di Firenze (Lisbon-Lucca, 1765), vol. 2.Google Scholar
Piccinni, Gabriella, “I ‘villani incittadinati’ nella Siena del XIV secolo,” Bulletino senese di storia patria, 82–83 (19751976), pp. 158219.Google Scholar
Pinto, Giuliano, “Mercanti e la terra” in Cardini, Franco, Cassandro, Michele, Cherubini, Giovanni et al., eds., Banchieri e mercanti di Siena (Siena, 1987).Google Scholar
Pinto, Giuliano, “Le compagne e la crisi,” in Cherubini, Giovanni, Peruta, Franco della, Lepore, Ettore et al., eds., La crisi del sistema comunale. Storia della società italiano (Milan, 1982), vol. 7, pp. 121156.Google Scholar
Salvemini, Gaetano, “Un comune rurale nel secolo XIII” in Sestan, Ernesto, ed., Opere di Gaetano Salvemini (Milan, 1972), vol. 2, pp. 274297.Google Scholar
Schevill, Ferdinand, Siena. History of a Medieval Commune (New York, 1909).Google Scholar
Waley, Daniel, Siena and the Sienese in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, MA, 1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zdekauer, Ludovico, ed., Il constituto del comune di Siena dell≈ anno 1262 (Milan, 1897).Google Scholar