“Those who think to do away with petitions would overthrow the entire system of the State”. This remark – taken from an anonymous eighteenth-century account of the political organization of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza – describes well the importance attributed to complaints in the organization of the state. Through complaints, or petitions, it is generally possible to verify a number of fundamental forms and modes of communication between society and the institutions of the ancien regime, and to reconstruct the procedures of mediation, repression, acceptance, and agreement adopted by princes, sovereigns, or magistracies in response to social demands.

Petitions are potentially very flexible instruments and pervade every aspect of social, institutional, administrative, and judiciary life. “Petitioning” refers to different concepts of authority and sovereignty as well as to specific power relations between rulers and those ruled. For this reason, it becomes necessary to take a close look at the relations and differences between various uses of petitions – both from the point of view of the petitioners and from the point of view of the answers provided by the institutions. On the other hand, the term “supplication” will be used in its most general meaning with reference to letters (or documentation) which single citizens, or organized and recognized groups, sent to the state authorities requesting grace, favours, privileges, or calling attention to injustices and abuses. These documents gave rise to legal proceedings, administrative acts that led to proceedings in tribunals, magistracies, and chancelleries.