1 Cammarosano, P., ‘Élites sociales et institutions politiques des villes libres en Italie de la fin du XII^ème au début du XIV^ème siècle’, in Les élites urbaines au Moyen Age (Rome, 1997), 193–200 Google Scholar; Bordone, R., ‘I ceti dirigenti urbani dalle origini comunali alla costruzione dei patriziati’, in Bordone, R., Castelnuovo, G. and Varanini, G. M. eds., Le aristocrazie dai signori rurali al patriziato (Rome, 2004), 37–120, here 96Google Scholar; Menant, F., L'Italie des communes (1100–1350) (Paris, 2005), 52–68, 117–21Google Scholar. See also Milani, G., L'esclusione dal commune: Conflitti e bandi politici a Bologna e in altre città italiane tra XII e XIV secolo (Rome, 2003)Google Scholar.

2 Poloni, A., ‘La mobilità sociale nelle città comunali italiane del Trecento’, in Caciorgna, M. T., Carocci, S. and Zorzi, A. eds., I comuni di Jean-Claude Maire Vigueur (Rome, 2014), 281–304 Google Scholar; Carocci, S. ed., La mobilità sociale nel medioevo (Rome, 2010)Google Scholar; in this volume, see in particular (with a strong focus on economic factors), G. Petralia, ‘Problemi della mobilità sociale dei mercanti (secoli XII–XIV, Italia e Mediterraneo europeo)’, 247–71, and (with a political focus) G. Milani, ‘Il peso della politica sulla mobilità sociale (Italia comunale, 1300 ca.)’, 409–36. Specifically on Lombardy, see Gamberini, A. ed., La mobilità sociale nel medioevo italiano. Stato e istituzioni (Rome, 2017)Google Scholar; on Venice and Veneto see Knapton, M., ‘“Nobiltà e popolo” e un trentennio di storiografia veneta’, Nuova Rivista Storica LXXXII, 1 (1998), 167–92Google Scholar; Martin, J. J. and Romano, D. eds., Venice reconsidered: the history and civilisation of an Italian city-state, 1297–1797 (Baltimore, 2000)Google Scholar.

3 Les élites urbaines au Moyen Age; Reinhard, W. ed., Power elites and state building (Oxford, 1996)Google Scholar; Challet, V., Genet, J.-P. and Herrer, H. R. Oliva eds., La sociedad política a fines del siglo XV en los reinos ibéricos y en Europa: ¿Élites, pueblo, súbditos? (Valladolid, 2007)Google Scholar; Gentile, M. and Savy, P. eds., Noblesse et états princiers en Italie et in France au XV^e siècle (Rome, 2009)Google Scholar. For specific areas, see Thomson, J. A. F. ed., Towns and townspeople in the fifteenth century (Gloucester, 1988)Google Scholar; Asenjo, M. ed., Oligarchy and patronage in late medieval Spanish urban society (Turnhout, 2009)Google Scholar; Boone, M., À la recherche d'une modernité civique: la société urbaine des anciens Pays-Bas au bas Moyen Age (Brussels, 2010)Google Scholar. The interconnection between urban and rural elites and their relation to the princely power have been recently highlighted by Buylaert, F. and Ramandt, A., ‘The transformation of rural elites in late medieval Flanders: oligarchy, state formation and social change in the Liberty of Bruges (c. 1350–c. 1525)’, Continuity and Change 30, 1 (2015), 39–69 Google Scholar.

4 For the various approaches to the problem and an extensive bibliography, see Carocci, S., ‘Social mobility and the Middle Ages’, Continuity and Change 26, 3 (2011), 367–404 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In addition to the works mentioned in note 2, see Padgett, J. F., ‘Open elite? Social mobility, marriage and family in Florence, 1282–1494’, Renaissance Quarterly 63, 2 (2010), 357–411 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

5 Crouzet-Pavan, É. and Lecuppre-Desjardin, É. eds., Villes de Flandre et d'Italie (XIII^e–XVI^e siècle): les enseignements d'une comparaison (Turnhout, 2008)Google Scholar, with particular reference to the editors’ introduction; Boone, À la recherche d'une modernité civique, 99–121; Scott, T., The city-state in Europe, 1000–1600 (Oxford, 2012)Google Scholar.

6 G. Cherubini, ‘Rapport de synthèse: les pouvoirs dans la ville en Flandre et en Italie’, in Crouzet-Pavan and Lecuppre-Desjardin eds., Villes de Flandre et d'Italie, 235–43; on the control and exploitation of the countryside, see Scott, The city-state in Europe.

7 Barbero, A., ‘La vita e le strutture politiche nel quadro della bipolarità signore-comune’, in Comba, R. ed., Storia di Torino, Volume II: Il basso Medioevo e la prima età moderna (1280–1536) (Turin, 1997), 543–82Google Scholar. For European comparisons with the development of capital cities and its effect on the local society, see Boucheron, P., Menjot, D. and Monnet, P., ‘Formes d’émergence, d'affirmation et de déclin des capitales. Rapport introductif’, in Boucheron, P. ed., Les villes capitales au Moyen Âge (Paris, 2006), 13–56 Google Scholar; Smurra, R., Houben, H. and Ghizzoni, M. eds., The far-sighted gaze of capital cities: essays in honour of Francesca Bocchi (Rome, 2014)Google Scholar, with particular reference to parts I and II.

8 This political shift has not been examined in depth, but studies of late medieval Turin generally relate it to the influence of the newly established university and the ducal reform of the council (see note 29). See Barbero, ‘La vita e le strutture politiche’, 548–53; M. T. Bonardi, ‘La città si abbellisce: trasformazioni urbanistiche e commerciali’, in Comba ed., Storia di Torino, II, 585–97, here 591–2; I. Naso, ‘La scuola e l'università’, in Comba ed., Storia di Torino, II, 597–616, here 601.

9 Providing an exhaustive report of this historiography is far beyond the space and the purpose of this article, thus I can only refer to the most important trends in research. For the main approaches to the history of family and kinship, see Anderson, M., Approaches to the history of the Western family, 1500–1914 (Cambridge, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Annales de Démographie Historique: Famille et parenté 41, 2 (2001)Google Scholar; Guerreau-Jalabert, A., Le Jan, R. and Morsel, J., ‘De l'histoire de la famille à l'anthropologie de la parenté’, in Schmitt, J.-C. and Oexle, O. G. eds., Les tendances actuelles de l'histoire du Moyen Age en France et en Allemagne (Paris, 2003), 433–46Google Scholar.

10 With a particular focus on family structures and relationships the essential Italian studies are Herlihy, D. and Klapisch-Zuber, C., Tuscans and their families: a study of the Florentine catasto of 1427 (New Haven and London, 1985)Google Scholar; Delille, G., Famille et propriété dans le royaume de Naples (XV^e–XIX^e siècle) (Rome, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For works linking family and kinship to the political elites, see Carocci, S., Baroni di Roma: dominazioni signorili e lignaggi aristocratici nel Duecento e nel primo Trecento (Rome, 1993)Google Scholar; Grubb, J. S., Provincial families of the Renaissance: private and public life in the Veneto (Baltimore and London, 1996)Google Scholar; Benadusi, G., A provincial elite in early modern Tuscany: family and power in the creation of the state (Baltimore and London, 1996)Google Scholar; Mineo, E. I., Nobiltà di stato: famiglie e identità aristocratiche nel tardo medioevo: La Sicilia (Rome, 2001)Google Scholar; Bellavitis, A. and Chabot, I. eds., Famiglie e poteri in Italia tra medioevo ed età moderna (Rome, 2009)Google Scholar.

11 These studies go back to the longstanding debate on the restructuring of kinship ties among the higher social strata; recent research has claimed that strict patrilineal systems only developed at the end of the Middle Ages, challenging Georges Duby's thesis of the formation of the patrilineage in the twelfth century; see Duby, G., Hommes et structures du Moyen Âge (Paris, 1973), 145–66, 267–98, 395–422 Google Scholar. For an updated debate, see Aurell, M. ed., Le médiéviste et la monographie familiale: sources, méthodes et problématiques (Turnhout, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Sabean, D. W., Teuscher, S. and Mathieu, J. eds., Kinship in Europe: approaches to long-term development (1300–1900) (New York and Oxford, 2007)Google Scholar.

12 The main reference is Nassiet, M., Parenté, noblesse et États dynastiques, XV ^e–XVI ^e siècles (Paris, 2000)Google Scholar, but other studies have shown a similar development among aristocracies throughout Europe between the late Middle Ages and the early modern period. See Mineo, E. I., ‘Formazione delle élites urbane nella Sicilia del tardo medioevo: matrimonio e sistemi di successione’, Quaderni storici 30, 1 (1995), 9–41 Google Scholar; Lanaro, P., ‘“Familia est substantia”: la trasmissione dei beni nella famiglia patrizia’, in Lanaro, P., Marini, P. and Varanini, G. M. eds., Edilizia privata nella Verona rinascimentale (Milan, 2000), 98–117 Google Scholar; Chauvard, J.-F., La circulation des biens à Venise: stratégies patrimoniales et marché immobilier (1600–1750) (Rome, 2005), 323–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Maurice, P., La famille en Gévaudan au XV^e siècle (1380–1483) (Paris, 1998)Google Scholar; Van Steensel, A., ‘Kinship, property and identity: noble family strategies in late-medieval Zeeland’, Journal of Family History 37, 3 (2012), 247–69Google Scholar; Jimenez, F. Chacón, ‘Patrimoine et marriage: systèmes héréditaires et transformations sociales dans l'Europe méditérranéenne (XV^e–XVIII^e siècles)’, in Cavaciocchi, S. ed., The economic role of the family in the European economy from the 13^th to the 18^th centuries (Florence, 2009), 69–80 Google Scholar; and Sabean, Teuscher and Mathieu eds., Kinship in Europe, part I.

13 Padgett, ‘Open elite?’.

14 The main studies of late medieval Turin were collected in the volumes Comba, R. and Roccia, R. eds., Torino fra Medioevo e Rinascimento: dai catasti al paesaggio urbano e rurale (Turin, 1993)Google Scholar and Comba ed., Storia di Torino, II. Barbero, A., Un'oligarchia urbana: politica ed economia a Torino fra Tre e Quattrocento (Rome, 1995)Google Scholar is entirely focused on the local elite. For recent works on the Duchy of Savoy between the late medieval and early modern period, see Barbero, A., ‘The feudal principalities: the west (Monferrato, Saluzzo, Savoy, Savoy-Acaia)’, in Gamberini, A. and Lazzarini, I. eds., The Italian Renaissance state (Cambridge, 2014), 177–96Google Scholar; and Vester, M. ed., Sabaudian studies: political culture, dynasty, and territory: 1400–1700 (Kirksville, 2013)Google Scholar.

15 On the Studium generale in Turin, see Naso, I. ed., Alma felix universitas studii Taurinensis: lo studio generale dalle origini al primo Cinquecento (Turin, 2004)Google Scholar. On the ducal council, see A. Barbero, ‘Il mutamento dei rapporti fra Torino e le altre comunità del Piemonte nel nuovo assetto del ducato sabaudo’, in Comba ed., Storia di Torino, II, 373–419, here 394–409.

16 S. A. Benedetto, ‘La crescita demografica e l'immigrazione’, in Comba ed., Storia di Torino, II, 423–48, here 433–6.

17 The noun ‘kinship’ is used throughout this article to denote an extended grouping or network of related persons.

18 Most elite families strengthened their alliances through marriage, often resorting to marriages between nobles and rich populares. Only the most prestigious noble lineages sought alliances with the nobility of Piedmont. Individual examples of upward social mobility through marriage existed, though – given the functioning of the council – they never created an ‘open elite’ as in Florence. See Padgett, ‘Open elite?’ and Molho, A., Marriage alliance in late medieval Florence (Cambridge, MA, 1994)Google Scholar. For an examination of the marriage patterns of the Turin elite, see Gravela, M., Il corpo della città: politica e parentela a Torino nel tardo medioevo (Rome, 2017)Google Scholar.

19 The notion of economic trustworthiness as an essential requirement for full citizenship and political participation is mainly due to the works by Giacomo Todeschini; see his Visibilmente crudely: malviventi, persone sospette e gente qualunque dal medioevo all'età moderna (Bologna, 2007), esp. 241–69Google Scholar; Franciscan wealth: from voluntary poverty to market society (New York, 2009)Google Scholar; and Come Giuda (Bologna, 2011)Google Scholar. Further studies on the relationship between economic inequality, fiscal responsibility and forms of citizenship are collected in Lenoble, C. and Todeschini, G. eds., Cittadinanza e disuguaglianze economiche: le origini storiche di un problema europeo (=Mélanges de l’École française de Rome: Moyen-Âge 125, 2 (2013)Google Scholar) and Vallerani, M. ed., Fiscalità e cittadinanza (=Quaderni storici, 49, 3 (2014)Google Scholar).

20 M. Gravela, ‘Comprare il debito della città: élite politiche e finanze comunali a Torino nel XIV secolo’, in Fiscalità e cittadinanza, 743–73. Finances were always the main concern of urban governments, so that similar (and often more complex) systems were adopted in several other Italian cities; see Molho, A., ‘The state and public finance: a hypothesis based on the history of late medieval Florence’, in Kirshner, J. ed., The origins of the state in Italy, 1300–1600 (Chicago, 1996), 97–135 Google Scholar; Müller, R. C., The Venetian money market: banks, panics, and the public debt, 1200–1500 (Baltimore and London, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ginatempo, M., Prima del debito: finanziamento della spesa pubblica e gestione del deficit nelle grandi città toscane, 1200–1350 ca. (Florence, 2000)Google Scholar; Mainoni, P. ed., Politiche finanziarie e fiscali nell'Italia settentrionale (secoli XIII–XV) (Milan, 2001)Google Scholar. The urban public debt created a substantial market for private investments also in France, Spain and the Low Countries, see especially Boone, M., Davids, K. and Janssens, P. eds., Urban public debts, urban government and the market for annuities in Western Europe (fourteenth–eighteenth centuries) (Turnhout, 2003)Google Scholar; Menjot, D., Rigaudière, A. and Martínez, M. Sánchez eds., L'impôt dans les villes de l'Occident méditerranéen, XIII^e–XV^e siècle (Paris, 2005)Google Scholar.

21 Guilds were officially forbidden by the local Statutes, while factions were abolished in 1335. Torino e i suoi Statuti nella seconda metà del Trecento (Turin, 1981), 115 Google Scholar; Gravela, M., ‘Processo politico e lotta di fazione a Torino nel secolo XIV: la congiura del 1334 contro Filippo d'Acaia’, Bollettino storico bibliografico subalpino CVIII, 2 (2010), 483–551 Google Scholar.

22 Family and patrimony were actually viewed as a whole entity in medieval society, this indissoluble connection having also been made by jurists like Albericus de Rosate and Bartolus of Saxoferrato with the explicit definition ‘Familia id est substantia’. See G. Rossi, ‘I fedecommessi nella dottrina e nella prassi giuridica di ius commune tra XVI e XVII secolo’, in Cavaciocchi ed., The economic role of the family, 175–202, here 176.

23 Archivio Storico della Città di Torino (hereafter ASCT), Ordinati, vol. 1–83.

24 On the functioning of city councils in Italian communes, see Tanzini, L., A consiglio: la vita politica nell'Italia dei comuni (Rome and Bari, 2014)Google Scholar.

25 ASCT, Collezione V, vol. 1022–101.

26 The role of fiscal practices and sources (Italian: estimi) in certifying membership of the community has been explained by Menzinger, S., ‘Fisco, giurisdizione e cittadinanza nel pensiero dei giuristi comunali italiani tra la fine del XII e l'inizio del XIII secolo’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 85 (2005), 36–73 Google Scholar and Vallerani, M., ‘Logica della documentazione e logica dell'istituzione: per una rilettura dei documenti in forma di lista nei comuni italiani della prima metà del XIII secolo’, in Lazzarini, I. and Gardoni, G. eds., Notariato e medievistica: per i cento anni di Studi e ricerche di diplomatica comunale di Pietro Torelli (Rome, 2013), 109–45, here 129–36Google Scholar; see also Vallerani ed., Fiscalità e cittadinanza.

27 On Italian aristocracies, see Bordone, Castelnuovo and Varanini eds., Le aristocrazie dai signori rurali, and E. I. Mineo, ‘State, orders and social distinction’, in Gamberini and Lazzarini eds., The Italian Renaissance state, 323–44; for a recent comprehensive study of Italian nobility and its political nature, see Castelnuovo, G., Être noble dans la cite: les noblesses italiennes en quête d'identité (XIII^e–XV^e siècle) (Paris, 2014), esp. 33–92Google Scholar. For a wider European analysis, see Morsel, J., L'aristocratie medieval: V^e–XV^e siècle (Paris, 2004)Google Scholar and for a less sharp opposition between Italian and French nobility, Dutour, T. ed., Les nobles et la ville dans l'espace francophone (XII^e–XVI^e siècles) (Paris, 2010)Google Scholar. See also van Steensel, A., ‘Beyond the crisis of the nobility: recent historiography on the nobility in the medieval Low Countries II’, History Compass 12 (2014), 273–86Google Scholar.

28 This process matches what happened in other Italian cities, where ‘la politique citadine anoblit’; see Castelnuovo, Être noble dans la cité, 81.

29 This system experienced very limited changes. A reform in 1433 divided the council in three groups instead of two, essentially accepting the current organisation. The core of the elite was represented in the first two groups, while the third played a less relevant role. See Barbero, ‘La vita e le strutture politiche’, 544–57.

30 Similar mechanisms have been studied for Genoa, Asti and Belluno. See Grendi, E., ‘Profilo storico degli alberghi genovesi’, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome: Moyen-Âge, Temps modernes 87, 1 (1975), 241–302 Google Scholar; Bordone, R., ‘Progetti nobiliari del ceto dirigente del comune di Asti al tramonto’, in Bordone, R. and Sergi, G. eds., Progetti e dinamiche nella società comunale italiana (Naples, 1995), 279–326 Google Scholar; Law, J. E., ‘Guelfs and Ghibellines in Belluno c. 1400’, in Gentile, M. ed., Guelfi e ghibellini nell'Italia del Rinascimento (Rome, 2005), 603–24, here 609–10Google Scholar.

31 Gravela, ‘Processo politico e lotta di fazione’.

32 Padgett, ‘Open elite?’, 367, provides data on the generally high longevity rates of noble lineages across Europe. However, significant examples of short-lived lineages exist, as shown in Payling, S. J., ‘Social mobility, demographic change, and landed society in late medieval England’, Economic History Review 45, 1 (1992), 51–73 Google Scholar, where the majority of aristocratic lineages did not last more than three generations (two after the 1350 demographic crisis).

33 ASCT, Ordinati, vol. 99, fo. 1r. In the 1560s the noble kinships of the Beccuti and da Gorzano eventually extinguished.

34 Two lists of councillors dating to 1256–1257 are reported in Sella, Q. ed., Codex Astensis qui de Malabayla communiter nuncupatur, Volume III (Rome, 1880), 1091–2Google Scholar and Cognasso, F. ed., Documenti inediti e sparsi sulla storia di Torino (Pinerolo, 1914), 252–5Google Scholar.

35 Proper surnames in late medieval Italy were already quite stable, especially in Piedmont; see Addobbati, A., Bizzocchi, R. and Salinero, G. eds., L'Italia dei cognomi: L'antroponimia italiana nel quadro mediterraneo (Pisa, 2012)Google Scholar, with particular reference to S. Collavini, ‘I cognomi italiani nel Medioevo: un bilancio storiografico’, 59–74 and A. Barbero, ‘Precocità dell'affermazione del cognome nel Piemonte medievale’, 215–30. Groundbreaking studies on this theme were published in various issues of Martin, J.-M. and Menant, F. eds., ‘Genèse médiévale de l'anthroponymie modern: l'espace italien’, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome: Moyen Âge: issues 106, 2 (1994), 313–736 Google Scholar; 107, 2 (1995), 331–633; 110, 1 (1998), 79–270.

36 Since the fundamental Goody, J., Thirsk, J. and Thompson, E. P. eds., Family and inheritance: rural society in Western Europe 1200–1800 (Bristol, 1976)Google Scholar, a long series of studies on marriage and inheritance systems appeared, until the fairly recent Sabean, Teuscher and Mathieu eds., Kinship in Europe, which pointed out the central role played by the changes in marriage and succession systems in reshaping families according to the political and economic context between the late Middle Ages and the early modern period.

37 Torino e i suoi Statuti, 69. Emancipation was extremely unusual in Turin, especially among the elite families, in which only eight certain cases were observed in the two centuries covered by this study. It was instead a more frequent practice in Florence and other parts of Tuscany, where it was used by merchant families to protect property from possible financial failures of the head of the household; see Kuehn, T., Emancipation in late medieval Florence (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Leverotti, F., ‘Dalla famiglia stretta alla famiglia larga: linee di evoluzione e tendenze della famiglia rurale lucchese (secoli XIV–XV)’, Studi storici 30, 1 (1989), 171–202 Google Scholar.

38 Torino e i suoi Statuti, 74.

39 On the exclusio propter dotem, see Kuehn, T., Law, family, and women: toward a legal anthropology of Renaissance Italy (Chicago and London, 1991), 238–57Google Scholar and for examples from southern France, see Mayali, L., Droit savant et coutumes: l'exclusion des filles dotées, XII^ème–XV^ème siècles (Frankfurt am Main, 1987)Google Scholar.

40 On the strongly patrilineal Florentine legal system, aimed at excluding women from inheritance as much as possible, and the role played by women and their dowries in family strategies, see Chabot, I., La dette des familles: femmes, lignage et patrimoine à Florence aux XIV^e et XV^e siècles (Rome, 2011)Google Scholar, which also provides a comparison between different norms in Italian cities. For a more tempered view, from a socio-legal perspective, see Kirshner, J., Marriage, dowry, and citizenship in late medieval and Renaissance Italy (Toronto, 2015)Google Scholar. For Venice in the late Middle Ages and early modern period, see Chojnacki, S., Women and men in Renaissance Venice: twelve essays on patrician society (Baltimore, 2000)Google Scholar and Bellavitis, A., Famille, genre, transmission à Venise au XVI^e siècle (Rome, 2008)Google Scholar.

41 ASCT, Collezione V, vol. 1023, fos. 49r–50r, 56v–58r.

42 Their adult sons are mentioned in ASCT, Collezione V, vol. 1029, fos. 33r–v, 40r–41v.

43 Studies on the affective family flourished after the publication of Stone, L., The family, sex and marriage in England, 1500–1800 (London 1977)Google Scholar. Recent contributions on the study of emotions and of affective bonds in the family, especially in relation to gender are Nagy, P. ed., Émotions médiévales (=Critique, 716–17 (2007))Google Scholar; Fine, A., Klapisch-Zuber, C. and Lett, D., ‘Liens et affects familiaux’, Clio: Femmes, genre, histoire [online], 34 (2011), 7–16 Google Scholar; Broomhall, S. ed., Authority, gender and emotions in late medieval and early modern England (Basingstoke, 2015)Google Scholar.

44 Between 1360 and 1460, the best documented period, elite families were fined more than 40 times for verbal and physical conflicts that broke out mainly for economic reasons and involved siblings who had divided their wealth. Most of these episodes, though, occurred before 1415–1420, since after this date the increase of impartible inheritance reduced the risk of such disputes. Predictably, the prevalence of economic factors, namely the distribution of property, was a common source of family issues across different social classes and geographical areas, as shown by the studies collected in Aurell, M. ed., La Parenté déchirée: les luttes intrafamiliales au Moyen Âge (Turnhout, 2010)Google Scholar. For litigation arising over transmission of wealth in wills, though in a later period and legal context, see Bonfield, L., Devising, dying and dispute: probate litigation in early modern England (Farnham, 2011)Google Scholar.

45 On the plagues and their demographic consequences, see Barbero, A., ‘Una fonte per la demografia torinese del basso medioevo: l'elenco dei membri del consiglio di credenza’, Bollettino storico-bibliografico subalpino LXXXVII, 1 (1989), 221–33Google Scholar. Recent studies on the wars of the 1390s and 1400s are not available, but the permanent state of war is clear in Gabotto, F., Gli ultimi principi d'Acaia e la politica subalpina dal 1383 al 1407 (Turin, 1898)Google Scholar. See also Bo, B. Del and Settia, A.A. eds., Facino Cane: Predone, condottiero e politico (Milan, 2014)Google Scholar for mercenary expeditions in Piedmont. As a result of the wars, several citizens are mentioned in the 1390s cadastral registers as absent propter guerram or as reduced to begging, unless hosted by fellow citizens or in local monasteries. Almost 2 per cent of the household heads, mainly women, were facing misery in the last decade of the fourteenth century, as reported in ASCT, Collezione V, vol. 1133.

46 Gravela, Comprare il debito della città. Considerable expenses to provide soldiers and resources to the princes or to reinforce the city walls were frequently discussed by the council in these years, as well as complaints from citizens for financial losses due to the interruption of trade (ASCT, Ordinati, vols. 31–40).

47 Barbero, ‘Il mutamento dei rapporti’, 388–93.

48 Through the fideicommissum the testator appointed an heir who was entrusted with passing the inheritance on to another one, preserving thereby the unity of the patrimony. See Chauvard, J.-F., Bellavitis, A. and Lanaro, P. eds., Fidéicommis: procédés juridiques et pratiques sociales (Italie-Europe, Bas Moyen Âge-XVIII^e siècle) (Mélanges de l’École française de Rome: Italie et Méditerranée modernes et contemporaines 124, 2 (2012))Google Scholar. Primogeniture was established in Turin in the late seventeenth century, see Cavallo, S., Charity and power in early modern Italy: benefactors and their motives in Turin, 1541–1789 (Cambridge, 1995)Google Scholar.

49 S. A. Benedetto, ‘Le strutture della proprietà fondiaria e l'insediamento rurale’, in Comba ed., Storia di Torino, II, 449–76, here 449–55.

50 Siena's equivalent of the cadastre only listed immovable property: Cherubini, G. ed., ‘La “Tavola delle possessioni” del comune di Siena’, Rivista di storia dell'agricoltura XIV, 2 (1974), 5–14 Google Scholar. In Provence, few towns registered movable wealth, and only did so discontinuously, whereas in the cities of the kingdom of Valencia it constituted only 5 per cent of taxable wealth; see M. Hébert, ‘Le système fiscal des villes de Provence (XIV^e–XV^e s.)’, 57–81, here 76 and A. Furió, ‘L'impôt direct dans le villes du royame de Valence’, 169–99, here 190, in Menjot, D. and Martínez, M. Sánchez eds., La fiscalité des villes au Moyen Âge (Occident méditerranéen): 2. Les systèmes fiscaux (Toulouse, 1999)Google Scholar. The most striking case, though, is the livre de Vaillant of Lyon (the name itself suggests the link between property and social acknowledgment), a fiscal source exclusively including owners of immovable possessions; see Rossiaud, J., Lyon 1250–1550: réalités et imaginaires d'une métropole, texts compiled by Gaulin, J.-L. and Rau, S. (Seyssel, 2012), 159 Google Scholar.

51 ASCT, Collezione V, vol. 1041, fos. 17r–18v; vol. 1047, fos. 15r–16r; vol. 1052, fos. 12v–13v. Beatrice married a nobleman of the nearby town of Savigliano: Archivio di Stato di Torino (hereafter AST), Corte, Paesi, Paesi per A e B, T, m. 5, n. 66, fos. 10r–12v. Ludovico became abbot of San Solutore minor, a monastery just outside the city walls: Archivio Arcivescovile di Torino (hereafter AAT), sezione VI, Protocollo 25, fos. 60v–61r.

52 ASCT, Collezione V, vol. 1079, fo. 11r; vol. 1086, fo. 11r; vol. 1098, fos. 2r–v.

53 For similar developments see above, note 12.

54 Co-residence was often likely to exacerbate the discord between brothers or between a widow and her adult sons, as the woman could become a hindrance to her children's succession. See Klapisch-Zuber, C., Women, family, and ritual in Renaissance Italy (Chicago, 1985), 117–31Google Scholar.

55 The analysis showed a strong trend towards preservation of the family house within the lineage, also in compliance with the statutes. Torino e i suoi Statuti, 74.

56 Rossi, M. C. and Garbellotti, M. eds., Adoption and fosterage practices in the late medieval and modern age (Rome, 2016)Google Scholar.

57 Originally coming from the city of Asti, members of the da Gorzano lived between Turin and the Susa valley; see Bordone, R., ‘L'aristocrazia militare del territorio di Asti: i signori di Gorzano’, Bollettino storico-bibliografico subalpino LXIX, 2 (1971), 357–447 Google Scholar and LXX, 2 (1972), 545–87; Gravela, M., ‘L’élite torinese nel secolo XIV: credito, partecipazione politica e patrimoni di un'oligarchia finanziaria’, Bollettino storico-bibliografico subalpino CXI, 2 (2013), 404–9Google Scholar.

58 The system of kinship cooperation of the da Gorzano has been examined in Gravela, Il corpo della città.

59 Torino e i suoi Statuti, 74.

60 Nicola was the richest in the kinship, with houses, land, and money invested in loans. ASCT, Collezione V, vol. 1034, fos. 25r–v; vol. 1038, fos. 32v, 87r–87bisr. At the same time he played a series of leading political roles, first holding a seigneurial office in the 1370s and later becoming one the most influential councillors between 1390 and 1410.

61 AAT, sezione VI, Protocollo 19, fos. 88r–89r; Archivio Capitolare di Torino, Pergamene, n. 512; ASCT, Collezione V, vol. 1043, fos. 53r–54r.

62 AST, Corte, Paesi per A e per B, Lucento, n. 14; Merlin, P., ‘Amministrazione e politica tra Cinque e Seicento: Torino da Emanuele Filiberto a Carlo Emanuele I’, in Ricuperati, G. ed., Storia di Torino, Volume III: Dalla dominazione francese alla ricomposizione dello Stato (1536–1630) (Turin, 1998), 111–82, here 137Google Scholar.

63 AAT, sezione VI, Protocollo 28, fos. 99r–100r.

64 ASCT, Collezione V, vol. 1066, fos. 115r–v; vol. 1081, fo. 1r; vol. 1088, fo. 1r. Even in the lists of councillors, in which Girardo appeared in the 1460s, exclusively his mother's surname is used, an additional proof of the switch of surname: ASCT, Ordinati, vol. 79, fos. 125r–126v; vol. 80, fo. 3r.

65 P. Merlin, ‘Torino durante l'occupazione francese’, in Ricuperati ed., Storia di Torino, III, 7–55, here 50.

66 Absence of paternal kin and the husband's lower rank seem significant factors, as they are observed in all the cases attested in Turin. For similar dynamics of transmission of the surname through women in early modern England, see Capern, A. L, ‘The landed woman in early-modern England’, Parergon 19, 1 (2002), 185–214 Google Scholar.

67 D. W. Sabean and S. Teuscher, ‘Kinship in Europe: a new approach to long-term development’, in Sabean, Teuscher and Mathieu eds., Kinship in Europe, 1–32, here 9–10.

68 Mineo, ‘Formazione delle élites urbane’; Mineo, Nobiltà di stato; Lanaro, ‘“Familia est substantia”’; Chauvard, La circulation des biens à Venise, 323–95; B. Derouet, ‘Political power, inheritance, and kinship relations: the unique features of southern France (sixteenth–eighteenth centuries)’, in Sabean, Teuscher and Mathieu eds., Kinship in Europe, 105–24; Chacón Jimenez, ‘Patrimoine et mariage’. See also S. Teuscher, ‘Politics of kinship in the city of Bern at the end of the Middle Ages’, in Sabean, Teuscher and Mathieu eds., Kinship in Europe, 76–90.

69 Howell, M. C., The marriage exchange: property, social place, and gender in cities of the Low Countries, 1300–1550 (Chicago and London, 1998)Google Scholar; on the changes in the representation of kinship around 1500, see Teuscher, S., ‘Flesh and blood in the treatises on the Arbor Consanguinitatis (thirteenth to sixteenth centuries)’, in Johnson, C. H., Jussen, B., Sabean, D. W. and Teuscher, S. eds., Blood and kinship: matter for metaphor from Ancient Rome to the present (New York, 2013), 83–104 Google Scholar.

70 The Borgesio passed from seven councillors in 1365, to six in 1415 and finally one in 1468; the Beccuti in the same years occupied seven, seven and two seats; the da Gorzano four, five and eventually one.

71 For the careers of jurists, see Rosso, P., Rotulus legere debentium: professori e cattedre all'Università di Torino nel Quattrocento (Turin, 2005)Google Scholar.