Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
In his Eulogy of Florence (Laudatio Florentinae Urbis) Leonardo Bruni praised her constitution for giving first place to justice, “without which no city can exist or deserve the name.” Moreover, he said, “Not only citizens, but aliens as well are protected by this commonwealth. It suffers injury to be done to no man, and endeavors to see to it that everyone, citizen or alien, shall receive the justice that is owing to him.” During Brum's own tenure as chancellor of Florence, however, we hear of a Jewish banker who was ruined by the heaviest fine in the history of the city after a trial that one modern scholar has described as a monstrous miscarriage of justice.
The authors wish to express their gratitude to Gene Brucker, Bernard Cooperman, Germano Gualdo, Michele Luzzati, Anthony Molho, Heiko Oberman, Benjamin Rand, Richard Trexler, and Donald Weinstein for their very helpful suggestions, and to acknowledge the assistance of the staff at the Archivio di Stato in Florence, the Archivio Segreto Vaticano, and the Interlibrary Borrowing Service at the University of Washington.