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Communes and Despots: The City State In Late-Medieval Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

P. J. Jones
Affiliation:
Brasenose College, Oxford.

Extract

It is a commonplace of political history that in the later Middle Ages the city states of north and central Italy were the scene of a conflict in the theory and practice of government between two contrasted systems: republican and despotic (or in contemporary terminology, government ‘a comune’, ‘in liberta’ etc., and government ‘a tiranno’, signoria or principato). The conflict began about the mid-thirteenth century, and in most places, sooner or later, was settled in favour of despotism.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1965

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References

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1 For the last see, for example, Silva, P., in Studi Storici xxi (1913), p. 22.Google Scholar According to Machiavelli (Discorsi ii. 2, 11) republics were harsher to subject towns than monarchs. Cf. p. 75 above; but see also n. 4 below.Google Scholar

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1 See for example: Sitta, , op. cit., p. 133Google Scholar; Chabod, , op. cit., p. 47Google Scholar; Zaccarini, , op. cit., pp. 8, 60Google Scholar; Masi, , op. cit., p. 78Google Scholar; Barni, , op. cit., pp. 17 ff.Google Scholar; Jones, , op. cit.Google Scholar; P. Bognetti, G., in Arch. Star. Lombardo, 1927, pp. 267 ff.Google Scholar; Rocca, E. Nasalli, in Boll. Stor. Piacentino, xxx (1935)Google Scholar, and in Studi in onore di C. Manaresi (Milan, 1953), pp. 239 ff.; Mesquita, , in Italian Renaissance Studies, pp. 184 ff.Google Scholar

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