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The towns of Italy in the later middle ages [Enter]
Translated and edited by Trevor Dean

The towns of Italy in the later middle ages presents over one hundred fascinating documents, carefully selected and coordinated from the richest, most innovative and most documented society of the European Middle Ages: the urban civilization of Italy. No other sourcebook has the same geographical or chronological range. Other source books limit themselves to one city (usually Florence) or focus on the Renaissance. By connecting documents in translation to recent scholarship and debates The towns of Italy in the later middle ages serves both to introduce topics, to illustrate themes through primary material and to indicate further relevant reading. After a general introduction, the book is divided into five sections on physical environment, civic religion, economy, society and politics. There are roughly twenty documents in each section, making a total of one hundred and eight. Each document is individually introduced and set in its own context (author, type of source, etc.) and unusual words and concepts are explained. This sourcebook will appeal to teachers and students at undergraduate level and initial postgraduate level in all areas of Italian and European medieval history.

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CONTENTS:
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Map of Italy, c. 1300
Introduction
I: The physical environment and social services
 1 ‘A world in itself’: Milan, 1288
 2 A vision of Padua, c. 1318
 3 Genoa in the late thirteenth century
 4 Public buildings in thirteenth-century Parma
 5 Public buildings in fourteenth-century Siena
 6 The enlargement and decoration of the Doge’s Palace, Venice, 1297–1422
 7 Making space for sermons: Florence, 1296
 8 Commune and new cathedral: Perugia, 1300
 9 Granary and oratory: Orsanmichele, Florence
 10 Concealing a butchery: Pisa, 1382
 11 New church building: Bologna, 1390–2
 12 The rise and fall of urban towers
 13 On the magnificence of his buildings: Azzone Visconti
 14 The Sienese Opera in financial difficulties, 1299–1310
 15 Pittura infamante
 16 Saintly gates
 17 Symbols of communal strength: lions
 18 Symbols of communal strength: carrocci
 19 Nettezza urbana: legislation
 20 Nettezza urbana: enforcement
 21 Clean water: the Perugia Fountain
 22 Public health: salaried doctors, supervised hospitals
 23 Public subvention of education: Lucca, 1348–79
 24 Pistoia head-hunts a grammar teacher, 1377
 25 A teaching monopoly: Bassano, 1259
II: Civic religion
 26 Paradise on earth: the feast-day of St John the Baptist, Florence
 27 The palio race in Bologna, 1288
 28 The costs of a feast-day in Pistoia, 1252
 29 Regulation of holy days: Perugia, 1342
 30 A popular ‘saint’: Alberto of Cremona
 31 Miracles in Mantua and Bologna, c. 1300
 32 Rainmaking in Florence and Bergamo
 33 Saint or heretic?: Armanno Pungilupo of Ferrara
 34 ‘Saint’ Guglielma and her followers: Milan, 1300
 35 A corrupt inquisitor: Florence, 1346
 36 Bishop and popolo in conflict: Reggio, 1280
 37 Communal assistance to religious groups: Parma, 1261–2
 38 Prison releases on holy days: Perugia, 1342
 39 Flagellants in northern Italy, 1260
 40 The Bianchi, 1399
 41 A sermon on usury
 42 A charitable confraternity: Piacenza, 1268
 43 A charitable confraternity in trouble: Orsanmichele, Florence
III: The urban economy
 44 Economic growth: good and evil
 45 The power of money: external relations
 46 The power of money: internal relations
 47 Wool production in Prato, 1397–8
 48 The Mercato Vecchio, Florence
 49 Enforcement of urban markets: Verona and Parma
 50 Proliferation of guilds: Perugia, 1342
 51 Statutes of a wool guild: Padua, 1384
 52 Derecognition of guilds: Ferrara, 1287
 53 Non-guild-worthy occupations
 54 Promotion of local industry
 55 The state promotes commerce
 56 Demographic policy: controlling peasant immigration
 57 Demographic policy: stimulating immigration of artisans
IV: Social organization and tensions
 58 The decadence of chivalry
 59 Complaint against moneyed parvenus
 60 The costs of knighthood
 61 Ceremonial knighthood: Siena, 1326
 62 A miserly knight: late fourteenth-century Pistoia
 63 Three social divisions
 64 Pisa brought low by its new citizens
 65 The popolo of Piacenza, 1250
 66 The popolo of Bologna, 1271 and 1287
 67 Social tensions in the kingdom of Naples, 1338–9
 68 Social tensions in Rome: Cola di Rienzo
 69 Food shortage and food riot: Siena, 1328
 70 Revolt in a lordly city: Ferrara, 1385
 71 Revolt in a republic: Siena, 1371
 72 Social tensions in a southern town: Chieti
 73 Fist-fights: Florence and Siena
 74 The origins and conduct of vendetta
 75 The pacification of vendetta
 76 Legal penalties against vendetta: Florence, 1325
 77 The customs of the citizens of Piacenza, 1388
 78 Fine clothing only conceals the dirt
 79 ‘Greed was greater’ after the plague
 80 Civil law on clandestine marriage
 81 Advice on the management of wives and daughters
 82 Sorrowful marriages
 83 Women and the patrimony: dowry law
 84 Women in the lawcourts
 85 Cross-dressing
 86 Women in the streets
 87 Confinement of prostitutes and pimps
 88 Sumptuary law: Parma, 1258
 89 Sumptuary law: Bologna, 1288, 1398
 90 Women cleverly evade the law
 91 Assistance to converted Jews: Perugia, 1298
 92 Exemptions and privileges to Jews
 93 Jews as the enemies of the cross: Florence
 94 ‘The domestic enemy’: female slaves
 95 Contract of sale of a slave, 1388
V: Political structures
 96 A guild-based regime: Perugia
 97 Elections of the doges of Venice
 98 Bell-ringers
 99 Constitutional reforms at Florence
 100 Regulations for councils in Pisa, 1286 and 1317
 101 A short-lasting lordship: Pisa, 1365-8
 102 A shortlived ‘tyranny’: Fermo, 1376-80
 103 A long-lasting lordship: Ferrara, 1264
 104 Consolidation of a lordship: Verona, 1295
 105 Political spectacle: Florence and Ferrara
 106 Good government under lords: Milan
 107 The end of communal liberty I: Pisa, 1406
 108 The end of communal liberty II: Padua, 1405
Further reading
Index

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