Notes on Italian City-States, Lordships, and Principalities

9.1 The Transformation of the Communes: Lordships and Principalities

• Between the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 15th century, Italy experienced a phenomenon similar to that in Western Europe, which led to the consolidation of monarchies and their subsequent transformation into modern states.

• However, unlike France, England, and Spain, where territorial unification encompassed almost the entire nation, Italy saw the constitution of a series of territorial states on a regional basis, leading to different forms of government.

• This process involved major Communes subjugating lords and nobles of the surrounding countryside, communities, contado, and other urban centers, resulting in a political-territorial structure with five regional states: the Duchy of Milan, the Republics of Venice and Florence, the Papal State, and the Kingdom of Naples, alongside some minor formations.

• Italy did not achieve a unitary state due to the lack of a strong political entity capable of initiating national unification and the particularism of Italian social and economic forces.

• The merchant-landowning class was not able to conceive and realize a broader territorial unit and market encompassing the entire peninsula.

• The concentration of power and territorial expansion of Italian territorial states are seen as expressions of the same process of national state formation in the rest of the continent.

From Commune to Lordship

• The cities, particularly the Communes of central-northern Italy, were the protagonists of this territorial simplification.

• In the mid-13th century, city ordinances entered into crisis due to continuous internal struggles.

• To reduce conflict between factions, the figure of the podestà was introduced, but their work was subject to many constraints.

• Later, the "lord" emerged, initiating the construction of a more stable power.

• The development process of «city lordships» can be schematized in two phases:

  • Initially, city institutions and magistratures were formally maintained, and the lordship represented an institutional element within the city context.
  • Subsequently, the lord centralized all power in his hands, making it hereditary and exercising it through paid officials who ensured order and peace in his name.
  • Even when the lord replaced city magistratures, he still had to integrate into the variety of intermediate «bodies» and local powers, often compromising by granting offices and privileges, similar to the great European national monarchies.

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• The establishment of city lordships led to the exclusion of the «people» from political life and the affirmation of political organizations based on a strong hierarchization of power.

• Society was reshaped, with a new urban patriciate emerging, formed by notables from the merchant-financial and chivalrous classes.

• With the stabilization of power, the lordships were able to extend dominion over the surrounding territories, smaller cities, and contado, creating true regional states.

The Signorial Power

• From an institutional point of view, the lord could assume power in various circumstances: sometimes a podestà who had gained the consent of the citizens became lord, or the most authoritative exponent of a prestigious family, but there were also strong and charismatic personalities who seized city government with an armed coup.

• Regardless of how he had attained power, the lord always obtained a more or less broad delegation from the city council, as if there had been an investiture from below.

• For this reason, the lordships left many communal institutions, such as the corporations, alive, and even the laws defined by the statutes were not abolished, but only modified.

The Transformation into a Principality

• Having become master of the city and the territory of competence, the lord only lacked investiture from above, which could be conferred by the emperor or the pope, depending on who exercised supreme authority over the lands of the lordship.

• In exchange for the payment of large sums, the lord obtained the title of «vicar» (of the emperor or the pope), which allowed him to legitimately exercise power and transmit it to his heirs.

• With imperial or pontifical legitimization, the passage from the lordship to the principality was marked, interrupting any residual relationship with the ancient communal ordinances and characterizing itself as a dynastic, ducal, or grand-ducal State.

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The Main Signorial Houses

• In addition to the five major regional states, many signorial houses of small and medium size arose in central-northern Italy, including the Della Scala in Verona (1287-1387), the Gonzaga in Mantua (1328-1707), the Este in Ferrara (1208-1598), the da Romano in the territory between Vicenza, Treviso, and Feltre, the Montefeltro in Urbino, the da Varano in Camerino, the Malatesta in Rimini, and the da Polenta in Ravenna.

• In Piedmont, the Marquis of Monferrato and the Savoy, who dominated the Aosta Valley, the Canavese, and some territories along the upper course of the Rhine, became established from the end of the thirteenth century.

The «Two Italies»

• Despite this variety of small and medium-sized power centers continuously in struggle with each other, two profoundly different realities can be identified in fifteenth-century Italy:

  • A central-northern area, where the most important Communes were transformed into lordships and then into principalities, assuming the dimension of regional states.

    • From an economic point of view, this area was characterized by the development of the bourgeoisie and commercial, financial, and artisanal activities, and by a modernization of agriculture, increasingly based on mezzadria or lease contracts.

  • A southern area, where baronial power progressively extended and intensified, preventing the Angevin dynasty in the Kingdom of Naples and the Aragonese dynasty in Sicily from completing the process of centralization of power.

    • The economy remained tied to the latifundium and the exploitation of masses of very poor peasants, without the development of a strong bourgeois class.

The Formation of the Regional States:

• Commune (XI-XIII century)
  • Arises from a public pact between different classes
  • Acts as guarantor of communal liberties, which are not imperial or papal concessions
  • Extends its jurisdiction over the contado
  • Social forces aggregate into societies or Arts, that represent the people
• Lordship (end XIII-XV century)
  • Arises from the concentration of power in the hands of a lord (either by coup or by consensus)
  • The lord requires recognition to the Pope or Emperor
  • The dominion extends over the surrounding territory
  • Social forces aggregated in the Arts are transformed into a new urban patriciate
• Principality (end XIV-XVI century)
  • Arises with the vicariate (the investiture of the lord by the Pope or Emperor)
  • The prince transforms the people into subjects and the power is legitimately transmitted to the heirs
  • Configures itself as a real regional State (and it can answer the need for security that the lordship did not assure)
  • It is formed by a court of professional officials and relies militarily on mercenaries

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9.2 The Duchy of Milan

• The history of Milan is identified with the Visconti dynasty (1277-1447), a powerful Ghibelline family that became established in the 14th century.

The Visconti Dynasty

• Matteo Visconti was the first of the dynasty to govern Milan as vicar of Emperor Henry VII, from 1311 to 1322, although previously the Visconti had already received investiture as lords from the popular assemblies of the city.

• The maximum territorial development was achieved with Gian Galeazzo Visconti, lord of Milan from 1378 to 1402: he managed to extend his lordship to other regions of the peninsula, to include numerous territories in Piedmont, Veneto, Emilia, and part of Umbria and Tuscany.

• In 1395 he obtained from Emperor Wenceslaus the hereditary title of duke and his lordship was transformed into a principality.

• However, the Visconti domains were not territorially compact or organized with centralized administrative structures; consequently, after his death, the borders of the Duchy gradually reduced, to include almost only Milan and Lombardy.

• An attempt to revive the policy of expansion was undertaken by Filippo Maria Visconti (in power from 1412 to 1447), but the hostility of the Republic of Venice and other bordering states thwarted all his conquests.

• Upon his death, a fierce struggle for succession opened up, which provided the opportunity for the local patriciate to proclaim the Ambrosian Republic (1447-50).

The Sforza Dynasty

• The republican government, concerned by the advance of the Doge of Venice who intended to incorporate the Duchy of Milan, entrusted the defense of the city to Francesco Sforza (1401-66), a famous condottiero who had married Bianca Maria Visconti, daughter of the late duke.

• Francesco Sforza, appealing to the right to inherit the title on behalf of his wife, in 1450 had himself proclaimed lord of Milan, but was recognized as such only with the Peace of Lodi in 1454, which put an end to four years of war with Venice for dominion over Lombardy.

• With the peace, an equilibrium was reached in the peninsula.

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9.3 The Signoria of Florence: from Cosimo the Elder to Lorenzo de' Medici

• The internal upheavals that followed the revolt of the Ciompi (1378) in Florence led to the political predominance of the rich merchant and banking bourgeoisie, which managed to concentrate power into the hands of very few families.

• Among these, the Albizzi stood out, who governed Florence from 1382, establishing an oligarchic government.

• Between 1385 and 1421 Florence managed to extend its domains to include the cities of Pisa, Arezzo, Volterra, and Pistoia, and represented a model of liberal government, celebrated by contemporaries.

From Oligarchic Government to the Lordship of the Medici

• The Medici, merchants and bankers themselves, were fiercest opponents of the oligarchic families that held government of the city (in addition to the Albizzi, the Strozzi and the Tornabuoni).

• Thanks to the support of the common people and some powerful families, in 1434 they became lords of Florence, driving their adversaries into exile.

The Founder: Cosimo de' Medici

• The dynasty began with Cosimo de' Medici, known as the Elder (1389-1464), who the following year managed to be elected gonfalonier of the city, acceding to the highest office of the Republic.

• During his government (from 1434 to 1464), Cosimo never wanted to call himself «lord» and merely assigned the magistratures of the Republic to his own candidates, without altering the city ordinances, which, however, lost their original meaning.

• Thanks to the political stability achieved with Cosimo, Florence achieved remarkable levels of economic and artistic development, which consolidated its dominance in Tuscany.

Lorenzo the Magnificent and the Politics of Equilibrium

• Upon the death of Cosimo, power passed first to his son Piero the Gouty (in power from 1464 to 1469), and then to his grandson Lorenzo (lord from 1469 to 1492) and to his brother Giuliano.

• Lorenzo, who was called «the Magnificent» for his extraordinary personality and work, played a leading role in the history of fifteenth-century Italy, not only for his merits as a man of letters and protector of artists, but also for his exceptional qualities as a statesman.

• As Niccolò Machiavelli said, he procured fifty years of peace for the peninsula, despite some internal attempts to overthrow the Medici government.

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The Pazzi Conspiracy

• In 1478, the great Florentine houses dispossessed, with the Pazzi family at the head and with the support of Pope Sixtus IV and the sovereign of Naples Ferrante of Aragon, plotted a conspiracy to kill the two young men Lorenzo and Giuliano.

• Assaulted in Santa Maria del Fiore at the end of the celebration of Mass, Giuliano fell mortally wounded, while Lorenzo, although wounded, managed to save himself and, with the help of the people who rose up in tumult, to preserve the government of Florence until his death (1492).

9.4 The Republic of Venice, the State of the Church and the Savoy

• Unlike Milan, which became a lordship thanks to the imperial title, and Florence, which was a lordship masked as a republic, the Republic of Venice was the only Italian state comparable to the great European formations, both for power and for the solidity of institutions.

The Republic of Venice

• From 1297, an oligarchy had in fact been imposed in Venice in which a few powerful families had obtained the hereditary right to sit in the Major Council, excluding from city government those who had not been part of this body in previous years.

• This measure, long interpreted as a sign of closure, was in reality an effective instrument to avert the danger of a further concentration of power in the hands of the doge, which could have led to the end of the republic.

• The commercial power of Venice was mainly based on naval trade and the city directly controlled all the Istrian and Dalmatian coasts on the Adriatic, as well as important centers such as Spalato, Ragusa, and Durazzo.

The Wars against Genoa

• In the mid-fourteenth century, Venice had to face its rival of all time, Genoa, for supremacy in trade with the East; a first time between 1351 and 1355, and then between 1378 and 1381.

• This second, known as the War of Chioggia, saw the Genoese besiege Venice in the lagoon, occupying the island of Chioggia (1380), while the Habsburgs and the King of Hungary - interested respectively in Trieste and Dalmatia - threatened it from the north.

• Venice risked succumbing, but in the end managed to free itself from the squeeze, ceding some cities and lands to the powerful neighbors from beyond the Alps.

• In 1381 the Peace of Turin put an end to the clashes.

• Thanks to the compactness of its ruling class, Venice managed to recover from both a political and economic point of view, returning to sanction its dominance in the East.

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The Decline of Genoa

• After the War of Chioggia against Venice, Genoa entered a period of political decadence and was fact deeply divided between great rival families.

• The social conflict between the maritime bourgeoisie, nobles, and common people within the institutions had increased, and the Visconti (1421), the Sforza (1464), and then, in 1499, the King of France Louis XII, who subjected Genoa to the transalpine monarchy, took advantage of this political disorder.

• However, political decline was not followed by economic decline: the merchants, shipowners, and bankers of Genoa continued their activity throughout the fifteenth century, placing themselves at the service of foreign states and private individuals, and thus realizing fabulous profits.

The Development of Venice in the Hinterland

• At the beginning of the fifteenth century, also as a consequence of the War of Chioggia and the threat posed by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Venice undertook a policy of expansion on the mainland, not so much for territorial ambitions, as to ensure control of the Alpine passes towards Germany and extend its commercial exchanges in the Padano hinterland.

• Between 1404 and 1428, thanks to its political stability and the immense wealth accumulated in centuries of traffic, Venice gave rise to the largest Italian territorial state, occupying Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Feltre, Belluno, and then Brescia, Bergamo, and all the mainland up to the Adda.

• To govern this vast territory, the Venetian Republic respected local equilibriums and left ample autonomy to the subjects; the Venetian patriciate, firmly hereditary, in 1435 obtained the imperial vicariate for its government.

The Clash with Milan

• The control of the territories of the Po Valley was the cause of conflicts between Venice and Milan, which recorded a moment of maximum tension in the first half of the fifteenth century: Venice, led by the best condottiero of the time, Francesco Bussone, known as «il Carmagnola» (1385 ca - 1432), opposed Filippo Maria Visconti, tying itself to Florence who felt equally threatened by the Visconti expansionism, and defeated the Milanese in the battle of Maclodio of 1427.

• The victory gave Venice possession of Brescia, Bergamo, and all the mainland up to the Adda.

• At this point, it was no longer the Visconti, but the Venetians who threatened the political equilibrium of the Italian states, so much so that Florence detached itself from the Serenissima and sided with Milan.

The Wars Between States

• The rivalries between the major Italian potentates continued in the following decades, intertwining with the internal upheavals of the other Italian states and involving the overturning of alliances: this is what happened when Filippo Maria Visconti, in 1435, supported the expansion projects of the Aragonese in the Kingdom of Naples, favoring Alfonso V in completing the reunification of Naples with Sicily and Sardinia.

• Genoa, Florence, and Venice, determined to oppose this project of political arrangement that would have led Italy to divide into two poles: the Visconti in the North and the Aragona in the South, had sided with the French Angevins - rivals of the Aragonese.

• The opposition between the Italian states rekindled in 1450 during the struggle for succession to the Duchy of Milan, which involved, in a war lasting four years, Venice, the Emperor Frederick of Habsburg, and Alfonso V of Aragon, allied against Francesco Sforza, self-proclaimed duke.

• In the context of a generalized war, only the announcement of the fall of Constantinople in 1453, by threatening a Turkish advance, managed to impose prudence on the various contenders.

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THE PEACE OF LODI AND THE ITALIAN BALANCE

• In the middle of the century, with the Peace of Lodi (1454), Venice and Milan reached a situation of sufficient stability, which was also signed by the respective allies: the treaty fixed the borders between Venice and Milan on the Adda and recognized the succession of Francesco Sforza to the Visconti duchy.

• The agreement between Venice, Milan, Florence, the State of the Church, and the Kingdom of Naples also had the important significance of wanting to avoid new foreign interventions in the peninsula, especially by the Empire and France.

• The Peace of Lodi was followed, the following year, by the formation of the Santissima lega italica, between Venice, Milan, Florence, to which Rome, Naples, and the smaller states of the peninsula were also added, with which the allies undertook to defend the geopolitical equilibrium reached against internal or external attempts to modify the new political geography of the peninsula.

• Thus began a long period of relative peace and equilibrium, the merit of which contemporary historians attributed in large part to Lorenzo the Magnificent, a skillful mediator between the Italian powers.

• It was based not so much on the will to preserve Italy from any further disturbance and upheaval, but on the contrary on an unstable counterweight of interests and egoisms (of the dominant merchant and banking classes) and on the weakness of the various states, so that none was strong enough to impose its hegemony on the others.

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• This equilibrium will be broken in 1494 with the descent into Italy of King Charles VIII of France, which inaugurated the period of the Italian wars, at the end of which the peninsula would lose its independence.

The Expansion of Venice

• 1378-81: War of Chioggia between Venice and Genoa
• 1381: Peace of Turin: marks the supremacy of Venice over Genoa
• 1404-28: Expansion on the mainland: Venice subjects Padova, Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, and Bergamo
• 1427: Battle of Maclodio: Venice defeats Milan
• 1435: Venice obtains the imperial vicariate

THE STATE OF THE CHURCH

• After the conclusion of the Western Schism (1417), the Papacy definitively abandoned its universalistic dreams, renouncing exercising a leading role in European politics; however, it weighed heavily on internal Italian affairs, in which it represented the greatest obstacle, even if not the only one, to the unification of the peninsula.

• The popes of the second fifteenth century, more than heads of Christianity, were configured as secular princes, concerned with strengthening the structures of their State and satisfying the ambitions of their relatives (nephews, but also sons), to whom they conferred ecclesiastical offices and benefits, without scruple of carving out for them personal domains or lordships within the borders of the State.

• As happened in the other territorial states, the pontiffs negotiated administrative positions and the delegation of local powers in the fiscal and judicial fields with the cities, the local lords, and the various oligarchies, in exchange for sworn fidelity.

• Many of the lordships that arose in central Italy received their legitimacy from the office of vicar of the pontiff.

• As emerges from reading the map, despite having centralized its powers, the State of the Church must come to negotiations with the local lords and with the communities of its vast territory: centers such as Perugia, Urbino, or Bologna maintain their magistratures and control of the contadi, in exchange for sworn fidelity to the pontiff.

• 1454: Peace of Lodi between Milan and Venice: guarantees forty years of peace and Italian geopolitical equilibrium

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THE DOMAINS OF THE SAVOY

• The important story of the lordship of the Savoy began with Amedeo V (count of Savoy from 1285 to 1323) who, after having subjected the territories of Ivrea and Canavese and introduced into the family the Salic law - according to which only the firstborn males could aspire to the succession - obtained from the emperor Henry VII of Luxembourg the appointment of imperial vicar.

• At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Savoy entered the history of Italy when Amedeo VIII (in power from 1391 to 1439) subjected a good part of the territories of western Piedmont, Nice, Pinerolo, Turin, and Vercelli, reaching a notable degree of power, and obtained, in 1416, from the emperor Sigismondo, the title of duke of Savoy.

9.5 Southern Italy between Angevins and Aragonese

• With the Peace of Caltabellotta (1302), the throne of Naples was assigned to the Angevins, whose most important exponent was Roberto d'Angiò (in power from 1309 to 1343), who acquired the title of pontifical vicar.

• Protector of men of letters and artists, such as Petrarch, Boccaccio, Cino da Pistoia, and Giotto, the sovereign made Naples a center of intellectual life of the time and an important commercial square.

THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES: SIGNS OF DECLINE

• Upon the death of Roberto d'Angiò, however, the signs of political and economic decline of the Kingdom of Naples became manifest.

• Just as a strong bourgeois class was establishing itself in northern Italy thanks to traffic, banks, and industrial activities, capable of also ensuring a flourishing development of agriculture, in the South that mercantile and maritime activity that had constituted the strength of the kingdom in the times of the Normans and the Swabians was exhausted.

• The countryside, once flourishing, was depopulating transforming into vast latifundia, on which the barons come in the wake of the Angevins exercised their feudal power weighing on a mass of very poor peasants.

• The lack of a strong bourgeois class (and of cities capable of controlling and organizing the countryside) deprived the Crown of the indispensable help to keep baronial arrogance at bay and start the transformation of the still feudal State into a modern State.

• Added to this situation were the dynastic contrasts of the house of Anjou, which contributed to weaken the royal power to the advantage of the barons.

THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES TO THE ARAGONESE

• Upon the death of Queen Giovanna II (1435), the kingdom was disputed between Renato d'Angiò, the last descendant of the Angevin branch of France, and Alfonso V of Aragon, already master of Sicily and Sardinia.

• The latter defeated his Angevin adversary in 1442 and had himself recognized as king of Naples by all the princes of Italy, unifying the South under Aragonese rule.

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• In this period, the cities began to enjoy greater autonomy, but, despite the attempts of Alfonso and his son, Ferdinand, to repress the noble power and start the modernization of the State, the conditions of the kingdom did not change.

THE KINGDOM OF SICILY AND INTEGRATION WITH SPAIN

• Despite the fact the Peace of Caltabellotta had established that, upon the death of Federico III of Aragon (in power from 1296 to 1337), Sicily would have to return to the Angevins, the Kingdom of Sicily remained to the cadet branch, that is, secondary, of the Aragonese dynasty.

• Thus in 1409, despite the opposition of some eminent Sicilian families, the Kingdom of Sicily passed into the hands of Martino the Elder, King of Aragon, who decided to include the island in the domain of the Spanish Crown, under the legal form of «viceregno», thus putting an end, in fact, to the political autonomy that Sicily had always enjoyed.

• As we have seen, then, in 1442 Alfonso V of Aragon reunited the Kingdom of Sicily to the Kingdom of Naples, but this unity of the Italian South had a short duration, because Alfonso V had decided that at his death, which occurred in 1458, Sicily and Sardinia would pass to his brother John and the Kingdom of Naples to his illegitimate son Ferdinand, called «Ferrante».

THE ARAGONESE DOMINION IN SOUTHERN ITALY

• Kingdom of Naples

  • 1309-43: Roberto d'Angiò on the throne
  • 1343-1442: Dynastic crisis

• Kingdom of Sicily

  • 1337: Federico III of Aragon dies: the kingdom should return to the Angevins, but passes to a cadet branch of the Aragonese
  • 1409: Martino the Elder of Aragon includes the island in the Spanish Crown (viceregno)
  • 1442: Alfonso V of Aragon unifies the two kingdoms
  • 1458: at the death of Alfonso, Sicily and Sardinia pass to Giovanni; Naples to Ferrante