Ruling by information, governing by records: the spoken and written grammar of power in post-communal Italy (c. 1350–1520)

ABSTRACT

Recent research has widely emphasized the role of public written records and data-managing strategies in late-medieval governmental growth. The necessity to control information and to assure that a timely stream of news and communications circulated among the various components of a composite domain became central for princes and governments. Such a need was translated into new documentary techniques and archival organization by the endless work of many professionals at various territorial levels. However, the increasing recourse to recorded information was a multifaceted phenomenon. To better understand its complexity, the essay will investigate the intersection of spoken and written strategies of information-gathering and negotiation. Secondly, the paper will also take into account the ambivalent dynamics underlying the recording of the various means required not only to rule a composite territorial domain, but also to control its administrative, judicial and fiscal geography. Whereas the use of written records became the norm for the establishment of a new political order, that practice sometimes, and for different reasons, also contributed to preserving the memory of a different past. In order to adequately capitalize on late-medieval Italy’s complexity, the essay will examine different records and different contexts. The examples will be taken from a set of composite polities in post-communal northern and central Italy (ranging from Milan to Florence or Mantua) which shared some common features, but which were also different in size, strength, ideological models and material constitution. The considered timespan will be a long Quattrocento going from the mid-fourteenth to the early sixteenth century.

KEYWORDS:

• Medieval history
• Italy
• territory
• composite polity
• written communication
• information
• Renaissance

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Alessandro Silvestri for involving me in his project, and the two anonymous readers, whose comments helped me to polish, clarify and refine my text.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Lazzarini, Communication and Conflict.

2. On this theme, by now, the bibliography is really imposing: see the pioneering Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, and, as the latest references, Bertrand, Les écritures ordinaires; Lazzarini, L’ordine delle scritture; and Chastang, “Dominer, Administrer, Gouverner.” On information, although for a later period, there are interesting remarks in Blair, Too Much to Know and, on a more political note, de Vivo, Information and Communication; see also the very recent Dover, The Information Revolution. As for the connection between information, memory and writing in the Middle Ages, see Carruthers, The Book of Memory.

3. Dover, The Information Revolution.

4. Cammarosano, Italia medievale.

5. De Vincentiis, L'Ytalia di Dante.

6. Benigno and Mineo, eds., L’Italia come storia.

7. Gamberini and Lazzarini, eds., The Italian Renaissance State.

8. Maire Viguer, “Révolution documentaire”; and Milani, “Il governo delle liste.” Such a trend was a European phenomenon (see Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record).

9. Again, this was a European phenomenon: see Wickham, Medieval Europe, 235–51; in Italy, what was distinctive was its long-lasting intensity: see Petrucci and Romeo, “Scriptores in urbibus.”

10. Lazzarini, ed., Scritture e potere; “De la ‘révolution scripturaire”; and L’ordine delle scritture. On the écritures grises, see Fossier, Petitjean, and Revest, eds., Écritures grises.

11. I refer here mainly to Lazzarini, “Rulers and Ruled.” On the historiographical debate, see Connell and Zorzi, eds., Lo Stato territoriale fiorentino: in particular, Zorzi, “Introduzione.”

12. A survey in Chittolini, “Ricerche sull’ordinamento territoriale”; Pirillo, Costruzione di un contado; Zorzi, “La formazione”; and Tanzini, “Tuscan States.” On the logics of the building of the Florentine domain, see now Chittolini, “Dominant Cities,” in particular 16–20; on the accomandigiae, see Bozzi, “Figli devoti e amici fedeli.”

13. Chittolini, “Ricerche sull’ordinamento territoriale”; and Zorzi, “L’organizzazione territoriale”; on the economic logics that often dictated such a reordering, Epstein, “Strutture di mercato”; and Petralia, “Fiscalità, politica e dominio.”

14. De Angelis, “Ufficiali e uffici.”

15. In addition to the essays devoted to local communities in Connell and Zorzi, eds., Lo Stato territoriale fiorentino (in particular by Fabbri, Muzzi, and Perol) and in Pinto and Pirillo, eds., I centri minori, see also Tanzini, “Pratiche documentarie” and “Scritture della comunità.”

16. On fifteenth-century Florence, see Brucker, The Civic World; Rubinstein, The Government of Florence, and now Tanzini, “Tuscan States”; on the Medici age, see Black and Law, eds., The Medici.

17. Salvadori, Dominio e patronato.

18. An example for all, Leonardo Bruni’s career between Arezzo and Florence, Viti, ed., Leonardo Bruni cancelliere.

19. Letter-writing in late-medieval Italy has been investigated from many angles: among the most diverse approaches see Trexler, Public Life, 131–58 (on the Datini-Mazzei carteggio); Najemy, Between Friends; and McLean, The Art of the Network. On the Florentine correspondence between the city and the local communities, see Tanzini, “Scritture della comunità”; in particular on the discourse on subjection and dissent, see Lazzarini, “Rulers and Ruled.”

20. Archivio di Stato di Firenze (ASFi), Signori. Responsive (S.RE): 4–9: 1355–1520 ca.; Signori. Missive I Cancelleria (S.MIC), 29 (1410–22) and, after the chancery was divided in two, from the II chancery: Signori. Missive II Cancelleria (S.MIIC), 1 (1441–3), 2 (1443–5), 3 (1469–70) and 4 (1472–3); Signori. Legazioni e commissarie (S.LC), 5 [1410–30], 7 [1422–7], 11–13 [1444–53], 17 [1469–73]: http://www.archiviodistato.firenze.it/archividigitali/complesso-archivistico/?id=21), and, from 1480 onwards, Otto di Pratica, Legazioni e commissarie (OP.LC), regg. 1–4, 7, 9 (on those, see Carteggi).

21. A handful of examples will be enough: in 1427[8], the Signori were dealing with a conflict between Florence and Siena along the border between Fogliano and Sinalunga: they wrote to their podestà in Fogliano, asking him to come to ‘reason’ with the Sienese commissar, and then that they also sent their commissars in order to reconcile with the Sienese and get peace (‘così che si venga al punto della ragione’; ‘v’ingegnate d’acconciare la cosa in modo che la ragione abbia suo luogo […] per venire allo effecto della concordia’): ASFi, S.LC, 5 (1410–30), the Signoria to the podestà in Fogliano, Florence, February 15, 1427[8], c. 11 r; ASFi, S.LC, 5, the Signoria to Giovanni Strozzi and Giovanni Franceschi (Instruction), Florence, May 28, 1428, c. 16 v-17 r. Again in 1428, the idea was that Florence was compelled to defend, preserve and re-acquire what was rightly requested or reclaimed by its citizens and communities (‘siamo obligati defendere, conservare et raquistare’): the Signori to Guido Magalotti, Florence, April 9, 1428 (the issue here was a conflict between the Sienese town of Massa and the heirs of sir Orlando Malavolti, Florentine citizens and accomandati: ASFi, S.LC, 5 (1410–30), cc. 79 v-80 r).

22. De Angelis, “Uffici e ufficiali.”

23. ASFi, S.RE, b. 5, c. 24, Guerrieri de’ Rossi to the Signori, Montefioralle, March 17, 1358[9].

24. As Giorgio Chittolini noted as early as 1979, at the apex of its late-medieval expansion Florence encouraged a participation to government from below: see Chittolini, “Ricerche sull’ordinamento territoriale,” 307.

25. Tornabuoni, Lettere.

26. Tanzini, “Scritture della comunità.”

27. For a recent survey, see Dean, “Ferrara and Mantua”; and Del Tredici, “Lombardy,” and bibliography.

28. References in Rotelli and Schiera, eds., Lo Stato moderno.

29. Tabacco, Egemonie sociali, 385.

30. Varanini, “L’organizzazione del distretto” and “Dal comune allo stato regionale.”

31. Chittolini, ed., La crisi degli ordinamenti; and Fasano Guarini, ed., Potere e società.

32. Gamberini, “The Language of Politics.”

33. Watts, The Making of Polities; for the Italian (and Milanese) context, see also Della Misericordia, Divenire comunità; Gentile, ed., Guelfi e ghibellini; Castelnuovo, Être noble; Gamberini, The Clash of Legitimacies; Del Tredici, Un’altra nobiltà; and Lazzarini, L’ordine delle scritture.

34. Archivio di Stato di Modena, Leggi e decreti, A.1 (1363–81): on this first Ferrarese liber, see Lazzarini, “Registres princiers” (2013/8), now in Lazzarini, L’ordine delle scritture, 123–50, 137, 145–8.

35. Lazzarini, “La nomination” (2001), now in Lazzarini, L’ordine delle scritture, 35–60.

36. See Santoro, Gli uffici del dominio sforzesco, pp. xxxiv-xxxvii; Lazzarini, L’ordine delle scritture, 43–4 and 143–5.

37. Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Archivio Gonzaga, Patenti, 1 (1407–44), 2 (1444–84), 3 (1484–1506); see Lazzarini, L’ordine delle scritture, 46–7 and 141–3. Some vicariati and podesterie were mentioned in various, less specific and systematic sources (such as lists of armed men for military emergencies) already in the fourteenth century (see for Mantua Vaini, Ricerche gonzaghesche), but a lasting geography of administrative circumscriptions was defined only in the 1450s.

38. Della Misericordia, Divenire comunità; Lazzarini, Il linguaggio del territorio; Del Tredici, Comunità, nobili, gentiluomini; for similar dynamics in the thirteenth century, see Francesconi, Districtus civitatis Pistorii.

39. Biblioteca Ambrosiana, ms. Z 68 sup.: the fiscal units registered for the district of Cremona were 131, and the corresponding settlements were 281; on such fiscal resources, see Covini, “Alle spese di Zoan Villano.”

40. We are talking of what remains: for instance, another survey written in 1467 was probably a general one, but we are left with fragments of it (Archivio di Stato di Milano, Miscellanea storica 6); Covini, “Alle spese di Zoan Villano”; for a general overview of these sources and procedures, see Ginatempo, “Spunti comparativi.”

41. Covini, “Cartografia fiscale”; and Lazzarini, “Scritture del territorio” (2011), now in eadem, L’ordine delle scritture, 61–122, 73–6.

42. Chittolini, Mohlo, and Schiera, eds., Origini dello Stato; and Gamberini and Lazzarini, eds., The Italian Renaissance State.

43. In particular on Milan, see Black, Absolutism in Renaissance Milan; Cengarle, Lesa maestà; on Florence, Fubini, Politica e pensiero politico; on Naples, Delle Donne, Alfonso il Magnanimo and Cappelli, Maiestas.

44. Gamberini, Lo stato visconteo; Zenobi, “Beyond the State,” 56.

45. Connell and Zorzi, eds., Lo stato territoriale.

Additional information

Funding

The research on Florentine Tuscany exposed in par. 3 of this essay was funded by Proyecto HAR2017-85639-P Beyond the Exercise of a Public Office: Political Recognition and Negotiations According to Disciplined Dissent in Late Medieval Europe (Principal Investigator Dr Fabrizio Titone, Universidad del País Vasco – Vitoria-Gasteiz).

Notes on contributors

Isabella Lazzarini

Isabella Lazzarini studied at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, and qualified as Professor of Medieval History in 2013; she teaches at the University of Molise. Her research interests focus on the political, social and cultural history of late-medieval Italy and the Mediterranean, with an emphasis on Renaissance diplomacy and the growth of different political languages in documentary sources.