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Forms of Political Representation in Late Medieval Northern Italy Merits and Shortcomings of the City-State Paradigm (Late 14Th–Early 16Th Century)

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Forms of Political Representation in Late Medieval Northern Italy Merits and Shortcomings of the City-State Paradigm (Late 14Th–Early 16Th Century) Chapter 3 Forms of Political Representation in Late Medieval Northern Italy Merits and Shortcomings of the City-State Paradigm (Late 14th–early 16th Century) Marco Gentile 1 Introduction The aim of this chapter is to provide a sketch of the varied patterns of political representation in the Lombard region at the end of the Middle Ages. More spe- cifically, this account will focus on the state or duchy of Milan, also known as the “Stato/ducato visconteo-sforzesco”. The interchangeability of these names is itself an indication of the fundamental ambiguity of the material constitu- tion of a political entity of this kind, which current historiography can choose to define either by focusing on the urban element (though Milan was not a capital city in the strict sense, nor a dominante like Venice or Florence) or by underscoring the role of the princely dynasty in power. In the late medieval Milanese duchy, there was no general representative in- stitution, such as a parliament, the German Landtage, the Cortes of Castile and Aragon, or the French provincial and general Estates. In their absence, at the centre we find bodies such as the ducal Privy Council, while at the peripheries we find the legal representative bodies of the subject cities and communities, the local councils, which were often hegemonized by semi-corporate factional groups. These different levels will be analysed here through the case studies of Parma, Piacenza and Alessandria. Until a few years ago, it was customary for historians to refer to the Mi- lanese duchy as a sum of city-states (or “a coordination of cities”) under a lord or a prince, who was a member of the Visconti, or from 1450 the Sforza dynasty.1 Over the last two decades, however, historians have begun to * I would like to thank Letizia Arcangeli, Giorgio Chittolini, Federico Del Tredici and Massimo Della Misericordia for their generous comments and suggestions on the first version of this paper. 1 See, for example, Gian Maria Varanini, “Governi principeschi e modello cittadino di organiz- zazione del territorio nell’Italia del Quattrocento”, in Principi e città alla fine del Medioevo, © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi:�0.��63/97890043639�5_005 <UN> 70 Gentile question the assumption that the cities systematically and successfully pur- sued a policy of subjugating the surrounding territory; the idea that the bricks to build the Italian regional states of the Renaissance were provided by the thirteenth-century city-states has been criticized and revised.2 Undeniably, the nature (or the Verfassung) of the Milanese principality cannot be properly understood without a full appreciation of the constitutional role played by the cities and their political elites.3 Nonetheless, the Italian version of the duali- stic paradigm—in which the dialogue between the prince and the estates typi- cal of other European areas, such as the lands of the Empire, was considered comparable to the relationship between the prince (or the dominant city) and ed. Sergio Gensini (Pisa, 1996), pp. 95–127; Francesco Somaini, “Processi costitutivi, dinami- che politiche e strutture istituzionali dello Stato visconteo-sforzesco”, in Comuni e signorie nell’Italia settentrionale: la Lombardia, ed. Giuseppe Galasso, Storia d’Italia utet 6 (Turin, 1998), pp. 744–63; Marco Folin, “Principi e città in Italia fra medioevo ed età moderna: note a margine del caso ferrarese”, in Aspetti e componenti dell’identità urbana in Italia e in Ger- mania (secoli xiv–xvi) / Aspekte und Komponenten der städtischen Identität in Italien und in Deutschland (14.–16. Jahrhundert), ed. Giorgio Chittolini and Peter Johanek (Bologna and Berlin, 2003), pp. 25–43; Isabella Lazzarini, L’Italia degli Stati territoriali. Secoli xiii–xv (Rome and Bari, 2003), pp. 98–107. 2 See Massimo Della Misericordia, “La Lombardia composita. Pluralismo politico-istituzionale e gruppi sociali nei secoli x–xvi (a proposito di una pubblicazione recente)”, Archivio Storico Lombardo 124–125 (1998–1999), pp. 601–48; Marco Gentile, “Leviatano regionale o forma- stato composita? Sugli usi possibili di idee vecchie e nuove”, Società e storia 89 (2000), pp. 561–73; Letizia Arcangeli, Gentiluomini di Lombardia. Ricerche sull’aristocrazia padana nel Rinascimento (Milan, 2003); Federica Cengarle, Immagine di potere e prassi di governo. La politica feudale di Filippo Maria Visconti (Rome, 2006); Marco Gentile, “Aristocrazia signorile e costituzione del ducato visconteo-sforzesco: appunti e problemi di ricerca”, in Noblesse et États princiers en Italie et en France au XVe siècle, ed. Marco Gentile and Pierre Savy (Rome, 2009), pp. 125–55; Andrea Gamberini, Oltre le città. Assetti territoriali e culture aristocratiche nella Lombardia del tardo medioevo (Rome, 2009), pp. 29–51; Federico Del Tredici, “Lombardy under the Visconti and the Sforza”, in The Italian Renaissance State, ed. Andrea Gamberini and Isabella Lazzarini (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 156–76. 3 Giorgio Chittolini, “Alcune note sul ducato di Milano nel Quattrocento”, in Gensini, Principi e città, pp. 412–31; Giorgio Chittolini, Città, comunità e feudi negli stati dell’Italia centro- settentrionale (secoli xiv–xvi) (Milan, 1996), pp. 39–60. The concept of material constitution or Verfassung as opposed to Konstitution has become very common in Italian historiography through the work of Otto Brunner: see, in particular, Brunner, Land und Herrschaft. Grund- fragen der territorialen Verfassungsgeschichte Österreichs im Mittelalter, 5th ed. (Vienna, 1965); Brunner, Per una nuova storia costituzionale e sociale, ed. Pierangelo Schiera (Milan, 1970). The concept, of course, goes back to Carl Schmitt. For him, constitution is first of all “the concrete, collective condition of political unity and social order in a particular state”. Carl Schmitt, Constitutional theory, ed. and trans. Jeffrey Seitzer (Durham and London, 2008), p. 59. See, for example, Andrea Zorzi, “The ‘Material Constitution’ of the Florentine Dominion”, in Florentine Tuscany. Structures and Practices of Power, ed. William J. Connell and Andrea Zorzi (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 6–31. <UN>.
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