EPILOGUE

On Feb. 5 1327, the papal legate Cardinal Bertrando del Poggetto entered Bologna at the invitation of the bolognesi. Aft er three days of festivals, Bologna surrendered its independence and republican insti- tutions and proclaimed him signore of the city.1 For most historians of Bologna, this end of the medieval commune marked the culmina- tion of nearly fi ft y years of decline. For Hessel, the great Novecento historian of medieval Bologna, the era of the commune was over by 1280, aft er Bologna came under papal overlordship in 1278.2 Modern historians, such as Antonio Ivan Pini and Giorgio Tamba, commonly pinpoint the stalemated war with Venice (1270–73) as the origin of Bologna’s economic decline, and the expulsion of the Lambertazzi in 1279 (and the alliance of the popolo with the Geremei) as the origin of its political decline.3 Th ese interpretations share a common premise

1 Vito Vitale, Il dominio della parte guelfa in Bologna (1280–1327) (Bologna: Arnaldo Forni, 1978, reprint of 1901 edition), p. 184. Negotiations for his assumption of lordship had been initiated in December 1326. Cf. Augusto Vasina, “Dal Comune verso la Signoria (1274–1334),” in Storia di Bologna. Bologna nel Medioevo, ed. Ovidio Capitani (Bologna: Bononia University Press, 2007), pp. 581–651, esp. pp. 622–623, who questions whether the grant of authority to del Poggetto constitutes the establish- ment of the fi rst signoria at Bologna. 2 Alfred Hessel, Storia della città di Bologna dal 1116 al 1280 (Bologna: Alfa, 1975 (Italian trans. by Gina Fasoli of original German published in 1910 as Geschichte der Stadt Bologna vom 116 bis 1280)), pp. 263–275. 3 Pini sees the triumph of the popolo, which had allied in 1279 with the Geremei, as symbolizing the end of Bologna’s golden age and the beginning of its decline. Pini, “Bologna nell età di Re Enzo,” in Bologna, Re Enzo e il suo mito. Atti della Giornata di Studio (Bologna, 11 giugno 2000), ed. Antonio Ivan Pini and Anna Laura Trom- betti Budriesi (Bologna: Deputazione di Storia Patria per le Province di Romagna, 2001), pp. 63–64 and his “Ravenna, Venezia e Bologna da Marcamò al Primaro (1251–1271),” Atti e memorie della Deputazione di storia patria per le province di Romagna, new series, 43 (1992): 233–261, and his “Bologna nel suo secolo d’oro,” in Rolandino e l’ars notaria da Bologna all’ Europa. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi storici sulla fi gura e l’opera di Rolandino, ed. Giorgio Tamba (Milan: Giuff rè, 2002), pp. 5–20, esp. p. 17. For Pini factionalism was “the poison, the trigger for the malignancy of inevitable decline.” Also his “Manovre di regime in una città-partito: il falso Teodosiano, Rolandino Passaggeri, la Società della Croce e il ‘barisello’ nella Bologna di fi ne Duecento,” Atti e memorie della Deputazione di storia patria per le province di Romagna, new series, 49 (1988): 281–318. Giorgio Tamba, Teoria e pratica della “commissione notarile” a Bologna nell’età comunale (Bologna: Lo scarabeo, 1991), cites the beginning of an era of “rifl usso” with, inter alia, the passing of theoretical overlordship of Bologna from imperial to pontifi cal authority in 1278. However, even 500 epilogue of organic and biological inevitability.4 Eclipsed in this interpre- tive approach, however, is the role of human actors and the balance between choice and constraint that marks change. Was the decline and defeat of the popolo inevitable? To what degree did the popolo’s poli- cies and decisions contribute to its downfall in 1327? Th e major fi ndings of this study indicate that republicanism re- mained vital in Bologna even into the 1320s, but that the narrowing of oligarchical government, especially aft er 1306, intensifi ed the exclu- sionary policies of the popolo, deepened factional strife, and set the stage for the adaptation of a more “protectionist” and destructive pol- icy of political and juridical privilege and politicization of justice. Th at policy transformed the ranks of Bolognese society into rigid heredi- tary divisions, and exacerbated an environment of fear and conspiracy. Th ese internal threats linked directly to the greatly increasing military threats from Bolognese political banniti and Ghibelline enemies that Guelf Bologna faced in the early fourteenth century, leading eventu- ally and directly to the lordship of Cardinal del Poggetto. Th e key to understanding Bologna’s submission to del Poggetto lies in the imbal- ance between the popolo’s internal and external policies and its fi nan- cial resources. Underlying the popolo’s vulnerability and the negative eff ects of its choices were the constraints of its material base—an econ- omy that could not yield the fi scal income needed to sustainpopolo policies. Bologna’s economic and demographic growth had been precocious in the thirteenth century. At it medieval peak in 1280 it had 55/60,000 urban inhabitants, which declined to 50,000 in 1300, 45,000 in 1306, and 43,000 in 1324.5 In this parameter, at least, Bologna’s trajectory matches the views of traditional historiography. But this demographic decline did not stem, as oft en maintained, from the expulsion of Lam- bertazzi in 1279, nor was it as extensive as Dondarini conjectured. under the blows of fl oods and famine in the early decades of the fourteenth century, the Bolognese economy seems to have remained vibrant. Vasina, “Dal Comune verso la Signoria,” pp. 614–615. 4 On this approach in general, see Howard Kaminsky, “From Lateness to Waning to Crisis: Th e Burden of the Late Middle Ages,”Journal of Early Modern History 4 (2000): 85–125. 5 Rolando Dondarini, Bologna medievale nella storia delle città (Bologna: Pàtron, 2000), p. 173. In the thirteenth century, the population of the contado was also at approximately 50,000. By the early fourteenth century, the population in the moun- tains of the contado had declined. Arturo Palmieri, La montagna bolognese del Medio Evo (Bologna: Arnaldo Forni, 1929), pp. 237–240.