From Gown to Town – Professional Training for City Magistrates in Thirteenth-Century Italy
Italian City Magistrates in the High Middle Ages
<1>
During the High Middle Ages (1000-1300) the Italian peninsula was not a homogeneous whole, but composed of many ‘Italies’. <footnote data-anchor="anmerkung1" data-id="fn1">[1]</footnote> The focus of this article is on communal Italy. This academic shorthand refers to the highly urbanised areas of Northern and Central Italy where self-government first emerged at the end of the eleventh century and came to institutional maturity in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. <footnote data-anchor="anmerkung2" data-id="fn2">[2]</footnote>
<2>
This article does not look into the early origins (up to c. 1180) nor final stages of the commune (after c. 1250), but concentrates on the podestà regime (c. 1180–c. 1250). <footnote data-anchor="anmerkung3" data-id="fn3">[3]</footnote> The podestà is generally labelled as one of the most ingenious inventions of communal Italy. <footnote data-anchor="anmerkung4" data-id="fn4">[4]</footnote> This city magistrate lifted the practice of city government to a new, professional plane and constituted a qualitative change in governmental practices. <footnote data-anchor="anmerkung5" data-id="fn5">[5]</footnote>
<3>
The structural trend towards professional city government had an important cultural off-shoot. As the exercise of high office professionalised, there was an increasing need – and room - for reflection on and training in this office, thus creating a vital link between learning and political activity. Once the podestà office was no longer in flux and had turned into a stable fixture of the institutional framework, this type of instruction found its expression in the podestà literature, the study object of this article. <footnote data-anchor="anmerkung6" data-id="fn6">[6]</footnote>
<4>
In contrast to the traditional narrative which presents a relatively flat and undiversified picture of the podestà literature I will argue that this professional training did not follow a ‘one size fits all’-model. Given the dynamics involved in learning this profession, the formation took on different shapes. More precisely, I will identify four didactic settings in which this type of texts originated and functioned: topic-specific training, family-organised instruction, retinue-based education, and private teaching. Each of the four surviving remnants of the podestà literature will be linked to such a didactic setting.
Anmerkungen
<footnote data-anchor="fn1" data-id="anmerkung1">[1]</footnote> For a detailed survey of Italian medieval history in English: New Cambridge Medieval History, see especially: Volume IV, c.1024-c.1198, 2 vols, ed. by David Luscombe and Jonathan Riley-Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), and Volume V, c. 1198-1300, ed. by David Abulafia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). For an introduction to Italy in the High Middle Ages: Italy in the Central Middle Ages: 1000-1300, ed. by David Abulafia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
<footnote data-anchor="fn2" data-id="anmerkung2">[2]</footnote> For this definition: Edward Coleman, ‘Cities and Communes’, in Italy in the Central Middle Ages: 1000-1300, ed. by David Abulafia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 27-57 (p. 27).
<footnote data-anchor="fn3" data-id="anmerkung3">[3]</footnote> For an overview of the historiography on the podestà regime: Paolo Grillo, 'I podestà dell'Italia comunale: Recenti studi e nuovi problemi sulla storia politica e istituzionale dei comuni italiani nel Duecento’, Rivista storica italiana, 115 (2003), 556-90. The staffing of this office has been examined in great detail by a team of twenty-five specialists led by Maire Vigueur: I podestà dell’Italia comunale: Reclutamento e circolazione degli ufficiali forestieri (fine XII sec.-metà XIV sec.), 2 vols, ed. by Jean-Claude Maire Vigueur (Roma: École française de Rome, 2000). Institutional studies go back to the beginning of the twentieth century. Standard works are: Gian Piero Bognetti, Appunti sul podestà (Pisa: Pacini Mariotti, 1933-34); Vittorio Franchini, Saggio di ricerche sull’instituto del podestà nel comune medievale (Roma: Spithoever, 1912); G. Hanauer, ‘Das Berufspodestat im dreizehnten Jahrhundert’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Oesterreichische Geschichtsforschung, 23 (1902), 377-426; Ernst Salzer, Ueber die Anfänge der Signorie in Oberitalien: Ein Beitrag zur italienischen Verfassungsgeschichte (Berlin: von E. Ebering, 1900). Currently, Artifoni is the leading scholar on this figure. His studies have turned the link between rhetoric and communal politics into a commonplace of Italian historiography. See especially: Enrico Artifoni, ‘Retorica e organizzazione del linguaggio politico nel Duecento italiano’, in Le forme della propaganda politica nel Due e nel Trecento, ed. by Paolo Cammarosano (Rome: École française de Rome, 1994), pp. 157-82; Enrico Artifoni, ‘Sull’eloquenza politica nel Duecento italiano’, Quaderni medievali, 35 (1993), 57-78; Enrico Artifoni, ‘I podestà professionali e la fondazione retorica della politica comunale’, Quaderni storici, 63 (1986), 687-719. See also: Paolo Cammarosano, ‘L’éloquence laïque dans l’Italie communale (fin du XIIe-XIVe siècle)’, Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes, 158/2 (2000), 431-42.
<footnote data-anchor="fn4" data-id="anmerkung4">[4]</footnote> Patrick Gilli, Villes et sociétés urbaines en Italie: Milieu XIIe – milieu XIVe siècle (Paris: Sedes, 2005), p. 292. See also: Enrico Artifoni, ‘Comune italiano’, in Federico II: Enciclopedia fridericiana (Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2005), I, pp. 357-64 (p. 358); Paolo Cammarosano, Italia medievale: Struttura e geografia delle fonti scritte (Roma: La Nuova Italia, 1995), pp. 137, 146, and 151; Jean-Claude Maire Vigueur and Enrico Faini, Il sistema politico dei comuni italiani (secoli XII-XIV) (Milano: Pearson Italia, 2010), p. 36.
<footnote data-anchor="fn5" data-id="anmerkung5">[5]</footnote> Daniela De Rosa, Alle origini della repubblica fiorentina: Dai consoli al “Primo Popolo” (1172-1260) (Firenze: Arnaud, 1995), pp. 20-22; Maire Vigueur and Faini, 2010, p. 36; Giuliano Milani, I comuni italiani (Roma: Laterza, 2007), p. 167.
<footnote data-anchor="fn6" data-id="anmerkung6">[6]</footnote> See also: Elisa Occhipinti, L’Italia dei comuni: Secoli XI-XIII (Roma: Carocci, 2008), p. 60.