Search Results

In 1070, when Lanfranc left his abbacy at Caen to become Archbishop of Canterbury, he was probably about 60 years old — by medieval standards an advanced age. In Lombardy, and then in Normandy, he had had a long and varied experience of lay, monastic, and general church life, and not least of the aspirations and concerns of the early reform papacy and of secular rulers who, for whatever reason, had sympathy with them. At each stage of his life he had demonstrated his ability to adapt himself with integrity and effectiveness to the demands that he encountered. A cardinal feature of Lanfranc's monastic years as prior of Bec and as abbot of Caen was his close and sympathetic relationship with the reform popes of the time, especially Leo IX, Nicholas II, and Alexander II, all of whom held him in high regard.

The musical repertories Antonio Gardano and Girolamo Scotto published suggest a spirit of cooperative enterprise among 16th-century Venetian music printers. Using specific case studies, this chapter explores the various business strategies the two dynastic presses observed from the refashioning of reprinted editions and the creation of multi-volume series to the sub-specialization of musical genres and acquisition of clients and music from different locations. Gardano looked to Ferrara, Rome, and transalpine centers, while Scotto cultivated links with Lombardy, Mantua, and Trent, as well as Naples and Sicily. Later printing firms of Claudio Merulo and Francesco Rampazetto also demonstrate connections with the two dynastic presses.

This chapter discusses the influence of Pietro Verri on the economic debate in Lombardy. It also investigates how Verri formulated his economic thoughts. It explains that the key engine and fuel to drive economic development was conspicuous consumption. It discusses how and why Verri abandoned the concept of luxury as the cornerstone of economic development. It notes the new theories of economic development introduced by both Verri and Beccaria into Italian discussion — the concept of savings, productive investment, the pivotal role of the cost of money, capitalist agriculture, and the division of labour in a demand-driven economy. It explains that Verri and Beccaria also helped develop a language in which these mechanisms were to be expressed — the new language of economic reason.

This chapter begins by discussing the factors that caused the reforms that occurred in Lombardy. It then narrates that most of the reforms were decided upon in Vienna or by the imperial officers in Milan. It explains that the Lombard elite held important positions in the state of Milan from which the influence could be exerted. It shows how the new rulers first drew upon the old to participate with their traditional training in jurisprudence. By demonstrating the case of Pietro Verri and his father, Gabriele, this chapter explains that the newcomers had to fight against the old ones in order to establish themselves, and the struggle was as much a discontinuity in government participation as a break between generations. It also discusses that the Il Caffè became the voice of enlightenment. It describes Lombardy's optimism regarding agricultural economy and the ruralisation of industry and manufacture.

This chapter examines Spain's armies in the reign of Carlos II, seeking to show that the king had large numbers of men under arms. It explores how men were recruited for those armies, both at home and abroad, how effectively they were supplied, and how they fought. The chapter also discusses the quality of Spain's armies, and especially that of its high command.

This chapter looks at the place Venice and its hinterland assumed within broader imperial policy. It examines its role both within Metternich's defensive and diplomatic strategy, and within debates on economic and commercial issues. Underpinning this discussion is a consideration of how the authorities in Vienna viewed Venetians (in the sense of both veneziani and veneti), and how Venetians viewed not only their Austrian rulers, but other neighbours both within and without imperial frontiers. It is stressed that Venetians were more likely to see fellow Italians from Trieste or Lombardy as threatening to their interests than the German-speaking officials who were largely responsible for taking decisions about the region.

Austrian censorship, while milder than that of most Italian states in the post-Napoleonic era, was nevertheless oppressive and unenlightened. The attempt to circle the citizens of the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia with a cordon sanitaire to prevent contact with dangerous ideas was not only ineffective, but counterproductive: grievances about censorship ultimately assumed a major place in the opposition to Austrian rule.

This chapter discusses the emergence of Italy's network of cities, which reflects its cultural and political identity. At the beginning of the eleventh century, the municipal phenomenon exploded in the center-north of the peninsula; the cities proposed to take over as centers of self-government and control of territory. Nobles and merchants in the city joined their interests and created a more or less coherent system of domination over the economic and alimentary resources of the countryside: the countryside produces; the city directs the produce to the urban market, and gives it the denomination of its own identity; then, the urban market distributes the product in a commercial space. As of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, various cities in Emilia and Lombardy, for example, associated their names to a particular cheese, known as parmigiano, piacentino, or lodigiano, according to the local variety.

In the kingdom of Italy and in the church and city of Rome, Pope Gregory VII's intentions, actions, and degree of success showed differences from region to region. For the most part, Gregory showed prudence and insight in his appreciation of differing situations. When a cautious and accommodating approach was called for, as for example in his dealings with Aquileia and Venice, Gregory showed a moderation and willingness to settle for what he could hope to achieve, which were statesmanlike and conducive to his advantage. In Lombardy, by contrast, the recalcitrance of the Lombard bishops and the militancy of the Patarenes led Gregory into a stance of confrontation and zealous partisanship in regional affairs. Also in Tuscany, he found allies who seemed to meet his own requirements of lay figures and of churchmen. At Rome itself, Gregory was for most of his pontificate successful in maintaining his position by ways of moderation, of not raising contentious issues in religious or civic terms, and of not pressing the more radical aspects of his rule.

French and German influences combined in early Italian Romanticism, but the focus continued to be the problem of foreign rule and political disunity. Added to this was the absence of a common Italian language, in contrast to the wide use of Castilian in Spain and the successful imposition of French in France. The role of the Papacy and the position of the Catholic Church quickly became a focus of nationalist and liberal critique. Into this situation came Manzoni, an ardent Catholic sympathetic to liberalism and the national cause, and a leading figure in the search for a workable national language. Influenced by medievalists such as Fauriel and Sismondi, Manzoni’s early works examined medieval history in drama and historiography. Italian historical novelists, among them D’Azeglio, used medieval and early sixteenth-century themes in order to heighten national consciousness. Manzoni’s ‘The Betrothed’, influenced in part by Scott, opted for a realistic social and local canvas at the time of Spanish rule in Lombardy in the middle period of the Thirty Years’ War. Although not directly oriented towards the nationalist goal, this work was later adopted by liberal nationalists as a founding text. The book was a critique of the abuse of personal power. The novel’s Catholic roots ran deep. Manzoni, who had first made his name in drama and poetry, and had written history in order to explain his play on the Lombards in Italy, included a great deal of history in his historical novel.

This chapter discusses Étienne Cleirac's commentary on the first article of the Guidon de la mer (The Standard of the Sea). In brief, he says that the Jews expelled from France invented marine insurance policies and bills of exchange in order to salvage their assets when fleeing to “Lombardy,” that is, to northern and central Italy. From there, Italian refugees exported the newly invented financial instruments north of the Alps, where bankers and moneylenders were called “Lombards,” a name eventually given to a public square in Amsterdam. Cleirac's merging of these spaces has the effect of tracing a direct line between fourteenth-century Lombards and seventeenth-century Amsterdam and makes pawnbroking appear contiguous with the most sophisticated forms of financial credit developed during the sixteenth century. This chronological compression is crucial to Cleirac's rhetorical strategy of making medieval Jewish moneylenders, the object of scorn and prejudice, interchangeable with the international merchant-bankers of the seventeenth century.

This chapter examines the development of other Italian communes in order to elucidate what city leaders thought they were doing when they moved into the new communal world. Emphasis is given to a range of urban experiences in fifteen or so other cities, grouped regionally—Piemonte; Lombardy and Emilia; Romagna and the Veneto; and Tuscany. The chapter first considers Genoa and Asti, two cities that showed active early consuls, before turning to the communes of Lombardy and Emilia, Romagna and the Veneto, and Tuscany. It shows that the chronological pacing of communal development in Italy follows some recognizable geographical lines, that the degree to which communes were contested varied, and that the earliest documented communes had assemblies before they developed a consular leadership in any organized way. The chapter also explores the roles of families as communal leaders and how the rule of consuls became more institutionalized.

This chapter examines how protagonists of the Italian revolutions of 1848, including Giuseppe Montanelli and Carlo Cattaneo, engaged with American political institutions by looking at the cases of Lombardy, Tuscany, and Sicily. Before discussing the role played by the United States of America in Italian political thought of 1848, the chapter considers Italian experience of the revolutions of 1820–1821 and 1830–1831, both of which marked a watershed for the peninsula's national movement. It shows that Italian revolutionaries addressed the United States with very different emphasis, illustrating how references to the United States could serve very different ideological purposes. With respect to Tuscany's long history of engagement with the United States, there were far fewer references to American political institutions than for instance in Sicily, where the revolutionaries adopted a monarchical constitution. The chapter also analyzes Cattaneo's involvement in the Revolution in Lombardy and his understanding of American democracy.

This chapter discusses events surrounding Frederick's second Italian campaign. The goal of this campaign was to punish Milan for its repeated acts of defiance: the destruction of Frederick's seal, the failure to supply him with adequate provisions, its subjugation of Como and Lodi, and its support of Tortona. The emperor also sought to stop Milan's hegemonic aspirations in Lombardy, reassert imperial authority in Italy, and create a territorial lordship under his own control after he had turned over most of the Staufer's German domains to his brother, Conrad, and cousin, Frederick of Rothenburg. The discussions cover the first siege of Milan; Milan's first capitulation; the Roncaglia assembly of 1158; renewal of the conflict with Milan; and the siege of Crema.

This chapter attempts to measure the real impact of Giuseppe Micali on the political culture of the Risorgimento, testing the importance of his work Storia degli antichi popoli italiani on the studies of the Italic past published in several areas around the peninsula, especially in Lombardy (which remained the main Italian publishing centre), Naples, and Sicily. The analysis shows the multiple and different nationalizing uses of Micali’s works in tthese regions and confirms how his reading of a cultural, rather than ethnic, uniformity of the Italian people, was overwhelmingly accepted by the patriots on the eve of 1848. Micali’s model appeared, in fact, the only one that could be followed in a country which, though culturally united for centuries, was at the same time deprived of any political cohesion.

The introduction gives a critical rereading of the historiographical debate regarding the processes of state building at the end of the Middle Ages, highlighting its limitations in the lack of interest shown in the ideal reasons for the political conflict. This then gives rise to the interpretative proposal that forms the basis of the present work, which aims to shed light on the many conflicts that, in relation to legitimacy of power, tore medieval society apart. With this in mind, the introduction focuses on an analysis of the sources that are potentially useful for the study of these particular aspects, on the risks underlying their use, and on the expected results. The last part discusses the structure of the work and justifies the decision to divide it into two, clearly divided parts, dedicated to the communal age on the one hand and the post-communal era on the other.