Con riferimenti specifici alla pianura padana, si esamina in particolare il problema della sicurezza degli itinerari stradali nel tardo medioevo, che si pone in modo diverso per le diverse categorie di fruitori prese in esame (mercanti, pellegrini, militari). ; This essay examines the issue of security in the late Middle Age road system, which had different implications for its diverse users (merchants, pilgrims, soldiers), with special reference to the Po Valley.
One of the most outstanding characteristics of the late 14th century merchant letters is the extraordinary variety of their contents. The medieval merchants pour in their correspondences a flood of informations about economics, politics, health, society, art, private life in the widest possible meaning, and offer to contemporary scholars a very original and rich source to a multidisciplinary analysis on late medieval society. The letters in fact offer an extremely rich material to researchers not only on the economic history of the late 14th century, but also on the wider field of political, religious, material, sanitary history and to the analysis of interpersonal relationships and histoire de la mentalité of this period. ; Abstract Tra le caratteristiche più sorprendenti e significative del carteggio commerciale di fine Trecento emerge la sua straordinaria abbondanza di contenuti molto diversi. I mercanti del tempo riversano nelle loro lettere informazioni di tipo economico, politico, sanitario, religioso, sociale, artistico e privato, nell'accezione più ampia del termine, offrendo così agli studiosi odierni una fonte originalissima per un approccio multidisciplinare, un materiale utile non soltanto per la storia economica del tardo XIV secolo ma anche per la storia politica, sanitaria, religiosa, materiale, culturale, della mentalità e delle relazioni interpersonali di questo periodo.
This essay offers a reinterpretation of the political history of L'Aquila between the middle of the fourteenth and the end of the fifteenth century, in order to give due weight to three political actors: urban lords, monarchy, merchants. Through the analysis of the institutional forms and procedures, as well as of social groups and factions, the essay stresses the centrality of mer- chants in shaping political structure and representation, sheds light on the relations between the partes and the ruling groups and on the synergy between the latter and urban lords. That synergy was crucial for the city's control over the contado – the political role of which is analysed – and for negotiation with the monarchy, which constituted a resource for the community. Finally, this essay discusses some aspects of local political culture. ; Il saggio propone una rilettura della storia politica dell'Aquila da metà Trecento a fine Quattrocento, per attribuire il giusto peso a tre attori politici: signori, sovrani, mercanti. Attraverso l'analisi di forme e procedure istituzionali, gruppi e articolazioni sociali e fazioni si rimarca la centralità dei mercanti nel delineare gli assetti politici e la rappresentanza, si illustrano le con- vergenze e le divergenze fra partes e gruppo dirigente, e la sinergia fra quest'ultimo e i signori cittadini. Tale sinergia fu essenziale per il controllo del contado – di cui si esamina il ruolo politico – e per la negoziazione con la monarchia, che permette di considerare quest'ultima come una risorsa per gli aquilani. In conclusione, si riprendono gli aspetti trattati per mettere in luce alcuni elementi della cultura politica aquilana.
The heart of the industrious Genoese presence in Palermo was the Capela mercatorum Genuensium located in the cloister of the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi thanks to the preexisting relationship of collaboration with the Franciscans. Given a brief mention on the documentation concerning the Genoese nation in Sicily and expecially in Palermo, which plays an important commercial, social, political and religious role with reference to the Logia Ianuensis, the paper will recall the events of the Capela, the viceroy permission to group in confratria disciplinantium (1480), andits works of art. Genoese presences are identified in other thriving companies within the same complex (San Francesco, Sa(San Francesco, San Lorenzo Immacolatella). Noteworthy are the discovery and publication of the Book of Privileges by the Consulate of Genoa and the existence in the Municipal Library of Palermo of a code containing the Annals pf Caffaro and his continuators up to Jacopo Doria. The paper will conclude hinting at the new church of San Giorgio, founded in 1575 close to the new port to be the status symbol of the nation and to have more space for activities and for burials of famous people, such as the female painter Sofonisba Anguissola and the relatives of Christopher Columbus under the same coat of arms as the navigator.
Placed in a favourable position between land and sea, in the XV century Ragusa (Dubrovnik) was the protagonist of the commercial exchanges in the Mediterranean and represented an important reference point for all the merchants who turned to Constantinople. There were three goods in particular around which the small Republic built its fortune, attracting the attention of many merchants (especially Italians): the silver from the Balkan mines, the Apulian wheat and woolen cloths. In this volume the reconstruction of the international dimension of Ragusa passes through the review of multiple studies, coming especially from the Slavic area, conducted during the second half of the twentieth century, supplemented by a rich unpublished public, notary and corporate documentation kept in the Ragusa and Italian archives. In particular, the accounting records and correspondence of Piero Pantella, a Piacenza merchant who moved to Ragusa in 1415, were taken into consideration, from which the significant commercial activity that the merchant carried out in the Dalmatian city emerges, but also the important role that he covered in the development of the Ragusa textile manufacture.
In a dramatic moment of her history, Florence, or rather the ruling class composed essentially by businessmen, decided in the summer 1342 to give herself to the power of Walter of Brienne, duke of Athens. The French-Apulian baron, linked to the Angevins of Naples, and so to the Guelph international alliance, should guarantee the political and economic interests of the Florentine merchant community, putting an end to the war against Pisa and reopening for Florence the essential access to the sea. About this diplomatic affair and, first of all, about its financial implications an exceptional witness is provided by the documentary evidences of Bartolo di Neri da Ruffiano. The Florentine notary collected sworn commitment to pay thousands of florins by 112 mercantile, banking and textiles companies.
The solemn obsequies celebrated in honour of Cosimo II Medici in the basilica of San Giovanni e Paolo in Venice in 1621, under the auspices of the principal representatives of the Florentine "nation" in Venice, seem to signify the beginning of the abandonment of the sacred spaces conceded for their use since the fifteenth century in the Church of the Frari. This choice, tied up with the reduction in the number of Florentine residents, and especially of merchant-bankers, may indicate a new strategy for financial and social consolidation. Traditionally, in Venice and elsewhere, Florentine merchants did not establish particularly close links with their host cities, where they tended to spend only a few years, living in a close community. Nevertheless, from the 1570s onwards, their financial specialisation (a risky and difficult business) and the growing interest shown by the Venetian patriciate in this type of investment, increased their contacts and business relations with members of the Venetian ruling class. Confronted by a period of crisis in the financial market at the beginning of the 1620s, it is possible that the celebration of the obsequies for Cosimo II in the Dominican church (where the prior was the brother of the Venetian resident in Florence) rather that in the Frari, signalled the start of a strategy to reinforce confidence in the financial stability of the Florentine merchants among the Venetian patriciate.
