Italian Cities in the Later Middle Ages, c. 1100-1400

Many features of the Italian urban experience have often been regarded as distinct from that of most other European cities – an interpretation that was usually based on the cities of northern and central Italy. Southern Italian cities have, by contrast, often remained in the historiographical shadow of the north. This perspective has led to the development of the paradigm of the ‘two Italies’: the cities of northern and central Italy were understood as belonging to a ‘communal’ sphere whose economic, social and political trajectory pointed towards modernity; southern Italian cities were part of a ‘monarchical’ sphere whose backwardness was said to continue to the present day. According to the established narrative, the cities of northern and central Italy were essentially independent ‘republics’ that were agents of progress and civic consciousness; the cities of the south, by contrast, were subject to other powers and lacked any meaningful autonomy. When viewed from the perspective of their relations with monarchical political spaces, the history of Italian cities allows us to highlight the limits of the historiographical paradigms as the ‘exceptionalism’ of communes or the ‘otherness’ of the southern cities. Instead, it is possible to appreciate, if anything, how the history of Italian cities was reflective of similar experiences of urban autonomy in other parts of Europe at this time.