From Republic to Lordship. Southern Italian Influence on the Northern City-States' Governance and on the Rise of the Urban Lords

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When we think that the Italian city-states are widely considered an early form of the modern republics (including outside medieval studies, e.g. Quentin Skinner), the importance of studying their transformation into personal lordships becomes clear.In the second half of the 13th century, with the acquisition of the Kingdom of Sicily, Charles I of Anjou, created a solid power base to control most of the rest of Italy, and planned further expansions towards the East. Thereby, most of the northern Italian city-republics came to be part of a network of officials of proven Guelph (pro-Papal) loyalty, managed by the King of Sicily. This proposal aims to examine this hegemony until the death of King Robert the Wise in 1343, when a dynastic crisis dramatically changed the situation.Until recently, the Angevin dominations in many Italian towns were considered unimportant interludes and have been usually just mentioned in the works on the city-communes. A new approach to the history of the Italian city-republics has been established recently and its working hypothesis is that the Angevin monarchy was crucial for the political dynamics of Northern Italian towns. This new historiographical trend has focused the analysis on the circulation of the communal officials and on the city-republic's political evolution from republican to signorial forms of government.This research aims to apply that interpretation to the areas of Bologna/Romagna which are currently totally unexplored from that point of view but are of great potential significance. The importance of this region for the development of signorial regimes has been acknowledged since the 1960s by John Larner's studies in Glasgow (The Lords of Romagna), but the importance of the Angevin dominations in that process has not been investigated. The region is also particularly significant because it was, geopolitically, a key linkage between the Northern cities, the Papal States and the South. Additionally, it was a frequent battleground between the political factions of Guelphs and Ghibellines (even the theatre of crusades). These two identities created a unique political tension, which characterised the region and favoured personal lordships.Through the analysis of a significant area of Italy, this research will answer a crucial, primary research question:How an external foreign power (the Southern Italian Angevin monarchy), contributed to the formation of urban elites in northern Italy and how these elites eventually created a personal (signorial) lordship.Also, other subsidiary questions will be answered:How southern Italian officials were used to wield power in northern Italy and how they were perceived.What was the impact of the Angevin dominations in the long term on the development of the regional states of the Italian Renaissance, on the party conflict, on the formation of supra-local identities and on the southern/northern Italian relationships.Moreover, in the particular case study of Bologna and Romagna, this research shall determine:How the Angevin monarchy affected the circulation of officials, the careers of individuals and eventually the development of signorial practices of government and what was the role of the great Roman families (Orsini, Colonna, Caetani), in this process. How the administration of justice in the region, in particular the anti-heretical trials and the persecution of the Ghibellines, was influenced by the Angevin officials.This research will outline an archetype to explain the formation of political elites and the development of signorie applicable also to other contexts, within and beyond Italy. In particular, a comparative analysis will be conducted between the Italian situation and similar developments in post-Hohenstaufen Germany, southern France and Kingdoms of Aragon/Catalonia and Castile.