Università Roma Tre

The course deals with the changes of communal Italy between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In this period several Italian cities experimented new authoritarian regimes, by distancing themselves from the communal system and embracing a new political one: the signoria. The experiences of the cities in central and northern Italy, the profile of the rulers, and the forms of adaptation of the communal apparatus to the new political systems present not so much an opposition between communes and signorie – according to old theses – as a plurality of forms giving back to Italy the image of a fervid political laboratory.

Testi di riferimento

A. Zorzi, Le signorie cittadine in Italia (XIII-XV secolo), Bruno Mondadori
Signorie cittadine nell'Italia comunale, a cura di J. C. Maire Vigueur, Viella Roma 2013 ( Parte prima Capitoli I, II, IV), Parte seconda e terza (tre saggi a scelta)

The course is of institutional type. It deals with the main aspects of medieval societies and institutions, with particular reference to the organization of space in the Medieval West and Mediterranean as well as its political, institutional, cultural, and economic changes.

The addressed topic are: the changes of Late Antiquity; the spread of Christianity; the monasticism; the Roman-Barbarian Kingdoms; the Lombards; the Franks and the Carolingian world; the early and high medieval economy; the Byzantine East; the spread of Islam; popes and the Church Reform; kingdoms and feudal principalities; economic recovery and development of trades and crafts; cities and communes; the fourteenth century; seigneuries (signorie) in the Italian cities; the regional state; the new political balances in the fifteenth century

G. Sergi, L'idea di Medioevo, Donzelli, Roma 2007

Un volume a scelta tra:
L. Provero e M. Vallerani, La storia medievale, Le Monnier, 2016
G. Piccinni, I mille anni del Medioevo (3a edizione), ed. Pearson, 2018