This lecture will consider the popular commune from 1200-1290, a period rife with local violence and factionalism. While feudalism still dominated most of Europe, Florence was one of the small, spirited city-states of Italy that invented a political structure, from which nobles were excluded, and citizens—artisans, tradesmen, and merchants—were elected to public office, a form of representative self-government unheard-of in its time.

Detail from Domenico Lenzi’s Libro del Biadaiolo

(1328) Laurentian Library, Florence