Introduction

There was no Italian state in the Middle Ages (and long after). This was the age of the city state, ‘l’etá del comune’ or ‘l’età comunale’. The concept of ‘Italy’ had mainly geographical/territorial and ethnic meanings and referred to the Italian Peninsula and the northern sub-Alpine and Alpine districts of the modern Italian state, and some other territories. At the time, the perceived concept of Italy included the Istrian peninsula, which protrudes into the north-eastern part of the Adriatic Sea with the important port town of Pola (Pula), at the time part of the Republic of Venice (today part of Croatia). The corresponding territory was divided into a great number of city states in northern and central Italy, the Kingdom of Naples covered southern Italy, and the Papal States were mainly situated in central Italy. In addition, the coastal areas of Istria were integrated into the Venetian city state, and the eastern side of the Adriatic with the towns of Spalato (Split), Traù (Trogir), Sebenico (Šibenik), Zara (Zadar) and Ragusa (Dubrovnik) comprised Venetian possessions. The north-western coastline of Italy almost to Nice on the present-day French Riviera belonged to Genoa. There was also a papal territory around Avignon where, at the time of the Black Death, the popes were resident.

On the eve of the Black Death, about 12.5 million inhabitants lived within an Italian territory of around 300,000 km2, corresponding to a population density of about 42 persons/km2, a staggering figure in medieval terms, about 40 times higher than, for instance, in Norway. However, in many parts of central and northern Italy, population densities were much higher, in various parts of Tuscany, such as the contados or rural districts dominated by the city states of Tuscany, Florence, Siena, Prato, San Gimignano and Volterra, from 55 to 120 inhabitants/km2 or even higher, driven by proto-modernization, proto-industrialization and commercialization of economic structures. On an entirely new and huge scale, powerful links were formed between proto-industrial production combined with much advanced craftmanship and new commercial and financial sectors that could transform products sold far away into local financial assets and profits. New livelihoods were generated for hundreds of thousands of people, especially in urban industries and in wide-scale trade organizations.