Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-n9wrp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-21T09:30:34.031Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What is the Podestà?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Lester K. Born
Lester K. Born
Affiliation:
Princeton University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Early in 1926, Premier Mussolini revived the long dormant office of podestà for the municipalities of Italy. Thenceforth the term has been frequently before the public. What is this office? And what is the significance of reviving a long forgotten term as its title?

Divorced from the specialized significance that it had in Italy, the term was used in many places and times, ranging from the fringe of Roman antiquity down to the present day. The word itself, of course, is nothing but the Italian form of the good classical Latin potestas, with its simple meaning of “power.” We may be inclined to believe that the use of such an abstract term to signify the officer who held the “power” in city administration is a late development; yet there is an isolated example in Juvenal (lst-2nd cent, A.D.) where such a usage occurs. Juvenal is discoursing on the vanities of human desires, and is pointing specifically to the downfall of Sejanus, when he asks, “Would you rather choose to wear the bordered robe of the man now being dragged through the streets, or to be a magistrate at (the little towns of) Fidenae or Gabii, rendering judgment on weights and measures?” Some three centuries later, Possidius, in his life of St. Augustine, uses the term in connection with the Donatist controversy.

Type
Foreign Governments and Politics
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , November 1927 , pp. 863 - 871
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1927

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

75 Juvenal, Sat. X, l. 99–101:

“huius qui trahitur praetextam sumere mavis,

an Fidenarum Gabiorumque esse potestas

et de mensura ius dicere,….”

76 Possidius, Vita S., Aug. 14: “Non defuemnt qui dicerent permissos non fuisse eosdem episcopos apud poiestatem quae causam audivit dicere omnia pro suis partibus..…”

77 Epist. 58. Another reference of interest is found in the Itin. Helvet. et Ital. 226. A great many more references to this use of the term—especially in the legal codices—are to be found in Du Cange, , Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis, Vol. 6, pp. 437–440Google Scholar. The many and varied significances (none of which, however, contribute directly to our point) which the term acquired during the Middle Ages and the days of feudalism are also indicated in Du Cange.

78 Op. cit., p. 439.

79 In substantiation of this, cf. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, No. 18, p. 438, I. 20 sq.

80 Hessel, Alfred, Geschichte der Stadt Bologna (Berlin, 1910), p. 88Google Scholar, says: “An Stelle der Wahl einheimischer Konsuln erfolgte die Erhebung Guido da Sassos zum Podestà, für 1151, und man beliess ihn fünf Jahre in seinem Amt.” He quotes references to Savioli, Annali Bolognesi, and to the Archives of Bologna, as his authorities. Ernesto Monaci, in his edition of Gesta di Federico in Italia (in Fonti per la Storia d'Italia, Vol. 1), note to 1, 460:

“Illicet egreditur populus servire paratus,

Quem Guido, vir prudens, solus tunc rite regebat”

says: “Guido di Ranieri di Sasso. É ricordato comme rettore e podestà, dei Bolognesi dal 1151 al 1155 in varii documenti; v. Savioli, Annali Bolognesi, I, 225–31Google Scholar.” Sismondi, , in his History of the Italian Republics (ed. by Boulting, )Google Scholar, assigns the original institution of podestà to 1153, as does James, Edith E. C., in Bologna: its History, Antiquities, and Art (London, 1909), p. 99 sq.Google Scholar

81 Storia di Bologna. I have not had access to this document. My account and quotation is from the book of Edith James (see note 80), pp. 99–100.

82 See M.H.G., Vol. 18, p. 115 sq. Sometimes the podestà, was elected for only six months; see Mathaei de Griffonibus, etc., and M.H.G., Vol. 18, p. 406, ll. 20–50; and also Anonymus Ticinensis de Lavdibus Papiae, p. 26. At a later date longer periods of office were frequent, and even election for life was not unknown.

83 Rahewini Gesta Frid. Imp. Bk. 3, 53.

84 Frid. Constit. No. 174, c6 in M.H.G., Leges, Sect. 4, Vol. 1, p. 242; and Rahewini Gesta Frid. 3, 47.

85 History of the Wars of Frederick I against the Communes of Lombardy (London, 1877), p. 210Google Scholar.

86 Op. cit., Bk. 4, 6.

87 For a complete list, or definitio, see Frid. Constit. No. 175, and 176, especially c5 and Rahewinus, op. cit., Bk. 4, 7; also Ottonis S. Blasio Chronicon c. 14. Cf. Savigny, , Geschichte des Römischen Rechts in Mittelalter, III, p. 170 sq.Google Scholar

88 Rahewinus, op. cit., Bk. 4, 9.

89 Rahewinus, op. cit., Bk. 4, 13; cf. Gotifridi Gesta Friderici, sec. 17, 373–375; and Rahewinus, op. cit., Bk. 4, 23, where he tells that Reginald the chancellor, and Otto, Count of Bavaria, were sent to Milan to establish the podestà and the consuls. It was the appointment of these last officers which the Milanese considered a breach of the past, and kindled the long series of troubles between Milan and Frederick. For a definitive superimposing of a podestà see Frid. Constit., op. cit., No. 206, c7 (this for Placentia in 1162).

90 For treaty of Constance see Frid. Constit., op, cit., No. 293.

91 M.H.G., Vol. 18, p. 146, 24–35, for 1221.

92 Sedgwick, , Italy in the Thirteenth Century, Vol. 2, pp. 176, 196–198Google Scholar; and Sismondi, op. cit., pp. 162–63, discuss the elective officer in the case of some of the more important towns.

93 E.g., at Lodi in 1223 and Bologna in 1236. Mathaei de Griffonibus, etc., p. 10: “Dominus Compagnonus de Pontremuli et dominus Ubertus Fardus fuerunt potestates Bononiae.”

94 Mathaei, etc., p. 17 for year 1266 and 1267.

95 M. H. G., Vol. 18, p. 406, 20–50; add also Mathaei, op. cit., p. 9, where Ubertus Vicecomes de Mediolano was podestà, of Bologna in 1228 and 1233.

96 See reference to note 22 and Chronica Alberti de Bezanis for the year 1329; and Mathaei, etc., p. 11, “Dom. Arduinus Confalonerius de Placentia fuit potestas Bononiae.”

97 Sedgwick, op. cit., p. 197 sq., tells us about this in connection with the constitution of Bologna.

98 Mathaei, etc., p. 6, in the year 1192: “Dominus Gerardus Ghislaede Soanabichis, epicopus Bononiae, fuit electus potestas Bononiae pro duobus annis. Et primo anno valde bene se habuit in officio, sed secundo anno fuit expulsus de regimine, quia male se habuit.”

99 Anonymus Ticinensis, op. cit., in Muratori, Vol. 2, col. 24–25.

100 For the actual oath of a podestà, see Corio, , Historia di Milano, part 2, p. 167 (1646 ed.)Google Scholar.

101 See Du Cange, p. 439, for the form letter used to notify a podestà of his election.

102 Oculus Pastoralis sive Libellus Erudiens Futurum Bectorem Populorum is the title on the general title page of the work in Muratori, , Antiquitates Italicae Medi Aevi, Vol. 4Google Scholar. A secondary title is found at the head of the first page: Oculus Pastoralis, Pascens Officia, et Conlinens Radium Dulcibus Pomis Suis. The treatise fills pp. 96–128.

103 This information is taken from the tables in Stokvis, , Manuel d'Histoire, etc., Vol. 3Google Scholar. See also Sismondi, op. cit., p. 162–63, and Sedgwick, op. cit., pp. 176; 196–97.

104 We are not concerned here with the podestà, of the people, the podestà, of the merchants, etc.

105 See Stokvis for his commentaries in connection with the various tables of officers.

106 For my information on the modern office of podestà, I am largely indebted to Signor Sillitti, consul-general of Italy at San Francisco. He has generously given of his time, and has made accessible his file of laws and legal reviews.

107 This and the following information is taken from The Institution of the Podestà, in Italy (Rome, 1926)Google Scholar, a little pamphlet of fifteen pages.

108 Quoted from a speech by the minister of the interior, Federzoni, before the Chamber of Deputies, as reported in The Institution of the Podestà in Italy, pp. 14–15.

Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.