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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 June 2009
In 1446 the dominant faction in Bologna, bereft of a head by the murder of Annibale Bentivoglio, invited Sante, an illegitimate scion of the house, to throw up his post in the Florentine wool-trade and assume the leadership of the city. For the next sixty years Sante and his successor Giovanni II exercised an ascendancy in Bologna which entitles them to a place among the more famous despots of the Italian Renaissance. The Bentivoglio Signoria is in essentials a typical outcome of the nation and age. Constitutionally, the position of its holders was even more ambiguous than that of the majority of their contemporaries. Like the Medici, they were in law, not despots but private citizens. The system by which their ascendancy was maintained mingled terrorism with beneficence. The coming of Sante followed upon a faction fight which brought death and exile upon the rival family of Canetoli, and in the course of years fresh rivals arose to suffer a like fate.
page 50 note 1 The monopoly of political power by the popolo organised in military and trade gilds, dates from 1228, more than fifty years before the capture of the Florentine government by the arti. Gaudenzi, Cf., Gli statuti delle società delle armi e delle arti in Bologna, Bullettino dell' Istituto storico italiano, vi (1888). In the Ordinamenti sacrati e sacratissimi promulgated in Bologna in 1282—4 under the inspiration of Rolandino Passegeri, Florentines attending his lectures found a model for the Ordinances of Justice. Cf.Google ScholarMonumenti istorici pertinenti alle provincie della Romagna, Serie I, Statuti, ed. Gaudenzi, (1888), andGoogle ScholarVitale, V., II dominio della Parle Guelja in Bologna, pp. 37–9, Bologna, 1901.Google Scholar
page 51 note 1 For the public law of the Renaissance and its debt to both Roman and medieval law, cf. Ercole, F., Impero e papato nella tradizione giuridica bolognese e nel diritto pubblico italiano del Rinascimento, Atti e memorie della R. Dep. di Storia Patria per Romagna, Serie IV, Vol. I, Bologna, 1911.Google Scholar Since published in Dal Comune al Principato, Florence, 1929.
page 51 note 2 Bosdari, F., II Comune di Bologna alia fine del secolo xiv, p. 16, Bologna, 1914.Google ScholarBosdari, ,Giovanni I Bentivoglio, Signore di Bologna, p. 202, Atti e memorie,op. cit., Serie IV, Vol. V (1915).Google Scholar Vitale,op. cit., p. 57.
page 52 note 1 Filippo Valori to Piero dei Medici, Terracina, 9 October, 1494. Desjardins-CaneStrini, Négociations diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane, Vol. I, pp. 457–61.
page 53 note 1 Professore Sorbelli, Albano (Le croniche Bolognese del secolo xiv, Bologna, 1900)Google Scholar has done much to bring order out of chaos.
page 53 note 2 Muratori, RR. II. SS., Vol. XVIII, Pt. I, new edition, ed. Sorbelli. In progress.
page 54 note 1 The chief manuscripts of the “Scadinari” version of Fileno della Tuata's chronicle are Bologna, Bib. Univ., 1438, and Bib. Comunale, 70–71 and 99–100. Cf. Sorbelli, op. cit., pp. 241–68.
page 55 note 1 F. Sansovino, Origine e fatti delle famiglie illustri d' Italia, pp. 171–2, Venice, 1582.
page 55 note 2 A manuscript entitled Cronaca di Bologna di Giacomo Poggi Bolognese (Bologna, Bib. Univ., 1491), contains a version of the Modena manuscript for the years 1466–94.
page 55 note 3 Muratori, RR. II. SS., Vol. XXIII, Pt. 2, new edition, ed. Sorbelli, 1929.
page 56 note 1 Ed. Ricci, and Lega, Bacchi della. Scelta di curiosita letterarie inedite o rare. Dispensa, 216, Bologna, 1886.Google Scholar
page 56 note 2 Cronica, , ed. Guidicini from a manuscript in Bib. Comunale, Bologna, 1869.Google Scholar
page 56 note 3 Historia, Bologna, Bib. Univ., MS. 97.
page 56 note 4 Dieci libri della storia della sua patria, Bologna, 1602.
page 56 note 5 Annali della patria, Bologna, Bib. Univ., MS. 1107.
page 56 note 6 Memorie antiche manoscripte di Bologna raccolte e accresciute sino a tempi nostri, Bologna, Bib. Univ., MS. 770.
page 57 note 1 RR. II. SS., Vol. XXXIII, Pt. 1, ed. Sorbelli, 1932.
page 57 note 2 Theiner, Codex diplomaticus dominii temporalis S. Sedis, Vol. Ill, No. 384. Nicholas V's capitula are given in an incomplete Italian version in Corpus Chronicorum Bononiensium, op. cit., Vol. IV, pp. 145–52.
page 57 note 3 Comelli, , II governo misto in Bologna. Atti e memorie, op. cit., Serie III, Vol. XXVII, 1909.Google Scholar
page 59 note 1 Carteggio dei principi esteri. Cf. U, Dallari., Carteggio tra i Bentivoglio egli Estensi dal 1401 al 1542 esistente nell' Archivio di Stato in Modena, Atti e memorie, op. cit., Serie III, Vols. XVIII and XIX, 1902Google Scholar, for a catalogue of the letters with an analysis of their contents.
page 60 note 1 Capitula. PP. Nicolai, V, § 13, 24 August, 1447. Archivio di Stato, Bologna, Diritti del Comune.
page 61 note 1 Commentarii, p. 55, Frankfort, 1614.
page 61 note 2 Ghirardacci, Historia, op. dt., 214.
page 62 note 1 II Principe, cap. xi.
page 62 note 2 Soranzo, G., La lega iialica (1454–5), Milan, 1924, describes in detail the machinery of the league.
page 62 note 3 Diritti del Comune, 30 August and 3 September, 1454.
page 63 note 1 L., Rossi, Matrimonio di Sante Bentivoglio con Ginevra Sforza (8 March, 1452), Bollettino della Società Pavese di Storia Patria, 1906.Google Scholar
page 63 note 2 G., Gozzadini, Memorie per la vita di Giovanni II. Bentivoglio, p. 8, Bologna, 1839. Cf. Ghirardacci, op. cit., 181.Google Scholar
page 64 note 1 Galeazzo Marescotti to Francesco Sforza, 20 January, 1464. Archivio di Stato, Milano, Potenze Estere, Romagna.
page 65 note 1 Giovanni Bentivoglio to Francesco Sforza, 25 February, 1466. Archivio di Stato, Milano,loc. cit.
page 65 note 2 Pandolfo da Pesaro to Lorenzo dei Medici, 10 February, 1490. Archivio di Stato, Firenze. M.A.P., Filza, XLIII, 65. Having written of Ginevra's determination to recover her daughter's dowry after the death of Galeotto Manfredi of Faenza, Pandolfo concludes, “Ho voluto anche signinficar questo a Vostra Magnificentia perche comprende che per questa materia Messer Giovanni habia anchora oltre l'affection paterna, la battaglia domestica.”
page 66 note 1 Gerardo Ceruto, Milanese agent in Bologna, to Galeazzo Maria Sforza, 15 November, 1470. Archivio di Stato, Milano, loc. dt.
page 66 note 2 Tommaso Pasi, Cronica (1428–1512). Bologna, Bib. Univ., MS. 3841.
page 66 note 3 Fileno della Tuata, Storia universale. Vol. III, f. 599. Bologna, Bib. Univ., MS. 1439.
