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Vicars and citizen office-holding in the dominions of fifteenth-century Lucca, 1430–1501

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2014

M.E. BRATCHEL
M.E. BRATCHEL*
Affiliation:
School of Social Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Private Bag 3, Wits 2050, South Africa
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Abstract:

Studies of office-holding in Renaissance Italy have largely ignored magistrates of communal origin. The focus has been on offices and officials in the developing regional states, with an emphasis on princely regimes and on Lombardy. The present article examines the citizen magistrates despatched by the city of Lucca to govern its significant but depleted and fragmented territories. It addresses the question of the professionality (or lack of professionality) of the short-term office-holders of urban-centred republican regimes, and briefly explores what a study of office-holding can reveal about relations between a city and its dependent countryside. Though fifteenth-century Lucca was atypical in its historical setting, comparisons have been drawn throughout between Lucca and neighbouring (albeit very different) political formations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , May 2015 , pp. 183 - 203
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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References

1 Bratchel, M.E., Medieval Lucca and the Evolution of the Renaissance State (Oxford, 2008), 75–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 The statistics are distorted because 9 of the 18 (d. Lazzaro di Bartolomeo Arnolfini, Gherardo di d. Gregorio Arrighi, Giorgio Chiarini, Antonio di Giovanni Deodati, d. Leonardo Gherardi, Giovanni di Bartolomeo Martini, Nofrio di Biagio Mei, d. Stefano di Poggio and Galvano Trenta) were elected after 1480. Some of these may have accepted vicarial office after 1501.

3 Besides Viareggio, a commissario appeared briefly in Coreglia in the year 1492 at the request of the local community, against a background of continuing internal conflict: Archivio di Stato, Lucca (ASL) Consiglio Generale, Riformagioni Pubbliche (Rif.) 23, pp. 107–8, 114, 175, 181.

4 Appointments can be drawn from the series Rif. 14–24. The lacunae can generally be filled from the court records. I have been unable to identify the vicar/podestà and/or notary for Castiglione 2nd semester 1451 and 2nd semester 1478; Coreglia 1478; Gallicano 1478; Minucciano 2nd semester 1478; Montignoso 1443 and 1482; Nozzano 1st semester 1459, 1478, and 1st semester 1487; Valdilima 2nd semester 1447, 1st semester 1459, and 1st semester 1478; Valleariana 1st semester 1478; and Viareggio 1st semester 1487 and 2nd semester 1488 – 2nd semester 1489.

5 Gli officiali negli Stati italiani del Quattrocento: Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, ser. iv, Quaderni 1 (Pisa, 1997). See particularly the list of 15 questions posed in Franca Leverotti's ‘Premesso’, xiv.

6 Chabod, F., ‘Y a-t-il un état de la Renaissance?’, first published in 1958, republished (in Italian) in Chabod, Scritti sul Rinascimento (Turin, 1967), 591–623Google Scholar.

7 Castelnuovo, G., ‘Offices and officials’, in Gamberini, A. and Lazzarini, I. (eds.), The Italian Renaissance State (Cambridge, 2012), 369Google Scholar.

8 Bratchel, Medieval Lucca, 168–9, 202–3; F. Somaini, ‘The collapse of city-states and the role of urban centres in the new political geography of Renaissance Italy’, in Gamberini and Lazzarini (eds.), Italian Renaissance State, 241–2.

9 Leverotti (ed.), Gli officiali.

10 For the syndication process in fourteenth-century Lucca, see Lepsius, S., ‘Kontrolle von Amtsträgern durch Schrift. Luccheser Notare und Richter im Syndikatsprozeß’, in Lepsius, S. and Wetzstein, T. (eds.), Als die Welt in die Akten kam. Prozeßschriftgut im europäischen Mittelalter (Frankfurt am Main, 2008), 389–473Google Scholar.

11 Rif. 14, pp. 34, 35. For the balìa of 12, which became the balìa de’ Riformatori, Bratchel, M.E., Lucca 1430–1494: The Reconstruction of an Italian City-Republic (Oxford, 1995), 8, 29, 31, 87, 124–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Rif. 14, pp. 66–71.

13 For the Council of Thirty-Six: Bratchel, Lucca, 124–6.

14 Rif. 14, pp. 119, 128, 137, 139, 204, 218, 257, 258, 266, 665, 666; 15, pp. 109, 112–13; 16, pp. 59, 61, 176, 180.

15 Rif. 16, pp. 153, 161.

16 ‘dato, facto et misso inter ipsos partito ad pissides et palloctas et obtempto secreto scruptineo secundum formam statutorum’. The voting procedure is clearly explained in ASL Statuti del Comune di Lucca, 14, c. xxxiii: De singulis Deliberationibus per Secretum Scrutineum disponendis.

17 Rif. 17, pp. 571–2, 662–3, 666–7.

18 Rif. 21, pp. 246, 359, 538. After responsibility for the appointment passed to the Council of Thirty-Six, the Anziani and six super introitibus retained the power to remove commissarii at their discretion: ibid., p. 669.

19 Rif. 23, pp. 798–800.

20 Rif. 24, pp. 254–5, 363, 386–7, 389–90, 534, 578, 632, 704–5, 713, 726–7. Only the first of the six men elected in Nov. 1497 (d. Nicolao Tegrimi) served his allotted term. By the end of the three-year period, the king of France was controlling the appointment to Pietrasanta.

21 Rif. 16, p. 779 (Castiglione, 26 miles north of Lucca), p. 822 (Montignoso – because of ‘the badness of the air’).

22 The notary of Castiglione, podestà of Montignoso and podestà of Minucciano: Rif. 17, p. 546.

23 Rif. 18, p. 84.

24 Rif. 18, pp. 640, 642.

25 Rif. 18, p. 741. Minucciano and Castiglione were both separated from the core of Lucchese territory by land belonging to the duchy of Ferrara and Modena.

26 Rif. 21, p. 538.

27 Following the recovery of liberty in 1430, the vacanza for a vicar was six months. From 1446, initially for three years, the vacanza for vicars and the podestà of Nozzano was extended to one year: Rif. 16, pp. 516–17. The vacanza came to be set at six months for knights and doctors of law, one year for other candidates – with a vacanza of two years before re-election to the same vicariate: ASL Statuti del Comune di Lucca 14, Statutum Regiminis Reipublicae Lucensis, lx. Brothers, and fathers and sons, were barred from holding different vicariates contemporaneously.

28 On 2 Sep. 1438, Ricciardi petitioned the Consiglio Generale for the validation of his acts during his protracted term as vicar, and for payment of his salary: Rif. 15, p. 283.

29 ASL Sentenze e bandi 196, fol. 31r; 197, fols. 61r, 295ff, 355ff; 199, fols. 74r–v, 86r–v.

30 Giovanni di Filippo di Poggio (Jul. 1458–Feb. 1459), Guglielmo di Paolo Miliani (1–8 Mar.), Arrigo di Nicolao Sandei (9–16 Mar.), Nicolao di ser Andrea Domaschi (17–31 Mar.), Iacopo Prosperi (Apr.), Giovanni de’ Gigli (1–23 May), Giovanni Serpenti (24 May–3 Jun.), Giovanni de’ Gigli again (4–30 Jun.): Rif. 18, p. 76; ASL Vicario di Camaiore 243, fol. 1r.

31 Rif. 16, p. 535.

32 Granted on the authority of the Council of Thirty-Six: Rif. 17, p. 620.

33 Rif. 18, p. 74.

34 Rif. 19, p. 372. For messer Giovanni Vanni da Cirignano: Biblioteca Statale, Lucca (BSL) MS 1138, G. Vincenzo Baroni, ‘Notizie genealogiche delle famiglie lucchesi, fols. 53r, 60r–v, 61r.

35 Rif. 24, p. 78.

36 This figure does not include seven cases of multiple substitutions.

37 In exceptional circumstances, vicars might be excused the Anzianato because of the importance of their work in the vicariate: Rif. 14, pp. 699–700; 24, pp. 726–7. Lodovico de’ Gigli, comestabulus of Pugliano, was absolved from the Anzianato because plague in Pugliano would have made it dangerous for him to come into contact with the other Anziani: Rif. 18, p. 528.

38 Names were inscribed in a book kept for the purpose in the chancery: Rif. 15, p. 157; 17, pp. 545–6; 19, p. 850.

39 The Council of Thirty-Six could not elect from their own members, or reconsider candidates who had been unsuccessful in an earlier scrutiny for the same office. Vicars had to be at least 30 years old. From 1454, unmarried citizens aged more than 27 were barred from election to all important offices: Rif. 17, p. 573. Bankruptcy and pleas of benefit of clergy are among the reasons that might deprive a man of the right to honours.

40 Rif. 16, pp. 516–17; 17, pp. 571–2.

41 Rif. 21, pp. 63–4; 22, pp. 299, 322; 24, pp. 633, 773–4. Giovanni Bandini, elected vicar of Valdilima, petitioned to be absolved from the Anzianate because his infirm wife had need of the baths: Rif. 24, p. 118.

42 Rif. 16, pp. 779, 822; 17, pp. 138, 264, 546.

43 Rif. 18, pp. 304, 346, 349, 454, 637. Gallicano was not inaccessible from Lucca. Its isolated, insecure situation and bitter internal factions may have rendered the posting unattractive.

44 A. Barbero and G. Castelnuovo, ‘Gli ufficiali nel principato sabaudo fra tre e quattrocento’, in Leverotti (ed.), Gli officiali, 2, 8; M. Folin, ‘Note sugli officiali negli stati estensi (secoli xv–xvi)’, in ibid., 101, 111; T. Dean, ‘Ferrara and Mantua’, in Gamberini and Lazzarini (eds.), Italian Renaissance State, 125–6.

45 Leverotti (ed.), Gli officiali, xviii.

46 Rif. 17, p. 439.

47 In Florence, for example: Zorzi, A., ‘The “material constitution” of the Florentine Dominion’, in Connell, W.J. and Zorzi, A. (eds.), Florentine Tuscany: Structures and Practices of Power (Cambridge, 2000), 25Google Scholar; idem, ‘Justice’, in Gamberini and Lazzarini (eds.), Italian Renaissance State, 504.

48 Rif. 24, p. 578.

49 Rif. 17, pp. 342–3. This argument against the deployment of messer Gregorio Arrighi in the vicariates was repeated in the following two years: Rif. 17, pp. 439, 540. For messer Nicolao Manfredi: BSL MS 1118, Baroni, fol. 212r–v.

50 Rif. 19, pp. 242, 264.

51 Rif. 19, p. 783; 20, pp. 42, 579, 582.

52 ASL Collegio de’ Dottori e de’ Notari, 2.

53 Rif. 16, pp. 448, 497–8.

54 For a contrary view: Zorzi, ‘Justice’, 504.

55 BSL MS 1120, Baroni, fol. 23r; ASL Collegio de’ Dottori e de’ Notari, 2, fols. 66v, 69v.

56 Rif. 15, pp. 107, 170, 318, 413; 16, pp. 111, 233, 357; 18, p. 216; 19, p. 850; 21, pp. 498, 510–12, 623–4; 23, pp. 766, 771–2. Similar ad hoc measures were adopted in Siena: Caferro, W., Mercenary Companies and the Decline of Siena (Baltimore and London, 1998), 147–9Google Scholar.

57 On the incompatibility of marriage with the early career of a condottiere: Ferente, S., La sfortuna di Jacopo Piccinino: Storia dei bracceschi in Italia 1423–1465 (Florence, 2005), 5Google Scholar.

58 Rif. 18, pp. 602–3, 637.

59 Rif. 18, p. 681.

60 Rif. 19, p. 31.

61 Bratchel, Lucca, 93–4; Dizionario biografico degli italiani, XV (Rome, 1972), 302. Serena Ferente has suggested to me that the itinerary might correspond with membership of the bracceschi.

62 Rif. 16, pp. 380–1.

63 ‘perchè sensa li offitii non poterà substentare la sua famigla’: Rif. 17, pp. 144–5.

64 Rif. 19, pp. 527–8.

65 BSL MS 1136, Baroni, fol. 267v.

66 BSL MS 1134, Baroni, fol. 262r–v. On the brothers Alessandro and Antonio Streghi: Bratchel, M.E., ‘Chronicles of fifteenth-century Lucca: contributions to an understanding of the restored republic’, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 60 (1998), 9–10Google Scholar.

67 Bratchel, Medieval Lucca, 28–9.

68 For the Avvocati, BSL MS 1102, Baroni, fols. 479r–498r; for the Totti, BSL MS 1136, Baroni, fols. 150r–158v.

69 BSL MS 142, ‘Racconto del principio e del progresso della famiglia Lucchesini’; MS 1117, Baroni, fols. 276r–335r.

70 BSL MS 1120, Baroni, fols. 366r–377r; Bratchel, Lucca, 97, 161, 164.

71 Rif. 24, pp. 254–5, 363, 386–7, 534, 704–5, 713.

72 Berengo, M., Nobili e mercanti nella Lucca del Cinquecento (Turin, 1965), 245–63Google Scholar.

73 Connell, W.J., ‘“I fautori delle parti”. Citizen interest and the treatment of a subject town, c. 1500’, in Lamioni, C. (ed.), Istituzioni e società in Toscana nell’età moderna: Atti delle giornate di studi dedicate a Giuseppe Pansini, Firenze, 4–5 dicembre 1992 (Rome, 1994), 118–47Google Scholar; Najemy, J.M., A History of Florence 1200–1575 (Oxford, 2006), 366CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

74 Leverotti (ed.), Gli officiali, xi. For the debate: Dean, ‘Ferrara and Mantua’, 126.

75 ASL Statuti del Comune di Lucca 14, Statutum Regiminis Reipublicae Lucensis, lviiii.

76 Ser Simone di Michele Dominici da Montefegatesi: Rif. 24, p. 290.

77 Rif. 24, pp. 791, 873.

78 Rif. 19, pp. 375–6.

79 Liddy, C.D. and Haemers, J., ‘Popular politics in the late medieval city: York and Bruges’, English Historical Review, 128 (2013), 771–805CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

80 Bratchel, Lucca, 71, 185, 188, 253–4.

81 Barbero and Castelnuovo, ‘Gli ufficiali’, 7.

82 Rif. 19, p. 863.

83 Rif. 21, p. 447.

84 Rif. 21, p. 697; 22, p. 463; 23, pp. 220, 256, 484. See also Rif. 24, pp. 732, 853 (for office-holders generally).

85 Brucker, G., The Civic World of Early Renaissance Florence (Princeton, 1977), 216–25Google Scholar.

86 ‘Writing the history of crime in the Italian Renaissance’, in Dean, T. and Lowe, K.J.P. (eds.), Crime, Society and the Law in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge, 1994), 6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

87 Barbero and Castelnuovo, ‘Gli ufficiali’, 13; F. Leverotti, ‘Gli officiali del ducato sforzesco’, in Leverotti (ed.), Gli officiali, 31–2.

88 For syndication as primarily a tool to protect the financial interests of the commune (and more generally to ensure sound administration): Lepsius, ‘Kontrolle von Amtsträgern’, 393, 450–1.

89 The attitude of noble citizens towards the foreign officials is well reflected in ASL Curia del Fondaco, 1009, loose unnumbered pages. The position of citizen officials may have been weaker under foreign rule. Christine Meek has shown me a cluster of fines imposed on vicars in the mid-fourteenth century records of the Camarlingo Generale.

90 ASL Curia del Fondaco, 1006, fol. 15v; 1009, fol. 84v and loose unnumbered page.

91 For examples (taken from 1453): ASL Curia del Fondaco, 729, 1st foliation, fols. 1r–12r; 2nd foliation, fols. 3r–7v, 18r–26r; 729, fols. 26v–36v, 50r–v.

92 Lepsius, S., ‘“Dixit male iudicatum esse per dominos iudices”. Zur Praxis der städtischen Appellationsgerichtsbarkeit im Lucca des 14. Jahrhunderts’, in Arlinghaus, F.J.et al. (eds.), Praxis und Gerichtsbarkeit in europäischen Städten des Spätmittelalters (Frankfurt am Main, 2006), 190, 214–15, 217–19, 257–8Google Scholar.

93 Nakaya, S., ‘La giustizia civile a Lucca nella prima metà del XIV secolo’, Archivio Storico Italiano, 169 (2011), 664–8Google Scholar; Lepsius, ‘“Dixit male iudicatum”’, 201; Menzinger, S., Giuristi e politica nei comuni di popolo: Siena, Perugia e Bologna, tre governi a confronto (Rome, 2006), 169Google Scholar.

94 On the protection against the syndication process provided by the consilium: Blanshei, S.R., Politics and Justice in Late Medieval Bologna (Leiden, 2010), 215CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Menzinger, Giuristi e politica, 80, 131.

95 Rif. 22, pp. 165–6.

96 ASL Sentenze e bandi, 195, fols. 312r–313v, 348r–349r; ASL Curia del Fondaco, 1057, fol. 113r–v; 1059, fols. 12r–v, 42r–43v.

97 ASL Curia del Fondaco, 729, fols. 55r–62v; 734, fols. 23r–34r.

98 ASL Sentenze e bandi, 196, fols. 250r–v, 391r–v; 197, fol. 422r–v.

99 Angelino, V., Il commissariato di Ludovico Ariosto in Garfagnana: Il Ludovico della tranquillità tra i ‘poveri humili’ (Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, 2011)Google Scholar; Bratchel, Medieval Lucca, 145–6.

100 For example: ASL Curia del Fondaco, 729, fols. 13r, 15v–16r.

101 Rif. 17, p. 362.

102 For examples, involving both urban and rural courts: Bratchel, Lucca, 252–3.

103 ASL Curia del Fondaco, 1068, fols. 84v–86v.

104 Bratchel, Medieval Lucca, 1–26.