Lauro Martines - The Politics of Law in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy

THE POLITICS OF LAW IN LATE MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE ITALY

The Politics of Law in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy features original contributions by international scholars on the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Lauro Martiness Lawyers and Statecraft in Renaissance Florence, which is recognized as a groundbreaking study challenging traditional approaches to both Florentine and legal history.

Essays by leading historians examine the professional, social, and political functions of Italian jurists from the thirteenth to the late fifteenth centuries. The volume also examines the use of emergency powers, the critical role played by jurists in mediating the rule of law, and the adjudication of political crimes. The Politics of Law in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy provides both an assessment of Martiness pioneering archival scholarship as well as fresh insights into the interplay of law and politics in late Medieval and Renaissance Italy.

(Toronto Studies in Medieval Law)

LAWRIN ARMSTRONG is a professor at the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto.

JULIUS KIRSHNER is a professor emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Chicago.

Lauro Martines in 1971

Essays in Honour of Lauro Martines

Edited by Lawrin Armstrong and Julius Kirshner

University of Toronto Press 2011
Toronto Buffalo London
www.utppublishing.com
Printed in the U.S.A.

Reprinted in paperback 2016
ISBN 978-1-4426-4075-7 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-4875-2151-6

Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper.

Toronto Studies in Medieval Law

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

The politics of law in late medieval and Renaissance Italy : essays in honour of Lauro Martines / edited by Lawrin Armstrong and Julius Kirshner.

(Toronto studies in medieval law)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4426-4075-7 (bound). ISBN 978-1-4875-2151-6 (paperback)

1. Law Italy Florence History. 2. Law Political aspects Italy Florence History. 3. Lawyers Italy Florence History. 4. Martines, Lauro. Lawyers and statecraft in Renaissance Florence. I. Armstrong, Lawrin D. (Lawrin David) II. Kirshner, Julius III. Martines, Lauro IV. Martines, Lauro. Lawyers and statecraft in Renaissance Florence. V. Series: Toronto studies in medieval law

KKH5601.15.P64 2011 349.45'5109031 C2010-907471-8

University of Toronto Press gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, and the Lila WallaceReaders Digest Publication Fund of the Villa I Tatti Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence, in the publication of this book.

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

This volume was conceived by the editors in April 2007 to mark the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Lauro Martiness Lawyers and Statecraft in Renaissance Florence (Princeton 1968). Immediately recognized as a masterpiece of archival history, Martiness book broke with traditional approaches to both Florentine and legal history and opened up avenues of research that have been extensively explored by scholars in the last four decades. Our objective was to assemble a representative selection of historians from Europe, North America, and Asia whose own work reflects and develops the dominant themes of Lawyers and Statecraft: the political and social functions of medieval and Renaissance jurists, their relationship to the city-state, and their mediating role in the interpretation of communal statutory norms and private law. We organized three sessions at the 2008 meeting of the Renaissance Society of America in Chicago, where draft versions of seven of the eight essays that follow were read and discussed; an eighth essay was solicited by the editors in 2008. We are now pleased to present the studies, revised in the light of comments by colleagues and by Lauro Martines himself, who participated in the RSA sessions and has graciously contributed an introductory chapter on the conception of Lawyers and Statecraft. We trust that collectively they represent at once a critical comment on and a tribute to a pioneering contribution to the historiography of Florence and late medieval law.