Creating the Florentine State: Peasants and Rebellion, 1348-1434

This book takes a new approach to the political history of the Italian Renaissance. It examines the Florentine state from its mountainous periphery, where Florence met its most strenuous opposition to territorial incorporation. From a tributary state, which treated its surrounding countryside as little more than a tax reservoir and a buffer against foreign invaders, Florence began to see its own self-interest as intertwined with that of its region and its rural subjects—a change brought abo...