Contrattare l’obbedienza: Benedetto XII e il processo per ribellione contro i bolognesi (1338-1340)

The essay analyses the political and judicial confrontation between Bologna and the Apostolic See after the 1334 revolt against papal legate Bertrand du Pouget. Benedict XII, while less intransigent than his predecessor, opened an apostolic trial, framing the uprising as crimen laesae maiestatis and imposing excommunication, interdict, and suspension of the Studium. Bologna reacted with diplomacy within the Guelph network and a legal defence depicting the legate as sole instigator, invoking the communal libertas to resist renewed papal rule. The provisional settlement of October 1338 enforced strict limits on autonomy, including a collective oath of obedience and papal control over key offices, leading to negotiations until 1340—an emblematic case of how urban obedience to papal authority was negotiated and “defined” in fourteenth-century Italy.