Carlo Sigonio e la genealogia barbarica del regno d’Italia

Carlo Sigonio and the barbarian genealogy of the Kingdom of Italy This article examines Carlo Sigonio’s De regno Italiae (1574) as a key reinterpretation of the Italian Middle Ages and of the “barbarian” origins of Italian institutions. Rejecting narratives of Roman continuity, Sigonio presented Lombards, Franks, and Germans as founders of the Kingdom of Italy and its legal order. Privileges, laws, and juridical sources became central to political history and to a concept of libertas grounded in rights guaranteed by rulers. The article also traces the influence of Sigonio’s model on later jurisdictionalist and historiographical debates in the 18th and 19th centuries concerning the origins of Italian history.