Seats of Power and Marketplaces in Italian Medieval Cities

By means of a range of cases, this article explores different types of markets of Italian medieval cities in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, taking into account their political and customary differences. In northern and central Italy, including the Church State, seats of power and marketplaces often intersected, also reflecting topographically the strong interest of urban government in monitoring trade, avoiding any fraud that could have undermined the trust of traders and customers. Bishops, canons, and Communes, among others, were holders of the rights to the spaces where the daily or weekly market took place. Those spaces, suitably subdivided, were rented to those who would set up their stalls for the retail sale of provisions or other items, separated from food. During the period under consideration, markets evolved, creating specialized structures for food, which guaranteed a better preservation of goods. For example, shambles and fishmongers’ stalls were not always adjacent to the marketplaces. In the Domus mercatorum and Mercanzia, which sometimes faced the marketplaces, guilds of both manufacturers and traders supervised negotiations and performed judicial functions inherent to markets. Guilds also had a strong influence on the creation and management of public spaces for annual fairs and weekly markets. In southern Italy, the relationship between the seats of power and the marketplaces was not so direct because of the centralization of the power of the sovereigns who delegated control over local governance to royal officers. The physical layout of the market took on such features that often gave rise to a commercial topography different from that experienced by the Communes.