Elites and Urban Communities in Early Medieval Italy. Identities, Political Initiatives, and Ways of (Self-)Representation

Historiography on Italian cities in the early Middle Ages traditionally suffers from a twofold perspective crushing: on the one hand, with particular reference to the 5th-8th centuries, readings have privileged the accentuation of the causes (and manifestations) of an alleged, unstoppable decadence with respect to the splendour of Roman age (and to some extent also of late antique legacies); on the other hand, no less stubbornly, efforts have been made to grasp any hint, however scattered, that could anticipate future communal developments. The aim of this essay, through the analysis of written sources, is to attempt to read the data relating to the urban history of the early medieval ages in their peculiarities, without ‘catastrophist’ conditioning or undue and teleological projections of political, cultural and social dynamics towards the radical novelty of the 12th century and its new institutional forms of power.