DOI: 10.36253/979-12-215-1076-8.16 ISSN: 2704-6362

Beyond comparison: reconsidering the history of Italian city-communes (Pisa and Genoa, 11th-12th centuries)

Alberto Cotza
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Historiography has repeatedly emphasized the contraction of the spatial horizons of elite po-litical action in 12th-century Italy. Within this framework of local geographies, cities and their territories appear as a constellation of small worlds undergoing transformation. As a result, scholarly debate has developed a research agenda grounded in the analysis of individual are-as, subsequently subjected to comparison so that each investigation may acquire the analytical weight of a case study. Yet is this method sufficient to grasp the complexity of change in the cen-tral Middle Ages? Is it possible to conceive of an alternative approach to the study of 12th-century Italian geographies? Starting from an analysis of the formation of the communes of Genoa and Pisa in the mid-12th century, this essay reflects on one of the most significant consequences of central medieval transformation: the emergence of connected arenas. In examining urban elites operating within the same arena, comparative history proves to be an insufficient – and poten-tially misleading – tool. For this reason, the article argues for the development of new method-ological approaches capable of producing a deeper understanding of the distinctive features of change in the central centuries of the Middle Ages.

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