Penal negotiation, judicial legitimation and urban powers in communal Italy

Abstract

The present article deals with the problem of the relationship between justice and politics in Italian cities in the end of the Middle Ages. It is specifically about determining the way the judicial practices of the city and the reflection of particular jurists, especially in the ambit of penal issues, found themselves in the center of the legalization of new political actors and of new institutional order in a moment of great political changes of the Italian cities in the end of the Middle Ages.