Statuti urbani e governo papale nelle marche del tardo Medioevo

The essay investigates the political relationship between the urban statutes of the Marches and the government of the Papal State at the end of the Middle Ages. The issue involves not only the juridical sphere, but also the relations of power between the cities and the papal monarchy. The perspective adopted considers the formal variety and the composite feature of the statutes, both manuscripts and printed. The sources geography, moreover, focused on the central-southern area, where a polycentric structure was reinforced. The study analyzes calques, exchanges of models and influences, rewrites of statutes over time. Overall, it appears that the papal government preferred not to restrict the urban statutory production, but to act on other levels, thus allowing the cities and smaller centers to maintain their normative tradition, characteristic of the communal age, until the modern age.