La frattura inesistente : l'età del comune consolare nella recente storiografia

At the end of 20th Century the great number of studies on Italian city-states focused mainly on the podestarial and popular period, leaving aside the consular age. This produced an image of an advanced, socially complez and politically active Commune in the 13th century, opposed to a 12th century one portrayed as dominated by rural aristocracy, socially static, with a basic political and institutional structure. That due to the neglet which the consular period had suffered from historiography. Exploiting a number of contributions, some recent and some less, the article aims to soften this contrast and point out that, on the verge of the conflict with Barbarossa, Italian cities were already equipped with complex political, administrative and fiscal instruments, all extremely advanced for the time, a vast social representation, an a strong hold on a great part of the rural territory. Without denying the deep innovations brought in by the coming of the 13.th century, is anyway appropriate to point out the deep roots of them and to offer a more uniform point of view on the whole communal period