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Inquisition Procedure and Crime in Early Fifteenth-Century Florence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2011

Laura Ikins Stern
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Extract

The central institutions of the Florentine criminal law system in the early fifteenth century were still the medieval courts of the three foreign rectors, the Podestà, the Captain of the People, and the Executor of the Ordinances of Justice, just as they had been throughout the fourteenth century. Similarly, criminal trials were conducted using inquisition procedure just as they had been from the late thirteenth century. Important changes, however, had taken place and were continuing to take place in the offices of the rectors and in inquisition procedure that greatly enhanced the effectiveness of this system. The fortuitous confluence of a strong state with improvements in inquisition procedure and the court system led to a strongly self-reliant court system that could, for the first time in the early fifteenth century, fully implement inquisition procedure by arresting criminals in flagranti, initiating cases through public initiation, gathering evidence independently, compelling witnesses, and successfully convicting. Because the political and social atmosphere influenced the effectiveness and the philosophies of prosecution of the criminal law system, a study of this system must include some consideration of political and social influences. Conversely, a study of the judicial system supplies a great deal of evidence about the government and society. When this interrelated sphere is regarded as a whole, the early fifteenth century is seen to be dominated by three closely related developments: the full implementation of inquisition procedure; the continued development of the territorial state, which made this possible; and the struggle between republican institutions and the nascent oligarchy.

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Articles
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Law and History Review , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , Fall 1990 , pp. 297 - 308
Copyright
Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 1990

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References

Notes

1. For the early history of the territorial state, see Becker, Marvin B., “The Florentine Territorial State and Civic Humanism in the Early Renaissance,” in Florentine Studies, ed. Rubinstein, Nicholai (London: Faber, 1968)Google Scholar; Becker, Marvin B., Florence in Transition 2 vols. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1967–1969)Google Scholar.

2. Statuta Popoli et Communis Florentiae (1415), 3 vols. (Freiburg: M. Kluch, 1778–1783)Google Scholar; Atti del Podestà (Archivio di Stato), fol. 4377; ibid., 4378; ibid., 4380; ibid., 4384; ibid., 4388; ibid., 4392.

3. Dorini, Umberto, Il diritto penale e la delinquenza in Firenze nel secolo XIV (Lucca, 1923)Google Scholar; Cohn, Samuel Kline Jr., The Laboring Classes in Renaissance Florence (New York: Academic Press, 1980)Google Scholar.

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6. Statuti della Repubblica Florentina, ed. Caggese, Romolo, 2 vols. (Florence, 1910, 1925), 1.2.50Google Scholar; Statuta 3, Tractatus de cessantibus et fugitivis 3, 5; Stern, Laura Ikins, “The Criminal Law System of Early Fifteenth-Century Florence” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1988), 412–14Google Scholar.

7. Stern, “Criminal Law System,” 94–97, 390–91.

8. Statuta 1.84, 5.1.26, 197, 200; Atti del Podestà, fol. 4377, 9r–9v; ibid., fol. 4380, 36r.

9. Statuta 3.53, 61, 66, 87, 101, 110, 115, 130, 186; ibid. 3, Tractatus de cessantibus et fugitivis 5; ibid., 4, Tractatus et materia Consulum Artium et Mercatorum 181; ibid., Tractatus et materia extraordinariorum 34; ibid. 5.4.22, 41, 42; Stern, “Criminal Law System,” 402–4, 411.

10. Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft.

11. Rubinstein, Nicholai, The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434 to 1494) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), 1–87Google Scholar.

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15. Stern, “Criminal Law System,” 94–97; Statuta 3.1; ibid. 4, Tractatus et materia Consulum Artium et Mercatorum 104, 149, 181–82; Statuto del Podestà, 3.75; Dorini, Il diritto penale, 143, n. 1.

16. Dorini, Il diritto penale, 142; Stern, “Criminal Law System,” 389–90.

17. Stern, “Criminal Law System,” 390–92.

18. Dorini, II diritto penale, 154–55; Stern, “Criminal Law System,” 400–1.

19. Dorini, Il diritto penale, 95; Stern, “Criminal Law System,” 392–93.

20. Statuto del Capitano 1.1–3, 57; Statuto del Podestà, 1.1; Statuta 1.4, 13, 23; Stern, “Criminal Law System,” 130.

21. Stern, “Criminal Law System,” 404.

22. Ibid., 390–91, 393.

23. Ibid., 395–97.

24. Statuta 3.3.

25. Ibid. 3.1.

26. Ibid. 3.6.

27. Statuto del Capitano 1.16–17, 20, 22–24; ibid. 2.1, 14.

28. Dorini, Il diritto penale, 28–29, 63–64; Cohn, Laboring Classes, 189; Stern, “Criminal Law System,” 406–7.

29. Cohn, Laboring Classes, 179–203.

30. Stern, “Criminal Law System,” 395–98; Atti del Podestà, fol. 4392 unpaginated case of Martinus Zanardi de Vulterra; ibid., fol. 4392, unpaginated case of Michaelus Pieri Vocatus Tagha; ibid., fol. 4392, unpaginated case of Jacobus Nardi alius Papi; ibid., fol. 4380, 10r–11r; ibid., fol. 4380, 22r–22v; ibid., fol. 4384, 27r–27v; ibid., fol. 4388, 8r–8v; ibid., fol. 4380, 4r–4v.

31. Cohn, Laboring Classes, 115–28 (chap. 5, “The Ecology of the Renaissance City”); ibid., 201.

32. Statuta 3, Tractatus de cessantibus et fugitivis 1, 3, 16; Stern, “Criminal Law System,” 412–13; Atti del Podestà, fol. 4377, unpaginated case of Diotavitus olim Bartoli; ibid., fol. 4377, unpaginated case of Arrighus domini Colutii; ibid., fol. 4377, unpaginated case of Thomas olim Luce de Castro Montis Varchi; ibid., fol. 4377, unpaginated case of Vestigius olim Simonis Guiducci; ibid., fol. 4384, 15v; ibid., fol. 4384, 20r–20v; ibid., fol. 4384, 25r–25v; ibid., fol. 4388, 1v–2v; ibid., fol. 4388, 3r–4r; ibid., fol. 4388, 12r–13r; ibid., fol. 4388, 13v–15v; ibid., fol. 4388, 21v–22v; ibid., fol. 4392, unpaginated case of Santius olim Mentini; ibid., fol. 4392, unpaginated case of Anguelus Zenobii Andree di Bardis; ibid., fol. 4392, unpaginated case of Frosinus filius olim Ugolini; ibid., fol. 4392, unpaginated case of Bernardus quondam Duti; ibid., fol. 4392, unpaginated case of Marchus Nicolai Benocii; ibid., fol. 4392, unpaginated case of Bernardus dicti Filippi.

33. Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft, 136n.

34. Becker, Florence in Transition; idem, “Florentine Territorial State.”

35. Brucker, Gene, The Civic World of Early Renaissance Florence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), 64–68, 73Google Scholar.

36. Guidi, , Il governo di Firenze 2:118Google Scholar.

37. Statuta 4, Tractatus et materia Consulum Artium et Mercatorum, 34; Statutes of Campsor Art of 1291, cited by Salvioli, Giuseppe, Storia del diritto italiano, vol. 3, Storia della procedura civile e criminate, ed. Giudice, Pasquale del (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1927), 99Google Scholar.

38. Statuta 3, Tractatus de cessantibus et fugitivis, 3, 5; ibid. 4, Tractatus et materia Consulum Artium et Mercatorum, 33.

39. Rubinstein, Government of Florence, 238; Statuta 4, Tractatus et materia Consulum Artium et Mercatorum, 45; Brucker, Civic World, 52; Doren, Alfred, Le arti Fiorentine, trans. Klein, G., 2 vols. (Florence, 1940), 52–60Google Scholar; Rodolico, Niccolo, I Ciompi (Florence: Sansoni, 1945), 197–206Google Scholar; idem, La democrazia Fiorentina nel suo tramonto (Rome, 1970), 457–58.

40. Bonolis, Mercanzia, 126–27; Statuta 4.21–22,24, Tractatus et materia Consulum Artium et Mercatorum.

41. Guidi, , Il governo di Firenze 2:288Google Scholar.

42. Statuta 4, De Offitialibus Turris, 1.

43. Ibid. 1.17, 62; ibid. 3, Tractatus Ordinamentorum Iustitiae 15, 21; ibid. 5.1.45.

44. Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft, 152.

45. Guidi, , Il governo di Firenze 1:265–66Google Scholar.

46. Brucker, Civic World, 33–36, 277, 392–93, 409, 413–16, 443, 446, 473–501.

47. Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft, 130–33, 136–37, 397–403.

48. Statuta 4, Tractatus et materia extraordinariorum 76; ibid. 5.2.34.

49. Ibid. 3.57–73.

50. Ibid. 1.62.

51. Ibid. 5.1.25–26, 200, 320.

52. Cantini, Lorenzo, “Dell' Ufizio del Podestà di Firenze,” in Saggi Istorici d'antichità toscane, ed. Cantini, Lorenzo (Florence: S. Maria in Campo, 1796), 117Google Scholar.

53. Statuta 3, Tractatus Ordinamentorum Iustitiae 24.

54. Stern, “Criminal Law System,” 415–17.

55. Statuta 5.1.200.

56. Ibid. 1.83–84.

57. Statuto del Capitano 3.94, 5.1.

58. Statuta 5.1.25.

59. Stern, “Criminal Law System,” 398–99.

60. Otto di Guardia della Repubblica, (Archivio di Stato) fol. 10; Stern, “Criminal Law System,” 364–73.