La construction du pouvoir local: Élites municipales, liens sociaux et transactions économiques dans l’espace urbain: Rome, 1550–1650. Eleonora Canepari. Collection de l’École française de Rome 511. Rome: École française de Rome, 2017. xviii + 400 pp. €25.
keeping political power fragmented and arms primarily in the hands of private citizens. This is an intriguing approach that certainly merits further attention, in part because Salonia’s work is far from conclusive. For example, no mention is made of the role of force in opening foreign markets and establishing trading colonies. When discussing the Genoese presence in England no mention is made of Genoese involvement in the Hundred Years’War or Genoese naval attacks on Southampton. And finally, in the textual analyses aimed at reconstructing Genoese self-perception and a peculiarly Genoese notion of liberty, only sources representing the views of a single faction are discussed. Depicting the Genoese as a homogeneous group is always a pitfall. Salonia does not delve deeply enough into questions of identity, or the multiple layers of identity within the Genoese polity, all too often referring collectively to the Genoese, or even Ligurians, as a consolidated block. Matteo Salonia takes on the quest to find the key to Genoa’s undeniable success creating a far-flung medieval commercial network and its ability to create an equally impressive commercial and financial network in the early modern period, and he finds it in the city’s entrepreneurial culture, a preference for fragmented political power, and a notion of liberty as freedom to carry on business. He has chosen to support his points not through a systematic analysis of the available sources, but through the use of a limited number of examples. Given the vastness of the subject that is a reasonable approach. The result, though, is impressionistic: sweeping conclusions drawn from the experiences and records of a handful of historical actors. The reader is also left with the suspicion that the sources may not be entirely representative, or at least may not faithfully represent the nuances of Genoese culture or the array of sharply contrasting views regarding liberty and republicanism.