Land and Economic Policy in Later Fifteenth-Century Padua

This essay examines the political destiny and function in government of the civic institutions and élites of formerly independent urban polities once they had settled into the new political context of the Italian regional states in the fifteenth century. Research conducted from the 1970s onwards has established the greater weakness of Padua’s municipal institutions and élite in relation to Venice, as compared to the experience of many other cities of the Terraferma dominion. The essay focuses on the profile of issues connected with land in the Paduan civic council’s activity in the later fifteenth century, also seeking to gauge the extent of its autonomy in policy-making and its perception of its role, especially in relation to the action of Venetian authority. The archival material used concerns both the activity of the Paduan council and the more general conduct of government in Venice and Padua