| Popis: |
This chapter begins by considering present-day definitions of democracy and reflecting on the ideals of popular rebels of the late Renaissance Italy. It adopts the model of the sociologist Juan Linz (1978) of democracy embracing two broad ideals: representation and equality. The chapter then turns to the work of Guido Alfani and Roberta Frigeni that has found notions of ‘equality’ as a human relationship extremely rare before the Enlightenment and ‘inequality’ not until the nineteenth century. From our book’s survey of chronicles and diplomatic dispatches, however, these words and their notions rest solidly in human relations and pertain to taxation, justice, and political representation. More strikingly, they fill collective supplications to the Grand duke, lodged by communal protesters in provincial towns and even villages in the 1540s. Rights for equality now justified appeals against elite fiscal exemptions, corruption, and unjust laws. Furthermore ‘plebes’, artisans, and villagers maintained that any realization of social and economic equality was possible only through the extension of their political representation and participation. |
