The project intends to investigate the history of Rome and its - Italian and European - economic and diplomatic networks between XIVth and XVth centuries through the analysis of two interconnected sources: merchant-bankers and diplomatic ones, which are strictly interrelated. In fact, economic documents very often and inevitably deal with political questions, while the ambassadors' letters show important informations for the economic analysis.
In particular, the correspondence and bookkeeping of merchants and merchant-bankers operating and trading between Rome and other Italian and European cities allow to trace the economic networks, to identify the principal operators in trade and banking and the most important traffic routes. The analysis of published and unpublished letters, contracts and agreements concluded between Roman and foreign operators will give an important contribution to defining the roles of Romans and non-Romans in the economy of the city, the quality of its trading and manufacturing companies, not enough described by the Roman sources.
On the other hand, the diplomatic letters of the Italian States' ambassadors in Rome are important both for the history of the city and for the study of diplomatic networks in the papal Curia. These sources will also shed new light on diplomatic relationships among major and minor powers in the European context because Rome was at the time the place where all ambassadors, sent from different States and permanently resident at the papal Curia, met and shared information and political perspectives.
Finally, the dialogue between these two kind of sources make it possible to paint a more detailed economic picture through diplomatic documents and, at the same time, a more exhaustive diplomatic portrait through economic sources: all this in order to increase the knowledge of political, economic and social history of Rome in the XIVth-XVth centuries, in an Italian and European context.
The state of art briefly described offers today stimulating opportunities for new researches, with particular reference to two main targets, with a specific methodological approach.
1. The exploitation of the letters both of merchant-bankers and ambassadors, in order to increase the knowledge of the political, economic and social history of Rome in the XIVth-XVth centuries, in an Italian and European context.
2. Obtaining new data about the history of the city of Rome in its widest sense: the correspondence and bookkeeping of merchant-bankers to one hand, and diplomatic correspondence to the other one, will offer an amount of valuable information not only to economic and political historians but also to historians of art, architecture, culture, language and to researchers in urban and social history.
The project aims to answer those questions analyzing unpublished sources from Roman and non-Roman archives (first of all Genoa and Florence), obviously combining new data with the bibliography at disposal.
The results expected should throw new light on the history of late medieval Rome, related to the idea of the city not only as the center of the papal power, but also as a city in fast development, as well as a rising center of culture, of a lively economic and financial market and the convergence point of diplomatic and political affairs.