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Rich, articulate, highly evolved. . . full, abundant, vital, coherent : Procacci's description of Italian commune civilization thirteenth-century, applies as well to this succinct study, which won the 1968 Viarregio Prize. It is especially brilliant up through the seventeenth century: factual detail and scholarly issues are integrated with both historical imagination and rigor. Procacci begins with the complex relations between commune-town and countryside as the city-states and their population grew, public finance and Genoese banking developed, and the merchant aristocracy consolidated its power. Procacci modifies the traditional assumption that Mediterranean trade declined in the sixteenth century, and discusses the important question of how the growth of commerce and industry solidified existing social relations rather than upheaving them as in other European domains. The roles of Italian intellectuals are concisely traced, from the Humanists, who lacked the kind of social responsibility which fueled the Italian Enlightenment, to the post-French Revolutionary crop of intellectuals without whom the weak Italian bourgeoisie might not have reached national unity. What stands out in the post-eighteenth-century account are acute if unelaborated insights into developmental problems, as well as excellent cameos of leading figures. The discussions of the socialist and fascist movements, the war and postwar periods, are sketchy; less than fifty pages are devoted to the 1914-1948 period. Whether the translator or the author (a modern history professor at the University of Florence) deserves most credit, the style is exemplary. The book should be called to the attention of every European history student. (Kirkus Reviews)
