Pagare dazio. Considerazioni sull’ inquadramento fiscale delle comunità rurali del Padovano in età carrarese

Abstract

This study focuses on the choices made by the da Carrara family in the field of tax administration designed to frame the Paduan countryside during the ‘mature’ seigniorial age (1338-1405). First of all, starting from a dossier of unpublished documentation found in the Notarile archivial fund kept at the State Archive of Padua, it was decided to identify how the power relations in the field of taxation between the urban center and the periphery played out not only from an economic but also from a political and social point of view. Other issues highlighted are related to the extent to which the overall burdens to which the territory was subjected represented, at least in their intentions, an open laboratory for the princes of da Carrara to set up processes of ‘state’ construction and full ‘conquest’ of the countryside. Finally, we wanted to consider whether the da Carrara laid the foundations for a system of taxation hinging on homogenous tax assessments and levies managed directly by the lords and their government apparatus, perhaps without going through the mediation of the municipal magistrates still active in the second half of the 14^th century in a city with a sedimented and centuries-old republican tradition such as Padua.