ABSTRACT

In Florence, and many other Italian cities, aspiration to liberty justifies rhetorically the actions of governments and the claims of the popolo. In the wake of the efforts of the Counter Reformation, in 1537, Venice even founds a magistracy charged with prosecuting blasphemy, and from this time on the control of words becomes a central mission of the podesta. Venice's subjects can approach specialized judicial bodies to work out their quarrels, arbitrate their disputes, and repair injustices. The Tuscan Pietro Aretino, famous for his licentious writings and pornographic poems, despite that bent has left a lovely description of the Murano Justice, whose workmanship he lauds in a letter of 1548, to Pietro da Salo. The statutes stabilize the laws that guarantee civil peace and communal life in cities that are growing ever more densely settled.