ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the second millennium C.e., the livability of northern Italian cities and the quality of their infrastructure and physical accommodations were at a particularly low ebb. By the onset of the Industrial Age, these same cities represented in many ways the highest qualities of municipal life available to humankind. This study examines the role of municipal leaders in improving the quality of life in postmillennium northern Italian cities, focusing on their motivations and actions as well as the tools they employed to re-create their vision of the ideal city within their local environments. We will draw on the municipal codes of several cities, with a specific emphasis on the city of Bergamo, to show that urban leaders were directed at the very least unconsciously by cultural icons based in classical, biblical, and patristic traditions and that, within the context of the knowledge and technology available to them, they were considerably successful in transforming their utopian visions into reality.
