ABSTRACT
In the Renaissance period republics existed only in Italy and had evolved out of the communes which, in turn, had filled the power vacuum created by the breakdown of imperial government and administration south of the Alps in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Genoa and Venice, patrician merchants, generators of the cities' wealth, had dominated government from at least the beginning of the communal period and continued to do so, albeit with dramatically different consequences. Republican states were commonly depicted as new Romes, the Greek polis may also be traced in Renaissance Italy. In addition to the established republican regimes of Florence, Genoa, Lucca, Siena and Venice, republican enthusiasm was also manifested in the short-lived Ambrosian Republic. As in Florence and Lucca, names were drawn from bags to determine appointments, but other considerations made the Sienese system more complex.
