ABSTRACT
The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries would see the formation of a distinct pattern of civic government in Italy, and also the creation of a series of spaces which would subsequently be identified as the definitive image of political urbanity. This aesthetic unity emerged from centuries when the diplomatic tensions in Europe were played out on the Italian peninsula in the disputes between the guelph and ghibelline parties which with the personal ambitions of papal and imperial figures continued to form a backdrop to issues of territorial control. The chapter presents examples of buildings and spaces, from Padua, Perugia, Florence and Siena that describes the civic values of this period individually and collectively, through distinct but related architectural and urban expression. Piazza del Campo is essentially another vessel of space with the slightly concave facade of the Palazzo Pubblico forming most of its eastern edge.
