ABSTRACT
The arrival of the Florentine ambassador brought home the meaning of those “rather intimidating words”: the diplomat, Simone Strozzi, reported to him that the Visconti army had arrived “nelle parti di Romagna.” The Florentines, who were already suspicious of the Milanese maneuvers toward Genoa, were alarmed. Despite some continued economic exchanges and political interest, the quantity and the quality of Florence’s intervention in the Apennine area neighbouring its possessions “nelle parti di Romagna” ebbed notably. The political role and influence of these Apennine lords are rarely discussed in scholarship on Florence, and the heterogeneous Romagnol area has always attracted less historiographic interest than other state entities. The ambassadors of both the archbishop and the allied communes met in Sarzana, where they designated the Apennine region as the frontier of their respective spheres of influence. The bonds formed in the Sarzana agreements continued to define the political makeup of the Apennine regions.
