ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on towns that had an important political role in the central Middle Ages, since it is only in these that it is possible to identify the topographical distribution of seats of power. The historiographical themes are crucial because they have determined in large part the development of the Italian town over many centuries. The centuries of the central Middle Ages represent an important period in the history of Italian towns. Sources relating to the history of the medieval town in Italy are identifiable not only in the documentary record of urban development, but also in the physical structure of the cities themselves. The long history of the institutional transformation of the communal towns is evidence that they were developments of enormous significance. The economic development of the eleventh and twelfth centuries had caused an increase in the surface area occupied by buildings in the towns.
