ABSTRACT
In the mid-fifteenth century, several decades before the more celebrated vision of Niccolò Machiavelli, members of the financial office (Officium Monetae) of the Commune of Genoa developed the idea of a double sovereignty in Genoa (Commune/San Giorgio). They argued that San Giorgio was a corrupt corporation that was controlled by a faction, the boteschi, that speculated in public-debt shares and sought to take over the city and the Commune of Genoa by gradually acquiring all its territories. Meanwhile, financial relationships between San Giorgio and Milan prompted the council of Francesco Sforza, the duke of Milan, to draft a plan that placed all Genoese territories under San Giorgio’s authority. Instead, however, the duke took possession of Genoa in 1464.
