ABSTRACT
In the cities of late medieval Italy, governments funded the development of magnificent and imposing secular and ecclesiastical buildings. While the larger cities of northern and central Italy invariably contained major ecclesiastical buildings of Gothic design, albeit with Renaissance traces, communal and signorial governments in the smaller cities north of Rome continued to commission churches that exhibited substantial Romanesque features. Whereas most of the town halls are relatively small buildings, the Palazzo dei Priori at Perugia is probably the largest and most magnificent town hall among the smaller cities of Italy. It established guild rivalry as a powerful competitive spur to public patronage, a motive that can be seen behind many of the works of the early Florentine Renaissance’. Throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, French Gothic architecture fused with the Italian Romanesque tradition to produce a plethora of prominent churches and secular buildings throughout much of northern and central Italy.
