ABSTRACT
Private building projects sometimes also required a degree of financial backing or a grant of land from government, but overwhelmingly economic growth ensured that funds flooding into both secular and ecclesiastical development emanated from private individuals and corporate bodies. Economic growth in Emilia did little to generate private funds for the development of secular buildings in its largest city, Bologna. Cities in northern and central Italy were alone in the peninsula in experiencing the development of notable private buildings in the later Middle Ages. As in Genoa and a host of other cities throughout Italy, there was a plethora of tower-houses in Florence in the later Middle Ages, many of which were built in the thirteenth century. In respect of the smaller cities of northern and central Italy, the Toree and Case Guinigi in Lucca are about the only extant secular buildings of any merit commissioned by private patrons.
