Comparing Two Italies. Civic Tradition, Trade Networks, Family Relationships Between Italy of Communes and the Kingdom of Sicily

The title recalls a famous book by David Abulafia, The two Italies, Cambridge 1977, about the origins of the so-called unequal exchange and dual economy between Northern and Southern Italy. This argument is supposed to be the ground of the so called Southern question(questione meridionale), one of the foremost topics of the whole Italian history. But trade isn’t the only major theme apt to compare Italy of Communes and Kingdom of Sicily. This miscellany of essays points to enlarge interpretative paths not only about trade networks, but aboutless known sides of interrelations, e. g. the rise of civic tradition, the spread of Mendicant Orders, the circulation of wealth because of family relationships, women, marriage and patrimonial assets.