Books by Alessandro Silvestri
Reviews:
R. Chilà, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 76/2 (2021), 407-409
D. Abulafia, Spec... more Reviews:
R. Chilà, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 76/2 (2021), 407-409
D. Abulafia, Speculum, 96/1 (2021), 256-258.
K. Toomaspoeg, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 100 (2020), 713-715.
F. Titone, English Historical Review, CXXXV, no. 574 (2020), 671-673.
M. Toniazzi, Medioevo latino, XL (2019), 865.
Le carte e la storia, 1 (2019), 123.
E. Tello Hernández, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 49/2 (2019), 877-878.
F. Delle Donne, Studi Medievali, 60/2 (2019), 1027-1030.
N. Bazzano, Renaissance Quarterly, 72/4 (2019), 1487-1489.
P. Buffo, L’indice dei libri del mese, Anno XXXV, 11 (2018), 28.
Sinossi:
L’Europa tardomedievale è contrassegnata dalla presenza di unioni politiche particolarmente complesse, che includevano diversi stati e territori. Come si manifestava l’esercizio dell’autorità da parte dei governanti? Secondo quali logiche? Tramite quali strumenti?
Grazie alla straordinaria documentazione archivistica superstite, il regno di Sicilia del secolo XV costituisce un modello ideale per studiare questo tipo di problematiche e per verificare quali meccanismi – amministrativi, finanziari e informativi – furono approntati dai re aragonesi e dagli ufficiali al loro servizio per regolarne il governo a distanza e per indirizzarne l’utilizzo delle risorse.
Nonostante la perdita dell’indipendenza politica e il suo definitivo assorbimento tra i territori della Corona d’Aragona, l’isola mantenne però un impianto istituzionale autonomo, che divenne terreno di scontro e negoziazione con i sovrani, ma nel contesto di una complessiva adesione della società siciliana alla politica estera di Alfonso il Magnanimo.
Edited volumes and journal special issues by Alessandro Silvestri
This book examines the role of information as a crucial means for governance and negotiation, thr... more This book examines the role of information as a crucial means for governance and negotiation, through which Renaissance rulers and governments managed the composite polities under their control.
The Renaissance world was characterized by the presence of numerous composite polities and political unions, consisting of distinct territories governed by a single ruler or government. These entities varied in scale, ranging from medium-sized polities including cities and lordships to thalassocracies encompassing distant and sometimes lands separated by sea, and vast global empires comprising multiple territories and diverse populations. The chapters in this book explore how information enabled authorities to monitor events within their dominions and colonies, shape policies and decision-making processes, and interact and negotiate with local political societies. The diverse examples presented in this volume illustrate how information, communication, and archival strategies varied across regions, adapting to the constitutional structure of each polity and their geographical scope.
This volume is essential reading for students, researchers, and academics interested in political history, information studies, historical governance and European studies. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of European Review of History.
Contents:
1. Information and the government of the composite polities of the Renaissance world (c. 1350–1650)
Alessandro Silvestri
2. Ruling by information, governing by records: the spoken and written grammar of power in post-communal Italy (c. 1350–1520)
Isabella Lazzarini
3. Archiving the Swiss Tagsatzung in the early modern era: from distributed protocols to confederal archive
Randolph C. Head
4. ‘We want to know and be clearly informed’: official records, unofficial correspondence and oral communication in the fourteenth-century Crown of Aragon (Majorca, Sardinia, Sicily)
Alessandro Silvestri
5. Jem Sultan and Venice’s intelligence system: sorting and deploying information in Venice’s ‘letterocracy’
Monique O’Connell
6. An imperial formation joins a composite polity: the Portuguese Empire and the information system of the Hispanic Monarchy (1580–1640)
Jorge Flores and Pedro Cardim
7. Manila and their agents in the court: long-distance political communication and imperial configuration in the seventeenth-century Spanish monarchy
Thomas Calvo and Guillaume Gaudin
8. The composite world of early modern information
Filippo de Vivo
European Review of History, 30/4, 2023
This special issue uses information as a lens through which to examine the operation of the Renai... more This special issue uses information as a lens through which to examine the operation of the Renaissance world’s composite polities and political unions, such as the Venetian thalassocracy or the Spanish Empire. To date, late-medieval and early modern scholarship has mostly neglected the role of information in ruling those polities. Yet information was crucial, for it allowed authorities to know what was happening in their dominions and colonies and thus shaped their policies and interactions with local political societies. The authors of this special issue suggest that a focus on information can help us fully understand how composite polities operated, whether on a regional, Mediterranean or global scale. This introductory essay examines the historiographical debate about late-medieval and early modern composite polities and unions and discusses how and to what extent communication strategies, record-keeping practices and data accumulation can be used to understand how authorities relied on information to exercise their rule over their various dominions. It also discusses this approach in relation to this special issue’s six case studies and other examples of pre-modern composite polities.
1. A. Silvestri, Information and the government of the composite polities of the Renaissance world (c. 1350–1650)
2. I. Lazzarini, Ruling by information, governing by records: the spoken and written grammar of power in post-communal Italy (c. 1350–1520)
3. R.C. Head, Archiving the Swiss Tagsatzung in the early modern era: from distributed protocols to confederal archive
4. A. Silvestri, ‘We want to know and be clearly informed’: official records, unofficial correspondence and oral communication in the fourteenth-century Crown of Aragon (Majorca, Sardinia, Sicily)
5. N. O' Connell, Jem Sultan and Venice’s intelligence system: sorting and deploying information in Venice’s ‘letterocracy’
6. J. Flores & P. Cardim, An imperial formation joins a composite polity: the Portuguese Empire and the information system of the Hispanic Monarchy (1580–1640)
7. T. Calvo & G. Gaudin, Manila and their agents in the court: long-distance political communication and imperial configuration in the seventeenth-century Spanish monarchy
8. F. de Vivo, The composite world of early modern information
European History Quarterly, 2016
Viella, 2015
La raccolta di saggi proposta intende provare a rispondere ad una serie di quesiti incentrati sul... more La raccolta di saggi proposta intende provare a rispondere ad una serie di quesiti incentrati sul rapporto tra archivi e società negli stati italiani tra Medioevo ed Età moderna. Quale era il personale addetto alla produzione e alla cura delle carte? E in quale modo esso era suddiviso al proprio interno? Dai notai dei comuni italiani fino ai più organizzati archivi d’età moderna, diverse categorie di personale specializzato – quali notai, cancellieri, segretari, ma anche archivisti veri e propri, ecc. – hanno contribuito alle diverse fasi della costruzione ed accumulazione degli archivi? Quale ruolo avevano questi ufficiali nella società del tempo? Quale tipo di provenienza sociale? L’impiego in cancelleria garantiva una promozione sociale? E quale educazione ricevevano le diverse categorie di segretari ed archivisti? Da Firenze a Venezia, noti esempi di cancellieri umanisti dimostrano che alcuni di essi spiccavano per le loro qualità intellettuali e letterarie, e non solo strettamente professionali e tecniche. In entrambe queste repubbliche l’organizzazione degli addetti alla cancelleria era regolata da apposite norme interne, e a Venezia lo stato organizzava perfino la loro formazione. Qui una legislazione accurata determinava elementi come la durata dell’ufficio o la suddivisione del lavoro tra i diversi funzionari, ma non mancavano neppure interessi di carattere socio-politico, come ad esempio la parentela o l’appartenenza a certi gruppi di potere. Nelle signorie, al contrario la rilevanza data al ruolo dei segretari, favorì lo sviluppo di relazioni di carattere interpersonale tra principe e segretario stesso, scelto perciò anche per la sua appartenenza al gruppo dei suoi consiglieri più fidati, oltre che per le sue capacità politiche e amministrative.
Su di un piano prettamente sociale si possono comparare queste due realtà? E secondo quali termini? Quali sono, inoltre, le differenze tra il personale delle cancellerie e degli archivi dei regni dell’Italia meridionale, rispetto a quello delle coeve entità istituzionali dell’Italia comunale e delle signorie centro-settentrionali? Si è parlato molto della transizione da un modello nel quale il personale di cancelleria era composto prevalentemente da ufficiali dalla formazione notarile o umanistica, ad un altro caratterizzato piuttosto dalla necessità di trovare funzionari che rispondessero prima di tutto alla richiesta dei governi centrali di avere personale fidato e fedele. L’occasione di questo convegno sarà buona anche per fare il punto su questi temi.
D’altra parte, l’intenzione è quella di usare i documenti stessi per documentare la formazione culturale e gli interessi culturali dei cancellieri: componimenti poetici, piccoli ghirigori sbozzati da segretari annoiati sui margini o sulle carte di guardia dei registri rivelano l’inclinazione culturale e il mondo personale dell’autore.
Journal articles by Alessandro Silvestri
Reti Medievali Rivista, 2025
ENG
In 1420, Alfonso V of Aragon (1416–1458), known as the Magnanimous, signed a legal contract w... more ENG
In 1420, Alfonso V of Aragon (1416–1458), known as the Magnanimous, signed a legal contract with a group of patrons (i.e., shipowners and shipmasters) to secure ships for the royal fleet and military support to complete the conquest of Sardinia and launch an offensive against Corsica, then under Genoese rule. According to this agreement, the sovereign temporarily granted these patrons control over the kingdom’s most significant fiscal resources, namely, the revenues generated from grain and foodstuff exports through the sale of export licenses (tratte). The agreement also resulted in the transfer of extensive public authority from the Crown to the patrons, who gained direct administrative control over the ports, their personnel, and the castles located in the same port towns. After examining the reconstruction of the royal patrimony following Alfonso’s ascension to the Crown of Aragon in 1412, this essay explores Sicily’s role in financing the political and military agenda of Alfonso the Magnanimous, focusing on the agreement between the monarch and the consortium of shipowners and shipmasters. In this regard, it provides a detailed analysis of the contract’s contents, the distribution of fiscal resources among the patrons, and their social origins. Finally, the essay discusses Sicily’s increasing strategic and financial significance in supporting the Crown of Aragon’s subsequent campaigns in Naples and the Italian Mezzogiorno.
ITA
Nel 1420, Alfonso V d’Aragona (1416-58), detto il Magnanimo, stipulava un contratto con un gruppo di patrons, ovvero, di armatori e capitani di navi iberici, allo scopo di ottenere i vascelli per la sua flotta regia e il sostegno militare del quale necessitava completare la conquista della in Sardegna e avviare l’invasione della Corsica, che era in mano genovese. In virtù di tale accordo, il sovrano cedeva temporaneamente a questi patrons il controllo sulle risorse fiscali più importanti del regno di Sicilia, quelle cioè generate dall’esportazione del grano e di altre vettovaglie dai porti dell’isola, mediante la vendita di licenze per l’esportazione (tratte). L’intesa si concretizzò pure in un’ampia cessione di quote di autorità pubblica, tanto che i patrons furono investiti anche dell’amministrazione diretta dei porti e del loro personale, nonché del controllo sui castelli nelle località in cui si trovavano le strutture portuali che gli erano state assegnate. Dopo avere analizzato l’opera di ricostruzione del real patrimonio siciliano in seguito all’avvento della dinastia di Trastamara sul trono della Corona d’Aragona nel 1412, il saggio discute il ruolo della Sicilia per il finanziamento delle imprese militari di Alfonso il Magnanimo, per spostare poi l’attenzione sull’accordo stipulato tra quest’ultimo e il consorzio di armatori e capitani di navi al suo servizio, esaminando non solo i contenuti dell’accordo e la distribuzione delle risorse fiscali tra i patrons, ma anche le loro origini sociali. Infine, il saggio si chiude con un’analisi del ruolo strategico che il regno di Sicilia, grazie alle sue ricche risorse fiscali, ebbe per il proseguimento delle campagne militari della Corona a Napoli e nel Mezzogiorno italiano.
Pedralbes. Revista d’Història Moderna, 2023
Sintesi
Questo contributo esamina l’apparato finanziario e contabile della Corona d’Aragona nel ... more Sintesi
Questo contributo esamina l’apparato finanziario e contabile della Corona d’Aragona nel tardo medioevo. In particolare, mediante un approccio di tipo comparativo, si discutono, da una parte, la circolazione di modelli amministrativi tra i diversi territori dell’unione politica catalano-aragonese, e dall’altra lato, il processo di decentralizzazione istituzionale che interessò la monarchia, che è qui inteso come il frutto di una strategia programmatica portata avanti dai re d’Aragona.
Abstract
This essay examines the Crown of Aragon’s financial and accounting apparatus
in the late Middle Ages. By pursuing a comparative approach, this paper explores the circulation of administrative models between the diverse territories of the Catalan-Aragonese political union and the process of institutional devolution within this monarchy. This process is regarded as the outcome of a strategic programme developed by the kings of Aragon.
European Review of History, 2023
‘We want to know and be clearly informed’: official records, unofficial correspondence and oral c... more ‘We want to know and be clearly informed’: official records, unofficial correspondence and oral communication in the fourteenth-century Crown of Aragon (Majorca, Sardinia, Sicily)
Alessandro Silvestri
ORCID Icon
Pages 554-579 | Received 21 Jun 2022, Accepted 04 Jan 2023, Published online: 12 Sep 2023
Cite this article https://doi.org/10.1080/13507486.2023.2201291 CrossMark Logo CrossMark
In this article
ABSTRACT
Accumulating information
Recording the islands
Territorial knowledge and its use
Navigating through Information and Misinformation
Supplemental material
Acknowledgements
Disclosure statement
Additional information
Footnotes
References
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ABSTRACT
Starting in the 1340s, the Crown of Aragon strengthened its position in the Western Mediterranean by absorbing the Kingdom of Majorca (1343), reincorporating the realm of Sicily (1392) and securing its control over constantly rebellious Sardinia (1420). To govern those territories, which were distant from the royal court and separated by sea, the kings of Aragon developed a pervasive information strategy that facilitated the retrieval of data from their archives and the transformation of that data into useful knowledge that kept them informed about the three islands’ administration. The monarchs developed regional series of registers specifically dedicated to Majorca, Sardinia and Sicily in which orders and ordinances pertaining to the islands were recorded and they created or strengthened territorial archives for preserving records and accounts produced in the localities. They also relied on a network of accountable officers and informants who updated them via official and unofficial letters and, finally, they gathered intelligence using envoys who travelled continuously across the Mediterranean to inform the Crown on a vast range of affairs pertaining to the islands. This essay explores these topics during the long fourteenth century, using the records and correspondence preserved in various archives of the Catalan-Aragonese world and emphasizing the role of both the written word and oral communication for ruling a late-medieval composite polity like the Crown of Aragon.
Documenta. Rivista internazionale di studi storico-filologici sulle fonti, 2022
The registri patrimoniali or quaterni litterarum of the Kingdom of Sicily’s great court of accoun... more The registri patrimoniali or quaterni litterarum of the Kingdom of Sicily’s great court of accounts in the later Middle Ages · This contribution focuses on the processes of production, organisation, and preservation of financial and fiscal records in the late-medieval Kingdom of Sicily. After briefly discussing the operation of the island’s main accounting body (magna curia rationum, i.e., great court of accounts) and the strategies its officers (magistri rationales, i.e., accounting masters) adopted for the practical preservation of the documents they produced and received while carrying out their duties, this essay thoroughly examines one of the office’s main documentary series : the quaterni litterarum (books of letters), later called registri patrimoniali. In this regard, on the one hand, this paper explores the methods the accounting masters developed for storing and arranging a broad range of financial and fiscal information in the above-mentioned quaterni litterarum ; on the other hand, it examines these books’ uses and contents during the age of the Trastamaras (1412-1516). In so doing, this essay illustrates the different types of documents therein transcribed, giving a peculiar emphasis to three main questions : the practical management of the great court of accounts’ office, the accounting masters’ advisory activity, and the management of justice whenever it affected fiscal administration. Finally, the essay includes an appendix listing the existing volumes of the series produced in the later Middle Ages and preserved today at the Archivio di Stato di Palermo.
Studia Historica. Historia Medieval, 2022
Nel corso della lunga campagna militare che Alfonso il Magnanimo condusse per la conquista di Nap... more Nel corso della lunga campagna militare che Alfonso il Magnanimo condusse per la conquista di Napoli e del Mezzogiorno (1421-23 e 1435-42), la Sicilia svolse un ruolo fondamentale per il finanziamento della guerra, soprattutto grazie alle risorse provenienti dal regio demanio, ovvero quelle frutto delle imposte indirette e del commercio granario. Per vie delle crescenti e urgenti esigenze economiche della Corona, nell’ultima fase del conflitto Alfonso il Magnanimo ricorse in maniera più intensa alla tassazione diretta, promovendo nel contempo diverse altre strategie fiscali alternative. Tale processo, come si discute in questo articolo, emerse con particolare forza nel 1441-42, quando il sovrano elaborò un inedito programma fiscale per fare fronte al pagamento della condotta di Niccolò Piccinino e di diverse lettere di cambio. Da una parte, si richiese alle città demaniali e baronali dell’isola il pagamento di una esosa composizione per i loro supposti crimini di usura, estendendo poi tale richiesta economica a tutti i sudditi del regno nella forma di una subventio generalis; dall’altra parte, si provvide all’imposizione di un prestito forzoso ad alcuni membri delle élite politiche, urbane e religiose dell’isola.
Archival Science, 2022
In the last twenty years, anthropologists, archivists, and historians have dedicated increased at... more In the last twenty years, anthropologists, archivists, and historians have dedicated increased attention to the study of archives as objects of research themselves. In so doing, scholars have predominantly examined the emergence and transformations of archives during the early modern age, focusing mostly on political and diplomatic depositories. They have tended to neglect financial archives, which is unfortunate, as-alongside judicial archives-they were probably the largest documentary repositories of the pre-modern world and those that first faced the problem of managing huge masses of documentation. This article discusses the formation and development of the Kingdom of Sicily's financial archives in the later Middle Ages, arguing that this repository evolved into a collecting archive by the early fifteenth-century, when it preserved not only the records and accounts produced by the central financial administration, but also those from a number of territorial officers and magistracies. This archival turn, I suggest, originated from the fact that the Crown of Aragon's rulers constantly needed increased incomes to fund bureaucracies and warfare and exercise patronage, and thus needed financial information organized, at hand, and under their control. After briefly discussing the emergence of the financial archive in the thirteenth-century, this essay traces the Crown's attempts to create a stable repository for storing financial records and accounts and its continuous struggles to prevent documentation from being scattered and dispersed. Finally, it examines the successful strategy that King Alfonso V of Aragon (1416-58), called the Magnanimous, pursued to organize financial documentation and concentrate records and accounts produced by financial administration into a stable building. The essay pays particular attention to the material aspects of preserving records, e.g., the restoration of buildings, construction of chests, and preparation of secure locks that were integral to the emergence of collecting archives for financial documents in the later Middle Ages.
Mediaeval Sophia, 2021
Abstract (ITA)
Gli studiosi della Sicilia tardomedievale hanno spesso sottovalutato il ruolo dell... more Abstract (ITA)
Gli studiosi della Sicilia tardomedievale hanno spesso sottovalutato il ruolo dell’isola nel finanziamento della politica estera della Corona d’Aragona, considerandolo marginale rispetto a quello delle componenti iberiche dell’unione catalano-aragonese. D’altro canto, le fonti documentarie superstiti attestano che, a cominciare dal regno di Alfonso V d’Aragona (1416-58), detto il Magnanimo, il regno di Sicilia ebbe invece un ruolo di primo piano per lo svolgimento delle guerre italiane del sovrano iberico, come si evince chiaramente mediante lo studio della tesoreria isolana negli anni in cui fu retta dall’esperto burocrate Nicola Speciale (1419-22) e della sua contabilità superstite. Quest’ultimo, infatti, fu in grado di accrescere in maniera esponenziale gli introiti della tesoreria allo scopo di finanziare le campagne militari alfonsine prima in Sardegna e Corsica e poi, soprattutto, a Napoli e nel Mezzogiorno. L’attività del tresorer Nicola Speciale, d’altro canto, non si sostanziò solamente con sovvenzionamenti economici e pagamenti diretti a nome del sovrano, ma anche – per via della posizione strategica dell’isola – tramite il continuo invio di vettovaglie, armamenti e altre merci alle truppe di terra dislocate nel Mezzogiorno e agli equipaggi delle galee della flotta regia.
Abstract (ENG)
Scholars of late-medieval Sicily have mostly neglected the role of the island in funding the foreign policy of the Crown of Aragon. In their opinion, the island’s economic contribution to warfare was marginal in comparison to the economic support provided by the Iberian territories of the Catalan-Aragonese union. However, the existing archival sources demonstrate that, since the age of King Alfonso the Magnanimous (1416-58), called the Magnanimous, the Kingdom of Sicily had a prominent role in the wars this sovereign led in Italy. This is evident through studying the Sicilian treasury’s management under the expert bureaucrat Nicola Speciale (1419-22) and its surviving accounts. This officer was able to increase exponentially the incomes of the treasury in order to fund the King Alfonso’s campaigns in Sardinia and Corsica and later, more evidently, in Naples and Southern Italy. Moreover, the tresorer Nicola Speciale’s activity did not result only into various economic contributions and direct payments on behalf of the sovereign, but also – because of the island’s strategical position – into the continuous shipping of provisions, weaponry, and other goods to the monarch’s land forces in Southern Italy and to the crews of the royal fleet’s galleys.
Accounting History Review, 2020
This study focuses on the accounting and auditing system of the Kingdom of Sicily during the reig... more This study focuses on the accounting and auditing system of the Kingdom of Sicily during the reign of Alfonso V of Aragon (1416–58), known as the Magnanimous. In particular, it discusses the operation of and the relationships between the two offices entrusted with the management of the kingdom’s accounts: the century-old magna curia rationum and the new office of the conservator maior regii patrimonii (established in 1414), modelled on the Castilian contaduría mayor de hacienda. This essay adopts the approach associated with the ‘archival turn’, to show that studying the accounting and bookkeeping practices, as well as their developments and innovations, is crucial to understand the operation of the Sicilian auditing system and its function in the broader political system of the Crown of Aragon. As a result of the perpetual state of conflict generated by the political agenda of Alfonso the Magnanimous in Italy and of his increasing war funding demands, the Aragonese strategically exploited the new accounting and bookkeeping practice of the conservator to increase royal influence over the local financial apparatus. Relying on the exceptional amount of original accounting and financial records preserved at the State Archives of Palermo, this study is the first detailed examination of the auditing system and accounting practice of late-medieval Sicily. At the same time, the analysis shows that the operation and the transformations of the accounting system of a polity such as Sicily is fully intelligible only if examined in connection with the broader government of the political union of which that polity was a constituent member.
Mélanges de l’École française de Rome - Moyen Âge (MEFRM), 2019
Over the course of the fifteenth century, the Kingdom of Sicily faced significant institutional a... more Over the course of the fifteenth century, the Kingdom of Sicily faced significant institutional and administrative changes, originating from the need, on the part of the Aragonese sovereigns, to rule the island from afar. These developments resulted not only in the establishment of a new financial office (the conservator regii patrimonii), but also in innovations in the methods used for producing and recording documents, which in turn are reflected in the structures of the archival bindings and other material features that survive to this day. Through the analysis of material elements from the mise en page of the documents to their temporary filing systems and binding structures, this article focuses on the relationship between text and paratext in late-medieval Sicily, and casts light upon the carefully-crafted material forms of the document throughout its lifespan. In short, the Sicilian case study demonstrates how apparently mere material aspects played a crucial role for the government of a trans-Mediterranean monarchy such as the Crown of Aragon, as they allowed its kings – and their bureaucratic staff – to classify, organize, and use a growing amount of information in a way that fulfilled their administrative needs..
Viator. Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2018
This article argues that the late-medieval Catalan-Aragonese kings and their viceroys relied on r... more This article argues that the late-medieval Catalan-Aragonese kings and their viceroys relied on record-keeping as a practical means of government, in essence for controlling the Kingdom of Sicily from a distance. More broadly, books, registers, and rolls are to be considered as crucial instruments through which late-medieval governments exercised their rule over complex political and social systems and were kept informed about their dominions' affairs. It is thus crucial to make those practical written tools into primary objects of research. By focusing on the "registers" of the royal chancery of the Kingdom of Sicily, this study examines the procedure for producing letters and privileges in connection to the establishment of a viceregal system; the strategies the Sicilian chancery staff adopted for recording documents, and the emergence of a method based on multiple registrations; the technical innovations they introduced for managing an increasing amount of information and facilitating its retrieval. Moreover, this study shows that the increasing attention of authorities towards record-keeping also generated a political conflict with Sicilian society, to the extent that the local parliament pursued the abolition of the registers of the royal chancery.
European History Quarterly, 2016
From the late medieval period the Crown of Aragon was at the forefront of archival innovation. Cu... more From the late medieval period the Crown of Aragon was at the forefront of archival innovation. Culminating in the establishment of the Royal Archive of Barcelona in 1318, this development was not, as is traditionally stated, a mere imitation of external models, but the result of an innovative historical process that had its roots in local history and reflected the structure of the Aragonese monarchy. As a result of the later enlargement and decentralisation of the Crown, and especially after the advent of the House of Trastámara in 1414, the Aragonese developed an extensive system for record-keeping across the Mediterranean. By focusing on what I describe as a complex archival network, this article analyses a series of administrative developments, which are generally studied in isolation, as instead interrelated responses to similar needs across disparate and far-flung territories. The results differed within the Iberian dominions (Aragon, Majorca, and Valencia) and in the Italian kingdoms of Sicily and Naples, with Sardinia somewhere in between. For all these differences, however, the establishment of a number of financial archives shows that this network had an especially crucial role in defending the royal patrimony in all the territories under the rule of the Crown of Aragon. The authorities also tried to use archives as tools for exercising pressures over local political elites, as demonstrated, for instance, by the systematic inquiry into feudal possessions and pecuniary rights instigated by King Ferdinand II in early sixteenth-century Sicily. The outcome, however, was totally unexpected.
See the contents of the special issue here: http://ehq.sagepub.com/content/46/3.toc
European History Quarterly, 2016
This special issue addresses a double transformation. The first is the historical process that sa... more This special issue addresses a double transformation. The first is the historical process that saw a dramatic increase in the production of documents and a substantial improvement in their management and preservation throughout Europe between the fifteenth and the eighteenth centuries. The early modern period, broadly conceived, is often described as the age of print, but it was also the great time of archives, understood as both the physical repositories and organized offices established by institutions or collectivities to store handwritten documents produced in the course of continuous functions with a view to long-term use. For many European historians, the process of centralization, expansion and (more or less successful) rearrangement of archives is symbolized by the establishment of the great Simancas and Vatican archives in 1540 and 1612 respectively. But, as the articles collected here demonstrate, smaller states also enacted reforms in record-keeping, and these changes were more concerned with archives than with central institutions. The second transformation is interpretive and methodological. Archives have long been at the centre of historians’ research, but over the last ten to fifteen years, an ‘archival turn’ in disciplines ranging from history, literature, anthropology and the social sciences has transformed archives from sites of research into objects of enquiry in their own right. These works study the evolving processes of selection, ordering and usage that produced archives not as neutral repositories of sources but as historically constructed tools of power relations, deeply embedded in changing social and cultural contexts...
Journal of Medieval History, 2016
In 1412 Sicily lost its independence and became part of the Crown of Aragon. To rule the island, ... more In 1412 Sicily lost its independence and became part of the Crown of Aragon. To rule the island, the new monarchs developed a system of long-distance government, through the action of local viceroys. But how did this system work in practice? This article engages with the lively historiographical debate about late medieval Sicily and more generally the Aragonese conglomerate by examining the series of libri quictacionum (‘books of quittances’) produced by the financial office, the Conservatoria regii patrimonii. It shows that the management of information – by means of a new genre of documents, an innovative record-keeping system and an apparatus of marginal annotations – became crucial in establishing effective government at a distance and in strengthening royal control over Sicilian institutions and officers. Moreover, these books and the documents they encompass highlight the social dynamics of the island and the emergence of an urban class: the Aragonese promoted the inclusion of the principal members of the latter into central government by granting them offices.
Reti Medievali Rivista, 2016
Agli inizi del secolo XVI, Giovan Luca Barberi, Maestro notaio della Real Cancelleria del Regno d... more Agli inizi del secolo XVI, Giovan Luca Barberi, Maestro notaio della Real Cancelleria del Regno di Sicilia, fu protagonista di una lunga e intensa inquisitio, per conto di Ferdinando II d’Aragona, sul patrimonio regio dell’isola e sui possedimenti della feudalità locale. Questa celebre indagine è stata al centro di alcuni importanti studi che ne hanno messo principalmente in evidenza gli aspetti giurisprudenziali e le conseguenze politiche sull’isola. Tuttavia, se analizzata in una “chiave” amministrativa, l’opera di Barberi (i cosiddetti capibrevi) risulta innanzi tutto come una straordinaria impresa archivistica, frutto di una profonda e complessa indagine tra le scritture e i depositi documentari del Regno, e strettamente connessa al ruolo di Maestro notaio che lo stesso Barberi ebbe all’interno della Cancelleria siciliana. Il presente studio si pone quindi l’obiettivo, da una parte, di descrivere le dinamiche che, tra la fine del Trecento e il secolo successivo, permearono il funzionamento della Real Cancelleria dell’isola e i compiti del suo personale, nonché i sistemi di produzione, registrazione e conservazione delle scritture; dall’altra parte, alla luce di quanto detto in merito al funzionamento della Cancelleria siciliana, si vuole proporre una rielaborazione complessiva dell’interpretazione dell’inquisitio barberiana, illustrando nel dettaglio come il Maestro notaio si sia servito degli archivi del Regno e come abbia portato avanti la propria indagine, ovvero in che modo abbia utilizzato e organizzato le informazioni a sua disposizione per compilare i capibrevi.
Abstract in English
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Giovan Luca Barberi, Magister notarius of the Sicilian Royal chancery, led an intense and long-lasting inquisitio on the royal patrimony of the island and on the possessions of local lords on behalf of King Ferdinand II of Aragon. This well-known inquiry arouse the interest of a number of scholars, who have especially stressed the aspects connected to its importance in the history of law, as well as its political consequences. However, by analysing Barberi’s work (a system of books known as capibrevi) through an administrative perspective, it can now be understood as the result of an “archival enterprise” and, at the same time, strictly connected to the role of Magister notarius that Barberi had in the Sicilian chancery. On the one hand, this study describes the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century dynamics that influenced the functioning of the Regia cancelleria and the tasks of its personnel, as well as to define the methods for producing, recording and preserving documentation. On the other hand, this study promotes a new explanation of Barberi’s inquisitio, illustrating in detail how the Magister notarius worked in royal archives and how carried out his inquiry, in other words, how he retrieved, used and organised information for compiling the capibrevi.
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Books by Alessandro Silvestri
R. Chilà, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 76/2 (2021), 407-409
D. Abulafia, Speculum, 96/1 (2021), 256-258.
K. Toomaspoeg, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 100 (2020), 713-715.
F. Titone, English Historical Review, CXXXV, no. 574 (2020), 671-673.
M. Toniazzi, Medioevo latino, XL (2019), 865.
Le carte e la storia, 1 (2019), 123.
E. Tello Hernández, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 49/2 (2019), 877-878.
F. Delle Donne, Studi Medievali, 60/2 (2019), 1027-1030.
N. Bazzano, Renaissance Quarterly, 72/4 (2019), 1487-1489.
P. Buffo, L’indice dei libri del mese, Anno XXXV, 11 (2018), 28.
Sinossi:
L’Europa tardomedievale è contrassegnata dalla presenza di unioni politiche particolarmente complesse, che includevano diversi stati e territori. Come si manifestava l’esercizio dell’autorità da parte dei governanti? Secondo quali logiche? Tramite quali strumenti?
Grazie alla straordinaria documentazione archivistica superstite, il regno di Sicilia del secolo XV costituisce un modello ideale per studiare questo tipo di problematiche e per verificare quali meccanismi – amministrativi, finanziari e informativi – furono approntati dai re aragonesi e dagli ufficiali al loro servizio per regolarne il governo a distanza e per indirizzarne l’utilizzo delle risorse.
Nonostante la perdita dell’indipendenza politica e il suo definitivo assorbimento tra i territori della Corona d’Aragona, l’isola mantenne però un impianto istituzionale autonomo, che divenne terreno di scontro e negoziazione con i sovrani, ma nel contesto di una complessiva adesione della società siciliana alla politica estera di Alfonso il Magnanimo.
Edited volumes and journal special issues by Alessandro Silvestri
The Renaissance world was characterized by the presence of numerous composite polities and political unions, consisting of distinct territories governed by a single ruler or government. These entities varied in scale, ranging from medium-sized polities including cities and lordships to thalassocracies encompassing distant and sometimes lands separated by sea, and vast global empires comprising multiple territories and diverse populations. The chapters in this book explore how information enabled authorities to monitor events within their dominions and colonies, shape policies and decision-making processes, and interact and negotiate with local political societies. The diverse examples presented in this volume illustrate how information, communication, and archival strategies varied across regions, adapting to the constitutional structure of each polity and their geographical scope.
This volume is essential reading for students, researchers, and academics interested in political history, information studies, historical governance and European studies. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of European Review of History.
Contents:
1. Information and the government of the composite polities of the Renaissance world (c. 1350–1650)
Alessandro Silvestri
2. Ruling by information, governing by records: the spoken and written grammar of power in post-communal Italy (c. 1350–1520)
Isabella Lazzarini
3. Archiving the Swiss Tagsatzung in the early modern era: from distributed protocols to confederal archive
Randolph C. Head
4. ‘We want to know and be clearly informed’: official records, unofficial correspondence and oral communication in the fourteenth-century Crown of Aragon (Majorca, Sardinia, Sicily)
Alessandro Silvestri
5. Jem Sultan and Venice’s intelligence system: sorting and deploying information in Venice’s ‘letterocracy’
Monique O’Connell
6. An imperial formation joins a composite polity: the Portuguese Empire and the information system of the Hispanic Monarchy (1580–1640)
Jorge Flores and Pedro Cardim
7. Manila and their agents in the court: long-distance political communication and imperial configuration in the seventeenth-century Spanish monarchy
Thomas Calvo and Guillaume Gaudin
8. The composite world of early modern information
Filippo de Vivo
1. A. Silvestri, Information and the government of the composite polities of the Renaissance world (c. 1350–1650)
2. I. Lazzarini, Ruling by information, governing by records: the spoken and written grammar of power in post-communal Italy (c. 1350–1520)
3. R.C. Head, Archiving the Swiss Tagsatzung in the early modern era: from distributed protocols to confederal archive
4. A. Silvestri, ‘We want to know and be clearly informed’: official records, unofficial correspondence and oral communication in the fourteenth-century Crown of Aragon (Majorca, Sardinia, Sicily)
5. N. O' Connell, Jem Sultan and Venice’s intelligence system: sorting and deploying information in Venice’s ‘letterocracy’
6. J. Flores & P. Cardim, An imperial formation joins a composite polity: the Portuguese Empire and the information system of the Hispanic Monarchy (1580–1640)
7. T. Calvo & G. Gaudin, Manila and their agents in the court: long-distance political communication and imperial configuration in the seventeenth-century Spanish monarchy
8. F. de Vivo, The composite world of early modern information
Su di un piano prettamente sociale si possono comparare queste due realtà? E secondo quali termini? Quali sono, inoltre, le differenze tra il personale delle cancellerie e degli archivi dei regni dell’Italia meridionale, rispetto a quello delle coeve entità istituzionali dell’Italia comunale e delle signorie centro-settentrionali? Si è parlato molto della transizione da un modello nel quale il personale di cancelleria era composto prevalentemente da ufficiali dalla formazione notarile o umanistica, ad un altro caratterizzato piuttosto dalla necessità di trovare funzionari che rispondessero prima di tutto alla richiesta dei governi centrali di avere personale fidato e fedele. L’occasione di questo convegno sarà buona anche per fare il punto su questi temi.
D’altra parte, l’intenzione è quella di usare i documenti stessi per documentare la formazione culturale e gli interessi culturali dei cancellieri: componimenti poetici, piccoli ghirigori sbozzati da segretari annoiati sui margini o sulle carte di guardia dei registri rivelano l’inclinazione culturale e il mondo personale dell’autore.
Journal articles by Alessandro Silvestri
In 1420, Alfonso V of Aragon (1416–1458), known as the Magnanimous, signed a legal contract with a group of patrons (i.e., shipowners and shipmasters) to secure ships for the royal fleet and military support to complete the conquest of Sardinia and launch an offensive against Corsica, then under Genoese rule. According to this agreement, the sovereign temporarily granted these patrons control over the kingdom’s most significant fiscal resources, namely, the revenues generated from grain and foodstuff exports through the sale of export licenses (tratte). The agreement also resulted in the transfer of extensive public authority from the Crown to the patrons, who gained direct administrative control over the ports, their personnel, and the castles located in the same port towns. After examining the reconstruction of the royal patrimony following Alfonso’s ascension to the Crown of Aragon in 1412, this essay explores Sicily’s role in financing the political and military agenda of Alfonso the Magnanimous, focusing on the agreement between the monarch and the consortium of shipowners and shipmasters. In this regard, it provides a detailed analysis of the contract’s contents, the distribution of fiscal resources among the patrons, and their social origins. Finally, the essay discusses Sicily’s increasing strategic and financial significance in supporting the Crown of Aragon’s subsequent campaigns in Naples and the Italian Mezzogiorno.
ITA
Nel 1420, Alfonso V d’Aragona (1416-58), detto il Magnanimo, stipulava un contratto con un gruppo di patrons, ovvero, di armatori e capitani di navi iberici, allo scopo di ottenere i vascelli per la sua flotta regia e il sostegno militare del quale necessitava completare la conquista della in Sardegna e avviare l’invasione della Corsica, che era in mano genovese. In virtù di tale accordo, il sovrano cedeva temporaneamente a questi patrons il controllo sulle risorse fiscali più importanti del regno di Sicilia, quelle cioè generate dall’esportazione del grano e di altre vettovaglie dai porti dell’isola, mediante la vendita di licenze per l’esportazione (tratte). L’intesa si concretizzò pure in un’ampia cessione di quote di autorità pubblica, tanto che i patrons furono investiti anche dell’amministrazione diretta dei porti e del loro personale, nonché del controllo sui castelli nelle località in cui si trovavano le strutture portuali che gli erano state assegnate. Dopo avere analizzato l’opera di ricostruzione del real patrimonio siciliano in seguito all’avvento della dinastia di Trastamara sul trono della Corona d’Aragona nel 1412, il saggio discute il ruolo della Sicilia per il finanziamento delle imprese militari di Alfonso il Magnanimo, per spostare poi l’attenzione sull’accordo stipulato tra quest’ultimo e il consorzio di armatori e capitani di navi al suo servizio, esaminando non solo i contenuti dell’accordo e la distribuzione delle risorse fiscali tra i patrons, ma anche le loro origini sociali. Infine, il saggio si chiude con un’analisi del ruolo strategico che il regno di Sicilia, grazie alle sue ricche risorse fiscali, ebbe per il proseguimento delle campagne militari della Corona a Napoli e nel Mezzogiorno italiano.
Questo contributo esamina l’apparato finanziario e contabile della Corona d’Aragona nel tardo medioevo. In particolare, mediante un approccio di tipo comparativo, si discutono, da una parte, la circolazione di modelli amministrativi tra i diversi territori dell’unione politica catalano-aragonese, e dall’altra lato, il processo di decentralizzazione istituzionale che interessò la monarchia, che è qui inteso come il frutto di una strategia programmatica portata avanti dai re d’Aragona.
Abstract
This essay examines the Crown of Aragon’s financial and accounting apparatus
in the late Middle Ages. By pursuing a comparative approach, this paper explores the circulation of administrative models between the diverse territories of the Catalan-Aragonese political union and the process of institutional devolution within this monarchy. This process is regarded as the outcome of a strategic programme developed by the kings of Aragon.
Alessandro Silvestri
ORCID Icon
Pages 554-579 | Received 21 Jun 2022, Accepted 04 Jan 2023, Published online: 12 Sep 2023
Cite this article https://doi.org/10.1080/13507486.2023.2201291 CrossMark Logo CrossMark
In this article
ABSTRACT
Accumulating information
Recording the islands
Territorial knowledge and its use
Navigating through Information and Misinformation
Supplemental material
Acknowledgements
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References
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ABSTRACT
Starting in the 1340s, the Crown of Aragon strengthened its position in the Western Mediterranean by absorbing the Kingdom of Majorca (1343), reincorporating the realm of Sicily (1392) and securing its control over constantly rebellious Sardinia (1420). To govern those territories, which were distant from the royal court and separated by sea, the kings of Aragon developed a pervasive information strategy that facilitated the retrieval of data from their archives and the transformation of that data into useful knowledge that kept them informed about the three islands’ administration. The monarchs developed regional series of registers specifically dedicated to Majorca, Sardinia and Sicily in which orders and ordinances pertaining to the islands were recorded and they created or strengthened territorial archives for preserving records and accounts produced in the localities. They also relied on a network of accountable officers and informants who updated them via official and unofficial letters and, finally, they gathered intelligence using envoys who travelled continuously across the Mediterranean to inform the Crown on a vast range of affairs pertaining to the islands. This essay explores these topics during the long fourteenth century, using the records and correspondence preserved in various archives of the Catalan-Aragonese world and emphasizing the role of both the written word and oral communication for ruling a late-medieval composite polity like the Crown of Aragon.
Gli studiosi della Sicilia tardomedievale hanno spesso sottovalutato il ruolo dell’isola nel finanziamento della politica estera della Corona d’Aragona, considerandolo marginale rispetto a quello delle componenti iberiche dell’unione catalano-aragonese. D’altro canto, le fonti documentarie superstiti attestano che, a cominciare dal regno di Alfonso V d’Aragona (1416-58), detto il Magnanimo, il regno di Sicilia ebbe invece un ruolo di primo piano per lo svolgimento delle guerre italiane del sovrano iberico, come si evince chiaramente mediante lo studio della tesoreria isolana negli anni in cui fu retta dall’esperto burocrate Nicola Speciale (1419-22) e della sua contabilità superstite. Quest’ultimo, infatti, fu in grado di accrescere in maniera esponenziale gli introiti della tesoreria allo scopo di finanziare le campagne militari alfonsine prima in Sardegna e Corsica e poi, soprattutto, a Napoli e nel Mezzogiorno. L’attività del tresorer Nicola Speciale, d’altro canto, non si sostanziò solamente con sovvenzionamenti economici e pagamenti diretti a nome del sovrano, ma anche – per via della posizione strategica dell’isola – tramite il continuo invio di vettovaglie, armamenti e altre merci alle truppe di terra dislocate nel Mezzogiorno e agli equipaggi delle galee della flotta regia.
Abstract (ENG)
Scholars of late-medieval Sicily have mostly neglected the role of the island in funding the foreign policy of the Crown of Aragon. In their opinion, the island’s economic contribution to warfare was marginal in comparison to the economic support provided by the Iberian territories of the Catalan-Aragonese union. However, the existing archival sources demonstrate that, since the age of King Alfonso the Magnanimous (1416-58), called the Magnanimous, the Kingdom of Sicily had a prominent role in the wars this sovereign led in Italy. This is evident through studying the Sicilian treasury’s management under the expert bureaucrat Nicola Speciale (1419-22) and its surviving accounts. This officer was able to increase exponentially the incomes of the treasury in order to fund the King Alfonso’s campaigns in Sardinia and Corsica and later, more evidently, in Naples and Southern Italy. Moreover, the tresorer Nicola Speciale’s activity did not result only into various economic contributions and direct payments on behalf of the sovereign, but also – because of the island’s strategical position – into the continuous shipping of provisions, weaponry, and other goods to the monarch’s land forces in Southern Italy and to the crews of the royal fleet’s galleys.
See the contents of the special issue here: http://ehq.sagepub.com/content/46/3.toc
Abstract in English
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Giovan Luca Barberi, Magister notarius of the Sicilian Royal chancery, led an intense and long-lasting inquisitio on the royal patrimony of the island and on the possessions of local lords on behalf of King Ferdinand II of Aragon. This well-known inquiry arouse the interest of a number of scholars, who have especially stressed the aspects connected to its importance in the history of law, as well as its political consequences. However, by analysing Barberi’s work (a system of books known as capibrevi) through an administrative perspective, it can now be understood as the result of an “archival enterprise” and, at the same time, strictly connected to the role of Magister notarius that Barberi had in the Sicilian chancery. On the one hand, this study describes the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century dynamics that influenced the functioning of the Regia cancelleria and the tasks of its personnel, as well as to define the methods for producing, recording and preserving documentation. On the other hand, this study promotes a new explanation of Barberi’s inquisitio, illustrating in detail how the Magister notarius worked in royal archives and how carried out his inquiry, in other words, how he retrieved, used and organised information for compiling the capibrevi.