Lucca Under Many Masters: A Fourteenth-Century Italian Commune in Crisis, 1328-1342.

In this book Louis Green follows up his earlier work on Castruccio Castracani with a study of the Tuscan commune of Lucca in the years 1328 to 1342, a period well-characterized by his title. These years have been presented in Lucchese historiographical tradition as a time when Lucca played a purely passive role. Making use of all available sources from Lucca and beyond, Green is able to present a more subtle and nuanced picture.

The first and longest section of the book analyzes the interplay of military, diplomatic, political, and economic forces behind the many changes of regime in these years, tackling the question of why Lucca did not succumb to its most powerful neighbor Florence, as seemed likely. Green attributes this to mistakes made by Florence and to the preferences of the Lucchese themselves. He argues that the Florentines seriously misjudged the diplomatic situation, placing their hopes in a series of alliances dictated by Guelf party loyalties, instead of making a determined onslaught on Lucca, with the result that they suffered a series of disappointments that they regarded as betrayals by their allies. Meanwhile Lucca itself sought for some protective power against her strong neighbor, also suffering a series of disappointments when these rulers at a distance proved incapable of providing effective long term protection. While the idea of Lucca actively searching for an alternative to the threat of Florentine rule is an intriguing one, the patchy character of the sources means that the evidence for it is rather tenuous, except during the siege of Lucca in 1341-42, when the Lucchese - or some of them - do indeed seem to have preferred Pisan rule.

In the second part of the book, Green concentrates on the effects of this period of many short-lived regimes for Lucca itself. He argues that the brevity and geographical remoteness of most regimes necessitated reliance on local knowledge and experience, so that there was, in the main, continuity in governmental machinery and personnel (especially in the office of Anziani), between this period and those that came before and after it, with 1314 rather than 1369 as the real watershed in the formation of the Lucchese political class. In terms of economic developments, he distinguishes between the contado, which at times suffered severely, and the city, where economic and social life held up much better. Silk manufacture continued throughout the 1330s, and a number of Lucchese companies established themselves firmly in the south of France and northern Europe, perhaps transferring a part of their activities outside the city itself. This did not necessarily help the population of Lucca itself, and petitions provide ample evidence of distress among the more vulnerable sectors of society, but it ensured the survival of a mercantile and political elite who were able to take the lead in the recovery of Lucchese independence in 1369.

A book of 364 pages devoted to fourteen years in the history of a Tuscan commune of secondary importance might seem to be carrying the concept of a local study to extremes, but Green's command of the sources and his eye for the deeper implications of his material ensures that Lucca under Many Masters carries a significance beyond that suggested by its title.

CHRISTINE MEEK Trinity College, Dublin