“To Trust is Good, But Not to Trust is Better”: The Italian Paradox

How did the citizens of Italian communes learn to trust one another, trust one another enough to build the fundamental institutions of a civil society in which citizens enjoyed participatory politics, elected officials to administer the laws, and adjudicated disputes according to legal statutes? The answer to this question points to a peculiar paradox of Italian history in which vital, successful communities cohabited with pervasive violence manifest most infamously in feuding and vendetta. Trust and mistrust lived in the same house, on the same street, within the same city walls. This lecture argues that what made Medieval and Renaissance Italy so culturally creative were the many new ways people found to build trust, especially through written documents. It was literacy that made the trust necessary for modern life possible.

If you have any questions, please contact: english@history.ucsb.edu

Sponsored by the Medieval Studies Program.

hm 2/25/15