Economic space and urban policies: Fairs and markets in the Italy of the early modern age

The difficulty of defining fairs and markets with any methodological clarity is particularly pronounced when one considers the problem of space and the growth of urban centers. The close link between the two economic institutions is especially conspicuous in the case of Italy, a country that not only boasted the highest concentration of towns, but also showed precocious instances of institutional powers adopting urban strategies. What this suggests is that a single model is insufficient and that different analytical approaches must be adopted. The aim of this article is to identify certain lines of development in the relations linking fairs and markets to urban spaces-in the broad sense of both urban spaces and geo-economical spaces dominated by an urban center.