Fiscal Tradition and Innovation in Italy, 1350-1650

This essay deals with some aspects of taxation in Italian territorial states. As for taxpayers, the division between urban inhabitants and peasants was one of the most evident features. Such separation was not only in areas that had witnessed the expansion of communes and city states, but also in the kingdom of Naples. In the long run, the differences between urban and rural taxpayers faded away significantly, owing to the pressure that emerging elites in rural districts in central-northern Italy exerted. The diffusion, broader in the south than in the north of the peninsula, of feudal areas did not show any significant differences between vassals and taxpayers directly subjected to central government’s jurisdictions. An aspect of taxation worthy of interest concerns the attempts to impose a graduated tax fifteenth-century Florence. The political struggle and financial crisis stimulated the search for more equitable fiscal devices. It is remarkable that the debate went beyond the question of a generic direct tax, focusing instead on the problem of how much the Florentine taxpayers should pay in relation to their wealth. In this regard, the classic principle of distributive justice was questioned and instead reconsidered uniquely in terms of wealth. Such innovation, however, did not take hold, neither in Florence nor in other states of ancient regime Europe.