Comparing Two Italies

the long version

This book's title recalls David Abulafia's famous book 'The two Italies', Cambridge 1977, about the origins of the so-called unequal exchange and dual economy between northern and southern Italy. This argument is supposed to be the ground of the so-called Southern Question (questione meridionale), one of the foremost topics of Italian history. But trade isn't the only major theme apt to compare the Italy of communes and the Kingdom of Sicily. This collection of essays aims to enlarge interpretative paths not only about trade networks, but about lesser-known sides of interrelations, e. g. the rise of civic tradition, the spread of Mendicant Orders, the circulation of wealth because of family relationships, women, marriage and patrimonial assets.