mention the Despatches (_Relazioni_) of Venetian Ambassadors, given to the world by Alberi, and whereby not only Italian but European history has been so greatly profited. What progress might not be made would all Italian scholars consent to devote their labours to a common end! We have seen how much Professor Pertz was enabled to achieve at Berlin, with a subsidy from the Confederation, and aided by all the scholars of Germany. Truly, his "Monumenta" form an enduring memorial of the national history of the Fatherland, and has become the nucleus of a new school of scholars and historians. Now that Italy is united, and her many states fused into one, she should know the history of her communes, and trace out the history of her people. It should also be kept in view that the Commune was the institution by whose means modern society was evolved from the Middle Ages. Rising in the midst of a throng of slaves, vassals, barons, marquises, dukes, the Commune gave birth to the _third estate_ and the people which, after first destroying feudalism in Italy, subsequently by the French Revolution, destroyed it throughout Europe. Even Augustin Thierry notes that "thus was formed the immense congregation of free men who in 1789 undertook for all France that which had been achieved by their forefathers in mediæval municipalities."[2] Accordingly, since Italy was the centre and seat of municipal liberty, the purpose of the present work is not only to investigate our civil history, but to demonstrate how much we contributed to the discovery of the principles of modern society and civilisation. All careful students of the history of Roman law in the Middle Ages will have occasion to remark that our commentators while reviewing ancient jurisprudence, unconsciously modified it in adapting it to their own times. Francesco Forti has declared that no student of our statutes can fail to perceive that many of the regulations found in the Napoleon Code, and supposed to be created by the French Revolution, already formed part of the old Italian law. I have come to the conclusion that in every branch of Italian civil life our history will be able to prove that the same remark holds good, inasmuch as our civil institutions contained the primary germs of modern freedom. But no one has yet dared to attempt this task, and, as I said before, no single strength could suffice for it. We have now to deal with a far humbler theme. By tracing in bold outline the history of a single commune, we desire to show what fresh researches remain to be made, and how many problems to be solved.