Fragile Legitimacy and Diplomatic Response. Dynastic, Political and Military Crises in the Early Renaissance Italian Principalities

The paper focuses on three case-studies – the duchy of Milan, the marquisate then duchy of Ferrara, Modena ad Reggio, and the marquisate of Mantua – in order to explore the link between political vulnerability and diplomacy and to decline it in the particular case represented by the 15th century Italian principalities born from communal cities. Rich, strong, culturally innovative, those principalities were politically autonomous but still limited by a lack of clear legitimacy and subjected to a superior imperial (or even papal) sovereignty that occasionally could hinder their success. Their fragility could be political or military, and could be – and often was – dynastic: or a combination of the three. Their survival was a matter of strength or flexibility, and was often plaid on an experimental diplomatic terrain.