(from Italian popolo, “the people”), the strata of shopkeepers and artisans who, united in guilds, existed in the cities of North and Central Italy in the 12th to 16th centuries. The popolani waged a successful struggle against the feudal lords at the turn of the 13th century and by the mid-13th century gained control of the most advanced cities, including Bologna (in 1245), Florence (1250), and Perugia (1258). In the city-states where popolani authority was firmly established, elective rule by representatives of the guilds was instituted. This rule depended on the support of armed detachments of townsmen. At the end of the 13th century, the feudal lords in these cities were deprived of political rights through the legislative process (People’s Statutes of Siena, 1277; Ordinances of Justice of Florence, 1293).

By the 14th century, a clear-cut division between the rich urban upper class, or popolo grasso, and the lower-class artisans, or popolo minuto, had emerged within the popolani. The popolo minuto, together with hired laborers, took action against the popolo grasso in Perugia and Siena in 1371 and in Florence in 1378. This prompted the rich popolani to forge an alliance with the feudal lords against popular movements. In the 15th century, when the signory system predominated, the role of the popolani diminished. The Catholic reaction in Italy in the 16th century led to a renewal of the social struggle of the popolani in Friuli (1509–11) and Genoa (1575).


Gukovskii, M. A. Ital’ianskoe Vozrozhdenie, vol. 1. Leningrad, 1947. Pages 47–60, 80–84, and 161–67.
Rutenburg, V. I. Narodnye dvizheniia ν gorodakh Italii: XIV-nach. XV vv. Moscow-Leningrad, 1958. Pages 72–73 and 293–327.
Rutenburg, V. I. Italiia i Evropa nakanune novogo vremeni. Leningrad, 1974. Pages 119–188.
Batkin, L. M. “Gvel’fy i gibelliny vo Florentsii.” In the collection Srednie veka, issue 16. Moscow, 1959.


References in periodicals archive ?
Una grande novita apportata da Caravaggio fu che l'artista ritrasse popolani umili e dimessi, dai vestiti stracciati e che si servi di loro anche per raffigurare Santi o Madonne.
o l'incaponirsi molesto di Gertrude prima e di donna Prassede poi con Lucia a proposito di Renzo lontano, o ancora tutte le turpi prevaricazioni dei bravi sui popolani e dei monatti su tutti durante la pestilenza.
The recoding of the passions in the funeral statutes come from the popolani sector of the communal ruling elite, a group that drew upon a lay intellectual culture, distinguishable from both knightly and clerical culture.
47) Lorenzo el Magnifico formo parte de la primigenia linea genealogica medicea, denominada de Caffagiolo; el duque Cosme, en cambio, extinta la anterior, descendia de Lorenzo, segundo hijo de Cosme el Viejo, la denominada linea de los Popolani.
Cowan eschews general legal categories, such as patricians, cittadini, and popolani in Venetian society--indeed definitions of nobility were quite varied in Italy of this period--in favor of how the matter was practically perceived.
46) These laws were aimed generally at those popolani "who imitated the extravagant habits of the magnati": see Rainey, esp.
Jeffrey Lloyd Roberts, fresh from his triumph as Peter Grimes at Opera North, sings the title role, supported by Eric Roberts as Popolani.
A more common, general term for the labouring classes was popolani, which thus distinguished them from the abstracted popolo (people) so idealized by Mazzini and his followers, one of whom suggested an alternative: "the plebe, I call them, because one does not call 'popolo' a people so prodigiously stupid.
They are the popolani grassi who rise up against the podesta of Lisbon.
His hit man, Popolani, was a schizophrenic psychopath.
Os sienenses haviam acabado de promover uma verdadeira revolucao politica: em 1262, os popolani --a gente nuova oriunda do efervescente comercio, mas ate entao sem nenhuma representatividade politica-- estabeleceram um "Conselho do Povo" (papolo), presidido pelo capitano del popolo, lider eleito diretamente (Skinner, 1996: 45).
Le vicende della guerra e della Resistenza sono colte da lui nelle coscienze semplici, nei popolani umili per i quali l'ideologia e la politica sono persuasioni intimamente connesse alla loro esperienza quotidiana (Pazzaglia 1972: 1372-3).