«Ita quod arbor viva non remaneat»: devastation of the land and siege practice in communal Italy

Abstract

It is well known how the systematic devastation of the territory and the economic resources of the adversary assumed, during the armed conflicts between cities of central northern Italy, a major role. In spite of similar remarks, nonetheless, the historiography available on the subject – obviously with the due exceptions – limits itself to ascertaining the presence, or underlining the predominance of the occurrence in respect to different forms of military policies of siege and battle, without, however, formulating adequate interpretive schemes. Therefore, it sometimes results dominant, in an uncrowded panorama of studies, the far away written suggestions in English, and in particular the Western Art of the war of Victor Davis Hanson, too distant, however, both in time and space, from the medieval Italian cities, and, hence, paradigms to be prudentially considered.
The work proposed travels along the above mentioned subjects, proposing a new reading of that which to date is known on the subject within the sphere of Italian cities. Starting from the scrutiny of the systematic devastation it attempts to shed light on profound but elusive dynamics of the wartime policies utilised in Italy by the cities: considering the cultivation that was destroyed time after time by the raids, the way in which they were conducted, the troops employed and the tangible and psychological results of similar operations, lastly, it is proposed to highlight the close relation existent between such policies and the very intense siege operations.