M. E. Bratchel is Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of the Witwatersrand and has held visiting fellowships at many institutions, including the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti, Cambridge, the University of London, the Bellagio Study and Conference Center, and the Liguria Study Center for the Arts and Humanities at Bogliasco. He has written numerous articles on the social and economic history of Tuscany and on state-formation in late medieval Italy and is the author of Lucca 1430-1494: The Reconstruction of an Italian City-Republic, also published by Oxford University Press.

Bratchel's book, while suitably specialized. deserves the widest possible readership. It is a case-study in making the best use of thin documental pickings and it reminds us that, for all the risks, adopting a broad chronological approach...can pay dividends.

• 1. Lucca's Ancient Heritage: The Early Structures of City and Territory ; 2. The Early Commune and the Conquest of the Contado ; 3. The Administration of a Medieval City-Territory: Twelfth to Fourteenth Centuries ; 4. The Fourteenth Century: The Lucchese State from the Loss of Independence to the Recovery of Liberty ; 5. The Signoria of Paolo Guinigi and the Evolution of the Fifteenth-Century Lucchese State ; 6. Lucca and its Territories in the Fifteenth Century: Politics and Administration ; 7. Lucca and its Territories in the Fifteenth Century: Economy and Society ; Glossary ; Bibliography ; Index

M. E. Bratchel is Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of the Witwatersrand and has held visiting fellowships at many institutions, including the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti, Cambridge, the University of London, the Bellagio Study and Conference Center, and the Liguria Study Center for the Arts and Humanities at Bogliasco. He has written numerous articles on the social and economic history of Tuscany and on state-formation in late medieval Italy and is the author of Lucca 1430-1494: The Reconstruction of an Italian City-Republic, also published by Oxford University Press.

Bratchel's book, while suitably specialized. deserves the widest possible readership. It is a case-study in making the best use of thin documental pickings and it reminds us that, for all the risks, adopting a broad chronological approach...can pay dividends.

• 1. Lucca's Ancient Heritage: The Early Structures of City and Territory ; 2. The Early Commune and the Conquest of the Contado ; 3. The Administration of a Medieval City-Territory: Twelfth to Fourteenth Centuries ; 4. The Fourteenth Century: The Lucchese State from the Loss of Independence to the Recovery of Liberty ; 5. The Signoria of Paolo Guinigi and the Evolution of the Fifteenth-Century Lucchese State ; 6. Lucca and its Territories in the Fifteenth Century: Politics and Administration ; 7. Lucca and its Territories in the Fifteenth Century: Economy and Society ; Glossary ; Bibliography ; Index

M. E. Bratchel is Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of the Witwatersrand and has held visiting fellowships at many institutions, including the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti, Cambridge, the University of London, the Bellagio Study and Conference Center, and the Liguria Study Center for the Arts and Humanities at Bogliasco. He has written numerous articles on the social and economic history of Tuscany and on state-formation in late medieval Italy and is the author of Lucca 1430-1494: The Reconstruction of an Italian City-Republic, also published by Oxford University Press.

Bratchel's book, while suitably specialized. deserves the widest possible readership. It is a case-study in making the best use of thin documental pickings and it reminds us that, for all the risks, adopting a broad chronological approach...can pay dividends.

• 1. Lucca's Ancient Heritage: The Early Structures of City and Territory ; 2. The Early Commune and the Conquest of the Contado ; 3. The Administration of a Medieval City-Territory: Twelfth to Fourteenth Centuries ; 4. The Fourteenth Century: The Lucchese State from the Loss of Independence to the Recovery of Liberty ; 5. The Signoria of Paolo Guinigi and the Evolution of the Fifteenth-Century Lucchese State ; 6. Lucca and its Territories in the Fifteenth Century: Politics and Administration ; 7. Lucca and its Territories in the Fifteenth Century: Economy and Society ; Glossary ; Bibliography ; Index