Emergence of a Bureaucracy

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The book explores the evolution of Florence's patrician elite from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, highlighting their influence on the bureaucratic state in Tuscany. It examines the elite's ongoing significance as urban office-holders under the Grand Dukes and their pivotal role in the shift from Renaissance communal governance to a more centralized regional state. This analysis sheds light on a largely overlooked period in Italian history, emphasizing the continuity of aristocratic power and its adaptation to changing political structures.