I remember thinking that in Sicily the competition for security services created a comfortable and entertaining environment, with private security doing most of the necessary security work. The Polizia Municipale often working for the mob, and Carabinieri following them around trying to catch a dirty cop. On another trip to Italy, I spent about a month in Tuscany and I started to toy with the idea that competition in force and hierarchy, in general, was preferable.
It is not by any accident that the renaissance began in a city governed by merchants-turned-bankers.
The Medici Family
There is something honest and refreshing about the role that the Medici family played in Tuscany. They were merchants in the textile trade who turned a dime into a dollar and ended up establishing the largest bank in Europe. With influence from the guild of the Arte della Lana they were able to gain positions on the guild appointed Signoria(appointed by the gonfaloniere who was appointed by the guilds) that ruled the Republic of Florence, and eventually consolidate power in the city.
Despite the centralized influence of the Vatican, there was a true independence to the city-states and by that virtue true diversity. A one hour drive south through Greve in Chianti brings you to the former Republic of Siena, which never fell to the House of Medici until Spain offered the territory as payment of debts to the Medici Bank after an 18-month siege in 1555.
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