Abstract

The contribution begins with some opportunities for collaboration with Elena: the day in Lucca commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of Marino Berengo's "Nobili e Mercanti" in October 1995; the 2003 volume "Principato mediceo" in the series "Storia della civiltà Toscana"; "Repubblicanesimo e repubbliche nell'Europa di antico regime" published in 2007 in the Proceedings of the Conference of Lucca in 2005. These scientific commitments are analysed in the framework of more general reflections on the issues of republicanism that Elena Fasano Guarini had been developing since the early 1990s with such sharp and wide-ranging essays as "Declino e durata delle repubbliche e delle idee repubblicane nell'Italia del '500" and "Città e stato nella storiografia fiorentina del '500", later collected in the 2010 book Repubbliche e principi. The essay also offers a brief review of the most recent studies on the Republican theme, by such scholars as A. Holenstein, Th. Maissen, M. Prak, R. Hammersley, A.M. Rao, G. Mahlberg, D. Wiemann, and M. Herrero Sánchez.