Podestà

Podestà (podeˈsta), also potestate or podesta in English, was the name given to the holder of the highest civil office in the government of the cities of Central and Northern Italy during the Late Middle Ages. Sometimes, it meant the chief magistrate of a city state, the counterpart to similar positions in other cities that went by other names, e.g. rettori ("rectors"). In the following centuries up to 1918, the term was used to designate the head of the municipal administration, particularly in the Italian-speaking territories of the Austrian Empire. The title was taken up again during the Fascist regime with the same meaning. The podestà's office, its duration and the residence and the local jurisdiction were called podesteria, especially during the Middle Ages, and in later centuries, more rarely during the Fascist regime. Currently, podestà is the title of mayors in Italian-speaking municipalities of Graubünden in Switzerland, but it is not the case for the Canton of Ticino, which uses the title sindaco (the same currently in use throughout Italy). The term derives from the Latin word potestas 'power'. There is a similar derivation for the Arabic term سلطان , originally meaning 'power' or 'authority'; it eventually became the title of the person holding power. The first documented usage of podestà was in Bologna in 1151, when it was applied to Guido di Ranieri di Sasso of Canossa, brought in from Faenza to be rettore e podestà, noted in numerous documents. Leander Albertus gives the particulars: "The citizens, seeing that there often arose among them quarrels and altercations, whether from favoritism or friendship, from envy or hatred that one had against another, by which their republic suffered great harm, loss and detriment; therefore, they decided, after much deliberation, to provide against these disorders. And thus they began to create a man of foreign birth their chief magistrate, giving him every power, authority and jurisdiction over the city, as well over criminal as over civil causes, and in times of war as well as in times of peace, calling him praetor as being above the others, or podestà, as having every authority and power over the city.