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Abstract: The working of public finance at the local level was of crucial importance to the overall transformation of state finance during the early modern age, yet studies devoted to local finance are rare and our understanding of this crucial topic remains sorely inadequate. This paper illustrates the common features shaping local finance in the composite context of early modern Italian states. Communities played a vital role both in extracting fiscal resources and allocating the tax burden among its members. The management of local finance was crucial not only to grasp social and economic developments within communities but to grasp changes in core-periphery relations. Centralization, contractual agreements and control were not disjoint propositions but sides of the same coin.

Keywords: Local finance; Old Italian States; Centralization; Contractual Agreements; Control