Rainerius tunc comunis Cortone notarius. Contributo alla storia del documento comunale a Cortona nella prima metà del XIII secolo

The article explores the relationship between notaries and the municipality of Cortona in the first half of the thirteenth century. This is in fact the period in which the municipality reaches full political and institutional maturity, thanks also to the contribution of local writing professionals. At first the municipal documentation remains faithful to the forms of contracts used in the same period on behalf of and in favor of private individuals, then, thanks also to the ‘appearance’ of the notary Rainerio / Ranerio, the common policy becomes more recognizable. This is evidenced by four documents now preserved in the Siena State Archive: apparently compiled for the resolution of a dispute between private individuals, they become the instrument through which the municipality of Cortona seizes the opportunity to formalize a more general agreement with Siena, aimed at protecting the commercial reports between the two cities. Author of the documents is Ranerio, a sui generis notary, most probably recruited outside the city circuit, but who contributed in a decisive way to the genesis of new documentary forms able to express specific expressive needs of the Cortona municipal autonomy.