Burr Litchfield traces the development of the patrician elite of Florence from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries the growth of a bureaucratic state in Tuscany during this period and the changing relationship of the patricians to the state apparatus His discussion of this largely neglected period of Italian history shows that the elite of the Florentine Renaissance Republic continued as the main component of the urban office holding aristocracy under the Grand Dukes of Tuscany and that they had an important role in the transition from Renaissance communal institutions to those of a regional state Originally published in 1987 The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print on demand technology to again make available previously out of print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905