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Dedicated to Frederick Augustus III of Poland, in this monumental cultural and typographical undertaking Muratori wanted to expose the history , the customs and rituals of Italy from the fall of the Roman Empire until 1500, starting from an immense work of collecting documents and testimonies. To this end, the subject is divided into 75 dissertations which discuss the hierarchical and political organization of the feudal world (I-X), its social (XI-XVI) and economic (XVII-XIX) articulation, the legal status of women, the arts, clothing, currency, courts (XX-XXXI), duels and judgments of God (XXXVIII-XXXIX), hospitals (XXXVII), agricultural contracts and long leases (XXXVI); culture (XLIII-XLIV), the origin of Romance languages (XXXII-XXXIII), vernacular poetry (XL), names (XLI-XLII); the Municipality, its origins, institutions, transformation into lordships (XLV-LVI), the struggles between Guelphs and Ghibellines (LI); finally cults of saints, superstitions, relics (LVIII-LIX), heresies (LX), ecclesiastical institutions (LXI-LXV), their crisis (LXXI-LXXII), annuities (LXVII-LXX), benefices (LXXIII ), parishes and lay confraternities (LXXIV-LXXV). The first true ante litteram encyclopedia, perhaps the greatest legacy of eighteenth-century scholarly culture, not only in Italy.