The author's contribution is dedicated to the Italian cities of communal tradition, which addresses a theme of long tradition, ideological as well as historiographical, namely the connection between libertas and the 'people' regime established, as is known at its origins, in the humanistic Florentine chancellery , of Western republicanism. The author shows how the connection took shape in the political reflection of some late 'people' regimes in Siena, Lucca and Bologna from the mid-fourteenth century when it became common for those involved in politics to think in terms of forms of government and to discuss their characteristics, their merits, their defects: it was in this melting pot that the belief took shape that the status popularis was a political regime preferable to any other because it was closely associated with the ideal of freedom.