The author identifies in the reflection and practice of fourteenth-century Italian cities with a communal tradition the development of a culture of autonomy that anticipated the 'republican' notion of freedom and political community later formalized by the Florentine chancellors, from Salutati to Bruni. The author investigates the privilege of autonomy as a condition that makes the action of individuals possible, highlighting how this freedom constituted one of the connotative traits of legitimate power and how the claim for freedom was socially inflected, aiming to marginalize the large components of "lower people" perceived as dangerous. The humanistic discontinuity consolidated the idea of ​​the natural disposition of artisans and merchants to preserve freedom in the cities they led, reformulating it in the nation of the free community as it was non-monarchical.