Dieci dell’Arbitrio

The "Dieci dell'Arbitrio" was a council of 10 family members established by the Baglioni family to govern Perugia between 1488 and 1534. This council was a tool for the Baglioni to maintain control over the city during a period marked by intense violence and power struggles, both within the family and with external forces like rival nobles and the papacy.1

It is important to distinguish this council from the decemviri legibus scribundis of ancient Rome, which was a temporary legislative commission tasked with creating a written code of laws to resolve conflicts between patricians and plebeians. The Roman decemviri prepared the laws of the Twelve Tables, but a second board became tyrannical and was eventually forced to abdicate.2