Emma Nicholls
Department of History
School of Philosophical, Historical
and International Studies
Monash University, Australia 3008
[email protected]
Many thanks to Dr Peter Howard of the History Department at Monash
University for his assistance preparing this lecture.
Studying the History of Renaissance Florence matters because
Florence:
A.developed and fostered many of the values we associate with great
art and architecture
B.contributed much to defining Western Civilization
C.is a favourite tourist destination
D.all of the above
E.some other reason
Renaissance Florentines ‘speak’ to us about....
... what mattered to them:
Diaries – Ricordanze (Sources)
e.g.
… Benedetto Dei
… Goro Dati
…Giovanni di Pagolo di Bartolomeo
di Morello di Giraldo di Ruggieri,
ovvero Gualtieri, di Calandro
di Benemato d'Albertino
de' Morelli
‘...For this book is not written for any other reason but
that it comes out of my desires, that is of me Giovanni .…’
“I will call this book the
‘Thoughts of Giovanni di Pagolo ecetera’”
What mattered?
• a male child.
• establishing family connections - godparents.
• time - that by the beginning of the fifteenth century there was a
precise notion of time.
• neighbourhood: where he lived: i.e. the little parish of San Jacopo
near the great Franciscan Basilica of Santa Croce.
•names - how names were given: a relative and the patron saint of the
day of birth. So family honour and heavenly patronage in a world
where family and patronage made one in life.
• the honour of the city and the common good - civic orientation…
• access to power: the politics of the government
• stress! (the stresses and strains of the merchant’s life).
 Morelli aware of his changing world, e.g. that his
son needed a different education to prepare himself
for it ... Latin!
 Florentines of Morelli’s generation were historically
aware – the past was a springboard for policy.
This morning, proceed in this order:
•Changes and continuities in the organization, distribution
and use of power in Renaissance Florence from 1293 to
1513 (crises of late 15th century under Medicean
Florence)
•Political institutions of Florence
•Medicean Florence from 1434 to 1494
•Views of the Florentine political system expressed by
contemporary writers and historians such as Bruni and
Machiavelli (Very Briefly)
(Area of Study 2)
Doing history: complex….
… hard work of building up
an historical culture …
A History of Florence 1200-1575
by John M. Najemy (Blackwell, Paperback
2006)
Renaissance Florence: A Social History
by Roger J. Crum and John T. Paoletti
(Editors) (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2006; Paperback 2007)
"IN FLORENCE'S EVOLUTION FROM
REPUBLICAN COMMUNE TO Medicean
principate, urban spaces were a crucial
factor in politics just as politics played a
decisive part in..."
Political contexts and cultural production?
In the historiography:
(1) Jacob Burckhardt: creativity from despotisms
(2) Hans Baron: creativity from republics
(3)P. J. Jones: no real difference (esp. 1997)
(4)Recent Scholarship agrees (substantially) with Jone’s
assessment through a re-evaluation of Baron’s notion of
“civic” humanism.
Florentine self-conscious sense of difference….
“…the magnificent and loyal commune of
Florence…most beautiful in all good things, with
fertile soil, and with the richest abundance of fodder,
watered by springs and rivers, the mother of
philosophers, inventor of ceremonies, mistress of
divine worship, glittering light of wisdom, single
summit of eloquence, most expert in arms, most
prudent in ruling people and in establishing laws,
most shrewd in business, and in the arts more
ingenious than most… in the arts more ingenious
than most.”
(from the oration of Archbishop Antoninus of Florence to
Pope Calixtus III, as head of the official Florentine
delegation, including Cosimo de' Medici, Lorenzo Ridolfi,
and Gianozzo Pandolfini, May 1455)
Connection with modernity:
‘…the most important workshop of the Italian
and indeed of the European spirit.’
‘… the city of incessant movement, which has
left us the thoughts and aspirations of each and
all who, for three centuries, took part in this
movement.’
(Jacob Burckhardt, 1860)
Physical shape of the city reflects its history. Space itself was
used to effect and symbolize political change/dominance:
Notable physical features:
•Palazzo del Bargello (Primo popolo)
•Palazzo dei Priori/ della Signoria / Vecchio (Secondo Popolo)
•Orsanmichele (Guild Hall/Church)
•Duomo (Cathedral)
Overview: Political History of Florence c. 1100–1512
> successive but overlapping phases :
1. 12th-13th centuries: domination of Florence’s old, elite families
(magnati): controlled neighbourhoods, strongholds.
2. Mid-13th century-early 15th century: political opposition to magnati
by the popolo (non-elite elements of the guild community:
merchants, shopkeepers, notaries, independent artisans): assert
the ‘rights of the commune’: communal building projects. Note:
revolt of the Ciompi, 1378.
3. c. 1400-1494: Prestigious elite families (esp. Medici) again take
control (including neighbourhoods) – shaping urban spaces:
churches – palaces.
4. 1494-1512: New Constitution (1496 Great Council; from 1502
Soderini Gonfalonier for life)
5. 1512: Florence defeated at Prato, Soderini forced into exile, Medici
restored, Machiavelli loses his job.
Background to the Ordinances of Justice – 1293.
• First half of the thirteenth century: Split of great Florentine families into two
factions (Guelphs – ‘Welf’- enemies of the Emperor Frederick - and Ghibellines –
Italianization of Waibinglen – after the Hohenstaufen stronghold in Swabia),who for
half a century divide the town: faction and violence.
1248-1249 ‘Capitano del Popolo’ and ‘il Primo Popolo’
• 1248- 1249 Emperor Federico II sends his son Federico d'Antiochia to Florence
- allies himself with the Ghibellines.
• Guelphs make attempt armed resistance, but soon are forced to surrender and
to go into exile.
• Meantime the Capitano del Popolo [militia captain] and the Council of the Twelve
Elders (Anziani) is formed and given the task of writing a new and more democratic
constitution - ‘del Primo popolo’
o an attempt to replace the old governing class with ‘new men’.
o re-organization of urban space into 20 armed neighbourhood militia
companies each with a distinctive standard [gonfalone] to ensure peace
and security of neighbourhoods against unruly elite factions.
o1254-1258: the glory period of the ‘Primo popolo’ government. The
Florentines, after having expelled several Ghibelline families and having
readmitted the Guelphs, restart the expansion wars (San Gimignano,
Poggibonsi and Volterra).
• Glory period short-lived ....
...1260-1293 Complex Struggles: Ghibelline vs Guelf - the Secondo Popolo
1260 On September the 4th at Montaperti, the Florentines, with the allied Guelphs from
Lucca, are heavily defeated by the Sienese and the troops led by the Ghibelline
Manfredi. The people's government (Primo Popolo) is finished, the heads of the
Guelphs are exiled….After five years of Ghibelline power, the defeat and then the death
of Manfredi in Benevento provoke a new rupture of the town's political balance. The
Ghibellines leave, the Guelphs return.
1267
The Florentines entrust their town to the dominion of Carlo d'Angiò, king of Sicily, but
the actual government is in the hands of the Guelphs and its captains.
1269
After Pisa (1268), Siena is heavily defeated. The Guelph government covers a large
area of Tuscany.
1280
The two factions sign peace treaties, under the auspices of the Church. Two new groups
are forming. On one side the Magnati (nobles, land owners both Guelph and Ghibelline),
on the other merchants, artisans, and working people.
1282
The government of the ‘Arti’[also called the Second People (Secondo popolo)] begins.
The ‘Ordinamenti di Giustizia’, issued in 1293 by Giano di Bella, bar the access to the
priorate to anyone who is not a member of the "Arti". Malcontent is spreading in the
aristocracy. (Proscription of Magnates).
The Ordinances of Justice of Florence (1293)
CHAPTER 1. ON THE UNION, OATH, AND AGREEMENT OF THE GUILDS EXPRESSED IN
THIS ORDINANCE
Since this most perfect ordinance is approved so that it consists of all its members and its jurisdiction is
approved by all. Thus, it is ordained and provided that the Twelve Major Guilds are approved by the
authority and power of the Podestà [the chief magistrate], the Defender and the Captain, the Priors of the
Guilds and the savi, namely:
Judges and Notaries
Calimala Merchants
Bankers
Wool manufacturing
Merchants of Por Santa Maria
Physicians and Apothecaries
Furriers
Butchers
Shoemakers
Masons and carpenters
Blacksmiths
Retail Cloths Dealers (Rigattieri)
And also the other [nine] guilds of the City of Florence, which are the following:
Wine Retailers
Innkeepers
Retailers of Salt, Oil and Cheese
Tanners
Armorers and Swordmakers
Locksmiths and Iron Workers
Harness Makers and Shield Makers
Woodworkers
Bakers
CHAPTER 6. ON THE PENALTIES TO BE IMPOSED AGAINST MAGNATES
HARMING COMMONERS
It is provided and ordained that if any magnates whosoever of the City and District of
Florence should, with malice aforethought, kill or have killed or wound or have
wounded any commoner (popolano) of the City and District so that from such a wound
death should ensue, then the Lord Podestà should condemn the magnate, who did or
caused to have done such a crime, to death by beheading, if he should come into the
custody of the Commune of Florence. And moreover the Podestà is held and ought to
confiscate and have confiscated all the property of such criminals, and such property
ought to come into the possession of the Commune of Florence and be sold by the
Commune of Florence.
From: The Ordinances of Justice of Florence (1293)
Ordinances allow for:
- 6 priors led by the standard bearer of justice (principal prior: Gonfaloniere)
- govt. now in the hands of the guilds, extended to 21. [7+5+9]
- priors remain in office for two months
- severe measures against the magnates (those who have obligation to supply
horse + armour + form cavalry) - only about 70 families, so only a part of the
aristocracy, but thought of as most troublesome.
--- cannot hold office (priors)
--- pay surety + measures for killing a member of populani
--- anyone belonging to family was regarded as a magnate
--- could not take a trade or join a guild.
In short - favoured the middle orders.
However, many rich families were not magnates and therefore much of the
aristocracy had power.
1395: ordinances were modified - made it easier for the aristocracy to regain
power --- anyone could join a guild, so guilds became a club for undertaking
political life.
Therefore we find a compromise situation in which leading families had power,
but shared with middling merchants and artisans.
Nicolai Rubinstein,The Palazzo Vecchio 1298-1532:
Government, Architecture and Imagery in the Civic Palace of the
Florentine Republic
In the 14th century:
‘… an urbanistic expression of civic consensus and of the
continuity of republican traditions.’
ALSO TRUE OF THE CATHEDRAL : The Cathedral complex was a matter of
civic pride for the Florentines. The Cathedral and Baptistery together formed not
only the religious heart of Florence, but also served as a symbol of the political
and cultural superiority of the Florentines .
• Arnolfo di Cambio was told, upon receiving the commission for the building of
Santa Maria del Fiore, that the cathedral was to be the greatest in Tuscany.
• The task for Giotto in building the campanile, was for it to be “so magnificent,
that by height and workmanship it would surpass all of that genre created by the
Greeks or by the Romans ... to the honour ... of a powerfully unified, greatly
spirited, and freely sovereign people” (Miglione).
• The Florentines were anxious to demonstrate their cultural superiority by
successfully completing the dome of the cathedral, while also being aware of the
ridicule to which they would be subjected if the dome were attempted and failed:
[he would] “not even begin to sing this church’s praises, for without seeing it in
all its detail, one could never conceive of such a marvel” (Francesco Albertini
wrote of the Duomo in his Memoriale ).
Overview
Mid-13th century: Primo Populo: Brunetto Latini
1392-3: Ordinances of Justice
1342: Duke of Athens: short-lived experiment with despotism
1378-1382: After the Revolt of the Ciompi (woolcarders) shortlived popular government.
Early 1400s: more elite -> increasingly oligarchical (after 1434) under the
Medici – de facto principate under Lorenzo (d. 1492)
1494: Expulsion of the Medici (Piero) – Constitutional Reform
(Savonarola)
1502: Piero di Tommaso Soderini: Gonfalonier for life
1513: Return of the Medici (but as ‘puppets’ of empire)
In sum, scholarly consensus on Florence’s political
development 1200-1492 ‘from a faction-ridden and
ungovernable commune to a guild republic to an
oligarchic one’ (Muir, 1994; Brucker, 1998, 2003).
Background: Social and Political Framework

Sense of public involvement

1292: Essential elements of Florentine Constitution in
place

Palazzo della Signoria (1298)

Government – innovative structures alongside old
->complexity

Central Govt followed local administrative structures,
viz.
4 districts into 4 subdistricts= 16 gonfaloni
(neighbourhoods)
Communal Government
The central government: a
reflection of the divisions
of the city for local
administration - four
districts, each further
divided into four subdistricts: i.e. sixteen in all
(the gonfalon)
Structure of Florentine Communal Government
Tre Maggiori (3 councils)
- Signoria (Priors=4 districts x2+Gonfaloniere (Standard Bearer of Justice)[2
months]
- Dodici Buonomini (12 Good Men) [3 months]
- Sedici Gonfalonieri (16 Standard bearers) [4 months]
Legislative Bodies [4 months]
- Council of the Popolo: 300 members (including the Signoria and other exofficio delegates)
- Council of the Commune: 200 members (of whom one fifth were magnates).
Administration: committees e.g. Dieci di Balia (Commission for Ward); Otto di
Guardia (Security)
Turnover => over 3,000 posts vacant and refilled annually.
Ad hoc bodies (for continuity):
Consulte e pratiche: citizens to debate and advise Signoria
Election/Selection for office.
Qualifications
- not bankrupt
- not in arrears with taxes
- over 30 years old
- enrolled in one of the seven arti maggiori (guidici; calimala;
lana; bankers; ferriers; silk; doctors and apothaceries) or the
fourteen arti minori.
- not successively within three years
- nor if a family member had served in the previous yuear.
Principle of mistrust
- by lot from bags containing names chosen by accopiatori
(appointed by Signoria) and approved by electoral
commission (from tre maggiori and co-opted advisers).
Schematic overview of 15th century context
•
fifteenth century in Florence: by 1410 transition
complete from the popular regime initiated after the
woolworkers revolt, the Ciompi (1378)
•
1420s-1430s esp.: conflicts for the control of
government/city
•
Eventual victory of the Medici faction/party (Cosimo
de’Medici)
•
Consolidation and narrowing of oligarchy
•
By 1480s, Lorenzo de’Medici – de facto prince
•
1492: death of Lorenzo
•
1494: expulsion of the Medici
•
New constitution and ‘popular’ government , inspired by
Savonarola
• (Machiavelli – Soderini)
Context for the Rise of the Medici
(Classic account: DV Kent The Rise of the Medici, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1978)
Faction….
Florence and external threats/war.
1390-92, 1397-98, 1400-1402: Giangaleazzo Visconti
1404-1406: Pisa
1408-1414: Ladislao of Naples.
1424-1428: Filippo Maria Visconti - Milan
(1427 – the Catasto)
1429: Lucca
Faction: The Rise of the Medici
Faction
… Sermons, on ‘discord, conflict, strife, sedition and schism’
are recurring themes of sermons throughout the period. All
have the warning ‘every kingdom divided against itself is laid
waste’.
The Pattern of Medici Control
By the 1430s Florence was split into two factions:
• the oligarchical party of the Albizzi
• the ‘popular’ party of the Medici
After 1434 – and the triumph of the Medici:
- marriage as a means of procuring useful allies - even the marriage of
quite distant kinsmen. (Also reinforced other levels of relationship - even
amongst amici.)
- contact within the city (business, confraternities).
- solicitation of votes
- enlarging the numbers in the electoral bags to dilute the impact of their
opponents
- personal influence moved one another into positions of influence.
- offered loans to one another to make up for tax arrears to make sure
that none of the party would be excluded from office.
- a patronage chain: cumulative spheres of influence in leading offices
and commissions
- use of influence to establish new governmental structures
- reputation: cultural diplomacy (e.g. papacy, Council of Florence 1439)
Core of the party: parenti, amici, vicini
[kin, friends, neighbours]
• marriage alliances: Bardi, Salviati, Cavalcanti, Tornabuoni.
• plus compagnie
clientelismo - clientage - patronage.
- people who came to identify their interests with the Medici
in return for their support.
Bernardo Alammano writes to Averardo de' Medici: ‘I commend myself to you with all my
heart, for my only hope is in you and in God ... You are my God on earth and all that I crave
in this world is the honour and prosperity which I am confident I will receive by your favour’.
PATRONAGE. Patrons and Clients in Renaissance Society
‘Patronage, a term traditionally used to describe the support Renaissance elites gave to
artists, writers, and scholars, as well as rights exerted over ecclesiastical property (ius
patronatus), has been extended by recent historians to embrace certain social and
political ties between individuals and groups. Since English, unlike other European
languages, does not make the useful distinction between patronage of the arts
(mecenatismo in Italian), and political and social patronage (Italian patrocinio and
clientelismo), English-speaking historians need to define “patronage” more carefully
in any given Renaissance context if the concept is not to become so inclusive as to be
almost meaningless’.
See F.W. Kent, ‘Patronage’, in Paul Grendler (ed.), The Encyclopedia of the
Renaissance, (Scribner’s in association with the Renaissance Society of America:
New York: 1999), vol. 4, pp. 442-446.
Patronage and the importance of family chapels.
• not just a monument of devotion,
• but also a monument to a family. And
• not only a place of private devotion, but in a public space,
where the whole neighbourhood could see the family’s piety.
• e.g. a contract between patron and artist for the decoration of
a chapel at Santa Maria Novella - demonstrates what the
chapels were for, viz. the chapel was to be decorated “as an act
of piety and love of God, to the exaltation of his house and
family and the enhancement of the said church and chapel”.
(Contract for Giovanni Tornabuoni’s chapel by the painter
Ghirlandaio).
Medici
mecenatismo
and its overt
signature…
the stemme was
the signature:
Cosimo facit me!
Medici Palle
Cosimo - a church-going merchant citizen (Baxandall) because of his skills in business and politics (civic, Italian,
international): a major force in public life – according to Dale
Kent, embodied Rucellai’s “the honour of God, the good of
the city and the memory of me.”
***
"For the magnificent person aims at great works, for
example, temples built for the honour of God, hospitals for
the poor, and other such things made for pilgrims".
(Antonino Pierozzi OP, Archbishop of Florence, 1446-59)
***
A public theology of ‘magnificence’
preached from the 1420s.
(See P. Howard, 'Preaching Magnificence in Renaissance Florence',
Renaissance Quarterly 61:2 (2008), 325-369.)
Chronicler Giovanni Cavalcanti (1381–ca. 1451)
refers to complaints about Cosimo’s “magnificent
buildings” (“magnifici muramenti”), including those of
the friars (“Egli ha pieno per insino i privati de’frati
delle sue palle”), and the palace he had started to
build, with the implication that he was using citizen’s
funds to do so: “who could not build magnificently if
they had money which was not theirs?” (“Chi non
murerebbe magnificamente, avendo a spendere di que’
denari che non sono suoi?”).
Timoteo Maffei (ca. 1415–70), In magnificentiae
Cosmi Medicei Florentini detractores libellus.
Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plut. 47, Cod. 27,
fols. 78–102. (mid-1450s).
The Florentine Crises of the Late Fifteenth Century

Death of Lorenzo de’Medici - 1492

Expusulsion of the Medici 1494
o
Alienation of the the ruling group by Piero
de’Medici
o Near bankruptcy of the Medici bank

French invasion of 1494 – Charles VIII

new constitutional arrangements – the Great
Council

dissension rather than the ‘common good’ results
o
economic crisis and foreign policy
o
war with Pisa strains finances – the accatto,
and ventina

Gonfaloniere for Life: Piero di Tommaso Soderini –
1502
 crises bred a new way of thinking about politics and
history (Machiavelli and Guicciardini)
The temper and atmosphere of Florence is revealed in
the rise of Savonarola in the 1490s, his role in the
formulation of a new Florentine constitution, and his
vision of Florence as a theocracy, charged (in an
apocalyptic way) with bringing about the renewal of
Italy, both civically and religiously.
Savonarola (1452-1498)




reformer
millennial role for Florence
political reform – ‘theocracy’
factions: Piagnoni and Arrabiati
Leonardo Bruni
(1369 – 1444)
• Laudatio of the City of Florence
• History of the Florentine People
• Orations, Letters, Translations
Niccolò Machiavelli (14691527)
• The Prince
• The Discourses on Titus Livy
Brief points by way of overview:
1. Currently, new scholarship on Florentine politics and society is lively and at
the cutting edge.
2. This has involved a re-evaluation and revision of ‘civic humanism’ – Hans
Baron (arguably the most important historian of Florence after WWII): the
impact of politics on the intellectual, social and cultural life of early
Quattrocento Florence.
3. Baron’s view: the territorial aggression of the Milanese despot,
Giangaleazzo Visconti, was the catalyst for the development of Florentine
civic humanism. In the face of this threat Florentines examined what they
were fighting for (introspective):
• freedom of speech,
• free access to political office,
• equality of citizens before the law,
• self-government.
i.e. The fundamentals of modern democracy.
 contentious view – currently contested.
4. Recent interpretations and consensus:
- civic humanism as evidence of the triumph of oligarchic and elitist
republicanism: with Bruni as a spokesperson.
- struggle between rival republican ideologies, viz.
• communal republicanism (13th-late 14th centuries)
[failed guild-based vision of politics]
vs
• oligarchic republicanism (post-Ciompi revolt).
[rationalization of a restricted oligarchy: Bruni and other humanists,
including Machiavelli].
References:
Mark Jurdjevic, “Civic Humanism and the Rise of the Medici”, in Renaissance Quarterly,
52 (1999), 994-1020.
Serana Ferente, “Guelphs! Factions, Liberty and Sovereignty: Inquiries about the Quattrocento”, in
History of Political Thought, 28 (2007), 571-598.
John M. Najemy, “Civic Humanism and Florentine Politics”, in Renaissance Civic Humanism:
Reappraisals and Reflections, ed. J. Hankins (Cambridge UP, 2000).
Mikael Hörnqvist, “The Two Myths of Civic Humanism”, in Renaissance Civic Humanism, 75-104.
John Najemy, “The Dialogue of Power in Florentine Politics”, City-States in Classical Antiquity and
Medieval Italy, ed. A. Molho, J. Emlen, and K. Raaflaub (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1991), 269-88;
James Hankins, “The ‘Baron Thesis’ after Forty Years,” 309-38;
Hankins, “Humanism and the Origins of Modern Political Thought”, The Cambridge Companion to
Renaissance Humanism, ed. J. Kraye (Cambridge, 1996), 118-41.
James Hankins “Rhetoric, History, and Ideology: The Civic Panegyrics of Leonardo Bruni”,
Renaissance Civic Humanism, 143-178.