Transcript The Renaissance in Italy - ENMU ITS Web Media Server

History 324
The Renaissance in Italy
1250–1520
Italy
Important Terms
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Commune
Contado
Guelf
Ghibelline
Aristocratic commune
Concio/Arengo
Consorteria
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Jakob Burckhard, The
Civilization of the
Renaissance in Italy
(1860)
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Civic Humanism
San Gemignano
San Gemignano
Aristocratic Commune
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Knights move into the cities for economic and
political advantage
Their agents emerge as leading merchants
Knights build fortified towers
They gradually displace the bishops as political
authority (12th & 13th centuries)
Use conflict between pope & emperor (Guelf v.
Ghibelline)
Knights join together as a commune, bound by
oath, form concio (assembly), elect Consul
Political Development
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Rival families (noble and common) form
alliances (consorteria) to protect interests
– Usually formed of two or more families
– Lived in fortified buildings: “Tower Societies”
– Rivalries often led to violence and vendetta
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Concio looks to outsiders to bring order
– Podestá assumes absolute authority, usually
for short period, then left
Social Classes
Aristocrats: 10%
 Popolo Grasso: major guild members,
some nobles, 30%
 Popolo Minuto: minor guild members
(60%)
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– Soto posti: non-citizens (apprentices, day
laborers, servants, those w/o property)
– Fluid bottom: immigrants from the contado,
drifters, thieves, protitutes
Popular Government
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Emergence of the Popular Commune
gradual
– Restrictions on nobility who lose tax
exemption
– Towers torn down to reduce noble influence
 Private retinues (bodyguards) and prisons
abolished
– New official: the Captain of the People
 Equivalent to the Podestá, but answers to new
popular body, the Council of Elders (Concio
Anziani)
Political Identity
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Use of political propaganda to
assert authority of the popular
commune
– Construction of Palazzi
Publico (higher than
aristocratic towers)
– Horse races (the Pallio),
public plays,
religious/secular
processions (Corpus
Christi)
– The Nine in Siena
Politics in Art
Siena in the 13th Century
Politics in Art
Black Death 1348-1361
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Consequences
– Towns depopulated (up to 70% decline)
– Workers organize for better conditions and
pay
– Seek political representation
– Owners seek to restrict these demands
 Statue of Labourers in England, 1351
 Harsh treatment of rebellions
Early Capitalism in Italy
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Reliance on unskilled labor (sotto posti)
who made up to half of populo minuto
– No political or economic rights
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Key features of early capitalism
– Separation between owners and workers
– Lack of centralized production
– Lack of permanence or continuity of
production
Woolen Trade
Complex: many steps
 Competitive and
lucrative, high
demand
 Dominated by a few
families in each city
 Prone to revolt by
workers, e.g. the
Ciompi in 1378
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Ciompi Revolt, 1378
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Condition of sotto posti
– No political rights, forbidden to form guilds
– Urban revolts common
 Marxist historians see emergence of proletariat
 Others see complex economic and social change
 Result: magnates unite against common people
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Ciompi
– Led by Micheli de Lando, gonfalionieri, or
flag-bearer of the lower guilds
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Demands
– Est. of new guilds for dyers, shirtmakers and
woolen workers (Ciompi)
– Debt relief and abolition of guild courts
– Tax reform: end exemptions and impose
income tax
Over threw government, but then
suppressed by united magnates
 Many killed or exiled
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– Replaced by foreign workers
Renaissance Family
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Best source=Catasto (1427) detailed tax survey compiled
in Florence
Term for extended families varies by area:
– Florence = consorteria
– Genoa = albergo
– Venice = fraterna
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Breakdown of consorteria into nuclear families
– Change in family dynamics
– Building of palazzi, variations in wealth
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Change in marriage patterns
– Pre-plague, men marry at 35-40 years, women c. 18
– Post-plague, c. 29, women at 15-16
– By 1460, men back to 35-40
Rise of Venice
Rise of Venice
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451: Foundation
697: Doge
1172: Great Council
1297: Closing of the
Great Council; Senata
1405: Creation of
Venetian contado
Cathedral of San Marco
Venetian Government
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Doge
Ducal Council
Senate (300 men)
Grand Council
Council of 10, Dieci
General Assembly
/Arengo (abolished
1453)
Bridge of Sighs
Doge Leonardo Loredan
Despotism
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Consolidation of the state
Signoria (lordship)
Vicariate
– Papal or imperial vicar
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Condottieri
– Contract soldier
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Romagna
– Ezzelino da Romano, lord
of Verona, 1st despot
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Despotism: illegitimate
one-man rule
Regimes
– Milan: Giangaeazzo
Visconti
– Verona: della Scala
– Padua: Carrara
– Ferrara: d’Este
– Mantua: Gonzaga
Rise of Milan
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Visconti of Milan
– Ghebelline family
– Matteo Visconti
becomes Captain of
the People
– Purchase title of
imperial vicar
– Rule through small
councils
The Visconti in Milan
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Visconti in Milan
– Uniform legal system
throughout contado
 Removed local law
codes
– Appointed local
officers
– Fiscal policy
– Supports education
– Standing army
– Used ambassadors
Visconti gonfalone
Rise of the Medici in Florence
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Albizzi Regime
– Rivals of the Medici
– Controlled the populo
minuto under the
Priorate
– Introduce Catasto in
1427 to raise taxes
(estimo)
– Manipulate crowds to
achieve political ends
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Cosimo de Medici
takes power in 1434
The Medici
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Cosimo de Medici
controls government
indirectly
– Financial resources
– Has political network
 Amici
 Party
 Balia (emergency
committees)
 Scala (staircase)
– Peace of Lodi (1451)
 Florence and Milan
against Venice
The World of Humanism
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Three major states in
Italy by the early 15th
century
– Milan
– Florence
– Venice
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Triple Alliance of
Florence, Milan, and
Naples, c. 1480
Lorenzo de Medici (1449-92)
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Ruled Florence from
1469 to 1492
– Creates Council of
Seventy to control city
 Eight of War
 Twelve of Finance
– Conflicts with Pope
Sixtus IV
– Pazzi Conspiracy
(1478)
– Rules as tyrant, but
loved
Emergence of Humanism
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Dante
– Not a Humanist, a medieval
personality
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Influential writer
– On Monarchy
 Theory of the Two Ends
– The Banquet
 The “Will to be Virtuous”
– The New Life (La Vita Nuovo)
Beatrice as an ideal
– Comedy
 New vision of afterlife
 Use of Italian rather than
Latin
Dante Aligheiri (1265-1321)
Petrarch
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Father of Humanism
– Vita activa
– Valued the Ancient world for
itself, as a model
– Wrote mostly in Latin
– Classics a guide to ethics
 “ It is better to will the good,
than to know the truth”
 His book, De Viri Illustribus
used biography of ancients—a
secular hagiography
– Supported (briefly) Cola di
Rienzo, the Roman popular
leader (Tribune of the People_
– Studia Humanitatis: rhetoric,
grammar, poetry
– Textual criticism influenced
Valla
Francisco Petrarch (1304-1374)
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375)
Petrarch’s student
 Learned Greek
 Wrote Decameron in
Italian
 On Noble Women
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– De mulieribus claris
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Importance of
education to chose
good over evil
Civic Humanists
Coluccio Salutati
(1330-1406)
 Leonardo Bruni
(1370-1444)
 Poggio Bracciolini
(1380-1459)
 Lorenzo Valla (14051457)
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Coluccio Salutati
Moral Philosophy
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Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499)
– Learned Greek from Chrysolorus
– Platonic Academy in Florency (founded by Cosimo de
Medici)
– Tried to synthesize philosophy & religion
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Giovanni Pico de Mirandola (1463-1494)
– Polyglot: Greek, Latin, & Hebrew
– Undertook a synthesis of all religions
– Rejected authority of Christianity
– Mysticism & magic made human knowledge greater
The Papacy in Avignon
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In 1305, Clement V declines to return to Rome
– Papal court remains at Avignon until 1378
Avignon Papacy
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Seven popes are French
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Clement V (d. 1314)
John XXII (d. 1334)
Benedict XII (d. 1342)
Clement VI (d. 1352)
Innocent VI (d. 1362)
Urban V (d. 1370)
Gregory XI (d. 1378)
Historically seen as
corrupt, but?
– Gradual decline of Church
Decline of Papacy (1300-1510)
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Secular claims to authority
– Aristotle’s political theory (ascending power)
– Dante’s De Monarchia (1313)
– Marsiglio of Padua, Defensor Pacis (1324)
– Golden Bull (1356) ends papal choice of emperor
– Conciliar theory: Church ruled by “head and
members”
– Great Schism (1378-1415)
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Papal control of Church
– Fiscal and legal innovations
Renaissance Papacy
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Temporal rulers first,
spiritual rulers second
– Pius II (1458-1464)
 Diplomat & scholar
– Calixtus III (1455-1458)
Alonso Borgia
– Alexander VI (1492-1503)
Rodrigo Borgia
– Julius II (1503-1510)
Giovanni della Rovere
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Art patrons
Goal: to make church
independent of secular
states
Sixtus IV (1471-1484)