Transcript Document

Why Italy?
• Cities located in northern Italy such as Milan, Florence,
and Venice had become very prosperous around the end of
the Middle Ages.
– These cities were located between western Europe and the eastern
seaside of the Mediterranean.
– Northern Italy was able to lead the Italian Renaissance due to the
Mediterranean, the central location for trade.
– They controlled trade with Asia mostly through the silk road. From
Asia, northern Italian cities imported spices, dyes, and silks which
were not enough or new in Europe.
– Thus they were sold expensively, and northern Italian cities
became rich.
Economic Factors that promoted
growth
• the reduced population was much wealthier, better fed,
and, significantly, had more surplus money to spend on
luxury goods like art and architecture. As incidences of the
plague began to decline in the early fifteenth century,
Europe's devastated population once again began to grow.
This new demand for products and services, and the
reduced number of people able to provide them, put the
lower classes in a more favorable position. Furthermore,
this demand also helped create a growing class of bankers,
merchants, and skilled artisans. The horrors of the Black
Death and the seeming inability of the Church to provide
relief would contribute to a decline of church influence
Venice
• Venice supported by a
large merchant fleet
and powerful navy
became rich on trade.
• Venice also profited
from the sacking of
Constantinople at the
end of the fourth
crusade
These Horses of Saint Mark are a replica of the
Triumphal Quadriga captured in Constantinople in
1204 and carried to Venice as a trophy
Genoa and Milan
• Two additional Italian
port cities Genoa and
Milan also benefited
from trade because
their geographical
position as the natural
crossroads for trade
between the middle
east and northern
Europe
Examples of trade
• Italian merchants purchased English Wool
directly from the point of manufacture in
England and transported the wool to North
Africa
• Italian merchants purchased spices and silk
in the Middle East and transported it to the
ports of Genoa, Milan, and Marseilles for
resale in Northern Europe
• The profits from this
trade made Venice and
to a lesser degree
Genoa and Milan
fabulously wealthy
– The profits were
continually reinvested
to earn even more
profit
Florence
• Two Industries turn Florence into a Major
power despite the fact it was an inland city
– Wool
– Banking – Florence became the bank for the
Popes and dominated banking throughout
Europe
• The money from this business made Florence the
financial capital of Italy
Florence
• In the mid- 14th century Florence faced two
economic problems
– Edward III of England refused to repay a large debt
forcing some bankers into bankruptcy
• the collapse of the Bardi and Peruizzi banks would open the
way for the Medici to rise to prominence in Florence
– The Black death killed half of the population and
Florence face labor unrest.
• The poor property less workers revolted (1378)
– The labor unrest caused a shake up in the political
establishment but the Florentine economic structure
survived the trouble and remained stable
Changes in the world of Art
• It was during this period of instability that
the first Renaissance figures, such as Dante
and Petrarch lived, and the first stirrings of
Renaissance art were to be seen in the
opening half of the fourteenth century,
notably in the realism of Giotto.
Paradoxically, some of these disasters
would help establish the Renaissance.
Communes
• Northern Italy
– Genoa, Milan, Florence, Pisa
• Sworn associations of free men seeking complete
political and economic independence from the
nobility
– Guilds
• They won their independence
• They built new city walls, regulated trade, collected taxes and
kept the peace
• The nobility seeks to reestablish itself in the
communal cities
– They sought to marry into the commercial families and
in the process created a new social class
• The new social class protected its power by limiting citizenship
to those who owned property, residence in the city, and the
right social connections
The Popolo
• The disenfranchised and heavily taxed people who
were denied the right of citizenship in the
Communes
– They wanted to be included in the government and
equality in taxation
• They used armed force and violence to take control
• They established representative governments (people exercise
power through elected representatives)
• There victory was only temporary
– They soon acted and governed in the same way as those they had
overturned and never really won the support of the poor or the
unskilled laborer
– They were never able to restore civil order and law to the cities
Competition for Power
• Northern Italy was divided into a number of
warring city-states, the most powerful being
Milan, Florence, Pisa, Siena, Genoa, Ferrara, and
Venice.
• Northern Italy was further divided by the long
running battle for supremacy between the forces
of the Papacy and of the Holy Roman Empire:
each city aligned itself with one faction or the
other,
Constant Warfare
• Warfare between the states was common
• The first part of the Renaissance saw almost
constant warfare on land and sea as the city-states
vied for preeminence.
• A system of Alliances is developed to create a
balance of power
– An important result is the development of modern
diplomatic elations which included the use of
ambassadors to make commercial contracts, and
provide a direct contact between governments
Who won
• By the end of the 1400’s Venice, Florence, Milan,
Naples, and the Papacy possessed the greatest
wealth and power
– However this success had come at a high price for the
Italians city states could not see a way to cooperate or
unite in order to defeat foreign forces and Italy was
invaded by the Austrians and French
– Italy would be an occupied land until the late 19th
century and never become a powerful colonial nationstate like France, Spain, or England
Savonarola
• Girolamo Savonarola was an
Italian priest and leader of
Florence from 1494 until his
execution in 1498. He was
known for his book burning,
destruction of what he
considered immoral art, and
hostility to the Renaissance. He
vehemently preached against
what he saw as the moral
corruption of the clergy, and his
main opponent was Pope
Alexander VI
What Savonarola Said
• Savonarola returned to Florence in 1490. There he began
to preach passionately about the Last Days, accompanied
by visions and prophetic announcements of direct
communications with God and the saints
– The first disaster to give credibility to Savonarola’s apocalyptic
message was the Medici family's weakening grip on power owing
to the French-Italian Wars
– The second disaster was the appearance of syphilis (or the “French
pox”), possibly brought back by sailors from the New World,
which was a running epidemic and as deadly as the plague
– Finally, the year 1500 was approaching, which brought about a
mood of millennialism. In minds of many, the Last Days were
impending and Savonarola was the prophet of the day.
Who he attacked
• he preached that Christian life involved being
good, practicing the virtues, rather than carrying
out displays of excessive pomp and ceremonies.
• He did not seek to make war on the Church at
Rome. Rather, he wanted to correct the
transgressions of worldly popes and secularized
members of the Papal Court.
– Lorenzo Medici and his son Piero also became targets
of Savonarola’s preaching
What he did
• In 1497, he and his followers carried out the
Bonfire of the Vanities. They sent boys from door
to door collecting items associated with moral
laxity: mirrors, cosmetics, lewd pictures, pagan
books, immoral sculptures (which he wanted to be
transformed into statues of the saints and modest
depictions of biblical scenes), gaming tables, chess
pieces, lutes and other musical instruments, fine
dresses, women’s hats, and the works of immoral
and ancient poets, and burnt them all in a large
pile
What happened to him
• On May 13, 1497, the rigorous Father Savonarola was
excommunicated by Pope Alexander VI, and in 1498,
Alexander demanded his arrest and execution.
– He was charged with heresy, uttering prophecies, sedition, and
even other crimes, called religious errors by the pope.
– tortured on the rack. He signed a confession
– degraded as “heretic and schismatic", and given over to the
secular authorities to be burned. He was hanged in chains from a
single cross; an enormous fire was lit beneath him; he was thereby
executed in the same place where the "Bonfire of the Vanities" had
been lit,