Where the Middle Ages Begin
An economist is indeed tempted to think of Ragusa as the “Adriatic Tiger “ of yesteryear, an early example of a small open economy with strong fundamentals, and to hypothesize further that, in analogy to the current consensus about what it takes to minimize the impact of external crises, these strengths also allowed Ragusa to mitigate the effects of the many external shocks and financial crises in Medieval Europe.
That the Cathedral project emerged in the context of the complex struggle between elite and popolo in 1293-95 already suggests its heavily politicized origins.
Between 1615 and 1620, Benedetto Blanis (c.1580-c.1647), a Jewish scholar and businessman in the Florentine ghetto, sent 196 letters to Don Giovanni dei Medici (1567-1621), an influential member of the ruling family.
Likewise, for those specifically addressing the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the participation of the dominant class to the Italian medieval commercial revolution often run contrary to account that pits the nobility against the urban merchants.
Such an approach has not always been the obvious one, as the centuries- long debate about the nature of the Italian noble (or magnate) and Popolo fac- tions suggests. Gaetano Salvemini’s 1899 interpretation of Florentine political conflict in the thirteenth century as the clash between two groups with distinct socio-economic characters and political programmes was probably as much indebted to Machiavelli as to the author’s socialist beliefs
Florentines were interested in the early history of their city. Several founding legends were developed over the centuries, some of which owed more to fantasy than to history, but all of which insisted that Florence was an ancient city, going back at least to the late Roman Republic.
![Domenico Ghirlandaio: Zachariah in the Temple [detail]: Marsilio Ficino, Cristoforo Landino, Angelo Poliziano and Demetrios Chalkondyles (detail). Fresco. Santa Maria Novella, Cappella Tornabuoni, Florence, Italy. 1486-1490.](http://www.medievalists.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/ghirlandaio.jpg)
This article describes the life and work of Marsilio Ficino, a philosopher and leader of 15th century Florence who helped spark the Renaissance and the relevance of his ideas for the challenges we face today.
Most visitors to Florence today assume that the extraordinary examples of religious art and architecture were commissioned by the local church, and that each church was largely controlled by the Vatican. In fact, most church art was privately commissioned and privately owned, and the local churches had a large degree of local autonomy.
Researchers are now even closer to answering the question if The Battle of Anghiari is still hidden in the walls Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio. Led by scientist Maurizio Seracini, a team of researchers have uncovered evidence late last year that appears to support the theory that a lost Leonardo da Vinci painting existed on the east wall of the Hall of the 500, behind Giorgio Vasari’s mural The Battle of Marciano.
Florence’s impact on the commercial revolution of late medieval and early Renaissance Europe was unique in several ways. A landlocked republic, by all appearances it would seem to have been at a geographical disadvantage compared to major port cities
such as Pisa, Genoa, and Venice, which participated in trade by both land and sea, across the Mediterranean and the Levant.
This study examines the development of the theory of war in the jus commune, or common law, of the late Middle Ages, and considers how such legal theory was put into practice by the government of Florence in the same period. In particular, the study examines the law on war in the fourteenth century in detail, and places Florentine wartime diplomacy in the context of its legal disputes and negotiations, in the period 1388-1402.
Lineage was the first form of social alliance, for blood was a guaranteed and undeniable bond. This alliance would then extend to non-kin but based on the same idea of unquestionable loyalty to the noble head.
Of the representations studied by art history, topographic images – and city views first in time – are among the most likely to share the informational requirements of modern map making.
Boccaccio, Cavalcanti’s Canzone “Donna me prega” and Dino’s Glosses Usher, Jonathan (University of Edinburgh) Heliotropia 2.1 (2004) Abstract The enigmatic, indeed disturbing figure of Guido Cavalcanti (1259–1300) exercised the imagination of his contemporaries, especially of his fellow poets. Without naming him once, Dante talks about Guido in his youthful work, the Vita nuova, telling us […]
Masterpieces by Botticelli, Beato Angelico, Piero del Pollaiolo, the Della Robbia family, Lorenzo di Credi and Memling – the cream of Renaissance artists – show how the modern banking system developed in parallel with the most important artistic flowering in the history of the Western world. Money and Beauty. Bankers, Botticelli and the Bonfire of […]
‘All of the family take up offensive weapons, for the injury done to one stains the whole house’, wrote one fourteenth-century lawyer. Vendetta was an obligation on kinsmen. That obligation did not die with an injured party: often quoted is Dante’s experience in Hell, when an ancestor angrily fled from his presence because his death had not yet been avenged.
The Medici bank is certainly the most suitable subject for such an investigation. More is known about it than about any other firm in Renaissance Florence.
Pope Eugenius IV and Jewish Money-Lending in Florence: The Case of Salomone di Bonaventura during the Chancellorship of Leonardo Bruni By Andrew Gow and Gordon Griffiths Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 2 (1994) Introduction: In his Eulogy of Florence (Laudatio Florentinae Urbis) Leonardo Bruni praised her constitution for giving first place to justice, “without which […]
Economic and Social Exchange in Renaissance Florence By John F. Padgett and Paul D. McLean Published Online, 2002 Abstract: The commercial credit system, through which the Renaissance Florentines dominated European international finance, emerged out of their particular social-network structures of family, neighborhood, and social class, with double-entry accounting providing the technical tool to increase the […]
Luca della Robbia as maiolica producer : artists and artisans in fifteenth-century Florence By Alicia Marie LaTore Honor’s Thesis, Wheaton College, 2009 Introduction: The Renaissance saw many developments in how clay was treated and finished, primarily with the invention of maiolica, or tin glazing. The surface treatment of clay is especially important in that it […]
In Pursuit of Honor: The Balance between Widowhood and Motherhood in the Letters of Alessandra Strozzi Brewer, Cassandra Wagner College Forum for Undergraduate Research, Volume VIII, Number 2, Spring (2010) Abstract A popular conception of a widow is a woman who is, from the time of her husband’s death on, relegated to a life of mourning. Alessandra Strozzi […]
Medici Power and Patronage under Cosimo the Elder and Lorenzo the Magnificent By Kelly Ann Gilbert Honors BA Thesis, Eastern Michigan University, 2005 Introduction: The Medici family controlled Florence for over three centuries. The man responsible for putting the family in power was Cosimo de’ Medici (1389-1464), who was also known as Cosimo the Elder. […]
There have been many studies on the impact of the Portuguese discoveries on Europe, and as a result, new perspectives and approaches to the subject have opened up.
The Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo in Florence, Italy, was constructed during the years 1419-1428 and is considered one of the most influential buildings of the early Italian Renaissance.
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