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Florence (Medieval Studies)

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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. The history of medieval Florence (c. 600–c. 1400) is full of paradoxes. In 1300 the city was one of the most populated and economically powerful city-states in Europe. Yet, only a century before, Florence had been a second-tier city that was far behind its Tuscan neighbors (Pisa and Lucca) in terms of its population and level of political development. Even with regard to the role of humanism in Florentine culture, the history of Florence was exceptional. From at least the late 12th century ancient authors were consistently well known to Florentine writers, but in the 13th century, the emergence of Florence as the center of vernacular literature impeded the further development of a humanist culture. By the early 15th century, however, Florence had become the center of oratorical humanism. Before the mid-13th century, Florence was one of the least-documented communes in northern Italy, but after the middle of the century, it developed one of the most active record-keeping cultures in Europe. The major building projects of the medieval city that greet the visitor today are not the results of centuries of construction and planning. Rather, the cathedral, the Palazzo Vecchio, the city walls, much of the urban road infrastructure and public squares (piazze), and the imposing mendicant friaries were all planned and largely built within half a century (c. 1280–c. 1330). Furthermore, before the late 13th century, the visual arts in Florence seemed no more distinguished or more influential than the painting, sculpture, and architecture of other north Italian city-states. Yet, from the early 14th century, the accomplishments and innovative artistic traditions initiated by Florentine artists shaped the direction of the visual arts in Europe for centuries to come. The major theme in medieval Florentine history is therefore its rapid rise to prominence, power, and influence in Italy in the second half of the 13th and early 14th century. To explain how and why this happened—why Florentine history was so exceptional throughout its history and its rise so rapid—has been a dominant preoccupation for scholars of medieval Florence for many generations. This entry surveys how many scholars have approached this challenge since the mid-20th century.
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  5. General Overviews
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  7. No recent survey of medieval Florence can match the chronological sweep and comprehensive scope of the late 19th- and early 20th-century historian, Robert Davidsohn. Nevertheless, a number of fine surveys do exist to introduce the reader to the history of medieval Florence, especially from the 13th century. The essay collections address specific topics and remain influential in contemporary Florentine scholarship.
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  9. Single-Authored Works
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  11. Davidsohn 1956–1978 is still the most complete and essential survey devoted exclusively to medieval Florence. Nothing can match the comprehensiveness of its scope and range, especially when supplemented with his Forschungen (1896–1919). The ongoing conflict between the predominately rural, feudal class and the urban bourgeoisie is his dominant theme, coupled with a generally negative approach to the church and religion. Najemy 2006 devotes half of his lucidly written narrative history to the (pre-1400) medieval city, and class conflict is central to his perspective as well. Focusing on the social and political evolution of the city, he takes an interdisciplinary approach and demonstrates how conflict within the elite and between the elite and other classes influenced the direction of Florentine politics and society. Political history takes center stage with institutional developments in Luzzati 1986 as well, but here the evolution of Florence appears within a broad, regional context, with Florence compared to other city-states. A short and succinct treatment by a master of medieval and Renaissance Florentine history is Brucker 1998, a beautifully illustrated and engaging synthesis that also highlights politics and the importance of the guilds in the Florentine state and economy. Cardini 2003 chronologically reviews the main developments in Florentine history in a general manner in a short book.
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  13. Brucker, Gene. Florence: The Golden Age, 1138–1737. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
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  15. Beautifully illustrated survey of Florentine history for the general reader from the commune to the early 18th century. Includes a superb, annotated chronology and profiles of elite families. Examines how a guild-dominated political order in late 13th- and early-14th-century Florence coincided with the height of the city’s prosperity.
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  17. Cardini, Franco. A Short History of Florence: From the Origins to 1860. Translated by Amanda Mazzinghi. Pisa, Italy: Pacini, 2003.
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  19. This is a book by one of the most prolific Florentine historians working in the 21st century. For readers who wish to have a brief and succinct introduction to the principal phases of pre-modern Florentine history, the first half of this text is excellent.
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  21. Davidsohn, Robert. Forschungen zur älteren Geschichte von Florenz. 4 vols. Berlin: Mittler und Sohn, 1896–1919.
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  23. Published research notes. Explores some topics in more depth than in his general history. Volume 1 examines topics from Antiquity to 1200; Volume 2 covers San Gimignano; Volume 3 covers the economy and the black/white conflict; Volume 4 covers the 13th and 14th centuries. Should be consulted along with Storia di Firenze.
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  25. Davidsohn, Robert. Storia di Firenze. 8 vols. Translated by Giovanni Battista Klein. Florence: Sansoni, 1956–1978.
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  27. Indispensable, brilliant, and comprehensive history of the city from late Antiquity through the early decades of the 14th century. Class conflict is its major theme. The eighth volume, the index, has an extensive number of entries and is essential for anyone doing research on Florence before the mid-14th century. Originally published 1896–1927.
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  29. Holmes, George. Florence, Rome, and the Origins of the Renaissance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
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  31. A fine synthetic attempt to place the principal developments in literature and the fine arts from the mid-13th century to the early 14th century within a broad political and economic context. Serves as an excellent survey of Florentine history during Dante’s lifetime.
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  33. Luzzati, Michele. Firenze e la Toscana nel Medioevo: Seicento anni per la costruzione di uno stato. Turin, Italy: UTET, 1986.
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  35. A political and institutional approach to the history of Florence within the broader context of Tuscan history, particularly in relation to the evolution of other communes. Written by one of the most influential contemporary Italian medievalists, it focuses on the centuries between 1100 and 1500.
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  37. Najemy, John. A History of Florence, 1200–1575. Maldon, MA: Blackwell, 2006.
  38. DOI: 10.1002/9780470754870Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  39. Excellent interdisciplinary narrative interpretation of Florentine history from the early 13th through 16th centuries. It explains how conflict within the elite and between the elite and other classes (the popolo on one hand and the workers and artisans on another) helped shape the direction of Florentine society.
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  41. Collections of Essays
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  43. For decades Rubinstein 1968 has influenced scholars and students of Florentine history, providing not only models of historical writing but also studies on particular topics associated with pre-modern (medieval and Renaissance) Florence. Herlihy’s essay on Santa Maria Impruneta is an exemplary case study of the economic and social history of a community in the Florentine countryside. Another example is Becker 1967–1968 (cited under the City-Republic (1200–1400)) on the territorial state, a new topic in 1968 but a generation later a major focus of historical inquiry. Connell and Zorzi 2000 devotes an entire volume to this topic, and the essays in this collection provide a complex understanding of the relationship between city and countryside. For the social and political history of elite families in the second half of the 13th century, Raveggi, et al. 1978 is essential. It provides significant insight into the social and geographical origins of major lineages as well as outlines the dates and duration of the political offices held by their members. Crum and Paoletti 2006 examines the intimate connection between space and the wide panorama of Florentine life, including its relation to politics, gender, ritual, and family, among others. More recently, Cherubini 2013 offers a collection of studies on Florence, covering a variety of subjects, by one of the outstanding masters of Tuscan and Florentine history.
  44.  
  45. Cherubini, Giovanni. Firenze e la Toscana: scritti vari. Pisa, Italy: Pacini, 2013.
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  47. Collected essays on Florence and Tuscany by one of the major and most influential historians of the city and the Tuscan countryside.
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  49. Connell, William, and Andrea Zorzi, eds. Florentine Tuscany: Structures and Practices of Power. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
  50. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511523120Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  51. Primarily concerns the 15th century and later, but there is much on the 14th century and earlier. The Florentine territorial state is the focus of this outstanding collection of essays. Markets, fiscality, demography, relations with subject towns, and Florentine governance of its surrounding region are among the major subjects covered.
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  53. Crum, Roger J., and John T. Paoletti, eds. Renaissance Florence: A Social History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
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  55. The focus of all these essays, many of which take as their chronological beginning the 13th century, is the role of space in the social evolution of the city. Of particular interest for the pre-1400 period are the essays by John Najemy (political space) and Sharon Strocchia (ritual space).
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  57. Raveggi, Sergio, Massimo Tarassi, Daniela Medici, and Patrizia Parenti. Ghibellini, Guelfi e popolo grasso: I detentori del potere politico a Firenze nella seconda metà del Dugento. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1978.
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  59. Essential for Florentine social and political history between 1250 and 1300. Organized chronologically, focuses on successive political regimes: the Ghibelline, the Guelf, the post-1282 priorate, and the years between 1293 and 1300 (Ordinances of Justice and the White-Black conflict). Footnotes and index are indispensable for political and social historians.
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  61. Rubinstein, Nicolai, ed. Florentine Studies: Politics and Society in Renaissance Florence. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern, 1968.
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  63. For essays on pre-1400 topics, see “The Myth of Florence” (D. Weinstein), “Il Buon Tempo Antico” (C. Davis), “The Army of the Florentine Republic” (D. Waley), “The Florentine Territorial State” (M. Becker), “Indirect Taxes or Gabelles” (C. de La Roncière), “From Manor to Mezzadria” (P. Jones), and “Santa Maria Impruneta” (D. Herlihy).
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  65. Guides to Collections, Archives, and Online Publications
  66.  
  67. Florence is particularly fortunate to have such a large number of rich and well-managed archives and libraries for the study of its medieval past, and many them date from the early modern period. The outstanding web portal, Storia di Firenze, which is associated with the University of Florence, provides information about archives, museum exhibitions, lecture programs, publications, biographies of historians, and also offers links to publications by historians (among many other links). The Archivio di Stato di Firenze is the principal repository of documents associated with the medieval past. Archivio Arcivescovile di Firenze, Archivio del Capitolo Metropolitano Fiorentino, and Archivio dell’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore are three of the most important archives for the history of the Florentine Church and visual arts. The national library in Florence or Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, the Biblioteca Riccardiana, and the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana contain some of the most precious manuscripts from the medieval past of the city (and of medieval Europe, for that matter).
  68.  
  69. Archivio Arcivescovile di Firenze.
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  71. Provides an index of the source collections (fondi) available for consultation as well as a history and a list of publications associated with the archive.
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  73. Archivio del Capitolo Metropolitano Fiorentino.
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  75. This outstanding website reviews the history of the cathedral chapter archive as well and the collections, which includes precious parchment charters associated with the history of the cathedral clergy that begin in the 10th century.
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  77. Archivio dell’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore.
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  79. Offers an online inventory of the holdings, the indispensable inventory of 1958. Archive preserves materials associated with the construction and maintenance of the cathedral for over 700 years. Most documents date from the late 14th century, but the archive also includes two 13th-century manuscripts: the Necrologia di Santa Reparata and the cathedral ordinal, Mores et consuetudines canonice Florentine.
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  81. Archivio di Stato di Firenze.
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  83. Principal repository for records associated with medieval Florence. Documents date from the 8th century to 21st-century Florence, organized in 600 separate source collections (fondi). At the main site is online. For the medievalist, a particularly rich collection is the Diplomatico, which includes parchment charters or pergamene from the 8th through 14th centuries. Online access to digitized documents, especially the Diplomatico, is available.
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  85. Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana.
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  87. Opened to the public since the end of the 16th century, the library has among its collections around 11,000 manuscripts. The site offers an overview and history of its main collections, a history of the library, a listing of exhibits as well as a 3-D tour of the library, among many other links.
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  89. Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze.
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  91. Offers detailed information on procedures governing consultations of materials (including research in the manuscript room, or Sala manoscritti), availability of services, lists of catalogs of works available in the library, and inventories of manuscripts and source collections.
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  93. Biblioteca Riccardiana.
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  95. One of the most beautiful libraries in the world, and the site reviews its history as well as describes many of the important manuscripts preserved here since the mid-17th century (it has been a public library since 1815). There are, for example, autographed copies of manuscripts of Boccaccio and Petrarch. Available online are catalogues and inventories of some of its holdings.
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  97. Storia di Firenze.
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  99. Essential online portal for Florentine history. Initiative of the Università degli Studi di Firenze, under direction of Professors Marcello Vergo and Andrea Zorzi. Includes access to websites of archives and libraries, chronology, exhibits, bibliographies (since 2001). Publishes annual journal and books, online and in print, with Florence University Press.
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  101. Primary Sources
  102.  
  103. Before 1250 the documentary record for medieval Florence is spare. Indeed, in the early Middle Ages (600–1000) there are far fewer primary source collections and documents for Florence than there are for many other medieval north Italian cities, but after the middle of the 13th century the number and extent of documentation become extensive. In contrast with Lucca, for example, there is only a scattering of public and ecclesiastical records for early medieval Florence (pre-1000). Exceptions are imperial diplomas, charters or pergamene (beginning in the 10th century), and placita of the marquis. Official documents about public governance and information about the incipient textile industry are also frustratingly rare until the second half of the 13th century. Nevertheless, for pre-13th century Florence there are a number of significant collections in manuscript of parchments and charters (pergamene) in the Diplomatico fondo in the Archivio di Stato. Florentines also began to write their own history in the 13th century (Hartwig 1875–1880). Santini 1952 has some of the earliest official documents relating both to public and to ecclesiastical governance. Notarial protocols preserved in the Archivio di Stato also become extremely numerous after the mid-13th century, and their number increases geometrically in the course of the 14th century and beyond. Chronicle writing in the vernacular also flourishes in 14th-century Florence (Dino Compagni, Villani 1990–1991, and Stefani 1955) as do private family histories or ricordanze (Branca 1999). Jansen, et al. 2009 now provides English readers with a sample of some of the breadth and variety of documents available for Florentine history. See also Schiaffini 1954.
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  105. Bornstein, Daniel, trans. Dino Compagni’s Chronicle of Florence. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986.
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  107. Along with Villani, the most important chronicle for late-13th- and early-14th-century Florentine politics. Narrated by a participant, the text identifies pride and greed in the competition for office as the principal causes for factionalism. Italian edition: Compagni, Dino. Cronica. Edited by G. Luzzatto (Turin, Italy: Einaudi, 1970).
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  109. Branca, Vittore, ed. Merchant Writers of the Italian Renaissance. Translated by Murtha Baca. New York: Marsilio, 1999.
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  111. Originally published in 1986 as Mercanti scrittori, this collection of significant texts associated with Florentine merchants includes excerpts from the ricordanze of Giovanni di Pagolo Morelli, Buonaccorso Pitt, and Donato Velluti, the letter from Boccaccio to Francesco Nelli, and an excerpt fromThe Mirror of Humanity by Domenico Lenzi.
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  113. Hartwig, Otto, ed. Quellen und Forschungen zur ältesten Geschichte der Stadt Florenz. 2 vols. Marburg, Germany: N. G. Elwert, 1875–1880.
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  115. Includes some of the oldest primary sources for the study of medieval Florence. Among the texts assembled here are Sanzanomis Gesta Florentinorum (13th century), Annales Florentini I (oldest annals) and Annales Florentini II, the so-called Chronicle of Brunetto Latini, and lists of podestà and consuls to 1282. Volume 2 published in Halle (N. Niemeyer).
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  117. Jansen, Katherine, Joanna Drell, and Frances Andrews, eds. Medieval Italy: Texts in Translation. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.
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  119. The best collections of primary sources on medieval Italy in English translation. Florence is well represented, with over twenty-five sets of documents, organized by topic.
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  121. Santini, Pietro, ed. Documenti dell’antica costituzione del Comune di Firenze. 2 vols. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1952.
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  123. Essential collection of documents relating to political and institutional history from 1138. Part 1 includes Capitoli (acts of jurisdiction between Florence and other communities, 1138–1250). Part 2 contains documents connected to jurisdictional and civil procedure (1172–1250). Part 3 includes miscellaneous diplomatic documents (1172–1250). Appendix published in 1952 and includes extracts of key texts, including the 1321 episcopal register (Bullettone). Originally published in 1895.
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  125. Schiaffini, Alfredo, ed. Testi fiorentini del Dugento e dei primi del Trecento. Florence: Sansoni, 1954.
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  127. Includes among others the anonymous late-13th-century text, the Cronica Fiorentina compilata nel secolo XIII, the first surviving version of the 1216 Buondelmonte murder. Published earlier in 1926.
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  129. Stefani, Marchionne di Coppo. Cronaca Fiorentina. 2 vols. Edited by Niccolò Rodolico. Bologna: Zanichelli, 1955.
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  131. Written probably between 1378 and 1385, this long and comprehensive chronicle starts with the origins of the city.
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  133. Villani, Giovanni. Nuova Cronica. 3 vols. Edited by Giuseppe Porta. Parma: U. Guanda, 1990–1991.
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  135. Along with Dino Compagni, Giovanni Villani (c. 1280–1348) is the finest chronicler of Florence. His work covers the entire sweep of Florentine history from its origins to the time of his death (presumably the result of plague). Villani’s brother, Matteo (d. 1363), continued the chronicle, and after his death, Matteo’s son, Filippo, took up the pen. The chronicle ends in 1364.
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  137. Journals
  138.  
  139. Two of the most influential and important journals or periodicals in medieval Florentine historiography are the Annali di Storia di Firenze and the Archivio Storico Italiano. Dedicated entirely to the interdisciplinary study of Florentine history, Annali di Storia di Firenze is published in close association with Storia di Firenze, the online portal organized at the initiative of faculty at the Università degli Studi di Firenze. The Archivio Storico Italiano is also an excellent resource to understand the direction of Florentine historiography, although its purview covers all of Italian history. Published three times a year, the journal is associated with the Deputazione di Storia Patria per la Toscana.
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  141. Annali di Storia di Firenze.
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  143. Since 2006 the annual publication associated with the online portal, Storia di Firenze. Organized around single topics each year, with online access to essays based on cutting-edge research. Articles cover all phases of Florentine history, but medieval Florence is well represented.
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  145. Archivio Storico Italiano.
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  147. Since its founding in 1842, this has been the premier journal for Italian history from the early Middle Ages to the 20th century. Many of the most important articles and archival documents associated with medieval Florentine history have appeared within its pages.
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  149. Politics and the Governance of Medieval Florence
  150.  
  151. Political and institutional history has always been important to (if not dominant in) the historiography of medieval Florence since at least the 19th century. However, historians of Florence, unlike many scholars of other Tuscan and northern Italian cities, have been hampered by the paucity of documents before the 13th century. Once Florence emerges as the dominant power in Tuscany after the middle of that century, however, the level and quality of documentation becomes extensive. Nevertheless, there are therefore significant gaps in our understanding of pre-1250 Florentine political history (and economic history, for that matter). For the 13th- and 14th-century commune, since the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, at least two major concerns have dominated historical discourse on medieval Florence: class (whether or not conflict within and between classes was a dominant driver of Florentine politics) and urban/rural relations (whether the relationship between the city and countryside was symbiotic or exploitative). Both Italian and non-Italian historians of medieval Florence have been studying intensively and reevaluating archival records, particularly notarial acts, guild records, and ecclesiastical documents, and they are proposing new interpretations that are changing our view of the Florentine commune before 1400.
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  153. From Late Antiquity to the Early Commune (500 to 1200)
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  155. See also General Overviews: Single-Authored Works. Serious study of the Florentine state began with the Renaissance and early modern humanists (Leonardo Bruni, Francesco Guicciardini, and Niccolò Machiavelli). By the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, Italian, German, and French scholars were writing full surveys of the political and constitutional history of Florence. Santini 1895, Santini (1900), Schneider 1975 are several of the best examples of this genre, and they emphasized a juridical and legal approach. For the early Middle Ages (c. 600–c. 1000), because primary sources are so few, the history of the political development of Florence is particularly problematic. The fullest treatment of early medieval Florence to 1138, the first documented date for the appearance of the consulate, is still Davidsohn 1956–1978 (cited under Single-Authored Works), especially Volume 1. It takes the reader from the foundation of ancient Fiesole to the early 13th century. Thereafter, until de Rosa 1995, there was little major scholarship on the political, economic, and social history of Florence before 1200. A notable contribution is also Pirillo 2001. More recently, scholars have returned to pre-1200 charter (pergamene) collections in the Florentine state archive to return to the early medieval history of Florence. Whereas Cortese 2007 focuses on the countryside and the mid-level aristocracy to explain why there was such a disconnect between city and countryside after the early 12th century, Faini 2010 zeroes in on the city, highlighting like Cortese the transformative importance of the 12th century in Florentine politics and economy. In the 12th century Florence experienced both a demographic surge and a significant wave of urban immigration of both elite and non-elite rural residents that help explain the economic (textiles) and political transformation of the city. An important and decisive stage in the political and economic rise of the city at the beginning of the 13th century was the destruction of the rural town of Semifonte in 1202, and Pirillo 2004 includes essays stemming from a 2002 conference exploring the significance of that event.
  156.  
  157. Cortese, Maria Elena. Signori, castelli, città: l’aristocrazia del territorio fiorentino tra X e XII secolo. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2007.
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  159. Argues that decisive changes occur after 1100. With extinction of the house of Canossa in 1115, lower and middle ranks of the rural aristocracy relinquished urban properties, gravitated around powerful rural lineages, distanced themselves from the city as rural holdings fragmented. The city and countryside separated, and the city reconquered contado in the 12th and 13th centuries.
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  161. Davidsohn, Robert. Storia di Firenze. Vol. 1. Translated by Giovanni Battista Klein. Florence: Sansoni, 1977.
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  163. Still one of most comprehensive and detailed overviews of early medieval Florentine political history to 1200.
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  165. De Rosa, Daniela. Alle origini della Repubblica fiorentina: Dai consoli al ‘Primo Popolo’ (1172–1260). Florence: Arnaud, 1995.
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  167. Before Cortese and Faini, this is one of the first and only studies of Florence before 1200 since Davidsohn 1956–1978 (cited under Single-Authored Works) and Santini 1895 and Santini (1900). Comprehensive in scope, it follows the evolution of urban governance in all its complexity, with significant insights.
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  169. Faini, Enrico. Firenze nell’età romanica (1000–1211): l’espansione urbana, lo sviluppo istituzionale, il rapporto con il territorio. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2010.
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  171. As in Cortese, Faini argues that the period 1000–1200, especially the 12th century, was dramatically transformative. Asserts that demographic growth is a significant cause of that change. As their properties in the countryside increasingly fragmented, rural elites were by 1200 reestablishing residences in the city while immigrants sought employment in the nascent cloth industry.
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  173. Pirillo, Paolo. “Firenze: il vescovo e la città nell’Alto Medioevo.” In Vescovi e città nell’Alto Medioevo: quadri generale e realtà toscane. Edited by G. Francesconi, 179–201. Pistoia, Italy: Società pistoiese di storia patria, 2001.
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  175. The most recent treatment of the Florentine bishopric in the early Middle Ages, focusing in particular on the relations between the city and the bishopric from the 9th through early 12th centuries. Also included in the same essay volume is a study of the diocese of Fiesole by Anna Benvenuti.
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  177. Pirillo, Paolo, ed. Semifonte in Val d’Elsa e i centri di nuova fondazione nell’Italia medievale. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2004.
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  179. Published essays associated with a conference on Semifonte, the town on the periphery of Florentine territory attacked and destroyed by the Florentines in 1202. Essays include those by E. Faini (the Florentine political context), F. Silvestrini (the history of the Valdelsa at the time), and M. Cortese (rural lordships).
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  181. Santini, Pietro. “Studi sull’antica costituzione del Comune di Firenze.” Archivio Storico Italiano 16 (1895): 3–59.
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  183. Constructs a political and social history of Florence, including relations with its surrounding territory, to the end of the 12th century. One theme regarding urban-rural relations is the collaboration between the bishopric and the commune. Urban approaches toward the major rural lineages, bishopric, and marquis also receive attention. The article continues in Volume 25 (1900), pp. 25–86; Volume 26 (1900), pp. 1–80.
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  185. Schneider, Fedor. L’Ordinamento pubblico nella Toscana medievale: i fondamenti dell’amministrazione regia in Toscana dalla fondazione del regno longobardo alla estinzione degli Svevi (568–1268). Edited by Fabbrizio Barbolani di Montauto. Florence: Federazione delle Casse di Risparmio della Toscana, 1975.
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  187. History of royal and imperial governance in Tuscany from the Lombard conquest to the mid-13th century. Particularly useful is chapter 6 (Florence and Fiesole). There is much information on the major monasteries in the two dioceses as well as the locations of imperial, royal, comital, and aristocratic properties.
  188. Find this resource:
  189. The City-Republic (1200–1400)
  190.  
  191. See also General Overviews: Single-Author Works. Among the central concerns among political historians since the 19th century has been the nature of the relationship between urban structures of authority and the countryside. Prior to Ottokar 1962, the consensus tended to view the city as a public entity that gradually expanded its domination of the countryside in an oppressive and exploitative manner. Florentine internal politics therefore became in the late 13th century a battleground between urban (merchants) and rural (the aristocracy) interests. Post-Ottokar studies of the Florentine state have provided more complicated interpretations of city/countryside relations (symbiotic, not conflictual) and more complex and nuanced understandings of internal urban politics and conflicts. For Becker 1967–1968 internal and external governance became decidedly harsher and more oppressive after the 1340s. Whereas De Rosa 1995 re-creates and delineates the governance structure of the major magistracies and offices of the Florentine state before 1260, Najemy 2006 elaborates and develops a class-based thesis in a narrative spanning three centuries (1200–1575). He argues that conflict both within the patrician elite and between that elite and other classes (the popolo and the workers) shaped the direction of Florentine politics and governance from the early 13th to the end of the 16th century. Rodolico 1970 is a reprint of his earlier classic on Florence between 1378 and 1382, four of the most important years in pre-modern European labor history. For over a century there have been few interpretations of internal urban governance without reference to the development of the Florentine territorial state or “dominion.” Cohn 1999 emphasizes that traditions of rural resistance to urban governance did much to create the kind of territorial state that had emerged by the early 15th century. See also Brucker 1962 and Salvemini 1966.
  192.  
  193. Becker, Marvin. Florence in Transition. 2 vols. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967–1968.
  194. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  195. Volume one is a magisterial, interdisciplinary survey from the late 13th to the mid-14th century, with the 1340s emphasized as a major turning point. Mounting pressures (political, economic, social) transformed Florentine political ideals and culture of governance from a “gentle” to a more authoritarian or “stern” paideia (political culture).
  196. Find this resource:
  197. Brucker, Gene. Florentine Politics and Society, 1343–1378. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962.
  198. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  199. Looks at Florence during three decades of crisis in the 14th century. Brucker’s narrative follows the relations between the patriciate, the gente nuova, the petty bourgeoisie, and the workers, focusing on the slow demise of the ruling oligrarchy after 1343 and the rise of a new broad-based regime in 1378.
  200. Find this resource:
  201. Cohn, Samuel Kline, Jr. Creating the Florentine State: Peasants and Rebellion, 1348–1434. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
  202. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511496448Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  203. Argues that previous approaches to state building tended to view the rural population as passive and acted upon by urban authorities rather than as actors helping to shape the direction of urban governance. This study argues instead that centralization actually benefited some communities in the countryside, especially in the mountains.
  204. Find this resource:
  205. De Rosa, Daniela. Alle origini della Repubblica fiorentina: dai consoli al “Primo Popolo” (1172–1260). Florence: Arnaud, 1995.
  206. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  207. One of the first and major studies of Florence before 1200 since the 19th century. Comprehensive in scope, it follows the evolution of urban governance in all its complexity, with significant insights.
  208. Find this resource:
  209. Najemy, John. A History of Florence, 1200–1575. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006.
  210. DOI: 10.1002/9780470754870Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  211. Essential political history of Florence, told within an interdisciplinary perspective. Chapters 1–7 take the reader to the early 15th century.
  212. Find this resource:
  213. Ottokar, N. Il Comune di Firenze alla fine del Dugento, 2d ed. Turin, Italy: Einaudi, 1962.
  214. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  215. Analysis of late-13th-century politics that broke with previous consensus, represented by Caggese, Salvemini, and Davidsohn. Rejected class conflict and emphasized the social homogeneity of a ruling elite split instead by factionalism and opportunism. Anti-magnate legislation targeted not a class but the abuses and threats to order.
  216. Find this resource:
  217. Rodolico, Niccolò. La democrazia fiorentina nel suo tramonto (1378–1382). Rome: Multigrafica editrice, 1970.
  218. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  219. The reprint of the original 1905 version. For Rodolico the historical context for the revolution of 1378 and the subsequent conservative backlash was the conflict between the major and minor guilds over the direction of the Florentine government and the political demands of cloth workers to form their own guild.
  220. Find this resource:
  221. Salvemini, Gaetano. Magnati e popolani in Firenze dal 1280 al 1295. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1966.
  222. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  223. Masterly account of Florentine political and social history in the last quarter of the 13th century. Interprets the anti-magnate legislation and the Ordinances of Justice in terms of class conflict, pitting “producers” (primarily rural, noble magnates) against “consumers” (the urban elite or popolo grasso, worried about food provisioning for city). First published in 1899.
  224. Find this resource:
  225. Law
  226.  
  227. Dameron 1992 examines Florentine (and north Italian) anti-magnate legislation to show how it marked at the end of the 13th century two major developments: the re-definition of elite status from knighthood to guild membership and the creation of new mechanisms for the resolution of conflict. Zorzi 1995 also explores the political and judicial contexts for the passage the anti-magnate Ordinances of Justice. Stern 1994, Zorzi 1994, and Tanzini 2004 all, however, review the general development of Florentine judicial and statutory history and criminal law with a focus on the late 14th and early 15th centuries. See also Magnates, Knighthood, and the Popolo.
  228.  
  229. Dameron, George. “Revisiting the Italian Magnates.” Viator 23 (1992): 167–187.
  230. DOI: 10.1484/J.VIATOR.2.301278Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  231. Reviews anti-magnate legislation in northern Italy as a whole, with a focus on Florence. Argues that passage of statutes against magnates at end of 13th century redefined criteria for elite status from knighthood to guild membership.
  232. Find this resource:
  233. Stern, Laura. The Criminal Law System of Medieval and Renaissance Florence. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
  234. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  235. Examines criminal law system from the mid-13th to early 15th century, particularly the institutional history of major judicial officials and magistracies. Argues that the Florentine territorial state (defined as publically minded, accountable, centralized) persisted through the early 15th century and did not fall prey to patrician manipulation in the late 14th.
  236. Find this resource:
  237. Tanzini, Lorenzo. Statuti e legislazione a Firenze dal 1355 al 1415: lo statuto cittadino del 1409. Florence: L. S. Olschki, 2004.
  238. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  239. Focusing on the late-14th-century crises and proceeding chronologically, Tanzini offers an exploration of the historical background for the revision of Florentine statutes in 1409.
  240. Find this resource:
  241. Zorzi, Andrea. “The Judicial System in Florence in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.” In Crime, Society, and the Law in Renaissance Italy. Edited by Trevor Dean and K. J. P. Lowe, 40–58. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
  242. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511523410Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  243. Explores operation of criminal justice from the mid-14th to late 15th century. System established by the early commune (denunciation by parish watches, tribunals staffed by professional foreigners, order maintained by armed companies) entered a crisis in the late 14th century, leading to a more top-down, executive controlled, and authoritarian judicial system.
  244. Find this resource:
  245. Zorzi, Andrea. “Politica e giustizia a Firenze al tempo degli Ordinamenti anti-magnatizi.” In Ordinamenti di Giustizia fiorentini. Edited by Vanna Arrighi, 105–147. Florence: Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali, 1995.
  246. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  247. One of the most important essays written on the late-13th-century Ordinances of Justice, based on the paper presented at a conference marking the 700th anniversary of their promulgation.
  248. Find this resource:
  249. Sources
  250.  
  251. Florentines began to keep good records of their governance process from the mid-13th century. Published primary sources connected to the political history of the Florentine republic began to appear at the end of the 19th century. Both Brattö 1956 (cited under Economy: Sources) and Paoli 2004 are concerned with the battle of Montaperti in 1260 and its consequences. Conflicts between urban authorities and exiles are also at the heart of Klein and Sartini 2004, a 1302 book that assigns punishments to exiles who obstructed the flow of grain into the city. Other published sources concern diplomatic exchanges (Guasti and Gherardi 1866–1898), the Ordinances of Justice (Cardini 1993) and the legislative process. Whereas Pinto, et al. 1999 contains two of the most important statutes in Florentine history (actually, a redaction of earlier laws and ordinances), Gherardi 1896–1898, Klein 1995, and De Angelis 2000 provide important information about the deliberations and votes in the communal councils.
  252.  
  253. Cardini, Franco, ed. Ordinamenti di Giustizia, 1293–1993. Florence: SP 44, 1993.
  254. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  255. The most recent edition of the Ordinances of Justice, containing reprints of texts previously published in 1855 (F. Bonaini) and 1899 (G. Salvemini).
  256. Find this resource:
  257. De Angelis, Laura, ed. I Consigli della Repubblica fiorentina: Libri fabarum XIII et XIV (1326–1331). Rome: Ministero per il beni e le attività culturali ufficio centrale per il beni archivistici, 2000.
  258. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  259. The records of votes, opinions of voters, proposals, and deliberations of the principal councils (Consigli) of the city from 1326 to 1331. Whether a proposed law gets through is indicated.
  260. Find this resource:
  261. Gherardi, Alessandro, ed. Le Consulte della repubblica fiorentina dall’anno MCCLXXX al MCCXCVIII. 2 vols. Florence: G. C. Sansoni, 1896–1898.
  262. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  263. The records of votes, arguments, proposals, debates, and deliberations regarding the governance of the city of Florence in the councils from 1280 to 1298. Major source of information on the political history of the city.
  264. Find this resource:
  265. Guasti, Cesare, and Alessandro Gherardi, eds. I Capitoli del Comune di Firenze. 2 vols. Florence: M. Cellini, 1866–1898.
  266. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  267. Diplomatic exchanges involving Florentine authorities and other towns.
  268. Find this resource:
  269. Klein, Francesca, ed. I Consigli della Repubblica fiorentina: Libri fabarum XVII (1338–40). Rome: Ministero per il beni e le attività culturali ufficio centrale per il beni archivistici, 1995.
  270. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  271. Record of the bills, deliberations, and voting for the period in the communal councils between 1338 and 1340.
  272. Find this resource:
  273. Klein, Francesca, and Simone Sartini, eds. Il Libro del Chiodo. Rome: Polistampa, 2004.
  274. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  275. A 1302 list and description of offenses and punishments of those found guilty by the commune of having obstructed for political reasons the flow of foodstuffs, especially grain, into Florence across the mountains from the north. Also in another edition, edited by Fabrizio Ricciardelli (Rome: Istituto storico Italian per il Medio Evo, 1998).
  276. Find this resource:
  277. Paoli, Cesare, ed. Il Libro di Montaperti. Florence: Firenzo Libri, 2004.
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  279. One of the most precious texts in Florentine history. Composed of several registers that served several offices of the Florentine army, it records the efforts of the commune to provide its army in its war with Siena with sufficient food, particularly bread and grain supplies. Reprint of 1899 edition.
  280. Find this resource:
  281. Pinto, Giuliano, Francesco Silvestrini, and Andrea Zorzi, eds. Statuti della Repubblica Fiorentina. 2 vols. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1999.
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  283. A new two-volume edition of the two-volume work originally published 1910–1921 by Romolo Caggese. Volume 1 is the Statuto del Capitano del Popolo degli anni 1322–1325, and Volume 2 is the Statuto del Podestà dell’anno 1325. They constitute two of the most important statutes in early-14th-century Florence.
  284. Find this resource:
  285. Society
  286.  
  287. Perhaps no area of historical research on medieval Florence since the 1960s has yielded more exciting and productive results than social history, especially with regard to the history of women, gender, and the family. A major paradox in the history of medieval Florence, however, is that its immense prosperity and demographic growth after the mid-13th century were accompanied by significant and growing factionalism both within and between various social groups. The level of social conflict was most intense at the end of the 14th century, culminating in the Ciompi Revolt of 1378. Consequently, at least three major concerns have occupied Florentine social historians since around the mid-20th century. First, there has been a concerted attempt to recover and understand the lives of previously understudied Florentines (women, the poor, workers, children, immigrants). Second, the growing interest in women’s history from the last quarter of the 20th century led many historians to a systematic examination of marriage, the dowry, and the rights (or lack thereof) of women in the law. Third, preoccupation with the social history of the Florentine social and political elite has persisted for over a century, particularly as scholars have attempted to understand better the reasons for intra-class factional violence and interclass social conflict.
  288.  
  289. Demography
  290.  
  291. Since Plesner 1979 and Fiumi 1957, both path-breaking studies on Florentine population and immigration, the field of Florentine medieval demography has benefited from significant new research. Whereas Ginatempo and Sandri 1990 provides comparative data on Florence and its territory in relation to other city-states over four centuries, Day 2001 and Day 2002 focuses on 13th- and early-14th-century Florence, with particular attention to the topics of rural immigration and the textile industry. Providing a useful research resource for historians of the Florentine countryside, Pirillo 2005–2008 surveys population settlements in the first half of the 14th century, offering a listing of all types of residences and properties (among others) appearing in archival sources, organized by parish (popolo). A third volume focuses on fortified settlements, 1280–1380.
  292.  
  293. Day, William R., Jr. “Population Growth and Productivity: Rural-Urban Migration and the Expansion of the Manufacturing Sector in Thirteenth Century Florence.” In Labour and Labour Markets Between Town and Countryside (Middle Ages-19th Century). Edited by Bruno Blondé, Eric Vanhaute, and Michèle Galand, 82–110. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2001.
  294. DOI: 10.1484/M.CORN-EB.6.09070802050003050102080105Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  295. Day argues that rural immigrants from the lower social strata account for a considerable portion of population growth in the city in the 13th century, attracted by employment in the growing export-oriented woolen textile industry, already well developed by 1275. Others moving to the city remained unemployed and indigent.
  296. Find this resource:
  297. Day, W. R., Jr. “The Population of Florence before the Black Death: Survey and Synthesis.” Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002): 93–129
  298. DOI: 10.1016/S0304-4181(02)00002-7Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  299. Florence experienced dramatic population growth from the end of the 12th century. Day argues that rural landowners were among those moving into the city, but the majority of rural immigrants were landless peasants and poor farmers. Many came from outside the contado, and most were seeking employment in manufacturing (textiles).
  300. Find this resource:
  301. Fiumi, Enrico. “Fioritura e decadenza dell’economia fiorentina.” Archivio Storico Italiano 115 (1957): 385–439.
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  303. Fiumi surveys and details data on the medieval Florentine population, and argues that population growth and immigration into the city in the 12th and 13th centuries were key factors that help account for Florentine prosperity in the 13th and early 14th centuries. The article continues in Volume 116 (1958), pp. 443–510; Volume 117 (1959), pp. 427–502.
  304. Find this resource:
  305. Ginatempo, Maria, and Lucia Sandri. L’Italia delle città: il popolamento urbano tra Medioevo e Rinascimento (secoli XIII-XVI). Florence: Le Lettere, 1990.
  306. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  307. Essential for understanding population trends in both Florence and Tuscany. M. Ginatempo’s section on Tuscany reviews all the primary sources of information, providing useful comparative data on the cities of the region.
  308. Find this resource:
  309. Pirillo, Paolo. Forme e strutture del popolamento nel contado fiorentino. 3 vols. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2005–2008.
  310. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  311. The first two volumes provide a census and listing of all references to types of residence, landed holdings, fields, gardens (among others) mentioned in archival sources for the first half of the 14th century, organized by parish (popolo) and baptismal district (piviere). Third volume examines fortified settlements, 1280–1380.
  312. Find this resource:
  313. Plesner, Johan. L’Emigrazione dalla campagna all città libera nel XIII secolo. Florence: Francesco Papafava, 1979.
  314. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  315. Appearing first in French in 1934 and influenced by Ottokar, Plesner argued that it was not the oppressed poor who immigrated into the city in the 13th century but the economically prosperous landowners who did so and maintained ties to the countryside. The contado conquers the city, not vice versa. Originally published in 1934.
  316. Find this resource:
  317. Magnates, Knighthood, and the Popolo
  318.  
  319. Stahl 1965 provides one of the earliest major studies of the Florentine nobility and knighthood in the 13th century since Salvemini 1972 and Salvemini 1966 (cited under the City-Republic (1200–1400)). Since the 19th century, the social origins and definition of the legal category of “magnate” continues to generate new studies and various theories (Raveggi, et al. 1978, Lansing 1991, Klapisch-Zuber 2006, and Diacciati 2011).
  320.  
  321. Diacciati, Silvia. Popolani e magnati: Società e politica nella Firenze del Duecento. Spoleto, Italy: Fondazione Centro italiano di studi sull’alto Medioevo, 2011.
  322. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  323. Comprehensive analysis of magnates versus popolani conflict within context of entire 13th century. Highlights role of ideology, culture, and political ideas: situates magnates as heirs of knightly families (milites), as dominant since 12th century, as well as violent, resistant to state authority. Popolani devoted to values of peace and concord guaranteed by commune.
  324. Find this resource:
  325. Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane. Retour à la cité: Les magnats de Florence, 1340–1440. Paris: Éditions de l’École des hautes etudes en sciences sociales, 2006.
  326. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  327. Traces the ongoing roles and perceptions of magnates in Florentine society and politics from end of 13th century, with particular focus on second half of the 14th.
  328. Find this resource:
  329. Lansing, Carol. The Florentine Magnates. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.
  330. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  331. Lansing approaches the legal category of magnate within its 13th century context. Argues that Florentine authorities used the label to describe those who threaten the stability of the commune and who possess a political culture based primarily on a reliance on kinship ties to acquire and maintain power.
  332. Find this resource:
  333. Raveggi, Sergio, Massimo Tarassi, Daniela Medici, and Patrizia Parenti. Ghibellini, Guelfi e popolo grasso: I detentori del potere politico a Firenze nella seconda metà del Dugento. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1978.
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  335. The principal prosopographic study of the Florentine ruling class for the second half of the 13th century. Includes important information on family origins and political offices.
  336. Find this resource:
  337. Salvemini, Gaetano. La dignità cavalleresca nel Comune di Firenze e altri scritti. Edited by Ernesto Sestan. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1972.
  338. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  339. Salvemini’s classic study on the origins of knighthood in Florence, rooted in his conviction that class conflict was a major driver of historical change. Originally published in 1896.
  340. Find this resource:
  341. Stahl, B. Adel und Volk im Florentiner Dugento. Cologne: Böhlau, 1965.
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  343. Among its many other themes, the book traces in detail the extension and expansion of Florentine hegemony at expense of the powerful rural families, including the Conti Alberti (not the banking family), the Cadolingi, and the Guidi. Also considered are the approaches of the Commune to church property in the countryside.
  344. Find this resource:
  345. The Poor
  346.  
  347. La Roncière 1974 is a study of the poor and the starting point for subsequent studies on poverty, including Henderson 1994. Henderson 1994 primarily focuses on the development and history of confraternities, but it also includes a comprehensive overview of the poor in Florence both before and after the Black Death (1348). See also Law.
  348.  
  349. Henderson, John. Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence. Oxford: Clarendon, 1994.
  350. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  351. Provides a wealth of information on poverty (definitions, numbers, charitable work by confraternities) for the late 13th and 14th centuries (especially informative are chapter 7 on the period before the Black Death and chapter 8 on the decades following the 1348 pandemic).
  352. Find this resource:
  353. La Roncière, Charles-Marie de. “Pauvres et pauvreté à Florence au xive siècle.” In Études sur l’histoire de la pauvrété (Moyen Age-XVIe siècle). Vol. 1. Edited by Michel Mollat, 661–745. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1974.
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  355. Classic study of poverty in 14th-century Florence. Among the arguments made here is that Florentine authorities defined the poor as beggars or friars, ignoring the underlying economic reasons for much of the poverty in the city and countryside of the working poor.
  356. Find this resource:
  357. The Laboring Classes
  358.  
  359. In the second half of the 20th century, there was a major surge of scholarly interest in the history of working people in the 14th century and in particular the Ciompi Revolt of 1378. Whereas Rodolico 1980 (first published 1945) and Rutenburg 1971 (first published 1958) argued that the revolt was rooted in class conflict between workers and manufacturers, resembling a modern workers’ revolt, Brucker 1968 criticized that thesis for relying too heavily on chronicles and argued that the Ciompi were basically conservative and respectful of tradition. Cohn 1980 looked at notarial and criminal records to suggest that there was a marked weakening of class solidarity among working people in the course of the 14th and 15th century. The 1378 conference marking the 600th anniversary of the Ciompi (Il tumulti dei Ciompi 1981) brought together a wide variety of perspectives and viewpoints on the event. However, interest in the revolt continued to increase, and the 1990s saw a resurgence of new perspectives on the Ciompi, particularly in Stella 1993 and Trexler 1993.
  360.  
  361. Brucker, Gene. “The Ciompi Revolution.” In Florentine Studies: Politics and Society in Renaissance Florence. Edited by Nicolai Rubinstein, 314–356. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1968.
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  363. Critical of previous interpretations of the Ciompi Revolt for assuming that the cloth industry resembled a modern capitalist operation, relying excessively on chronicles to the exclusive of archival sources, and reducing motives to socioeconomic interests of specific groups. Emphasizes the conservatism and respect for tradition of the revolutionaries.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. Cohn, Samuel Kline, Jr. The Laboring Classes in Renaissance Florence. New York: Academic Press, 1980.
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  367. Relying on criminal and notarial records, and focusing on two periods (1343–1383 and 1450–1530), Cohn argues that although the patriciate had developed a sense of class solidarity by the 15th century, the poor and working class had become progressively more parochial. At same time, immigrants remained isolated.
  368. Find this resource:
  369. Istituto nazionale di studi sul Rinascimento. Il tumulto dei Ciompi: un momento di storia fiorentina ed europea. Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1981.
  370. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  371. Includes thirteen essays based on papers presented at a 1979 conference commemorating the 600th anniversary of the Ciompi Revolt. Includes (among others) contributions by Giuliano Pinto, Samuel Kline Cohn Jr., Charles de La Roncière, Aidetoshi Hoshino, John Najemy, and Ernesto Sestan.
  372. Find this resource:
  373. Rodolico, Niccolò. I Ciompi: una pagina di storia del proletariat operaio. Florence: Sansoni, 1980.
  374. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  375. For Rodolico, the Ciompi Revolt of 1378 marked the first time in European history that an urban working class (with working-class consciousness) attempted (but failed) to take over and then subject state institutions to its political and economic program.
  376. Find this resource:
  377. Rutenburg, Victor. Popolo e movimenti popolari nell’Italia del ‘300 e ‘400. Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino, 1971.
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  379. Focuses on popular movements in three cities at the end of the 14th century: Siena, Perugia, and Florence. Like Rodolico, Rutenburg argues that class conflict at the center of the Ciompi Revolt of 1378 pitted salaried workers against manufacturers. Three chapters cover the three months of the uprising.
  380. Find this resource:
  381. Stella, Alessandro. La révolte des Ciompi: Les homes, les lieux, le travail. Paris: Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 1993.
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  383. In a break with previous historiography on the Ciompi, Stella identifies the complex and varied motivations of the rebels through a bottom-up analysis, providing among other contributions to the scholarship a meticulous social analysis of their leaders and a startling portrayal of impoverishment.
  384. Find this resource:
  385. Trexler, Richard. Power and Dependence in Renaissance Florence. Vol. 3, The Workers of Renaissance Florence. Edited by Richard Trexler. Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1993.
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  387. Bookended by an introduction and bibliography, these three previously published articles focus on the Ciompi Revolt of 1378: “Herald of the Ciompi: The Authorship of an Anonymous Florentine Chronicle,” “Follow the Flag: The Ciompi Revolt Seen from the Streets,” and “Neighbors and Comrades: The Revolutionaries of Florence, 1378.”
  388. Find this resource:
  389. Marriage and the Family
  390.  
  391. The abundance of primary sources on marriage and the family from the late 13th century forward, including the family chronicles or ricordanze that begin to appear at the end of the 13th, has led to a rich literature on the two subjects in the past generation. Jones 1956 was one of the first analyses of Florentine ricordanze and argues for the ongoing and uninterrupted devotion of the Florentine elite to landed property. La Roncière 1973 emphasizes the same point in a case study focusing on a 14th-century money-changer. He also relies on a family chronicle to explore the history of the Velluti lineage. Marriage and kinship ties concern Kirshner 1991 (loss of wife’s control of non-dotal assets by 1325), Klapisch-Zuber 1991 (manipulation of kinship ties by urban authorities to maintain order), and Kuehn 1991 (ongoing authority of father over married daughter). Padgett 2010 uses statistical analyses to show how marriage links helped maintain upper-class lineages in an elite that was also simultaneously open to the upwardly mobile from at least the end of the 13th century. See also La Roncière 1977.
  392.  
  393. Jones, P. J. “Florentine Families and Florentine Diaries in the Fourteenth Century.” Papers of the British School at Rome 24 (1956): 183–205.
  394. DOI: 10.1017/S0068246200006930Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  395. Relying on Florentine ricordanze (family records), the author argues that land and investment in agriculture remained a priority of a socially varied and composite urban elite throughout the 14th century. In other words, there was no sharp demarcation within the Florentine elite between urban commercial and rural agricultural interests.
  396. Find this resource:
  397. Kirshner, Julius. “Materials for a Gilded Cage: Non-dotal Assets in Florence, 1300–1500.” In The Family in Italy from Antiquity to the Present. Edited by David Kertzer and Richard Saller, 184–207. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991.
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  399. Explores the history of the concept of “non-dotal assets.” Argues that it was a legal construct to describe various types of property belonging to a married woman that fell under the full control of the husband as early as 1325. Florentine law did provide some safeguards for the wife’s patrimony.
  400. Find this resource:
  401. Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane. “Kinship and Politics in Fourteenth Century Florence.” In The Family in Italy from Antiquity to the Present. Edited by David Kertzer and Richard Saller, 208–228. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991.
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  403. By making agnatic relatives of members of elite kinship groups (case) responsible for the behavior of their kinsmen, Florence and other communes were able to stem the violence caused by them and promote public order.
  404. Find this resource:
  405. Kuehn, Thomas. “Women, Marriage, and Patria Potestas in Late Medieval Florence.” In Law, Family, and Women: Toward a Legal Anthropology of Renaissance Italy. Edited by Thomas Kuehn, 197–211. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1991.
  406. DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226457659.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  407. Contrary to the assumptions of many social and legal historians, marriage in 14th- and 15th-century Florence did not end the father’s power (patria potestas) over the married woman. This power and property (dowry of both the woman and her mother) continued to link her to the father.
  408. Find this resource:
  409. La Roncière, Charles-Marie de. Un changeur florentin du trecento: Lippo di Fede del Sega (1285 env.-1363 env.). Paris: S. E. V. P. E. N., 1973.
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  411. Argues for the continued importance of rural properties and landed rents to this unexceptional and modestly successful money changer. His landed holdings, both urban and rural ones, were of tremendous importance to him. Yet, like great banking families, he made little to no investments in land and few if any changes in land management.
  412. Find this resource:
  413. La Roncière, Charles-Marie de. “Une famille Florentine au XIVe siècle: Les Velluti.” In Famille et parenté dans l’Occident médiévale. Edited by Georges Duby and Jacques Le Goff, 227–248. Rome: École française de Rome, 1977.
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  415. An in-depth study of the family chronicle (ricordanza) associated with the Velluti family, written between 1367 and 1370 by Donato di Berto dei Velluti (d. 1370). Half the chronicle concerns political events in which Donato was involved; half comprises topics associated with his family, which was of recent origin.
  416. Find this resource:
  417. Padgett, John. “Open Eite? Society Mobility, Marriage, and Family in Florence, 1282–1494.” Renaissance Quarterly 63 (2010): 357–411.
  418. DOI: 10.1086/655230Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  419. Statistical analysis examining levels of social mobility, marriage patterns, and family structures for the period between 1282 and 1494. Padgett argues that through marriage ties ruling lineages maintained class position. However, there was also considerable upward social mobility by middle-strata families into this open elite after the Ciompi Revolt 1378.
  420. Find this resource:
  421. Women and Gender
  422.  
  423. A significant topic in the past generation with regards to the history of medieval Florentine women has, as has been true for other medieval Italian communes, centered on their position within the lineage, the impact of the dowry system, their quality of life, and their religious lives and communities. Lansing 1991 examines the position of urban Florentine women in the male-dominated lineage of the 13th century. Klapisch-Zuber 1985, Chabot 1988, and Chabot 2011 paint a dark picture of how the dowry system can constrain widows’ choices and force them into poverty. Kirshner 1978 and Chabot 2011 both focus on the central role of the dowry to Florentine economic and social life. With regard to their religious lives, however, Benvenuti Papi 1990 and Benvenuti Papi 1996 describe the distinctive features of women’s religious communities and traditions that developed in Florence. They demonstrate that through their religious choices many women (including widows) were able to live independently and take some control over their own lives, even though they did so within constraints imposed by male authority in the form of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.
  424.  
  425. Benvenuti Papi, Anna. “In Castro Poenitentiae”: Santità e società feminile nell’Italia medieval. Rome: Herder, 1990.
  426. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  427. Indispensable for the study of gender, history of women’s spirituality, and development of models of female sanctity in medieval Florence. Of particular attention, among many, are Part 2 (female saints) and Part 3 (female penitential communities, religious women in the 13th and 14th centuries, public assistance, and marginalized women).
  428. Find this resource:
  429. Benvenuti Papi, Anna. “Mendicant Friars and Female Pinzochere in Tuscany: From Social Marginality to Models of Sanctity.” In Women and Religion in Medieval and Renaissance Italy. Edited by Daniel Bornstein and Roberto Rusconi, 84–103. Translated by Margery J. Schneider. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
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  431. Concerns Tuscany in general, but the essay devotes considerable attention to Florence (e.g., Umiliana dei Cerchi). Shows how many female saints were socially marginalized, living outside normative family structures (many were widows), but managed to find a sense of community in new associations (such as Third Orders) created by the mendicant orders.
  432. Find this resource:
  433. Chabot, Isabelle. “Widowhood and Poverty in late medieval Florence.” Continuity and Change 3.2 (1988): 291–311.
  434. DOI: 10.1017/S0268416000000989Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  435. The category widows were relegated to was one of legal inferiority, and dowries, even when recovered, often did not provide sufficient support. Those most at risk for falling into poverty were poor widows of workers and artisans and women for whom widowhood marked a decline in social status.
  436. Find this resource:
  437. Chabot, Isabelle. La dette des familles: Femmes, lignage, et patrimoine à Florence aux XIVe et XVe siècles. Rome: École française de Rome, 2011.
  438. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  439. Based on an analysis of ricordanze (accounts of family history), testaments, private correspondence, and the catasto of 1427, Chabot offers a comprehensive study of both the development and the consequences of the legal and social history of the dowry and Florentine inheritance rules in the 14th and 15th centuries.
  440. Find this resource:
  441. Kirshner, Julius. Pursuing Honor While Avoiding Sin: The Monte delle Doti of Florence. Milan: A. Giuffre Editore, 1978.
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  443. Classic study of the Monte delle doti, the Florentine dowry fund created in 1425 that became a major institution of urban finance. Fathers deposited money that sons-in-laws redeemed with interest. Also reproduces and explores the positive legal opinion (consilium) on the Monte delle doti by Angelo da Chivasso.
  444. Find this resource:
  445. Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane. “The ‘Cruel Mother’: Maternity, Widowhood and Dowry in Florence in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.” In Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance Italy. Translated by Lydia Cochrane, 117–131. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.
  446. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  447. Males owned family houses, defined kinship, and transferred property to heirs. This study explores the implications and anxieties among men regarding decisions of widows regarding where they should live or whether they should re-marry. “Cruel mothers” were those widows who re-married and left former husband’s home without children but with a dowry.
  448. Find this resource:
  449. Lansing, Carol. The Florentine Magnates. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.
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  451. Chapter 6 (“Disaffection From the Lineage”) and chapter 7 (“Women Within the Lineage”) argue that 12th- and 13th-century family structure excluded women just as male-dominated lineage interests shaped their lives, their dowries, and the choices of husband.
  452. Find this resource:
  453. Economy
  454.  
  455. For most of the Middle Ages, until the mid- to late 13th century, the economies of Pisa, Lucca, and Siena were more productive and diversified with respect to Florence, especially in the areas of banking, manufacturing, and commerce. However, after the mid-13th century the economy of Florence surpassed those of its Tuscan neighbors, and the city by 1300 had become one of the most populated cities in Europe and a major center for banking and woolen textiles. Both a cause and a consequence of this growth were the ties between Florence with the Kingdom of Naples and between Florence and the papacy.
  456.  
  457. Overviews
  458.  
  459. Davidsohn 1956–1978 provides a comprehensive overview of the general direction of the Florentine economy, and Luzzatto 1961 places Florence within the Italian (and Tuscan) context. Fiumi 1957 (cited under Demography) breaks with the previous historiographical consensus and argues for a symbiotic (non-exploitative) relationship of city to countryside. For him population growth and immigration into the city contributed to the expansion of the Florentine economy in the late 13th century. La Roncière 1976 zeroes in on the regional economy, particularly economic networks and markets associated with foodstuffs, and La Roncière 1982 observes that the consequences of 14th-century crises led to the depopulation of the countryside as rural immigration into the city increased. Whereas Malanima 1983 suggests that the unique combination of a strong manufacturing and agricultural sector helps explain the rise of Florence to regional supremacy, Pinto 1993 is skeptical that there is any fully complete explanation for this growth. However, he does emphasize an important distinguishing feature about Florence: the pervasive presence of a mercantile culture, penetrating into all levels of the economy. Abulafia 1981 has highlighted the profound connections and interdependence of the Florentine economy with southern Italy and Sicily in banking, commerce (grain), and textiles. Finally, Goldthwaite 2009 neatly summarizes some of the major reasons for the rise of Florence to regional economic hegemony in the late 13th and early 14th century, paying particular attention to population growth and to the character and initiative of Florentine merchants. Faini 2010, cited under From Late Antiquity to the Early Commune (500 to 1200), offers original perspectives on the economy in the 11th and 12th century, specifically regarding the economic surge at the end of the twelfth.
  460.  
  461. Abulafia, David. “Southern Italy and the Florentine Economy, 1265–1370.” Economic History Review 33.3 (August 1981): 377–388.
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  463. In this significant essay, Abulafia explores the reasons why there were such close connections between Florence and the economy of southern Italy. The reasons were political (favored by and allied with the Angevins) and economic (imported grain for Florentines, loans, and exported cloth for the South). Reprinted in Italy, Sicily, and the Mediterranean, 1100–1400 (London: Variorum Reprints, 1987).
  464. Find this resource:
  465. Davidsohn, Robert. Storia di Firenze. 8 vols. Translated by Giovanni Battista Klein. Florence: Sansoni, 1956–1978.
  466. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  467. Volume 6 (“Industria, arti, commercio, e finanze”) and chapter 14 of Volume 1 (“La città e le sue fabbriche”) are especially relevant for the economic history of Florence.
  468. Find this resource:
  469. Goldthwaite, Richard. The Economy of Renaissance Florence. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2009.
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  471. Focus is Renaissance Florence (1400 and after), but the introduction is a succinct and lucid exploration of reasons for the supremacy of the Florentine economy in Tuscany by 1300: population growth and a monetizing market, textiles, food provisioning, the decline of rival cities, and enterprising Florentine merchants abroad.
  472. Find this resource:
  473. La Roncière, Charles-Marie de. Florence, centre économique régional au XIVe siècle: Le marché des denrées de premier nécessité à Florence et dans sa campagne et les conditions de vie des salariés, 1320–1380. 5 vols. Aix-en-Provence, France: S. O. D. E. B., 1976.
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  475. Exhaustively documented, detailed, and comprehensive overview of the Florentine economy and of the market for foodstuffs over a sixty-year period in the 14th century, with significant attention given to market location, prices, measurements, urban polices, salaries, and road networks, among other topics.
  476. Find this resource:
  477. La Roncière, Charles-Marie de. Prix et salaires à Florence au xive siècle, 1280–1380. Rome: École française de Rome, 1982.
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  479. Argues that between 1280 and 1380 both prices and wages rose. Economically, Florence recovered quickly from the plague, but post-plague immigration from the countryside to the city left the contado impoverished. Includes comprehensive examinations of measurements for food, population, salaries, and indirect taxes (gabelles).
  480. Find this resource:
  481. Luzzatto, Gino. An Economic History of Italy from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century. Translated by Philip Jones. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1961.
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  483. The best general survey of medieval Italian economic history in English. Particularly useful for the history of Florence is the author’s ability to situate the rapid rise of Florence within the context of the economic conditions of its neighboring communes (Lucca, Pisa, and Siena).
  484. Find this resource:
  485. Malanima, Paolo. “La formazione di una regione economica: La Toscana nei secoli XIII-XV.” Società e storia 20 (1983): 229–269.
  486. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  487. Puts forth the thesis that the development of a significant and productive manufacturing sector, as well as a strong agricultural economy to sustain it, helped set Florence apart from other Tuscan communes.
  488. Find this resource:
  489. Pinto, Giuliano. “L’Economia della Toscana nella seconda metà del duecento.” In Toscana medieval: Paesaggi e realtà sociali. 13–24. Florence: Le Lettere, 1993.
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  491. Pinto briefly explores the role of the Tuscan communes in the commercial revolution of the later Middle Ages (c. 1000–c. 1300), with particular accent on Florence. No argument can fully explain its sudden hegemony, including Malanima’s thesis, according to the author. Pinto however emphasizes its pervasive mercantile culture.
  492. Find this resource:
  493. Sources
  494.  
  495. These six published sources offer a variety of texts related to the Florentine economy in the 13th and 14th centuries. Whereas Lenzi 1978 is the key source of information on the grain market for pre-1400 Florence (outside of archival documents), Masi 1934 provides insight into the grain provisioning policies of the city, and Paoli 1862 has edited documents important to mid-14th-century labor history. For banking and commerce, Sapori 1934 and Sapori 1952 are useful: the author was the first historian to study Florentine account books systematically. See also Brattö 1956.
  496.  
  497. Brattö, Olof, ed. Liber extimationum (Il libro degli Estimi). An. MCCLXIX. Gothenburg, Sweden: Elander, 1956.
  498. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  499. A census and accounting in 1269 of property damages suffered by Guelfs when Ghibellines took the city in 1260 following the battle of Montaperti.
  500. Find this resource:
  501. Lenzi, Domenico. Il libro del biadaiolo: carestie e annona a Firenze dalla metà del ‘200 al 1348. Edited by Giuliano Pinto. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1978.
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  503. The most important primary source on grain provisioning in the early 14th century. Preserved at the Biblioteca Laurenziana and also known as Lo Specchio umano di Domenico Lenzi, this provides information on prices and types of grain sold. Pinto’s highly informative introduction outlines the history of grain cultivation and trade.
  504. Find this resource:
  505. Masi, Gino, ed. Statutum bladi reipublicae Florentinae (1348). Milan: Società editrice “Vita e Pensiero,” 1934.
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  507. The most important communal statute concerning food provisioning for the city. Some of its provisions go back to the 13th century. Also noteworthy is Masi’s introduction, a history of the attempts on the part of the communal leadership to guarantee an adequate supply of grain for the population.
  508. Find this resource:
  509. Paoli, Cesare. Della signoria di Gualtieri duca d’Atene. Florence: M. Cellini, 1862.
  510. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  511. A set of documents that relates both to the political and the economic history of Florence, given the importance of the regime of Walter of Brienne to mid-14th-century labor and guild history.
  512. Find this resource:
  513. Sapori, Armando. I libri di commercio dei Peruzzi. Milan: Fratelli Treves, 1934.
  514. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  515. The published account books of the Peruzzi Company.
  516. Find this resource:
  517. Sapori, Armando. I libri degli Alberti del Giudice. Milan: A. Garzanti, 1952.
  518. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  519. Another set of primary sources related to merchant banking firm the Alberti Partnership.
  520. Find this resource:
  521. Merchant Banking Companies or Partnerships
  522.  
  523. By the early 14th century, Florence had emerged as one of the most prosperous commercial and banking centers in Europe, surpassing banking operations elsewhere in Tuscany. Goldthwaite 2009 offers a general account of their governance structures and operations. Florentine partnerships (compagnie) such as the Alberti (DeRoover 1974), the Bardi, and the Peruzzi (Sapori 1926, Hunt 1994), among others, established commercial connections throughout Italy and beyond. When traditional guild courts proved unable to handle claims by foreign creditors on Florentine partnerships, the major guilds created the civil court of the Mercanzia in 1308 both to handle those claims and to protect the integrity of Florentine operations abroad (Astorri 1998).
  524.  
  525. Astorri, Antonella. La Mercanzia a Firenze nella prima metà del Trecento: Il potere dei grandi mercanti. Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1998.
  526. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  527. The definitive study of the magistracy created in 1308 by the five major guilds to serve as a civil court with jurisdiction over international commerce involving Florentines. Its specific aim was to adjudicate claims by foreign creditors and protect the interests of Florentine merchants abroad.
  528. Find this resource:
  529. DeRoover, Raymond. “The Story of the Alberti Company of Florence, 1302–1348, as Revealed in Its Account Books.” In Business, Banking, and Economic Thought in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Edited by Julius Kirshner, 39–84. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1974.
  530. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  531. An article that uses extant fragments of the account books to reconstruct the workings of the company of a merchant family, the Alberti del Guidice.
  532. Find this resource:
  533. Goldthwaite, Richard. The Economy of Renaissance Florence. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.
  534. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  535. For the best and most succinct recent overview of Florentine partnerships, see chapter one and the sections “The Firm,” “Conduct of Business,” and “Interfirm Relations.” Although the book primarily focuses on a post-1400 period, it is actually quite a useful resource for the 13th and 14th centuries.
  536. Find this resource:
  537. Hunt, Edwin S. The Medieval Super-Companies: A Study of the Peruzzi Company of Florence. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
  538. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511528798Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  539. An in-depth historical analysis of one of the three most influential companies in Florence (the Peruzzi Company) from the late 13th through early 14th century. Argues, among other themes, that commodity trading (grain for textiles), linking Florence to the kingdom of Naples, made the Peruzzi powerful.
  540. Find this resource:
  541. Sapori, Armando. La crisi delle compagnie mercantili dei Bardi e dei Peruzzi. Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1926.
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  543. Still one of the most important analyses of the collapse of the two houses in the 1340s. Unlike Hunt’s later 1994 study, however, Sapori identified the interests of the Bardi conspirators involved in the 1340 plot to overthrow the government with the interests of the partnership.
  544. Find this resource:
  545. The Textile Industry and the Guilds
  546.  
  547. Tognetti 2001 offers a brief overview of the history of manufacturing and commerce for Tuscany as a whole, placing Florence within its regional context. Doren 1901 is still essential for the study of Florentine guilds, but there is far more recent treatment in Franceschi and Fossi 1998–2003. The histories of the silk and woolen cloth industries in particular are the subjects of De Roover 1999, Doren 1940, and Hoshino 1980, respectively. Whereas Najemy 1982 stresses that traditions of guild governance played a decisive role in shaping 13th-, 14th-, and 15th-century politics, Franceschi 1993 suggests that economic and social changes within the woolen textile industry itself contributed to a lessening of social and class tension after the Ciompi Revolt in 1378.
  548.  
  549. De Roover, Florence Edler. L’Arte della seta a Firenze nei secoli XIV e XV. Edited by Sergio Tognetti. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1999.
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  551. Excellent history of the silk industry and guild in Florence from the early 14th century. Prior to the 14th century, the Florentine silk industry was small and focused on a local market. Exiled from Lucca following the expulsion of the Guelfs in 1314, Lucchese silk workers settled in Florence, Bologna, and Venice.
  552. Find this resource:
  553. Doren, Alfred. Die Florentiner Wollentuchindustrie. Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta’sche Buchhandlung Nachfolger, 1901.
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  555. An exhaustive and classic history of the cloth industry in Florence from the 14th to the 16th century. Among the topics explored are the origins of the industry in the 13th century, the technical process of production, transportation, and trade and organization of the industry.
  556. Find this resource:
  557. Doren, Alfred. Le arti fiorentine. Translated by Giovanni Battista Klein. Florence: Le Monnier, 1940.
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  559. The quintessential and comprehensive history of the guilds of Florence from the 14th to the 14th century. First published in 1908 in German.
  560. Find this resource:
  561. Franceschi, Franco. Oltre il ‘Tumulto’: I lavoratori fiorentini dell’arte della lana fra Tre e Quattrocento. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1993.
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  563. Last quarter of the 14th century and early decades of the 15th marked a significant transformation in the woolen textile industry, linked to a decline in production. A smaller, de-centralized industry and workforce (among other factors) helped reduce social tension after the Ciompi Revolt (not just because of oligarchic pressure).
  564. Find this resource:
  565. Franceschi, Franco, and Gloria Fossi, eds. Arti florentine: La grande storia dell’artigianato. 6 vols. Florence: Giunti, 1998–2003.
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  567. A multivolume history of Florentine guilds and manufacturing. The first two volumes cover the Middle Ages and the 15th century, respectively.
  568. Find this resource:
  569. Hoshino, Hidetoshi. L’Arte della lana in Firenze nel Basso Medievo: il commercio della lana e il mercato dei panni fiorentini nei secoli XIII-XV. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1980.
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  571. Written by its foremost historian (along with Franceschi) after Doren, this is a major history of the Florentine woolen textile industry and its guild from the 13th through 15th centuries.
  572. Find this resource:
  573. Najemy, John. Corporatism and Consensus in Florentine Electoral Politics, 1280–1400. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1982.
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  575. Emphasizes the crucial impact of guild traditions of governance on Florentine electoral politics, focusing on the clash of two competing ideologies of governance: corporatism (vision of the republic as a federation of equal and independent guilds) and consensus (the republic as a harmonious whole led by an oligarchical elite of patrician families).
  576. Find this resource:
  577. Tognetti, Sergio. “Attività industriali e commercio di manufatti nella città toscane del tardo Medioveo (1250 ca.–1530 ca.).” Archivio Storico Italiano 588 (2001): 423–479.
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  579. Comparative study examining Florence, Pisa, Lucca, and Siena. Author argues that although Tuscan communes were trying to develop a textile industry from the early 13th century, only commerce and finance could really lead to regional economic supremacy (especially in the case of Lucca and Florence). Disagrees with Malanima, who highlights textiles.
  580. Find this resource:
  581. Technology
  582.  
  583. With regard to the application of contemporary technology to serve the needs of the economy, mills (grain and fulling) merit significant attention. References to mills in general are rare in Florentine sources before 1200, but documentation is substantial after the middle of that century. Whereas Muendel 1981 provides a general survey of the type and distribution of mills in the Florentine countryside, Muendel 1991 examines the economic function and technological structure of mills on the Arno in the late 14th century.
  584.  
  585. Muendel, John. “The Distribution of Mills in the Florentine Countryside during the Late Middle Ages.” In Pathways to Medieval Peasants. Edited by J. A. Raftis, 83–115. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1981.
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  587. Surveys types and location of mills, particularly grain and fulling mills. By the early 13th century, mills were on major rivers. In 1291 the commune conducted a census of grain and fulling mills in its territory for tax purposes. Argues that about 21 percent of all mills were in the possession of ecclesiastical lords.
  588. Find this resource:
  589. Muendel, John. “The Internal Functions of a 14th- Century Florentine Flour Factory.” Technology and Culture 32.3 (July 1991): 498–520.
  590. DOI: 10.2307/3106102Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  591. Notarial records provide important information about the six different types of Florentine grain mills. By examining account books of communal mills (east of the city on river) from 1378, 1379, and 1382, the author demonstrates how these mills represented a mechanized complex (or factory) geared for the urban market.
  592. Find this resource:
  593. Civic Finance
  594.  
  595. Barbadoro 1929 is still an essential starting point for any assessment of the history of Florentine urban finance. Among the sources of public revenue in medieval Florence as well as elsewhere were direct taxes, indirect taxes (gabelles), voluntary loans, and involuntary (or forced) loans. As budgets and public debt increased exponentially after the mid-13th century, indirect taxation took up a greater portion of receipts (especially from the end of the 13th). By 1345 the government had consolidated the commune’s debt into a single fund: the Monte comune. In exchange for money borrowed from citizens, the Monte paid interest on the balance of the loans (Becker 1967–1968, cited under City-Republic (1200–1400)). Both La Roncière 1968 and Herlihy 1980 examine the history of urban taxation (direct and indirect for Herlihy Tuscany as a whole, indirectly, or the gabelles the focus of La Roncière).
  596.  
  597. Barbadoro, Bernardino. Le finanze della Repubblica Fiorentina. Imposta diretta e debito pubblio (fino all’istituzione del Monte). Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1929.
  598. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  599. This is still a major resource of information concerning the history of the financial and fiscal development of the commune. Beginning in the early 12th century after the death of the Countess Matilda (1115), the text carries the story to 1343 and the creation of the Monte comune.
  600. Find this resource:
  601. Herlihy, David. “Direct and Indirect Taxation in Tuscan Urban Finance, ca. 1200–1400.” In Cities and Society in Medieval Italy. By David Herlihy, 385–405. London: Variorum, 1980.
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  603. Should be read along with Barbardoro. Herlihy notes how the expenses of communal debt in Tuscany increased markedly from the 13th through 14th centuries. For Florence, the author observes how indirect taxes come to replace direct taxes in the 14th century. First published in 1964).
  604. Find this resource:
  605. La Roncière, Charles-Marie de. “Indirect Taxes or ‘Gabelles’ at Florence in the Fourteenth Century: The Evolution of Tariffs and Problems of Collection.” In Florentine Studies: Politics and Society in Renaissance Florence. Edited by Nicolai Rubinstein, 140–192. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968.
  606. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  607. From the mid-13th century the budget of Florence began to grow geometrically. Of the various options available—direct taxation, loans (voluntary and involuntary), and indirect taxation (such as levied on salt)—Florence increasingly depended on the latter from the end of the century.
  608. Find this resource:
  609. The Agricultural Economy
  610.  
  611. The nature of the relationship between the city and its surrounding countryside (contado) has dominated much of the historical literature on Florentine agrarian history in the past century. An earlier consensus, exemplified in Caggese 2010 (first published in 1907 and 1908), argued that the city exploited and oppressed its hinterland and its residents. Fiumi 1956 influenced many historians by arguing that relationship was more reciprocal and collaborative than previously assumed. Herlihy 1968 argued on a basis of a significant case study that the conditions of the rural population improved markedly after the population declines of the 14th century. For Jones 1968 the evolution of the rural economy in Tuscany from the 11th to 14th century led, however, not to the progressive improvement of the peasantry but to increased debt and inequality. La Roncière 2005 updates and revises the extensive findings of his 1976 thèse d’état, and it remains the most complete study of the economy of the Florentine countryside in the 14th century. Pirillo 2001 (cited under Florence and its Contado) stresses the active role of the city for the development of an urban-dominated contado, whereas Zorzi 2000 (cited under Florence and its Contado) argues there was no coherent plan for urban subjection of the countryside. Other significant contributions have focused on specific topics essential for an understanding of the medieval agrarian economy: the organization and structure of rural property-holding (Conti 1965) and the urban grain market (Ito 2014). Cortese 2007 and Faini 2010, both cited under From Late Antiquity to the Early Commune (500 to 1200), both offer new insights about the agricultural economy of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
  612.  
  613. Caggese, Romolo. Classi e comuni nel Medio Evo italiano. 2 vols. Rev. ed. Florence: Firenze libri, 2010.
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  615. First published in 1907 and 1908. Some of the major contributions of this classic text are the narrative accounts associated with the emergence of several rural communes in the Florentine contado in the 13th century, including those of San Casciano, Castelfiorentino, and Borgo San Lorenzo.
  616. Find this resource:
  617. Conti, Elio. La formazione della struttura agrarian moderna nel contado fiorentino 1: Le campagne nell’età precomunale. Rome: Nella sede dell’Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 1965.
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  619. Indispensable for history of rural property structures. Following the breakup of the single-family holding (mansus) and lord’s estate (curtis), there emerged after the 11th century the consolidated landed holding (podere). By the 14th century many tenants were paying his landlord half what he produced (the podere a mezzadria).
  620. Find this resource:
  621. Fiumi, Enrico. “Sui rapporti economici tra città e contado nell’età comunale.” Archivio Storico Italiano 114 (1956): 18–68.
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  623. In the tradition of Plesner and Ottokar, argues for the harmonious relationship between city and countryside and against previous historiographical positions advanced by earlier historians (such as Caggese or Salvemini) that city was exploiting and oppressing the countryside. Focuses on taxation and food provisioning to press his case.
  624. Find this resource:
  625. Herlihy, David. “Santa Maria Impruneta: A Rural Commune in the Late Middle Ages.” In Florentine Studies: Politics and Society in Renaissance Florence. Edited by Nicolai Rubinstein, 242–276. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1968.
  626. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  627. Herlihy uses the history of a particular town as case study to explore several issues, including the nature of the treatment of the rural population by the city. Before the mid-14th century treatment was harsh, but after the 14th-century population decline, the quality of tenurial relations improved for the peasant.
  628. Find this resource:
  629. Ito, Marie. Orsanmichele-The Florentine Grain Market: Trade and Worship in the Later Middle Ages. PhD diss., Catholic University of America, 2014.
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  631. A comprehensive history of the Florentine grain market, with Orsanmichele as the focus, by a historian who brings her experience in modern commodity exchange trading to an understanding of the urban grain trade. The cultivation, harvest, and distribution of grain drove the agricultural economy.
  632. Find this resource:
  633. Jones, P. J. “From Manor to Mezzadria: A Tuscan Case-Study in the Medieval Origins of Modern Agrarian Society.” In Florentine Studies: Politics and Society in Renaissance Florence. Edited by Nicolai Rubinstein, 193–241. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1968.
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  635. Though concerned with Tuscany as a whole, there is much here to learn about the evolution of the Florentine agricultural economy and rural economic relations between the 10th and 15th centuries. For peasants the disappearance of the manor and serfdom led less to liberation than to economic dependence and debt.
  636. Find this resource:
  637. La Roncière, Charles-Marie de. Firenze e le sue campagne nel trecento: Mercanti, produzione, traffic. Translated by Isabelle Chabot and Paolo Pirillo. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2005.
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  639. Portion of the thèse d’état completed in 1970s and published originally in 1976 as part of Florence, centre économique régional au XIVe siècle (Aix-en-Provence: S. O. D. E. B.). Meticulously detailed and essential for the study of all aspects of the economy (markets, roads, commerce) in the Florentine countryside.
  640. Find this resource:
  641. Florence and Its Contado
  642.  
  643. The 12th and 13th centuries mark a decisive stage in the history of the Florentine contado. Castelli (Francovich 1973) appear throughout the region at this time. Plesner 1938 hypothesized that only after swamps and lowlands had been cleared and drained in the 13th century were roads able to descend from the ridge lines to the valleys, setting off a “road revolution.” Szabò 1992 assessed Plesner’s legacy while also highlighting the active role taken by communes in Tuscany to identify, maintain, and protect their road infrastructure in the late 13th century. Whereas Pirillo 2001 tends to stress the importance of the active role assumed by the city to assert its control its surrounding countryside, Zorzi 2000 recognizes no coherent plan to extend urban domination. All of these studies, however, see the 13th century as a crucial turning point in the history of the Florentine contado. See also From Late Antiquity to the Early Commune (500 to 1200).
  644.  
  645. Francovich, Riccardo. I Castelli nel contado fiorentino nei secoli XII e XIII. Florence: CLUSF, 1973.
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  647. Absolutely indispensable history and census of the array of castles or fortified villages (castelli) that appeared in the Florentine countryside in the 12th and 13th centuries. The map alone is extremely useful to anyone researching the history of the Florentine countryside.
  648. Find this resource:
  649. Pirillo, Paolo. Costruzione di un contado: I fiorentini e il loro territorio nel basso medioevo. Florence: Le Lettere, 2001.
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  651. A study of the relationship of city and countryside that emphasizes, as the title suggests, the active role taken by communal authorities to create a territorial state. Argues that from the second half of 13th century there was an uninterrupted process of organization and governance of Florentine-dominated territory.
  652. Find this resource:
  653. Plesner, Johan. Una Rivoluzione stradale nel Dugento. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1938.
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  655. One of two highly influential books by the young Danish scholar regarding the Florentine countryside. Argues that a road revolution in the contado occurred in the 13th century when roads descended from the hills and ridges (to avoid swampy plains) into the valleys, by then drained and cleared for agriculture.
  656. Find this resource:
  657. Szabò, Thomas. Comuni e politica stradale in Toscana e in Italia nel medioevo. Bologna: CLUEB, 1992.
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  659. In the 12th and 13th centuries communes identified and laid out their main roads. In the 1280s and 1290s they began to develop magistracies responsible for maintaining and securing vital roads. In Florence that occurred in 1284, when a grain magistracy emerged to supervise the road infrastructure.
  660. Find this resource:
  661. Zorzi, Andrea. “The ‘Material Constitution’ of the Florentine Dominion.” In Florentine Tuscany: Structures and Practices of Power. Edited by William Connell and Andrea Zorzi, 6–31. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
  662. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511523120Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  663. Argues that there was no coherent plan to expand urban domination of the countryside. Rather, it was slow, reactive (responding to the initiatives of other states), and protective (of military, political, and economic interests), with the 13th century as the crucial turning point.
  664. Find this resource:
  665. Urbanization and Planning
  666.  
  667. Since around 1980 there has been a surge of archeological excavations in the central city that has brought to light an enormous amount of new information about the Roman, the early medieval (c. 600–c. 1000), and the later medieval city (c. 1000–c. 1400). Whereas the early medieval city was smaller than its ancient predecessor, traces of growth and expansion are already discernible in the 11th and 12th centuries. No previous phase of urban development can, however, match the rate of growth and expansion that accelerated after the mid-13th century. Also within the last generation, historians have increasingly studied the use of urban space (both interior and external) for its social, political, economic, and cultural significance. The recent excavations and the new research have both yielded significant new information about urban development and the use of urban space in the pre-modern city.
  668.  
  669. Urban Development
  670.  
  671. Scampoli 2010 reports on the findings of many of the early 21st century excavations on sections of the medieval city, both complementing and superseding the pioneering synthesis of Lopes Pegna 1974 (based primarily on 19th-century excavations). Urban development and renewal of the 13th and 14th centuries is the focus of Sznura 1975, Spilner 1987, and Muendel 1991, while Friedman 1988 examines the process by which Florentine authorities planned and organized the creation of new towns in the countryside.
  672.  
  673. Friedman, David. Florentine New Towns: Urban Design in the Late Middle Ages. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1988.
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  675. Examines the origins and design of five towns established by Florence in its territory between 1299 and 1350: San Giovanni, Firenzuola. Scarperia, Terranuova, and Castelfranco di Sopra. Emphasizes the presence of symmetry in the planning.
  676. Find this resource:
  677. Lopes Pegna, Mario. Firenze dalle origini al Medioevo. Florence: Del Re, 1974.
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  679. Still a major reference for ancient and early medieval Florence, focusing on its pre-Roman, Roman, and early medieval development. Recent excavations and research on the early medieval Florentine Church have, however, corrected some of his conclusions.
  680. Find this resource:
  681. Muendel, John. “Medieval Urban Renewal: The Communal Mills of the City of Florence, 1351–1382.” Journal of Urban History 17 (August 1991): 363–389.
  682. DOI: 10.1177/009614429101700402Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  683. Uses study of communal mills to analyze the nature of urban planning and argues (pro-Mumford) that the development process was organic. Earliest grain and fulling mills were mentioned beginning in the 12th century. Many mills were on the Arno in 1330 but gone by 1400 for economic reasons.
  684. Find this resource:
  685. Scampoli, Emiliano. Firenze, archeologia di una città (secoli I a. C.-XIII d.C.). Florence: Firenze University Press, 2010.
  686. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  687. The urban topography of Florence from Antiquity to the 13th century.
  688. Find this resource:
  689. Spilner, Paula. “Ut Civitas amplietur: Studies in Florentine Urban Development, 1282–1400.” PhD diss., Columbia University, 1987.
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  691. Essential for the urban development of Florence from 1282 to 1400, presented within its broad economic, social, and political contexts. Among the topics explored are the topography of the medieval city, locations of the walls, streets, neighborhoods, public squares (piazze), and the planning behind them all.
  692. Find this resource:
  693. Sznura, Franek. L’Espansione urbana di Firenze nel Dugento. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1975.
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  695. Meticulous and neighborhood-by-neighborhood analysis of how and where urban expansion took place in the late 13th century. Argues that before the mid-13th century most development was haphazard, but after that the commune took the initiative and implemented specific development plans involving piazze, bridges, and public buildings.
  696. Find this resource:
  697. Urban Space and Its Uses
  698.  
  699. Since the 1980s there have been numerous excavations in the central city that have yielded significant information about urban topography (Bruttini 2013, Capecchi 1996). At the same time Florentine historians have added to our understanding of the use and significance of urban space (Najemy 2006, for example, which focuses on politics). Together, these two developments have helped transform our notions regarding how medieval Florentines interacted with the urban space in which they lived. For an understanding of the layout of the city and its principal features, there is no substitute for the maps in the second volume of Fanelli 1973.
  700.  
  701. Bruttini, Jacopo. Archeologia urbana a Firenze: Lo scavo della terza corte di Palazzo Vecchio (indagini 1997–2006). Borgo San Lorenzo, Italy: All’insegna del giglio, 2013.
  702. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  703. Synthesizes the findings of excavations conducted between 1997 and 2006 on the area around the third courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio, which brought to light significant information about the use of space in the city from the Roman period (site of theater) through the 11th- and 12th-century urban expansion.
  704. Find this resource:
  705. Capecchi, Gabriella, ed. Alle origini di Firenze: dalla preistoria alla città romana. Florence: Edizioni Polistampa Firenze, 1996.
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  707. Although this collection of essays focuses mainly on pre-Roman and Roman Florence, it offers a baseline of information for an understanding of its geographical setting (P. Pallecchi), the findings of archaeological excavations since the 19th century, and the layout of much of the early medieval city (G. de Marinis).
  708. Find this resource:
  709. Fanelli, Giovanni. Firenze: Architettura e città. 2 vols. Florence: Vallecchi, 1973.
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  711. First volume offers an overview, arranged chronologically, of the development of the topography of the city. Noted urban features include bridges, churches, monasteries, public buildings, and private palazzi. Of the two volumes, however, the second, which includes the maps, is the most important. Be cautious of errors in volume one.
  712. Find this resource:
  713. Najemy, John. “Florentine Politics and Urban Spaces.” In Renaissance Florence: A Social History. Edited by Roger J. Crum and John T. Paoletti, 19–54. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
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  715. Argues that from republican commune to Medicean principate politics influenced the use and development of urban space and use of urban space was critical to the political evolution of the city. Recognizes four overlapping phases of “urbanistic practices and policies” (p. 19), of which two came before the early 15th century.
  716. Find this resource:
  717. Sources
  718.  
  719. Pampaloni 1973 has collected a variety of documents associated with the late 13th and early 14th centuries.
  720.  
  721. Pampaloni, Guido. Firenze al tempo di Dante: documenti sull’urbanistica fiorentina. Pubbicazioni degli Archivi di Stato, Fonte e Sussidi 4. Rome: Ministero dell’Interno, 1973.
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  723. A collection of the most important documents relating to growth and development of the city from the second half of the 13th century through the early decades of the 14th. In his introduction Pampaloni states that Florence can serve as a case study of urban planning and expansion.
  724. Find this resource:
  725. Religion and the Church
  726.  
  727. The field of Florentine ecclesiastical institutions and communities, the clergy, church property, piety, women and religion, and heresy has undergone a renaissance of its own in the past generation. This area of study in the 21st century is almost unrecognizable from what it had been in the mid-20th century. A surge of interest among historians regarding patronage networks, women’s religious communities and spirituality, church property, and cults of saints has greatly enriched not only our understanding of the Florentine Church, but it has also significantly contributed to our understanding of the development of medieval Florence itself. Long treated as a peripheral and neglected focus of study, today the study of the Florentine Church is at the center of the historiography on the medieval commune.
  728.  
  729. Overviews
  730.  
  731. No general survey of the Florentine Church over the span of the entire Middle Ages (c. 600–c. 1400) yet exists, even though there is outstanding scholarship on particular aspects of Florentine religion and its church. Interspersed throughout Davidsohn 1956–1978 are significant sections of church history that touch on every century through the 14th. There is still no substitute. Dameron 2005 covers the decades from the mid-13th through the early 14th century, and Peterson 2002 offers a comprehensive overview of church history in the late 14th century as part of his analysis of the impact of the War of Eight Saints on public memory and humanist scholarship. Trexler 1974 provides a survey of the history of ecclesiastical censures (interdict, excommunication, suspensions) in Florence through the 14th century.
  732.  
  733. Dameron, George. Florence and Its Church in the Age of Dante. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005.
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  735. Provides an interdisciplinary overview of the church over the two generations corresponding to the lifetime of Dante (c. 1250–c. 1330). Covers a variety of topics (vocations, economy, piety, the church and commune). Argues that between 1250 and 1330 ecclesiastical institutions, the clergy, and church traditions helped propel Florence to regional supremacy.
  736. Find this resource:
  737. Davidsohn, Robert. Storia di Firenze. 8 vols. Translated by Giovanni Battista Klein. Florence: Sansoni, 1956–1978.
  738. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  739. Still an authoritative source for the history of the Florentine Church and religion (especially Volumes 1 and 7).
  740. Find this resource:
  741. Peterson, David. “The War of the Eight Saints in Florentine Memory and Oblivion.” In Society and the Individual in Renaissance Florence. Edited by William Connell, 173–214. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.
  742. DOI: 10.1525/california/9780520232549.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  743. Although Peterson’s aim is to explain why and how 15th-century humanist historians such as Leonardo Bruni (d. 1444) repressed the memory of the War of Eight Saints (1375–1378), he also provides the best general overview of Florentine church history from the mid-fourteenth to the early 15th centuries.
  744. Find this resource:
  745. Trexler, Richard. The Spiritual Power: Republican Florence Under the Interdict. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1974.
  746. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  747. Historical overview of ecclesiastical censures in Florence, with a focus on the late 14th century (the War of the Eight Saints, 1375–1378). Principal censures included excommunication, suspension, and interdict. Although the book focuses on the papal interdict of 1376 on Florence, it also surveys clerical censures before 1376 as well.
  748. Find this resource:
  749. Collections of Essays
  750.  
  751. There is hardly any aspect of Florentine religion and spirituality on which Anna Benvenuti has not published, including pioneering work on Florentine women and religion. Some of her major essays are collected in Benvenuti Papi 1988 and Benvenuti Papi 1990. The early medieval church receives significant attention in Benvenuti, et al. 1994. The most important and influential essays by Charles-Marie de La Roncière on confraternities, the mendicants, and religion in the countryside (among other topics) are re-published in La Roncière 1994. Bowsky 1999 is a collection of significant essays on San Lorenzo, and Verdon and Innocenti 2001 collects essays by specialists on a variety of topics to commemorate the 700th anniversary of the cathedral of Florence.
  752.  
  753. Benvenuti Papi, Anna. Pastori di popolo: Storie e leggende di vescovi e di città nell’Italia medieval. Florence: Arnaud, 1988.
  754. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  755. Another (and earlier) collection of essays by one of the foremost historians of religion, focusing particulary on Florence. Among the influential essays here are studies on two Florentine bishops: Bishops Ardingo (early 13th-century protector of prerogatives of Florentine Church) and Zanobius (4th-century bishop protector of the diocese).
  756. Find this resource:
  757. Benvenuti Papi, Anna. “In Castro Poenitentiae”: Santità e società feminile nell’Italia medievale. Rome: Herder, 1990.
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  759. Essential essays by a pioneer in Florentine religious and women’s history. Among the most important topics explored here are the mendicants in Florence, connections between the friars and women, confraternities, forms of women’s religious communities, penitential communities (Third Orders), and religious women in the 13th and 14th centuries.
  760. Find this resource:
  761. Benvenuti, Anna, Franco Cardini, and Elena Giannarelli, eds. Le Radici cristiane di Firenze. Florence: Alinea, 1994.
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  763. These essays that cover a variety of institutions, saints, and ecclesiastical topics. Among them are studies on Ambrose and Zenobius (E. Giannarelli, M. Nicolucci Cortini, C. Nardi) and the church of San Lorenzo (W. Bowsky and A. Benvenuti). Corrected version of Bowsky’s essay is in Bowsky 1999.
  764. Find this resource:
  765. Bowsky, William. La Chiesa di San Lorenzo a Firenze nel Medioevo: Scorci archivistici. Edited by Renzo Nelli. Florence: Edizioni della Meridiana, 1999.
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  767. A collection of Bowsky’s various previously published essays on the church of San Lorenzo. Translated into Italian, they examine piety, property, pastoral care, parish rights, and confraternities. Most had been published in English, but these are authoritative versions. Notes include Bowsky’s transcriptions of long passages from primary sources.
  768. Find this resource:
  769. La Roncière, Charles-Marie de. Religion paysanne et religion urbaine en Toscane (c. 1250-c. 1450). Aldershot, UK: Variorum, 1994.
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  771. Path-breaking, previously published essays on urban and rural religion. Among the topics explored are the role of confraternities and Franciscans in the countryside and city, rural communities and their priests, religiosity in the Elsa River valley, aspects of popular religion in the contado around 1300, and the abbey of Settimo.
  772. Find this resource:
  773. Verdon, Timothy, and Annalisa Innocenti, eds. Atti del VII centennario del Duomo di Firenze. 5 vols. Florence: EDIFIR, 2001.
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  775. A collection of key essays associated with several conferences to commemorate the 700th anniversary of the refounding of the cathedral of Florence. Topics covered include the bishopric and the cathedral (L. Riccetti), the cult of Saint Zenobius (A. Benvenuti), music and the cult of Zenobius (B. Wilson), and architecture (G. Morozzi, F. Toker).
  776. Find this resource:
  777. The Bishopric
  778.  
  779. Recent attention regarding the Florentine bishopric of the 13th and 14th centuries begins with Trexler 1971, whose work on canon law and episcopal (and more broadly, church) governance continues to shape current research. Pirillo 2001 looks at the bishopric in the early Middle Ages and the relationship between the bishop and urban authorities. For Dameron 1991 and Nelli 1985 the primary subject was episcopal property and lordship. Dameron 1991 offers a general overview over three centuries with particular attention to relations with the commune, and Nelli 1985 focuses on a single episcopal territorial lordship in the Arno and Sieve valleys. For Miller 2006 the ritual marriage between the bishop and the abbess of San Pier Maggiore provides an opportunity to explore an important and politically significant aspect of Florentine civic ritual.
  780.  
  781. Dameron, George. Episcopal Power and Florentine Society, 1000–1320. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991.
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  783. Historical overview of bishops and their estate over three centuries, placing the bishopric at the center of Florentine history. Organized chronologically, it argues that bishops followed specific economic and political strategies that helped shape the direction of Florentine history (origins of rural communes, emergence of a territorial state).
  784. Find this resource:
  785. Miller, Maureen. “Why the Bishop of Florence Had to Get Married.” Speculum 81.4 (2006): 1055–1091.
  786. DOI: 10.1017/S0038713400004280Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  787. Explores the reasons why the bishop ritually “married” the abbess of San Pier Maggiore when he took possession of his see. Argues that it occurred because of its political significance and also because the bishopric tended to function like a lineage within Florence.
  788. Find this resource:
  789. Nelli, Renzo. Signoria e proprietà cittadina: Monte di Croce tra XIII e XIV secolo. Pontassieve: Comune di Pontassieve, 1985.
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  791. An enlightening, detailed analysis of an episcopal territorial lordship just east of Florence in the 13th and 14th century. Examines the institutions of governance, the nature of obligations by dependents to the bishop (rents in grain after 1200), and the location of specific properties, among other topics.
  792. Find this resource:
  793. Pirillo, Paolo. “Firenze: il vescovo e la città nell’Alto Medioevo.” In Vescovi e città nell’Alto Medioevo: Quadri generali e realtà toscane. Edited by G. Francesconi, 179–201. Pistoia, Italy: Società pistoiese di storia patria, 2001.
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  795. Pirillo examines the history of the bishopric from the 9th through early 12th centuries, with special attention to the relationship between the bishopric and urban authorities.
  796. Find this resource:
  797. Trexler, Richard. “Death and Testament in the Episcopal Constitutions of Florence (1327).” In Renaissance Studies in Honor of Hans Baron. Edited by Anthony Molho and John Tedeschi, 29–74. Dekalb: Northen Illinois University Press, 1971.
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  799. A detailed analysis of the nature of and reasons for the episcopal constitutions of the early 14th century, focusing in particular on the provisions regulating testaments, legacies, and usury.
  800. Find this resource:
  801. The Cathedral, Liturgy, and Civic Ritual
  802.  
  803. Central to the historical development of Florentine culture is civic or public ritual. Trexler 1980 provides a comprehensive overview of civic ritual, with particular attention to the Florentine Church and its saints and processions. Tacconi 2005 uses the surviving service books of the cathedral to offer an in-depth study of cathedral liturgy, processions, music, and saints’ cults. For Toker 2009, who relies on some of the same primary sources as Tacconi, the focus is on the interplay of architecture and liturgy at the cathedral. Benvenuti is the principal historian of Florentine saints’ cults, and Benvenuti 1994–1995 explores the interrelationship between the cathedral and the principal saints of the city. For Toker 1975, the emphasis is on the evolution of ecclesiastical structures from Antiquity to the 13th century, and for Riccetti 2001, the focus is on the role of the bishop in early phase of the construction of the new cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore at the end of the 13th century.
  804.  
  805. Benvenuti, Anna. “Da San Salvatore a Santa Maria del Fiore: Itinerario di una cattedrale.” In La cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore a Firenze. 2 vols. Edited by Francesco Gurrieri and Cristina Acidini Luchinat, 257–291. Florence: Cassa di Risparmio, 1994–1995.
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  807. Informative essay on the history of the cathedral from its incarnation as San Salvatore to its dedication as Santa Maria del Fiore, with particular attention given to the cult of its saints (particularly Saint Zenobius), it relationship to the commune, and its connections with the clergy.
  808. Find this resource:
  809. Riccetti, Lucio. “Il vescovo Francesco Monaldeschi e l’avvio del cantiere di Santa Maria del Fiore (1295–1301).” In Atti del VII centennario del Duomo di Firenze. Vol. 1. Edited by Timothy Verdon and Annalisa Innocenti, 195–226. Florence: EDIFIR, 2001.
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  811. Argues that Francesco Monaldeschi brought his prior experience as bishop of Orvieto, overseeing the construction of its cathedral, after his papal appointment to Florence in 1295 to supervise the building of another. In both cases he collaborated with the architect, Arnolfo di Cambio.
  812. Find this resource:
  813. Tacconi, Marica. Cathedral and Civic Ritual in Late Medieval and Renaissance Florence: The Service Books of Santa Maria del Fiore. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
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  815. Analysis of the service books of the cathedral from the mid-12th century to the early 16th. Also a comprehensive, meticulous, heavily documented, and clear examination of the liturgical traditions, feast days, and saints’ cults associated with the cathedral.
  816. Find this resource:
  817. Toker, Franklin. “Excavations Below the Cathedral of Florence, 1965–1974.” Gesta 14.2 (1975): 17–36.
  818. DOI: 10.2307/766737Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  819. Reviews results of excavations and is one of best sources of information on the evolution of ecclesiastical structures at the site from late Roman basilica and origin of Santa Reparata to 13th century (design, tombs, cults of saints, altars, crypt, among other topics).
  820. Find this resource:
  821. Toker, Franklin. On Holy Ground: Liturgy, Architecture, and Urbanism in the Cathedral and Streets of Medieval Florence. London: Harvey Miller, 2009.
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  823. Essential for understanding public rituals, liturgy, and the cults of major saints, not only in the cathedral but also in the streets outside. Includes transcriptions of the two most important written sources on urban liturgy: Ritus in ecclesia servandi (1190) and Mores et consuetudines canonice florentine (c. 1231).
  824. Find this resource:
  825. Trexler, Richard. Public Life in Renaissance Florence. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980.
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  827. The focus is post-1400 Florence, but there is much here for the medievalist. A pioneering and comprehensive study, it argues that urban ritual life was central to the political process as groups competed for their own interests and as elite Florentines sought to preserve order and social values.
  828. Find this resource:
  829. Churches, Convents, Mendicants, and Monasteries, and Confraternities
  830.  
  831. In addition to the cathedral of Florence, individual churches and religious communities have garnered significant attention in the past generation. Both Jones 1980 and Bowsky 1990 focus on church property, a field in which Jones was a pioneer in the 1950s. Paatz and Paatz 1952–1955 and Richa 1972 are essential reference guides for specific churches in the city, and Lopes Pegna 1972 outlines the histories some of the earliest churches in Florence. Women’s religious communities, including nunneries, are explored in Benvenuti Papi 1990, cited under Religion and the Church: Collections of Essays, and Strocchia 2009. A multidimensional exploration of the history of one of the best documented monasteries in the Florentine contado, Passignano, is available in Pirillo 2009, and Leader 2012 surveys the architectural and artistic history of the urban Benedictine monastery of the Badia.
  832.  
  833. Bowsky, William. Piety and Property in Medieval Florence: A House in San Lorenzo. Milan: A. Giuffré, 1990.
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  835. Details the conflict over the ownership of a house on Borgo San Lorenzo between the canons of San Lorenzo and the family of a certain Chiarissimo, a smith. One of the best-documented 13th-century disputes in Florence. Demonstrates the vital importance of urban property to the ecclesiastical institutions.
  836. Find this resource:
  837. Jones, Philip. “Le finanze della badia Cistercense di Settimo nel xiv secolo.” In Economia e società nell’Italia medievale. Translated by Carla Susini Jones and Aldo Serafini, 317–344. Turin: Einaudi, 1980.
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  839. One of the earliest case studies of the economic history and properties of a major Florentine monastery (in this instance, the suburban Cistercian abbey of Settimo). Most of its holdings were in land and its income came from short-term contracts. It also had some urban possessions, including mills, houses, and shops. Originally published in 1956.
  840. Find this resource:
  841. Leader, Anne. The Badia of Florence: Art and Observance in a Renaissance Monastery. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2012.
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  843. This interdisciplinary approach to the history of the Benedictine monastery, founded in the 10th century, begins in the late 13th and ends in the early 15th century. The focus is the renovation project of the 1420s and 1430s, but the early chapters cover the development of the pre-1400 abbey well.
  844. Find this resource:
  845. Lopes Pegna, Mario. Le più antiche chiese fiorentine. 2d ed. Florence: Librerira editrice L. Del Re, 1972.
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  847. An exploration of the earliest churches in the late ancient and early medieval city, including Byzantine and Carolingian churches, the Baptistery, Santa Reparata, and San Lorenzo. There is also a chapter on the first bishops of the city.
  848. Find this resource:
  849. Paatz, Walter, and Elisabeth Paatz. Die Kirchen von Florenz, ein Kunstgeschichtes Handbuch. 6 vols. Frankfurt: V. Klostermann, 1952–1955.
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  851. Provides historical, architectural, and artistic accounts of all the churches within the third circle of walls, arranged alphabetically. Elaborately detailed and essential for anyone working on specific churches.
  852. Find this resource:
  853. Pirillo, Paolo, ed. Passignano in Val di Pesa: un monastero e la sua storia. I: Una signoria sulle anime, sugli uomini, sulle comunità (dalle origine al sec. XIV). Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2009.
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  855. Essays covering the history of one of the best-documented and historiographically significant rural monasteries: San Michele (Benedictine). Among topics explored are the dedication to Saint Michael (A. Benvenuti), the monastery and the nobility (E. Cortese), architecture (I. Moretti), and conflict between abbey and local residents (P. Pirillo).
  856. Find this resource:
  857. Richa, Giuseppe. Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine. 10 vols. Rome: Multigrafica Editrice, 1972.
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  859. Originally published 1754–1762. Includes historical notes on all the churches of Florence, organized in this order by quarter (Santa Croce, Santa Maria Novella, San Giovanni, Santo Spirito).
  860. Find this resource:
  861. Strocchia, Sharon. Nuns and Nunneries in Renaissance Florence. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.
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  863. Although most of this book focuses on post-1400 Florence, there is much here on the 14th century (especially after 1348, when the number of convents grew markedly). Strocchia argues for the centrality of female religious communities in virtually all the major aspects of Florentine social, cultural, and political life.
  864. Find this resource:
  865. Spirituality
  866.  
  867. Whether it is the cults of saints (Benvenuti 2001), or confraternities (Henderson 1994, cited under the Poor), or Dominican preaching (Lesnick 1989), among other topics, historians have only in the late 20th century begun to delineate the basic contours of Florentine religious belief and piety in the city in the 13th and 14th centuries. The 14th-century countryside has also been the subject of investigation in all its aspects, especially by Charles-Marie de La Roncière (La Roncière 1994 and La Roncière 1988). Florentine heresy, once studied extensively in the mid-20th century (Dondaine 1950, Manselli 1980) has received renewed attention in Stephens 1972 and Lansing 1998. Stephens 1972 focuses on the Cathars and Fraticelli in Florence itself, and Lansing 1998 interprets Catharim in Florence within the perspective of Italian Catharism as a whole.
  868.  
  869. Benvenuti, Anna. “La memoria di San Zanobi nei mutamenti architettonici della cattedrale fiorentina.” In Atti del VII centennario del Duomo di Firenze. Vol. 1. Edited by Timothy Verdon and Annalisa Innocenti, 107–136. Florence: EDIFIR, 2001.
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  871. Gives the history of the cult of Saint Zenobius, with particular attention to its relationship to the cathedral. The author carefully lays out the documentation and historical context for the development of this cult, with the addition of bibliographies on other saints associated with the cathedral (Barnaba, Reparata).
  872. Find this resource:
  873. Dondaine, Antoine. “La hierarchie Cathare en Italie.” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 20 (1950): 234–324.
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  875. Based on texts written by Rainerius Sacconi and Anselm of Alexandria, Dondaine recreates the structure of Cathar communities in Italy (as much as the sources will allow). The Cathar community in Florence receives particular attention, with names and specific source documents listed.
  876. Find this resource:
  877. Lansing, Carol. Power and Purity: Cathar Heresy in Medieval Italy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
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  879. The author provides an overview of Florentine 12th-century Catharism on pp. 71–78, with extensive notes and within the context of Italian Catharism as a whole (in particular, focusing on the Cathar community at Orvieto).
  880. Find this resource:
  881. La Roncière, Charles-Marie de. “Aspects de la réligiosité populaire en Toscane: le contado florentin des années 1300.” In La Toscana nel secolo XIV: caratteri di una civiltà régionale. Edited by Sergio Gensini, 337–384. Pisa, Italy: Pacini, 1988.
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  883. Path-breaking analysis of popular piety and religious practice in the countryside. The author emphasizes the centrality of the mendicants, rural confraternities, and local cults of saints (such as Verdiana and Gherardo di Villamagna). Noted also is the importance of faith, the fear of death, and the absence of heresy.
  884. Find this resource:
  885. La Roncière, Charles-Marie de. “Dans la campagne Florentine au XIVe siècle: les communautés chrétienne et leurs curés.” In Religion paysanne et religion urbaine en Toscane (c. 1250-c. 1450). By Charles-Marie de La Roncière, 281–314. Aldershot, UK and Brookville, VT: Variorum, 1994.
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  887. Argues that the 14th-century Florentine countryside was fully Christianized. Includes a wealth of information on confraternities, mendicants (1320–1340 apogee of Franciscan influence), heresy (little to extremely isolated), local saints, clerical morality (good, though some lapses in chastity), clerical/laity relations (good, priests as peacemakers), and quality of pastoral care (generally good). Originally published in 1979.
  888. Find this resource:
  889. Lesnick, Daniel. Preaching in Medieval Florence: The Social World of Franciscan and Dominican Spirituality. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1989.
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  891. There are abundant Dominican sermons, but no Franciscan sermon survives. Hence, this study focuses on surviving sermons of the Dominicans such as Giordano da Pisa, whom the author argues spoke to the upper ranks of the merchant and commercial elite (popolo grasso) and whose themes legitimized their power.
  892. Find this resource:
  893. Manselli, Raoul. L’Eresia del male, 2d ed. Naples, Italy: Morano, 1980.
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  895. First published in 1963, this is one of the most important treatments of the Catharism in Florence in the 13th century. It was present in the city at least from 1173.
  896. Find this resource:
  897. Stephens, John. “Heresy in Medieval and Renaissance Florence.” Past and Present 54 (1972): 25–60.
  898. DOI: 10.1093/past/54.1.25Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  899. A pioneering work on the chronological history of Florentine heresy, focusing on the two main heresies: the Cathars and the Fraticelli. Argues against the view that heresy declined in 15th-century Florence. This essay is still useful and relevant.
  900. Find this resource:
  901. Sources
  902.  
  903. Florentines had begun publishing manuscripts and documents associated with the church by at least the 16th century, but the 18th century still remains one of the most productive periods for the publication of ecclesiastical sources. Lami 1758 and Ughelli 1973 remain indispensable to anyone working in Florentine church history, and Moreni 1794 provides a transcription of one of the earliest liturgical manuscripts in the city. For specific ecclesiastical institutions, among many other published texts of sources, there is Guasti 1887 (the cathedral project), Piattoli 1938 (charters of the cathedral chapter), Trexler 1971 (the synodal constitution of 1327), and Tocco 1899 (heresy at the time of Dante). The key text on penitence by the 14th-century Dominican friar, Jacopo Passavanti (Passavanti 2014), was written with the general population in mind. Toker 2009, cited under the Cathedral, Liturgy, and Civic Ritual, includes the transcriptons of two significant pre-1250 liturgical texts.
  904.  
  905. Guasti, Cesare, ed. Santa Maria del Fiore: la costruzione della chiesa e del Campanile. Florence: Tip. di M. Ricci, 1887.
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  907. Collection of surviving documents associated with the history of the construction of the cathedral (duomo) and bell tower (campanile). Among the documents collected are all the texts associated with the work of Arnolfo di Cambio on the project (1293–1301).
  908. Find this resource:
  909. Lami, Giovanni. Sanctae ecclesiae Florentinae monumenta. 3 vols. Florence: Ex typographio Deiparae ab Angelo Salutatae, 1758.
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  911. An indispensable, eclectic, and idiosyncratic collection of published primary sources associated with the Florentine Church. It is not a straight history; rather, it is a collection of documents with commentary. Not easy to use, but the indexes are useful to locate specific items.
  912. Find this resource:
  913. Moreni, Domenico. Mores et consuetudines ecclesiae Florentinae. Florence: typis Petri Allegrini, 1794.
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  915. Published copy of one of the two earliest liturgical service books of the cathedral of Santa Reparata (pre-1293). It is an ordinal preserved in a 1231 manuscript in the Archivio dell’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore. For the most recent (2009) transcription of the text, Mores et consuetudines, see Toker 2009, cited under the Cathedral, Liturgy, and Civic Ritual.
  916. Find this resource:
  917. Passavanti, Jacopo. Lo Specchio della vera penitenza. Edited by Ginetta Auzzas. Florence: Accademia della Crusca, 2014.
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  919. A critical edition of the major work on penitence by the Dominican friar at Santa Maria Novella, Jacopo Passavanti (c. 1297–c. 1257). Written in 14th-century vernacular Italian.
  920. Find this resource:
  921. Piattoli, Renato, ed. Le carte della canonica della cattedrale di Firenze (723–1149). Rome: Nella sede dell’Istituto, 1938.
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  923. Published charters relating to the cathedral chapter of Florence, dating from 723 to 1149. The index is useful to anyone trying to identify locations and names mentioned in the documents. The originals are preserved in the Archivio del Capitolo Metropolitano Fiorentino.
  924. Find this resource:
  925. Tocco, Felice, ed. Quel che non c’è nella Divina comedia o Dante e l’eresia. Bologna: Nicola Zanichelli, 1899.
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  927. Tocco reproduces twenty-five documents dating from 1245 to 1313 relating to heresy and the inquisition. In his commentary Tocco explores reasons why Dante was silent about heresy prosecutions (either does not know about them, or was so orthodox that he was ignorant of heterodoxy, or he considered heretics fanatics).
  928. Find this resource:
  929. Trexler, Richard C. Synodal Law in Florence and Fiesole, 1306–1518. Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1971.
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  931. The edited constitutions of the Florentine Church of 1310 and 1327. These are excellent sources for an understanding of the church’s organizational and governance structure. Preceding the editions is an extremely helpful analysis by Trexler of the canon law dimension of synodal constitutions and the juridical relationship between the church and the commune.
  932. Find this resource:
  933. Ughelli, Ferdinando. Italia sacra. Vol. 3. Bologna: Sala Bolognese (A. Forni), 1973.
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  935. There are ten volumes in all in Italia sacra, and Volume 3 concerns Tuscany. Organized by region of Italy and by diocese. Still perhaps the most comprehensive compilation of published documents associated with the Florentine Church, along with Lami 1758. First published in 1717–1722.
  936. Find this resource:
  937. Intellectual Culture
  938.  
  939. In many ways, before the mid-13th century Florentine intellectual life was no more distinguished than that of other city-republics in northern Italy. Its educational culture from the mid-13th century to the late 14th century was practically and pragmatically oriented to serving the needs of its banking and textile manufacturing sectors, perhaps even more so than its neighboring Tuscan communes. Nevertheless, the late 13th century in Florence represents a significant turning point in two major areas: literature (the florescence of vernacular lyric poetry, particularly associated with the dolce stil nuovo) and historiography (the writing of Florentine history begins in mid-century). For at least a century and a half (c. 1250–c. 1400) Florence became the center of vernacular literature and vernacular historical writing in Italy. Some of the most influential Italian political writers and theorists of the late 13th and early 14th centuries were Florentines (Brunetto Latini, c. 1220–1294, Remigio dei Girolami, d. 1319, and Dante Alighieri, 1265–1321, among others). Latini’s vernacular translation of the first seventeen chapters of Cicero’s De Inventione (1260–1262), the Rettorica, as well as his translation of three of Cicero’s speeches were meant to heighten civic republican awareness in Florence. However, they also helped lay the intellectual groundwork for the bright future of humanism a century and a half later. Of his two didactic works, Livre dou trésor (Book of the Treasure) and Tesoretto (Little Treasure), the latter was written in vernacular Tuscan. Nevertheless, because it became such a vibrant center of vernacular literature, humanism came late to Florence (mid-14th century). However, by the early 15th century, Florence was at the center of humanist culture.
  940.  
  941. Education
  942.  
  943. Davis 1984 broke new ground in educational intellectual traditions in late-13th- and early-14th-century Florence. Black 2007 represents a more recent and fundamental treatment of the subject, with Florence approached within its regional (Tuscan) context. Both Black 2007 and Gehl 1993 observe that humanism lay outside Florentine educational traditions until the 14th century.
  944.  
  945. Black, Robert. Education and Society in Florentine Tuscany: Teachers, Pupils and Schools, c. 1250–1500. Vol. 1. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2007.
  946. DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004158535.i-840Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  947. Argues that education in Florence in the 13th and 14th centuries was geared primarily to promote and sustain its economic power. Hence, there was little instruction in Latin and grammar, preferring commercial subjects (such as the abacus) and the vernacular. Consequently, the Florentine elite came late to the patronage of humanism.
  948. Find this resource:
  949. Davis, Charles. Dante’s Italy and Other Essays. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984.
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  951. Essential collection of previously published essays by one of the most important intellectual historians of medieval Florence. Among the essays touching on education and intellectual life include “Education in Dante’s Florence,” “Dante’s Vision of History,” “An Early Florentine Political Theorist: Fra Remigio de’ Girolami,” and “Bruno Latini and Dante.”
  952. Find this resource:
  953. Gehl, Paul. A Moral Art: Grammar, Society, and Culture in Trecento Florence. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993.
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  955. Focuses on those educated in Latin grammar who recognized the importance of moral texts. Argues for continuity between education in the 14th century and the humanism of the 15th.
  956. Find this resource:
  957. Humanism
  958.  
  959. It has been surprising and baffling to many scholars that the city that had become so closely identified with humanism in the early 15th century was actually late in embracing it. However, according to Witt 2012, at the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th century, Florentine culture had produced several significant rhetoricians (dictatores), including Buoncompagno da Signa (d. c. 1240), and at least one major Latin poet (Enrico da Settimello, fl. 1190). Furthermore, in the course of the 13th century, Brunetto Latini (Ceva 1965, Cornish 2011) had translated into the vernacular several works by Cicero. Nevertheless, the rise of a flourishing culture of vernacular poetry (Guido Cavalcanti, Dante Alighieri) in Florence during the 13th century shifted attention away from the study and the imitation of written Latin (Witt 2003 and Witt 2012). That said, however, the intellectual groundwork in the classics was certainly there when humanism emerged in Florence by the mid-14th century (this was still relatively late, as Witt dates the origins of humanism in Italy itself to the 1220s). By the time of Coluccio Salutati’s death in 1406 (Witt 1983), Florence had become the center of the humanist intellectual tradition. Some limited instruction in Greek had begun in Florence in 1360, but by 1397, with the lectures in Florence of the Greek scholar, Manuel Chrysoloras, humanism entered a new, decisively important phase of development, with Florence becoming the center of oratorical humanism (Mann 1996).
  960.  
  961. Ceva, Bianca. Brunetto Latini: L’uomo e l’opera. Milan: Ricciardi, 1965.
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  963. The standard biography of Brunetto Latini and overview of his work.
  964. Find this resource:
  965. Cornish, Alison. Vernacular Translation in Dante’s Italy: Illiterate Literature. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
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  967. The key chapter here is chapter 5: “The Treasure of the Translator: Dante and Brunetto.” Cornish argues that instead of condemning Latini for sodomy (sterility) in the Commedia because Latini wrote in French rather than Italian, Dante is actually rejecting as ill-conceived Latini’s vernacular prose translations of Cicero.
  968. Find this resource:
  969. Mann, Nicholas. “The Origins of Humanism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism. Edited by Jill Kaye, 1–19. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
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  971. Defines humanism as concern with the heritage of Antiquity and follows its history from the 9th to the end of 14th century. Highlights the teaching of Greek in Florence (first in limited way in 1360, then more seriously in 1397) as marking turning point in history of humanism.
  972. Find this resource:
  973. Witt, Ronald. Hercules at the Crossroads: The Life, Works, and Thought of Coluccio Salutati. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1983.
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  975. First, full biography of Coluccio Salutati (Florentine chancellor and humanist, b. 1331–d. 1406). Situates his work within the Italian rhetorical tradition and demonstrates how his intellectual legacy, which applied classical learning to resolve moral, religious issues, among other contributions, made humanism a significant movement in European culture, with Florence at its center.
  976. Find this resource:
  977. Witt, Ronald. In the Footsteps of the Ancients: The Origins of Humanism from Lovato to Bruni. Boston: Brill, 2003.
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  979. Origins of humanism were in grammar (poetry, then prose), not rhetoric. There is a significant amount of attention on Florence. Brunetto Latini helped make Aristotle and Cicero available to a vernacular reading public, increasingly sensitive to the richness of Latin texts. Only after 1340, however, did humanism take root in Florence. Originally published in 2000.
  980. Find this resource:
  981. Witt, Ronald. The Two Latin Cultures and the Foundation of Renaissance Humanism in Medieval Italy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
  982. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511779299Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  983. In Italian regnum there existed two Latin cultures by 10th century: a traditional book and a legal culture. By 1220s laymen (mostly) were studying ancient literature and history. Florence became the major center of vernacular literature in the 13th century, and humanism came late (by mid-14th). See appendix for Florence.
  984. Find this resource:
  985. Literature
  986.  
  987. By the beginning of the second half of the 13th century and throughout most of the 14th century, Florence had become the center of vernacular literature in northern Italy (indeed, arguably, in Europe as a whole). The last two decades of the 13th century and early decades of the 14th marked the second major phase of Italian lyric poetry before Petrarch (b. 1304–d. 1374), the dolce stil nuovo, and Florentines, Dante Alighieri, and Guido Cavalcanti, were among its most illustrious poets. In the next generation, Boccaccio (b. 1313–d. 1375) was born in Florentine territory, at Certaldo, and spent a significant amount of time in and out of the city for the rest of his life (Branca 1996 and Kirkham, et al. 2013). Whereas Holmes 1986, cited under Political Thought and Histioriography, sets the literary achievements of the 13th and 14th century within a wide historical context, Jacoff 2007 and Bergin 1981 look at the lives and works of Dante (Jacoff 2007) and Boccaccio (Bergin 1981) from multiple (and interdisciplinary) perspectives. The Decameron Web, The Dartmouth Dante Project, and World of Dante provide texts by Boccaccio and Dante (and translations) as well as links to sites that provide information about the lives and work of these two authors. Shaw 2014 focuses on the general reader to encourage a deep appreciation of the poetry and themes of The Divine Comedy.
  988.  
  989. Bergin, Thomas. Boccaccio. New York: Viking, 1981.
  990. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  991. A standard, well-written introduction to Boccaccio’s life and work. After devoting a chapter to Boccaccio’s life, Bergin explores Boccaccio’s literary output, with The Decameron closing out this study in the last chapter.
  992. Find this resource:
  993. Branca, Vittore. Boccaccio medievale e nuovi studi sul Decameron. Florence: Sansoni, 1996.
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  995. Still a major resource for an understanding of Boccaccio and the historical and literary contexts of his work. Originally published in 1956 with many revised editions since.
  996. Find this resource:
  997. Dartmouth Dante Project.
  998. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  999. A searchable, full-text database of more than seventy commentaries on Dante’s Commedia.
  1000. Find this resource:
  1001. Decameron Web.
  1002. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1003. A project of the Brown University Italian Studies Department. Offers access to texts of the author (including an English translation of The Decameron), among other links.
  1004. Find this resource:
  1005. Jacoff, Rachel, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Dante. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
  1006. DOI: 10.1017/CCOL0521844304Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1007. An essential guide to Dante and his work by some of the foremost scholars working in Dante studies. Among the topics explored are Dante’s life, his literary background, introductions to the three canticles of the Commedia, Dante’s political views, his theological influences, and his commentators.
  1008. Find this resource:
  1009. Kirkham, Victoria, Michael Sherberg, and Janet Levarie Smarr, eds. Boccaccio: A Critical Guide to the Complete Works. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.
  1010. DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226079219.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1011. Provocative essays on a variety of topics associated with Boccaccio’s work, including “Woman and Women,” “Historian and Humanist,” “The Vernacular Master,” and “Classical Romances.” Significant attention to Florence in many essays, especially the introduction.
  1012. Find this resource:
  1013. Shaw, Prue. Reading Dante: From Here to Eternity. New York: Liveright, 2014.
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  1015. An introduction to the Commedia, intended for the general reader. Organized around specific themes (friendship, power, life, and so on), the book seeks to convey the brilliance of the poetry by focusing on specific episodes of the poem.
  1016. Find this resource:
  1017. World of Dante.
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  1019. A multimedia site. Provides texts of the three canticles of the Divine Comedy in both the original Italian (G. Petrocchi edition) and English translation (A. Mandelbaum). Includes illustrations, timeline, notes on text, introduction to each canticle, interactive maps, music, and other features.
  1020. Find this resource:
  1021. Political Thought and Histioriography
  1022.  
  1023. Relative to most central and north Italian communes in the 12th century, the organizational evolution of Florence was slow and gradual (Wickham 2015). Following the Peace of Constance (1183), numerous communal histories praising and glorifying their native city-states began to appear in north Italian communes. Classical allusions were few in these civic-minded texts before the early 13th century, but the inclusion of Latin poetry became more common after the early decades of that century. At Florence the earliest histories were annals, followed in the mid-13th century by narrative histories in prose that praised and glorified the accomplishments of the city (Rubinstein 1942, Davis 1984a). The “golden age” of medieval Florentine historiography, however, was the 14th century, exemplified particularly by the chronicle written by Giovanni Villani (Green 1972, with chronicle itself) and continued by his brother and nephew, Matteo and Filippo, respectively (Clarke 2007). In addition, Florence was a fertile environment for the development of political theory, in particular associated with Dante (Najemy 2007) and Remigio dei Girolami (Davis 1984b). One of the key themes in both Dante and Villani was that contemporary Florence had experienced a moral decline from a more virtuous past (Davis 1984a, “Il Buon Tempo Antico”). Both Dante and Remigio were attempting to find remedies for the endemic factionalism of Florence, and Dante, of course, found a solution in the imperial cause. Conflict within Florence reached a peak during the Ciompi Revolt of 1378, an event that is well documented in letters and chronicles.
  1024.  
  1025. Clarke, Paula. “The Villani Chronicles.” In Chronicling History: Chroniclers and Historians in Medieval and Renaissance Italy. Edited by Sharon Dale, Alison Williams Lewin, and Duane J. Osheim, 113–143. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007.
  1026. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1027. Florence was the center of vernacular learning and literature in early-14th-century Italy. The masterpiece of historical writing in 14th-century Florence is the Villani chronicles, begun by Giovanni Villani (d. 1348) and continued by his brother, Matteo (d. 1363), and Matteo’s son, Filippo. Spans Florentine history to 1364.
  1028. Find this resource:
  1029. Davis, Charles. “Il Buon Tempo Antico (The Good Old Time).” In Dante’s Italy and Other Essays. Edited by Charles Davis, 71–93. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984a.
  1030. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1031. A succinct summary of the main interpretations of Florentine history in 13th and 14th century Florentine chronicles and political thinking (in particular, Dante and Villani). Both looked back to a Florentine past perceived to be more virtuous than their present.
  1032. Find this resource:
  1033. Davis, Charles. “An Early Florentine Political Theorist: Fra Remigio de’ Girolami.” In Dante’s Italy and Other Essays. By Charles Davis, 198–223. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984b.
  1034. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1035. Examination of the political theories of this important Aristotelian lector (d. 1319) and magister in sacred theology at Santa Maria Novella. Two topics in particular attract Davis’s attention: Remigio’s concern with factionalism and his caution regarding the temporal power of the church.
  1036. Find this resource:
  1037. Green, Louis. Chronicle into History: An Essay on the Interpretation of History in Florentine Fourteenth Century Chronicles. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1972.
  1038. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1039. The first two chapters examine the chronicles of Giovanni and Matteo Villani, respectively, followed by two final chapters on late-14th-century chronicles and the chronicle of Goro Dati. Appendix I has much to say about historical writing before the Villanis.
  1040. Find this resource:
  1041. Holmes, George. Florence, Rome, and the Origins of the Renaissance. Oxford: Clarendon, 1986.
  1042. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1043. Holmes provides a succinct overview of the historical context regarding political thought, historiography, literature, and the visual arts in late 13th and early 14th century Florence.
  1044. Find this resource:
  1045. Najemy, John. “Dante and Florence.” In The Cambridge Companion to Dante. 2d ed. Edited by Rachel Jacoff, 236–256. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
  1046. DOI: 10.1017/CCOL0521844304Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1047. A lucidly written summary of Dante’s political views within the context of late-13th-century Florence. Najemy argues that Dante used the language of the popolo to criticize the aristocracy, which he accused of being too attached to party and family at the expense of the welfare of the commune.
  1048. Find this resource:
  1049. Rubinstein, Nicolai. “The Beginnings of Political Thought in Florence: A Study in Medieval History.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942): 198–227.
  1050. DOI: 10.2307/750453Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1051. Observes that the early historiography of Florence contains the earliest expressions of political ideology. Taking the Cronica de origine Florentie as an example, argues that historical texts interpret the past (especially Roman) in the light of a major turning point in Florentine expansion: the destruction of Fiesole in 1125.
  1052. Find this resource:
  1053. Wickham, Chris, Sleepwalking into a New World: The Emergence of Italian City Communes in the Twelfth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015.
  1054. DOI: 10.1515/9781400865826Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1055. Chapter 5 (“Italy”) traces the slow emergence of the Florentine commune in relation to about fifteen other cities, rooting his analysis largely with reference to Cortese 2007 and Faini 2010 (both cited under From Late Antiquity to the Early Commune (500 to 1200)).
  1056. Find this resource:
  1057. Sources
  1058.  
  1059. Brunetto Latini’s republicanism (Latini 1968) and pioneering work translating Cicero into the Florentine vernacular is garnering increased attention from scholars. So is his poetry, including Latini 1981. Narrative histories in prose that praised and glorified the accomplishments of the city include the Cronica de origine civitatis Florentie (Cesari 1993) and its continuation, the Sanzanominis iudicis Gesta Florentinorum (Hartwig 1875). A recent edition of the political treatises of the politically oriented friar, Remigio dei Girolami (Girolami 2014) is now available, divided into three parts: De bono comuni, De bono pacis, Sermones de pace. Finally, the Ciompi Revolt is amply documented in chronicles and letters (Scaramella 1917–1934).
  1060.  
  1061. Cesari, Anna, ed. “Cronica de origine civitatis Florentie.” Atti e memorie dell’Accademia Toscana di scienze e lettere “La Colombaria” 44 (1993): 187–253.
  1062. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1063. Witt (The Two Latin Cultures 2012) dates the composition to the same date for the best available manuscript (1264); there are no classical references or poetry. Praises the origin of Florence, its expansion, and its defeat of Fiesole in 1125.
  1064. Find this resource:
  1065. Girolami, Remigio de. Del bene comune al bene del comune: I trattati politici di Remigio dei Girolami (1319). Translated and edited by Emilio Panella. Florence: F. Nerbini, 2014.
  1066. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1067. A collection of his most important political treatises in the original Latin, along with an introduction, critical notes, and Italian translation.
  1068. Find this resource:
  1069. Hartwig, Otto, “Sanzanominis iudicis Gesta Florentinorum ab anno 1125 ad annum 1231.” In Quellen und Forschungen zur ältesten Geschichte der Stadt Florenze. Vol. 1. By Otto Hartwig, 1–34. Marburg, Germany: N. G. Elwert, 1875.
  1070. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1071. Author identified as both judge (iudex) and notary. Conquest of Fiesole in 1125 looms as a major theme. This is a glorification of Florentine history, emphasizing victories over neighboring communes, and a 13th century continuation of the Chronica de origine civitatis. Witt 2012 (cited under Humanism) notes that it contains contemporary poetry.
  1072. Find this resource:
  1073. Latini, Brunetto. La rettorica. Critical edition by Francesco Maggini. Florence: Le Monnier, 1968.
  1074. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1075. The most recent edition of Latini’s vernacular translation of several chapters of Cicero’s De Inventione. Latini looked back to Rome to promote a civic-minded, republican consciousness.
  1076. Find this resource:
  1077. Latini, Brunetto. Il Tesoretto. Edited and translated by Julia Bolton Holloway. New York: Garland, 1981.
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  1079. Translated into English from Italian as The Little Treasure, this is one of Latini’s two major didactic works (along with Livres dou trésor). An excellent introduction by the translator accompanies the text.
  1080. Find this resource:
  1081. Molho, Anthony, and Franek Snzura, eds. Alle bocche della piazza (diario di Anonimo Fiorentino, 1381–1401). Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1986.
  1082. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1083. Portions of the chronicles of Giovanni and Matteo Villani and Goro Dati, copied anonymously.
  1084. Find this resource:
  1085. Scaramella, Gino, ed. Il tumulti dei Ciompi: Cronache e memorie. Bolonga: Zanichelli, 1917–1934.
  1086. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1087. Chronicles and letters written before, during, and after the Ciompi Revolt of 1378.
  1088. Find this resource:
  1089. The Visual and Musical Arts
  1090.  
  1091. As with intellectual culture, the decades from the end of the 13th through the 14th century were a period of tremendous and innovative productivity in the visual and musical arts. Many of the most important building projects in the city date from the second half of the 13th century. By 1300 the painter and architect, Giotto, and the architect, Arnolfo di Cambio, were at the height of their powers. Communal (public) and private (family) patronage, as well as a growing demand for works of art by prosperous Florentines, drew the best artists and architects to the city throughout the trecento. Large-scale works were prized (the frescoes of the Bardi Chapel, for example), but patrons also paid for illustrated manuscripts where the miniaturist excelled. Music at Florence, always so central to Florentine religious culture, especially in association with the practices of confraternities from the 13th century, entered a new phase in its history at the end of the 14th century as polyphony became increasingly common.
  1092.  
  1093. Architecture
  1094.  
  1095. Few cities in the world can match the beauty and imposing grandeur of the public and ecclesiastical buildings constructed in Florence from the end of the 13th through early 14th century. Three of these major building projects were the Palazzo Vecchio (the center of secular power), the cathedral complex (the religious center), and Orsanmichele (on the north-south axis between the two). Rubinstein 1995 places the construction and planning of the Palazzo Vecchio within its proper late 13th and early 14th century political context. Zervas 1996 and Strehlke 2012 both offer a wide array of comprehensive and detailed studies on the many artistic, sculptural, and architectural dimensions of the former public granary and shrine, Orsanmichele. Toker 2001 examines the architectural design of the cathedral in the light of past excavations, and Trachtenberg 1971 follows the construction of the campanile. The essays in Friedman, et al. 2009 explore the legacy of the work done at Florence by the architect and sculptor, Arnolfo di Cambio, particularly at the cathedral complex. Finally, Trachtenberg 1997 reminds us that the building and planning projects that took place from the end of the 13th century came at a high cost (leveling neighborhoods, literally), just as they visually proclaimed the superior political power of the elite few over the many.
  1096.  
  1097. Friedman, David, Julian Gardner, and Margaret Haines, eds. Arnolfo’s Moment: Acts of an International Conference (Florence, Villa I Tatti, May 26–27, 2005). Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2009.
  1098. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1099. A wide variety of essays devoted to assessing the legacy of the productive and influential architect and sculptor, Arnolfo di Cambio. A native-born son (from the contado), Arnolfo is most famously (at Florence) associated with the planning for the re-building of the cathedral at the end of the 13th century.
  1100. Find this resource:
  1101. Rubinstein, Nicolai. The Palazzo Vecchio, 1298–1532: Government, Architecture, and Imagery in the Civic Palace of the Florentine Republic. Oxford: Clarendon, 1995.
  1102. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1103. Spanning over more than two centuries, Rubinstein outlines how political and institutional changes and expansion in governance shaped and influenced the architectural development of the Palazzo Vecchio. Originally modelled on the Bargello, according to the author, it exemplified the self-assurance of a new ruling elite.
  1104. Find this resource:
  1105. Strehlke, Carl, ed. Orsanmichele and the History and Preservation of the Civic Monument. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012.
  1106. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1107. Originated in a two-part symposium held in Washington, DC, and Florence in 2005 and 2006. Some essays on pre-1400 subjects include: design (M. T. Bartoli), Andrea Pisano (E. N. Lusanna), tabernacle before Orcagna (F. Caglioti), architecture and original grain market (G. Kreytenberg), trecento sculpture (A. Griffo), and music (B. Wilson).
  1108. Find this resource:
  1109. Toker, Franklin. “On Holy Ground: Architecture and Liturgy in the Cathedral and Streets of Late Medieval Florence.” In Atti del VII centennario del Duomo di Firenze. Vol. 2. Edited by Timothy Verdon and Annalisa Innocenti, 544–559. Florence: EDIFIR, 2001.
  1110. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1111. Based on excavations between 1965 and 1974, this is a brief but informative history of the development of the building stages of the cathedral and the relationship of its architecture to public liturgical traditions. Of particular interest are the locations of the altars and the reconstruction of processional routes.
  1112. Find this resource:
  1113. Trachtenberg, Marvin. The Campanile of Florence Cathedral: “Giotto’s Tower.” New York: New York University Press, 1971.
  1114. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1115. The author compares and contrasts the various contributions of Giotto, Andrea Pisano, and Francesco Talenti to the construction and plan of the bell tower and explores its design in relation to other such structures in northern Europe.
  1116. Find this resource:
  1117. Trachtenberg, Marvin. Dominion of the Eye: Urbanism, Art, and Power in Early Modern Florence. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
  1118. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1119. The author rejects the triumphalist and positive vision of Florentine success after the 13th century. His Florence is a place of economic oppression, conflict, and suffering. Urban planning and design, particularly associated with the piazze, conveyed a discourse of state power that helped sustain unequal social and economic structures.
  1120. Find this resource:
  1121. Zervas, Diane Finiello, ed. Orsanmichele a Firenze/Orsanmichele Florence. 2 vols. Modena, Italy: F. C. Panini, 1996.
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  1123. Important and essential for the study of any topic associated with Orsanmichele. Should be used with separate volume of documents edited by same author and published by the same publisher in the same year: Orsanmichele, Documents, 1336–1452/Orsanmichele Documenti.
  1124. Find this resource:
  1125. Painting and Sculpture
  1126.  
  1127. Post-1400 (Renaissance) Florentine painting and sculpture rightfully garners significant attention. However, previous developments in Florence (and Siena) from 1250 to 1400 marked a veritable revolution in the visual arts. Norman 1995 offers a comparative overview of artistic traditions in two Tuscan cities and Padua from the late 13th through 14th centuries, including Florence. Goldthwaite 1993 explores how and why there was such a robust and strong demand for painting and sculpture at this time, linked in particular to the developing culture of consumption of the Florentine elite. Maginnis 1997 focuses on 14th-century painting and examines its eclectic and innovative traditions, while Goffen 1988 looks specifically at the intersection of art and religion in the Bardi Chapel. Among some of the most important and innovative artists in the first half of the 14th century were manuscript illuminators and panel painters, including Pacino di Bonaguida. They are profiled in a sumptuously illustrated book (Sciacca 2012) that catalogued a major exhibit in Los Angeles and Toronto. See also Marshall 1994; Meiss 1978; and Friedman, et al. 2009.
  1128.  
  1129. Friedman, David, Julian Gardner, and Margaret Haines, eds. Arnolfo’s Moment: Acts of an International Conference (Florence, Villa I Tatti, May 26–27, 2005). Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2009.
  1130. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1131. A series of essays that emerged out of a 2005 conference to celebrate the seventh centenary of the death in 1295 of Arnolfo di Cambio, celebrated sculptor and architect (most famously of the cathedral of Florence). See also Architecture.
  1132. Find this resource:
  1133. Goffen, Rona. Spirituality in Conflict: Saint Francis and Giotto’s Bardi Chapel. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988.
  1134. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1135. Noting that there was little written about Bardi Dossal and Bardi Chapel (in friary of Santa Croce) before 1988, Goffen offers a comprehensive history of the Bardi Chapel at Santa Croce in relation to developing Franciscan religious traditions and Guelf politics.
  1136. Find this resource:
  1137. Goldthwaite, Richard. Wealth and Demand for Art in Italy, 1300–1600. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
  1138. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1139. Argues that demand for art must be viewed within the larger context of the world of material goods, particularly with regard to changing consumer needs. He suggests that through their new approach to material things (including art) informed by taste, Florentines and other Italians created modern consumer culture.
  1140. Find this resource:
  1141. Maginnis, Hayden B. J. Painting in the Age of Giotto: A Historical Reevaluation. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997.
  1142. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1143. Argues for the need to reinterpret 14th-century painting. The 14th century was indeed a period of transition, with art meant to convey religious meaning, but it was also eclectic. It marks the emergence of a modern conception of art that recognizes the inventive capability of the artist and appreciates beauty.
  1144. Find this resource:
  1145. Marshall, Louise. “Manipulating the Sacred: Image and Plague in Renaissance Italy.” Renaissance Quarterly 47.3 (Autumn 1994): 485–532.
  1146. DOI: 10.2307/2863019Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1147. Should be read in conjunction with Meiss 1978. Argues that survivors of plague not overwhelmed by anxiety and despair. Instead, they relied on existing images to solicit divine protection. Article concerns Italy as a whole, but much is relevant for Florence.
  1148. Find this resource:
  1149. Meiss, Millard. Painting in Florence and Siena After the Black Death. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978.
  1150. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1151. Originally published in 1951. One of the most influential contributions to Florentine and Sienese art history. Argues that Black Death had a decisive and significant impact on the direction of painting after 1348, rendering it less naturalistic, more macabre, and conservative in theme and design. For critique, see Marshall 1994.
  1152. Find this resource:
  1153. Norman, Diana, ed. Siena, Florence, and Padua: Art, Society, and Religion, 1280–1400. 2 vols. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995.
  1154. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1155. Essays that explore the social, religious, and political contexts for the development of the visual arts in three cities. Of particular interest are the essays comparing the communes in terms of politics, patronage and art (Norman, Volume 1) and the study contrasting the designs of the cathedrals of Florence and Siena (C. King, Volume 2).
  1156. Find this resource:
  1157. Sciacca, Christine, ed. Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance: Painting and Illumniation, 1300–1350. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2012.
  1158. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1159. This sumptuously illustrated volume, based on an exhibition held in Los Angeles and Toronto in 2013, highlights the development of and the connections between manuscript illumination and panel painting (and the artists who worked in both) during the period of Florence’s greatest prosperity, the first half of the 14th century.
  1160. Find this resource:
  1161. Music
  1162.  
  1163. Two of the major centers of musical performance in medieval Florence included the cathedral and the many confraternities in the city. For the study of music in Florence before 1400, Tacconi 2005 describes what the cathedral service books can tell us about sacred music and liturgy, and Wilson 1992 focuses on confraternities. The history of a particular company associated with singing laude and processions is the confraternity of Saint Zenobius (Wilson 2001).
  1164.  
  1165. Tacconi, Marica. Cathedral and Civic Ritual in Late Medieval and Renaissance Florence: The Service Books of Santa Maria del Fiore. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
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  1167. This comprehensive census and description of all the liturgical service books of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore includes important examinations of the only surviving pre-14th-century musical source (Arcivescovado antiphonary), the singing of sequences and tropes, and existing evidence of polyphony.
  1168. Find this resource:
  1169. Wilson, Blake. Music and Merchants: The Laudesi Companies of Republican Florence. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
  1170. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1171. Wilson situates his history of the Florentine laudesi companies from late 13th to late 15th century within its mercantile and mendicant spiritual traditions, arguing that the growing number of bequests led both to a reliance on more professional musicians and to the appropriation of polyphony by the end of the 14th.
  1172. Find this resource:
  1173. Wilson, Blake. “Music, Art, Devotion: The Cult of St. Zenobius at the Florentine Cathedral during the Early Renaissance.” In Atti del VII centennario del Duomo di Firenze. Vol. 3. Edited by Timothy Verdon and Annalisa Innocenti, 17–36. Florence: EDIFIR, 2001.
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  1175. Excellent analysis of the confraternity of Saint Zenobius, the history of the cult of the saint, the frequency of lauda singing, and procession of the confraternity (every month).
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