Florentine Studies: Politics and Society in Renaissance Florence

FLORENTINE STUDIES Politics and Society in Renaissance Florence edited by NICOLAI RUBINSTEIN FABER AND FABER 24 Russell Square London First published in memlxvit by Faber and Faber Limited 24 Russell Square London WC'r Printed in Great Britain by Robt MacLehose and Company Limited All rights reserved SBN 571 08477 8 © 1968 by Faber and Faber Ltd CONTENTS EpiTor’s PREFACE Page 9 THe MytTH oF FLORENCE 15 Donald Weinstein Associate Professor of History, Rutgers University, New Brunswick In Buon TEMPO ANTICO 45 Charles T. Davis Professor of History, Tulane University, New Orleans THE ARMY OF THE FLORENTINE REPUBLIC FROM THE TWELFTH TO THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 70 D. P. Waley Reader in History, London School ofEconomics Tue FLORENTINE TERRITORIAL STATE AND CIvICc HuMANISM IN THE EARLY RENAISSANCE 109 Marvin B. BeckerProfessor ofHistory, University ofRochester, N.Y. INDIRECT TAXES OR ‘GABELLES’ AT FLORENCE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 140 Charles M. de la Ronciére Chargé d’Enseignement d’Histovre, University ofDakar. Translated by Janet Sondhermer From Manor To MeEzzapriA: A TuscAN CASE-STUDY IN THE MEDIEVAL ORIGINS OF MODERN AGRARIAN SOCIETY 193 P. J. Jones Fellow and Tutor, Brasenose College, Oxford 5 CONTENTS SANTA MariA IMPRUNETA: A RuRAL COMMUNE IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES 242 David Herlihy Professor ofHistory, University of Wisconsin LABOUR CONDITIONS IN FLORENCE AROUND 1400: THEORY, PoLicy AND REALITY 277 Raymondde RooverProfessor ofHistory, Brooklyn College THE C1oMPI REVOLUTION 314 Gene A. Brucker Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley IO How THE MEDICI BECAME THE POPE’s BANKERS 357 George Holmes Fellow ofSt Catherine’s College, Oxford II FLORENCE AND THE Papacy IN THE EARLIER FIF- TEENTH CENTURY 381 Peter Partner Assistant History Master, Winchester College 12 PIsA AND FLORENCE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY: ASPECTS OF THE PERIOD OF THE FIRST FLORENTINE DOMINATION 403 Michael Mallett Lecturer in History, University of Warwick 13 FLORENTINE CONSTITUTIONALISM AND MeEpicl1 ASCEN- DANCY IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 442 Nicolai Rubinstein Professor of History, Westfield College, London 14 THE VENETIAN CONSTITUTION IN FLORENTINE POLITI- CAL THOUGHT 463 Felix Gilbert Professor of History, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton 15 THE END OF FLORENTINE LIBERTY: THE FORTEZZA DA Basso 501 J.R. Hale Professor ofHistory, University of Warwick INDEX 933 ILLUSTRATIONS after page 512 Vasari, Alessandro de’ Medici Baldassare Peruzzi, The Walls of Florence (c. 1520). Uffizi, 360 A. Vasari, The Siege of Florence. Detail from the fresco in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence Citadella Vecchia. Detail from no. 8 Francesco de Marchi, The Walls of Florence. From Trattato d’Architettura Militare, B.N.F., I1,1,280,fol. 2r Detail from no. 5 Antonio da Sangallo the younger, project for improving the Citadella Vecchia at Porta alla Giustizia. Uffizi, 761 A. Stefano Buonsignori, Plan ofFlorence (1584) Antonio da Sangallo, distance rose, Florence. Uffizi, 773 A. 10 Fortezza da Basso, domeof central hall II Detail from the ‘Berlin’ woodcut view ofFlorence (c. 1470) I2 Fortezza da Basso. Detail from no. 8 13 Astrological diagram for the foundation time of the ‘Arx Florentina’. A.S.F., Carte Strozziane, Ser. 1, 129, fol. 196r 14 Antonio da Sangallo. Sketches for a fortress at Porta S. Gallo. Uffizi, 758 A. 15 Antonio da Sangallo, preliminary drawing for Fortezza. Uffizi, 783 A. 16 Antonio da Sangallo, preliminary drawing for Fortezza. Uffizi, 782 A. 17 Fortezza da Basso. Section showing mastio and Porta a Faenza 18 Fortezza da Basso. Mastio from rampart 7 ILLUSTRATIONS 19 Antonio da Sangallo, preliminary drawing for Fortezza, Uffizi, 760 A. 20 Bastiano da Sangallo, Fortezza, plan. Uffizi, 315 A. The back is endorsed to Antonio, and this plan was probably sent to him in Romefrom Florence 21 Antonio da Sangallo, Fortezza, plan of city front. Uffizi, 756A. 22 Antonio da Sangallo, Fortezza, section through stables, rampart and wall. Uffizi, 1282 A. 23 Plan ofsally port access 24 Fortezza, plan 25 Antonio da Sangallo, Fortezza, ink and wash plan of mastio. “Torre de la porta a faenza’ at bottom. Uffizi, 757 A. 26 Pediment(at groundlevel) oforiginal extrance to mastio 27 Top of early entrance,city front, right ofmastio 28 De Marchi, Fortezza da Basso. MS.cit., fol. gr. 29 Fortezza da Basso. B.N.F., MS. XIX,62, fols. 14v—15r 30 Bastiano da Sangallo, detail from no. 20 31 Bastiano da Sangallo, detail from no. 20 32 Antonio da Sangallo, Fortezza, section. Uffizi, 931 A. 33 Bastiano da Sangallo, copy ofno. 32. Uffizi, 1659 A. 34 Antonio da Sangallo, design for stonework of mastio. Uffizi, 726A. 35 Fortezza, mastio 36 Mastio excavated to show stonework below modern earth level 37 Fortezza da Basso, A.S.F., R. R. Possessioni, Piante, 536 38 Project for new bastion between the Fortezza and Porta al Prato. A.S.F., Capitani di Parte, cart. XIX, scaffale L, palchetto 10, no. 58 39 Baldode Paludi’s inscription in the Fortezza Acknowledgements are made to the Soprintendenza ai Monumenti per le Provincie di Firenze, Arezzo e Pistoiafor plates 17, 18, 24, 26, 27, 35, 36 and 39. MAP Thecontado of Pisa in the fifteenth century, page 410 8 EDITOR’S PREFACE The present volume grew out of discussions among friends who some years ago were working at the Archivio di Stato in Florence. Although it does not make anypretence at comprehensiveness of a chronological or systematic order, it does not entirely lack unity of purpose ordirec- tion. By assembling studies that are representative of contemporary research in Florentine history, it may not only provide the reader with new information ona variety of topics and problems, but also acquaint him with someof the principal currents and aims of that research. Its very incompleteness is not entirely accidental, but reflects a similar incompleteness in historical scholarship. While some aspects andfields of Florentine history have been thoroughly investigated, othersstill await elucidation; and as so often, the increase in our knowledge has not been without an increased awareness of the gaps that remain to be filled. Even so, our knowledge of Florentine politics and economy from the 14th to the 16th century has been notably widened and deepened during the last 20-odd years; and if the present volume succeeds in conveying to the reader someofthis fuller vision, its plan would seem to have been amplyjustified. That it could be planned at all on this level and with so great a variety of topics, in itself bears witness to the remarkable flourishing of Florentine historical studies since the Second World War; thatall but one of the contributors come from Great Britain and the United States, shows the popularity of these studies in those countries. The present activity offers a striking contrast to the situation between the two world wars; the part played in it by students from outside Italy provides yet another example ofthe attraction exercized by medieval and Renaissance Florence on non-Italian scholarship. 9 EDITOR’S PREFACE To investigate the causes of this attraction would go far beyond the scope of this brief introduction. The position of Florence as one of the chief centres of Western civilization has no doubt hada large partinit, as has the fame of Lorenzo the Magnificent and Niccolé Machiavelli, and hence the desire to know more about their city and ‘age’. Less evident, but perhaps in the long run more important as far as the critical study of Florentine politics and society is concerned, is the incomparable wealth of the Florentine archives which allows a unique insight into the political and economic structure and the everydaylife of one of the greatest medieval city states. Jacob Burckhardt has said that Florence deserved perhaps ‘the nameof the first modernstate’; it was tempting to see in it at least a prototype of medieval urban development. At the same time, herhistory could, by the very richness of its documentation, serve to demonstrate modern political issues or theories. Sismondi had,at the beginning of the 19th century, written a history of the medievalItalian republics in termsof the struggle between liberty and despotism; Robert Davidsohn claimed in 1896, in the preface to his monumentalGeschichtevonFlorenz, that the history of that town was ‘prevalently that of her people and ofits fight against any kind of superior power’. Davidsohn was a German, nurtured in the traditions of German liberalism; Nicola Ottokar, whose book on ‘II comune di Firenze alla fine del Dugento’ (1926) revolutionized the study of Florentine communal government, was of Russian origin, and came to the study of 13th-century Florence from that of the medieval French communes, and hence from a wider vision of the problems of medieval urban development. Davidsohn’s Geschichte (1896-1927), in seven massive volumes based on extensive research, was a turning point in the study of medieval Florence and will no doubt remainits solid foundation for a long time to come. The narrative breaks off in 1330, but the three volumes on Florentinecivilization and economiclife, as well as the four additional volumes of Forschungen, also cover some of the rest of the fourteenth century. Descriptive rather than analytical, the Geschichte von Florenz leaves open important problems of social and political development and oversimplifies others. Gaetano Salvemini’s Magnati e popolant in Firenze dal 1280 al 1295, on the other hand,has exercized, since its publication in 1899, a lasting influence, on account not of the dis- covery of new facts but of its interpretation of

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