Florentine Palaces, Costly Signaling, and Lineage Survival Michael Church
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University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository Anthropology ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 5-1-2012 Florentine Palaces, Costly Signaling, and Lineage Survival Michael Church Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/anth_etds Part of the Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Church, Michael. "Florentine Palaces, Costly Signaling, and Lineage Survival." (2012). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/anth_etds/ 12 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Anthropology ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Michael K. Church Candidate Department of Anthropology Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: James L. Boone , Chairperson Michael Graves Osbjorn Pearson Geoffrey Miller i FLORENTINE PALACES, COSTLY SIGNALING, AND LINEAGE SURVIVAL by MICHAEL K. CHURCH B.A., English, Colorado College, 1989 M.A., Anthropology, University of New Mexico, 2004 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Anthropology The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico May, 2012 ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Like all dissertations, this one was possible only with the help of a large number of people. I would like to thank my dissertation committee, Dr. James Boone, Dr. Geoffrey Miller, Dr. Michael Graves, and Dr. Osbjorn Pearson for their advice, their suggestions, and above all their patience. I would also like to thank Dr. Ann Ramenofsky, who made it possible for me to remain in graduate school. I would also like to thank Dr. James Gallison, Michael Jennings, Dr. Matthew Edwards, and Jeff Hokanson with HDR, Inc. for their moral support. I must also thank them for giving me the flexibility I needed to finish this dissertation and for sending me on projects that generated enough frequent flyer miles to send me to Italy. Most of all, I would like to thank my wife, Anne Compton, who made this dissertation possible in more ways than I can possibly list here. iii FLORENTINE PALACES, COSTLY SIGNALING, AND LINEAGE SURVIVAL BY MICHAEL K. CHURCH B.A., English, Colorado College, 1989 M.A., Anthropology, University of New Mexico, 2004 Ph.D., Anthropology, University of New Mexico, 2012 ABSTRACT My dissertation evaluated whether the palaces built in Florence, Italy during the Renaissance are a form of costly signaling. Costly signaling theory was developed to explain why organisms have attributes and behaviors that appear to defy basic Darwinian logic by having costs that are not offset by obvious benefits. The theory proposes that such attributes and behaviors persist because they are reliable signals of information about the signalers. Signal audiences use the information content of signals to rank signalers and to modify their interactions with signalers in ways that benefit signalers. These interactions can involve mate choice, predation avoidance, status competition, or any other interactions that improve the likelihood that signalers have offspring that survive to reproduce themselves. My research collected information on 206 standing palaces built during the Florentine republic of 1282 to 1532 and during the first several decades of the succeeding Medici Duchy. My research also used primary documentary records of elections to government and guild offices, with political success used as a proxy measure for overall status. I also used electoral records as a source of demographic data. The elections iv records were then used to evaluate the reproductive and political success of palace builders, their families, and their contemporaries. My research found that palaces are consistent with expectations for costly signals, especially during the period of de facto Medici rule from 1434 to 1494. My research also found that palace builders had much higher than average reproductive and political success. However, they built their palaces after they had completed their reproductive lives and when they were halfway through their political careers. This timing means that palace construction did not benefit palace builders. The benefits of palace building appear instead to have been intended for the eldest sons of palace builders, who were able to maintain their fathers’ high levels of political and reproductive success. I conclude that palaces were a costly signal of families’ ability and willingness to invest resources in their inheriting sons to ensure that those sons could preserve families as demographic entities and as members of the sociopolitical elite. v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures .................................................................................................................... ix List of Tables ................................................................................................................... xiii Chapter 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 The Data Sets .................................................................................................................. 6 Organization of the Dissertation ..................................................................................... 7 Chapter 2. Costly Signaling and Its Alternatives ................................................................ 9 Costly Signaling .............................................................................................................. 9 Costly Signaling in the Social Sciences ........................................................................ 23 Alternatives ................................................................................................................... 26 Chapter 3. The Historic Context ....................................................................................... 35 The Republic Era, 1282-1532 ....................................................................................... 38 The Medici Duchy Era and Beyond, 1533-1860 .......................................................... 47 What the Historic Context Means ................................................................................. 48 Economic History ......................................................................................................... 49 Chapter 4. The Florentine Election Process ...................................................................... 59 Government Offices ...................................................................................................... 60 Guild Offices ................................................................................................................. 63 The Scope of the Electoral Data ................................................................................... 65 vi The Significance of Being Drawn and Being Seated for Office ................................... 67 Chapter 5. An Overview of Florentine Palaces ................................................................ 71 Identifying the Palaces .................................................................................................. 72 Medieval Styles, 1260-1475 ......................................................................................... 82 Early and Middle Renaissance Styles, 1444-1575 ........................................................ 94 Mannerist Styles, 1520-Later ...................................................................................... 109 The Costs of Construction .......................................................................................... 114 Chapter 6. Hypotheses .................................................................................................... 119 First Condition ............................................................................................................ 119 Second Condition ........................................................................................................ 120 Third Condition ........................................................................................................... 121 Fourth Condition ......................................................................................................... 126 Summary of Hypotheses ............................................................................................. 127 Chapter 7. Analyzing the Palace Record ........................................................................ 129 Palaces and the Built Environment ............................................................................. 130 Ranking Palaces .......................................................................................................... 137 Costly Signal or Index ................................................................................................ 160 Costly Signaling or Bet Hedging? .............................................................................. 192 Summing Up—Are Palaces Costly Signals? .............................................................. 195 Chapter 8. Analyzing the Palace Builders ...................................................................... 199 vii Reproductive Success ................................................................................................. 203 Political Success.........................................................................................................