Chancery Officials and the Business of Communal Administration in Republican Florence
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Chancery Officials and the Business of Communal Administration in Republican Florence Ventura and Niccolò Monachi, Chancellors of Florence (1340-48/1348-75) by Leah Faibisoff A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Medieval Studies University of Toronto © Copyright by Leah Faibisoff 2018 ii Chancery Officials and the Business of Communal Administration in Republican Florence Ventura and Niccolò Monachi, Chancellors of Florence (1340-48/1348-75) Leah Faibisoff Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Medieval Studies University of Toronto 2018 Abstract This dissertation studies the chancery of the Florentine Republic by examining the administrative offices that constituted the institution and some of the notary-administrators who held principal positions within it. The scholarship on Florentine government often presupposes the existence of some kind of permanent bureaucratic workforce that provided stability for the city’s system of amateur, short-term political office. My dissertation instead suggests that the susceptibility to change in Florentine government extended also to its administrative organization. It can be found at the level of institutional dynamics, but it was also experienced by chancery officials themselves who continually had to negotiate the forces of instability in the performance of their duties, ultimately affecting their attitudes towards their work. The first half of this dissertation considers the institutional dynamics of impermanence within the chancery through an examination and description of the three main offices of the institution during the republican period: the notary of the priors, the notary of legislation, and the chancellor. The main contention of this section is that within the institution of the chancery there was an apparent tension between the semi-permanent, rationalizing force of a very few administrative agents and the impermanent destabilizing force of hundreds of administrative agents who cycled through the chancery. iii The second half of the dissertation then turns to look in detail at the lives and careers of two long-serving chancellors, Ventura Monachi (chancellor, 1340-1348) and his son Niccolò Monachi (chancellor, 1348- 1375). In his lyric poetry, Ventura negotiates the incessant forces of unpredictability as both a notary- administrator and chancellor, while Niccolò’s book of Ricordanze demonstrates how even a notary- administrator who operated as a semi-permanent official was vulnerable to the shifting political sands of the Florentine commune. This study contributes a new set of insights and perspectives to our understanding of the institution of the Florentine chancery through an examination of the relationship between socio-political dynamics and institutional form; the formation of an administrative habitus as evidenced by the exchange of symbolic capital in municipal poetry and communal art; and, the everyday functionality of an institution structurally based on a persistent tension between stability and instability. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The people whose mentorship, intellectual collaboration, and emotional support I have relied on throughout the research and writing of this dissertation are too many to mention in this short space. It must suffice to name only a few here: Firstly, thanks are in order for the members of my committee, Nicholas Terpstra, Elisa Brilli, Lawrin Armstrong, and my tireless supervisor, William Robins. I also would like to express my appreciation for the comments and encouragement offered by my external examiners, William Caferro and Konrad Eisenbichler. Many thanks to Roisin Cossar who first set me to work in the archive as well as to friends and colleagues at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, particularly Carolin Behrmann, Felix Jäger, and Stefan Huygebaert. I would also like acknowledge the advice and friendship of those in Toronto, particularly: Kara Gaston, Kenneth Bartlett, Jill Ross, Isabelle Cochelin, Greti Dinkova-Bruun, and Fred Unwalla. Ringrazio il dott. Luca Boschetto e la dott.ssa Maria Francesca Tiepolo di avermi guidato tra i fondi notarili degli archivi di Firenze e Venezia. Sono tanti gli amici italiani che mi hanno accompagnato lungo questa strada. Al rischio di ometterne troppi, ne nomino solo alcuni: Giulio Ricci e famiglia, Renata, Luigi, Francesco, e Josef; Osvaldo e Piera Vallese; Andrea e Alessandro Lazzati; Ada e Andrea Debiasi; Roberto Dadone, Mileidis “Milli” Fernandez, Luca e Sandra Gagliano, Angelo e Giovanni. Inoltre, vorrei menzionare alcune persone per cui le parole non bastano per esprimere l’affetto che provo per loro: la mia famiglia italiana, Lisa Bianchi e Aldo Lazzati, vi tengo sempre nel cuore; Paolo Piaggi, che non si stanca di incoraggiarmi e darmi fiducia, e mi accompagna nei prossimi passi; Don Giorgio Fedalto, mio nonno spirituale, ecco un altro mattone per riempire il tuo caminetto; e Monsignor Luigi Villa, le cui parole italiane ho ascoltato per la prima volta nella mia vita. My family has been a source of unreserved love and support. None of the pages of this dissertation could have been written without my mother, who read every word twice, my father, who championed me throughout, my brother Daniel, my sister Sara, little Alistair, and my beloved cats. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements iv Table of Contents v List of Tables vi List of Figures vii List of Appendices viii Archival References and Abbreviations ix Introduction 1–20 Chapter One The Administrative Organiz ation of the Chancery 21–45 Chapter Two An Impermanent Bureaucracy 46–81 Chapter Three Ventura Monachi 82–145 Chapter Four Niccolò Monachi 146–220 Epilogue 221–230 Bibliography 231-247 vi TABLES 2.1 Degrees of Permanence and Impermanence 2.2 Tenure Duration of “Permanent” Republican Chancery Officials 2.3 Percentages of Individual notai with 1 or more Tenures 2.4 Notaries with more than one (1+) tenure each decade 2.5 Notaries with only one (1) tenure in each decade 2.6 Actual Notaries Every Decade 2.7 Average Time Between Tenures 2.8 Notaries with only one (1) AND more than one (1+) every five years 2.9 Notaries with only one (1) AND more than one (1+) every twenty years 2.10 Chancellors as notai dei priori 2.11 Second Chancellors as notai dei priori 4.1 Distribution of Niccolò’s Administrative Offices by Type 4.2 Niccolò’s Land Purchases, 1350-1372 4.3 Niccolò’s Annual Income from Administrative Offices 4.4 Niccolò’s Annual Salaries vis-à-vis his Annual Investments vii FIGURES 1.1 “Segreteria” 1.2 The Chancery within the Florentine Organization of Government 3.1 Palazzo della Signoria, Layout of Third Floor 3.2 The Monachi Tomb Slab, Santa Croce 3.3 The Monachi Family 4.1 Booklet E and the Bastardello, Ricordanze, 73v-74r 4.2 Via Vinegia viii APPENDICES Appendix I The notai dei priori, 1282-1532 248-282 Appendix II The Translated Sonnets of Ventura Monachi 283-317 Appendix III The Administrative Offices of Niccolò Monachi 318-321 Appendix IV The Testament of Niccolò Monachi 322-326 ix ARCHIVAL REFERENCES AND ABBREVIATIONS Archivio di Stato di Firenze ASF Arte dei Giudici e Notai AGN Carte Strozziane Cart. Strozz. Catasto Catasto Capitano del Popolo e difensore delle Arti Capitano Capitoli del Comune, registri Cap., reg. Consulte e pratiche Consulte Diplomatico Dip. Esecutore degli ordinamenti di giustizia Esecutore Libri fabarum Lib. fab. Manoscritti Manoscritti Notarile Antecosiminiano Not. Ante. Pareri dei savi Pareri Podestà Podestà Priorista di Palazzo Priorista Provvisioni, Registri Provv. reg. Raccolta Sebregondi Racc. Sebre. Riformagioni, Capitoli Rif. cap. Riformagioni, Provvisioni Rif. Provv. Signori, missivi I cancelleria Sig., miss. I canc. Tratte Tratte 1 INTRODUCTION This dissertation examines the chancery of the Florentine Republic by means of analyses of the principal administrative offices that constituted the institution (the notaio dei priori, notaio delle riformagioni, and notaio dettatore, or chancellor) and some of the notary-administrators who held those offices.1 Responsible for the coordination of the exercise of the city’s sovereignty, the institution of the chancery was located at the heart of administrative organization and governance in Florence. Throughout the republican period it remained an important site of interaction between the exercise of political power and the daily functioning of the commune’s administrative apparatus. The institution’s specific form changed over time to accommodate the socio-political dynamics of the commune. Thus, the first half of this dissertation illustrates the long-term evolution of the chancery primarily through a statistical analysis of the office of notaio dei priori from 1282 to 1532. As we will see, the data suggest that the parameters of this office changed over time in parallel with a historical tendency that saw the office-holding class elected to staff the executive magistracy of the Signoria constantly grow under regimes 1 For the offices that collectively constituted the Florentine chancery see Marzi, La Cancelleria, passim. 2 commonly regarded as oligarchic. The second half of the dissertation then turns to examine the office of chancellor, focussing on the four decades immediately prior to 1382, the date that some scholars have given for the beginning of oligarchic hegemony in Florence. It offers detailed studies of the lives and careers of two long-serving fourteenth-century chancellors, Ventura Monachi (chancellor, 1340-1348) and his son Niccolò Monachi (chancellor, 1348-1375), and