Preface xiv
Foreword by Gene A. Brucker xviii
A Note Concerning Dating xx
Chapter 1: Out of the Ashes: The Rise of the Communes and Florence
in the Age of Dante 1
The grandeur that was Rome 2
The spread of Christianity 3
The empire returns? 5
The Commercial Revolution 5
Communal governments sprout up in Italy 6
Tensions between magnates and popolo 8
The age of the popular commune, 1200–1290 8
A “pullulation of little powers” 10
Florentines, the “fifth element of the world” 11
Dante Alighieri, Florentine poet and political exile 12
The Divine Comedy, the first masterpiece of Italian literature 13
“Those brand new people and their sudden earnings” 14
Mendicant friars praised and corrupt popes punished 14
Dante on the separate powers of church and state 15
An explosion of naturalism in art—Giotto Di Bondone 16
Sculptural innovators—Nicola, Giovanni, and Andrea Pisano 17
Considerations—“Medieval” or “Renaissance”? 17
Resources 18
Chapter 2: The Crises of the Fourteenth Century: Climatic, Epidemic, Demographic
Disasters 20
Climate change—Global cooling 21
The Hundred Years’ War and crash of international banking 22
1347—A devastating pandemic arrives in Europe 22
Boccaccio’s account of the Black Death 25
The life of Giovanni Boccaccio 25
The Decameron, 100 tales of love, lust, and loss 26
Society in the wake of the Black Death 27
Government and medicine respond to the crisis 28
Social mobility and unrest 28
The Ciompi Rebellion 30
Town and country 30
“Motionless History” in the countryside 31
Hard times in the Contado 31
An age of new men 32
Painting in the early Trecento–The Sienese school 33
Art in the aftermath of the Black Death 34
Recovery and renewal 34
Considerations–Just how calamitous was the fourteenth
century? 35
Resources 35
Chapter 3: Back to the Future: Italian Humanists Recover the
Classical Past 37
Humanism–A cultural revolution led by notaries 38
The medieval scholastic heritage 39
Italian humanists restore ancient texts 40
The life of Petrarch–A passionate humanist 41
“Carried away by the fire of youth . . .” 42
Petrarch’s interiority–It’s all about “me” 43
Scattered Rhymes 43
An “educational surge”–Literacy and learning in Italian cities 45
The flowering of Florentine vernacular culture 47
Rhetoric–How to speak with strength, impetuosity
and grace 48
The generation after Petrarch–Salutati, Bruni, and
civic humanism 48
Ghiberti’s vigorous bronze reliefs 51
Donatello’s sculpture–Classical grace and civic virtue 52
Brunelleschi, engineer, architect, and pioneer of perspective 53
Masaccio, a painter of dramatic realism 54
Considerations–Humanism, humanitarianism, and
the humanities 55
Resources 55
Chapter 4: Caput Mundi Again? Rome from Cola di Rienzo to Pius II 57
The city of the Caesars becomes the city of the popes 59
The papacy precariously balanced on a rock 59
Roman communal politics–A “monstrous thing” 60
The two swords of Boniface VIII and Philip the Fair clash 61
A manifesto of papal absolutism–Unam sanctam 61
Rome widowed 62
The meteoric rise and fall of Cola di Rienzo 63
The Babylonian Captivity of the church, 1309—1378 64
The popes return to Rome 66
Antipopes and Western Schism, 1378—1417 66
The conciliar movement, 1409–1439 67
The birth of the Renaissance “papal prince” 69
Popes Martin V, Eugenius IV, and Nicholas V rebuild Rome,
1417–1455 69
The amazing Leon Battista Alberti 71
Reinventing the role of the architect 73
The Commentaries of Pius II, the humanist pope 74
Considerations—Renaissance pope and Renaissance man 76
Resources 77
Chapter 5: Hearth and Home: Lay Piety,Women, and the Family 79
Religion—A family affair 81
The saints—Christ’s special friends 82
Confraternities—Group settings for prayer and good
deeds 82
A Third Order of monasticism for laypeople 83
Female holiness in an age of living saints 84
Religion in women’s daily lives 86
Who were Laura and Beatrice really? 87
“What’s love got to do with It?”—Marriage among
Renaissance elites 88
Governing the household—The woman’s realm 90
A woman’s voice from the patrician class—Alessandra
Strozzi 90
The widow’s limited options 92
The nun in her cloister—Protected or imprisoned? 92
Working women—Domestic servants and wet nurses 93
Social outcasts—Prostitutes, outsiders, and slaves 94
Images of women in Renaissance art 94
Considerations—Was it the Renaissance for men, but the Dark Ages for
women? 96
Resources 97
Chapter 6: Lords of the Renaissance: The Medici, Visconti, and Sforza Dynasties
through 1466 99
From commune to signoria 100
Dissatisfaction within the communes 100
Life under the signore 102
Milan—In the middle of it all 103
The Visconti—The clan of vipers 104
Giangaleazzo Visconti—A prince among tyrants? 106
An intermission between two Milanese dynasties—The Ambrosian Republic,
1447–1450 107
Francesco Sforza—From soldier of fortune to statesman 107
The Medici–Where did they come from? 108
Giovanni di Bicci lays the foundations of the Medici banking
fortune 109
Cosimo de’ Medici (1389—1464)–Son of a money changer, father of
his country 110
“Be careful not to draw attention to yourself” 110
1433–Arrest and exile 111
Cosimo’s triumphal 1434 return–“A king in all but
name” 111
1454–Peace breaks out in Italy 112
Art, politics, and money–The patronage of Cosimo
de’ Medici 113
“Having so much on his conscience . . .” Vespasiano da
Bisticci on Cosimo’s rebuilding of the Monastery of
San Marco 114
Considerations–Was the Renaissance a cultural byproduct of new lords
seeking to legitimize their rule? 115
Resources 117
Chapter 7: The Mezzogiorno: The “Other Renaissance” in Naples
and Sicily 118
Land of myth and midday sun 119
Sicily–Bread-basket and lumber yard for Rome 120
Campania Felix–Naples and surroundings under the Roman
Empire 120
Fifth to ninth century invasions–Vandals, Goths, Byzantines,
Arabs 122
The south emerges as economic powerhouse, cultural melting pot in the
ninth century 122
Norman domination of the south, 1059—1130 123
Frederick II (1194—1250)–An emperor who was the wonder
of the world 124
The Sicilian Vespers 126
Aragon and Anjou fight over the two Sicilies, 1282—1442 127
The Two Sicilies reunited under Alfonso of Aragon, 1442 128
Ferrante I–The “bastard” who brought stability to Naples 129
The Renaissance in Naples, 1443—1494 130
Antonello da Messina’s paintings–Meticulous realism and
haunting mystery 131
Alfonso’s patronage of humanists 132
Lorenzo Valla–Humanist scholar and freethinker 132
Discourse on the Forgery of the Alleged Donation of
Constantine 133
Considerations–Was the south backward or ahead of its time? 135
Resources 136
Chapter 8: La Serenissima:When Venice Ruled the Seas 138
“You live like sea birds, your homes scattered over
the water . . .” 140
The Venetians’ battle for survival 140
Inventing a Venetian identity—The city of Saint Mark takes wing,
810–1000 142
From the “Venetian Gulf” to “Beyond-the-Sea”, 1000–1204 145
The Venetian commune comes of age, 1032–1297 146
The Great Council—Keystone of the Venetian Republic 148
The “aristocratic commune” closes ranks—The 1297 serrata 148
The Council of Ten—The vigilant lion 149
The Doge of Venice—Prince or primus inter pares? 150
“Lords of the sea” 150
Expansion of the Venetian Empire into the terraferma 152
Daily life in Renaissance Venice 153
Festivals, scuole, and venezianità 155
Humanism, printing, the sciences 156
Venetian painting of the early Renaissance—Bellini and
Carpaccio 157
The Renaissance comes to Venetian architecture—Sansovino 159
Gasparo Contarini’s The Commonwealth and Government of
Venice 159
Considerations—The myth and countermyth of Venice 160
Resources 161
Chapter 9: Magnificent Florence: Life under Lorenzo De’ Medici,
1469–1492 163
The restlessness of the Florentine Elites, 1464–1469 164
Lorenzo takes control, 1469–1477 165
“Brigades” of poets and jousts for love 166
Marsilio Ficino and Florentine Platonism 166
Vernacular magnificence—Lorenzo and literature 168
Luigi Pulci’s Il Morgante 168
Angelo Poliziano’s Stanzas for Giuliano de’ Medici 169
The Renaissance on the streets—Popular entertainments and festivals in
quattrocento Florence 169
Lorenzo and Pope Sixtus IV collide 171
The Pazzi Conspiracy—Murder in the cathedral 172
Florence at war with the pope 172
Lorenzo as “boss of the shop” 173
Money and art in Renaissance Florence 174
Competition and innovation in the arts 175
The realism of Pollaiuolo and Verrocchio 175
The idealism of Botticelli 176
Depicting the here and now–Ghirlandaio 177
Building for posterity 178
The spiritual mood in late quattrocento Florence 179
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s “Oration on the Dignity
of Man” 179
Considerations–Golden ages 180
Resources 181
Chapter 10: 1494: The Beginning of the Calamities of Italy 183
The Italian League unravels 184
Rodrigo Borgia becomes Pope Alexander VI 186
The French Invasion of 1494 187
Savonarola–The rise of the “little friar” from Ferrara 188
The “New Jerusalem”–The Florentine Republic renewed 189
Weepers, angry men, and ugly companions 190
The fiery end of Savonarola 190
Louis XII and the French Invasion of 1499 191
The meteoric career of Cesare Borgia 192
Julius II the “terrible” pope takes on Venice 194
The Holy League–A brief alliance born of mutual enmity 196
The Florentine Republic under Soderini gives way to Medici
rule in 1512 196
Niccolò Machiavelli out of work 197
The Prince–A mirror for the Medici? 197
When virtù is not necessarily virtuous and fortuna is not always
fortunate 198
The role of morality and religion in The Prince 199
Does Machiavelli advocate tyranny? 201
Considerations–Fortuna, providence or chance? 202
Resources 204
Chapter 11: Paradoxes of the High Renaissance: Art in a time
of Turmoil 205
Leonardo–The pacifist who designed weapons for
a prince 207
Mantua, Ferrara, Urbino–Small courts, big ambitions 209
Mantua–“The most beautiful chamber in the world” painted by
Mantegna 209
Isabella d’Este’s studiolo of her own 210
The Dukes of Ferrara celebrated in poetry and music 210
Urbino–The condottiero’s refined court, library, and art collection 211
The Venetian innovators—Painters in a watery city dream of idyllic
pastures 211
The visual poetry of Giorgione 212
Titian’s bold colors, sensuality, triumphant images 213
The explosive genius of Michelangelo—Extreme piety and extreme
paganism 213
The David—Bold symbol of the Florentine Republic 214
Pope Julius II—A second Caesar 215
Bramante tears down St. Peter’s 216
Michelangelo paints a “terrible” ceiling 217
Raphael in Rome—A painter of sweet-faced Madonnas creates majestic
rooms for a pope 218
The School of Athens—Antiquity alive and energized 219
The banker’s pleasure palace, talking statues, and risqué positions—The end
of an era in Rome 219
Considerations—Terrible times and awesome art 220
Resources 221
Chapter 12: The 1527 Sack of Rome and its Aftermath: Courtiers and Courtesans in
High Renaissance Literature 223
A new world order in the sixteenth century 225
The profligate papacy of Leo X, 1513–1521 225
Francesco Guicciardini’s career as papal governor in the
Romagna 227
The tragically indecisive Pope Clement VII 227
On the brink of disaster, 1526 228
The Sack 229
A traumatized Christendom takes stock 231
Baldassare Castiglione’s instant bestseller 232
Contradictions and tensions within The Courtier 233
The Machiavellian courtier? 234
Gender-bending at court and the changing role of women 234
Courtiers, court ladies, and courtesans 235
Ariosto and Sannazaro’s escapist fantasies 236
Considerations—Accepting defeat with grazia 237
Resources 238
Chapter 13: Reformations: Political, Religious, and Artistic Upheaval,
1530–1563 240
The last Florentine Republic, 1527–1530 241
The Medici principate established 242
The teenaged Cosimo becomes Duke of Florence 243
Michelangelo and the Medici, 1516–1534 243
Martin Luther–A German monk protests 244
Humanist origins of the Protestant Reformation–“Christian
Humanism” 245
Catholic reformations before the Reformation 245
The church responds–Catholic versus Protestant 246
The Council of Trent, 1545—1563 247
The Vulgate Bible–“No one is to dare or presume to reject it under any
pretext” 248
The Sacraments and the role of the priest re-affirmed 248
Social consequences of Trent 249
Clerical reform and full enclosure of nuns 249
Michelangelo in Rome, 1534—1564 250
Mannerism–Avant-garde art 252
The artist as courtier 252
The Lives of the Artists–Vasari invents art history 253
Benvenuto Cellini’s Autobiography–The artist invents himself 254
Considerations–The sixteenth-century reformations put in perspective 256
Resources 258
Chapter 14: The “Imperial Renaissance”: Italy during the Spanish Peace,
1559—1598 259
The Habsburgs–A spectacular matrimonial conglomerate 260
Keeping the troublesome republics subdued 262
The rule of Spanish viceroys 262
Pax hispanica 263
Learning that was not strictly academic 264
Print culture–Read all about it 265
The epic poetry of Torquato Tasso 265
The erotic poetry of Veronica Franco 266
Buffoons, faithful shepherds, and prima donnas–The birth of Renaissance
theater 267
Italian words and music come together–Madrigals, motets, and masses 268
Architecture–Perfection of classical forms and experimentation 269
Palladio shapes western architecture 270
Rome gloriously rebuilt 270
Venetian masters–Titian’s late style, Tintoretto, and Veronese 271
Opportunities for women artists–Sofonisba Anguissola and Lavinia
Fontana 272
The anti-mannerists–Annibale, Agostino, and Ludovico Carracci 273
The Michelangelo from Caravaggio 273
Considerations–Was the late sixteenth century a Siglo de Oro for Italy? 275
Resources 276
Chapter 15: Celestial Revolutions: Heaven and Earth Collide at the Turn of the
Seventeenth Century 278
Inquistions 280
The Roman Inquisition—Myth and reality 280
Jews and witches 281
The index of Prohibited books 282
Missionaries to the mezzogiorno—“The Indies down here” 283
The “new philosophy”—Natural philosophers try to read the book of
nature 284
Italian scientific revolutions 285
A flowering of the natural sciences 286
The sciences put to work—The genius of engineers and artists 287
Anatomy—Physicians and artists look inside the human body 288
Astrology, astronomy, cosmology—The sixteenth-century view
from Earth 289
Measuring the heavens—Mathematicians invade outer space 291
Galileo and the “new science” 292
Galileo takes a spyglass and turns it into telescope 293
The Starry Messenger—The Medici become moons and the scientist becomes
a star 294
The conflict between the new science and religion 295
The trial of the century—Galileo before the Inquisition in 1633 297
Considerations—What would the ancient Greeks and
Romans have said? 298
Resources 298
Epilogue: The End of the Renaissance? 301
Index 304
Images
1. St. Francis Master, St. Francis Renounces His Worldly Possessions, detail 1
2. Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Allegory of Good Government, detail 20
3. Donatello, St. George, detail 37
4. Masolino da Panicale, The Founding of Santa Maria Maggiore 57
5. Piero della Francesca, Madonna del parto, della Madonna del Parto, Monterchi 79
6. Benozzo Gozzoli, Journey of the Magi, detail 99
7. Antonello da Messina, Virgin Annunciate 118
8. Vittore Carpaccio, The Miracle at the Rialto 138
9. Sandro Botticelli, Primavera, detail 163
10. Giorgione, The Tempest 183
11. Leonardo da Vinci, Vitruvian Man 205
12. Raphael, Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione 223
13. Michelangelo, Last Judgment, detail 240
14. Caravaggio, Bacchus 259
15. Galileo, Sidereus nuncius 278
Maps
Regions of Italy, Inside front cover
1.1 Principal Italian Communes c. 1250 7
2.1 Spread of the Black Death in Europe 23
2.2 Social Unrest in Europe During the Fourteenth Century 29
3.1 Education in Renaissance Italy 46
4.1 Western Schism (1378—1417) 68
6.1 Communes and Signories in Italy c. 1250 101
6.2 Communes and Signories in Italy c. 1450 101
6.3 Milanese Territory under the Visconti 105
7.1 Southern Italy and the Mediterranean c. 600 CE 121
8.1 The Early Settlement of Venice and Trade Routes Through the Mainland 141
8.2 Venice and the Eastern Mediterranean, 1140—1204 144
8.3 Venetian Merchant Fleets in the Fifteenth Century 151
10.1 The Five Major Italian States, 1494 185
10.2 The Papal States 195
12.1 The Empire of Charles V in Europe 224
14.1 Italy, 1559 261
15.1 Changing Concepts of the Cosmos 290
Tables
Population of Italian cities c. 1300 11
Ancient texts in Greek: Some of the earliest dates they appear in Italy 50
Percentage of female saints 84
Lisa Kaborycha has a Ph.D. in Medieval and Early Modern
History and an M.A. in Italian Studies from the University of
California, Berkeley, where for years she taught undergraduate
courses in Renaissance Italian History and Culture. A former
recipient of the Fulbright Award and National Endowment for the
Humanities Fellow at the Medici Archive Project, Dr. Kaborycha
currently resides in Florence, Italy, where she is a Research
Fellow at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian
Renaissance Studies.
Dr. Kaborycha’s A Short History of Renaissance Italy is based on a thorough knowledge of current literature. She is aware of the controversies among scholars over the interpretation of this epoch. She analyzes the tension between continuity and change in these centuries, from the ravages of the Black Death in the 1340s, to the revival in the fifteenth century, and the dramatic consequences of the foreign invasions after 1494. A notable quality of this work is the author’s integration of every significant feature of this era, from climate and geography to politics, the economy, and religion and culture. Her choice of literary and artistic sources, from Homer and Cicero to Dante and Michelangelo, is always pertinent and instructive. She begins each chapter by setting the scene with apt quotations or illustrations to establish the context of her analysis. Her writing style is lucid and often eloquent, and she takes care to explain unfamiliar concepts and themes. Her suggestions for further reading are well chosen. This book is an exemplary narrative and analysis of a major chapter in the history of Western civilization. Gene A. Brucker Shepard Professor of History, Emeritus University of California, Berkeley
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