A History of Florence, 1200 - 1575
1. Edition October 2006
528 Pages, Hardcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
ISBN:
978-1-4051-1954-2
John Wiley & Sons
In this history of Florence, distinguished historian John Najemy
discusses all the major developments in Florentine history from
1200 to 1575.
* Captures Florence's transformation from a medieval commune into
an aristocratic republic, territorial state, and monarchy
* Weaves together intellectual, cultural, social, economic,
religious, and political developments
* Academically rigorous yet accessible and appealing to the
general reader
* Likely to become the standard work on Renaissance Florence for
years to come
List of Illustrations viii
List of Maps ix
Acknowledgments x
Introduction 1
1 The Elite Families 5
Lineages 6
Knighthood and Feuds 11
Political Alignments and Factions 20
Culture and Religion 27
2 The Popolo 35
Definitions 35
Guilds 39
Culture and Education: Notaries 45
Religion 50
Critique of Elite Misrule 57
3 Early Conflicts of Elite and Popolo 63
Before 1250 64
Primo Popolo 66
Angevin Alliance 72
Priorate of the Guilds 76
Second Popolo and the Ordinances of Justice 81
Elite Resurgence: Black and White Guelfs 88
4 Domestic Economy and Merchant Empires to 1340 96
Population: City and Contado 96
Textiles, Building, and Provisioning 100
Merchant Companies and the Mercanzia 109
Taxation and Public Finances 118
5 The Fourteenth-Century Dialogue of Power 124
Elite Dominance, 1310-40 124
Crisis of the 1340s and the Third Popular Government 132
Funded Public Debt and Bankruptcies 139
Elite Recovery and Popular Reaction 144
War against the Church 151
6 Revolution and Realignment 156
Workers' Economic Conditions 157
The Ciompi Revolution 161
The Last Guild Government 166
Counterrevolution 171
Fear of the Working Classes 176
Consensus Politics 182
7 War, Territorial Expansion, and the Transformation of Political Discourse 188
First Visconti Wars 189
Territorial Dominion: The Conquest of Pisa 194
Civic Humanism 200
The Civic Family 211
8 Family and State in the Age of Consensus 219
The Family Imaginary 219
Households, Marriage, Dowries 225
Women, Property, Inheritance 232
Children, Hospitals, Charity 238
Policing Sodomy 244
9 Fateful Embrace: The Emergence of the Medici 250
A New Style of Leadership 250
Fiscal Crisis and the Catasto 254
Cosimo's Money and Friends 262
Showdown 269
10 The Medici and the Ottimati: A Partnership of Conflict
Part I: Cosimo and Piero 278
Institutional Controls 280
External Supports: Papacy and Sforza Milan 286
Cosimo's Coup 291
The Ottimati Challenge Piero 298
11 The Luxury Economy and Art Patronage 307
Poverty and Wealth 307
Public and Private Patronage 315
Family Commemoration and Self-Fashioning 323
12 The Medici and the Ottimati: A Partnership of Conflict
Part 2: Lorenzo 341
Lorenzo's Elders 344
Lorenzo's Volterra Massacre 348
Pazzi Conspiracy and War 352
The (Insecure) Prince in All but Name 361
Building a Dynasty 369
13 Reinventing the Republic 375
French Invasion and Expulsion of the Medici 375
The Great Council 381
Savonarola's Holy Republic 390
Domestic Discord and Dominion Crises 400
Soderini, Machiavelli's Militia, and Pisa 407
14 Papal Overlords 414
The Cardinal and a Controversial Marriage 415
Fall of the Republic and Return of the Medici 419
A Regime Adrift 426
Aristocratic and Popular Republicanisms 434
The Nascent Principate 441
15 The Last Republic and the Medici Duchy 446
Revolution 447
Siege 453
Imposition of a New Order 461
Ducal Government 468
Finances and Economy 473
Courtly and Cultural Discipline 478
Victor and Vanquished 482
Epilogue: Remembrance of Things Past 486
Index 491
List of Maps ix
Acknowledgments x
Introduction 1
1 The Elite Families 5
Lineages 6
Knighthood and Feuds 11
Political Alignments and Factions 20
Culture and Religion 27
2 The Popolo 35
Definitions 35
Guilds 39
Culture and Education: Notaries 45
Religion 50
Critique of Elite Misrule 57
3 Early Conflicts of Elite and Popolo 63
Before 1250 64
Primo Popolo 66
Angevin Alliance 72
Priorate of the Guilds 76
Second Popolo and the Ordinances of Justice 81
Elite Resurgence: Black and White Guelfs 88
4 Domestic Economy and Merchant Empires to 1340 96
Population: City and Contado 96
Textiles, Building, and Provisioning 100
Merchant Companies and the Mercanzia 109
Taxation and Public Finances 118
5 The Fourteenth-Century Dialogue of Power 124
Elite Dominance, 1310-40 124
Crisis of the 1340s and the Third Popular Government 132
Funded Public Debt and Bankruptcies 139
Elite Recovery and Popular Reaction 144
War against the Church 151
6 Revolution and Realignment 156
Workers' Economic Conditions 157
The Ciompi Revolution 161
The Last Guild Government 166
Counterrevolution 171
Fear of the Working Classes 176
Consensus Politics 182
7 War, Territorial Expansion, and the Transformation of Political Discourse 188
First Visconti Wars 189
Territorial Dominion: The Conquest of Pisa 194
Civic Humanism 200
The Civic Family 211
8 Family and State in the Age of Consensus 219
The Family Imaginary 219
Households, Marriage, Dowries 225
Women, Property, Inheritance 232
Children, Hospitals, Charity 238
Policing Sodomy 244
9 Fateful Embrace: The Emergence of the Medici 250
A New Style of Leadership 250
Fiscal Crisis and the Catasto 254
Cosimo's Money and Friends 262
Showdown 269
10 The Medici and the Ottimati: A Partnership of Conflict
Part I: Cosimo and Piero 278
Institutional Controls 280
External Supports: Papacy and Sforza Milan 286
Cosimo's Coup 291
The Ottimati Challenge Piero 298
11 The Luxury Economy and Art Patronage 307
Poverty and Wealth 307
Public and Private Patronage 315
Family Commemoration and Self-Fashioning 323
12 The Medici and the Ottimati: A Partnership of Conflict
Part 2: Lorenzo 341
Lorenzo's Elders 344
Lorenzo's Volterra Massacre 348
Pazzi Conspiracy and War 352
The (Insecure) Prince in All but Name 361
Building a Dynasty 369
13 Reinventing the Republic 375
French Invasion and Expulsion of the Medici 375
The Great Council 381
Savonarola's Holy Republic 390
Domestic Discord and Dominion Crises 400
Soderini, Machiavelli's Militia, and Pisa 407
14 Papal Overlords 414
The Cardinal and a Controversial Marriage 415
Fall of the Republic and Return of the Medici 419
A Regime Adrift 426
Aristocratic and Popular Republicanisms 434
The Nascent Principate 441
15 The Last Republic and the Medici Duchy 446
Revolution 447
Siege 453
Imposition of a New Order 461
Ducal Government 468
Finances and Economy 473
Courtly and Cultural Discipline 478
Victor and Vanquished 482
Epilogue: Remembrance of Things Past 486
Index 491
"Based on wide reading of the available secondary and printed
sources, A History of Florence represents the achievement of
a lifetime's devotion to the study of the city. Moreover, Najemy's
categories of analysis should provoke debates and conversations for
future lifetimes." (Renaissance and Reformation,
2009)
"There is much to praise about this book. It is a model historical
synthesis of the history of a great premodern European city. It is
also a sophisticated political history in which class-based ideas
and values matter as much as individual details of political
events." (The Catholic Historical Review, July 2010)"[This]
is the best history of Florence in any language, and it will long
remain so, for Najemy has mastered the relevant literature more
thoroughly than any other historian in living memory." (Times
Literary Supplement)
"John Najemy is a pre-eminent historian of Renaissance Florence
... a scholar of learning, imagination and intellectual
penetration, with a profound knowledge of Florentine history from
the thirteenth to the sixteenth century and with a remarkable range
of interests in political, social and intellectual history. There
has been no credible attempt to write a history of Florence in this
period since the time of Perrens's multi-volume work, finished in
1883. Najemy has risen admirably to the challenge. He has
assimilated the vast secondary literature on Florence, from the
beginning of the thirteenth to the late sixteenth century. The
range of his analysis and explication stretches across a vast range
of fundamental social, political, economic, diplomatic, military
and biographical topics. Nor is Najemy indifferent to intellectual
history, especially questions involving political thought and
ideology. This book is no mere synthesis of other scholars' work.
Indeed, Najemy offers a distinctive interpretation, one which has
already stimulated controversy and will doubtless continue to do
so." (Reviews in History)
"Highly recommended." (Choice)
"An extraordinary accomplishment. Deserves rich praise as a
fundamentally new and authoritative interpretation of four key
centuries of this remarkable city's development."
Speculum"[Najemy], a veteran Renaissance historian
offers a big and impressive survey of the Florentine city-state
.... One of the justifications for the book [is] the need for
an updated and accessible synthesis of the superabundance of recent
specialized scholarship on Florence. He succeeds admirably at that
task ... [and] manages to explain and contextualize detailed
scholarship while remaining a lively and engaging political
narrative. [It] will surely become the definitive narrative of
medieval and Renaissance Florence, a point of departure for
students of Florentine politics and culture as well as a major
interpretive statement providing much for specialists to engage
with for some time." (Sixteenth Century Journal)
"A masterly survey of a generation of scholarship that has opened
up many new perspectives, by an expert guide to the complex
political society of medieval and Renaissance Florence."
--Christine Shaw, of Cambridge University
"This is a marvellous book and I suspect it will become a
classic. John Najemy has an astonishing and probably unparalleled
mastery of the scholarship on Florence and has accomplished a
precise and beautifully written synthetic history of the Medieval
and Renaissance city."
--Carol Lansing, University of California, Santa
Barbara
sources, A History of Florence represents the achievement of
a lifetime's devotion to the study of the city. Moreover, Najemy's
categories of analysis should provoke debates and conversations for
future lifetimes." (Renaissance and Reformation,
2009)
"There is much to praise about this book. It is a model historical
synthesis of the history of a great premodern European city. It is
also a sophisticated political history in which class-based ideas
and values matter as much as individual details of political
events." (The Catholic Historical Review, July 2010)"[This]
is the best history of Florence in any language, and it will long
remain so, for Najemy has mastered the relevant literature more
thoroughly than any other historian in living memory." (Times
Literary Supplement)
"John Najemy is a pre-eminent historian of Renaissance Florence
... a scholar of learning, imagination and intellectual
penetration, with a profound knowledge of Florentine history from
the thirteenth to the sixteenth century and with a remarkable range
of interests in political, social and intellectual history. There
has been no credible attempt to write a history of Florence in this
period since the time of Perrens's multi-volume work, finished in
1883. Najemy has risen admirably to the challenge. He has
assimilated the vast secondary literature on Florence, from the
beginning of the thirteenth to the late sixteenth century. The
range of his analysis and explication stretches across a vast range
of fundamental social, political, economic, diplomatic, military
and biographical topics. Nor is Najemy indifferent to intellectual
history, especially questions involving political thought and
ideology. This book is no mere synthesis of other scholars' work.
Indeed, Najemy offers a distinctive interpretation, one which has
already stimulated controversy and will doubtless continue to do
so." (Reviews in History)
"Highly recommended." (Choice)
"An extraordinary accomplishment. Deserves rich praise as a
fundamentally new and authoritative interpretation of four key
centuries of this remarkable city's development."
Speculum"[Najemy], a veteran Renaissance historian
offers a big and impressive survey of the Florentine city-state
.... One of the justifications for the book [is] the need for
an updated and accessible synthesis of the superabundance of recent
specialized scholarship on Florence. He succeeds admirably at that
task ... [and] manages to explain and contextualize detailed
scholarship while remaining a lively and engaging political
narrative. [It] will surely become the definitive narrative of
medieval and Renaissance Florence, a point of departure for
students of Florentine politics and culture as well as a major
interpretive statement providing much for specialists to engage
with for some time." (Sixteenth Century Journal)
"A masterly survey of a generation of scholarship that has opened
up many new perspectives, by an expert guide to the complex
political society of medieval and Renaissance Florence."
--Christine Shaw, of Cambridge University
"This is a marvellous book and I suspect it will become a
classic. John Najemy has an astonishing and probably unparalleled
mastery of the scholarship on Florence and has accomplished a
precise and beautifully written synthetic history of the Medieval
and Renaissance city."
--Carol Lansing, University of California, Santa
Barbara
John M. Najemy is Professor of History at Cornell University and the author of Between Friends: Discourses of Power and Desire in the Machiavelli-Vettori Letters of 1513-1515 (1993) and Corporatism and Consensus in Florentine Electoral Politics, 1280-1400 (1982). For the former he won the Marraro Prize of the Society for Italian Historical Studies and for the latter the Marraro Prize of the American Historical Association. He has also edited Italy in the Age of the Renaissance, 1300-1550 (2004).
