HI115: MEDIEVAL EUROPE, 410-1500

14.1. Italian City States, I: Communes, Venice

Background

A. The Empire: competition with papacy (recap); now competition with city states in N. Italy; campaigns of Frederick I Barbarossa (d. 1190), sieges of Milan; Otto of Freising (cited by Barber, p. 254)

"When the emperor enters Italy all dignities and magistracies must be vacated and everything administered by his nod, in accordance with legal decrees and the judgement of those versed in law."

Lombard league; formed v. empire with support of Pope Alexander III (1159-81). (Also money from Byzantium). Frederick loses, withdraws forces in 1176, marries his son  Henry VI to Constance of Sicily: son, Frederick II b. 1194

Frederick II (d. 1250), Liber Augustalis (cited Barber, p. 255): "We abolish the illegal usurpation that has prevailed in certain parts of our kingdom and command that they [i.e. the towns] should not create podestàs, consuls or rectors in any districts. Also, no-one shuld usurp any office or jurisdiction for himself by authority of some custom or by election of the people. We desire that everywhere through the kingdom there should only be those officials established by our command."
 

B. City States: Continuity in urban life, albeit disrupted by invasions (recall earlier statements); Continuity in Roman law, manifested in resistance to empire and popes in political treatises, e.g. by Marsiglio of Padua

Discontinuity: in economy, reinvigorated: growing middle class, resistance to domination by nobles, whose power was based in land, in the cities, although these were integrated into new communal government; consulates formed (as per above)

Communal movement; Guelphs and Ghibellines, ostensibly anti-imperial and pro-imperial (elaborated post-1240). Groups within cities; Predominant group leads to designation of cities, which manifested itself in such conflicts as those between Siena (Ghibelline) and Florence (guelph), which we will return to in next lecture.

Contado: importance of the hinterland for supplying the city (food, taxes, fighting men) which in turn saw to defence and cultivation of ever expanding area; contributed to competition between cities
 

C. Art and Society:

Competition also within cities, factionalism endemic, often leading to collapse of communal system and voluntary imposition of signore, i.e. autocrats, to bring order. Also, willingness to acknowledge governors imposed by emperors.

A positive effect of competition: powerful individuals or groups patronise building and art. Again, we will see this in action in Florence and Siena next time.

Other cities, for example Pisa and Genoa, developed due to extensive maritime operations; both had established links with Byzantium and Crusader states; as these powers declined, they began to look futher afield. As did their great rival: Venice
 

D. Venice

Exceptionalism: not a Roman foundation, but of the Lombard period on slat marshes in a lagoon; always looked to the sea; developed and maintained staunchly republican system, where a doge (duke) was elected from among the senior families by the Arengo (General Assembly), and authority was rotated.

City was initially under East Roman, i.e. Byzantine authority, and Doge was awarded high imperial rank and title; called upon to provide naval services for the empire, and rewarded with trading privileges; checked under Komneni, leading to souring of relations; general arrest of 1171; sack of Constantinople in 1204

Slides of some plunder: San Marco, modelled on Cple's Holy Apostles, emblematic of transiton from subject to ruler after 1204; development of city (six sestieri), etc. Proceeded to establish an extensive maritime empire, esp. Dalmatia, but later Aegean islands.

Gentile Bellini procession of the rilics of the True Cross in Piazza San Marco (1496); relics from Cple, now central to Venetian ceremonial, identity.

Ceremonial acclamation of the doge from time of Marco Polo:

Christ conquers! Christ reigns! Christ rules! To our noble lord Lorenzo Tiepolo (1268-75), by grace of God, Doge of Venice, Dalmatia and Croatia, and ruler of a fourth part and half [a fourth part, i.e. 1/4 +1/8 = 3/8] of the whole empire of Romania [i.e. Byzantium, in fact  Constantinople], health, honor, life and victory! Aid him St Mark!

Cult of St Mark elaborated; story of body stolen from Alexandria; Basilica San Marco constructed, a dogal initiative distinct from bishop and cathedral (later Patriarch of Aquileia) tales of St Mark's interventions (Tintoretto pictures).

E. Marco Polo

The Polos: three brothers resident in Venice in 1250s: Marco (the elder), Niccolò, Maffeo (or Matteo). Marco, at least, had lived in Constantinople, post-1204. Polos also had a house in the Crimean port of Soldaia, where they bought and sold furs and slaves to trade with Muslims in Alexandria; required journey via Constantinople.

1260: Niccolò and Maffeo travel north from Crimea to the court of the Mongol (Tatar) Khan of the Golden Horde, on the volga (near modern Volgagrad). During absence Michael Palaiologos recaptures Constantinople, establishes himself as "Byzantine" emperor, and takes revenge on Venetians; with passage via Constantinople impossible, the brothers travel further east, to Bukhara near Samarkand (Central Asia), where they spend 3 years. From there they join a party travelling to the court of the Great Khan, Kubilai (1260-94). He entrusts them with a mission to the pope, so the brothers return overland to Acre (capital for Latins in the Holy Land since the fall of Jerusalem). Here they learn that the pope has died, so return to Venice. After two further years when no pope is elected they decide to return to Kubilai Khan, in 1271, taking Niccolò's seventeen-year-old son Marco.

Travels, 1271-92
 
 

14.2. Italian City States, II: Siena, Florence and the Origins of the Renaissance

A. Factionalism within cities, esp. in Tuscany: e.g. San Gimignano still have 17 fortified towers, once had 76; two principal powers in the region: Florence and Siena. Both grew rapidly through 13th century. In c. 1200 Florence had c. 15,000 inhabitants; Siena had c. 10,000.

B. Siena

Siena (see Barber 1992, pp. 265-8), ruled from 1287-1355 by the Nine (Noveschi), retaining power despite the appointment of a podestà. The Noveschi were drawn from among the popolo grasso, who had made fortunes in international trade and banking. In c. 1300 they ruled over a population of c. 52,000 in city, and c. 62,000 in contado. Central focus of the city, and seat of govt, was the Palazzo Pubblico. This contained overtly political art, "culminating in Lorenzetti's fresco containing the Allegories of Justice, the Common Good and Tyranny." Outer rooms were dominated by Martini's depiction of the Virgin surrounded ny a court of angels and saints.

Second focal point was the cathedral, begun in 1196, enlarged from 1285 to rival other cathedrals in Tuscany.

M. Barber 1992, p. 267: "It followed that the commune should its fate as closely bound up with its patron saint, which in Siena meant the promotion of the cult of the Virgin. The Sienese believed their victory over Florence at the battle of Montaperti in 1260 had been directly attributable to the Virgin, and the commissioning by the commune of a new painting of the Virgin by the great Sienese artist, Duccio di Buoninsegna, in 1308, emphasised the importance attached to the cult. In June 1311, Duccio's completed masterpiece was carried through the streets in a great procession from his workshop to the cathedral."
 
 

C. Florence.

Like many cities, Florence suffered from instability: in 1207 appointed podestà, "an outsider believed to be above local politics"; but in 1250 returned to rule by people, or at least that section who had enjoyed economic success and were regarded as worthy of participation in local politics, the popolo, i.e. popular govt under an elected captain (Capitano del Popolo). Population grew rapidly, so that in c. 1300 there were c. 96,000 inhabitants. Expansion of the contado was imperative.

The city retained republican values, despite subjection first to Angevins, and later to Medici through much of 14th and 15th centuries. Shift towards signoria was accelerated by threat of Henry VII, and the intervention by the rulers of Anjou.

Giovanni Villani, Chronicle (quoted by Barber 1992, p. 269): "[The Florentines] gave themselves to King Robert [I, Angevin ruler of Naples, d. 1343] for five years and renewed it for three, and thus for the following eight years King Robert would have the signoria, sending them their vicar every six months, and the first was Mr Giacomo di Cantelmo of Provence, who came to Florence in the month of June 1313."

Some notable Florentines: Dante Alighieri (d. 1321), Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch, d. 1374), Giovanni Boccaccio (d. 1375).

Giotto di Bondone (d. 1337): From a peasant background, born in the contado of Florence c. 1267. Apprenticed to an artist by 1280, and used his talent to develop a small business; by 132 a member of a guild, of the Arte di Medici i Speziali. Worked for rich and powerful clients in Padua, Assissi, but especially Florence.

Barber 1992, pp. 487-8: "The Bardi and the Perruzi were among the chief banking families of Florence … [who] attempted to clean off the taint of money by commissioning Giotto to decorate their chapel at Santa Croce with narratives of two archetypal ascetic figures, St Francis and St John the Baptist."
 

D. Black Death and Rebirth: towards the Renaissance and a definition of Medieval Europe

Shortly after Giotto's death, but while Petrarch and Boccaccio still lived, plague returned to Europe: the Black Death of 1348, presaged a time of crisis throughout Europe. From the devastation emerged a new sense of the past and its function in the present. In Italy there was self-conscious rebirth of classical models, which they and we call the Renaissance.

Matteo Palmieri (1406-75), Vita Civile: "Where was the painter's art till Giotto tardily restored it? A caricature of the art of human delineation!  Sculpture and architecture for long years sunk to the merest travesty of art are only today in the process of rescue from obscurity; only now are they being brought to a new pitch of perfection by men of genius and erudition … Now indeed may every thoughtful spirit thank God that is has been permitted him to be born in this new age, so full of hope and promise, which already rejoices in a greater array of nobly-gifted souls than the world has seen in the thousand years that preceded it."

Now we find for the first time the notion of a Medium Aevum, a Middle Age from which we derive Medieval. A notion of Europe is articulated, as the cultural developments of the Italian Renaissance are received in lands north of the Alps. So we arrive at a definition of Medieval Europe only at the very end of our journey.

But the notion of Europe, emerging from older notions of Christendom, is developed in the face of a significant other: the Ottoman Turks.

Guest Lecture