HIST30006_Readings_Week 05_2020

The Renaissance in Italy

SUBJECT READER 
 COMPILED BY CATHERINE KOVESI

WEEK 5

Florence as Viewed by her Citizens 5.1_Bruni Bruni, Leonardo. ‘Panegyric of Florence (Laudatio Florentinae Urbis)’. In Images of Quattrocento Florence: Selected Writings in Literature, History and Arts, edited by Stefano Baldassar and Arielle Saiber, 39-43. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000.

5.2_Salutati Salutati, Coluccio. ‘Invective Against Antonio Loschi of Vicenza (Invectiva In Antonium Luschum Vicentinum)’. In Images of Quattrocento Florence: Selected Writings in Literature, History and Arts, edited by Stefano Baldassar and Arielle Saiber, 3-11.

New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000.

5.3_Gherardi Gherardi, Giovanni. ‘Paradise of the Alberti (Il Paradiso degli Alberti)’. In Images of Quattrocento Florence: Selected Writings in Literature, History and Arts, edited by Stefano Baldassar and Arielle Saiber, 18-24. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000.

5.4_Landini Landini, Cristoforo. ‘To Antonio Canigiani: On the Founding of Florence (from Carmina omnia)’. In Images of Quattrocento Florence: Selected Writings in Literature, History and Arts, edited by Stefano Baldassar and Arielle Saiber, 29-31. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000.

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5.5_Poliziano Poliziano, Angelo. ‘Letter to Piero di Lorenzo de Medici (in Opera omnia)’. In Images of Quattrocento Florence: Selected Writings in Literature, History and Arts, edited by Stefano Baldassar and Arielle Saiber, 32-37. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000.

5.6_Rucellai Rucellai, Giovanni. Zibaldone (extracts). In Images of Quattrocento Florence: Selected Writings in Literature, History and Arts, edited by Stefano Baldassar and Arielle Saiber, 72-76. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000.

5.7_Dei Dei, Benedetto. La cronica dall anno 1400 all anno 1500 (extracts). In Images of Quattrocento Florence: Selected Writings in Literature, History and Arts, edited by Stefano Baldassar and Arielle Saiber, 83-87. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000.

5.8_Brucker Brucker, G.A. ‘The Renaissance City’. In Renaissance Florence, 1-50. New York: Wiley, 1969.

5.9_Ruggiero Ruggiero, Guido. ‘Brunelleschi’s First Masterpiece, or Mean Streets, Familiar Streets, Masculine Spaces, and Identity in Renaissance Florence’. In Machiavelli in Love: Sex, Self, and Society in the Italian Renaissance, 85-107. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007.

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SECTION 1

Leonardo Bruni, Panegyric of Florence As I've pointed out in the introduction, Bruni’s Laudatio florentinae urbis is a text of fundamental importance to the history of Renaissance epideictic literature. Modeled on Aelius Aristides’ Panathenaicus—the panegyric of Athens in which the second century Greek orator praises the city as the savior of Greece in the Persian wars-Bruni's Laudatio differs considerably from the typical medieval laudes civitatum. As Hans Baron notes, before Bruni no one had ever tried to offer such an exhaustive view of a city: its geography, history, culture, architecture, politics, and specific mission in Italian Society, Scholars tend to regard this work, composed shortly after the Florentine victory in the 1402 war against Gian Galeazzo Visconti, as a manifesto of civic humanism. Throughout the text, Bruni credits the Florentines with a political awareness superior to that of all other Italians. He presents the Tuscan city and its dominion as the crowning achievement of a people continually striving to defend its own liberty and to shape a society on par with that of ancient republican Rome. In military valor, literature, art, and commerce, Bruni writes, Florence is the greatest heir to the Roman tradition.

In 1436, most likely at the government's request, Bruni would once again circulate the Laudatio, accompanied by his Lives of Dante and Petrarch, in order to oppose the Panegyric of the City of Milan written by the Viscontis' secretary Pier Candido Decembrio and to promote Florence as a candidate to host the upcoming Council for the union of the two churches. From Bruni's long panegyric we have chosen to translate the first paragraphs and the passage concerning the Florentine victory over Milan.

I wish that God immortal would bestow upon me an eloquence worthy of the city of Florence, of which I am about to speak, or at least an eloquence that equals my love and zeal for it. One form of eloquence or the other would, I believe, suffice in revealing the magnificence and splendor of this city. Nothing more beautiful or more splendid than Florence can be found anywhere in the world. I must confess that I have never been more willing to undertake any thing than the present task. I have no doubt whatsoever that if my wish for either type of eloquence were granted, I would be able to describe this illustrious and beautiful city in an articulate and dignified manner. Since, however, not all our wishes can be fulfilled, I shall do my best, thereby showing that I was lacking not in will, but rather in talent.

The splendor of this city is so remarkable that no eloquence could begin to describe it. We know that a number of distinguished and righteous men have dared speak about God Himself, whose glory and infinite nature a man's words, no matter how eloquent 327

they may be, can never come close to capturing; but regardless of God's ineffable superiority, they still attempt to employ all their rhetorical skills in speaking about such infinitude. I, on the other hand, shall have fulfilled my task of praising Florence if I make adequate use of all the knowledge I have acquired through my ardent study, although I know full well that my ability cannot ultimately apprehend such an extraordinary city.

I now must face something most orators face, namely, that they do not know where to begin their speech. In my case, however, this is not owing to a lack of words, but to the subject matter itself-and not only because of the many things that are relevant to one another, but also because they are all so remarkable that they seem to compete for excellence among themselves. It is, thus, not easy to decide which topic should be discussed first. If you consider the beauty and the magnificence of the city, you would think that there is nothing more deserving with which to begin a speech. If, on the other hand, you take into account its power and wealth, you would think it right to start an oration with these topics. Furthermore, if you look at its deeds both in the present and in the past, nothing could appear more important than to begin here. But if you focus on its customs and institutions, nothing could seem more worthy of distinction. With all this to think about I am uncertain where to begin; and when I am about to commence with a certain topic, another catches my attention and I cannot resolve which to discuss first. Nonetheless, I shall begin at what I find to be the most logical starting point, although I do not consider the other subjects less worthy of attention.

As it sometimes happens that a son's resemblance to his parents is immediately noticeable, so the Florentines resemble their most noble and illustrious city to such a degree that one is led to believe that they could have never lived anywhere else, nor could Florence ever have had any other kind of inhabitants. Just as these citizens far excel all other people by virtue of their natural genius, prudence, wealth, and magnificence, so Florence, whose site was most care fully chosen, is superior to all others in splendor, beauty, and cleanliness.

First of all, let us note the signs of its wisdom. For one, Florence has never done anything ostentatiously; it has always preferred to reject dangerous and foolish arrogance in order to pursue a state of peace and tranquillity. It was not built on top of a mountain, to show off its greatness; nor, by the same token, was it built in the middle of a plain and open on all sides to attack. Instead, with the discerning prudence of its citizens, Florence attained the best of both situations. They [the Florentines] knew that it was impossible to live on mountain tops without being subjected to the harshness of the elements-strong winds and heavy rains-which are uncomfortable and hazardous to the inhabitants. They also recognized that a city placed in the middle of plains, correspondingly, is necessarily disturbed by the dampness of the soil, the impurity of the air, and fog. Attempting to avoid all these risks, and acting as wisely as always, they built 328

Florence midway between two extremes: it lies far from the discomforts of the mountains and free, at the same time, from the inconveniences of the plains. It has the best of both situations, and a good climate, too. To the north, the mountains of Fiesole, like a kind of fortification, ward off severe cold and the furious gusts of northern winds. To the south, smaller hills protect it from the less violent winds that blow from that direction. In the other areas surrounding the city are sunny fields open to gentle breezes.

Florence sits peacefully in an ideal location and climate; when you move away from it in any direction, you will meet with more severe cold or more intense sun.

From the hills to the plains, moreover, the entire city is surrounded by a splendid circuit of walls which are not so excessively imposing to make it appear fearful and dubious of its power; nor, on the other hand, are they so small or neglected to give the impression of being conceited or indiscreet. And what can I say of the multitude of inhabitants, of the splendid buildings, of the richly decorated churches, of the incredible wealth of the whole city? Everything here, by Jove, is astonishingly beautiful. ...

Bruni continues his praise of Florence, describing its unparalleled cleanliness, the Arno spanned by impressive bridges, the magnificent palaces before which throngs of people from all over the world gather, the marvelous churches, and the grand villas in the well cultivated countryside surrounding the city. All these features lead Brr mi to assert, "In deed, the very hills seem to smile and to convey a sense of joy.

No one could ever tire of such a sight. This whole region could rightly be considered a paradise whose beauty and joyful harmony are unparalleled anywhere in the world."

He then relates a single fact, which, he believes, suffices to prove the greatness of Florence.

I now wish to mention an aspect of Florence that, I believe, demonstrates the greatness of this city. It fought innumerable wars, opposed mighty enemies, and vanquished threatening powers at the peak of their strength. Through wisdom, wealth, and great courage it has managed to overcome enemies that no one could have ever believed it could have conquered or resisted. It has been vigorously fighting a powerful and rich enemy [Gian Galeazzo Visconti] for the past few years and has earned everyone's admiration. That duke, whose resources and might have filled the people north of the Alps and the rest of Italy with fear, was elated by his victories and hopeful of more, attacking and seizing all places with incredible ease, like a storm. Only Florence opposed him and not only managed to resist his invasion and hamper the course of his conquests but even defeated him after a long war. I shall soon devote time and space to the other deeds of Florence, so let us now return to the topic at hand.

Everyone was so astonished by the scope and duration of the conflict that they wondered how this single city could find so many troops, such massive resources, and so 329

much money to continue the war. Such amazement, however, seizes only those who have not seen Florence and are ignorant of its magnificence. Once they have visited it, all such perplexities and doubts cease. This is what everyone experiences, and no one who has ever been to Florence denies it. As soon as anyone has before his very eyes such marvels, such architecture, the towers, the marble churches, the basilicas, the palaces, the turreted walls, the villas, the charms, and the elegance of this city, he immediately changes his mind and is no longer astonished by Florence's victories and glorious deeds. On the contrary, he deems it capable of conquering and ruling the entire world.

All this helps understand how exceptionally admirable Florence is-a city whose magnificence cannot be adequately imagined or described.

Source: Leonardo Bruni, Laudatio florentinae urbis, in Opere lettemrie e poltiche, ed. Paolo Viti (Turin: UTET, 1996), pp. 569-647.

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SECTION 2

Coluccio Salutati, A Defense of the Roman Origins of Florence Coluccio Salutati (1331-1406) is commonly thought to have had a seminal influence on the passage from medieval culture to humanism started by Petrarch. Some of the most momentous cultural events of the second half of the fourteenth century are linked to Salutati, who was chancellor of Florence from 1375 until his death. Thanks to him and Palla Strozzi, for instance, Manuel Chrysoloras, the famous Byzantine scholar, came to the University of Florence in 1397 to hold the first chair in Greek at a modern European university, an event duly recorded and celebrated by many fifteenth-century writers. Another sign of the profound cultural change taking place in Florence at that time is Salutati's polemic against the Dominican Giovanni Dominici. On this occasion, Salutati defended the merits of classical literature and poetry against the accusations of conservative ecclesiastics, who thought such humanist interests incompatible with Christian piety. He participated in the discussions organized by Luigi Marsili in the Florentine church of Santo Spirito, and intellectuals from all over Italy turned to him for advice on literary and philosophical topics. Among Salutati's renowned students were the humanists Leonardo Bruni and Poggio Bracciolini; some of their early writings, however; reveal ideas at odds with those of their teacher, whose mentality, despite his vast erudition, came to seem old fashioned to his innovative pupils.

Salutati's numerous works are also notable for their meticulously detailed treatment of diverse subjects. His extensive collection of private letters and the series of official documents he wrote on behalf of the Florentine Republic bear witness to his rhetorical skill and intense intellectual activity. Filippo Villani considered Salutati's De saeculo et religione (1381) the equal of Plato's Phaedo as a paean to the contemplative life. As for his other works, the erudite yet unfinished De laboribus Herculis is a monument to the medieval search for allegorical meaning in classical mythology, and De nobilitate legum et medicinae continues Petrarch's defense of the superior value of literary studies by comparison with the limitations of the scientific method.

Either directly or indirectly, much of Salutati's literary output served political aims, as illustrated in the text we include de here, the famous Invective Against Antonio Loschi of Vicenza. Salutati wrote this piece against the Visconti secretary, a fellow humanist, shortly after the end of Florence's victorious war against Milan in 1402. He reports Loschi's accusations against the republic and rebutts them systematically by resorting to examples drawn from the history of the city. The Ciceronian structure of the text itself emphasizes the Roman origins of Florence and its unique cultural heritage, and Salutati explicitly discusses the foundation of the Tuscan city. In this respect, it is noteworthy that Salutati preferred not to follow Giovanni Villani's traditional version: Florence was certainly built by Romans, as numer331

ous archaeological remains and ancient authors attest, but it is impossible to indicate the precise date or identify the founders. The hybrid nature of this work, in which medieval attitudes and nascent humanistic tenets are intermingled, also characterizes much of the rest of Salutati's thought. We present an excerpt here.

INVECTIVE AGAINST ANTONIO LOSCHI OF VICENZA Who could bear to stand aside and let strangers shamefully slander our home land, to which we owe everything? I would like to bring this case before a prince and argue it in the presence of our enemies themselves. I would like to listen to them speak, in order to understand the reasons for their lies and see what sort of evidence and arguments they bring forth. I dare say I would so thoroughly give them what they deserve that they would never again hurl their insults at that city which they have been unable to defeat-and, by God, they never will defeat us-not even with those mighty forces of which you [Antonio Loschi] boast. Since I am a citizen and a member of this community, and no longer a stranger, I intend to plead the cause of my homeland, which everyone should strive to defend with all his might. I entreat those who read my words to listen to me with benevolence as I speak in defense of truth, justice, and my homeland.

Since you, my readers, have managed to suffer my opponent's irreverence-with reluctance, I imagine-I beg you to be patient with me and listen to my words.

I wish to start by quoting my opponent's words, one after the other, exactly as he wrote them, and I shall then reply separately to each one of his assertions. You, Loschi, began your venomous speech as follows: Someday wretched citizens who have destroyed your country and disrupted peace in all Italy you will finally suffer the just punishment for your crimes and pay the penalties you deserve. Someday your followers will be so horrified at your tremendous corruption as to fear their own ruin on account of their misdeeds. Your fall, therefore, will be not only a legitimate vindication but also a useful example. Someday your scheming, in which your entire force lies, will finally be discovered and revealed to all, thereby showing your opponents' wisdom and, by contrast, your depravity and utter wickedness.

At the very beginning of your oration, as your words attest, you seem to express three wishes. Like a raging madman with a harsh tongue, you invoke the Furies' aid, a sign of extreme desperation, in making the Florentines suffer base and undeserved punishments. You wish their ruin to be an example to all; to terrify all with the Florentines' misfortune. You wish, thus, that a due vindication would also become a useful example.

You wish our plots to be discovered, and others to appear wise, while the Florentines seem wicked, as you think they truly are. I shall now briefly explain how foolish the beginning of your oration is and what it really conveys to readers. Is there any prince or lord against whom these same accusations could not be hurled, if one let himself get carried away by wrath? If these words were pronounced against your lord, O Loschi, 332

who could assert that they were spoken unjustly? What else would one need do, apart from substituting the word "tyrant" for "citizens" and replacing the plural with the singular? But let us leave out your lord and all the dead, to whom one should always show greater respect than to those who are alive. Tell me, if you will: Is it not true that your words prove you a fierce and deadly enemy of the Florentines? Answer, if you please: Are you acting as prosecutor or witness? If the latter is the case-namely, if you claim to be a witness and act as such, while at the same time you openly confess to being an enemy of those you are accusing-how can you hope to be considered the least bit trustworthy? Was there ever an efficacious prosecutor who merely asserted the veracity of his accusations or hurled invective at the accused? Without bringing forth any evidence, one can never convince the court to convict the accused, be the prosecutor Cicero, Demosthenes, the virtuous Cato, Antony, Crassus, Aeschines opposing Demosthenes, or any other accomplished orator speaking in the senate or a court of law, or even all these figures put together. Recognize your ignorance, therefore, and acknowledge your mistake; learn, you mad and foolish beast, that before both the senate and the people no trust is or should be granted to the accuser and witnesses if they prove to be enemies of the accused, even if the judges, whether senators or the people, happen to be ill disposed toward the accused, as is often the case. Each time the accuser or the witnesses asked to testify show this rage and aversion which you demonstrate so candidly, they either unwittingly behave like madmen or con sider the members of the court stupid. They believe they can convince the audience that their insane statements are true, and they strive to induce the judges to commit an obvious folly or a shameful injustice. Who, in fact, would be so mad and naive as to trust an accuser or a witness who openly demonstrates his hostility or confesses himself an enemy of the accused?

You call the Florentines "wretched citizens who have destroyed your country and disrupted peace in all Italy." "Wretched citizens," you say. If your aim is to insult the Florentines, what you say is an outright lie. The term "wretched citizens" may, in fact, apply to those who squander their possessions and lead a wicked life, committing immoral acts and all sorts of sins; truthfully speaking, however, the Florentines who do not deserve to be dubbed wretched are far more numerous. You must confess that, by consensus, many of them should and must be acknowledged as good citizens, not wretched ones. At any rate, it does not behoove our enemy to complain about this; we [not you] are the ones who should deplore wicked citizens, for it is in our interest to have good and useful citizens who help our republic.

This is a matter of concern to us, but what you said regarding those of us who have destroyed your country also concerns us. What does it mean to destroy a country, if not to ruin it? Now, if you are referring to our country [Florence], you should not deplore it, but wish it to happen. If, on the other hand, you are referring to Liguria, Romagna, 333

and Veneta, oppressed by your lord's yoke, I urge you to be distressed about it, for far from inveighing against those you call the destroyers of your enemies' country and lamenting the fate of the rest of Italy, you should wish to have them as the rulers of your own region. In Italy there are many people who are not subject to your lord; they rule their own territory, have freedom of speech, and know how to use it. Have rulers or citizens of these regions ever complained about the things of which you are now accusing us? If, as you assert, we disrupted the peace of all Italy, all Italy would be our enemy.

This is not the case, but, on the contrary, wherever the serpent(1) that hates justice has not imposed his yoke and spread his venom, the Florentines are allowed to dwell, and people love them for their mercantile activities. Is it not clear, thus, that your assertions counter this factual evidence and that the word "fraud," which you use to accuse the Florentines, should rather be employed to describe you? I suppose you use the word "plot" in the meaning of "hidden fraud"; you would not wish to expose all these things, in fact, if you did not believe such plots to be secret. But who taught you to accuse your enemies of such things? Who has ever cared whether his enemy's actions were fraudulent or virtuous? At any rate, please tell me: When has the Florentine Republic ever plotted against either your lord or anyone else? When has it ever attacked anyone other than its enemies? Nothing keeps you from throwing these insults at anyone you wish; but it is not enough to utter such things, you must also provide proof of your statements.

Let us listen once more, however, to this new, furious prophet of ours: We shall see, you say, your famous Roman steadfastness and strength in defending your shameful liberty, or, should I say your most fierce tyranny. You always pride yourselves on claiming descent from the Romans, but I shall explain at another time the greatness of your impudent behavior.

We shall see, you say, but, in truth, you have already seen, as you do now and will again in the future, the steadfastness and the fortitude of the Florentines, superior even to that of the Romans, in defending their most beloved liberty; a divine gift, as the saying goes, more precious than all the money in the world. All Florentines are firmly committed to using their riches and their weapons to protect their lives, as well as this priceless blessing that they have received from their elders. They actually prize it even more than life itself, and wish to pass it down to their sons, by God's will, intact and pure.

Great is our love for the liberty that you, most foolish of all men, call shameful; only those who have never experienced it, like yourself, fail to appreciate it and to understand its value. The people of Lombardy alone-I do not know if it is due to their nature, or their lifestyle, or both-seem neither to desire nor to love liberty. You are the only one, however, who considers this, God's greatest gift, to be a vile and despicable thing. I truly doubt that you will find anyone who shares your opinion, not even among those who live with you under the rule of your Lord, since the love of liberty is something completely natural. I think you should be called servant of the servants,(2) not on 334

account of your humility, but because of your vice. But why do I even call you servant, since you enjoy your servitude to the point of not refraining from calling liberty shameful, considering it a most fierce tyranny, which is a sign of even greater insanity? I am sure definition will make many people laugh, but I find it truly detestable. Have you ever known any form of liberty, either in Italy or abroad, which can be said to be greater and purer than Florentine liberty, or even [to be] its equal? Is the tyranny that oppresses you so tremendous that it forces you to consider Florentine liberty a form of tyranny? I know that to abide by the law in order to preserve one's freedom can be hard; it can even look like a kind of slavery, especially to a reckless young man, always eager to fulfill his material desires and yield to passion. I can easily understand how you and people like you not only fail to appreciate the value of liberty, but even abhor its very name and its effects as something awful. Livy, too, substantiates this, in his usual expressive, style, when he writes about the attempt to bring monarchy back to Rome. "There were Roman youths," he writes, "born into well-off families, who being of the same age as the Tarquins, and their friends-had grown used to a regal lifestyle, since they had enjoyed complete license under the monarchy. They considered equality of rights as lack of order and lamented that the liberty of all had led to their enslavement."(3) Since human beings are curious about the things they desire, they naturally dedicate themselves to pursuing them; I suppose, thus, that you have read the above-mentioned words and other similar passages by this excellent author and have finally come to the conclusion that liberty, the sweetest of all things, is a fierce tyranny and something despicable. l would gladly leave it up to you to judge how foolish and inane your statements are; but since you do not speak for yourself alone, but on behalf of others, I must make your opinion known to all my readers.

Among other things, you do not believe that the Florentines descended from the Romans. Tell me, if you will, where have you found proof to the contrary? Why do you want to deny what all Italy grants us, what everyone, except you, horrible beast, holds to be true, what even Rome herself and the Roman princes have always admitted by considering and calling us their sons, flesh of their flesh, bones of their bones, unique honor and glory of their name? To make you feel ashamed of your foolishness in having doubted all this, I want to relate what I believe is the origin of our great city, using authors I can cite. Since you promised to show how impudent we are in claiming to be the offspring of the Romans, my account will acquaint you with the truth, and prevent you from ranting any further.

Regarding the origin of Florence, a difficult subject buried in antiquity, I would certainly be disposed to believe that this glorious people and famous city derive from a small yet noble source. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that Florence has a more illustrious origin than one might expect. It is known, in fact, that the ancient people of Fiesole moved to our city. Tradition has it that they came to our city after having been de335

feated in war, although some hold that the people of Fiesole, being mountain dwellers, were inspired to move simply because of the beauty of the land. It is not surprising that we do not know precisely how things actually happened. Who knows, for instance, the exact origin of Rome, not to mention the origin of other cities? We read that, having reached Italy with the gods' help and at Carmentis' bidding, Evander and the Arcadians went up the Tiber and arrived at a city called Valentia, at the exact site where Rome was later founded.(4) By looking at the etymology of the name, the Arcadians translated the Latin Valentia into "Rome." This is why some believe the Arcadians to be the ones to have named the city Rome, not Romus. The founder of the city, in fact, was called Romus, not Romulus, as is clearly attested by the name of the city itself, Roma, not Romula. Varro, for instance, writes "Romus."(5) Where can we find information on the ancient author of the name Valentia and the foundation of that city? We have also inherited from the Romans the tradition that the precise origins of our city remain unknown, as is the case with Rome herself, which is further proof to the ancient foundation of Florence.

As for the founders of our city, there is precise evidence attesting to the fact that Florence was built by the Romans. In the center of Florence, there is a capitol building with a forum right next to it; there is, moreover, the so-called Parlascio or amphitheater, as well as places called Terme, Capacia, and a neighborhood called Parione.(6) There is a temple that was once consecrated to Mars, whom pagans believed to be the father of the Roman people. It must be noted that this temple is built in a style not Greek or Etruscan, but utterly Roman.(7) I also want to mention another element confirming our Roman origin, although it no longer exists: until the third decade of the fourteenth century after the incarnation of Christ (mediator between God and mankind) an equestrian statue of Mars stood on the Ponte Vecchio. People preserved it as a testimonial to our entirely Roman origin, but the flood that destroyed three of Florence's bridges swept it away seventy years ago November 4. Many people still alive today saw it and remember it.

We still possess, moreover, the arches and other remains of the aqueducts built in ancient Roman style that brought fresh water to the city for public use. Since all these Roman ruins are still to be found here today, together with Roman names and the customs of that ancient people, who would dare say, against such strong evidence of our illustrious origins, that the authors of such things were not the Romans? Anyone who has ever seen the round towers and the ruins of the city gates, which are now attached to the bishop's palace, would not only suspect but actually swear that they were built by the Romans-and not merely because of the material out of which they are made, namely tiles and bricks, but because of the style itself.

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It need not surprise us, therefore, if, relying upon such solid elements, the Florentines have always maintained the belief that our city was built by the Romans in order to oppose Fiesole. Strong evidence of the people of Fiesole's deep hatred for the Romans is provided by writings on the Social War,(8) a conflict in which Fiesole and many other cities were razed to the ground. It is thus complete folly to doubt the Roman origin of Florence. In Sallust, a most trustworthy historian, we read that Catiline sent a certain Caius Manilius to recruit an army in the territory of Fiesole. The people of Etruria "were eager for a revolution," he writes, "because of both poverty and the wrong they had suffered, having lost their fields and all their possessions under Sulla's rule. Manilius thus managed to recruit a vast army by assembling all the many criminals of various sorts who lived in that region and some of the settlers sent by Sulla, who, because of their debauchery and lack of restraint, had soon squandered all the wealth they had amassed through great plunderings."(9) Let us return, now, to your accusations: We shall see the vain and foolish arrogance of the Florentines and their insolence, you say, and find out how much truth there is in the abundance of praise they unjustly receive.

You accuse the Florentines of a vain and foolish arrogance. Who would say that the Florentine government has boasted of anything in its letters, sent all over the world? Arrogance is a characteristic that is preoccupied with the future, and we leave such behavior to you and people like yourself. It is typical of the Florentines' seriousness, in fact, not to make bold claims about the future, as you do with your foolish prophecies. But we shall discuss this later. If, as I believe, by "arrogance" and "insolence" you mean the taking of pride in one's own merits, there are no lords in Italy, nor nations in the world that can more deservedly and rightly take pride in their deeds in war and peace than the Florentines, who, however, boast little indeed. After all, there is no glory more complete than that which proceeds from true merit. I do not mean to offend anyone, but would it not be proper to remember, for example, the deeds carried out by this free people in war fought either to defend its own liberty, as it has often done, or to maintain an agreement, as it has always done? Is it some kind of vain and foolish arrogance to pride oneself on what is true? If l wanted now to collect all your lord's deeds and sayings, since I ignore your own, Loschi, and those achievements of which he boasts, I am sure that the Florentines could hardly be accused of such boasting in either public or private, unless one attacked them, as is your custom, with false accusations. But let us now move on to investigate the truth of your other assertions.

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Source: Coluccio Salutati, Invectiva in Antonium Luschum Vicentinum, in Prosatori latini del Quattrocento, ed.

Eugenio Garin (Milan: Ricciardi, 1952), pp. 8-22.

1. The symbol of Milan.

2. Salutati employs sarcasm in this biblical expression (servus servonim Dei), which has been used by the papal Curia to sign its official documents since the ninth century.

3. Liv., 2.3.r-3.

4. See Ov., Fas., r.461-586.

5. See Var., Ling. Lat., 5.33.

6. Most of these names are still in use today, though no longer to indicate neighborhoods or particular sites, but rather streets.

7. On the alleged Roman origin of the Florentine baptistery, see Bruni's account (document 2).

8. On the Social War and its consequences, see Bruni's account (document 2).

9. Sal., Cat., 28.4.

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SECTION 3

Giovanni Gherardi, Inquiry into the Origins of Florence Giovanni Gherardi da Prato's narrative, Paradise of the Alberti, stands out as one of the most important examples of the Florentine traditionalists' struggle against humanist ideology. The action of Books 3-5 takes place in the villa owned by Antonio Alberti on the outskirts of Florence, where prominent guests alternate between storytelling and erudite discussions of various philosophical, historical, and political topics of relevance to contemporary Florence. Among the interlocutors are some notable fourteenthcentury Florentines, such as the famous preacher Luigi Marsili, the musician Franceso Landino, and the chancellor of the republic, Coluccio Salutati. It is worth noting, furthermore, that among the participants in the gathering are various distinguished intellectuals from cities other than Florence, such as the Averroist Marsilio of Padua (doctor to Gian Galeazzo Visconti and professor at the Universities of Padua and Bologna) and the philosopher Biagio Pelacani of Parma. Their presence at the villa indicates that Florence had become an outstanding cultural center.

Composed in 1425, set in 1389, Gherardi's narrative represents the last of the eulogies of Florentine culture to show no connection with humanist style and tenets. Its structure and prose, in fact, were strongly influenced by Boccaccio's works, mostly the Decameron and the Filocolo, though the views expressed by the author through the characters of his narrative are close to those held by Rinuccini in his Invective Against Slanderers of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. As regards the origins of Florence, however, Gherardi feels obliged to follow Bruni's version at a time when the republicanism proper to this account had become a fundamental feature of Florentine culture. We should also point out that Gherardi felt the need to put the narration of the Roman origin of the Tuscan city in the mouth of the conservative Augustinian Luigi Marsili, one of the cultural beacons of trecento Florence soon to be supplanted by the members of the humanist movement.

After the peace of the night came gentle breezes. The songs of countless birds resounded through branches laden with new flowers. Apollo, the longhaired and glorious god, had begun to radiate within his wondrous chariot. The noble guests left their rooms and gathered by the fountain abundant with cool water to find refreshment and relief before proceeding devoutly to the chapel. Having attended mass with sincere reverence, they all agreed to return to the fountain, where they were to start a conversation. Many things were said in praise of our most glorious city, until Master Marsilio [of Padua] finally inquired about its origin. He admitted to being interested in knowing who the true ancestors of the Florentines were and whether they were really de339

scended from the Romans, as most Florentines believed. He claimed, however, that he had never found any evidence that such was the case, either in chronicles or in other worthy sources, and thus he wondered whether this ancestry was a mere invention to exalt and ennoble the city. The main cause of his suspicion, he explained, was a Florentine chronicle he had come across that was filled with unreliable and false information.

He then turned to Salutati and said: "Please, if you would, satisfy my curiosity: tell me if this story is worthy of credence, for I am truly eager to know."

Salutati welcomed his question and thought Master Luigi would be the best person to discuss the matter, as he was both a good historian and an excellent orator. He therefore invited Master Luigi to share what he knew about this subject, in the belief that his answer would satisfy all present.

Having listened to the request, Master Luigi(1) thus started to speak: Distinguished fathers, I shall obey your order, although for many reasons, especially the lack of genuine sources, I would rather be among the listeners than be the speaker on this topic. If I did not have any reliable and clear material to bring forth, I would certainly keep silent and confess my ignorance. I shall be glad to speak about it, however, as I have no doubt that the Florentines are descendants of the Romans.

Before discussing the origins of Florence, I would like to enumerate those ancient buildings whose ruins are extant. Such costly monuments must have certainly been built by a great power. I shall begin by mentioning the only ancient building still intact, namely the temple of Mars, as it was called by the Ancients who erected it in honor of this god. As good Christians following the true religion, the Florentines later dedicated it to John the Baptist, our patron saint.

This, as anyone can see, is a temple of outstanding beauty, built in the Roman style.

Look at it carefully and you will realize that there is no other example, either in Italy or indeed in all Christendom, that can compete with its extraordinary elegance. Look at the uniform columns inside it; notice how the extremely refined architraves, works of great art and genius, support the considerable weight of the vault and make the floor appear both larger and more attractive. Look at the columns and the walls sustaining the ceiling up above, with the spaces neatly insinuated between the vaults. Look at it carefully inside and out; and you will agree that this work of architecture is functional, delightful, durable, and perfect like no other in even the most glorious and fortunate time.

Let us proceed, now, to discuss the magnificent works of public utility: Who cannot see the greatness of the ruins and the massive circumference of the amphitheater?

There, in ancient times, our pagan ancestors staged their games and their plays. Just 340

look at the buildings located between the palace of the Peruzzi and the house of the Tolosini near Piazza Santa Croce. You can see that from the Pozzo al l'Anguillara the diameter of the theater extended almost as far as the above-mentioned piazza. Can you also see the marvelous foundations of the stadium where equestrian sports were played? Even today that place is called Il Guardingo.(2) At one time, the stadium occupied all the space between the house of the Sacchetti and the Church of San Piero Scheraggio. One can still admire its lavish walls by the Palazzo della Mercatantia.(3) What can I say regarding the Capitol, whose foundations are still visible? What about the extraordinary aqueduct, whose magnificent arches collected all the cool spring waters from Mount Morello and brought them to the city, almost eight miles away? What about the pavement which decorated the city and made it look unusually tidy? As all the ruins of these monuments are still visible, who could deny that great sums must have been spent to build them? I shall not even bother to mention things of lesser importance whose origin is clear. I want to underscore, instead, how powerful Tuscany was in ancient times, even before the founding of Rome. It could boast many powerful cities, twelve of which are explicitly mentioned in the sources.(4) Of these cities, some have been destroyed, others remain. None of the extant buildings can be said to be as magnificent as the ones we see in Florence, except for the remains of the labyrinth.(5) Some of the ancient authors mention it, and it can still be seen in Chiusi, in Valdichiana. What else? We can assert, therefore, that in all likelihood Florence was founded by men of outstanding wealth, distinction, and military power. In order to prove it, I shall now turn to the most famous among the Latin authors who witnessed the foundation of this glorious city and the erection of its buildings.

As narrated by the famous historian Sallust in his work on Catiline, Sulla, during his dictatorship, sent a group of people to a village near Fiesole.(6) One of them, a certain Manlius, eventually tried to start a revolt among his fellow settlers in Tuscany, who, having squandered all their money, were eager for a revolution. It is well known that Fiesole, like many other cities during the Social War, was razed to the ground. The war was followed by struggles between the factions of Marius and Sulla in Rome. After his victory, Sulla sent a number of excellent and valorous Romans to the territory of Fiesole. There, drawing on their considerable wealth, they erected extraordinary buildings and founded the city on the banks of the River Arno; their lives were luxurious, thanks to their grand houses, their properties, the continuous feasts they celebrated, and the numerous slaves they possessed. Soon, however, they lost their entire fortunes and grew eager for new spoils. They were in such a wretched state that only the return of Sulla himself from Hell would have made them rich again. Many of them, hoping for new booty, joined Catiline's faction. If you read Cicero's second oration against Catiline, you will see that what I say is true.(7) There Cicero describes to his Roman audience the sorts of people who had joined the conspirator. When Cicero begins talking about 341

the third group, he reports all the things I have said above and much more. Although not attested in any ancient chronicle, it is thus obvious that Florence was founded, erected, and adorned by powerful, rich, strong, and valorous Roman citizens, who provided it with beautiful buildings and a circuit of walls. At any rate, the foundation of the city and all the other things I have mentioned are also confirmed by contemporary accounts of the two renowned authors I have mentioned.

I think I have said enough to satisfy your request. If only God had preserved Livy's books, especially those of the last two decades, in which I believe he discussed these things! I point this out in order to reproach the Latins for having lost these works, which were more divine than human. Most of them-being trapped in their despicable idleness and their insatiable, infectious avarice-ridiculed, censured, and derided every noble study and virtue.

He thus ended his speech.

Everyone praised him for his convincing and sound words, and for his mockery of various chroniclers whose foolish assertions and deceptions show them to be not only ill informed, but utterly ignorant of these things. He showed, in fact, how their complete unfamiliarity with even a single ancient and important source led them to use unreliable information, mere delusions deserving of derision. During this part of Master Luigi's discussion, Master Biagio contributed a comment: "Reverend master, many reasons, especially the authority of such famous and renowned authors, make us believe your account, by which, I must confess, I have been fully satisfied. I would like to hear something, however, also on the origin of the name Florence, for I find it actually corresponds to Florence itself. I have never known any other city, in fact, as beautiful and as flourishing, let alone as remarkable." Having said this, he lapsed into silence.

Master Luigi immediately replied: "I shall leave aside, dear master, many unacceptable opinions of unreliable historians on this subject. Even one of the most famous historians, Pliny, in his Cosmography, refers to the city as Fluentia, not Florentia.(8) Considering the time in which he wrote, namely, when Trajan was emperor, it is highly plausible that an error of the scribes changed the name Florentia to Fluentia. I base this notion also on the fact that after him, Ptolemy, an author who is particularly meticulous in his Geography with regard to names and places, and whose books always offer extremely precise information on both the Romans and the Greeks, calls it Florentia, not Fluentia.9 If Ptolemy had found the name Fluentia in Pliny, he would have called it that. Therefore, in the end, I hold that a name which has been used for such a long time must be the one originally assigned to the city. Many reasons, not just one, lead me to believe this, especially in light of the fact that very few cities or communities have origins similar to that of Florence. If one studies the origins of other cities, he will 342

notice that they generally started out small, and even those which were powerful from the very beginning could not boast of great riches. In examining the facts, one realizes how wealthy and powerful the founders of Florence were, for they soon managed, as I have said earlier, to fill the city with magnificent buildings. These first citizens were excellent and valorous Romans, who had accumulated their fortunes under Sulla during the Social War. Bold and valiant, they founded a truly glorious city with Rome as a model, and strove to advance their own glory by surpassing that of Rome itself. The name was assigned to this mighty city upon its achieving such a respected and magnificent position within such a short time. This is the reason it is called Florence, underscoring that it was able to flourish so quickly, like no other of nature's creations.

"One might also think that the city derived its name from the condition of the land itself, for it is fertile and full of flowers, especially lilies. It is plausible that the abundance of such flowers on the banks of the River Arno is behind the origin of the name Florence.

"For the time being I cannot think of anything else to add regarding the origin of Florence's name. I would be pleased indeed if my answer even partially satisfies your query. If not, the lack of written sources and the negligence not only of the past generations, but of all Latins, is to blame. I shall end here."

Source: Giovanni Gherardi da Prato, II Paradiso degli Alberti, ed. Antonio Lanza (Rome: Salerno, 1975), pp. 307-315.

1. Luigi Marsili, an Augustinian friar, a friend of Petrarch, and a prominent figure in the Florentine culture of the fourteenth century. The famous discussions he organized at the Church of Santo Spirito were attended by such notable future representatives of the humanist movement as Roberto de' Rossi and Niccolo Niccoli.

2. From the Italian guardare, 'to watch'. Contrary to Gherardi's assertion, the name Guar dingo derives from a watchtower which was built there during Lombard rule, around the end of the sixth century.

3. On the east side of the Piazza della Signoria. The Palazzo della Mercatantia was built in 1359, and its interior was decorated with frescoes by Taddeo Gaddi.I 4. The main classical source on the twelve Etruscan cities, among which is also Fiesole, is Dionysius of Halicarnassus' Roman Antiquities, 6.75. For information on the Etruscans, however, Gherardi relies mainly on the first book of Livy's Histories.

5. He refers to the tomb of the Etruscan king Porsinna, a famous monument also described by Alberti in De re aedificatoria and by Filarete in his Trattato di architettura.

6. Sall., Cat., 28.4.

7. Cic., Cat., 2.8.20.

8. From the Latin fluere, 'to flow', and not from 'florere', 'to flourish'. See Pliny, Nat. Hist., 3.5.52.

9. See Pto., Gro., 3.1.43.

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SECTION 4

Cristoforo Landino, The Original Site of Florence Contrasted with Its Present Splendor Cristofaro Landino (1424-1498), teacher of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Poliziano, Verino, and Ficino, was a professor at the University of Florence from 1458 until the year of his death. He is rightly regarded as one of the most important humanists of the fifteenth century. His first literary work is Xandra, a collection of Latin poems in three books. These verses, rich in classical overtones, were composed and carefully revised by Landino between 1443 and 1458. As he was deeply influenced by his close friendship with Ficino, Landino came to embrace philosophy which guides the writing of his most renowned work, the four books of Disputationes Camaldulenses (1472-1473). Book 1 reports a dialogue between Leon Battista Alberti and Lorenzo the Magnificent on the worth of the active life as opposed to the contemplative life, a topic much debated in Florence at the time. Book 2 treats the topic of the utmost good, and the last two books are an allegorical reading of Virgil's Aeneid.

Among the interlocutors of the Disputationes is Antonio Canigiani, a close friend of both Landino and Ficino. Ficino dedicated three works to him - De virtutibus moralibus, De voluptate, and De quattuor sectis philosophorum - and sent him a long letter known as De musica.

Canigiani was a member of the Platonic Academy and an important political figure (he was elected standard-bearer of justice in 1484, and later podesta of Pisa). Landino dedicated the elegy De primordiis urbis Florentiae (Xandra, 3 .3) to him, a text containing descriptions of Florence and its surroundings. In De primordiis the villas of the Medici figure prominently as magical places that were once peopled by nymphs anad gods, a favorite topos among the literati of Florence. We find valuable examples of this epideictic genre, which gave rise to mythological reinterpretations of the entire Florentine region, in poems by Verino, Naldi, Poliziano, Luca Pulci, and Lorenzo de Medici himself. The poem

by Landino we have included here, however, presents neither mythological figures nor Ovidian metamorphoses. In order to sing of the Roman founding of Florence and celebrate the daughter city's noble destiny, Landino instead sets forth the striking contrast between the original bleakness of the site where the city was founded and its present splendor. Drawing on well-known classical sources (Virgil, Ovid, Tibullus, Propertius) describing the site where the capital of the empire was later erected, Landino praises the first Roman settlers for their zeal and enterprising spirit, the same qualities which made it possible for their descendants to transform Florence into a city of outstanding beauty. The poem ends by praising the Medici for their strenuous defense of Florentine liberty and for their glorification of the city through their patronage of the arts.

344

TO ANTONIO CANIGIANI: ON THE FOUNDING OF FLORENCE All these rich buildings, both sacred and profane, rising before your eyes and rendering you speechless, could not have been imagined by Sulla's soldiers when they first settled in the territory of Fiesole. The beautiful cultivated fields that you now see were once covered by the Arno's dark, swampy waters, whose rapid course was obstructed by a massive rock and turned here into a stagnant pond.(1) The ground could not be trodden by man, nor was the lake navigable; the river was not suitable for fish, nor the grass for cattle. It was not yet possible for the traveler to look at these four wonderful bridges and use one of them to cross the river without wetting his feet. Water was not yet brought to our city by aqueducts channeling it from distant springs. Where today the high tower of the senate rises, the fishermen built their huts; and where the holy fonts of the baptistery now stand was a marsh that resounded with the croaking of frogs. Who could foresee, back then, the Church of Santa Croce, the marble works of Alberti, the Florentine courthouse, or the piazza surrounding the noble senate? Where massive buildings now reach up toward the sky, there was once nothing but a revolting swamp.

The first settlers - the veterans of Sulla's army - abandoned the inhospitable mountains and diligently cultivated the fields on which we now dwell. They carved a straight course for the River Arno, guiding all waters nearby to flow into its bed. Satisfied, they then started to inhabit the valley and build this noble city. They gave Roman names to the palaces they erected; they built both a forum and a senate building like those of Rome. They then consecrated to Mars a temple with high columns of variegated marble. Lastly, they built large theaters near the city walls whose remains, worn away by the centuries, can still be seen today.

This is the noble origin of our city, which was founded under a good omen. A century later it expanded, thanks to the people of Fiesole who moved there after abandoning their old houses on the mountain and increased its affluence through their possessions. Among those initial Fiesolans, O Antonio, was the progenitor of your family, the Canigiani. In memory of your ancient homeland, your family's coat of arms thus displays a bronze moon on a white marble shield-the moon being the ancient symbol of Fiesole.

Source: Cristofaro Landino, Carmina omnia, ed. Alessandro Perosa (Florence: Olschki, 1939), pp.

86-88.

1. This description of the old course of the Arno is reminiscent of the main classical sources already mentioned in the introduction to this text. For descriptions of the area where Rome was to 345

be founded, see especially Virg., Aen., 8.97-101; Ov., Fas., 1.243-246; Tib., 2.5.23-28; Prop., 4.2.7-8 and 4.9.1-20.

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SECTION 5

Angelo Poliziano, The Only City Founded by Three Roman Generals Angelo Ambrogini, known as Poliziano, was born in Montepulciano, near Siena, in 1454. He was one of the greatest philologists of the quattrocento. As a professor at the University of Florence, Poliziano taught many well-known humanists. His fame, however, is primarily linked to the numerous works he composed in the course of his long stay in Florence during the reign of Lorenzo the Magnificent, whose sons he tutored. His support of the Medici faction led him to write the well-known, although unfinished, Stanze per la giostra, in which he celebrates the victory of Giuliano, Lorenzo's brother; in the joust of 1475. To sustain the Medici's propaganda after the Pazzi conspiracy in 1478, he wrote an account of the tragic episode, presenting Lorenzo as the legitimate ruler of the city and the defender of Florentine liberty, under attack from band of rebels.(1) Around 1479 Poliziano's relationship with the powerful patron soured, however. This deterioration led to his departure for Mantua, where his Fabula d'Orfeo was first staged. By the end of 1480, Poliziano was back in Florence, where he resumed his studies and published the Miscellaneorum centuria prima, a true monument to classical learning and philology.

Poliziano's use of philology and the classics to support the pro-Medici propaganda characterizes the letter to Piero de' Medici that we have translated here. It is a significant document, as it is the.first letter in his epistolary collection. Written shortly after Lorenzo's death (April 8, 1492), this brief yet fundamental text offers a new thesis on the origins of Florence and reveals how profoundly the political ideals of the city had changed during the second half of the quattrocento. Poliziano directly opposed the republican view expressed at the beginning of the century by such humanists as Leonardo Bruni. He believed that Florence was founded not by veterans of Sulla's army but rather by the generals of the second triumvirate in 43 B.C., Augustus, Mark Antony, and Lepidus. When Poliziano wrote this letter -l ike nearly all humanist correspondence, not intended to remain private - Piero had just succeeded his deceased father, Lorenzo, as ruler of Florence. This young Medici had to face an unstable political situation, and opposition to the regime was stronger than ever. Poliziano's letter aims to legitimate Piero's rule by underscoring its consistency with the imperial origins of the city. The account aims to show that the Medici's control over Florence simply expresses what was already inherent at the very founding of the city.

Angelo Poliziano sends greetings to his dear Piero de' Medici. You have often heard me say that this city, in which you are now deservedly the ruler, as your elders were before 347

you, has an origin other than what our historians write. Thus you have asked me, with your usual gentility, to write what I know about the topic. You have mentioned that Florence would be extremely grateful to me if I showed it who its fathers were, especially since these men were such that if one had wanted to select them from a history book, he could have found no one better. Therefore, my dear Piero, in order to give a gift to this city, which has always been kind and loving to me, and to satisfy a request that comes from you, whom I hold dearer than anyone or anything else in the whole world, I shall briefly illustrate what I have found in the literary works regarding the founders of this city. I shall also touch upon a few things concerning the name of Florence, and since a number of inhabitants of Fiesole were accepted into the newly founded city, I shall also explain what I believe to be the origin of Fiesole's name.

The colony of Florence was founded by the triumvirs: Caius Caesar (who later took the title of Augustus), Mark Antony, and Marcus Lepidus, who then held the office of pontifex maximus. The settlers who moved to this new colony were soldiers of Caesar; they were granted two hundred jugera to mark out the foundations of the city. I get this information from Julius Frontinus' De agrorum mensuris,(2) a text of which you have a very old copy at home, Piero. Florence, therefore, is the only city in all of history that has been built by three generals-one of whom was to become the greatest emperor of all, and another, the pontifex maximus.(3) The first Florentines, moreover, were men of such virtue that they were able to overcome all clash of weapons, fortresses, and armies.

Having discussed the origins of Florence, let us now investigate the development of its name. It is a known fact that Rome had three names: the first one can be considered the common one; the second is the ancient one from which the poet(4) took the name Amaryllis, that is, "love," for his bucolic; and the third is the one used specifically in sacred ceremonies. From the third derives the name used for celebrating the goddess Flora-Anthusa in Greek as attested by the learned Philadelphus, from whose work I have gathered this information.

The Latin form of this name can be either Florens, Flora, or Florentia. We know that the Romans developed their colonies as small models or imitations of their own city. Clearly, given the name Capitol that is still used in the city and the names of some neighborhoods, Florence was also modeled on Rome. Both Philadelphus and the most learned Eustace write that the name Anthusa had also been given to Constantinople, the new Rome. The name of the city and its origin, therefore, were one and the same thing. In Pliny,(5) the term Fluentini rather than Fiorentini is probably due to an error of the scribes or, perhaps, to the fact that in olden times the people who lived by the banks of the River Arno were so called. After the settlers arrived and founded the city, they joined the Florentines to live with them. Their name Fluentini in the edict of the 348

Lombard king Desiderius can be traced back to one of the two above mentioned reasons. At any rate, there is no doubt that Ptolemy, as reported in several manuscripts, calls this city Florence;(6) Pliny himself does so in Book 14 of his Naturalis historia,(7) although this passage is corrupt and survives only in unreliable manuscripts. Paulinus, Ambrose's disciple, also speaks of "Florence" in a passage that bears witness to the holiness of our bishop Zenobius.(8) The same name appears in Procopius,(9) who shows how strong and powerful this city already was at that time, repeatedly managing to resist the Goths' attempts to seize it. One can still see in Florence the remains of a superb ancient monument: the temple which was originally consecrated to Mars and is now dedicated to St. John the Baptist. Caesar's soldiers, conquerors of the whole world, were particularly devoted to Mars, the father of the Roman race. Augustus, the primary founder of your city, also venerated Mars and to such a degree that it was he who in the middle of the Roman forum consecrated the temple to Mars Ultor. It need not surprise us, therefore, that the Florentine youths - despite their dislike of weapons, as is customary among their people - have always defeated even the most expert soldiers in jousting tournaments. But I must refrain from speaking of the many tournaments you have won in just a few days, dear Piero, lest someone think that I write this letter merely to praise you.

Finally, let us consider Fiesole, which was founded by the divine Atlas, according to an ancient tradition supported by Boccaccio,(10) one of the most erudite authors of his time. In order to uphold his authority, I want to quote Hesiod, the ancient poet who writes that Fiesole was not only one of the nymphs who feature in the Hyades constellation, but the most important among them. The Hyades are called Suculae in Latin, and their position is indicated by the moon. This is why the moon is still the symbol of Fiesole, although it is also possible that its inhabitants adopted this symbol because the last one of the wandering stars is very close to the top of Atlas, who holds up the heavens. Here are the verses of Hesiod's Astronomy taken partly from the authoritative Theon, and partly from the outstanding Byzantine grammarian Tzetzam's commentary on Theon's letters:

... nymphs like the Graces, Fiesole, Coronis, and beautifully crowned Cleeia, Exquisite Phaeo and long-robed Eudora, Whom the mortals on earth call the Hyades.(11)

Hesiod calls Fiesole the most important of the nymphs, as does Eustace, but owing to the terrible state of the manuscripts, one finds the word "Esole rather than "Fiesole."

The grammarian Ammonius, moreover, includes Fiesole among Bacchus' wet nurses.

The Hyades were Atlas' daughters, and whoever possesses even a small amount of education knows the names of Bacchus' wet nurses. The town of Fiesole had renowned 349

augurs who practiced the ancient Etruscan art of interpreting thunderbolts, as Silius wrote in the following passage:

Fiesole, too, was present, able to interpret The winged thunderbolt of the heavens.(12)

I have never understood why other cities have received more praise than this one. I cannot fail to mention, in fact, that all Italy owes its safety to the people of Fiesole, for it was in their mountain pass that, by God's will, Radagasius - the terrible king of the Goths who was devastating the whole world with his army of more than two hundred thousand men-was finally surrounded, captured, and executed.(13) This, dear Piero, is what I have found regarding Florence and Fiesole in the historical works of our writers and in other, less accessible but trustworthy authors. I hope that you and our fellow citizens will be pleased to receive these bits of information. As a man of letters, I could offer no greater gift to those who have invited me to this city than to endeavor to acquaint you with your illustrious but little known and much neglected ancestors.

Source: Angelo Poliziano, Opera omnia (Venice: Manuzio, 1498), folios 3v-5.

1. See document 18 of the present anthology.

2. The anonymous Libri regionum, not Frontinus' text, is the source of this passage. Poliziano's misunderstanding of this source was due to an error of the scribe, as shown by Nicolai Rubinstein in "II Poliziano e la questione delle origini di Firenze," p. 106.

3. August and Lepidus, respectively.

4. Virg., Eel. 1.

5. Pli., Nat. hist., 3.5.52.

6. Pto., Geo., 3.r.43.

7. Pli., Nat. hist., 14.4.36.

8. Paul., Vita A111b1:, 50.1 (PL, 14.44).

9. Pro., Hist., 7.5.1-5.

10. In the last section of his Ninifale fiesolano.

11. Hes., Ast1:, frag. 291.

12. Sil., Pun, 8.476-477.

13. Radagasius invaded Italy in 405, leading an army of Germans, mostly Ostrogoths. After having sacked northern Italy, he besieged Florence, but the Roman general Stilicho came to rescue the city and compelled Radagasius to withdraw to Fiesole, where he was captured and finally executed on August 23, 406.

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Giovanni Rucellai, A Merchant’s Praise of Florence Like his friend Cosimo de' Medici, Giovanni Rucellai (1403-1481) was a patron of the arts and a successful merchant. Rucellai was born into one of the wealthiest and most distinguished Florentine families, and became Palla Strozzi's son-in-law. After Cosimo's return from exile, Rucellai joined the Medici party, and his new political affiliation was sanctioned by the marriage of his son Bernardo with Nannina de' Medici, Piero de' Medici's daughter. Rucellai was a great patron of the arts, particularly known for his support of Leon Battista Alberti. Rucellai commissioned Alberti to build his palace in Via della Vigna Nuova, the loggia in front of the palace, the Holy Sepulchre in the nearby Church of San Pancrazio, and the magnificent facade of Santa Maria Novella.

Rucellai's cultural interests were not limited to art, as we can see in his Zibaldone quaresimale (1457-1471), a peculiar diary in which excerpts from Alberti’s Libri della famiglia and Palmieri's Vita civile mingle with the author's personal notes and moral precepts. The reader of the Zibaldone is immediately aware of Rucellai's versatile personality and multitudinous interests through the variety of topics and impressions animating the pages. This heterogeneity also characterizes the passage we have included here, which was composed in 1457 and is a celebration of what Rucellai considers to be the most splendid period of Florentine history. His panegyric embraces topics as divergent as Florence's military victories and the city's unmatched wealth and urban development. Though Rucellai praises the Florentine scholars and artists, he considers the city's economic growth as perhaps the most valid grounds for civic pride. He frames his discussion of Florentine economics with tributes to the two famous bankers Palla Strozzi and Cosimo de' Medici, whom he considers two of the four most illustrious men of fifteenth-century Florence.

Most people believe that our age, from 1400 onward, is the most fortunate period in Florence's history. I shall now explain why this is so. It is commonly believed that since 1400 the Italians have been superior to all other nations in the art of war, whereas before 1400 the northern Europeans were thought to be peerless. Thanks to their intelligence, astuteness, cunning, and strategic ability, the Italians are now the best at seizing cities and winning battles. In this age, moreover, there are more outstanding scholars of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew in Florence than ever before. An elegant and pure Latin eloquence, the likes of which has not flourished since Cicero's time, has finally returned to refine our literature. Our men of letters have revived the elegance of the ancient style that has long been lost and forgotten. Those who have participated in the government of the city since 1400 have surpassed all their predecessors. Likewise, the dominion of 351

Florence has considerably expanded since 1400, controlling more land than ever before: it [Florence] has conquered Pisa, Cortona, Borgo San Sepolcro, and Poppi, as well as many other towns of the Casentino.

The city and its countryside have also augmented in beauty-they are now embellished with new churches, hospitals, buildings, and palaces with elegant facades and lavishly decorated interiors. Beautiful Roman worked stones that is, stones worked in classical Roman style-adorn these constructions. Lately, in fact, we have had a great number of excellent architects, sculptors, woodcarvers, and stone-cutters who have adorned all Italy with their talent. There have not been such accomplished masters in joinery and woodcarving since the days of antiquity: they are able to produce such skillfully designed works in perspective that a painter could not do any better. The same can be said of our masters in painting and drawing, whose ability, sense of proportion, and precision are so great that Giotto and Cimabue would not even be accepted as their pupils. Similarly, we cannot forget to mention our excellent tapestry makers and goldsmiths.

Never before have men and women dressed in such expensive and elegant clothing.

Women wear brocade and embroidered gowns covered with jewels and saunter through the streets in their French-style hats that cost at least two hundred florins apiece. Neither the city nor the countryside has ever had such an abundance of household goods: there are plenty of tapestries and materials to cover chairs and chests, and more female servants than ever before.(1) The production of textiles has never been greater, nor have such precious silk clothes luxuriously adorned with golden embroideries ever been made. We first started embroidering with gold after 1400, and now the best golden embroideries in the world are ours, and the same goes for our fustian.

Since 1400, the Florentines have used massive ships to transport their products by seaan innovation which has brought great profit to our city, besides making its name world-renowned. It is also at this time that the government created the Monte to help young women assemble their dowry,(2) a charity that turned out to be very profitable not only to the citizens, especially those who are needy, but to the commune itself.

From 1400 on, dowries have been larger than ever before. This age has also had four notable citizens who deserve to be remembered. The first one is Palla di Nofri Strozzi, who possessed all seven of the things necessary for a man's happiness: a worthy homeland, noble and distinguished ancestors, a good knowledge of Greek and Latin, refinement, physical beauty, a good household, and honestly earned wealth. Rarely do we find in a single man so many things conducive to happiness. Then we have Cosimo de' Medici, probably not only the richest Florentine, but the richest Italian of all time. Cosimo was born into a distinguished family and became a powerful citizen supported by many followers. In the whole of our history, no one has ever been as honored as Co352

simo both in Florence and abroad. Suffice it to say that he managed to control the city government as if it had been his private property. The third citizen I shall mention is Messer Leonardo di Francesco Bruni. Although he¡was born in Arezzo, he was an honorary citizen of Florence.(3) He had a unique knowledge of and expertise in Greek, Hebrew,(4) and Latin and was more famous than any rhetorician after Cicero. Bruni revived Latin eloquence and refined it, as he did with the humanities and ancient rhetoric, which he rescued from oblivion. Finally, Filippo, son of Ser Brunellesco, was a master architect and sculptor. He was an accomplished geometer and was endowed by nature with great intelligence and an artistic genius superior to any since the time of the Romans. He is the one who rediscovered ancient Roman building techniques.

The earnings of the Florentine commune are now greater than ever. In this period, both in our city and in its countryside, people have witnessed tremendous wars and political upheaval, the like of which were never seen in the past. Churches and hospitals are richer than ever, better supplied with gold and silk paraments and precious silver.

There are numerous friars and priests caring for these places, which the faithful visit constantly. Men and women attend Mass and other religious ceremonies with greater devotion than ever. I shall but mention the lauds, the gospels, and the rhymed laments that are skillfully sung with sweetness and devotion throughout the whole year, especially during Lent. The citizens perform exquisite mystery plays, especially during the feast of St. John the Baptist.

I must also add that very recently, in October, the government issued a law decreeing that the citizens of Florence were to be free of all taxes for a period of ten years; it would certainly be a wonderful thing to have this law enforced.

Until a few years ago, it was fashionable, not so much among rich and distinguished men, but rather among middle-class citizens, to wear hoods of fine scarlet cloth while riding or relaxing in the countryside. The citizens have never had so much wealth, merchandise, and property, nor have the Monte's interests ever been so conspicuous; Consequently, the sums spent on weddings, tournaments, and various forms of entertainment are greater than ever before. Between 1418 and 1423 Florence's wealth was probably at its height. At that time, in the Mercato Nuovo and the streets nearby, there were seventy-two exchange banks. I believe that at that time the Florentines possessed some 2,000,000 florins in money and merchandise alone. When the government first established the catasto(5) in 1427, it was estimated that the citizens had only 1,000,000 florins left, as the terrible war fought between 1423 and 1427 was horrendously expensive and drained many family patrimonies. In 1451, moreover, they decided to impose heavy taxes on all kinds of transactions, a maneuver that brought in 750,000 florins altogether. By now, that is, in 1457, I think the Florentines' wealth has doubled this amount, so that in money and merchandise they must possess 1,500,000 florins. Be353

cause of this fiscal abundance, between 1418 and 1423 the accounts in the communal bank bore nearly a 3ž percent interest rate, giving 61 florins for each 100. Good Banks did not request a deposit as a guarantee, and despite all the expenses, their accounts always had a 5 percent interest rate, so that even apothecaries, wool workers, Storekeepers, and the like, deposited their money there.

Source: Giovanni Rucellai, Zibaldone, ed. Alessandro Perosa (London: Warburg Institute University of London, 1960), vol. r, pp. 60-62.

1. The importing of young women from foreign countries (especially Eastern Europe) to serve as maids was a widespread practice in late medieval Florence and lasted well into the seventeenth century.

2. The Monte delle Doti.

3. Bruni was granted Florentine citizenship in 1416.

4. Bruni did not study Hebrew. Giannozzo Manetti, another Florentine humanist and an admirer of Bruni, however, became one of Italy's first experts in the language.

5. This was a system of tax assessment based on the amount of property each Florentine citizen owned.

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Benedetto Dei, The City’s Unparalleled Economic Prosperity Thanks to his numerous trials and multifarious activities, Benedetto Dei is one of the most intriguing figures of fifteenth-century Florence. He was a member of the silk merchants' guild in 1440, and of the wool dealers' two years later. Not much is known about Dei's youth, although his Cronica informs us that he started traveling in his early twenties: he visited the branches of the Medici bank in Rome and Venice between 1433 and 1440, although he does not specify what his tasks were on such occasions. Economic problems, which vexed him throughout his life, brought him to accept office in several towns of the Florentine dominion. He was also appointed to important diplomatic missions around the time of the Peace of Lodi (1454). He never succeeded, however, in obtaining influential posts within the city government, and it was probably because of this that he decided to travel to Tunisia, Greece, and Turkey in the 1460s. As he writes in his chronicle, he resided in Constantinople from 1462 to 1464, where he had the opportunity to meet the Ottoman Emperor Mohammed II and the most influential members of his court. Laden with exotic gifts and animals, he returned to Italy in 1467, and was welcomed at the seaport of Pisa by his friend Luigi Pulci. In the following years, Dei's relationship with the Medici faction and with Lorenzo the Magnificent himself deepened. In 1480 he moved to the Milanese court of Ludovico II Moro, and spent a whole decade at the service of lords such as the Bentivoglios in Bologna and the Estes in Ferrara, always alternating his mercantile occupation with the role of informer and ambassador. He finally returned to Florence in 1492, where he died on August 28 at the age of seventy-four.

Like his friend Luigi Pulci, Dei possessed substantial knowledge of vernacular literature and had a natural tendency to fill his writings with long, interesting enumerations. We find a good example of Dei's literary style in his description of Florence in 1472, the initial passages of which are included here. The panegyric offers a picture of the city's economy, which was thriving, in contrast to those of the other main commercial centers of Italy. This view can be legitimately compared with that of Florence

by Francesco Rosselli in his famous Map with the Chain (Figure 4). In both cases the Tuscan city appears as a precious jewel, a masterpiece produced by the citizens' diligent application in all fields, from art and architecture to commerce and war. A deeply patriotic spirit animates Dei's description, particularly apparent in the phrase he repeats again and again, "Florentie bella."

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1472 Let all Italy know, and all Christendom too, of the power, the strength, and the glory that the Florentines have at present in Tuscany. May this record benefit the peoples of Venice, Milan, Rome, Naples, Siena, Ferrara, Mantua, Lucca, Bologna, Perugia, Ancona, and Romagna who do not know what Florence looks like and have never been here. In order for them to learn, understand, consider, and appreciate what this city is like, I, Benedetto Dei of Florence, shall speak at length about the city's location, size, buildings, citizens, towns governed (while specifying their names, number, and previous rulers), origins, and ancestors. I have resolved to do this out of love for my friends, the Giustiniani and the Pattei, who are members of the Maona of Chios,(1) and have chosen this year, 1472, the year the government of Venice sentenced Francesco Bembo to hanging.

Beautiful Florence has preserved its liberty since its founding 1,545 years ago, never changing its political stance, currency, or banner. The origin of the city dates back to seventy-two(2) years before the birth of Christ, as can be noted in the baptistery-a temple consecrated to Mars before the inhabitants of Florence were converted to Christianity. There is further evidence of this at the top of the baptistery dome, which is enameled with letters in Chaldean, Moorish, Turkish, and Arabic.(3) Beautiful Florence is laid out in a circular fashion and has a diameter of five miles, each mile consisting of three thousand braccia.(4) It does not have a moat or a fortified citadel, nor does it have drawbridges, checkpoints, a fortress, sentinels, a standing army, or a stronghold; but atop its circuit of walls are eighty towers made of solid stone and lime from which one can launch an assault or defend the city from invaders. A river flows through the city, crossed by four marble bridges, and there are many mills within the city walls that satisfy the inhabitants' needs throughout the year.

Beautiful Florence rules over walled towns, whose gates are opened each morning and closed at night. These towns and castles once belonged to the people of Arezzo, to the Roman Church, to Genoa, Milan, Pisa, Siena, Volterra, San Miniato, Lucca, the lords of Romagna, Naples (I refer to Cortona and Prato), the Ubaldini family, the lords of Battifolle (who ruled over Casentino), the counts of Orciatico and those of Pistoia, as well as other Tuscan lords. I shall not even count the people who live in unwalled hamlets, or those who dwell in the villas of the Florentine countryside no further than eight miles outside the city.

Beautiful Florence has organized its Monte(5) in an original way, managing its loans in the Venetian manner, and its deposits in the Genoese. The Monte takes fifteen florins from each of its citizens and after a fifteen-year period it gives back one hundred florins to the citizens and the subjects who need to raise a dowry for their daughters.

There is no doubt that this institution, the Monte delle Doti, has been an excellent 356

measure adopted by the city of Florence and has turned out to be very profitable for its people. Nothing like this is to be found in Venice, Genoa, Rome, Siena, or Lucca.

Beautiful Florence has an annual revenue of 360,000 florins deriving from taxation, salt and wine gabelles, and from the fees for drawing up contracts. Thanks to these resources, the Florentine government manages to meet all its expenses and give the citizens the interest they have accrued at the Monte. There always remains enough money to finance a war or, when necessary, to purchase cities or villages. Today, in 1472, the Monte is solvent, whereas the Venetians, as they themselves openly confess, are fifteen years behind in payments and are suffering a budget deficit.

Beautiful Florence has a total of thirty square miles of land within twenty miles outside its walls. This land, dotted with churches, monasteries, and religious sites, belongs to Florentines who reside in the city. The estates and farms provide great wealth and large quantities of wheat, forage, wine, olive oil, wood, meat, cheese, saffron, fruit, and vegetables all year round. It has an income of thirty gold florins for each of the said products, which amounts to a total of nine hundred thousand florins a year, not counting the constant surplus of wheat and olive oil. The Bolognese, the Genoese, the Lombards, and the people from the regions of Bologna and Romagna know these facts quite well. Beautiful Florence has another source of income apart from the annual 360,000 gold florins deriving from taxes and the 900,000 gold florins provided by its land. It has the forced loan, the catasto,(6) as well as the balzello, the ventina, the decina, the denaro per lira, the settina, the novina, and the cinquina.(7) When necessary, such taxes are imposed once, twice, or three times a month, according to the government's needs and the expenses resulting from ongoing or recently ended wars. Let it be known to the people of Venice, Lombardy, Naples, Siena, and Lucca that every year more than five hundred thousand fiorini larghi d'oro are collected in addition to all other taxes.(8) Beautiful Florence has 3,600 villas within a five-mile radius beyond the city walls.

All of these houses are built with worked stones and are surrounded by beautiful fields plowed with the help of cattle. These villas have halls, private rooms, loggias, wells, springwater, farms, orchards, gardens, sheds, cellars, vaults, oil mills, vineyards, dovecotes, lodgings, and all sorts of furniture and fittings, both grand and small. Each villa is worth more than four thousand gold ducats, a sum equal to the cost of a large Genoese merchant ship.

Beautiful Florence has 108 churches within the city proper, which hold both morning and evening Mass. The churches are meticulously maintained and exquisitely furnished with cloisters, chapter houses, refectories, infirmaries, sacristies, libraries, bell towers, relics, crosses, chalices, silver items, gold and silver paraments, and velvet and damask clothes, as is well known to the foreign friars who come to preach in Florence 357

for Lent. Theologians from Venice, Milan, Rome, Genoa, Naples, and Siena can confirm that what I am saying is true. All this is an amazing thing to contemplate.

Beautiful Florence has twenty-three palaces inside the city walls that host the guild leaders, their subordinates, secretaries, accountants, notaries, servants, and other minor officials. In these palaces are the seats for the twenty three local guilds, whose presence is necessary in an ideal city; a place that lacks them cannot consider itself a city. Pay close attention to what follows, dear reader: the tribunals located in the said seats may hear cases and pass sentences that cannot be appealed. Another council, called the Mercanzia, presides over these twenty-three guilds.

Beautiful Florence has all seven of the fundamental things a city requires for perfection. First of all, it enjoys complete liberty; second, it has a large, rich, and elegantly dressed population; third, it has a river with clear, pure water, and mills within the circuit of walls; fourth, it rules over towns, castles, lands, people, and communes; fifth, it has a university, and both Greek and accounting are taught; sixth, it has masters in every art; seventh and last of all, it has banks and business agents all over the world. Venetian, Milanese, Genoese, Neapolitan, Sienese, try to compare your cities with this one!

Source: Benedetto Dei, La Cronica dall' anno 1400 all' anno 1500, ed. Roberto Barducci (Flor ence: Papafava, 1985), pp. 77-79.

1. The Maona of Chios was a company established in 1349 by twenty-six Genoese families to control the monopoly of the main products of that Greek island after its conquest by Genoa.

2. Actually, it was sixty-two years. "Seventy-two" was probably a scribe's error; Barducci's diplomatic edition of the manuscript reports seventy-two.

3. Dei probably refers to the fact that the baptistery dome originally had an opening modeled on that of the Roman Pantheon. This opening was closed and the dome assumed its present structure only in the sixteenth century.

4. A Florentine braccio was equivalent to about fifty-eight centimeters (twenty-three inches).

5. On the Monte delle Doti see document 13 and n. 2.

6. The system of tax assessment introduced in r 427; see document r 3, n. 5.

7. Apart from the catasto, all the assessments here mentioned by Dei were occasional levies named after the number of members in the Florentine councils that were responsible for them; the decina, for instance, was imposed by the council of the Dieci di balla. The balzello was also a type of forced loan. The levy called denaro per lira, by contrast, consisted in the payment of a denaro di picciolo for each lira of taxable income.

8. According to the Florentine law in Dei's time, all important commercial transactions had to be carried out in fiorini larghi d'oro, more valuable than the regular fiorini d'oro - always minted full weight - and the so-called fiorini di suggello, which had by then dropped in value.

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G. A. Brucker, The Renaissance City The Setting In 1400, a traveller approaching Florence along the main roads did not encounter that striking view of the city and its environs which is so admired today. Winding through the steep hills north of the Arno river the road from Bologna offers some impressive ' ' glimpses, but the view is truncated by the ridges which protrude like fingers into the plain. The ideal vantage point was Fiesole, the hill town overlooking Florence from the north. From that elevation, one could enjoy an unobstructed view of the entire city, and also of the Arno valley stretching westward to the sea. Visible too were the particular features of this urban complex: the walls and towers, the river and its bridges, the network of roads which had given birth and nourishment to Florence, the countryside which was linked to the city by a thousand bonds.

Florence's river location, some fifty miles from the Mediterranean Sea, was her most distinctive physical feature. Most Tuscan towns of any size-Siena, Volterra, Cortona, S. Gimignano are located on hilltops, from which they dominate the surrounding plain.

Centuries of political disorder following the barbarian invasions had dictated the site of these hill towns, which were more easily defended than settlements in the lowlands.

With the sole exception of Pisa, a port city, the lower Arno valley did not attract large urban concentrations in the Middle Ages. The plain was swampy, poorly drained, and vulnerable to floods and not until the late thirteenth century was it reduced to the condition of fertility and easy communication it possesses today. And, then as now, Florence was not immune from the danger of flood waters; medieval chronicles describe the periodic devastations of the Arno, swollen by the heavy autumn rains. Once or twice in every century, the river would take a heavy toll of human life and property.

Even though the Arno occasionally brought death and destruction to the city, it also conferred substantial benefits upon her inhabitants. Florence was never troubled by the water shortages that limited the size and growth of Siena, Perugia, Cortona, and other hill towns. If the Florentines enjoyed some measure of sanitary and hygienic superiority over the Sienese and the Aretini, this was due to the proximity and availability of river water. The city's elevation and distance from the swamps of the lower Arno valley protected the inhabitants from malaria and the other marsh diseases which decimated Pisa's population in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Fish from the Arno was a staple product in the Florentine diet; the flour mills located along the river and its tributar359

ies ground the meal for the city's bread. That Florence -and not Siena or Perugiabecame the largest centre of cloth manufacturing-in central Italy was due in part to her river location. Washing, fulling, and dyeing cloth all required a plentiful water supply, which taxed the river's capacity only during the annual summer drought.

The river was an important route of trade and travel, linking Florence with Pisa and the sea and also with the Apennine hinterland. The Arno, however, was not an ideal artery of communication. Its volume and rate of flow fluctuated sharply from season to season; it was shallow and sluggish in summer, swift and often unnavigable during the autumn and spring floods. Silt forming at the Arno's mouth also impeded river traffic and increased the cost of transporting merchandise by water. Upstream, the only important urban center near its course was Arezzo, fifty miles to the southeast, but the river was-and is-too shallow for large boats in the summer months. Travelers preferred the land route paralleling the river. Downstream toward Pisa and the sea, river travel was heavier, but the summer drought also hampered this traffic, as did the artificial barriers and sand deposits along the Arno's course. Early in the fourteenth century, a road suitable for year-round travel was built between Pisa and Florence, and travel on this highway was as heavy as barge traffic on the river.

Matching the difficulties and hazards of river communication were those encountered by merchants who utilized the land routes radiating from Florence in every direction.

Tuscan terrain is hilly, an interminable succession of ridges and valleys, not rhythmic and regular like the Appalachians but uneven, contorted, chaotic. The major roads which linked the city to other Italian regions were not noted for their ease of transit, but they were better than most alternate paths. Florence was the southern terminus of a major route across the Apennines. Traffic from the Lombard plain, from Milan and Venice, converged at Bologna and then followed the roads over the mountains to Florence, sixty miles away. From there, travellers proceeded to Rome and the southern provinces along two main arteries, one by way of Siena, the other following the course of the Arno along the old Roman road, the Via Cassia, through Arezzo, Perugia, and Assisi to Rome. The route across the peninsula followed the Arno valley to Florence, then over the Apennines via Bologna or Forli, to the ports on the Adriatic Sea, the gateway to the Levant.

From the city's center, these roads ran through districts (now disfigured by urban sprawl) that were still rural: a complex of hamlet, farm, villa, and monastery. The villages surrounding the city – Sesto, Peretola, Rifredi, Settignano, Fiesole – were all small, their inhabitants and vitality drained by the powerful magnet of Florence. Only Prato, ten miles to the northwest, was able to withstand this pressure, to grow and to maintain an independent economic existence. These villages did not alter the essentially rural character of the landscape, nor did the ecclesiastical foundations, which 360

were numerous but small. The largest of these monasteries – Settimo and Ripoli, the Certosa at Galluzzo, Vallombrosa and Camaldoli in the Apennines-were all several miles from Florence. The one large monastic complex in the immediate vicinity was S. Salvi, the ancient Vallombrosan convent near the Arno east of the city walls.

The beauty of this rural landscape has been extolled by generations of writers, by men as diverse in their tastes as the fourteenth-century humanist Coluccio Salutati and the nineteenth-century esthete John Ruskin. Over the centuries, the ingredients of this bellezza have changed little: the variety of terrain, from flat plain to rolling hill to rough Apennine slope; the combination of brilliant blue sky, dark green cypress, and silvery olive; the sensitive arrangement of land contours, buildings, fields and trees. The Tuscan countryside is displayed in the backgrounds of many Florentine paintings, for example, in works by Gozzoli, Fra Angelico, and Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo was particularly successful in depicting the misty, ethereal atmosphere, still one of the most distinctive features of the Tuscan landscape.

The relationship between town and country is one of the most significant themes in Italian urban history; it influenced social structures and values, economic activities, political institutions and developments. For many Italian cities, the predominant theme in this relationship was the strong influence exercised upon urban life by powerful feudal families with estates outside the walls. Genoa's political and social history bore the sharp imprint of the great feudal dynasties which dominated her rugged Apennine hinterland, and both Rome and Milan felt the strong pressure of their potent noble clans: Colonna and Orsini, Visconti and Della Torre. Venice was a unique case; she possessed no close ties with the mainland before the fifteenth century, a fact which contributed to the social homogeneity of her ruling class. The Venetian patriciate was preoccupied with mercantile affairs, and the city's politics were not disturbed by eruptions of feudal disorder or by quarrels between town and country interests.

The pattern of urban-rural relationships which evolved during Florence's medieval period corresponded quite closely to that of other inland cities. Florence expanded by tapping the resources of her hinterland. Emigration enlarged her population; surplus grain, oil, and wine from Tuscan farms fed the growing urban populace. The aristocracy which governed the commune in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was an amalgam of social groups, each of which had close ties with the rural areas surrounding the city. One part of this ruling class had descended from the feudal nobility which still possessed large estates in the contado(1); another segment was formed by descendants of an affluent rural bourgeoisie who had migrated into the city, invested capital in commerce and industry, while retaining land and social contacts in the district from which their ancestors had emigrated. By the end of the fifteenth century, the typical agricultural unit in the rural areas around Florence was the podere, a compact bloc of land 361

assembled and fructified by a heavy injection of urban capital, sufficiently productive to sustain the family of peasant cultivators as well as the landlord's family living in the city. The development of this mezzadria or sharecropper system provided a secure food supply for the propertied classes in the city, and it created exceptionally stable conditions in the Tuscan countryside. The system also contributed to the formation of intimate and remarkably permanent ties between the urban and the rural populace, based upon a community of economic interest and a tradition of cooperative effort.

The city's formal boundary was defined by its walls. This fortification, some five miles in circumference, was erected during a fifty-year period from 1285 to 1340. On the Arno's north side, the bastions formed a rough parabola. Joining the river at its western boundary beyond the Porta al Prato, the walls curved inland to the Porta S. Gallo, over a mile north of the Arno, and then cut sharply back toward the river. These walls were torn down in the 1860s, but their location is clearly marked by the girdle of wide boulevards which circles the inner city, dividing the old town from the modern suburbs. On the river's south side, the walls enclosed a more restricted area, for the hills were a formidable barrier to urban development. From the Porta S. Niccolo, where river and wall met at the city's southeastern comer, the line of fortifications moved abruptly inland to the Porta S. Piero Gattolino ( now Porta Romana), and then rejoined the river farther west at the Porta S. Frediano. Traversing rough terrain unsuited for building or communication, these walls have survived into the twentieth century. Nostalgic spirits seeking to relive the past will find sustenance for their reveries in that section of wall which runs from Porta S. Niccolo to the Belvedere fortress. The path alongside this barrier is narrow, rough, little travelled. It does not follow the contours of hill and valley but, like a Roman road, moves sharply up the ridges in a straight line. The wall itself, some twenty feet high, is interspersed at regular intervals with towers, originally more than 100 feet high, which were truncated in the sixteenth century.

These imposing fortifications were clearly visible to an observer stationed on Fiesole's hill, but the other urban landmarks would not be so easily distinguished in the dense clot of masonry within the walls. Close to the river were the bell towers of the palace of the Signoria (Palazzo Vecchio), which housed the legislative and executive organs of the commune, (p. 15) and the palace of the podesta, the most important magistrate and police official. These massive edifices were constructed in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, and their austere, fortresslike appearance reflects something of the temperament – hard, assertive, suspicious – of the Florentines of Dante's generation, who had built them. They were conceived as bastions of defense; their purpose was to protect the communal government against attack from any quarter: whether from the feudal nobility, subdued but not destroyed, or from a proletarian mob, or from a Sienese or Pisan army.

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Today, the most distinctive feature of the city's skyline is the cathedral or Duomo (p.

14), located some 400 yards north of the Piazza della Signoria. This giant structure, begun in 1296, was still not finished a century later. The architectural and engineering problems of building the cupola baffled the officials in charge of construction. Not until the 1420s were these problems finally solved by Brunelleschi, who developed the plans for this architectural breakthrough (the first large dome to be constructed in Latin Europe since Roman times) and supervised the early stages of construction. In the absence of the dome, the Fiesole observer who (in 1400) viewed this scene could locate the city's ecclesiastical center by identifying the cathedral campanile, begun by Giotto in 1334. To the west of the cathedral were two other important elements in this ecclesiastical complex: the Baptistery and the episcopal palace. Florence abounded in sacred foundations large and small, from great monasteries to tiny hospitals and parish churches, like the minuscule S. Maria in Campo a few yards from the cathedral. To the left of the Duomo was the tower of the Badia of S. Stefano, the ancient Benedictine monastery near the palace of the podesta. More imposing, visually and architecturally, were the great basilicas built by the Dominicans (S. Maria Novella) and the Franciscans (S. Croce). As if by tacit agreement, these rival orders established themselves on opposite sides of the city: the Dominicans in the northwestern quarter, and the Minorites along the eastern wall, near the Arno.

We have a more precise impression of what the viewer from Fiesole saw, thanks to the survival of the Bigallo fresco painted in 1342 (p. 16). This work is not distinguished for its realism, but the artist did convey two striking features of the urban landscape: its "spiny" character derived from the proliferation of towers, and a sense of compression and density-the lack of free, open space. These impressions were valid. Medieval Florence was a city of towers, both ecclesiastical and secular, and her central zone was a solid, dense block of masonry, broken only by thin lines of alleys and narrow streets, and by occasional courtyards and squares. But neither of these features survived into the sixteenth century as permanent characteristics of the urban milieu. The towers gradually declined in number, their tops lopped off by communal ordinance in 1250, or demolished to make room for other buildings. The transformation of the urban center into a more spacious area, with larger squares and wider streets, was a gradual process, not finally completed until the nineteenth century. This transformation gathered momentum in the fifteenth century and was a result not only of economic pressures but also of changing values, both public and private, which are associated with the emergence of the Renaissance.

Buildings, Streets, Neighbourhoods Florence has many old buildings, a few ancient streets, but no medieval quarter. There is no district of the city which communicates that sense of the medieval past which one 363

experiences in S. Gimignano or Gubbio or the S. Pellegrino quarter of Viterbo. In these " smaller, " less "progressive" towns, old buildings and monuments have not been sacrificed, on a massive scale, to the requirements of the modern world. As late as the mid-nineteenth century, Florence still retained its traditional character, its harmonious blend of medieval and Renaissance architecture, with scarcely a trace of later building styles. The first major step toward modernization was taken in the 1840s, when the Calzaiuolo-the street connecting the cathedral square with the Piazza della Signoria was widened and straightened. Twenty years later, the city walls were torn down, and wide boulevards (lungarni) were constructed along the banks of the Arno. These streets facilitated communication, but they also destroyed the pleasantly rustic character of the river banks, a favorite subject of artists in the early nineteenth century. The most flagrant desecration occurred in the 1880s when, in the name of progress, the authorities ordered the destruction of the district surrounding the Mercato Vecchio, the Old Market. In 1944, the German army added the finishing touches to this century of vandalism, when it blew up all of the Arno bridges except the Ponte Vecchio (p. 17). The Wehrmacht blocked both ends of that venerable monument by dynamiting the adjacent areas, and thus pulverized some of the remaining fragments of "old Florence."

The scars of war had not been entirely obliterated when, on November 4, 1966, the city experienced the most destructive flood in its history. The Arno inundated the historic center of Florence, the waters reaching heights of fifteen to twenty feet in some buildings, and extending more than a mile inland on the north, beyond the lines of the old city walls. None of the bridges collapsed, although the shops on the Ponte Vecchio were gutted by the rampaging waters. The city's major architectural monuments survived, but they all suffered some damage. Flood waters weakened building foundations, and crude oil from furnace reservoirs discolored stones and frescoes. The flood's toll in human suffering and property damage was enormous, but the loss to Florence's cultural patrimony is particularly grave. Even though only a small part of the art treasures, manuscripts, and books have been irretrievably lost, the city's museums, archives, and libraries must devote years of effort to the task of recovery and restoration.

One method of describing medieval Florence is to focus upon the great monuments which have survived: the Duomo, the churches and monasteries, the public palaces, the major streets and squares. Here we adopt a different approach, searching for fragments of the old city in various locales and utilizing evidence from literary and artistic sources as well as physical artifacts. These glimpses and impressions may lack coherence from being jumbled and blurred, but they often convey a more vivid sense of the past, of a world that is lost, than do the views of grandiose palaces and basilicas.

The Old Market and its environs, razed some eighty years ago, was a characteristically medieval quarter; photographs taken of the district prior to its destruction reveal its dis364

tinctive features (p. 17). The Market was a rectangular square, in the center of which was a pavilion (erected in the fourteenth century) where butchers sold their viands. In this pavilion and around the periphery, vendors of other commodities set up their stalls. Surrounding the square was a network of streets and alleys which reflected the chaotic and disorderly character of medieval Florence. Here were the stumps of the towers of the nobility, their upper stories dismantled in the thirteenth century by a hostile populace which feared the power of these feudal clans and the immunity from control which these fortresses signified. Here too was urban construction at its most congested. Houses were packed together, built in those decades before the construction of the last circle of walls provided the inhabitants with adequate living space and protection. Streets twisted and meandered through the district, following no rational pattern.

Building heights fluctuated crazily. Wedged between two massive towers eighty feet high might be a minuscule one-story cottage, uneconomic from the viewpoint of land utilization, but allowing a small amount of light and air into a district habitually dark, damp, and fetid. The area was festooned by a network of arches, which bolstered the less substantial buildings, and also served as the foundation for another room or two, to provide the residents of this district with additional living space.

A stone's throw from the Piazza della Signoria there survives a tiny enclave of the old city, or rather fragments of an enclave. Since medieval times, this zone has frequently been the scene of urban renewal projects. Buildings were systematically razed in the fourteenth century to make room for the Loggia dei Lanzi and for the enlargement of the Piazza della Signoria. Another wave of urban demolition occurred in the sixteenth century to provide space for the Uffizi palace. But surviving this destruction is the Chiasso dei Baroncelli, a medieval street which connects the Piazza della Signoria with the Via Lambertesca. It is a narrow lane, only eight feet wide at its southern exit, lined on both sides by tall buildings which effectively block out the light. Two arches curve above this alley at its southern end, emphasizing the antiquity and fragility of the walls they support. A few yards to the south of the Chiasso dei Baroncelli, paralleling the river, is the Volta dei Girolami (p. 18), likewise spanned by two arches, which serve as tunnels under buildings to permit passage through this very congested area.

The district around the Piazza S. Spirito (p. 19), on the Arno's southern bank, has undergone relatively little change over the centuries. This quarter has some remnants of Quattrocento architecture and some traces, too, of a past way of life. The treelined piazza, facing the old Augustinian church, is one of the most attractive in Florence. It has also maintained its traditional social function as the physical core of a neighborhood, with its outdoor market, its small shops and cafes catering to residents rather than tourists, its benches for the elderly, its playing space for children. The streets adjacent to the piazza – the Via Toscanella and the Borgo Tegolaio, for example – are lined 365

with buildings constructed 500 years ago. On the ground floors of these ancient structures are shops (botteghe), many of which retain their original arched doorways. Here Florentine artisans ply their trades: the ancient crafts of carpenter, silversmith, and cabinetmaker as well as the modern skills of mechanic and electrician. In these shops, and in the work of these talented artisans, there survive some of the few links between contemporary Florence and its past.

Time and progress have wrought less havoc in the Oltr'arno quarter than in the regions north of the river. Many of the houses on the Via S. Niccolo, which connects the Porta S. Giorgio (p. 19) with the Porta S. Niccolo, were built during Brunelleschi's lifetime (1377-1446). These structures form a solid facade of brick and stucco, without a breach, along a street 100 yards in length. Each dwelling, however, has its distinctive physiognomy, its peculiar dimensions and character. The facades are high and narrow, some no wider than twelve or fifteen feet, but rising three or four stories to fifty feet and more above street level. From the vantage point of the Porta S. Giorgio, one can see the rumps of these structures, which are adjacent to the city wall. They present a striking view of broken lines and irregular forms; of decrepit attic rooms, chimney pots, and tile roofs; of ancient, weathered brick surfaces from which the stucco has peeled.

The anatomy of the "typical" Florentine house of the Renaissance can best be seen from the north side of the Arno, near the Ponte alle Grazie, looking south across the river. Here the terrain, rising abruptly from the Arno bank, provides three dimensional views of these dwellings. Florentine houses retained the form and some of the character of their architectural ancestor, the medieval tower. Very tall and narrow, often rising to five stories, they extended well back from the street, their depth often three times greater than the width of the street facade. Windows were few in number and small in size; they provided the barest minimum of light and air for the lower stories; A distinctive feature of these houses was the covered balcony or terrace on the top floor, which opened out onto the street and permitted inhabitants to escape from the gloomy interiors. These terraces and the sporti, the projecting upper stories, are Florence's particular contribution to Italian domestic architecture.

If such houses, or smaller and humbler cottages, provided the living space for most Florentines, aristocratic families could afford more elegant and more spacious quarters.

Many descendants of ancient families continued to live in the primitive towers inherited from their ancestors, the stumps of which still survive, particularly in the zone north of the Piazza della Signoria. The most notable of these venerable relics, the Torre Donati (p. 20), still stands in the Piazza di S. Piero Maggiore in the eastern quarter of the old city. This tower marks the urban habitat of that turbulent noble family, so intimately involved in the factional struggles of Dante's time. But in the second half of the fourteenth century, new styles of domestic architecture evolved, heralding the 366

changing patterns of aristocratic living in the Quattrocento. The Davanzati palace (p.

21), built by the Davizzi family in the fourteenth century and now converted into a museum, illustrates the architectural tastes of the Florentine aristocracy in the late fourteenth century. Its external appearance is traditional: a high, narrow facade crowned with an open balcony, severely simple lines which recall the primitive austerity of the towers. It is the interior that reveals the progress made toward a new style of living. A small, open courtyard introduced limited quantities of light and air, those two rare commodities of medieval urban housing. The ground floor was reserved for shops, and for storing the produce of the family's country estates. Living quarters were located on the two stories above ground level. Each floor contained the full complement of rooms required for a household, for among the Florentine upper classes, it was common practice for fathers and married sons to live under the same roof. The main rooms of these apartments faced the street. These spacious, elegant halls spanned the length of the palace, and they were used for formal occasions: the banquets, receptions, and family gatherings that played an important part in Florentine social life. Adjacent to the main salon was a smaller dining room, and then leading toward the rear of the house, a series of bedrooms for members of the household. Toilets were located in antechambers adjoining the bedrooms, and although these were not provided with running water, they were a sign of refinement in aristocratic circles, and the abandonment of more primitive hygienic customs which still prevailed among the lower classes. Interior decoration in this palace was lavish, opulent, and colorful. Frescoes and tapestries adorned the walls, and the furniture would not have been out of place in royal palaces in northern Europe.

Adequate evidence from documents and buildings survive to describe the aristocratic mode of living in Renaissance Florence, but information on lower-class housing is scantier and more fragmentary. The dwellings inhabited by the urban poor were primitive and unsubstantial; they have not survived the ravages of time. Tax records, however, do provide some data on housing and living conditions among the lower strata of Florentine society. Most artisans and laborers lived in small houses of two or three stories (one room per story) or single-room cottages. A typical worker's lodging was the cottage in the parish of S. Piero Maggiore on the eastern periphery of the city owned by a schoolmaster, Girolamo di Bartolo, who in 1427 received an annual rent of 3 florins (2) from his tenant Neri, a laborer in a soap factory. Tax records contain a few references to buildings in which rooms or stories were rented out to several individuals or families, but the apartment house was a rare phenomenon in fifteenth-century Florence. However, the tax declaration of Alessandro Borromei in 1427 does contain a portent for the future. A wealthy Pisan emigre with large real estate holdings, Borromei had purchased a palace which once belonged to the noble Amieri family. He converted this structure into a multiple-unit tenement, renting shops on the ground floor to merchants and arti367

sans, and single rooms in the upper stories as living quarters. From his real estate investments, this prototype of the modern urban landlord earned annual revenues of nearly 1000 florins.

A remarkable feature of Renaissance Florence was the social and economic heterogeneity of each district and neighborhood. No sections of the city were reserved exclusively for the rich, no ghettoes inhabited solely by the poor. Each district was a melange of palace and cottage, of cloth factory and retail shop, of parish church and monastic foundation. Then as now, the ground floors of elegant palaces were rented out to shopkeepers and artisans¡ rich bankers and industrialists lived on streets inhabited by 'shoemakers, stonemasons, indigent cloth workers, and prostitutes. This pattern was a result of the disorderly character of Florence's expansion, and also of social tradition. Each prominent family was closely identified with a particular neighborhood, where the first urban generation had settled – its members banding together for protection – in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. By 1400, the danger of physical attack from a rival house or faction was less real, but the pressures to remain in the ancestral neighborhood were very strong. For in its own district, a family could muster the support among relatives, dependents, and friends which enhanced its political role in the commune.

In one sense, therefore, this urban community was a complex of hundreds of family nuclei, each representing a focus of power and influence within its own neighborhood.

Along the Borgo degli Albizzi southeast of the cathedral were several palaces belonging to the Albizzi; the Piazza dei Peruzzi near the Franciscan church of S. Croce was the public courtyard of that prominent mercantile house, whose palaces fronted upon the square. The banking family of the Bardi had its power base on the south bank of the Arno along the Via de' Bardi. The Medici were the leading family in the parish of S. Tommaso adjacent to the Old Market although some members owned property in the vicinity of the church of S. Lorenzo. One of Florence's largest families, the Strozzi (comprising some thirty-five urban households in 1378) was established in a zone near the Arno, surrounding the monastery of S. Trinita. A prominent banking house in late fourteenth-century Florence was that of the Alberti, who inhabited a dirty, noisome quarter of cloth-dyeing and wool-cleansing shops near the Franciscan church of S. Croce. The Alberti might have preferred a more attractive setting for their elegant palaces, away from the sounds and smells of cloth production. But they could not abandon their ancestral hearths, the neighborhood which was a bulwark of their political power.

Some degree of specialization, by occupation and economic function, did exist in certain urban districts. Shops engaged in some phase of cloth manufacturing were located in every part of the city, but they were concentrated in two zones: the Via Maggio in the S. Spirito quarter, and the S. Martino district near the cathedral. Subsidiary indus368

tries of dyeing, wool-washing and soap-making flourished along the Arno near S. Croce. Most of the shops and forges belonging to artisans who manufactured military equipment – swords, shields, and armor – were located in the quarter of S. Giovanni north and east of the cathedral. Communal legislation stipulated that slaughterhouses and tanning factories be located in the city's outskirts, where brick kilns and fulling mills were usually established as well.

GALLERY 5.1

Rents for both houses and shops were naturally higher in the center, and they tended to diminish as one moved toward the periphery. Commanding very high prices were shops located near the Piazza della Signoria and the Piazza del Duomo, or along the streets connecting these squares. A retail cloth shop near Orsanmichele rented for 118 florins in 1427; a barber shop located on the Piazza della Signori a brought the landlord a handsome return of 27 florins annually. Rents of 25 florins were common for houses in central Florence while in the outskirts, tenants rarely paid more than 10 florins, and usually less. Although every district had its quota of urban poor, the peripheral areas contained the heaviest concentrations of cloth workers, servants, and casual laborers. Tax records indicate that the parish of S. Frediano in the Oltr'arno quarter south of the river wash heavily populated by wool carders, beaters, and combers. In 369

this slum area, rents were minimal  (1 or 2 florins per year), and the quality of the accommodations was certainly as low as the rent. After five centuries S. Frediano is still predominantly a working-class neighborhood.

The Changing Face of Florence, 1350-1450 Our knowledge of Florentine building patterns in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries is derived from evidence in chronicles, notarial and ecclesiastical records, laws and statutes, and from the surviving architectural remains. Although data are sparse and fragmentary, they suffice to prove that these were years of intense building activity, both public and private. The guild regime established in 1282 initiated one major project after another: the reconstruction of the old Badia and the third circle of walls in 1294, the cathedral in 1296, the palace of the Signoria in 1299. Work on the cathedral and the walls progressed very slowly in the early fourteenth century, but the tempo of construction quickened in the 1330s when the walls were finally completed.

The foundations of the cathedral campanile and the loggia of Orsanmichele were laid down in 1334 and 1337; the reconstruction of the Ponte Vecchio began immediately after its collapse during the 1333 flood and was finished twelve years later. Meanwhile, the great basilicas of the mendicant orders, S. Maria Novella and S. Croce, were being completed, subsidized by the contributions of pious Florentines and also by occasional grants from the communal treasury.

The scale of private building in these decades was even greater than in the public and corporate sphere. Providing shelter, however poor and inadequate, for 100,000 inhabitants (Giovanni Villani' s estimate for 1338) represented a massive investment of money, labor, and raw materials. Competing for these resources utilized in housing were the industrialists who needed capital to construct their factories and warehouses.

Even in this age of primitive technology and low wages, it required a substantial investment to build the cloth shops, fulling mills, stretching sheds, and dye plants for an industry which employed some 30,000 workers in the 1330s. Also contributing to the building boom were the fires that periodically ravaged sections of the city.

According to the chronicler Giovanni Villani, a fire in 1303 destroyed 1700 buildings in the city center. Political conflict also played a role in urban renewal. Guelfs who had been driven into exile in 1260 returned six years later to find that some 600 of their houses had been damaged or destroyed by their Ghibelline enemies. The Guelf commune then demolished the palaces and towers of Ghibelline families, and either sold the confiscated property, or gave it to the Parte Guelfa, the political society of the triumphant faction.

By the middle of the fourteenth century, however, urban construction had slackened considerably. The plagues of 1340 and 1348 had reduced Florence's population by 370

one-half, and only part of this loss, perhaps one-third, was recovered in the second half of the century. This demographic contraction sharply reduced the demand for new housing. While describing the prosperous state of the city in the 1330s, Villani wrote that the citizens "were continually renovating [their buildings] for greater comfort and luxury, importing designs from abroad for every type of improvement." But in the 1340s, large numbers of construction workers were unable to find employment. Two carpenters wrote to an acquaintance in Avignon in 1344 to inquire whether they could find work there, explaining that "the condition of the artisans and lower classes in F1orence today is miserable, for they can earn nothing." For the first time in many decades, the city enjoyed a housing surplus. Urban rents plummeted in the 1340s, and did not rise again until after 1360.

Private building did not cease entirely in the decades following the Black Death, but its scope and character changed significantly. Before the plague, urban construction was heavily concentrated in the peripheral areas adjacent to the walls, where immigrants found shelter within the city's fortifications. After 1348, these outlying zones were no longer required to house the shrunken population. Orchards, gardens; vineyards, and even wheat fields covered much of this area; the 1433 tax return of a blacksmith, Antonio di Giovanni, described his property within the walls, from which he received ten bushels of grain annually. The population decline also transformed building patterns in the central zones. Many of the cheaper and flimsier cottages and shacks were torn down; by 1400, so many wooden structures had been replaced by stone buildings that fires were no longer a serious hazard. Other changes resulted from the declining fortunes of many noble families, debilitated by economic crises and political persecutions.

The massive blocs of towers and palaces once inhabited by the Amieri, Donati, and Pulci families disintegrated into fragments as a result of confiscations and inheritance divisions. Some of this property fell into the hands of mercantile families whose fortunes were not damaged by depression and bankruptcy, or it was acquired by the newly rich who invested some of their money in urban real estate.

After the Black Death, the commune focused its attention and its resources upon three aspects of Florence's topography. First, it continued and expanded previous efforts to develop a coherent plan for urban development. Second, it launched a program to expand and embellish the Piazza della Signoria. Finally, it invested a large sum of money in the languishing cathedral project, which, like the palace of the Signoria and its square, had become a symbol of Florentine grandeur.

The documented origins of urban planning in Florence date from Dante's time, at the end of the thirteenth century. In 1299, the poet was a member of a communal commission which received authority to widen and straighten the city streets. A decade earlier, in 1288, the commune authorized the acquisition of property to permit the enlarging 371

of the square in front of the Dominican church of S. Maria Novella. The impulse to regulate and control the physical character of the city was thus manifest at an early date, as were the articulated goals of urban planning: to facilitate communication, and to provide a more attractive environment for the inhabitants. This latter ideal was expressed with particular clarity in a Sienese proclamation of 1309: "Those who are charged with the government of the city should pay particular attention to its beautification. An important and essential ingredient of a civilized community is a park or meadow for the pleasure of both citizens and foreigners. … The cities of Tuscany . . . are well endowed with these amenities ....”

During the years of Florence's greatest growth, the commune was endeavoring to impose some degree of order and coherence upon the urban chaos. A primary goal was the establishment of public jurisdiction over the network of secondary streets and alleys in private possession. But the task was enormous and the resources limited; in times of crisis, the revenues authorised for civic improvement were often diverted to subsidize the construction of walls and fortifications. Although Dante’s commission of 1299 had received broad authority to improve the city’s thoroughfares, the money then available to purchase condemned property and rebuild streets was sufficient for only a few yards of roadway. But this initial phase of urban reconstruction did gain momentum, particularly in the early decades of the fourteenth century. Communal records for these years are replete with descriptions of street improvements and other public works projects.

In the 1320s, for example, the commune provide funds for the rebuilding of the Via S. Gallo north of the Baptistery, "to increase the beauty and utility of the city of Florence, and in particular [to make] the streets rectilinear and attractive, and so that merchants transporting grain from the Mugello and Romagna (regions north of Florence] can reach the market in the loggia of Orsanmichele more readily. … " A petition presented to the Signoria in September 1317 described the area adjacent to the Carmine church as "a filthy place, a dumping ground for trash," which contaminated the entire neighborhood. The petitioners appealed to the commune to acquire this property and transform it into a public square, "so that what is now unsightly and vile will be made attractive for the passersby."

One cannot assume that these projects of urban renewal were always completed, or that the goals of the city planners were fully realized. The language of the regulatory legislation suggests an official resolution and fixity of purpose which did not always accord with reality. A law of 1324 described the Via de Panzano as "sordid, filthy and noisome," even though 7500 lire had already been spent on its improvement and another 150 florins were required to finish the project. In 1351, the commune authorized the construction of a loggia in the Piazza della Signoria and appointed four officials to su372

pervise the work; twenty-five years passed before this project was actually begun. The large corpus of legislation dedicated to city planning has contributed to the myth of a spectacular metamorphosis from disorder, chaos, and filth to order, symmetry, and beauty. This legislation was highly restrictive; it would excite the admiration and envy of any modern zoning commission. Many provisions, however, required such intensive scrutiny and control that they were probably unenforceable. An example is the law stipulating that a minimum of 100 florins be spent in the construction of a new house, and another stating that all buildings on public streets must be faced with stone to a height of seven feet. The commune waged a lengthy campaign against the sporti, those ubiquitous upper stories which projected over Florentine streets. They were first banned from the main thoroughfares-for example, the Via Maggio - on the legitimate grounds that they hampered communication and blocked light and air from the lower floors. But many property owners preferred to pay fines rather than dismantle their sporti; Giovanni Villani reported that in 1338, these penalties amounted to 7000 florins.

In its efforts to create an orderly and attractive urban environment, the commune had made substantial and visible progress by the end of the fourteenth century. But the magnitude of that achievement has been exaggerated by the rhetoric of some contemporary authors, and by our projection of modern images into the past. Salutati's description, in his Invective against Antonio Loschi (1403), is typical of humanist eulogies: "What city, not merely in Italy, but in all the world, is more securely placed within its circle of walls, more proud in its palazzi, more bedecked with churches, more beautiful in its architecture, more imposing in its gates, richer in piazzas, happier in its wide streets, greater in its people, more glorious in its citizenry, more inexhaustible in wealth, more fertile in its fields?"

Florence in 1400 was a more cluttered and disorderly city in an architectural sensethan we imagine. Unfortunately, the records of the "officials of the towers," the public works commission, have not survived in quantity, for these would have provided us with more specific information about concrete achievements in the realm of city planning.

From the extant fragments of evidence, we do receive a rough impression of the commission's activities, but little sense of its broader goals and accomplishments. In June 1397, the tower officials imposed fines of 10 lire each upon three men who failed to obey their instructions to dig a cesspool to prevent water and sewage from running into the street. Four years later, the officials ordered their chief engineer to straighten and pave the Via Benedicta in the parish of S. Paolo, and also fined three inhabitants of the street who had impeded this work. In August 1415, the commission granted Recco Capponi a thirty-day period of grace either to repair or dismantle the dilapidated roof of his house or to pay a fine. In that same year, the butchers in the Old Market were 373

fined 100 lire unless they repaired the roof of their pavilion within a month. In 1421, the commission supervised a more ambitious project of urban renewal: the construction of a square between the church of S. Simone and the city prison. The commune had initiated this enterprise "for the beauty and utility of the city and the church of S. Simone, and for the preservation of the communal prison. . . ." A house in the Via dell' Anguillaia was so decrepit that it constituted a menace to passersby, according to a commission edict of May 1432, and its owners were told to demolish or rebuild it. Occasionally, the tower officials had to be prodded by their superiors. In July 1436, the Signoria reprimanded the commissioners for not repairing two streets near the Old Market, Via Vecchietti and Via del Cocomero, and imposed fines upon them unless they finished this task during their tenure of office.

With such sparse documentation, it is difficult to trace the evolution of an urban ideal in the fourteenth century, to describe the Florentine vision of what the city should become. Since Dante's time, the beautification of Florence was mentioned as a primary objective of every communal building project. Furthermore, the ingredients of civic beauty-order, symmetry, spaciousness, cleanliness-remained constant from the late thirteenth century to the fifteenth century. The commune's pursuit of these goals may have intensified· after 1350, but this cannot be proved from the documents. Yet the completion of particular projects did stimulate public efforts to create a more esthetic environment by providing the citizenry with specific examples of civic beauty. Although the construction of the cathedral proceeded at a snail's pace throughout the fourteenth century, this enterprise did encourage the authorities to provide a more attractive setting for this symbol of Florentine grandeur. Buildings were demolished to provide an unimpeded view of the church, and the adjacent thoroughfares were widened to 70 feet, “so that this cathedral will be encircled by beautiful and spacious streets … redounding to the honour and utility of the Florentine citizenry.” Inspired by the project to remodel the interior of S. Lorenzo, a group of citizens petitioned the Signoria in 1436 to embellish the church’s exterior by tearing down some unsightly dwellings and enlarging the square in front of the basilica. From this larger piazza, so the petitioners had argued, the beauty and grandeur of the church would be more appreciated. They also claimed that the moral character of the neighbourhood would improve, since the houses scheduled for destruction had been inhabited by prostitutes and other inhabitants of the Florentine underworld.

The transformation of the Piazza della Signoria, the city’s political nucleus, was a slow process which required more than a century to complete. The two oldest elements in this complex were the Signoria’s palace – completed in 1314 – and the square, the site of the razed buildings of an exiled Ghibelline family, the Uberti. The square had been paved in 1330 and the palace enlarged in 1342-1343, but not until the last quarter of 374

the century did there emerge a coherent plan for this area. The construction of the Loggia dei Lanzi (1376-1382) adjacent to the palace provided a dignified setting for official ceremonies such as the swearing in of a new Signoria and the reception of foreign ambassadors. But the construction of the loggia also emphasized the cramped and irregular form of the piazza, and in the 1380s and 1390s the commune enlarged it by levelling buildings on its southern perimeter. An earlier law of December 1372 had authorised the tower officials to renovate the north side of the piazza, to reduce the height of some buildings and raise that of others, and to rebuild a wall so that this perimeter would be “beautiful and decorous, with a minimum height of 30 feet.” In 1377, the commune enacted a provision “concerning the perfection of the loggia … and the cleaning of the Piazza della Signoria … and also the other streets of the city … which have been seriously neglected.” Romolo Bianchi was appointed to a one-year term as “supervisor” of the loggia, responsible for maintaining the square and the city streets in a clean and sanitary condition. Apparently, this office did not become permanent, and its impact upon urban sanitation was probably quite limited and temporary.

But subsequent legislation revealed the commune's persistent interest in the embellishment of the piazza and its environs. For example, a provision of December 1385 forbade the passage of carts through the square and also prohibited the dumping of detritus by furriers and tanners.

The construction of the Duomo, the cathedral, was the city's most ambitious building project; this enterprise engaged the hearts and minds, as well as the resources, of eight generations of Florentines, Its vast size and marble exterior, and above all its spectacular dome, were manifestations of the community's determination, first articulated in a statute of 1299, to build "the most beautiful and honorable church in Tuscany." Construction was frequently delayed during the fourteenth century by the diversion of resources to other projects, by disagreement over building plans, and by public indifference and inertia. The cathedral was primarily a civic, not an ecclesiastical enterprise; the commune provided most of the money for the project, and delegated the responsibility for the building to the Lana guild, the corporation of cloth manufacturers. The guild appointed four of its members as operai, with six-month terms of office, to supervise the work. These operai frequently requested advice from citizens with specialized knowledge-builders, sculptors, painters, goldsmiths-and on a few occasions organized a referendum on building plans in which "every person in the city of whatever status or condition" was invited to participate. Construction began on the facade opposite the Baptistery in the early years of the fourteenth century, and proceeded slowly eastward.

Most of the facade and the walls of the nave had been completed by 1355, interior pillars and the vaulting over the nave a decade later. In 1366 and 1367, the operai approved plans for a fourth bay and an octagonally shaped choir. The implementation of these plans, however, required another fifty years, before the last and most difficult 375

problem was solved: the construction of a dome to cover the huge aperture – 140 feet in diameter – over the choir.

The decision to build a cupola of such proportions had been made by 1367, and an artist's vision of the completed church crowned by its dome (painted about 1365) was visible for all to see in the Spanish Chapel of S. Maria Novella. Yet, none of the architects and builders before Brunelleschi could solve the technical problems of constructing a cupola of such dimensions, and instead concentrated their efforts upon other parts of the basilica. When the base of the cupola, the drum, was finally completed in 1413, the prospect of vaulting the huge octagon had to be faced. The opening was so wide that it could not be spanned by a wooden framework, the device used by medieval architects to build smaller cupolas. Furthermore, the weight of the projected dome was too great to be supported by the existing drum. Brunelleschi's model provided for the construction of two interior shells, which lessened the weight upon the foundation. He also devised a plan to construct the cupola in consecutive layers, tying each one to its predecessor, and thereby strengthening it so that it could serve as a base for a succeeding tier. Work on the dome proceeded throughout the 1420s and, except for the lantern, was essentially complete when Pope Eugenius IV dedicated the cathedral in 1436.

Not all public expenditure for ecclesiastical buildings was absorbed by the cathedral.

From the late thirteenth century, the commune subsidized the construction of the churches being built by the mendicants and other religious orders: S. Maria Novella, S. Croce, S. Spirito (Augustinian Hermits), S. Maria del Carmine ( Carmelites), and S. Maria de' Servi (Servites). These grants were usually made directly to the chapters of friars or monks, but in the second half of the century, a different pattern of communal subsidy developed. In June 1361, the commune intervened directly in the construction of the Franciscan basilica of S. Croce, which had progressed very slowly. This church, so the provision stated, "had been founded by the commune of Florence, and if it is not completed, will seriously mar the city's image." By implication, the friars were blamed for their failure to complete the basilica, and henceforth responsibility for the building was vested in the Calimala guild. Soon other religious foundations recognized the fiscal advantages of associating the laity with their building projects. In June 1383, the Vallombrosan monks of S. Trinita petitioned the commune to authorize the appointment of six men, residents of their neighborhood, to collect money and supervise construction within their monastic complex. Fifty years later (February 1422), the Dominican friars of S. Maria Novella appointed their first lay building committee, "in order to imitate the other churches and to work for the embellishment of the convent.”

His reputation enhanced by his work on the cathedral dome, Brunelleschi participated in much of this ecclesiastical renovation. During the crucial stages of the cupola's construction between 1419 and 1423, he directed two other important projects: the Found376

ling Hospital for his own guild of silk manufacturers and goldsmiths, and the rebuilding of the collegiate church of S. Lorenzo. In the loggia of the Foundling Hospital, Brunelleschi introduced those principles derived from classical antiquity which revolutionized Florentine – and Italian – architecture in the fifteenth century. Brunelleschi's patron in S. Lorenzo was the wealthy banker Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, who paid for the construction of the Old Sacristy, which then served as his family's burial vault.

Although this structure was completed in 1428, the building of the main body of the church was interrupted for several years until 1441, when Cosimo de' Medici decided to subsidise the work. Brunelleschi did not live to see the completion of S. Lorenzo or his last major project, the Augustinian church of S. Spirito. The operai chosen to supervise its construction proceeded at that deliberate and fitful pace which seemed to characterise all of Brunelleschi’s architectural enterprises, and indeed much of Florentine building in these years. The work on S. Spirito proceeded so slowly that only one column had been erected when the architect died in 1446, and the church was not finished until 1482. Of Brunelleschi’s projects, only two – the cathedral dome and the Founding Hospital – produced significant changes in the urban landscape, the latter serving as the inspiration and the nucleus for the superb square SS. Annuziata. The bulk of the great architect’s work was hidden behind the church or convent walls, or has survived only in the sketches of those projects which, like the church of S. Maria degli Angeli, were never completed.

The fifteenth century marks the beginning of Florentine palace construction on a large scale. Perhaps a score of Quattrocento palaces have survived, without being so radically transformed by the taste or neglect of later generations that they are unrecognizable as Renaissance creations. Of these, a handful – the Medici, the Pitti, the Rucellai – have achieved renown either because of the reputation of their owners or their architects. But palace construction is poorly documented; private family papers have not been as well preserved as the communal records, which have described, however incompletely, the construction of the great public monuments. Some of these early Quattrocento palaces were created by combining and remodeling existing structures; the Lapi and Spinelli palaces are examples. But more commonly, the building of a new palace was a lengthy and complex process which involved first the patient acquisition of real estate, then the razing of existing buildings, and finally the actual construction. Agnolo and Carlo di Messer Palla Strozzi spent more than twenty years (1435-1457) purchasing the land for their palace, the Strozzino, before they dug the foundations. The scene of a major building project of the late fifteenth century has been graphically described by the druggist Luca Landucci, whose shop was located across the street from the site of the Strozzi palace:

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[20 August 1489]. They finished filling in the foundations on this side, in the Piazza de Tornaquinci. And all this time they were demolishing the houses, a great number of overseers and workmen being employed, so that all the streets round were filled with heaps of stone and rubbish and bringing gravel, making it difficult for anyone to pass along. We shopkeepers were continually annoyed by the dust and the crowds of people who collected to look on, and those who could not pass by with their beasts of burden.

The construction of these palaces transformed the city in two important ways. Demolition of old towers and houses eliminated pockets of medieval jumble and clutter; it contributed to the development of a neater and more orderly – if less picturesque – urban scene. These Quattrocento palaces also inaugurated a new style of domestic architecture, characterized by the introduction of the classical principles of order, symmetry, and proportion – and such classical devices as the column, arch, and capital – which Brunelleschi first developed in the loggia of the Foundling Hospital and the Old Sacristy of S. Lorenzo. Brunelleschi's name has been connected with several palaces – the Busini, the Medici, the Pitti – but no solid evidence of his work for private patrons has survived. According to a story reported by Vasari, he constructed a palace model for Cosimo de' Medici, who rejected it on the grounds that it was too sumptuous and grandiose. But Michelozzo, whom Cosimo hired to build his house on the Via Larga (now Via Cavour), incorporated many of Brunelleschi's ideas in his plan. Like all Florentine Renaissance palaces, this building was based upon the traditional form exemplified by the Davanzati palace of the late fourteenth century. Structurally, the differences between the Davanzati and the Medici palaces are minor, but architecturally, they are highly significant. Order, harmony, and spaciousness had been the articulated goals of Florentine planners for more than a century; in the Medici palace and in the interior of S. Lorenzo, these objectives were realized.

People Surviving buildings and monuments help us to visualize the physical character of Renaissance Florence, but they contribute little to our knowledge of the city as a stage for human activity. From contemporary works of art and literature, one receives glimpses, vignettes, fleeting impressions of the human scene, but the images are usually blurred, not sharp and clear. In the fresco cycle devoted to the life of St. Peter in S. Maria del Carmine, Masolino painted a Florentine street scene with a square and its adjacent houses. The architectural details are reproduced with great accuracy and fidelity, but the scene is stylized and artificial: it lacks the human dimension. The square is nearly deserted; except for the Biblical characters, one sees only two elegantly dressed aristocrats and a few isolated figures in the distant background. During the hours of daylight, the streets of Renaissance Florence were crowded, pulsating with activity and 378

movement. Today, the characteristic qualities of public life in that past age are most visible not in Florence with its tourist crowds and its normally sedate atmosphere but in the popular quarters of southern Italian cities, in Rome's Trastevere or the Spacca of Naples.

Life in the Renaissance city was regulated by the sun. After the gates were closed and the curfew imposed at sunset, no unauthorized persons were allowed in the streets. Officials possessed special licenses which allowed them to circulate at night, but except for these privileged citizens, and the members of the police watch, the streets were empty from dusk to dawn. Nocturnal crime was quite rare. For offenses committed during curfew hours, the statutes prescribed double penalties. But this was probably a lesser deterrent than the walls and fettered gates, which prevented escape from the city, and the locked doors of shops and houses, which limited the opportunity for thievery and assault.

Dawn was heralded by the peal of church bells and the opening of the gates, which restored the city's communication with the outside world. Passing through the gates first were peasants from local farms driving their donkey carts laden with produce for the markets. Mingling in the streets with the carts and pack animals were devout souls hurrying to early mass, and the stragglers who had chosen to drink and gamble all night rather than risk a fine for violating the curfew. Morning mass was a major social event as well as a religious ceremony in the Florentine day. In those relaxed moments after the consecration of the Host and before the day's routine began, men could discuss political events informally, exchange fragments of news which had arrived from abroad, and even settle business transactions. For respectable Florentine ladies, the mass was a precious interlude of freedom in a cloistered day, which allowed few opportunities to escape from the confines of home and domestic burdens.

As the sun moved higher above the hills on the eastern horizon, the tempo of activity and the volume of sound in the streets increased. From the working class districts of S. Frediano and Camaldoli came the laborers who toiled from sunup to sundown in the cloth factories. Others hurried along the streets to begin their day's work in the retail clothing shops along the Calimala, or in the goldsmiths' botteghe in the Via delle Oche. From the dark interiors of the armorers' and blacksmiths' shops came the smoke of fires lit in the forges, and the first clangs of hammer against anvil, which resounded throughout the day. By mid-morning, the narrow streets were clogged with men and animals. Peasants with empty carts were returning to their farms; merchants from Pisa and Bologna were bringing cargoes of cloth and spices into the city; employees in the cloth factories were delivering consignments of wool, yarn, dyestuffs, and cloth from one shop to another.

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The scene in the Old Market, one of the busiest and most congested districts in Florence, was graphically portrayed by the fourteenth-century poet Antonio Pucci. Pucci' s eye was attracted by the great variety of products sold in the market, and also by the motley throng which filled the square. Every comestible of the Tuscan countryside found its way to the market: vegetables and fruits in season; meat, fish, and game of every variety; delicacies imported from abroad. Market women with their baskets of chestnuts and pears competed with the shopkeepers who rented permanent stalls: butchers, fishmongers, poultry vendors, sellers of chine and glassware, cloth and kitchen utensils.

Every morning the street is jammed With packhorses and carts in the Market, There is a great press and many standing looking on, Gentlemen accompanying their wives, Who come to bargain with the market women.

There are gamblers who have been playing, Prostitutes and idlers, Highwaymen are there too, porters and dolts, Misers, ruffians and beggers.

By their speech and dress, the individuals in this crowd revealed their provenance, social rank, and occupation. Mingling with the peasants from the contado and the artisans and laborers were the inhabitants of the Florentine underworld: prostitutes and their pimps, beggars and thieves, pickpockets and sorcerers. More sober and respectable were the members of Florence's business community-bankers, merchants, and industrialists-whose simple dress and unpretentious demeanor disguised the fact that they constituted the dominant element in this society.

Contributing to the variety and heterogeneity of the street crowds were the clergy in their distinctive garb and the communal officials, whose costumes identified their functions. A visiting feudal baron, the lord of Poppi or the count of Dovadola, would ride through the streets accompanied by a large band of retainers, which indicated his social importance. The soldiers recruited for the city's defense came from every part of the Italian peninsula and also from Germany and Hungary. They were particularly ubiquitous in times of crises, standing guard in the city squares, and bargaining with shopkeepers for the purchase of weapons and supplies. For an inland city fifty miles from the sea, Florence was very cosmopolitan. Merchants from Catalonia southern France and the Adriatic port cities, as well as a handful from more 'distant places, formed part of the transient population. The cloth industry attracted hundreds of workers from Germany and the Low Countries, many of whom settled permanently in the city. The most unusual element in this society were the slaves from the Black Sea re380

gion. Their visages and complexions betrayed their Tartar and Mongol origins, just as their bizarre and violent behavior and peculiar religious customs marked them as mysterious and dangerous outsiders. Slaves who had been emancipated or had run away from their masters blended easily into the Florentine underworld.

The Old Market was a mercantile forum; its activity embraced a broad range of commercial activities, from the purchase of a cabbage from a peasant girl to the negotiations for a cargo of English wool worth thousands of florins. Here men discussed other matters, some private and intimate, others public and general; but the main subject was business. The topics of conversation which could be overheard in the city's political forum, the Piazza della Signoria, reflected more accurately the wide spectrum of Florentine interests and concerns. That square was the natural arena for political discussions by officials and councilors on their way to meetings in the palace and by others who were curious and concerned. The Merchants' Court (Mercanzia) and the headquarters of two magistrates, the captain and the executor, were all located in this square, which thus served as a meeting place for lawyers, police officials and persons involved in civil litigation. If only a minority of the population was regularly involved in political affairs or court proceedings, a larger number paid taxes and thus made frequent visits to the headquarters of the gabelle collectors, the officials who levied forced loans, and those in charge of the commune's funded debt, the Monte. Citizens assembled in the Piazza della Signoria to discuss political issues, but also to conclude business transactions, to negotiate marriage alliances, and to obtain help and sympathy for personal problems. Gambling was prohibited in the square, and prostitutes were not allowed within 100 yards of the Signoria's palace. But some diversions were tolerated, as Leon Battista Alberti noted in his comments on the loggia's social utility: "One of the greatest ornaments ... is a handsome portico, under which old men may spend the heat of the day, or be mutually serviceable to each other; besides that, the presence of the fathers may deter and restrain the youth, who are sporting and diverting themselves in the other part of the square, from the mischievousness and folly natural to their age."

The character and tempo of activity in Florentine streets and squares, in loggias and public buildings, changed with the seasons. Winters in Florence are cold, damp, and bleak; natives accustomed to the climate curtailed their activities and, whenever possible, remained indoors. The coming of the celebrated Tuscan spring brought a revival of energy and spirits, and also an influx of foreign visitors: pilgrims on their way to Rome, merchants eager to buy and sell, vagabonds and pickpockets attracted by the larger crowds and bulging purses. This pattern is quite similar to that established by tourist migrations today, which reach a peak at Easter and another in midsummer, when the exodus of natives during the August holidays temporarily reduces human congestion. Since the fourteenth century, Florentine patricians have spent their sum381

mers in country villas, away from the stifling heat and nauseous smells of the city. In late September and October, they returned to their urban palaces to enjoy the mild and pleasant autumn weather before the onset of the chill winter rains.

The cycle of religious festivals also left its mark upon Florentine life. In Protestant countries today, the impact of the religious calendar upon life and work is limited to the casual and irregular observance of Sunday as a day of rest and of Christmas as a public holiday. Americans and Britons who live in Italy soon become aware of the greater frequency of religious holidays: the feast days of St. Joseph, Sts. Peter and Paul, the Immaculate Conception, Ascension, All Saints Day. But the dozen holy days which are still observed in Florence represent only a small portion of the forty holidays (not including Sundays) enjoyed by the Renaissance city. These numerous holidays, with their enforced cessation of labor and their requirement of public participation in cult ceremonies, contributed to the formation of an irregular living routine, quite different from the standardized patterns of industrial societies. Religious fervor was particularly intense during the Lenten season, and between Christmas and Epiphany (January 6).

Thousands flocked into the cathedral every evening during Lent to hear the sermons of famous preachers, who were hired by the commune for the season. Each religious holiday featured a public ceremony in which both clergy and laity participated. One high point in the city's festival cycle was the feast day of Florence's patron saint, John the Baptist (June 24). The celebrations began on the eve of the feast day with a massive procession through the streets. Leading this cortege were the members of the Signoria and other public officials, the clergy, who displayed the relics from their churches, and representatives of the religious confraternities. Later, a second procession of dignitaries-communal and guild officials, delegates from rural parishes, feudal lords who owed allegiance to the commune-brought their gifts of wax candles to the Baptistery.

Besides these cyclical variations in the urban routine, there were numerous special events and incidents which gave color and drama to Florentine life. Chronicles and diaries are valuable sources for these happenings. In the year 1386, for example, an anonymous chronicler noted the public occurrences which attracted his attention. When the new bishop, Bartolomeo Uliari of Padua, approached the city on January 28, he was escorted with traditional pomp and ceremony to his palace near the Baptistery by a group of communal officials and distinguished citizens. In his account of the reception of an ambassador from Hungary, on February 8, the chronicler described the public and ceremonial aspects of this occasion: The knights of the Parte Guelfa rode out to meet the envoy, on horses caparisoned with beautiful cloths. They accompanied the ambassador to the Piazza della Signoria. There they jousted and broke lances and unfurled their banners 382

in the square. . . . Afterwards, they went to the Palace of the Parte Guelfa with much feasting and revelry. That night, the Signoria, the Parte Guelfa and the entire citizenry lit bonfires in honor of King Charles.

Similar processions and ceremonies were organized to honor a papal envoy who visited the city on December 15, and to celebrate the triumphal entry (July 12) of a Florentine mercenary captain, Giovanni degli Obizzi, who had waged a brief but successful campaign against the lord of Urbino, Antonio da Montefeltro.

These ceremonies were structured events, organized by the commune to satisfy the populace's craving for bread and circuses, and also to stimulate the community's pride in itself and its achievements. Unexpected and bizarre occurrences also interrupted the normal routines of life and were reported in the chronicles. The birth of two lion cubs on December 15, 1386 was an occasion for general rejoicing, for these symbols of Florence's Guelf allegiance were regarded as omens whose fortunes were linked to the city's. On August 20, the anonymous chronicler described the arrival from Hungary of the severed heads of three men who had been implicated in the assassination (in February) of King Charles of Hungary. These grisly specimens were in the house of a shopkeeper in the Via degli Spadai, "who showed them to whoever wished to see them." Although so common and frequent that they were rarely noticed by the diarists, public executions invariably stimulated popular interest and excitement. Persuaded that the witnessing of such horrors served as a deterrent to crime, the authorities gave maximum publicity to these executions. In August 1379, the chronicler described the last hour of a slave girl named Lucia, who had poisoned her master. She was not taken directly to the execution site, but was placed in a cart and driven through the main streets of the city, her flesh torn by hot pincers, before she was burned at the stake.

From the accounts of chroniclers and diarists, as well as from official records, we are well informed about the Florentine response to the major crises of these years. They were of two general types: those arising from internal disorders or from external military threats; and the occurrence of natural disasters – floods, famines and visitations of the plague.

Protected by her walls, Florence was relatively secure from attack by enemy troops. Occasionally, a marauding band of soldiers would ravage the unfortified villages and farms on the city s outskirts, but rarely did an organized military force penetrate the outer ring of defense fortifications on the hills surrounding Florence. However, every invasion threat sent crowds of refugees laden with goods into the city. The danger usually passed within a few days, so that urban life was not seriously disrupted by abnormal congestion or price inflation. More dangerous were the internal disorders-the political conspiracies and the riots of hungry workers-which threatened public order and se383

curity and sometimes led to the downfall of the government. Between June 1342 and August 1343, the communal regime was thrice overthrown by force, while another outbreak of revolutionary violence occurred in the summer of 1378, during the uprising of the cloth workers, the Ciompi.

This proletarian revolution is the best known internal crisis in Florentine history.(3) It will serve to illustrate the general phenomenon of urban disorder and mass violence, even though it was more traumatic, and its consequences of greater significance, than the other revolutionary spasms which the city experienced. At the first signs of trouble, in June 1378, the shops and factories closed, and business activities all but ceased.

Many prominent citizens fled to their country estates, and the natural reaction of those who stayed in Florence was to remain indoors and out of sight. But artisans and workers gathered in the streets to discuss the latest events, and to voice their fears, apprehensions, and hopes for the future. With the shops and factories barred and shuttered, the number of idle workers multiplied, as did the threat to public order. Unemployment was a serious problem throughout the summer, and so too was the threat of famine.

For despite the strenuous efforts of communal officials, the normal flow of victuals into the city was seriously disrupted. The revolutionary atmosphere was a deterrent to everyone involved in food distribution: from the wholesale grain and meat dealers, to the peasant women who brought a dozen eggs or a basket of salad greens to the market.

The specter of anarchy haunted many Florentines, and particularly men of property, in these tense weeks. The ingredients were ominously present and visible: the crowds of unemployed and hungry poor, many of whom possessed arms; the atmosphere of fear and tension; a weak and insecure regime which maintained a very tenuous control over the city and its restive inhabitants. On three specific occasions – in mid-June, midJuly, and the end of August – a complete breakdown of public order seemed likely. On June 22, a throng of artisans and cloth workers set fire to the palaces of a dozen aristocratic families. But other outbreaks of rioting and looting were repressed by the authorities, who summarily executed two Flemish looters in the streets, as an object lesson to potential troublemakers. A month later (July 21 and 22), there occurred a second explosion of violence; palaces were gutted by fire, communal and guild records were destroyed, a police official was lynched by a mob. But violence did not spread further, and a new regime led by the wool carder, Michele di Lando, desperately sought to reduce tension and placate the discontented. Six weeks later, however, crowds of unemployed cloth workers again assembled in the streets to protest the government's failure to provide them with work and food. Wild rumors circulated that the workers were planning to sack the city. Lending credence to these stories were the confused and aimless movements of laborers through the streets, the fiery speeches of proletarian orators, and the organisation of a committee of "eight saints," which had some vague plan to make the 384

regime responsive to their needs. But these undisciplined workers were easily routed in street battles with guildsmen (August 31), who were determined to resist these pressures for a more egalitarian political order.

The only natural disaster which, in its impact upon the city, rivaled these disturbances was the plague. Although famines occurred quite frequently in the fourteenth century, they were usually of short duration, and their effects were mitigated by the commune's policy of importing grain. But pestilence struck the city regularly, on the average of once per decade, beginning in 1340. Not every plague was as deadly as the Black Death of 1348, but each epidemic killed several thousand inhabitants and seriously disrupted the social and economic order and, to a lesser degree, the political structure.

Florence's ordeal during the Black Death has been graphically described by three authors: the chroniclers Matteo Villani and Marchionne Stefani, and Giovanni Boccaccio in the preface to his Decameron. The most immediate and direct consequence of the plague was the closing of shops and factories, as the city's economy stagnated. Even taverns shut down, and only a few doctors' offices and druggists' shops remained open in the stricken city. The breakdown of the food supply undoubtedly increased the death rate among the poor, who were deprived of sustenance and medical care, and who had no choice but to await death in their fetid, crowded slums. Wealthier citizens had a greater range of choices, one of which was to flee to their country villas, or to other, healthier regions. Among the few signs of life in the silent, deserted streets were the carts and horses of the rich in flight. The city resembled a vast hospital and charnel house; as the plague toll mounted, the care and concern for both the living and the dead declined sharply. Doctors, druggists, and the surviving purveyors of food charged exorbitant prices for provisions and services to the sick. "Blessed was he," commented Stefani, "who could find three eggs in one day's search through the entire city." Boccaccio wrote a grimly realistic account of the treatment which the plague victims received: It was the common practice of most of the neighbors, moved no less by fear of contamination by the putrefying bodies than by charity towards the deceased, to drag the corpses out of the houses with their own hands . . . and to lay them in front of the doors, where anyone who made the rounds might have seen, especially in the morning, more of them than he could count; afterwards they would have biers brought up .... Nor was it once or twice only that one and the same bier carried two or three corpses at once; but quite a considerable number of such cases occurred, one bier sufficing for husband and wife, two or three brothers father and son and so forth. And times without number it happened that, as two' priests bearing the cross were on their way to perform the last office for someone, three or four biers were brought up by the porters in rear of them so that, whereas the priests supposed that they had but one corpse to bury, they dis385

covered that there were six to eight, or sometimes more. Nor, for all their number, were their obsequies honored by either tears or lights or crowds of mourners; rather, it was come to this, that a dead man was then of no more account than a dead goat would be today.

Those who survived the plague commented on its deleterious effects upon human behavior. Both Stefani and Boccaccio remarked that some men spent their days and nights drinking and carousing with friends. More disturbing was the spectacle of parents abandoning their children and husbands their wives; entire families would flee in the night, leaving a stricken relative to die alone and unattended. But fear and panic did not demoralize all members of this community; some heroic men and women sacrificed their lives in the service of others. There were certainly many parents like the Sienese chronicler, Agnolo di Tura, who wrote that he had buried five of his children with his own hands. The tribulations of the survivors did not cease with the passing of an epidemic. In addition to rebuilding their private worlds shattered by the loss of parents, children, relatives, and friends, they also had to restore those collective institutions – commune, guild, church, confraternity – which were threatened with disintegration.

Perhaps the most demoralizing aspect of this reconstruction was the realization that pestilence would recur, that the struggles to rebuild might be futile. What were the thoughts of men who had survived the plague in their youth, to be menaced by another epidemic in their prime, or worse, to see their children succumb to a malady which a decade before had claimed their parents? In that age, which was accustomed to misery, pain, and death, the plague-by its mystery and its virulence-brought its special brand of fear and anxiety to five Florentine generations.

Notes 1. The contado was the rural area surrounding the city, which formerly had been under the jurisdiction of the feudal power and later came under the commune's control. Florence's contado extended from Empoli and Prato in the west to beyond the Arno and Sieve rivers on the east. The district (distretto) comprised those parts of the Florentine dominion which lay beyond the contado, and which had come under the commune's control more recently.

2. Florence had two systems of coinage, one gold (the florin) and the other silver. Silver money was based upon the medieval system of coinage of lire (pounds), soldi (shillings), and denari (pence): 12 denari to the soldo, 20 soldi to the lire. Gold coins tended to appreciate in terms of silver; in 1400 a florin was worth approximately 75 soldi, or 3ž lire. The florin contained 3.536 grams of gold, worth approximately $4 at the current price of $35 per ounce, but worth much more in terms of purchasing power. Daily wages for laborers and artisans ranged between 7 s. for unskilled workers to 20 s. (1 lire) for masters. The average monthly wage of a minor official in the communal bureaucracy was approximately 6 fl. Senior officials in the government and distinguished university professors might receive annual salaries as high as 300 fl. or more. The price of a bushel (staio) of grain fluctuated between 15 s. (in times of plenty) to 60 s. and more in times of famine.

3. The economic aspects of the Ciompi revolution are discussed in Chapter Two. 386

SECTION 9

Guido Ruggiero, Brunelleschi's First Masterpiece, or Mean Streets, Familiar Streets, Masculine Spaces, and Identity in Renaissance Florence "At the heart of the city there is a place full of joy .... Seek the grandeur of the high dome of Santa Reparata [the cathedral] or ask for the magnificent church of God that shows the Lamb [the Baptistery]. Once there bear to the right a few paces ... and ask for the Mercato Vecchio. There half way down the street stands a happy whorehouse which you will know by the very smell of the place. Enter and give my greetings to the whores and madams .... The blond Helena and the sweet Matilda will greet you ....

You will see Giannetta and ... the naked and painted breasts of Claudia .... Here ... you can find anything that is illicit."1 This description of the heart of Florence written in the early fifteenth century by Antonio Beccadelli, known as Il Panormita, and dedicated to Cosimo de' Medici might seem largely alien to the brilliant early Renaissance flourishing of art and humanistic culture that we associate with the city. Certainly the spaces of Renaissance Florence were alive with a cultural and artistic excitement that was crucial for what has been labeled the Renaissance, but Panormita's equally lively description suggests many questions about how contemporaries actually lived in that cityscape.

One thing seems clear, however: Renaissance Florence, much like a Renaissance text, had many ways of being read and lived. For the upper classes, for example, the city was to a great degree a creation of their wealth, power, and imagination and both consciously and unconsciously incorporated, reflected, and reinforced their customs, values, and culture.2 For others (the lower classes, marginal people, transients, perhaps women) there were other readings, other lives, other consensus realities about the city's identity and significance. And this suggests once again that the modern understanding of public space and the distinction between public and private spaces does not work well in the Renaissance; what we would label today public space was for the upper and middling classes of the time at least more masculine and identity giving (in the sense of providing a sense of being a member of a civic community and the groups of that community) than public. Yet, as we shall see, it was also full of special meanings for these different groups and solidarities, thus rife with what might be considered more private readings as well. In this chapter, however, I would like to go beyond social readings and anachronistic distinctions like public and private to follow the smell of flesh in Panormita's streets, for that very smell suggests that Florence, like other Renaissance cities, 387

was built primarily by and for men, their pleasures, play, work, desires, fears; in that light we should expect that it has Renaissance readings that are particularly conditioned by their values, visions, and ways of thinking, especially about themselves.

One way of rethinking the spaces of Florence in the Renaissance, then, is considering the way in which the city was lived, thought, and formed using what might be labeled its masculine culture-rethinking its spaces in terms of gender and male sexuality.

To a degree virtually all culture in the Renaissance was marked by masculine values and vision," and in turn it is clear that "masculine culture" regularly was intertwined with broader values and visions that it would be reductionist to treat as merely male.

Nonetheless, there are certain strains of the broader culture of the Renaissance that might be fruitfully separated out and examined from the perspective of gender or sex specifically masculine - if we keep in mind that what we are creating are largely artificial categories.

Especially important perhaps were three discourses for the masculine spaces of the Renaissance city: one on male friendship, a second on male honor, and a third on male pleasure. These discourses melded together (not without conflict and contradictions, however) to make up a central component of a broader regime of social organization and discipline in the Renaissance which I will call the regime of virtù - an ongoing display of male power, rationality, and control which was central to adult masculine identity, status, and discipline.4 Of course, the very etymology of the term virtù turns on its Latin root vir, meaning male, and suggests its intimate connection with male culture.5 At one level, in the Renaissance the meaning of virtù was simple: in virtually every context it marked out those characteristics that set one man (vir) above another. But what those characteristics were was often hotly contested and challenged over time, with Boccaccio finding virtù in the fourteenth century in the cunning rationality of his clever tricksters in the Decameron; fifteenth century humanists finding it in a rational, controlled, classical approach to life and, for a time, service to the state; and courtiers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries finding it in the blending of service to a prince, manners, grace, and sprezzatura that entailed a delicate balance of aggression and passivity reflected in Ariosto's male heroes, Orlando and Ruggiero, and in Castiglione's vision of a perfect courtier.

Now it might seem that a concept as hotly debated and contested as virtù would not serve well for a regime, but in fact it was so hotly contested precisely because its rule was so omnipresent. If one could capture the definition of virtù - or more pertinent the consensus reality of it - one could control real power; thus debates about virtù cut to the heart of how life should be organized and lived. And as a result the regime of virtù was ubiquitous in the Renaissance - humanist ideals and writing, governmental forms, social concepts and norms, art, literature, religion, even commercial organization and 388

methods all to a degree turned on (and in a real way were ruled by) its imperatives. Significantly, however, this regime was not merely verbal; nor was it internalized to the same extent or in the same way as modern disciplining discourses seem to be.

For this essay l want to suggest that much of its weight was carried by the physical spaces of the city, by the sights, sounds, and smells of the familiar spaces of Florence.

This regime of virtĂš, along with maleness, male culture, and masculinity, was literally thought through and written out on the spaces of Renaissance cities like Florence.

Males discovered, negotiated, and lived a masculine culture in large part in a city that was rich with signs and reflections of that culture and that regime of virtĂš - a cityscape that played a crucial role in sustaining the consensus reality of ideal masculine identity and male sexuality. Even the Mercato Vecchio smelled of the flesh of their sexual desires, and Panormita could celebrate that, expecting other men to share his enthusiasm and Cosimo de' Medici's approval.

But rather than continue in this theoretical fashion in this chapter, l would like to use a novella set in Quattrocento Florence, "The Fat Woodcarver" by Antonio Manetti, as a concrete example for exploring the power of this way of looking at the city and the regime of virtĂš there. Actually, the tale has been looked at extensively both by art historians interested in the famous characters involved and by literary scholars interested in the claim that it is a literary description of real historical events. Much of that scholarship has been summed up by Lauro Martines in An Italian Renaissance Sextet - a volume that provides translations and a cutting-edge analysis of six Renaissance novelle, including this tale.6 As Martines impressively demonstrates, it is a fascinating tale on many levels: first, simply as the story of a cruel joke that at the time seemed uproariously funny, even if it no longer seems so today. Robert Darnton has pointed out that such moments of "dead" humor can be most revealing for discovering the distance of the past and its distinct meanings. Few today would laugh at the conceit of a group of friends who convince one of their number that he has been transformed into another person, especially when the joke's victim, Manetto, called Grasso (the fat woodcarver of the tale's title), comes close to going mad and eventually flees the city in dishonor as a result of their complex scam. But the story is also interesting because of its claims to be true, and the characters involved include some of the most famous artists and artisans of the period including Filippo Brunelleschi, who was the mastermind of the joke.

In a way, then, we have in this story a fifteenth-century representation of the masculine culture of some of the people who were crucial for the building of Florence and that very culture in the Renaissance. Notably, it is also a tale that turns on Renaissance identity and one might say its "unperformance," as the fat woodcarver literally loses his identity at the hands of a group of his friends and their cruel joke. And finally, and most important, the story is interesting because it speaks clearly the three discourses 389

noted above and stages them in the spaces of Florence as an emblematic tale of the regime of virtĂš and its power.

Another significant aspect of the tale is that although it was written down in the form discussed here in the 1480s by the Florentine architect and writer Antonio di Tuccio Manetti (1423-97), the events were reported to have taken place in 1409, well before he was born. Manetti, however, knew Brunelleschi, even wrote an account of his life, and thus could claim to have heard the story from the master artificer of the cruel joke himself.7 Moreover, it was a story whose fame had grown over the years largely because it was too good an exemplar of virtu in action not to have captured the Florentine imagination; thus, it reflected a lively oral tradition as well. And like all good stories - even when heard from the mouth of one of the protagonists - we may assume that it bad a tendency to grow and become more perfect and, in a way, truer as it was retold and committed to writing. Truer, in that presumably details that did not add to the central themes had dropped away and nuances that enhanced those themes had been highlighted; if that was the case, the tale had become truer to its themes and the cultural values of its time as it had become more false to actual events - literally it had gained strength as a deeper set of truths about identity and life in the masculine spaces of the city as it lost its conformity to actual events.

Nonetheless, one must not be too positive about the way in which its retelling enhanced its truth, for even approximately seventy years of remembering it meant refashioning it over more than two generations of vibrant changes - changes whose impact on the tale are difficult to judge today. Perhaps most pertinent, over that period many of the characters went from being promising young artisans and intellectuals to the Florentine heroes of a great generation of artistic and intellectual creation, arguably one of the most creative and successful in the Renaissance. Still, thinking about the story of the fat woodcarver as a tale about identity (and an emblematic moment of the regime of virtĂš) which grew across the fifteenth century in Florence rather than as a mere account of an event in 1409 in a way makes it richer yet.8 The tale begins with a group of young friends gathered one evening for dinner at the house of Tomaso Pecori, a prominent Florentine of good family. A congenial group, they were drawn, as the narrator notes, "from the governing class and from among the masters of the more intellectual and imaginative crafts, such as painters, goldsmiths, woodcarvers, and the like. "9 After dinner, as it was a cold winter night, the group gathered around the hearth to continue their conversation. Already several things stand out which relate to masculine culture and the use of space in Florence.

First, of course, is that these friends are all male. Women may have prepared and served the meal, but they are in visible. Second, male friendship here reaches across for-

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mal class boundaries: chatting together are artisans and members of the governing class, men of more important old families and some newer men as well.10 In a socially sensitive age in· which arguably social boundaries were being more strongly marked out and a new aristocratic ethos was gaining ground, one might wonder what the basis for friendship was in such a diverse group. The key, at least in Manetti's telling, seems to be a respect for talent and intellectual accomplishment, a respect for virtù. Significantly, it is not just any artisan who is admitted to this circle of friends but those dedicated to "the more intellectual and imaginative of the crafts" along with men "from the governing class" - men who were superior to others because of their skill (virtù) or their standing socially or in government (again virtù). Here, then, before the fire of Pecori's home, men gathered together to enjoy themselves in conversation united by friendship and a common respect for each other's virtù. A third thing one might note is how hearth and table had, for the evening at least, ceased being a "private" or even domestic space. What might have been labeled such with a wife and family gathered around on a similar winter night had become a masculine, virtually civic, space where male friendship dominated. Hearth and table were transformed from domestic space to civic/masculine space by male use; and the tale makes this perfectly clear, briefly noting that the conversation turned on matters of the men's crafts and professions. How space was used, then, could transform it profoundly, and here the gendered use of space breaks down the modern concept of public versus private space which seems in part to turn around the home and the domestic.11 After a while, however, the conversation turned to the fact that one regular member of the company was not there, Grasso the woodcarver. Tellingly, the tale in part identified Grasso, as many men were still identified in the fifteenth century, by his physical place in the city: not only was he labeled a skilled craftsman and a heavy young man of 28, but he was identified by the location of his shop, "in the Piazza di San Giovanni."12 That location was revealing: it suggested that he was an artisan of some stature, for his workshop occupied a central location - the Piazza di San Giovanni was the site of the Baptistery and stood before the main cathedral of the city, a short stroll from the Mercato Vecchio and on the edge of Pimormita's fleshy "place full of joy." Already a Renaissance man would begin to know Grasso by the space his workshop occupied.

Although Grasso's friends, his space, and the compliments in the tale about his skill as an artisan served to confirm his importance - his place in the regime of virtù - his friends were about to radically reposition him. His rejection of their dinner, upon reflection, was interpreted as a snub that reflected on their honor. Snubs may be a crucial trial for friendship in any culture, but the context of this snub begins to reveal something of the different flavor of male friendship in Renaissance Florence. The tale lets 391

the cat out of the bag rather quietly, noting that this snub was particularly galling because his friends "were almost all of a higher rank and station."13 Now virt첫 could overcome a degree of social disparity, but rank had its weight even in friendship-in fact, one might argue that it was crucial, for friendship implied support, and socially superior friends had patron-like qualities. But, of course, superior men (especially patrons) required a respect and consideration that made Grasso's refusal to attend dinner a serious matter indeed. Attendance marked in the quasi public space of Pecori's dinner table Grasso's participation in the group's friendship, patronage, honor, and virtu; his absence could be seen as marking a rejection of the same-a most serious matter in the regime of virtu.14 The response of Grasso's friends to his snub was one that Florentines were famous for: a beffa, a cruel trick or joke that dishonored the victim and, to a degree, restored the honor of those who had been dishonored. Interestingly, while truly great beffa like the one played on Grasso had to demonstrate a maximum amount of ingenuity and virt첫, they served to bind groups together and discipline male relationships as well - in sum, they served as crucial moments of the regime of virt첫.15 And for our discussion it is suggestive that most beffe, like this one, turned on the clever use of the masculine spaces of the Renaissance city. Filippo Brunelleschi, the architect of the trick, suggested: "In revenge for his not coming this evening ... we'll make him believe that he has become someone else."16 In sum, the group that sustained many of the most important components of Grasso's identity, that played a crucial role in the negotiation and maintenance of his sense of self, would repay his snub by taking that very self away and replacing it with another - a virtually perfect poetic justice.

The plot was launched the next evening, when Brunelleschi visited Grasso in his shop as he had clone "a thousand times before." This was not by accident, for artisans' shops were important spaces for male sociability; premodern work habits made for a workplace radically different from the modern one. With Grasso's shop at the center of the city, friends and acquaintances moved in and out maintaining the networks that made the social, political, and economic world of Florence work, networks that for the most part were viewed within the framework of friendship and virt첫. Grasso could in turn step out to lounge in the street before his shop and encounter passing friends, visit the shops of his compatriots, or even stroll on with comrades for a drink to the nearby taverns the Porco and the Malvagia (just a few paces from his shop in the warren of streets dominated by the palaces of the Adimari and Medici families) - for in many ways Renaissance Florence was a small, intimate space where friendship was constantly being demonstrated and vetted in its streets and shops and meaning and identity were found in such quotidian encounters.17

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With a fifteenth-century vision of work that still saw work time and social time as integrated rather than distinct, Grasso would have been free to maintain his contacts largely because of that intimate space, which made it possible to do so traveling short distances on foot. One needs, then, to think of a workday that had the potential at least to be highly social and the shop again not simply as a place of production. Or perhaps it would be better to think of the shop as a place that produced more than products; it produced identity (as noted earlier), and it helped to produce the networks, friendships, and contacts central to the male world of Florence. This was so much the case that shops could even take friendship to an erotic level, as Michael Rocke has pointed out in his work on sodomy and homosocial relationships in Renaissance Florence: "Often it was the sociable bonds forged in the all-male environment of neighboring shops that provided both companionship and a supportive environment for sodomy." In fact, one of the areas of workshops heavily identified with this activity was the famed Ponte Vecchio, again right at the heart of the Renaissance city. There the butcher shop of the Del Mazzante brothers was virtually a hotbed of such activities.18 So Brunelleschi visited Grasso in his shop as a friend ordinarily would, but the familiar security of this space and their friendship was quickly overturned. With the pretense that his mother had fallen ill unexpectedly, Brunelleschi used Grasso's offer of aid - an offer that virtĂš and friendship led him to expect to hold Grasso in his shop by asking him to wait there in case he needed to call for his help when he returned home. But rather than returning home, Brunelleschi circled back to Grasso's home near the cathedral, just a short walk away. Knowing that Grasso still lived with his mother, who was off in the countryside, Brunelleschi broke in and bolted the door behind him. Later, when Grasso arrived home after waiting long enough to be sure that his friend would not call for his aid, finding the door bolted, he assumed that his mother had returned and called her to let him in. Brunelleschi, waiting inside and expecting just this behavior from his friend, imitating his voice, responded, calling him Matteo. Brunelleschi's beffa had begun; he had taken Grasso's most secure place in Florence - his home - and his voice and was now using them to undermine Grasso himself. When Grasso insisted that he was Grasso and not the voice he heard coming from his house, Brunelleschi, again imitating his voice, dismissed him, saying he did not have time for jokes - a nice irony lost on Grasso increasingly caught up in exactly that, Brunelleschi's cruel joke.

The importance of place in all this is underlined by Grasso's reported thought process in the face of this spatial deconstruction of self. "What does this mean?" he asked himself. "That fellow up there [in my house] seems to be me ... and his voice sounds just like mine. Am I Â losing my mind?"19 We might reply that he was not so much losing it as it was being stolen by Filippo, who was literally taking away the places by which Grasso thought himself in - Renaissance Florence - his home and his shop - and 393

thus his identity and sense of self. When Grasso stepped back into the street, another friend and conspirator, the sculptor Donatello, sauntered by as if by accident and remarked, "Good evening, Matteo, are you looking for Grasso? He went into his house a little while ago" and continued on his way.20 Again we see the close familiarity of the city, but once more Donatello was deconstructing it, informing Grasso that he was some unknown Matteo and that the real Grasso was already in his house.

Increasingly lost, Grasso decided to use the familiar spaces of Florence to re-locate himself. "Startled and stunned . . . Grasso set off toward the Piazza di San Giovanni, saying to himself: 'I'll stay here until someone who knows me passes by and says who l am.' "21 The Piazza di San Giovanni was the square of the Baptistery, the very center of Grasso's world hard by his home and his shop. Walking through his familiar masculine world, Grasso should have quickly refound himself in his daily spaces encountering the male friends and acquaintances that in many ways made him Grasso, but Brunelleschi's beffa was just taking shape, and the familiar streets suddenly turned mean when a group of officials from the Merchant's Court appeared, suborned by Brunelleschi, who arrested him for his debts, not as Grasso but rather once again as that unknown Matteo. Protests that he was not Matteo were ignored as a particularly inept, perhaps even deranged, attempt to avoid arrest. Hauled before a clerk of the court, he was registered as Matteo and thrown in jail. Fortunately for the plot, the other prisoners knew Grasso and this Matteo only by reputation; thus, hearing him referred to as Matteo, they accepted him as Matteo.

Now the very space of his city was conspiring against Grasso, for although men from all stations in life found themselves at one time or another in prison, especially debtors' prison, it was for men of Grasso's status a dishonorable space and hence relatively unfamiliar. As a result Grasso/Matteo was faced with a particularly difficult problem - in this alien space how was he to find the friendship and support to refind himself and gain his release? He saw two options: he could accept his new identity and seek out the help of Matteo's family and friends, or he could insist that he was Grasso and use his old friends to prove it. Both options crucially turned on the use of perhaps the two most important groups that defined and monitored identity in the Renaissance, family and friends. The latter strategy was more appealing to him - suggesting the strength of his inner conviction that he was Grasso.

But again place conspired against him as he reasoned, "If I send word home to my mother, and Grasso is at home (for I heard him there), they'll make a laughing stock out of me."22 His inner sense of self was struggling with the much stronger Renaissance sense of self as negotiated and maintained by the groups with which one interacted. In essence Grasso had come to fear that the crucial group - his family - would not come to his aid, for he had heard for himself that as far as his family was con394

cerned he was already at home and he would become "a laughing stock" if he tried to insist otherwise. Ultimately, then, the intimacy of Florence and the ties of friendship seemed to offer his best hope: he decided to stay by the window of the jail next morning until some friend passed by who would recognize him-a member of another group who could give him back his identity by proclaiming that he was Grasso and not Matteo. As the Merchant Court and its jail lay near the northeast corner of the Piazza della Signoria, a place of heavy foot traffic, his plan based upon the spaces of Florence seemed to offer a good chance for success.

The virtĂš of the plotters, however, thwarted his hopes: for in the morning, per Brunelleschi's plan, another conspirator, the powerful Giovanni di Messer Francesco Rucellai, showed up at the jail. Rucellai was from a noted Florentine family, and his friendship with Grasso had strong overtones of patronage, as Grasso often had carried out commissions for him. Thus, when he saw a powerful friend and patron like Rucellai at the jail glancing around, he had every reason to smile hopefully - he fully expected that the traditional alliances of friendship and power would reidentify him.

Such hopes were quickly clashed, however, when Rucellai pretended not to know him.

Crushed, Grasso was forced to conclude, "Giovanni Rucellai ... didn't recognize me he who's always in my shop .... It's certain that I'm no longer Grasso and have become Matteo."23 Just as the social space of Grasso's shop and his friendships were central in how he thought himself, now they had become crucial in how he was unthinking himself, losing his identity and becoming Matteo.

As Martines notes in his discussion of this tale, more telling yet was an apparent detail in the anxious self-examination that followed. Grasso worried that if he had lost his mind along with his identity - as seemed the case - he would be chased after and ridiculed by children in the streets of Florence. Such fears suggest that not only were streets and city spaces familiar stages to display male friendship and connectedness, but they also could be cruel courts trying honor and virtĂš. Insults, threats, and merely dishonoring gestures were carefully noted and evaluated. Violence, for which Florence was famous in the Renaissance, was often the only acceptable response - even the psychological violence of a cruel beffa. But violence had to be carefully applied in a way that could be evaluated socially within the masculine world of violence itself and within the context of family and group. And the price of violence or vendetta miscalculated was often escalating violence and the breaking of ties of friendship and group solidarity - a cruel spiral whereby those very ties that bound society together became what dissolved it.24 Thus the streets of Florence had a rather Manichaean quality: they could be warm and familiar with the smiles of friends, or they could be cold, cruel, and physically dangerous for those who had lost honor and friendship. Grasso's position was worse yet, as he saw all too clearly, for not only had he lost his friends and in a very 395

real way through that lost his identity, but he was also losing his mind, which meant that even little children could dishonor him in the streets - ultimately even madness threatened his place in the regime of virtĂš. And crucially all this was thought through and understood within the context of the masculine spaces of the city.

Grasso in jail, denied access to the spaces and connections of Florence, found that his day went from bad to worse. But finally Matteo's brothers showed up there to move the beffa on to its final phase. They had Grasso called over as Matteo and, when he accepted that identity, bawled him out for his foolish wasting of his wealth in gambling and evil living - the origin of Matteo's debts that had led to his arrest. Significantly, their complaints centered on the fact that he was no longer a youth - much like the Marescalco in Aretino's comedy discussed in Chapter 1 - and they insisted that it was high time that he grew up and started living honorably. Honor and shame, maturity and immaturity, responsibility and pleasure provide the positive and negative poles of their complaints - certainly a quotidian lament that explained the indebtedness of many a young Florentine, for another significant area of male friend ship and sociability was the illicit world of the city that focused on drinking, gambling, and sex, the very world that Panormita celebrated. All three were closely associated in Renaissance Florence, and all three were a prominent feature of the center of the city where Grasso lived and worked and where, as Matteo, he had supposedly fallen into debt and eventually really into jail.

It is worth pausing for a moment in our tale of Grasso's unmaking to look more closely at this other crucial aspect of the masculine spaces at the heart of Renaissance Florence. The narrow warren of streets leading off from the Mercato Vecchio and surrounding the old Roman and medieval heart of the city were loaded with small-scale prostitution, taverns, baths, and inns that offered a fairly complete, if largely illicit, package of wine, women, gambling, and perhaps even song (as music was often associated with Renaissance prostitution) contributing to the smell of flesh in the area that Panormita lauded. There one could find also a public brothel - set up by Florence's government to try to contain the dangers of prostitution and perhaps turn a profit for the city as well. This zone and its immediately surrounding area contained a host of taverns including the Bertuccie, Chiassolino, Fico, Malvagia, Panico, and Porco, names that in themselves virtually promised the whole program of the illicit world (respectively: the Monkey/Pussy/Ugly Whore; the Little Whore House/Little Confusion/ Little Out House; the Fig/Cunt; The Wicked Woman; The Panic; and the Pig/Depraved).25 There, beyond wine, men could find prostitutes, both female and male, gambling, drink, and apparently plenty of trouble to go along with masculine conviviality.26

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Suggestively, however, Grasso's new brothers bawled him out because he was no longer a youth, implying that maturity meant that he should no longer be frequenting this area of the city for illicit pastimes.27 Implicit in their complaint was an important distinction between youthfulness and maturity, for at least ideally this illicit world at the heart of Florence turned on a specific period in the life course of males which stretched from the early teens to about 30 years of age. Although this period is occasionally referred to as adolescence in Renaissance texts, as discussed in Chapter 1, it is perhaps more appropriate to use the terminology used more regularly at the time, gioventu, for this age period in order to stress that Renaissance gioventu was culturally constructed in ways that were decidedly different from modern adolescence. Most obvious, as noted earlier, it involved a longer period of years and, given shorter life expectancies, constituted a larger portion of a male's life, but, perhaps most significant, it was virtually entirely a masculine phenomenon. In Renaissance Florence women, especially upper-class women, married ideally in their early teens and entered almost immediately into their adult world of maternity and domesticity. Males instead passed a long gioventu that could stretch out to fifteen, even twenty years, a fact that both fascinated and troubled the Renaissance.

For our discussion, however, such young men, giovani, were the ideal denizens of the illicit spaces at the heart of Florence. Sex there was intertwined with a host of other activities attractive to this largely illicit masculine youth culture, including gambling (not just with cards and dice but also turning on general fisticuffs, cockfights, and other forms of micro-violence, plus early forms of lotteries and numbers scams), hard drinking, and cons of every type. Less noted but nonetheless important were the services that this illicit world furnished for the perceived needs of such young men - loans, love magic, magic to gain friends, cures for sexual disease, and various scams to help the young lighten the purses of their fathers to finance illicit pleasures.28 Some have been unwilling to see the significance of or even see this illicit world at the heart of Renaissance Florence and other Renaissance cities, it should be noted.

And to some extent their reservations are well taken. It clearly would be wrong to think of the heart of Renaissance Florence in terms of the red-light districts or degraded centers of many modern cities. At the simplest level the life of the city coursed through these same streets, and the illicit was not cut off from the everyday. In fact, across the Renaissance the illicit world continuously spilled out from the center along commercial routes and even beyond the gates of the city at the same time that the government launched a series of failing initiatives to contain the illicit in specific areas or at least isolate it from the ceremonial and spiritual centers of urban life.29 In addition, the strong disciplining forces of honor and shame had not yet been fully mobilized to isolate the

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illicit world or the men, especially young men, who frequented it - in a way we could say that illicit masculine pleasures still had their place in the regime of virtĂš.

But having said that, we have merely said that the illicit world of Renaissance Florence is not to be confused with modern illicit spaces and cultures. And while that is clear, it does not mean that we should ignore the fact that there was a formally illicit world at the heart of Renaissance cities like Florence largely created and maintained for male sociability and pleasure. Although women played a role in this world, it was theoretically at least merely as objects of male desire, and even though that theory was much belied by actual practice, it was a crucial shared vision. Moreover, what most significantly distinguished this illicit world from other places and forms of male pleasure was that those central building blocks of Renaissance society - the family and the church - were largely ignored there. The world of family and church was a different one with different rules, different goals, and a different ethic. Also tellingly, social hierarchy broke down in this world, gentlemen associated with lower-class women; males of the lower classes made love to males of the upper and visa versa; male groups formed and reformed around pleasures and vices rather than around issues of work or politics or more recognized forms of power. But evidently the separation was not complete: it may well be that the illicit heart of the city helped to create not only the masculine social networks that made the city function but also an emotional attachment to the city in an age before nationalism and the social and cultural construction of national loyalties. Could it be that Panormita's celebration of Florence dedicated to Cosimo de' Medici was intended also to play on such sentiments?

Clearly, however, this illicit world at the heart of Florence often functioned to reinforce or even build masculine lines of friendship and camaraderie, especially for young men. And at times those relationships involved more, for as Rocke argued in Forbidden Friendships, in Florence male friendship had an important sexual dimension, and this too was intimately related to gioventu. ln fact, Rocke contends that such sexual relations were largely confined to that period of life and that they were so common then that they were virtually a normal part of life - a point that is well taken.50 But it needs to be remembered that much of this activity was, in the eyes of the church, sinful; in the eyes of contemporaries, formally illicit; and in the eyes of Florentine government, illegal as well. Here we see how discourse and the practice of living often part ways: in grammar and language opposites do not go together, whereas in everyday life and sex they frequently do; thus, the illicit world of Renaissance Florence shared the same spaces and in some ways reinforced and interacted with the city's licit world and culture.

A particularly rich and rather literary example of the way these illicit spaces were understood and played a role in male sociability in Florence can be found in the letters 398

of Machiavelli to his friend and hoped-for patron Francesco Vettori. ln 1514, shortly after he had informed Vettori that he had completed The Prince, he exchanged a series of letters with Francesco, who was serving as Florentine ambassador in Rome at the time, about the sexual predilections and exploits of two of their circle of close friends, Guiliano Brancacci and Filippo Casavecchia. lt seems that the two had visited Vettori in Rome for a while and had complicated his life with their opposing sexual tastes and values: Casavecchia preferring young males as sexual partners and disdaining the company of women, especially the courtesans who frequented Vettori's house and gardens, and Brancacci preferring courtesans and young women while being especially troubled about gaining the reputation of associating in any way with male male sexual relations.

But when shortly thereafter Brancacci and Casavecchia returned to Florence during the carnival season, Machiavelli wrote his friend with an amusing story (a "novella," which can be read as simply "news" or as a "short story") of a ridiculous sexual "metamorphosis" that had occurred involving their two friends.31 Machiavelli began his account in a metaphoric vein, relating that their friend Brancacci one night decided that he wanted to go hunting for birds in Florence - "andare alla macchia," literally beating the bushes for them. Beating the bushes for birds, given the Renaissance double sense of bird, as phallus, from the start suggests the direction in which this story was headed. But given Brancacci's reputation in their circle of friends as someone who was troubled by sodomy and sodomites and uninterested in young boys, that direction seems decidedly wrong. How could Brancacci, back in Florence during the carnival season, suddenly be hunting for phalluses when in Rome he had done nothing but preach to Vettori against even the least appearance of association with this "vice"? Machiavelli provided a possible escape when he promised that his tale would hide things behind metaphors, and thus one might suppose that Brancacci's name was a cover for someone else; but, as we shall see, he soon dropped out of the metaphoric mode and named clearly the characters involved, and Brancacci remained Brancacci throughout. The answer to this dilemma seems to lie instead in the "ridiculous metamorphosis" promised, for the humor of the tale turns on the fact that their common friend had suddenly changed the object of his sexual desires and decided to go hunting birds.

And that the birds he had decided to hunt were phallic was made clear while Machiavelli was still in the humorously metaphoric vein by the place where he decided to beat the bushes. "He crossed the bridge of the Carraia [one of the bridges that crosses the Arno] and went along the street of the Canto de' Mozzi [probably now Via del Parione] which leads to Santa Trinita, and entering Borgo Santo Apostolo, he wandered about a bit through those narrow allies [chiasci] that are in between; and not finding any birds in waiting ‌ he moved on past the headquarters of the Guelf party, 399

through the Mercato Nuovo and along the street of the Calimala he came to the Tetto de'Pisani where looking carefully through all those hiding places he found a little thrush."32 Tellingly, this itinerary took Brancacci hunting for birds through the heart of the district of Florence dedicated to illicit sex-the area just discussed, where the former Grasso, now Matteo, had run up his debts following his desires of gioventu - a place rich in bordellos, baths, inns, and prostitutes offering a whole range of sexual services, including male prostitutes and giovani available for sexual encounters. If Machiavelli's story of Brancacci's bird hunting is merely a story, he nonetheless took care to give it the correct setting, a setting that his reader, Vettori, would have understood immediately as true, as these were the shared masculine spaces of illicit sex at the heart of the city. Brancacci then took his prize bird into a nearby alleyway in a dark place near where Frosino da Panzano - an acquaintance of Machiavelli's and Vettori's mentioned occasionally in their letters - had lived at one time and after "kissing" and "petting" him a bit had sexual relations with him.

Machiavelli then switched from the metaphoric mode of the bird hunt to a more direct narrative to explain the complex unfolding of the joke (burla) that was at the heart of his tale. Brancacci, when he found out that his partner was a certain Michele, "the son of an important man," decided that his bird required more tending than he originally anticipated and promised to pay him for his services. But as he did not have the money with him, still in the dark of the alley he decided to trick the lad, and in a move that echoes curiously Brunelleschi's cruel joke on Grasso, he changed his own identity, telling the youth that he was Filippo Casavecchia - a likely-sounding lie given Casavecchia's apparently fairly widely known sexual tastes - and asked him to send someone to his shop the next morning for the money. Here perhaps was the second metamorphosis in Machiavelli's story, for in a way not only had Brancacci taken Casavecchia's sexual identity and made it his own by going bird hunting in the heart of the illicit sex district of Florence, but in the end he had taken his name and his formal identity as well.

Needless to say, the next morning, when confronted by a messenger from the youngster demanding money for sexual services rendered, Casavecchia did not find the joke (burla) at his expense amusing in the least and sent the messenger away claiming to never have heard of this Michele and demanding that if the boy wanted anything from him he should come and see him himself. When Michele heard this, "the boy, being afraid of nothing," went to Filippo and, reproving him, promised that "if he [Casavecchia] had no compunction about tricking him, he had no compunction about defaming him."53 Once again the streets of masculine friend ship showed their disarming potential to turn rapidly dangerous and mean.

Realizing that the youth meant business, Filippo took him aside, and while he agreed that the lad had been tricked, he insisted that he was not the one who had done 400

the tricking. He claimed, "I am a well behaved man [molto costumato] and I do not get involved in such evil affairs [tristizie].�34 The way Machiavelli develops his story here is once again revealing for attitudes toward illicit sex, especially sodomy. Among their circle of friends Casavecchia openly had quite a different reputation - he projected and accepted a sexual persona as one who exclusively preferred male youths and seemingly was untroubled by it within that group. From the perspective of the group's consensus reality about Casavecchia's sexual identity, his adventures with boys were seen not as something negative but as something that made him a good fellow and one of the group, virtually all of whom vaunted their participation in the world of illicit sex in one way or another.35 But in the broader social world of Florence, Casavecchia had another reputation, another sexual identity to defend as "a well behaved man" who did "not get involved in such evil affairs." Of course, there was also the matter that such behavior in older men was officially much frowned upon in Florence and the penalties could be quite stiff; thus Casavecchia was threatened not just with a loss of reputation but also with potentially serious criminal penalties if this young man with a powerful father decided to pursue the matter, taking it from the arena of male friendship to that of civic reputation and morality. Fortunately for Machiavelli's humorous account of the affair, Michele agreed to keep things quiet and to allow Casavecchia to discover what had actually happened.

Machiavelli perfectly depicted Casavecchia's dilemma at this point - a dilemma not unlike Grasso's when he was in jail and could not decide whether to accept his new name and identity-reporting what their friend had supposedly said to himself: "If I keep quiet and pay off Michele with a florin I become his source of income, I become his debtor, confess my sin, and instead of being innocent I become a criminal; if I deny everything without finding out the truth I have to become involved in a dispute with a boy, I will have to justify my behavior with him and with others and all the blame will fall on me; if I try to find out the truth, I will have to put the blame on someone, perhaps incorrectly, and make an enemy and for all this I will still not be justified."36 Behind the wit of Machiavelli's report, Casavecchia's dilemma comes through clearly, and we get a good sense of how tricky the world beyond Machiavelli's letters and his circle of good friends could be for older men who were interested in sex with youths. But once again Machiavelli's narrative was a laughing one about a "ridiculous metamorphosis," and when Casavecchia put aside his fears for a moment and began to think seriously about who might have played this trick on him, "he immediately hit the target," guessing that Brancacci was exactly the type of person who would do such a thing.

He then enlisted the aid of Alberto Lotto, a friend of his and a relative of young Michele's - Florence once again demonstrating how small and intimate a Renaissance city could be for men of the upper classes - asking him to see whether he could get the 401

youth to recognize Brancacci as the true culprit. Lotto, in turn, convinced Michele to go with him to the square of Santo Ilario (Saint Hilarious, a most fitting place again to bring this joke to its conclusion at Brancacci 's expense, but even with its perfect metaphoric quality a place that actually existed), where, coming up on Brancacci from behind while he was regaling a group of friends with stories, the boy was able to recognize his voice as the one belonging to the man who had claimed to be Casavecchia in the dark. When Brancacci turned around and recognized the youth, he realized that he had been found out and ran off, thus admitting his guilt and winning public scorn ("vituperato") while Filippo escaped from that same fate and his dilemma. Machiavelli concluded his tale noting that the affair had spawned a new saying in Florence that carnival season, "Are you Brancacci or are you Casa [vecchia]?" and then tied the whole story together with a reference to Ovid's Metamorphosis by claiming humorously, "[And this tale] was told by all [the gods] in heaven."37 This classical reference harked back to Machiavelli's original "ridiculous metamorphosis" and underlined the story-like quality of his letter by paralleling the way all Florence was talking about the transformation of Brancacci into Casavecchia with the way all the gods in heaven, according to Ovid, talked about how Vulcan displayed his wife, Venus, and Mars caught in adultery.

But behind that classical and learned reference and just beneath Brancacci's metamorphosis into Casavecchia, there may have been another "ridiculous" metamorphosis that worked for a laugh only in the context of the ongoing sexual themes of the letters exchanged between Vettori and Machiavelli. In beating the bushes of Florence for young birds, Brancacci had changed an important element of his identity in those letters and in the context of their circle of male friends - he had gone from being a man attracted exclusively to young women and uninterested in boys, even at times condemning such relationships, to one who secretly hunted them in the illicit night zones of Florence. Now all this may have been a mere joke, a fiction, a learned reference to the classics, or it may well have been an elaborate metaphor to discreetly discuss politics, language, or power - all have been suggested. Still, two things seem necessary to make any of these interpretations work: first, both Machiavelli and Vettori had to recognize the Renaissance sexual identities of Brancacci and Casavecchia to make his tale work - if it was of no significance who Brancacci penetrated sexually, there was no metamorphosis in his picking a boy; second, Machiavelli had to be able to re-create the actual sexual world of the streets of Florence to give his narrative and the metamorphoses he described the ring of truth.

Simply put, whether "true" or not - in the sense of whether it actually happened or not - this tale was "true" to the sexual world and masculine spaces of Renaissance Florence and the way they worked, a world where men hunted birds through the streets 402

known for illicit sex at the center of the city; where Casavecchia was known at least by his friends as a man who preferred sex with boys and was uninterested in sex with women; where Brancacci had the exact opposite reputation; where both men were concerned about their sexual reputation in the broader community, while they could be and were more open and relaxed within their circle of closer friends; where this group of friends could laugh in their letters at sexual practices that were formally illegal; and where a clever Machiavelli could transform whatever actually happened into a novella about a "ridiculous metamorphosis." In the end it seems that Machiavelli did not entirely make up this story and that perhaps Brancacci had undergone a metamorphosis, as claimed, to go out beating the bushes of Florence for thrushes during the carnival of 1514, for Machiavelli concluded this section of the letter noting, "I believe that you may have heard this news from others, still I wanted to tell you about it in more detail, because l thought l owed it to you."38 In sum, this world of male friendship and sexuality was written across the city, especially its heart. Those same streets and alleys that hosted inns and female prostitutes were frequented by males seeking partners for sodomy; in fact, female partners or male partners were apparently often viewed as interchangeable in the many taverns, inns, and houses of prostitution. Still, some areas in the city were more associated with sodomy, and males who sought those particular pleasures knew where to find them. The Via dei Pellicciai, running from the west side of the Mercato Vecchio south past the Via Porta Rossa, for example, was a famous haunt at the end of the fifteenth century.

And the two taverns most noted for sodomy, the Buco (near the Ponte Vecchio in an alley that still bears its name) and the Sant'Andrea or del Lino (located behind the church of the same name not far from the Mercato Vecchio and just east of the Via dei Pellicciai), were apparently solely for males and not frequented by female prostitutes.

Some, perhaps seeking a bit more privacy, abandoned the city center for the open spaces just beyond the walls. And finally rather fittingly given our tale, Brunelleschi's dome itself became so noted for such activity that in the sixteenth century young males were banned from the area!39 As Casavecchia's fears about Michele's accusations becoming more generally known suggest, however, across the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it seems that older men's participation in the illicit world became progressively more questionable - owing in part, l would suggest, to the logic of the regime of virtĂš. For mature men the ideal was increasingly that virtĂš should dominate passion, which is not to argue that it did but rather to suggest that an important split was developing between the ideals of masculine sexual control in maturity and a broader freedom of action in gioventu. Yet for young men the illicit world of sex may have been seen as offering an opportunity to build net works based on friendship - a hypothesis supported by fears expressed that 403

the process could go wrong and that some contacts formed in the illicit world might be counterproductive. Friendship, after all, was fine up to a point, but one needed the right friends for success. Close ties based on sex and friendship with the right males could build the basis for a successful life; ties to the wrong individuals could spell disaster. This may help explain Rocke's interesting finding that some families actually encouraged their young sons' sexual relationships with older men. When their partners were important, parents could hope that their children were in good hands in the illicit world and building the networks of friendship that would lead to success.40 Be that as it may, and returning to Grasso's metamorphosis into Matteo, it is suggestive that the characters of our tale are themselves either giovani or just leaving that period behind. Brunelleschi, the master plotter, not yet the master architect, is in his early thirties. In the tale's retelling Grasso has become 28, although contemporary documentation suggests that he was actually closer to 24. in 1409, the year in which the tale is set.41 Moreover, the older males in the story seem much more the masters of virtù.

Led by that master plotter Brunelleschi, they control the action with mature male rationality and power - they work the streets and institutions of the city masterfully to make their beffa work. Grasso, in contrast, is still not beyond the passions of youth and thus stands as an easy mark. In this vision of the tale Brunelleschi's evident virtù might be seen not as a premonition of his later artistic accomplishments but as a proof of his newly attained adult male status: cool, rational, calculating, and in control; thus, with his beffa he demonstrated for his contemporaries that he had mastered the regime of virtù and become a mature male adult - in a way this cruel joke at his young friend Grasso's expense was his first masterpiece, a masterwork of virtù that marked his passage to adulthood.

There may be yet a deeper level that has to some extent dropped out of the later telling of the story that we are working with. If Rocke is right in asserting that a very high proportion of Florentine males during gioventu participated at one time or another in sodomy often subsumed under the rubric of friendship, the close friendship of Brunelleschi and Grasso might be read in another way. In fact, this whole grouping of young friends so relaxed about status might be read differently. Could it be that the virtù of the members of the group which helped to explain their egalitarian friendships was a later addition to make the story work better as a tale about the cleverness of the great artist and architect Brunelleschi and that a more significant reason for the group was the cross-class sexual attractions common within the illicit world of Florence? And could it be that Grasso, several years younger than his close friend Brunelleschi, was once his lover, reflecting the classic age patterns of Renaissance homoerotic relationships? In this interpretation both men had now grown too old for their relationship: Brunelleschi in his early thirties was ready for adult male status; Grasso in his early 404

twenties was ready for taking at the very least the active role in sex with other younger males or women.42 Could it be that this cruel joke, motivated so thinly in this retelling, masked a different original beffa that also turned on friendship - an aggressive shift from a sexually based youthful friendship between Grasso and Brunelleschi to a mature nonsexual relationship initiated by Brunelleschi? Certainly in that context Grasso's emotional flight from the city and his old friend and their eventual reestablishment of a relationship on other terms, discussed below, makes eminent sense.

Whether this sexual reading is true or not, young Grasso languished in jail for the supposed sins of Matteo until his brothers returned after dark to free him. The rationale was that darkness would protect honor - the return of the prodigal son would go unnoticed in the mean streets of Florence. Thus, after nightfall they took Grasso/Matteo home; now his place was in the Oltrarno district just across the Ponte Vecchio "near the church of Santa Felicita, at the beginning of the Costa San Giorgio."43 Re-placed as Matteo, Grasso was virtually Matteo. Home at last, he sat down to dinner with his brothers, almost as if the social moment of male kin eating together confirmed his new identity and the success of Brunelleschi's beffa.

But, of course, his brothers were not kin, and they immediately betrayed him by slipping him a powerful sleeping potion. As he was dropping off, the last words he heard were a report of a conversation they claimed they had over heard walking through the Mercato Nuovo. Someone behind them had said, "Do you see that fellow who's lost his memory and forgotten who he is?" To which his friend replied, "That's not the fellow, it's his brother."'44 The shame and dishonor of the mean streets of Florence were always at work, and it seemed that there would he no real rest for Grasso/ Matteo. More accurate, in the imaginary streets of Brunelleshi's clever beffa, Grasso was being continually remade as Matteo - but those streets worked in Grasso's imagination only because they mirrored the fact that exactly such masculine evaluation of virtĂš, honor, and shame in the streets of Florence worked continuously in forming and disciplining men. There, without laws, without formal pronouncements or policing, men were formed and reformed by the regime of virtĂš.

Deeply drugged, the former Grasso was ready for the climax of his trials. Brunelleschi arrived with six of the original group of plotters, loaded their sleeping victim into a hamper, and carried him back across the Arno to Grasso's home. There they put him in his bed and placed his clothes where he normally left them, but to complete their joke they could not resist putting his feet where his head normally lay. Renaissance humor, as we have seen, was fascinated by and heavily reliant on reversals; reversing their victim in perhaps the most personal space he had, his bed, was one last trick too good to pass up. Then, "they took the key to his workshop ... went there, entered, and moved all the tools ... turning the blades upside down, and the same with the handles of his 405

hammers ... and they did this to all the tools that lent themselves to such reversing, and turned the whole workshop topsy turvy.�45 Thus in a way his most familiar spaces, bed and workshop, were reversed one last time.

The morning of the third clay brought the resurrection of Grasso, and once again the places of Florence were so central that the tale speaks for itself: "Awakening to the sound of the Angelus from Santa Maria del Fiore ... he recognized the sound of the bell, and opening his eyes ... realized that he was in his own house, and his heart was suddenly filled with great joy, for it seemed he had become Grasso again."46 In a walking city (like Renaissance Florence), without the roar of traffic, waking in the morning to the familiar local sounds of church bells and the familiar voices of passersby and familiar shops opening, the city truly does whisper in the sleeper's ear place and identity.

Grasso's return to himself was marked by hearing his bells from his bed in his house on his street in his city, and the tale evokes that once common measure of place and self perfectly to re-place and reaffirm Grasso as Grasso.

The beffa was still not complete, however: first, finding everything reversed in his familiar spaces kindled Grasso's doubts; then, Matteo's brothers arrived and, no longer recognizing him as Matteo, asked for their brother who had dis appeared; and finally, Brunelleschi and Donatello worked him over one last time in public aided by the reappearance of the real Matteo. But tellingly Grasso, back in his places and recognized in the streets as himself again, had used the spaces of Florence to become himself once more. One last detail is worth noting: as Grasso left Brunelleschi and Donatello, Filippo brought his beffa full circle. The whole plot had been set in motion by a snub Grasso's refusing to dine with his friends; now Brunelleschi turned to him and offered, "We must have supper together one evening."47 Friends had been rejected, the price had been paid, and now mockingly or seriously the circle had been completed with a new offer of dinner and friendship.48 Tellingly for the future, however, Grasso left without responding; he soon learned that he had been the victim of his friends, and with that realization came a cruel understanding: although he had not gone mad and had always really been Grasso, it really did not matter - the regime of virtĂš ruled. He had become in the consensus reality of the populace of Florence the infamous victim of a famous beffa, and that meant that not only had he been publicly dishonored by his friends, but in the end even children would mock him in the streets: his worse fear had come true in the mean streets of Florence.

As all this turned on the spaces of Florence and their use by a masculine culture of friendship, honor, and virtĂš, a change of space was a virtually necessary response. And although it might seem like an overreaction from a modern perspective, in the Renaissance with a Renaissance sense of identity, that is exactly what Grasso opted for: he sold his shop and left Florence, accepting the offer of a friend to go with him to serve 406

the king of Hungary. With perfect timing as he was leaving the city, the tale confirmed one last time his worse fear: "Before mounting the horse [to leave], as he was walking through Florence ... he happened to go by several places where he heard people talking about what had happened to him, and everyone was laughing and joking about it."49 Mean streets indeed.

Fortunately for Grasso, escape from those streets of Florence made his fortune.

Leaving behind his shame and the friends who had made him infamous with their cruel beffa, Grasso, because of his woodcarving skills (virt첫), became a valued retainer of the king of Hungary, and that in turn made him a rich and noted craftsman, who many years later could return to Florence and laugh with Brunelleschi about the cruel joke - for in a way what the regime of virt첫 had taken away Grasso's own virt첫 had regained. ln fact, on later visits Brunelleschi and Grasso often talked about how Grasso had experienced the beffa, and the storyteller, Manetti, pauses to note that this was crucial for the tale's richness, as "most of the funny things had happened, so to speak, in Grasso's mind."50 At one level that is true, of course; the internal workings of Grasso's mind are developed in this tale as in few other Renaissance novelle. But it is interesting to note how intimately intertwined Grasso's thoughts were with the spaces of his city, Florence. Home, shop, streets; hearth, dining table, bed; Bapistery, cathedral, Mercato Vecchio, Mercato Nuovo; church bells, familiar sights and sounds: all were tools in Grasso's thinking of himself and important elements in the masculine world of Florence and its culture. Honor, friendship, pleasure - all played a role in a regime of virt첫 that truly ruled there, a rule that was deeply intertwined with the spaces of an intimate city and its familiar, mean streets.

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