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by Anthony Molho
The best view of Florence,
in Renaissance times and still today, was from one of the nearby hills. Standing atop the hill called the Belvedere
(the "nice view"), one could see green, rolling land in all
directions and the stark Apennine mountains farther to the north. Walls five miles (about 8 kilometers) long
encircled the city. Built into them
were tall towers as high as 100 feet (about 30 meters) to permit observation of
the surrounding countryside. Even from
a distance the Arno River could be seen cutting through Florence for about a
mile and a half. Four bridges joined
the north and south sides of the city.
One of them, the Old Bridge (Ponte Vecchio),1 still stands.
It is much favored by modern tourists because it is lined with antique
shops. In the 14th and 15th centuries
it was an equally exciting and busy place.
It was a veritable bazaar, with fur traders, butchers, food vendors, and
every kind of hawker that one could imagine peddling wares.
The
most imposing monument Florence could boast
was the Palazzo dei
Signori,2 or Palazzo Vecchia (Palace of the Lords, or Old
Palace). For miles down the Arno River
one could, and still can, see its battlements.
Its, huge tower, rising more than 310 feet (about 95 meters) from the
ground, still amazes visitors by its strength and elegance. Churches in all parts of the city were easy
to recognize because of the tall bell tower standing next to each. The cathedral (Duomo3) was the largest.
Two other churches dominated corners of the city. North of the river to the east was the
Franciscan convent of Santa Croce4 (Holy Cross). To the west there was the imposing
church of the Dominicans (rivals of the Franciscans) called Santa Maria Novella
(the New Saint Mary)
FOOTNOTES:
{1 Ponte
Vecchio: pon'te ve' kyo}
{2 Palazzo del
Signori: pa-lat’ so da' e
sen-yo’ re}
{3 Duomo: doo-o’ mo}
{4 Santa
Croce: san' ta kro’ cha}
The cathedral in Florence
was named Santa Maria del Fiore and called the Duomo. The dome was designed by Brunelleschi and the Campanile (marble
bell tower) by Giotto.
PEOPLE AND ACTIVITIES
A closer look at the city
from within the walls would enable a Visitor to capture a measure of its
texture and spirit. Medieval cities had
always been dark, crowded, and noisy.
Renaissance Florence was no different, for it grew in the 13th century
from some 30,000 to more than 90,000 people.
Results of this almost chaotic growth were seen everywhere. Crooked streets, crowded with people and
animals, wound their way through the city.
Sometimes a street would open into the piazza, or square, in front of a
church or public building. Houses had
been built with no thought of their effect on their neighbors. Tall palaces, 100 feet high (about 30
meters) or more, might be placed next to modest cottages. Rows of tall buildings were allowed to block
out light and air from the street.
Garbage thrown from windows to the streets below, and the mess and
stench from thousands of horses, mules, and donkeys, made life in the city
nearly unbearable, even for those who were used to it
Giovanni
Villani, a 14th-century merchant and banker and a shrewd observer of his time, has left a vivid
account of his city for the year 13 38.
According to him, this was the peak year of Florentine prosperity. In a famous passage he sings the praises of
his homeland. In 1338, not counting
foreigners and the thousands of priests, monks, and nuns, Villani estimates
that the Florentine population exceeded 90,000. Each day the Florentines consumed more than 2,300 bushels of
grain and drank no fewer than 70,000 quarts of wine. Each year 4,000 oxen and calves, 60,000 sheep, 20,000 goats, and
30,000 pigs were slaughtered to provide meat.
During the month of July, more than 4,000 cartloads of melons were
brought into the city from the surrounding farms. One hundred forty-six bakers, 100 grocers, innumerable cobblers,
slipper makers, and wooden-shoe makers plied their trades.
There
were more than 600 notaries and 80 lawyers in Florence. About 6,000 babies were baptized in the city
each year, divided almost equally between boys and girls. (To be precise, Villani adds that boys
outnumbered girls by about 300!) Between eight and ten thousand young children,
male and female, were enrolled in elementary schools. An additional 1,000 to 1,500 were learning more advanced
mathematics and bookkeeping. From 550
to 600 more were taking courses in four "big schools" that taught
arts and letters, As for churches and other religious organizations, Florence
was well supplied with them. Out of 110
churches, 57 were parish churches, 5 were abbeys with 80 monks each, 24 were
nunneries with some 500 nuns. Thirty
churches were hospitals with more than 100 beds to receive the poor and sick.
Most
of the people Villani describes had daily business taking them into the streets
of Florence. Well-born Florentine
women, of course, were the exception.
They seldom ventured into the streets.
Their place was the home, where they looked after the children and the
needs of their household. Shopping was
done by servants or young sons sent on errands or to buy the day's provisions
from shops or markets.
Most
shops were small and dark. In the
middle there might be a desk and a stool or two for customers. Shelves would accommodate the wares. Since there was so little room, customers
often waited outside on the street. Or,
in order to examine a piece of merchandise in a better light, a buyer might
carry it outside. Sellers and buyers,
bargaining 'over prices, added to the din in the streets by their loud
haggling. We -have an idea of what the
shops were like from a manuscript of the early 14th century containing several
beautiful paintings (called illuminations), showing what kinds of occupations
were practiced at that time.
Noise
in the streets was also increased by vendors advertising their wares. Green grocers shouted the high quality of
their fruits and vegetables. Smiths
offered to repair damaged household tins or sharpen knives. Used-clothes dealers waited eagerly to buy
or sell. Beggars, some blind or lame,
would cry for alms, while small children ran and played in the streets. In addition, church bells rang throughout
the day. They informed people of the
hour or warned them to hurry on to church services. Compared with our ways of living and doing business,
Florence-like any other Renaissance city presented a lively and populous look
indeed, if also a noisy and unsanitary one.
CIVIC SPIRIT
Florence was, nevertheless,
somewhat set apart from, other cities of that time. Its leaders believed that they had a heavy responsibility to
provide certain physical benefits for the people. In the 1320's, for example, the city government assigned funds
for rebuilding a street near the center of town "to increase the beauty
and utility of the city of Florence, and in particular to make the streets
rectilinear and attractive, and so that the merchants transporting grain ... may reach the grain market more
easily."
In addition, during the 14th
century the city government paved the streets.
Seas of puddles and fields of mud no longer appeared after every
rainfall. Later, officials were
appointed to supervise the cleaning of the streets in order to give the city a
neater appearance and, more important, to lessen the danger from infectious
diseases. Efforts were also made to ban
construction of upper stories projecting over the streets. Houses that were built that way blocked both
light and air from lower floors.
Also
in the 14th century it became city policy to beautify Florence with public
buildings. The Palazzo dei Signori, for
example, was begun in 1299. Its outer
walls were completed in 1314. It was
built as a fortification, and its stern appearance was intended to remind
visitors and neighbors of the strength of the city. As the government stabilized and Florentine leadership could no
longer be questioned, the military look of the palace was softened by a large
square built in front of it. In the
1370's and 1380's the Loggia dei Lanzi (the Balcony of the Lancers) was
added. The government found room for
these expansions by buying and tearing down houses in the area. The open balcony was used for -official
ceremonies. Ambassadors from foreign
nations were greeted there and victorious generals were thanked for their
successes. It was there that the people
were informed of government decisions.
The open loggia was the link between the city offi6als who met in the
palace and the people in whose name Florence was governed. Even today the mayor of Florence has his
office in the Palazzo dei Signori.
While
the Palazzo dei Signori was being built, construction was also begun on the
Duomo. It was planned on a grand
scale. The Florentines wanted the
"most beautiful and honorable church in Tuscany."5 The best architects of the time were hired to design
it. Construction proceeded very slowly,
however. Enormous expenses were
involved and many technical problems presented themselves. Most difficult was finding a way to build
the dome which would cover the huge space 140 feet (about 45 meters) in
diameter-over the choir. The architect
Brunelleschi finally solved this problem.
The
government did not stop with the construction of new buildings. It. offered money to churches and monastic
ord4rs to improve their buildings and widen the streets leading to them. By 1400 the combined effect of all these
efforts was to make Florence more advanced than most other Italian cities. In 1403 an aged -Florentine wrote (with some
exaggeration, it must be admitted) about Florence to a friend in Milan.
What city, not merely in Italy, but in 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 wider streets, greater in its
people, more glorious in its citizenry, more inexhaustible in wealth, more
fertile in its fields?
{5 Tuscany was the region in which Florence was located}
LIVING ARRANGEMENTS
People with very different
incomes lived close to each other.
Neighborhoods for the rich and others for the poor simply did not
exist. Rich and poor might live in the
same large building. On the ground
floor of a spacious palace for instance, there might be a shop of a craft
worker - artisan - or a small merchant.
He and his family would live in the back of the shop. The upper stories might be occupied by
wealthy businessmen and their families.
This arrangement made all the city's inhabitants, whatever their
economic standing, aware of each other.
People of every class were more or less familiar with the thinking and
the life habits of those richer or poorer.
Thus a sense of community existed within neighborhoods. The rich were apt to take an interest in the
well-being of their less well-to-do neighbors.
For
government purposes, Florence was divided into four quarters -what we today
might call wards. Each was named for a
major church within its boundaries.
Each was dominated by a few large families, around whom life in that
part of the city was centered. The
quarter of San Giovanni was the home of the two families who furnished leaders
for the great political struggles of the early 15th century, as we shall see
later. The Albizzi,6 with large landholdings in the Tuscan countryside,
dominated Florentine politics from the 1370's to the early 1430's. The Medici7
became the largest and most powerful bankers in Europe. They finally drove the Albizzi from Florence.
{6 Albizzi: al-bet se}
{7 Medici: me'
de-che}
The
power of each of these clans was based on the great wealth of its members. But, to be effective, power had to be
visible. One way to impress on everyone
the high status of a clan was for it to build a large and imposing palace to
serve as the center of its activities.
Every Florentine family striving to attain a position of special
importance in the 14th and 15th centuries built a huge palace, or at least
enlarged the ancestral home. The city
was constantly being disrupted by this massive program of private
building. At least two dozen major
palaces were built during our period.
All the building took place, furthermore, within a relatively small area
of some two and a half to three square miles (about 6 to 7 square kilometers).
Most
of these palaces are great works of art.
The Medici Palace, now housing the offices of the Tuscan Provincial
Government, was perhaps the most famous.
In 1459 an ambassador visiting Florence wrote a description of this
building. His hosts had given him a
tour of the palace:
... and especially of its noblest parts such as some of the studies,
chapels, salons, chambers and garden, all of which are constructed with
admirable mastery, decorated on every side with gold and fine marbles, with
carvings and sculptures in relief, with pictures and inlays done in perspective
by the most accomplished and perfect of masters even to the very benches and
floors of the house; tapestries and household ornaments of gold and silk;
silverware and bookcases that are endless and without number; then the vaults
or rather ceilings of the chambers and salons, which are for the most part done
in fine gold and diverse and various forms; then a garden done in the finest of
polished marbles with diverse plants, which seems a thing not natural but
painted. . . . And whoever sees these things judges that
they are celestial rather than earthly things, and everyone is agreed that this
house is the most finished and ornate that the world has ever had or may have
now, and that it is without comparison.
In sum, it is believed by all that there is no other earthly paradise in
the world than this.... To me it seems like
being in a new world, and I am of the opinion that in my days I shall never see
anything worthier than this.... And not
only I hold this opinion, but all the company here who do nothing else but
discuss it.
The
confusion that accompanied the construction of so many great houses has been
recorded by a druggist whose shop was across the street from the largest palace
to be built. He speaks of the time when
workmen were tearing down houses near his shop in order to make way for the new
building:
... 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 gathered to look on, and those who could not pass by with their
beasts of burden.
PUBLIC LIFE
In addition to the disruptions
caused by almost constant construction, Florentine streets were cluttered by
other colorful, noisy, and busy scenes.
Funeral processions were commonplace, as were marriages and baptisms. Occasionally, however, there might be a
really unusual and exciting spectacle.
For example, from a diary kept by a Florentine in the 1380's, we learn
of a big procession in Florence on Sunday, November 5, 1385. The bishop was to be elevated to the rank of
cardinal in Rome. As the prelate was
leaving Florence "he was accompanied by, all the government officials,
representatives of the guilds, all important clerics, and a number of honorable
citizens."
Again,
on January 1, 1386, a large embassy arrived from Milan. This event triggered a series of public
ceremonies, speeches, and the explosion of fireworks. On January 19 of the same year, news arrived that an ally of
Florence, Charles of Durazzo had been crowned king of Hungary. "All the good citizens," says the
diarist, "Celebrated heartily, and numerous bonfires were lit at night
throughout the city."
Two
important public events followed on Sunday, January 28. Florence's new bishop arrived. He was ceremoniously greeted by government
and church officials. Then a vast throng
of people accompanied him to the church of San Giovanni, where he celebrated
mass. That same day, the miraculous head
of Saint Anthony, a revered relic recently stolen from the cathedral, was
recovered. It was reinstalled in its
proper chapel after a long procession and happy celebrations. Finally, on Friday, February 9, the official
ceremonies began in honor of King Charles of Hungary. All the city bells rang in the morning. Shops were ordered closed.
The citizens were urged to assemble before the Palazzo dei Signori. There official proclamations were read,
music played, and everyone cheered the new king's name. Then, that same afternoon and the following
day, a series of jousts took place. The
sons of the leading families competed on horseback for a golden rod.
Not
all spectacles were as pleasant as these.
In late medieval Europe, the administration of justice was often
public. It was designed not only to
punish the culprits but to discourage others from following a life of
crime. Criminals were often savagely
tortured in a public square where thousands of spectators watched. The same diarist records that in 1381 a
worker was accused of plotting the overthrow of the government. He was caught, brought before the principal
magistrate, tortured, and executed. His
body was then thrown on a street, where a group, of young men began dragging it
about. Eventually, a bystander cut off
the arm body. He threw them to a gang
of boys who kicked them about "using them as if they were
balls." The body was dragged on a
little further, where some of the boys sought to hang it from a post. Finally, the body was paraded in various
streets, until it reached the piazza in front of the cathedral. There it was dumped in an open ditch. The boys stood guard over it and prevented
anyone from covering it, so that it might serve "as an example to those
like .him." Incidents like this,
though not commonplace, were not entirely unusual either.
It
is best to end our brief look at Florence with these accounts of notable public
events of the city. They remind us that
perhaps the overwhelming impression of an outsider visiting Renaissance
Florence would have been one of vitality, dynamism, and excitement. Florence was full of life. Its streets reflected the movement and
nervous energy of its citizens. A city
as vibrant and dynamic was bound to be confused, perhaps even chaotic. Attitudes from a previous age survived
alongside enlightened new ideals.
Tortures inflicted on criminals were part of a way of thinking of people
who rim also emphasized improving the appearance and healthfulness of the
city. Certainly one basic reason for
the particular personality of the city was the enormous economic success of the
Florentine businessmen. Their
achievements we shall examine in the next chapter.