The Ugly Renaissance (64 page)

Saint Francis of Assisi’s celebration of poverty:
One of the best—and most eminently readable—introductions to Saint Francis’s views on this subject remains Lambert,
Franciscan Poverty
.

Florence provided an ideal setting for the reception:
See Baron, “Franciscan Poverty and Civic Wealth as Factors in the Rise of Humanistic Thought.”

Bracciolini devoted an entire treatise:
Poggio Bracciolini,
De avaritia
, in Kohl and Witt,
Earthly Republic
, 241–89.

Landino penned a savage verse:
Landino,
Xandra
, 2.3, in
Poems
, 72–73.

This practice of “usury”:
Hunt and Murray,
History of Business in Medieval Europe
, 70–71; for a brief and broad survey of the concept, see Taeusch, “Concept of ‘Usury.’ ”

“To take interest for money”:
Thomas Aquinas,
Summa theologica
II-II, q.78, a.1, in
On Law, Morality, and Politics
, 199.

This, indeed, was precisely the line:
See de Roover, “Scholastics, Usury, and Foreign Exchange.”

In the
De avaritia
:
Bracciolini,
De avaritia
, in Kohl and Witt,
Earthly Republic
, 247.

In the
Inferno
, Dante described the fate:
Dante,
Inf.
17.1–78.

Only a little before the explosion:
Note especially Le Goff,
Birth of Purgatory
.

In the
Decameron
, Boccaccio gleefully tells:
Boccaccio,
Decameron
, 1.1.

This practice was later condemned:
See Fraser Jenkins, “Cosimo de’ Medici’s Patronage of Architecture and the Theory of Magnificence,” 162–63.

“I bequeath 100 florins”:
Brucker,
Society of Renaissance Florence
, 55.

Thus, Niccolò Acciaiuoli:
Leoncini,
La certosa di Firenze nei suoi rapporti con l’architettura certosina
, 213; Welch,
Art and Society in Italy
, 191.

“If I spend 2,000 florins”:
F. W. Kent, “Individuals and Families as Patrons of Culture in Quattrocento Florence,” 183; Welch,
Art and Society in Italy
, 193.

At least from the beginning of the fourteenth century:
See Kempers,
Painting, Power, and Patronage
, 74–77, 182–92.

In the years after the Black Death:
Najemy,
History of Florence
, 325.

“Peruzzi, Baroncelli, Cavalcanti”:
Ibid.

The Strozzi Chapel in Santa Maria Novella:
See Giles, “Strozzi Chapel in Santa Maria Novella.”

A towering jewel of early Renaissance art:
For useful discussions of the circumstances of the Arena Chapel’s construction, see Stubblebine,
Giotto
, esp. 72–74; Harrison, “Arena Chapel,” 88–93.

And to ensure that the devout:
Translations of the papal bull and the complaints of the monks at the Eremitani Church are given at Stubblebine,
Giotto
, 105–7.

limited involvement in artistic patronage:
On which see Gombrich, “Early Medici as Patrons of Art.”

Although a respected member of communal society:
Brucker, “Medici in the Fourteenth Century,” 1.

“a large proportion of the Medici”:
Ibid., 6.

The Peruzzi, for example, agreed to lend:
See Hunt,
Medieval Super-Companies
.

the grain trade with southern Italy:
Abulafia, “Southern Italy and the Florentine Economy.”

124,000
lire a fiorino
in 1300–1308:
A
lira a fiorino
was worth approximately 0.69 florin. Najemy,
History of Florence
, 113–15; in general, Hunt,
Medieval Super-Companies
.

In 1427, Antonio di Salvestro di ser Ristoro:
For the Serristori, see Najemy,
History of Florence
, 312–13; Tognetti,
Da Figline a Firenze
.

It was, however, in Rome that Giovanni:
Najemy,
History of Florence
, 263.

Giovanni’s strategy revealed not only his astuteness:
For what follows, see Holmes, “How the Medici Became the Pope’s Bankers.”

Taking over the family’s business interests:
The classic study of the Medici bank, particularly under Cosimo, remains de Roover,
Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank
.

Reestablishing the bank on a new footing:
Najemy,
History of Florence
, 264–65.

“probably not only the richest Florentine”:
Rucellai,
Zibaldone
, 1:61, in Baldassarri and Saiber,
Images of Quattrocento Florence
, 74.

Although contemporaries such as Palla Strozzi:
On these figures, see Gregory, “Palla Strozzi’s
Patronage and Pre-Medicean Florence”; Saalman, “Tommaso Spinelli, Michelozzo, Manetti, and Rosselino”; for a discussion of the construction of the Pazzi Chapel in Santa Croce, see Sanpaolesi,
Brunelleschi
, 82ff.

In 1419, Giovanni agreed to pay:
For Brunelleschi’s involvement with San Lorenzo, and his apparent success in persuading Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici to finance the project, see Vasari,
Lives
, 1:161–62.

after 1440, Cosimo assumed responsibility:
See Elam, “Cosimo de’ Medici and San Lorenzo.”

a gigantic shrine to the Medici family:
The association between San Lorenzo and the Medici was widely acknowledged by fifteenth-century Florentines. See, for example, Francesco Albertini’s description of the church in his
Memoriale di molte statue et picture sono nella inclyta ciptà di Florentia
(1510), the text of which is given in Baldassarri and Saiber,
Images of Quattrocento Florence
, 218–19.

Cosimo had paid for the remodeling of San Marco:
See Ullman and Stadter,
Public Library of Florence
.

The competition between merchant bankers:
On the Badia Fiorentina, see Leader,
Badia of Florence
.

comparatively unremarkable house in the via Larga:
See Saalman and Mattox, “First Medici Palace.”

the average merchant banker’s palazzo:
Figures from Goldthwaite, “Florentine Palace as Domestic Architecture,” 993.

“I think I have given myself”:
Rucellai,
Zibaldone
, 1:118, trans. in Goldthwaite, “Florentine Palace as Domestic Architecture,” 990–91.

“it has comfortably accommodated kings”:
Vasari,
Lives
, 2:35–36. Indeed, it was no surprise that when King Charles VIII of France entered Florence after Piero di Lorenzo de’ Medici’s flight in 1494, he instinctively took up residence in the abandoned Palazzo Medici Riccardi, on the grounds that it was the only private home with sufficient majesty to house a monarch.

“restored the palace of Careggi”:
Vasari,
Lives
, 2:43.

In the
De seculo et religione
:
For a useful introduction to this work, see Witt,
Hercules at the Crossroads
, 195–208.

“riches bring no satiety”:
Bartolomeo Facio,
De vitae felicitate
, trans. in Trinkaus,
In Our Image and Likeness
, 1:201.

preachers such as Fra Giovanni Dominici:
Fraser Jenkins, “Cosimo de’ Medici’s Patronage of Architecture and the Theory of Magnificence,” 162–63.

In his commentary on the pseudo-Aristotelian
Economics
:
Ibid., 162. The following paragraphs are indebted to Fraser Jenkins’s work.

For Leon Battista Alberti:
Alberti,
I libri della famiglia; Cena familiaris; Villa
, 210.

the efforts to justify the lavishness:
See Green, “Galvano Fiamma, Azzone Visconti, and the Revival of the Classical Theory of Magnificence.”

complete “theory of magnificence”:
The current consensus among scholars is that a full-fledged theory of magnificence emerged in Florence during the 1450s—that is, by the time of Galeazzo Maria Sforza’s visit. See Fraser Jenkins, “Cosimo de’ Medici’s Patronage of Architecture and the Theory of Magnificence”; Gombrich, “Early Medici as Patrons of Art”; D. Kent,
Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance
; Lindow,
Renaissance Palace in Florence
, esp. 1–76. Recently, however, some suggestion has been made that the first signs of the theory can be detected some
decades earlier in the preaching of Antonino Pierozzi: see P. Howard, “Preaching Magnificence in Renaissance Florence.”

“All these things deserve extraordinary praise”:
Timoteo Maffei,
In magnificentiae Cosmi Medicei Florentini detractores
, trans. in Fraser Jenkins, “Cosimo de’ Medici’s Patronage of Architecture and the Theory of Magnificence,” 166.

Splendor was thus thought:
See Lindow,
Renaissance Palace in Florence
.

“The magnificent man”:
Pontano,
I tratti delle virtue sociali
, 234–42, trans. in Welch,
Art and Society in Italy
, 221–23.

“it governed for the benefit”:
Brucker,
Renaissance Florence
, 137.

Conscious that the Florentine constitution:
The following paragraph is a highly attenuated account of a rather complex series of developments. For further details, see Molho, “Politics and the Ruling Class in Early Renaissance Florence”; Witt, “Florentine Politics and the Ruling Class”; Najemy,
Corporatism and Consensus
, 263–300; Najemy,
History of Florence
, 182–87.

By stacking the government:
As an anonymous Florentine chronicler observed, those whom “the powerful” selected for inclusion in the
borsellini
“were very loyal to their regime,” where “regime” refers to the rule of the dominant patricians rather than to the Signoria as an abstract concept.
Cronica volgare di anonimo fiorentino
, 35, trans. in Najemy,
History of Florence
, 183.

“Many were elected to the offices”:
Cavalcanti,
Istorie fiorentine
, 1:30.

After a destructive civil war:
See Epstein,
Genoa and the Genoese
, 194–211, 221–27, 242–53.

The first member of the family to be elected:
Najemy,
Corporatism and Consensus
, 323.

Salvestro de’ Medici:
Najemy,
History of Florence
, 161, 173–74, 184; Najemy,
Corporatism and Consensus
, 272.

Cavalcanti’s tale of how the patrician Niccolò da Uzzano:
Cavalcanti,
Istorie fiorentine
, 1:28–29.

“in Florence, it has always happened”:
Bruni,
Panegyric
, in Kohl and Witt,
Earthly Republic
, 158.

“Do not appear to give advice”:
Hibbert,
Rise and Fall of the House of Medici
, 40–41.

Only a few years later, in 1400:
Anonymous,
Alle bocche della piazza
, 218–21.

For much of the war, Florence faced bills:
Najemy,
History of Florence
, 255–56.

As the surviving records show:
For sample declarations, see Brucker,
Society of Renaissance Florence
, 6–13 (which contains the returns for Conte di Giovanni Compagni, Francesco di Messer Giovanni Milanese, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Agnolo di Jacopo, weaver, and Biagio di Niccolò, wool carder). For a study of the 1427
catasto
as a whole, see Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber,
Les Toscans et leurs familles
.

Whereas some owed no more than a few soldi:
Najemy,
History of Florence
, 259; Martines,
Social World of the Florentine Humanists
, 365–78.

Between 1428 and 1433, it has been calculated:
Molho,
Florentine Public Finances in the Early Renaissance
, 157–60.

“entire patrimonies were being consumed”:
Najemy,
History of Florence
, 261.

Cosimo de’ Medici and his business associates:
D. Kent,
Rise of the Medici
, 352–57.

nothing more than a very wealthy
padrino
:
This description is derived from Molho, “Cosimo de’ Medici.”

“even the monks’ privies”:
Hibbert,
Rise and Fall of the House of Medici
, 48.

After commissioning Sandro Botticelli:
On the
Adoration of the Magi
and the figures
depicted, see Hatfield,
Botticelli’s Uffizi “Adoration,”
68–110; Lightbown,
Sandro Botticelli
, 2:35–37.

“the most convincing and natural”:
Vasari,
Lives
, 1:226.

8. M
ERCENARIES AND
M
ADMEN

“in both mind and body”:
Pius II,
Commentaries
, II.32, 1:327.

“the evil side of his character”:
Ibid., 1:329.

“the worst of all men”:
Ibid.

“no tolerance for peace”:
Ibid.

From around 1300, “professional mercenaries”:
Mallett,
Mercenaries and Their Masters
, 15–16.

The earliest known companies:
See ibid., 25ff.

the deliciously named Diego de Rat:
Diego de Rat (or della Ratta) features in one of Boccaccio’s stories, peddling forged currency. Boccaccio,
Decameron
, 6.3.

Hermann Vesternich:
Caferro, “Continuity, Long-Term Service, and Permanent Forces,” 230, table 1.

“A beautiful work of extraordinary grandeur”:
Vasari,
Lives
, 1:101.

although moved on a number of occasions:
On the movement of the fresco, see Meiss, “Original Position of Uccello’s
John Hawkwood
.”