Medieval Italian communes (city states)

11-12th C. Consular commune - nobles, aristocrats

Slides: Age of the Towers: urban civil warfare

between rival noble consorterie (family groups)

13th C. Guelf-Ghibelline conflict with & between communes

Rise of the popolo = guild regimes

San Gimignano in Tuscay

Bologna

Due Torri

(Two

Towers)

Left after

the razing

of the

towers by

the

popular/

guild

regime in

13th C

Artist’s reconstruction of the towers of Bologna before the guild regime

• Northern Italian city states

• Self governing communes

( Italian = comune Latin = res publica)

• Regionalism, loyalties to one’s own city

• Campanalismo: campanile = bell tower

= attachment to one’s own bell tower

• Expansion of cities’ control over rural countryside (contado)

along with conquest of smaller cities

• Example of Florentine conquest of Fiesole 1125 and later conquest

of many cities in Tuscany

View of Fiesole from Florence – Fiesole conquered by Florence in 1125

Giotto’s

Bell tower

Campanile

1334-37 begun

13th C. Florence: (see Course Readings Link)

1216 Buondelmonte murder: legendary origin

of Guelf Ghibelline conflict in Florence

What is the origin & setting of the dispute?

What values are at stake?

What is the proposed settlement?

How is that settlement undermined?

Where does the murder take place?

1250-60 Primo Popolo (first popular government)

1252 Florin: gold coin of Florence

1250

Gold

Florin

St. John the

Baptist: patron

of Florence

Fleur de lys

Symbol of

France and

Guelf alliance

Guelf-Ghibelline conflict 1248-1266

1266 Guelf victory: Secondo Popolo = second guild regime

guild regime is Guelf, pro-papal

1282-1434 Republican Florence

12-13th C. Rise of the popolo (people):

guild regimes (arti) associated with local

militias (armi)

Guild organization: upper guilds / popolo grasso

lesser guilds / popolo medio

Workers below guild structure: sottoposti / popolo minuto

Privileged groups:

nobility (lose political rights in most guild regimes)

new elites: called patriciate, magnates, gsrandi

some (but not all) have noble backgrounds such as Pitti)

GUILD REGIME in FLORENCE 1282-1434

new office of priors: elected for 2 month terms

1293 Ordinances of Justice: exclude nobility,

only guild members eligible for office

1295 amendment: lesser nobility admitted to office

if they join guild (over the next century many

old noble families take up trade and join guilds)

Dante Alighieri 1265-1321

joins Guild of Physicians & Apothecaries

Offices held 1295-1301:

Council of the Popolo, Prior,

1301: Ambassador to Rome

Factional split within Guelf party:

Black Guelfs: older Guelf aristocracy allied with Papacy

leader Corso Donati: Dante’s brother-in-law

White Guelfs: leader Guido Cavalcanti = Dante’s best friend

newer families, banking and trade: Vieri dei Cerchi

1301 POPE BONIFACE VIII -- family name = Caetani

sends in military force to Florence under French Charles of Valois

Blacks take power; Whites exiled as “Ghibellines”

Dante condemned in absentia, exile in Verona, Ravenna

Boniface: canon lawyer, powerful Pope, begins tradition of Jubilee

1303 founds La Sapienza, University of Rome

1300 as Jubilee year (this is year in which Dante sets poem)

pilgrims to Rome get indulgences from Pope: spiritual merit

indulgence = remission of temporal punishment for sin

which means time off in Purgatory (not stressed by Dante

but later one cause of the Lutheran Reformation in Germany)

13th C

Florence

Baptistery of

San Giovanni

St. John the Baptist

“CIVITAS

FLORENTIE”

DANTE ALIGHIERI

1265-1321

1293 Dante La vita nuova (New Life)

Poems dedicated to Beatrice Portinari

1302 exiled from Florence as White Guelf

after invasion by French & Pope Boniface VIII

1310-1313 Emperor Henry VII invades Italy

Dante De monarchia: pro-Empire

after 1313 Divine Comedy:

autobiography on a cosmic scale

Dante as pilgrim, Virgil as reason

Beatrice as divine love, revelation

Florentine Baptistery of San Giovanni, patron saint of Florence

Ghiberti’s Baptistery doors 1430’s

with Roman porphry columns (detached on right & left)

Ancient Roman porphry columns

gift from Pisa in 1117 after military aid

Mosaics in

Cupola

12th C.

Christ as Pantokrator = ruler of all the world

Mosaics of Hell in Florentine Baptistery, source for Dante’s three headed demon

Bargello, first Palazzo del Popolo

Portrait of

Dante by

Giotto

Traditional

image

of Dante

Botticelli

1495

Pope Boniface

VIII

15th C.

illuminated

manuscript

of the

Divine Comedy

INFERNO CANTO I

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita In the middle of the course of our life

mi ritrovai per una selva oscura I found myself in a dark forest

ché la diritta via era smarrita. Having lost the straight path.

Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura Oh, how hard a thing it is to say

esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte What this forest was, savage, bitter and strong,

che nel pensier rinova la paura! Which even in thought renews the fear.

Tant'è amara che poco è più morte; So bitter is it, that death is only a bit more;

ma per trattar del ben ch'i' vi trovai, But to treat of the good which I found there

dirò de l'altre cose ch'i v'ho scorte. I will speak of the other things which I saw there.

Dante’s Hell

Map of world

with Jerusalem at top and

Mount of Purgatory

Journey from

Hell through

Earth to

Mountain of

Purgsatory

Dante’s universe

Spheres of the

planets bounded

by the sphere of

the fixed start

and the primum

mobile