10/19/10 & 10/21/10 - Italy

Italian Cities:  

• Renaissance cities usually had a communal area in the center called citadels. 
• Siena was a strong principality in the Medieval times
• Siena was eventually brought into the control of the Florentines. 
• Urbino looks like a medieval city that has grown into a renaissance city. 
• It has the typical citadel and tower. 
• Firenze is the Italian name for Florence. 
• Florence is in modern day Tuscany. 
• Many of the great vineyards in Italy are in Florence. 
• Perugia is in the center of the country.  It is near Assisi.  

Medici Reign: 

• The city states and individual republics had power over themselves
• The Medici family was very powerful and rich.  They gained their fortune through banking.  
• Before the bank, Medici bank rolled the Pope into power
• Cosmo was a son of the Medici family. 
• Lorenzo was his grandson and  (the Magnificent) he became the ruler of Florence during it's greatest time. 
• Lorenzo was the patron of Michaelangelo  
• In the Italian Renaissance the art world was completely different.  
• Today we go to an auction or gallery and buy art pieces.
• In the Renaissance an artist would have never made a sculpture just because he wanted to.  He would have made it because someone came to him with money and asked him to make it. 
• Example: A patron would go to an artist saying "I'll give you all this money if you make a tomb for me."
• The patron pays the artist anything he needs.
• They took a lot of pride in the Italian history of antiquity (the quality of being ancient). 
• They painted and sculpted in styles that they thought classical antiquity was like. 
• Lorenzo was humanist (a person having a strong interest in or concern for humanwelfare, values, and dignity). 
• Classical mythology was to be enjoyed. 
• The Renaissance church was against much of this though.  They said they were pagan works.  
• Bonfires of the Vanities
• All the people of Florence came out into the streets and burned all their jewelry, books, and art pieces.
• When Cosmo died Florence faced uncertainty. 
• Cosmo told his son to stay out of politics. 
• No one who saw the chapel could ignore the power of the Medici.
• Lorenzo had been born into great privilege, but he was also a scholar. 
• The principalities warred against each other
• Most powerful were Milan, Florence, Pisa, Senna, Genoa, Ferrara, Mantua, Verona, Venice

• In the north of Italy there was ongoing feuding between the Vatican and the Holy Roman Empire. 
• During hte 15th century many of the powerful city states annexed the smaller cities.
• Annexed - took them and made them part of their own.
• Florence was one of the cities that annexed the town of Pisa in 1406.  
• Nearby MIlan annexed areas around it to grow bigger. 
• There was almost constant battle going on throughout central Italy.
• Land battles were carried out by mercenaries. 
• Soldeires from around Europe were lead by Italian generals in campaigns. 
• One of the major strategies was siege war-fare.
• Instead of meeting the opposition on the battlefield, they surrounded the city and burned everything around it.  This way the people either had to come out and fight or they starved. 
• At sea there were also major battles going on.
• Genoa was a strong sea power.
• They beat Pisa, but then Genoa's influence starts to decline and Venice's increases. Venice becomes the main naval power.  
• By 1454 Florence, Milan, and Venice were the 3 major powers in central and northern Italy.
• They signed the Treaty of Lodi.  That treaty lasted for about 40 years or so. It was the first time that there was relative peace in a long time. 
• Exploration
• Columbus (who was Italian) goes to Spain and Portugal.  He secures the right to sail his journey from the king and queen of Spain. 
• When the Spanish explorers get to South America, they find raw materials. 
• These materials have a lot to do with bolstering the economy of these countries for the next couple hundreds of years.  
• Colonization is fundamental to jump starting the economies of many of these countries during the renaissance. 
• Spain, France, and England did the majority of the exploration of the New World. 
• The Abitzi used to be the leading family in Florence and they were very jealous of the Medici.
• Giovanni Medici created the bank.
• Cosimo made it become the biggest bank. 
• The Medici were so popular in Florence because they had money, the pope liked them because they bankrolled him into power. 
• The Medici family was beloved in Florence. 
• Lorenzo has one thing going against him
• He's not quite the business man that Cosimo was.
• He starts to have ill relations with the pope.
• The Pazzi were a rival family. They were the second richest family in Florence.
• They had a richer, nobler history than the Medici, which gave them an advantage.
• Lorenzo sees to it that they are kept out of business. 
• The Pazzi took matters into their own hands.
• They wanted to eliminate the Medici family. 
• They had the Church on their side.
• The Church was in a great about of debt to the Medici bank and it would be good for them if the Medici were no longer around. 
• The conspirators knew that they must kill both.  They could not just kill one brother.
• As rumors of the conspiracy spread, a new plot was hatched.  
• Sunday April 26, 1478, Easter Day.  The people of Florence gathered to celebrate mass at the Cathedral. 
• Both Medici brothers were in the cathedral at the same time.  
• Guiliano Medici was stabbed 19 times, but 
• Lorenzo was wounded, but not killed.  He showed himself to the crowd, which said to them that the Medici were still there. 
• Violence swept through Florence as supporters of the Medici sought revenge.  
• The Pope himself ordered troops to wipe out the Medici once and for all. 
• Lorenzo knew that he had to act. The people of Florence feared for his survival. 
• Lorenzo traveled for nearly a month. He sailed to Naples in 1479, just before Christmas. 
• He arrives with money and gifts.  A deal is cut between both sides.  The Pope is very unhappy about it, but he is forced to agree. 
• The enemy troops were called off. 
• Lorenzo was hailed by his city when he came back. 
• However, Lorenzo's experiences had changed him.
• He adopted the illegitimate son of his murdered brother.  
• The Medici needed all the heirs they could get.
• He took over the government.  All legislation had to be approved by him first. 
• He now had full control over the city.  
• Lorenzo often commissioned artwork from artists. 
• One artist was producing extraordinary work, unlike anything Lorenzo had ever seen before. 
• Leonardo da Vinci
• Leonardo was determined to reflect the detail of the natural world. 
• But in the battle for Medici patronage, Leonardo's rival was raising the stakes. 
• Botichelli was Leonardo's rival. 
• He painted "The Birth of Venus"
• The freedom that Lorenzo brought to Florence was about to come to threat.
• Savonarola was a monk that was against Lorenzo. He thought Lorenzo was leading the city to destruction. 
• He was opposed to any kind of visual art that wasn't religious. He took a dim view of everything that happened that wasn't entirely dedicated to religion. 
• Savonarola's disgust became an obsession. 
• He was sickened by what he saw around him. He turned his hate towards Lorenzo as the focus.  
• July 29, 1487
• Lorenzo's wife died suddenly from tuberculosis.  She was only 34. Lorenzo lamented the loss of those closest to him. 
• He found solace, as always, in art. 
• In 1488 he established the first art school. 
• Here he spotted a young talent. 
• Michaelangelo Buonarroti was only 13.
• He was born in 1475 and died in 1564. 
• He came from a merchant class family. 
• He fell in love with stone carving. 
• Lorenzo takes him right under his wing. 
• He decided to bring Michaelangelo into his family to live with him and his seven children. 
• Michaelangelo became invested in Lorenzo's approval. 
• As the young Michaelangelo learned his craft, his talent was pulled in two different directions. 
• Traditional religious work vs.  classical legends 
• Michaelangelo was arrogant. He could be abusive and petty and he had a terrible temper.  He could be very anti-social.  
• Savonarola believed that Lorenzo was leading to the downfall of Florence. 
• Florence was split between people who wanted a secular lifestyle and those who agreed with Savonarola. 
• Florence had reached new heights of culture, but Lorenzo loosened his grip on the family business. 
• Across Europe, branches of the Medici bank had to close.  The family lost a great amount of money and it's network was falling apart. 
• There were more people asking for favors than there were favors to be distributed.  Many people walked away empty handed and unsatisfied.  
• In 1492 Lorenzo fell seriously ill.  
• Lorenzo turned to the church for help. 
• At 16 Giovanni Medici was already a Cardinal.  The position cost Lorenzo a fortune that he could barely afford.  
• Lorenzo knew he was dying and now he needed something money couldn't buy.  
• Lorenzo called Savonarola to his deathbed seeking absolution. 
• Savonarola's judgement was harsh.  He damned Lorenzo.  
• At the age of 43, Lorenzo died, fearing hell to his last breath. 
• With Lorenzo gone, Savonarola sees his chance. 
• Even Botticelli embraced Christianity with the change of the world around him. 
• Under Savonarola's fundamentalist regime prostitutes were beaten and homosexuals burned. 
• Any display of make up or jewelry was forbidden.  
• Savonarola had gangs of people that enforced the rules. 
• He wanted to create the Kingdom of God on Earth by any means necessary. 
• He organized an enormous public burning of books, wigs, cosmetics, and jewels. 
• Now even Botticelli for fear of the nation joined the destruction. 
• He hurled his own paintings into the flames. 
• The inferno would become known as "The Bonfire of the Vanities"
• Florence became known as a vision of hell.

Causes of Florence's downfall:

• Lorenzo doesn't put as much work into running Florence and the Medici Bank.  He focused on art, dance, and other artistic things of the Renaissance period. 
• The Church did not support the arts.  
• At this time the Holy Roman Empire is not really holy or Roman.  
• It consisted of the German Empire, the Kingdom of Bohemia, Kingdom of Italy, Kingdom of Burgandy, Kingdom of the Two Sicilys, Corsica, Sardinia. 
• In Central Italy things are a bit different. In this area there are no kings.  There is not a lot of unity because people are loyal to their own city-state.

Holy Roman Empire: 

Map of the Holy Roman Empire 15th Century

• The power of the centralized authority breaks down and you have the rise of the individual kingdoms.  
• Frederick III is the Emperor through the middle and later part of the 15th century. 
• He was a Habsburg, which was a powerful house in Germany. 
• As we move into the 16th century, the empire is broken down into areas that will really influence the development of Germany. 
• Austria and the Confederation of the Swiss become much more important.  
• In the late 15th century Frederick III and his son, Maximilian, declare war against Hungary.
• So the Holy Roman Empire declared war on Hungary.  
• There is a general treaty called the Treaty of Worms signed that declares peace that lasts up until the early 19th century.  
• In the early 15th century, Charles V of Spain becomes the Holy Roman Emperor by way of marriage. 
• This creates an alliance between Germany and Spain.