Saturday, November 28, 2015

French In Florence, Florentine Reprisals: thru November 28, 1494

Ever since Piero de Medici had been chased out of Florence, the French King Charles VIII had been expressing the wish that he might return. When the French entered the city on November 17, there was a great parade in honor of the 'Most Christian King's' arrival. The inundation of some 10-12,000 soldiers and attendants throughout the city however, caused many disturbances on top of the tumult surrounding the ousting of the Medicean power. The French had installed themselves in the newly vacated Medici Palace.

Time and again those in the tottering government in Florence tried to assert their own power. There was the Signoria, and the Gonfalonier, nine men, and the two remaining advisory councils, the Sixteen and the Twelve (all told thirty-seven men). These convened as they could to discuss and vote on what to do next. As well as the Seventy, and the Otto, the War-Office Ten had also been disbanded so that decisions could be made solely by this central group of the Signoria with the Twelve and the Sixteen. It was this group then, with the French arrival - and, despite the King's wishes that Piero de Medici might return - this group still came to a swift and decisive conclusion. On November 20th, they declared Piero a rebel and put a 2000 florin bounty on his capture. [p.61]

The next day, discussions continued with the three Florentine cardinals Cosimo de' Pazzi, Francesco Soderini, and Guglielmo Capponi.. There was a commotion at the door. A pair of frenchmen demanded entrance, and many thought this would be the end. Some many several went and armed themselves. Some later claimed that it was a Tornabuoni instigator in league with de'Medici loyalists that sent the French to cause the ruckus. Many citizens across the river gathered for a fight to defend the city against the French. The French soldierery by then had begun making preparations within the city to defend themselves against the citizens. Somehow the locals had realized they outnumbered the French by at least four to one. That day, within the Signoria, the assembly that had gathered knelt before the members, pledging to die before allowing the Medici back into the city. The Signoria then decided to send out word to gather an army of 30,000 volunteers to defend the city. The King and his men relented and agreed to work on some other agreement. [p.51]

For the next couple days discussions tried to go in a new direction. Since the King had said he had crossed the Alps and come into Italy in order to take Naples (and, also said he had wanted an audience with the Pope), then he should go do that and let the Florentines take care of their city. Piero's wife, Alfonsina Orsini and her mother had been staying just a few blocks away at the convent called Santa Lucia on the Via San Gallo. [p.39] She and the Medici loyal (like some of the Tornabuoni) were to continue to send missives and ministers to persuade the King to allow for a return to normalcy. But this new Signoria would not agree to the various French ministers who came asking for it.

On the 24th of November a new conflict arose spectacularly. Some Florentines had been captured and were being moved by French soldiers. [p.52] A major promenade down by the river Arno soon swelled with numbers of people demanding their release. These few were held awaiting their fines to be paid. But brought out into public they began crying as though they were begging for alms. Children in the neighborhood picked up the cry and some Florentine nobles of the city, seeing this, stepped in and freed them, incensed at the proceedings. The soldiers went to the Medici Palace and the people began heading to that of the Signoria. A squadron of 500 Swiss lances tried to enter the street where the initial disturbance was but were repelled by women hurling rocks, roof tiles, then furniture, then boiling water and then the buckets at them.

The Signoria sent another draft for agreement to the King. After further disputes an agreement was reached but 're-reading it the King showed signs he was still not happy'. At this point, the ambassador Piero di Gino Capponi tore up the document and turned to leave followed by the other representatives. The King had his men call them back and at last agreed to the settlement. The next day arrangements were made for the King to finalize the articles. On the 26th, the day after that, in a formal ceremony, the King payed his respects at the Cathedral Santa Maria and personally swore to the agreement 'on the stone of the high altar'. [pp.52-3]

The agreement was mostly simple and straightforward. Florence would pay 50,000 florins now and 70,000 more, later. The French would also return Pisa, Livorno, and control of Sarzana and Pietrasanta to Florence when he captured Naples. The 27th of November was spent marshallng troops that had taken quarters throughout and all around the city. On the 28th the massive army left and headed south.
_________________________________________
notes from pp. 39-61 in Martines, Lauro: Fire In The City: Savonarola and the struggle for the soul of Renaissance Florence ; Oxford University Press, New York, 2006
Posted by at No comments:

newsbits late November 2015


The downing of Russian jets last week by Turkey has heightened tensions in the already exploding mid-east region. World leaders have been trying to express caution rather than alarm in order to de-escalate the situation. Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey has expressed sadness for it happening but has denied apologizing for it. Geopolitical discussions at the highest level on climate change follow, in these weeks. These also come after weeks of the many expressions of support for France and the war on terror after the bombings in Paris, Beirut and the hostage situation at the Radisson hotel in Bamako, Mali.

The embedded video from AlJazeera speaking on the odd inconsistencies in how Americans call different forms of terrorism, or not.
____________________________________
Glenn Greenwald points out where Adam Smith tells of the love that elites have for wars and armament production.
_____________________________________
Pope Francis has gone to Africa this week where he has spoken in Nairobi, Kenya and is currently in Uganda.
____________________________________________

The Consumer Price Index in the U.S. rose in October signalling that inflation in the U.S. may have taken a slight turn up. This is considered a form of health in this moment by Federal Reserve Officers. And Russia decides to add the Chinese Yuan as one of its reserve currencies.
___________________________________________
The radical fiscal experiment of Kansas' Governor Sam Brownback makes him least popular of Governors in the U.S.

Posted by at No comments:

Friday, November 27, 2015

After The Siege, In The Valley of Mexico: November 1521

In her many-voiced look, Camilla Townsend also pauses to reflect on the long but eventual Spanish success with the siege of Tenochtitlan. Like Matthew Restall's conclusions about the importance of steel crossbows and steel swords in this conflict, Townsend insists that these weapons were one of just a couple central elements to the westerner's brutal victory. Along with the distant supports from their network of information and the supply-chain reaching back to Cuba and Spain, the immediate spearpoint of force was the steel sword with its long-lasting effects from their wounds, and those by steel crossbow bolts.

The memory of these weapons filled the stories that were retold by the elders long after the siege. Townsend says tepoztli - their word for steel or iron - was the most commonly used term used by these elder storytellers concerning the sixty to seventy day siege. Over and over again they recalled metals in armor and blades, in shields and crossbow bolts and arrows. The sound they made clattering, the shape of the blades cutting, these are telling details issuing from a culture unused to such forms of violence.

One hero that Townsend mentions that the elders spoke of, and found in the Florentinus Codex, a local, Axoquentzin, who fought in the siege was struck down by such a metal bolt.
"Axoquentzin pursued his enemies, he made them let people go, he spun them about. But this warrior Axoquentzin died there ... they hit him with an iron bolt in the chest, they shot an iron bolt into his heart. He died as if he were stretching out when going to sleep."

It must be noticed that this quick quote is woven into a longer discussion of her summary of the 'Water-Pouring Song'. This was a handed down version of a much older song sung by locals. Water, symbolic of so many things for Mexica then, in its simplest state, was a source of life and of power. Those who held water, as a substance, as a surplus (and could thus pour it out for others) thereby held a form of power. If others would bring water for you, you held the power. Mexico City, built on a lake, source of water, trade, and life symbolised all that. Townsend reminds us that when the women left the city and revoked 'the right to have water carried to them', they did it for survival. Many thousands must have left that year. Those that had lost males in their families, and had to take care of the children out of harm's way, and the older one's too who had survived the smallpox. All these ravaged people came flowing out of the city. [p. 124]

After the initial attacks in the summer and the siege took hold during those months, Cortes would often return to the base he had established across the water from Teotihuacan at the place locally called Coyoacan. New plans and sorties were hatched here, information from the coast and their Tlaxcalan allies could come here. Cortes had made an old palace his headquarters in this place and stayed there for the next few years.  In his telling, he would go out on horseback with a trusted band of men, go to some local village and sack it or take prisoners, give out orders, or sometimes, work out negotiations. Much of these negotiations would happen at Coyoacan as well and with Malintzin as translator. A system was set up where the local leaders, from more and more locales in the surrounding region, were told to make tribute to Cortes, or suffer the consequences. Networks of locals, antagonistic to the goals of Cortes, were sniffed out, captured, held prisoner, tortured, and sometimes killed. Refusals, conflicts, rebellions were put down.

Leaders were put in place to control and use locals for employment to produce goods for more tributes for Cortes. This was the basis of the encomienda system of wealth production and extraction that Cortes had learned in Spain, seen in use in Cuba, and was now exporting to the Mexica. It wasn't long before many local nobles began seeing this as a possible means for advancement among those quick-witted enough to follow orders. Malintzin, very often of necessity, was the one tasked with delivering this news of these new methods and means. Years later she would be accused (by Jeronimo de Aguilar) of having her own door where tributes would arrive at the Coyoacan center. Cortes claimed in 1529 she was running a business then dealing with herbs and tobacco 'that she liked to smoke'. He could see her position as vulnerable and even deserving of special consideration. [p. 134] In the months since the end of the siege, Malintzin had become pregnant with the child of Cortes. This brief snapshot shows how their months were filled following the siege, and into 1522.

Meanwhile, in Santiago de Cuba, a letter was written by one Alonso Suazo, dated 21 November 1521. A former judge in Segovia, Suazo had been sent to Cuba by the court of King Carlos V. His job was to make an official inquiry into the treatment of the indigenous inhabitants in the new world. Diego da Ordas, on his way returning from the new world to Spain, had much to tell the King's man in Cuba about the advanced civilization and culture of these locals, about the siege, and had showed him a great many treasures. But despite all this, already, Suazo was dismayed at the idolatry and human sacrifice that the locals committed on each other. One wonders what he would think if he knew what was happening in the center of the Valley of Mexico at that same time. [pp. 126-7]
_____________________________________
notes and pagination form  Malintzin's Choices: an Indian Woman In The Conquest of Mexico, Camilla Townshend, University of New Mexico Press, as part of the series Dialogos, 2006

Posted by at No comments:

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

The Place of an English Lord Under Henry VII


As devastating as the Wars of the Roses had been for England (and would continue to be) for their family lines, there were still promising avenues and opportunities as well. There was relief that the 'hard-headed Richard III' was gone, and a general desire for more stable conditions that could prevail again, despite the intermittent problems. Mackie says, "... any rule which promised peaceful order would be generally accepted." The failures of the local baronies depleted in the wars, and the weakness of the church to resolve anything (but what a king could want), also made the monarchy the logical place for people to turn to, and place their hopes.

One statistic that Mackie tells, is that there were only eighteen of the old nobles that were sworn in by Henry VII's first parliament, and several of these ended before the end of his reign.* From this point, Mackie's narrative turns from what the King did to How did these barons interact and need to interact with this new monarch. The overall story shifts here, from monarch to noble spheres and then spirals from the inner to the outer rims of the noble's periphery. Power spread out from the center, from the monarch, to the noble, to the church and clergy, to the burghers and merchants, and to the peasant. Just like their world-view.

While the Wars raged, the locals could go on about their local affairs and, families could be tended, if they would, despite the military extractions from time to time. Locally,
"... the lord could sway the law in his own interest. Maintenance, the supporting of a magnate's dependents in courts of law, was common; courts were venal, royal officers were terrorized or bribed. But it is necessary to distinguish between the influence improperly enjoyed by the over-mighty subject, which would vanish with the might which gave it birth, and the legitimate authority of a baronial court." [p. 14]
Monarchy gave nobility birth and could take it away. But so could a court of peers. Justice was found locally based on feudal custom, and in local criminal courts with and without a noble's oversight. These had grown weaker through the Wars. But the King's courts sat in Westminster year-round processing cases and publishing them in the Year Book. Law across England was mostly the King's law. But most of the 'law' that a local lord might exert on a populace was "... illegal and rested solely upon his possession of actual power." [p.15] A new monarch found that amidst the widespread interpretations that had been handed down locally from age-old feudal law, after all the changes, a King could establish a Royal law that could be far more effective, and popular.

The very important ability to raise an army lay on baronial heads. But here too, only a few could pay the wages necessary, or arm them. Armor was not as common as popular stories tell, even for great lords. The baronial castle built in the previous two or three centuries was now subject to new artillery. A new security from this threat was not yet available. And already the wars had depleted their coffers in more ways than one.  Wars were not profitable then, and wars did not make estates more profitable or able to produce more goods.

The incomes that nobles might expect from land rents were fixed, while prices for goods rose. Nobles hired people to spread merchandise. That was a task below their traditional station. But these English liked their wares and their merchandising, according to reports sent back to Venice in Henry's day. [p.16] Great families, for instance, liked to hold big feasts. They also liked to collect books. Mackie details some of a wealthy earl's Household Expenditures. A house with 166 servants and a yearly cost of £933. This Mackie calculates was one-fifteenth of the Royal household. This earl died at the young age of 49 in 1527, with £13 to his name and £17,000 in debt. This earl liked books, poetry, & hired a storyteller to produce a "... metrical 'Chronicle of the Family of Percy'." [p.17]

But mostly, if a noble needed money, and there was always a need for money, if the king had it and gave it to you, you were now in his service and in his effective employment. No longer a potential rival. This was an important bond. Thomas More (Mackie quotes him), knew it was a time when you didn't know who your friends were and who the enemy. [p.18] Italian chroniclers and Titian, Mackie says, saw a young man with 'no illusions'. [p.19]

____________________________________________

* from Mackie's footnote "A.F. Pollard, The Reign of Henry VIII iii, app. ii for the diminution of the old families."
_____________________________________________

notes and pagination from JD Mackie: The Earlier Tudors 1485-1558 Oxford, UK 1957

Posted by at No comments:

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Savonarola During the French Invasion: November 1494

In the early weeks of November when the Medici family and their interests were driven out and the French came into the city, friar Girolamo Savonarola gave a few sermons. Lauro Martines, our current guide here, gives a quick survey of the matters at stake. But before this, Martines prefaces this with a sharp and closely written paragraph on the webs of Medicean power that had existed for much of the previous sixty years. They had been a primary focus of Savonarola's ire.
"Political patronage under the Medici reached into the civil law courts, the arrest and release of accused criminals, the assignment of personal taxes, the fixing of ambitious marriages, the obtaining of Church benefices, and, above all, election or appointment to public office. It may be taken as axiomatic that high office in  Florence made the man, because the honour meant that he enjoyed the approval of the top oligarchs in the city, that he had the ears of judges and tax commissioners, that his sons and daughters would be warmly looked to as possible marriage partners, that he could more easily obtain credit or borrow money, that he himself would carry weight behind the scenes, and that he therefore ranked as an influential patron. Tear up the political system, as happened in late 1494, and you disrupt all the ties that linked patrons and dependents, with consequent moral and psychological confusion, anxiety, and the readiness to turn coats, to accomodate, to be silent, or to watch and wait." [p. 42]

Outside the Medici, were the Tornabuoni, Soderini, Ridolfi, and the other cadet Medici houses not in the preferred line from Cosimo. After these in importance were the Caponi, Corsini, Guicciardini, Martelli, the Nerli, Pandolfini, and Salviati. All of these and more had to take stock all over again and look carefully at who would be enemies and who might be allies in self-protection and advancement. With the great masses of people stirred up in Florence, who could be trusted, what could be offered to calm them? For what outcomes and with what varying means might old friends, that were now potentially new opponents, could again agree to work together? Savonarola saw other ends and was privileged to see them while in the middle of these tumultuous times.

Savonarola liked to say in his sermons, 'O little friar' speaking of himself and his minor role. Such an insignificant bit part he spoke that he was playing. The ultimate outsider in the center of things. He however, had himself been called out by the French King and spoken personally with him in the days of the overthrow of the Medici. On the 9th of November the friar was in Pisa speaking with the King. (Martines gives us a number of phrases attributed to him, as Martines relates, by Franco Cordero in his four volume collection Savonarola from 1986-8).

Savonarola said to the King of France that the reason for the French coming to Florence had been revealed to him. That the French invasion was essentially God's will, as revealed to him. As a servant of God, his majesty had responsibilities to women and children, the women in convents and many other servants of God, and all this, despite the sins of Florence. If Florence was offensive to his majesty, he should forgive them, since they could only be ignorant and did not know that he, the King, was sent by God. [p.50]

A circular kind of logic then, flattering the King as a servant of God, but charging that he then protect the innocents despite the sins and ignorance of the rest. Savonarola saw his unique position and tried to maximize his influence. The King may have been flattered, but Savonarola certainly seems to have been as well, if seen in the light of his subsequent actions. But Martines tells us, this also was a bit of conclusion developed from the sermons the friar gave in the time before the French invasion. This was where Savonarola had warned that the French would come and cleanse the land, be a scourge, a pestilence, especially on Rome. In Florence during the occupation there was a surge reported of robberies, fires, stabbings and killings as conflicts between locals and French soldiers proliferated. [p.51]

The Haggai sermons that continued into November repeat the themes of boarding an ark in times of a great flood. The time for building or preparation was over and it was time to depart. Savonarola portrayed himself as a prophet but both seeing the future and acting on it in the present. The warnings were over, the flood was now, salvation was at stake. As social and political and economic laws and customs were being broken all over, all the time, each day bringing word of new disasters and needed responses, in the thick of it, Savonarola could speak of God's mercy. [pp.55]

In the fourth of these Haggai sermons, on November 11, he could console his congregation by saying that no blood had been spilled, that the Lord had restrained himself. And largely that was true, it wasn't a wholesale slaughter. So, they should thank God, and that it would yet be revealed whether the other cities could fair the same. The fifth sermon on Novemnber 16, came the day before the King himself arrived into the city of Florence with a parade. He told every person to 'hold their place', since most men would like to work in this new administration 'but don't have the aptitude.' In contrast with the former Medicean government, where there were those in the administration that did not fill their proper place, the people now should 'be content with their current station.' And go out and celebrate the new arriving servants of God.
"Political arrangements in Florence had suddenly opened up, and there was a gush of talk about office-holding, about men being eligible for service in public life, and about political inequities and qualified ancestors. Citizens were pressing forward in the councils, as well as in private, angling to make themselves eligible for high office...".
Savonarola may have had many more of those sorts coming forward, asking for a few words to be 'dropped in the right quarters'. Savonarola had to warn against that especially now. A kind of temptation he had railed against previously in others, but now, was learning the many ways he had to use to avoid it. Always returning in practice and in his sermons to return to abstract principles to explain and move in the world. [p.56]
________________________________________
notes, pagination in Martines, Lauro: Fire In The City: Savonarola and the struggle for the soul of Renaissance Florence ; Oxford University Press, New York, 2006
Posted by at No comments:

news mid November 2015


Following the attacks in Paris on Friday November 13, and a few days of mourning, the Eiffel Tower was lit in the national colors.
The day after the attacks French people came out to be heard en masse.
One man Adel Termos became a hero in Beirut when he stopped a terrorist bomber from killings hundreds in a separate attack there where 43 were killed last Thursday.

__________________________________________________

In April 2015, a 'radical Islamist' had killed 147 at a Kenyan university. These are not a new kind of carnage.
__________________________________________________

The Russian plane downed in Egypt earlier this month was deemed an attack by Russian officials.
___________________________________________________
Meanwhile, Republican state governors, and one democrat, in the US line up to reject  Syrian war refugees. Not long ago they were wanting to ally with them to fight Assad. But even then they were doing that to thumb their nose at this guy.

Posted by at No comments:

Sunday, November 15, 2015

Pisa: Sought After Pawn, Loyalist, Independent, Subordinate

During the few weeks before the French rode into Florence in November 1494, they had absorbed Pisa. This proud, rich jewel, Pisa had been taken by Florence in 1404, after a long siege. It was therefore not a plum to be given away by the Medici, though the city had strong advocates and the Medicean interests were well guarded, maintained, and were even allowed to flourish there,

Early in November 1494, Pisa was let go by Piero de Medici. As wags at the time and Francesco Guicciardini later on would put it, this was to save himself, in a deal that Piero brokered with King Charles VIII of France. It was then that the French assumed control there and then proceeded to Florence. Many Pisans reacted with outrage, as betrayed as many of their Florentine benefactors and bosses felt, and many also then supported the overthrow in Florence, and then still paid heed to the new edicts as they came out of the new Signoria in Florence throughout 1494-5.

By spring 1495 however, the French were on their way out of the peninsula. As they left, some Pisans hatched new plans. Letters to the Venetians, to the Duke of Milan, to certain members of the Signoria in Florence, and yes, to members of the cadet branch of the Medicean line, were sent out. Guicciardini tells us [vol. iii, 7-8] that Venice had sent diplomats to Genoa trying to persuade them not to give up on Pisa. Ludovico Sforza, still the Duke in Milan may have been instrumental in delaying all of this with promises made and unkept.

The siege at Novara broke up. Word spread fast that an agreement (~October 1495) had been made - Guicciardini called it the Turin Treaty - and the French finally would leave Italy. Pisa, and Livorno, its port, would be left behind as well, and those cities affairs left in the hands of, what turned out to be, a number of protectors. One was a French captain Entragues that tried to take Pisa with some Florentine troops [vol. iii, 10-15]. They were rebuffed in the end, but the story was very complicated, for a number of reasons.

The French knew Pisa and its harbor were coveted by all the players in Italy. Florence said it was theirs, but the current partisans bemoaned Piero giving it up, and Milan and Venice desired it for its revenue and their dreams of empire. Maximillian would come the following year to try to resolve the still caterwauling situation. It would be some time before the wrangling would be over and Pisa would not long have its former forms of 'independence' without outside domination.


Posted by at No comments:

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Coup Fallout in Florence Overthrowing Medici, Continued: mid November, 1494

Over the course of just a few days, the fallout spread. From the ousting of the Medicean faction, as family members, friends and affiliated clergy fled from Florence, and as the French arrived securing their ineterests. The second week of November saw many changes. Old families and also new, but trusted diplomats, and still other new men, advanced to fill roles. A curious roster of names and positions tumble before view. There was a coup and many fell and many more driven out. A few others made the old positions into their new ones, for awhile, and in different forms. Martines gives an interesting list of some of these characters and their stories in crisp fashion. The Signoria rang the bell for all patriots to defend the state and many came to the city center.

Piero de Medici himself escaped to Bologna with close family the night of the overthrow, with Giovanni the Cardinal (and future pope Leo X) sitting prominently up in the window, praying well into the night and then later escaping the city in Franciscan garb.

The Bargello or Podesta - the head constable, or one of his guards - had been cut down in the daytime crush in the Signoria Piazza. Francesco Valori one of the six men on the ambassadorial team in consultation with the French King had just returned. With a band of men they stormed the Palazzo of the Bargello and stocked themselves up on arms. Many other beneficiaries of the decades of Medicean leadership risked their lives in trying to save things. A bounty was put on the persons of Piero and Giovanni. The Eight, a body of powerful appointed men who had overseen political and criminal policing, were suspended by the Signoria.

The Signoria also at some point sent guards with arms to defend the Medici Palace as the crowds grew and lingered. But officials began confiscating treasures for themselves. Rings were taken from the fingers of weeping women. The Cardinal's house was sacked however. As well as that of Ser Giovanni da Pratovecchio and Antonio di Bernardo Miniati. A prominent jurist Francesco Gualterotti saved the house of Messer Agnolo Niccolini when the mob set his door afire.

Martines cooly points out that the new men that took the emerging roles also had to recognize that some of the houses of past leading men should also be protected, lest the mob overtake the entire city's amassed wealth. Three of Piero's closest adherents were chosen, and brought into protection in the Signoria. Another, the former ambassador (and just back from visiting King Charles of France), fled north to Lombardy.

Edicts from the Signoria were released allowing family members from certain exiled houses to return at long last to Florence. Some gone as long as sixty years and more were allowed the right to return. Within days, people with old names like Acciaiuoli, Barbadori, Guasconi, Lamberteschi, Pazzi, Petruzzi and Strozzi began returning.

The Signoria also disbanded the Seventy, an advising voting chamber full of Medicean sympathisers. They also dropped admission for members of the dreaded Otto di Pratica which conducted foreign affairs. They were re-assigning values to the entire structure of the former Medicean system, dropping chambers and counseling bodies and appointing loyalists, whatever they called themselves.

As the days ticked on, as edicts came out, and as Martines mentions, as the murals from the Palazzo de Podesta of exiled families and previous Medicean victories were taken down and carted through the streets, word from the swelling French ranks came too, louder and louder. King Charles of France thought it best that Piero be able to return to Florence. This set off conversations in a different direction and some people had to reassign values among allies and friends, again. Word that the French had taken Pisa, a long held subordinate with plenty of essential resources and means for wealth acquisition, also began to spread. This idea that the French took Pisa rather than Piero giving it away seems lost in the larger story for many, that Piero was simply incompetent. The conversation of whether France had come as liberators, or conquerors welled up again, as all began to seem lost.

The moment was right for friar Girolamo Savonarola to step into the middle of all this. He already had.
_______________________________________________
pp. 38-41 in Martines, Lauro: Fire In The City: Savonarola and the struggle for the soul of Renaissance Florence ; Oxford University Press, New York, 2006

Posted by at No comments:

Monday, November 9, 2015

The Fall of Piero de' Medici: Florence: November 8, 1494

Piero de ' Medici knew he was in trouble. He had advisors and informants that kept him abreast of activities in the city when he was out. These became too little too late as responses began to fall on deaf ears. The son of Lorenzo de Medici had even resorted to desperate tactics like sending word for servants to throw pastries and sweets from the windows of the Palazzo in the center of Florence. Few showed up for this gesture of generous largesse. In the first days of November, the Signoria ignored Piero's requests and commands and sent it's own six man delegation to the French King, whose forces already sat on both sides of the Appenines. When stories arrived that the de'Medici heir, in negotiations with the King, had given up Pisa and Livorno, the situation exploded.

Matters had grown dark for some time in Florence. The halcyonic glory days of Lorenzo Magnifico were over. In place of their devotions to him and his family, the passions of the people fell into factions and the minds of many were taking darker turns. Girolamo Savonarola, Dominican friar at San Marco, preaching the end of times, echoed the fears of too many that a terrible tyrant would be sent across the Alps to punish Florence. At times a foreign Cyrus, and at times the angel of reform, for years, a great scourge, he proclaimed, was coming soon to lay low the once proud Florence. Now, the French were on the road and the only hope in stemming the prophesied destruction was in pleading for a greater reformation in the larger, thoroughly corrupted Church. Savonarola had equated the coming French armies with the approaching sword of God, descending to snatch the unwary.

When word had reached Florence of the 'settlement' that Piero d'Medici had agreed to with the French King, the streets filled up with protesters. Piero had expected upon returning to reassure the people, that he had saved the city from invasion. At least twice, Piero tried to address the Signoria. He tried to get the Podesta to arrest the impudent Jacopo de' Nerli who had called Piero a child. But they would not do even this. When he realized he could not gain their support Piero and his retinue withdrew.

 Again, Piero, now needing armed supporters, tried to gain access to the Piazza della Signoria, this time, forced to enter by a single tiny door. There he was greeted by none other than Jacopo de' Nerli who told him he could enter only by himself, and without his retainers and supporters. Jacopo then bit his knuckle at Piero, an act of public insolence intending violence. The group surrounding Piero began brandishing their weapons. Above, at a window, a member of the Signoria and doctor of law, Luca Corsini began shouting 'People and Liberty', a rallying call for anti-de'Medici, pro-Republic partisans. The call went up the street and the small group around Piero saw they were surrounded. They did manage to escape and rush north through the city.

 Armed with stones, embittered about the accumulation of wealth and power, the masses of people converging in the city center would hear none of the alternate cries for calm. Piero was able to sneak back into his family home, gather up his closest family members, and the next day, retire well away from the city of his birth. The same city his family had tried to so benevolently, and generously lead. Other family members and partisans tried to remove as much of the de Medici treasure as possible, but in the mobs that engulfed the family palazzo, in the following days, much was lost. The Signoria soon elected to assign bounties for the capture of members of the de Medici clan.
___________________________________
from pp. 35-7, in Martines, Lauro: Fire In The City: Savonarola and the struggle for the soul of Renaissance Florence ; Oxford University Press, New York, 2006

 additional notes drawn from Hibbert, Christopher: Florence: The biography of a city; Penguin Books, London, renewed 2004
Posted by at No comments:

Friday, November 6, 2015

more big news items early November 2015

At last, the White House has released the agreement known as the Trans Pacific Partnership. This omnibus trade agreement, with numerous Pacific-Rim nation states and businesses, says it attempts to level the economic playing field for the greatest number of people. There are many who disagree saying it will increase the power of businesses to control the lives of workers and consumers. There has been little mainstream media discussion of this over the last couple years as it has been brewing, but this is because it has not been officially released. Now it has. Discussion over its merits and detractions will continue for perhaps a couple months as Congress has to ratify it. The new House Speaker Paul Ryan has already come out in favor of it.

Meanwhile in India, Prime Minister Modi has inaugurated a new gold coin for rich Indians.
________________________________________

The civil war in Yemen continues, seemingly directionless.


There's a war in the jungle in Brazil over criminal lumber theft.

There are so many mass shooting stories lately, it's hard to keep track. The latest stand-off, this time in San Diego at an apartment complex near the airport, grounded air traffic there so police could get into the area and do their job. The shooter was apprehended. Many were delayed, no one was hurt.

___________________________________________

Too many people can't get a place to live.
__________________________________________

The White House announced today it won't endorse the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline deal between TransCanada and Texas oil industry refineries. The political right have been touting it as a 'job creator' for years. Actual scientific statistics and projections have said that was a distortion in several ways.

__________________________________________
The Kansas City Royals did win the World Series in baseball this year. The day the city came out to thank them, KC Mayor shared some snaps on twitter. Estimates put the number of people showing up was around 800,000. People proud of their team, their town and each other.

Posted by at No comments:

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Teetering Florence On the Edge: November 4-5, 1494

The night of November 4, 1494 in Florence was one of tumult and disagreements. The town criers had all been sent out to announce again and again that anyone removing chalk off one's doorway would be subject to a 500 florin fine. All the previous day French billeters had been going up and down the streets marking off houses they thought appropriate to house the coming French soldiers. Were the french honored guests or would they be an occupying army? This was the issue that had arrested Florentine attentions. Their property and their city was at stake. What were the leaders doing?

They had been arguing, since spring. French messengers had arrived in June asking whether Florence would be with the French invasion set on retaking Naples, or would Florence oppose the advance. Piero de'Medici head of his clan and its affairs had put off, dithered and then deferred decision. There was his close advisors, his friends, the older advisors of his father Lorenzo as well as the city as a whole to think about. There were his in-laws the Orsini to consider, there was his neighbors like the Duke at Milan, and the Senate in Venice. The pope had sent reassurances. Piero himself had been spending a lot of time with the heir to Naples watching the preparations there and working negotiations with Milan. Meanwhile pro-Republic graffiti against the de'Medici began appearing.

By October, Piero began secret talks with French emissaries as the army advanced southward. Around October 26, he was meeting with them outside the city and agreeing to their heady demands. For now, Piero accepted that the French could control the Florence-run prize of Pisa, the crucial port city of Livorno and the two well stocked fortresses at Sarzana and Pietrasanta, and 200,000 ducats. Pietro thought he was saving the city from direct invasion.

When the leaders back in Florence heard this they were furious. The Orsini family mercenaries had mustered outside the walls but many de'Medici loyalists within were changing sides. By the end of the week the Signoria had chosen six men, including friar Girolamo Savonarola, to go and talk to the French king and try to get them to find some other accomodation and route southward. Piero had lost the formerly stellar reputation of his name and his prominent place as defender of the city. Within days he would be exiled for the rest of his life and his family and their adherents would be shut out of Florence for nearly twenty years.
Posted by at No comments:

brief biographic sketch of Pietro Bembo 1470-1547

Born in 1470 to a noble family and a notable father, Pietro was given the means and education to find a seat in the affairs of his birth city Venice. But he liked books. As a child (1478) he went with his father on diplomatic missions to Florence and later (1487) to Rome. He decided then to pursue literary studues instead of political life and went south to Messina to study with the Byzantine emigre Constantine Lascaris. In 1493 when he was twenty-three years old, he climbed Mt. Aetna. The next year when French troops began to march into Italy, Pietro went back to Venice. There he got Aldus Manutius to publish his book (1496) on his own previous trek up Mt. Aetna.

More studies took him to University in Padua and then Ferrara when his father was stationed there. In Ferrara he met Ariosto and worked on a prose dialogue on love. He also had an affair with the daughter of the pope and wife of the heir to Ferrara, Lucrezia Borgia. He left Ferrara in 1503 to avoid plague. Living in Urbino from 1506-12 he wrote his most famous work in prose on the use of Italian poetry. In this period he also worked with Manutius again, but this time on establishing published texts of Petrarch and Dante after the numerous changes in the fifteenth century.

In 1512 he moved to Rome, published a work praising Cicero as the best model of Roman Latin, and soon, was appointed Latin secretary to Pope Leo X through his connection with his friend Giuliano de'Medici. He was kept busy there for some years as a diplomat and writing the latin correspondence for the Vatican. When Pope Leo died, Bembo retired to Padua and to his wife Ambrogina della Torre, known as Morosina who bore him three children.

He published his work on Italian poetry in 1525, which sparked widespread discussion, wrote some more and won a number of prizes and benefices. One of these was the history commissioned by the City of Venice. This he completed for the years 1485-1513 in twelve books. In 1538 he returned to Rome, was made a cardinal and stayed with that work until his death in 1547. Pietro Bembo was buried in the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. There's a family of fonts named after him too, apparently.

Posted by at No comments:

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Savonarola Preaching In the Years Around the Death of Lorenzo de Medici: 1491-4

The fifty Lenten sermons that Girolamo Savonarola presented in early 1491 shortly after arriving in Florence, culminated in one particular performance outside his church. This was instead before the heads of state at the Palace of the Signoria in Florence. Lauro Martines spends some time on these sermons for Lent, in this year. Year after year, he continued the onslaught on less than pious practices, in this time crucial to him and his new chosen city. Looking at the topics, the tone and delivery as well as the external politics, Martines emphasizes thier effects in turn, on these central issues of the friar's focus. It seems it was the force of these sermons that made him into a household name. By at least March of that year, he was proclaiming 'I believe that Christ speaks through my mouth.'

The speeches were given extemporally drawn from notes that Savonarola had written up beforehand in latin. Only these latin outlines survive. Even so, the range of topics and methods of condemning the rich and corrupt regular practices within the church and the consequent sinfulness of everybody else were constant themes. We don't have written reactions of these sermons. But his audiences, Martines assures us, must have been stunned.

Savonarola began with bible verses but would use these as starting points to begin criticizing and condemning a wide range of externalities. From the showy fakeness of religious praise, from cardinal's clothes to empty ceremonies, to the emptiness of souls that perform these, or sold church offices, or the lechery or sodomy by church clerics, injustices to the poor, usury over taxation, all became flashpoints in his deliveries. And, God's justice was to soon condemn and break and burn and cleanse all of this.

Now and then, he would break from the onslaught of condemnation to point out the love of God, or lessons from Scripture, Christ's sacrifice for mankind, the examples of Christian martyrs. But soon he would return to the stupidity of so-called wisemen, the vanity of women, the clerics that have 'killed Christ' in their hearts in order to play dice, thirst after money, chase after dead people for money, become slaves to love keeping concubines or boys or, who laughed in the choir. [pp. 25-6]

In the wake of these sermons, Martines says, Savonarola became known as the preacher for the 'desperate and malcontent'. He would however still be allowed to travel and preach elsewhere - in 1491 he went to Lucca for a dozen sermons - as well as teach and preach at his new, growing, home congregation in Florence. In July 1491 he was elected Prior of San Marco there. Later, he even had reportedly been invited to visit the dying Lorenzo de Medici in April 1492. [p. 28] There's no record of what they spoke of, only the normal blessings. But then, inevitably, the proliferating innuendo was spread.  In turn, in May 1492 and also early 1493, he went to Venice seeking support for his designs. In the spring of 1493 he went to Bologna and delivered new Lenten sermons there. [p.32]

Difficulties in Florence began as early as the year after Lorenzo de Medici's death. The other nobles and oligarchs within the de Medici circle had growing doubts of the lesser, twenty-year old son of the great il Magnifico, Piero de Medici. He was vain, liked horse riding and cultivated his own circle of 'new men' rather than listen to counsel from older, more experienced oligarchs. Wags said he acted more like his mother's family, the Orsini, and preferred fancy dressing and heroic posing to active engagement. [p.29] Distancing himself from day to day affairs and spending more time with his own friends and counsels, the increasing numbers of outsiders questioned more, and spoke more and more disparagingly of the young man. By the spring of 1493, some began insinuating that Piero might soon like to reform Florence itself into a reggimento and thus be called lord of some new-fangled Republic.

Meanwhile, as Piero saw no direct threat from Savonarola himself, the preacher as Prior at San Marco, extended certain austerities on the clerics there. Silver crosses and fancy rosary beads or finer cloth was removed, and more fasting, prayer, smaller cuts of rough cloth, less idle talk were encouraged.  Reforms of other churches outside Florence were also organized and pursued. In a decision by the new pope Alexander VI, it was in May 1493 that the convent at San Marco won independence from the Lombard Congregation. As that year progressed, these austere practices were exported to other convents in Fiesole, and in Pisa. The attempts at Siena to reform failed and the local Dominicans mounted a fierce opposition. In Pisa, the friars abandoned their offices rather than submit to the new rules. [pp. 31-2] After many initial failures and setbacks however, the message of Savonarola kept advancing and his influence spread.
_____________________________________
notes and pagination from Martines, Lauro: Fire In The City: Savonarola and the struggle for the soul of Renaissance Florence ; Oxford University Press, New York, 2006

Posted by at No comments:

news bits early November - late October 2015

Rather than a political campaign soundbite, or the seemingly unending drama around another horrific mass-shooting, earthquake,
Mexican Hurricane, or refugee crisis somewhere,

this week, the downing of  Russian airplane Flight 9268 in the Sinai desert where 224 people were killed, has consumed the media coverage cycles. Nobody knows the cause yet. Of course, it could turn out to be an onboard bomb or explosion, or a missile shot from the ground or some accident. Since the event, the Egyptian president has said he would allow the 'broadest form of investigation for Russian experts', President Putin of Russia has asked for such an investigation, and, European and American manufacturers have said they will participate in the analysis.
_________________________________________

In the US, the House of Representative voted on and elected a new Speaker of the House. His press rollout this week is upbeat, pictorial and today complete with a press-conference.

The advancement of Paul Ryan, the Rpublican Representative from Wisconsin, is not a surprise since he has a singular reputation as The Conservative Fiscal Hawk in the House, despite his economic statements. He gets this reputation merely because he was the one assigned to work with Rep. Patty Murray of Washington to fix the budget impasses over the last several years. He has also been known to want to limit the growth of Social Security and Medicare, and other 'entitlements' as a budgetary concern of behemoth government programs. Good luck with that! A super-sized omnibus bill 'clearing the slate' was quickly brought into focus by the House in the last days of the Boehner era and signed by President Obama yesterday. But,


Too many retirees are already dependent on these programs due to the weakness of the overall working class US economies. Most will remain so for decades into the future. And they will vote. But this new appointee comes a month after the announcement of the retiring House Speaker John Boehner. Very uncharacteristically, he afterward implied that the Christian Holy Spirit may have influenced his decision to retire.

Meanwhile, former House Speaker Dennis Hastert pled guilty to obstructing justice. A new way for the rich and powerful to get away with paying millions of dollars five years ago, to get former victims to not speak about alleged pedophilia of thirty years ago.

This week two important bills passed the Senate.
The real news looks at how soverign debt crises wreck economies.
___________________________________________

The Kansas City Royals led strongly in the first game of the US World Series in baseball this year 5-4 in 14 innings and won the series 4-1 with not a few strong showings.
_____________________________________________
There was a government blimp loose that flew from Maryland to Pennsylvania in the year 2015, dragging down powerlines and scrambling fighter jet drills. The internet went wild with glee. And now the maker Raytheon has decided to sue Canada.
____________________________________________
An excellent photo series of Hong Kong at night shows the time when locals shop.

A really great podcast talking about, singing, explaining and proving how music changes how we humans feel and think from Radiolab.


Posted by at No comments:

Streaming Youth of Gargantua Summarized

The first of this month in the west is All Saint's Day. In cheeky homage, a bit about Gargantua's youth seemed this year especially to be mockingly appropriate.
"Gargantua, from the age of three to five years, was brought up and instructed in all proper discipline, by order of his father; and this period he spent like the little children of the country, namely: in drinking, eating, and sleeping....
He wallowed in the mud, smudged his nose, dirtied his face, ran his shoes over at the heels, frequently caught flies with his mouth, and liked to chase butterflies of his father's realm. He pissed over his shoes, shit in his shirt, wiped his nose on his sleeve, dropped snot in his soup, and paddled around everywhere. He drank out of his slipper and ordinarily scratched his belly with a basket. He sharpened his teeth on a top, washed his hands in his porridge, and combed his hair with a goblet. He would set his butt on th ground between two chairs and cover his head with a wet sack. He drank when he ate his soup, ate his cake without bread, bit when he laughed and laughed when he bit, often spit in the basin, farted from fatness, pissed against the sun, and hid himself in the water from fear of the rain. He struck when the iron was called, moped around, was as sweet as sugar when he wanted to be, flayed the fox, said the monkey's paternoster, went back to his sheep, turned the sows out to hay, beat the dog in front of the lion, put the cart in front of the oxen, scratched himself where he didn't itch, tried to pump everybody, reached for too much and got little, ate his white bread first, put horsehoes on the geese, tickled himself to make himself laugh, was always running to the kitchen, offered sheaves of hay to the gods, made them sing the Magnificat at matins and found it quite alright, ate cabbage and passed white beets, knew flies when he seen 'em in white milk and pulled their legs off, scratched paper and smeared parchment, drew on the goat's leather, reckoned without his host, beat the bush without getting the birdie, believed that clouds were bronze canopies and kidneys were lanterns, took two miller's fees for one sack of grain, played the ass to get the bran, made a hammer out of his thumb, took the cranes at the first leap... always looked a gift horse in the mouth, ... made a ditch of the earth taken from the ditch, guarded the moon from the wolves, if the clouds fell hoped to catch larks, made a virtue of necessity, made soup of such bread, cared as little for the shorn as for the shaven, and every morning flayed the fox."
Our translator and editor Samuel Putnam, says that 'flayed the fox' means that he vomited.
_________________________________________
from pp. 78-80: Samuel Putnam: Portable Rabelais: Viking Portable Library: Second Printing: The Colonial Press Inc. USA, 1955
."
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)