Florence, Of Rome and France: Portrait From Weinstein's "Savonarola", II

Continuing to look at the picture of Florence in Donald Weinstein's modern, clear-eyed account of that city's famous Friar Savonarola one must look at the relationship that Florence had with its Church, its Archbishop, its relations with Rome, as well as its internal politics. Despite the effects of the great plague, the numerous revolutions, assassinations, more than a few wars, and much internal conflict among families and between classes, the city's reputation still today retains a glow of freshness, virtue and even a sort of sanctity. This following gloss of quotes and barest context can only hint at the ongoing push and pull, over centuries.

"Building Florence was a collaborative effort involving government, clergy, aristocrats, wealthy gildsmen, skilled artisans, and laborers, and the sense of communal - if often fractious - participation and accomplishment remained a fundamental part of the Florentine republican identity. Important contributions to the urban landscape were the Dominican, Franciscan, and other mendicant friars who had begun arriving in the second quarter of the thirteenth century.... The mendicants were keen to depict the lives of their founders and saints on church doors, walls, windows, chapels, and crypts. Bishops and civic officials affixed their motifs and family crests.... Humbler parishioners contributed their pennies for candles and donated their labor." [p. 44]

Behind much of this, for centuries, lay the struggles between Guelf and Ghibelline factions. Owing allegiance to either the Pope in Rome or the Emperor and his allies, respectively, these parties had various familial and artisanal adherents, which over time would fluctuate.

"The control of Florence alternated between Ghibelline and Guelf until 1293 when a new set of ordinances established the principle of representation by occupation rather than party."

Only male citizens, enrolled in a guild, wealthy enough to pay certain taxes and enjoy the scrutiny of their peers (seduti) could be selected for administrative offices or deciding councils. The 'banking guilds, wool and silk merchants, lawyers, doctors, notaries and master craftsmen' were eligible. Names of these were drawn up, voted by lot, and, for varying councils and for varying lengths of time, these individuals would rule, temporarily. Until the next vote or revolution.

"Terms of service were strictly limited.... Members of the lesser gilds, journeymen, and gild-ineligible wage laborers (popolo minuto) ... were excluded as were members of the old landed aristocracy (magnati).

The Ordinances of Justice of 1293 were the Magna Carta of Florence's gild republic. With some adjustments they remained in force, at least formally, until the sixteenth century."

The Guelf party and its ties to Rome and its interests remained central to government and economics.

"The Guelf Party possessed great tax-exempt wealth and exercised conspicuous ceremonial, charitable, and honorific functions, such as the conferring of the title of knight, a dignity much prized in this society of merchants."

Long after the conflicts between the Guelf and Ghibelline parties were over, it was the descendants of the Guelfs that felt they were the caretakers of this Republican Florence. [p.45]

In the view of Giovanni Villani (the Chronicler of Florence until he died of the plague in 1348),

"...Florence's Roman-Guelf legacy stood for republican government, prosperity, and the charity and culture of her citizens, not territorial aggrandizement." 

The City was self-aware of her chosen alliance and wanted to nurture that image. It could see itself as both devoted to and prized by both Rome and France. As patrons, protectors, customers and even sometimes, foes, the City and its people could highlight different aspects.

"Writers forged a new version of Florence's history, reworking the old myth of Florence, the daughter of Rome, heir to Rome's imperial mission. In the second half of the thirteenth century a pseudo-prophecy of France's origin predicted that a King named Charles would rule the empire, reform the Church, and conquer the infidel in the East, uniting the world into one sheepfold under a single shepherd (Ezekiel 37.24)...."

In the following century that myth was reworked again into a closer relation with France. For Villani that extended to Charlemagne himself, perhaps the best known of Holy Roman Emperors, rebuilding Florence in his time, [p.46]

In the plague years, Florence and the church would fight a war over competing interests in southern Tuscany. Again, Florence would reassert its rights even after more internal revolution between the classes, and again politically, the ottimati would land on top of things. Within fifty years, the leading civic humanist of the day, Leonardo Bruni could tell Florentines that their city was built by the Roman people, and that they were the lord and leader of the world. [p.47] It was in this environment that the De'Medici family came to prominence as eminent bankers. Through the fifteenth century their influence and power grew across Europe but particularly in self-aware Florence.
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quotes and pagination in Donald Weinstein: Savonarola: the rise and fall of a renaissance prophet , Yale University Press, New Haven, 2011