Page 289 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1590 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

remained a mosaic of independent states, ruled by that could offer comfort to them as bankers who took
princes or oligarchies of powerful families who received money at interest, despite the injunctions against usury,
their authority from the Holy Roman emperor or the who needed advice concerning the government of guilds
pope. Because neither the emperor nor the pope enjoyed and cities, who wanted advice on the conduct of families,
sufficient authority to suppress the other, Italy remained and who needed a culture that reflected their particular
fragmented until the nineteenth century. However, for the circumstances and that spoke to their role in this world
development of the Renaissance, this fragmentation was as engaged lay citizens.
beneficial because it encouraged competition for the best Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch, 1304–1374) first articu-
artists, architects, and writers, and it permitted a degree lated this search. Born into an exiled Florentine family, he
of economic, social, and political experimentation impos- was a poet, philosopher, cleric, and diplomat. In his Ital-
sible elsewhere on the continent. ian poetry he celebrated human love and the desire for
In Florence the Guelf party ultimately triumphed with fame while advocating good style in Latin to clarify and
papal support, and the city reaped the reward of becom- externalize individual experience. Finally, he was interested
ing the banker for the pope and the Church.The old feu- in himself and his fellow humans and their experience in
dal families were tamed, disenfranchised, and excluded this life. He made popular once more autobiography as a
from government through a mercantile coup d’etat in genre, and he stressed the validity of the exploration of
1293 that created the republican constitution that would one’s self and one’s world.
govern Florence throughout the Renaissance. The city Petrarch found a model for his ideas and his style in
became an oligarchy ruled collectively by all adult male the ancient world. Rome was, after all, an urban, mer-
citizens who belonged to the twenty-one recognized cantile, secular society, originally republican like Flo-
guilds. It had an elaborate mechanism to forestall rence, and possessed of a great literature that explored
tyranny, entrusted to a collective executive of nine men. the human condition. He solved the problem posed by
Even after the de’ Medici family managed to assume pagan authors in a Christian society by stressing that they
political hegemony (influence) in 1434 under Cosimo de’ were good men as illustrated in their writings: Ancient
Medici (il vecchio, d. 1464), the city remained a func- writers, such as the Roman Cicero (d. 43 BCE), could
tioning republic until the sixteenth century, with the advise the contemporary world in matters of ethics, even
head of the family merely manipulating policy behind the though Christian belief was still required for salvation.
scenes.The greatest of the de’ Medicis, Lorenzo the Mag- The ancient world, then, could safely be adopted as a
nificent (d. 1492), led the city through its celebrated efflo- model for both secular life and art: It could be reborn
rescence of culture and political influence, although he (renaissance).
remained throughout his life only a leading citizen and
not a prince. Wisdom of the Ancients
The social, economic, and political revolutions of the These revolutionary ideas changed the European per-
thirteenth century in Italy obviously created powerful new spective, spreading through Italian republics and princi-
groups of citizens with different ambitions and values palities and then north of the Alps. Human experience
from the old medieval world characterized by priests, was now celebrated, and this life was identified as some-
knights, and peasants.The lives of citizens were secular; thing worth cultivating and studying. The ancients set a
they were often highly educated and very cosmopolitan, standard for Europeans first to emulate and then to sur-
having lived abroad in many places as merchants. More- pass. To accomplish this, people had to recover the
over, they were new men, without great names or natu- knowledge and wisdom of the ancient world; hence, the
ral authority to support them: They had made their own tools of philology (the study of literature), textual editing,
way in the world, and they searched for a value structure archaeology, and numismatics were developed.To know