01:360:401 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Girolamo Savonarola, Pope Nicholas V, Pope Leo X
21 May 2018
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Chapter 13: European Society in the Age of the
Renaissance
• The fourteenth century witnessed the beginning of remarkable changes in the
Italian society and in the fifteenth century, this Renaissance spread to
northern Europe
• Economic growth laid the material basis from the Italian Renaissance, from
1050 to 1300, witnessed commercial and financial development, the growing
political power of self-governing cities, and great population expansion
(cultural achievements)
• The period from the late sixteenth century was characterized by artistic
energies
• In the great commercial revival of the eleventh century, northern Italian cities
led the way
• Venice, supported by a huge merchant marine grew rich through overseas
trade
• Genoa and Milan enjoyed benefits of a large volume of trade with the Middle
East and Europe (exchange between the East and West)
• Genoa and Venice also made advancements in shipbuilding allowing ships to
sail all year long and the increased the volume of goods that could be
transported (accelerated speed) --the risks in such operations of trade were
great, but the profits were enormous
• The first artistic and literary manifestations of the Italian Renaissance
appeared in Florence but toward the end of the thirteenth century, Florentine
merchants and bankers acquired control of papal banking (acted as tax
collectors for the papacy)
• For Florence, profits from loans, investments, and money exchanges
contributed to the city’s economy but the wool industry was the major factor in
the city’s financial expansion and population increase as they purchased the
best quality of wool
• Florence developed remarkable techniques for its manufacture into cloth, and
employed thousands of works in the manufacturing process
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• The economic foundations of Florence were so strong that even severe crises
could not destroy the city such as huge debts of King Edward III or the Black
Death
•
• Northern Italian cities were communes, worn associations of free men seeking
complete political and economic independence from local nobles and fought
for and won independence
• Marriage vows often sealed business contracts between the rural nobility and
the mercantile aristocracy forming the new social class, an urban nobility
• New class made citizenship in the communes dependent on a property
qualification, years of residence within the city, and social connections
• A new force, popolo, disenfranchised and heavily taxed, bitterly resenting their
exclusion from power, wanted places in the communal government
• Throughout thirteenth century, popolo used violence to take over the city
governments
• Because they practiced the same sort of political exclusivity as had the noble
communes, the popolo never won the support of other groups
• The popolo could not establish civil order within their cities and the
movements for republican government failed and by 1300, signori (despots)
or oligarchies (rule of merchant aristocracies) had triumphed everywhere
• Nostalgia for the Roman form of government, combined with calculating
shrewdness, prompted the leaders of Venice, Milan, and Florence to use the
old forms
• In the fifteenth century, political power and elite culture centered at the
princely courts of despots and oligarchs who flaunted their patronage of
learning and the arts by munificent gifts to writers, philosophers, and artists
• Renaissance Italians had a passionate attachment to their individual city-
states which hindered the development of one unified state of Italy
• In the fifteenth century, five powers dominated the Italian peninsula: Venice,
Milan, Florence, the Papal States, and the kingdom of Naples
• Venice, with its trade and vast colonial empire, ranked as an international
power
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• Central Italy consisted mainly of the Papal StatesPope Alexander VI aided
militarily and politically by his son Cesare Borgia united the peninsula by
ruthlessly conquering
• The large cities used diplomacy, spies, paid informers, and any other available
means to get information that could be used to advance their ambitions while
the states of northern Europe were moving toward centralization and
consolidation
• Whenever one Italian state appeared to gain a predominant position within the
peninsula, other states combined to establish a balance of power against the
major threat
• Renaissance Italians invented the machinery of modern diplomacy:
permanent embassies with resident ambassadors in capitals where political
relations and commercial ties needed continual monitoring
• Imperialistic ambitions resulted in an inability to form a common alliance
against potential foreign enemies made Italy an inviting target for invasion
• When Florence and Naples entered into an agreement to acquire Milanese
territories, Milan called on France for support
• At Florence, the French invasion had been predicted by Dominican friar
Girolamo Savonarola who attacked paganism and moral vice of the city, the
undemocratic government of Lorenzo de’ Medici and the corruption of Pope
Alexander VI
• Girolamo Savonarola was excommunicated by the pope and executed
• The invasion of Italy by the French king Charles VIII inaugurated a new period
in Italian and European power politics; Italy became the focus of international
ambitions and foreign army
• Florence, Rome, and Naples soon bowed and Charles VIII’s son Louis XII,
formed the League of Cambrai with the pope and German emperor Maximilian
for the purpose of stripping rich Venice of its mainland possessions
• Pope Leo X called on the Spanish and Germans in a new alliance to expel the
French
• When France returned to Italy in 1522, a series of battles called the Habsburg-
Valois Wars began and in the sixteenth century, the political and social life of
Italy was upset by the relentless competition for dominance between France
and the empire
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Document Summary
Chapter 13: european society in the age of the. The fourteenth century witnessed the beginning of remarkable changes in the. Italian society and in the fifteenth century, this (cid:1688)renaissance(cid:1689) spread to northern europe: economic growth laid the material basis from the italian renaissance, from. 1050 to 1300, witnessed commercial and financial development, the growing political power of self-governing cities, and great population expansion (cultural achievements: the period from the late sixteenth century was characterized by artistic energies. In the fifteenth century, five powers dominated the italian peninsula: venice, Girolamo savonarola who attacked paganism and moral vice of the city, the undemocratic government of lorenzo de" medici and the corruption of pope. French: when france returned to italy in 1522, a series of battles called the habsburg- Valois wars began and in the sixteenth century, the political and social life of. Italy was upset by the relentless competition for dominance between france and the empire.
