Political Power of the Merchant Class- Renaissance (Part 2)

 

Italy was less a united entity in the late Middle Ages and more a pastiche of fortune and misfortune.

 From 1300 onwards, various endeavours and encounters rendered much of the country vulnerable and broken.

 The North saw lesser poverty than the South.

 Once the hub of the Mighty Roman Empire, the Latium centre had fallen into impoverishment with Rome in ruins.

 The Papal states battled against interference from the French and, later, the Spanish, while Philip the Fair of France challenged the very core of the Papacy by establishing the Avignon Papacy.

 Sicily, which had enjoyed a rich past under Arab domination, had since fell into the hands of the Normans and later to Staufen rule, and over the past two centuries its fortunes declined.

 From this intricate world of Italian politics arose the Merchant Class… While the South still struggled, Northern Italy flourished, becoming one of the wealthiest regions in Europe.

 Feudal Aristocratic prosperity, which prevailed throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, gave way to the new mercantile class and their financial prowess.

 In Northern Italy during the High Middle Ages, the development of urban areas broke the dominance of bishops and local counts.

 The wealth of the new merchant patriarchs overwhelmed the landed nobility, who’s power and influence were gradually reduced.

 This new financial order was further reinforced with the exponential growth of trade.

 As the wealth of the Italian City-States grew through merchant enterprise and trade, the Merchant Class increasingly took control of the government.

 They abolished or amended many restrictive medieval laws that impeded commerce, like the laws of usury and the embargo on trading with non-Christians.

 Furthermore, they renounced feudal laws that threatened with confiscation of land and wealth, designed to benefit the nobility alone.

 Instead, they supported security to sustained economic growth.

 As Europe welcomed the 14th Century, unpredicted and unprecedented disaster followed.

 Repeated famines, the Black Death and the Hundred Years’ War pushed Europe into uncertainty and recession.

 Against this backdrop, early Renaissance authors like Dante, Petrarch and Giotto emerged.

 Paradoxically, some of these disasters helped establish the Renaissance.

 The loss of life through famines and the Black Death wiped out between 30 and 60 percent of the European population, creating a vast shortage of labour.

 The limited workforce drove up wages over time, allowing the people to be better fed and with extra money to spend on luxuries.

 The population gradually rebounded, and with more people came increased demand for products and services, creating a competitive market for the growing class of skilled artisans, merchants, and bankers.

 Warring Italians

 Northern and upper Central Italy were largely safe from outside interventions, other than occasional skirmishes with the Holy Roman Empire.

 But for all the troubles they avoided externally, they made up for with internal conflict.

 The region was divided between warring city-states that fought each other for supremacy, with Venice, Florence, Milan, Genoa, Verona, Siena, Ferrara, Mantua, and Pisa being the most prominent and chief protagonists.

 Additionally, Italy was divided by conflicting interests of the Papal States and the Holy Roman Empire.

 The belligerent city states periodically threw their weight behind one side or the other, confirming an affiliation with the Guelphs or Ghibellines factions.

 Since the 13th century, wars happened with regularity and with considerable force.

 The city-states, while possessing limited manpower, used their immense wealth to field considerable mercenary armies.

 Gradually, through the 15th Century, the dominant states overcame their weaker neighbours.

 Venice took Padua, Vicenza and Verona in 1404, Florence annexed Pisa in 1406, while Milan captured Parma, Pavia and the surrounding areas.

 According to historian Hans Baron, a popular explanation for the early momentum of the Renaissance was the rise of Florence and its ambitions over the surrounding City-States, in particular its rivalry with neighbouring Milan.

 From the late 14th century, the Visconti family established a centralized monarchy in the Duchy of Milan.

 Giangaleazzo Visconti as ruler from 1378 to 1402, launched a series of wars determined to defeat and absorb the surrounding states.

 Florence stood against him, but he succeeded in overcoming numerous coalitions set up by Florence to repel him.

 In 1402 he launched his attack on Florence itself.

 Besieged, the City was seemingly on the verge of falling, but as fate would have it, Giangaleazzo died suddenly, and soon after his realm disintegrated.

 Baron claims that it was these long years of war that led to the growth of the Early Renaissance.

 According to his thesis, the leading figures in Florence managed to rally the people by spreading a political message that the “free republic” was forced to wage war against a ruthless “despotic monarchy”.

 This propaganda was meant to portray Florence as the carrier of the ideals of the Greeks and the Roman Republic, while Milan represented the oppressive and autocratic ideology of the Roman Empire and medieval kingdoms.

 Baron believed that it was Leonardo Bruni, a 14th century Italian humanist, historian, and statestman, who was responsible for crafting this ideology.

 It was during these turbulent times in Florence when some of the most influential figures of the Renaissance rose to prominence, such as Ghiberti, Donatello, Masolino, and Brunelleschi.

 Infused with Florence’s republican ideology, they would go on to represent republican ideas that eventually became central to the Renaissance.

 The Medici Family

 The House of Medici was an Italian banking family, political dynasty, and later royal house that first came to prominence under Cosimo de’ Medici in the Republic of Florence during the first half of the 15th century.

 The family had its roots in the countryside of the Mugello region of Tuscany, from where they grew and were eventually able to finance the Medici Bank.

 The bank became the most substantial in Europe, helping the Medici amass political power in Florence during the 15th century.

 The most significant endeavours of the Medici Family were their patronage of architecture and the arts throughout the Early and High Renaissance, and can be credited for the majority of the Florentine art during their reign.

 The family’s involvement in the textile trade was the initial driving force behind the growth of their wealth and influence, through their association with the guild of the Arte della Lana.

 Like other Signore families, their commercial success enabled them to develop substantial influence in the city’s government, until they gained full control over Florence and helped shape its culture with their support for the arts and Humanism.

 They furthermore developed accounting by improving the general ledger system with the introduction of the double-entry bookkeeping system for tracking credits and debits internationally and new structures for trade and commerce.

 The Medici’s were among the first businesses to use the system.

 The family was synonymous with Banking and political power in Italy and throughout Europe.

 Eventually, they became the Royal House of Medici, but prudently never presented themselves as monarchs.

 Instead they publicly embraced the image of ordinary citizens, a public relations move that won them much support from the people.

 Behind the scenes, the family was connected to all other elite families in Italy through marriages of convenience, business relationships, partnerships, or employment.

 Other powerful families could only access the rest of the elites through connections provided by the Medici, who held a central position in these prestigious social circles.

 These elite families, such as the Visconti and Sforza of Milan, the Este of Ferrara, and the Gonzaga of Mantua, were the ones who cultivated and instigated the birth of the Italian Renaissance.

 Cosimo di Giovanni de’ Medici, the first of the political dynasty, always described himself as primus inter pares, first amongst equals, deferring to the great democratic idealism of Florence.

 Indeed, Cosimo did not always get his way as the town council would defy him despite his dynastic attributes.

 Instead, his power lay in his wealth and the ability to buy votes.

 He would feign a lack of interest in political power to appease the democratic idealism of Florence.

 As Aeneas Sylvius, Bishop of Siena, and later Pope Pius II, said of him: “Political questions are settled in [Cosimo’s] house.

 The man he chooses holds office… It is he who decides peace and war… He is king in all but name.” In the late Middle Ages, international trade in the Northern States of Italy expanded and prospered.

 The ascent of the Merchant class changed the appearance of government as they took political control in the Italian City-States.

 A popular theory is that the Italian Renaissance grew out of the wars between Milan and Florence.

 Leaders in Florence encouraged the ideological rallying of democracy versus despotic monarchy.

 The Medici Family were instrumental as a catalyst for the Renaissance.

 The House of Medici were leading bankers, a Political Dynasty and eventually The Florentine Royal House.

 They sponsored the arts and architecture and developed commercial systems.

 In the next episode, we will analyse the church’s role in Italy during this period and Petrarch’s contributions to the Renaissance.