Social Life in Renaissance Florence Robyn Ryan, MLC ryanrj@mlc.vic.edu.au

1. Social Life in Renaissance FlorenceRobyn Ryan, MLCryanrj@mlc.vic.edu.au

2. Into the past – a different and partial world view • Physical perspective – localised and inward looking rather than globalised and outward looking • Religion – as major force shaping a Florentine’s understanding of the world and their actions • Personal identity and position – membership and responsibility to such communities as kin, friends, neighbourhood, parish, guild or city accepted as more important in defining an individual than personal character or needs • Personal connections and networks more important for individuals given the dangers and insecurities of the period and because our modern community ‘safety net’ only just developing • An incomplete and distorted window to the past – wealthy and male residents have left records but many other voices unheard; records can have particular perspectives and purposes that need to be evaluated • BUT a wonderful opportunity for people in the past to come alive and speak to us ; to make connections across time

3. To what extent was life in the community of Florence a supportive and secure place for all its residents? • Family • Neighbours • Friends • Residents on the margins

4. Defining family • Biological - kin links but could also include links by marriage • Spatial – individual households, networks of householdsin neighbourhoods or areas of the contado; collective identity • Language - large number of Italian terms describing blood and marriage relationships – casa, nazione, progenia, famiglia • Across time and generations • Multiple dimensions - personal identity, social status, economic wealth, political power • Met a range of needs – material, economic, social, political, personal - but accompanied by expectations on members • Family relationships complex - economic and political as well as social and emotional dimensions • Patriarchal and hierarchical • Marriage – to serve interests of family rather than meet needs of partners

5. Family – identity, support and security ‘The family forms an island of certainty in a treacherous sea who should live under the one roof ‘ ‘Keep business in the family rather than bringing in external partners.’ ‘Duty requires helping them not even so much with money, as with sweat and blood, and by any means one can, even to giving your life for the honour of the house and its members.’ Leon Battista Alberti ‘Families and lineages ‘give and receive in legitimate marriages, [and] through their marriage alliances and their love [toward each other] encompass a good part of the city, whence, being related by marriage, they charitably assist each other, conferring upon each other advice, favours, and assistance, which, in the course of life, results in benefits, advantage, and abundant fruits.’ Palmieri ‘I sent the marriage broker to him to tell him of my intentions, and I did so in order to acquire his good will and a marriage alliance with him, so that he would be obligated to work on my behalf for a reconciliation with the Corbizi.’ Buonaccorso Pitti

6. Family – the gap between and image and the reality; tensions and enmities • Relations between elders and younger family members – always cordial and with elders wielding power? • Gender relations - a passive role of women? • Emotional dimension to marriage and family? • A guarantee of personal and economic security? • Negative consequences of family allegiance ?

7. Family – perspectives • ‘Membership of the local parish church, of a guild, or a confraternity, even of a state, was far less significant to individuals than their membership of a family.’ • Family was ‘the centre of his life’, the ‘heart of his identity’ • Hole • ‘The household was the first focus of emotional and sentimental energies; it was also a distinct group with its own economic basis and its own sphere of political and social activity. Sometimes it was, or gave the appearance of being, a largely self-regarding group, immersed in its own concerns and those of its descendants.’ • Kent • ‘In an age when life was so tenuous and uncertain, the family bond was a source of material and psychic comfort, a measure of security in a dangerous world.’ • Brucker • The 2 primary defining relationships for a Florentine were his family and his city • Trexler

8. Family – questions for consideration and reflection • Was family the prime defining feature of an individual’s life? • How does it compare to features such as wealth, class or location? • Did the character of the family change over the period? If so, why? • Was the nature and role of family the same across classes? • Was it a more important feature of individual identity and support for one level of society over another?

9. Neighbours – identity, support and security • Political, economic, social and religious aspects of life manifested in physical location • A physical manifestation of family and friends, collective identity and solidarity

10. Neighbourhoods – heterogeneous and providing ‘social cement’ – vertical and horizontal ties No sections of the city were reserved exclusively for the rich, no ghettoes inhabited solely by the poor. Each district was a mélange of palace and cottage, of cloth factory and retail shop, of parish church and monastic foundation. Then, as now, the ground floors of elegant palaces were rented out to shopkeepers and artisans; rich bankers and industrialists lived on streets inhabited by shoemakers, stonemasons, indigent cloth workers, and prostitutes. This pattern was a result of the disorderly character of Florence’s expansion, and also of social tradition…’ • Gene Brucker, Renaissance Florence, p.23

11. Neighbours – tensions and enmities • Neighbourhood and family connections not a guarantee of support • The close proximity of neighbours could lead to issues over property, tax etc • Personal enmities within a neighbourhood could have negative financial and political consequences • ‘Keep your affairs secret from your neighbours.’ Morelli

12. Neighbours – perspectives ‘Florence did not divide itself up according to wealth and occupation.’ Eckstein Neighbourhoods provided a ‘bastion of security and stability in this volatile urban milieu.’ Brucker ‘Neighbourhoods…provided most goods and services required in daily life. To acquire basic necessities, emotional as well as economic, one was rarely required to leave one’s parish, gonfalone, or quarter of the city.’ Parishes were ‘the departure and terminal point for most manifestations of public unity’ Trexler ‘The Florentine’s sense of neighbourhood varied according to class, his status, and his sense of the utility of the local bonds in the attainment of specific objectives.’ ‘To acquire the basic necessities , emotional as well as economic, one was rarely required to leave one’s parish, gonfalone, or quarter of the city… One’s working community, social neighbourhood, and ancestral district were likely to occupy the same geographical space.’ Weissman Trexler minimises influence of neighbourhood, arguing that Florentines saw themselves as belonging to 2 key groups: family and the city. Eckstein, Murphy, Kent , Molho, Brucker, Cohn and Weissman acknowledge the key importance of neighbourhood along side other factors

13. Neighbours – questions for consideration • Did all gonfalone share common traits and features or did they have particular identities? • Were neighbourhoods co-operative, supportive and cohesive or competitive and fragmented? • To what extent did all residents share a common experience and life in a neighbourhood? • How important were factors such as wealth, class and gender in shaping an individual’s life in a neighbourhood? • Relative to family how significant was neighbourhood in defining an individual’s life? • What factors allowed for connections between neighbourhoods and across the city?

14. Friends – Defining connections

15. Friend and connections – identity, support and security • A period of hazards and dangers with few supportive public institutions and services • Both formal, overt , and informal networks • Some connections of equals, some hierarchical -patron/client • Both horizontal and vertical connections • Friendships and patron/ client relationships had political, economic, social, security, prestige and emotional elements • A system of exchanges - mutual responsibilities, obligations and benefits

16. Friends and connections ‘Fortunate and affluent [rich] men are indeed extremely useful friends, not so much because they will help you with their wealth and power directly, but because, as I have found by experience… they can show you the way to acquaintance with all lesser and ordinary persons. ‘ ‘We find that there is really nothing more difficult in the world than distinguishing true friends amid the obscurity of so many lies, the darkness of people’s motives and the shadowy errors and vices that lie about us on all sides. ‘ Alberti, 1430s ‘Let me warn you again that in our city of Florence wealth is conserved only with the greatest difficulty. This is due to the frequent and almost continual wars of the Commune, which have required the expenditure of great sums, and the Commune’s imposition of many taxes and forced loans. I have found no better remedy for defending myself than to take care not to gain enemies, for a single enemy will harm you more than four friends will help…’ Giovanni Rucellai Zibaldone, 1460

17. Friends and connections Connect yourself by marriage with those who are in power… and if you cannot arrange this, then make him [the man of influence] your friend by speaking well of him, by serving him in whatever way you can… Seek his advice… Show him your trust and friendship. Invite him to your house, and act in ways that you think will please him and will dispose him benevolently toward you. Always keep on good terms with those in power. Test your friend a hundred times… before you trust him, and do not trust him to such an extent that he canbe the cause of your undoing. G. Morelli, Ricordi

18. Patron/ client relationships Cosimo was ‘especially inclined towards sculpture and showed great favour to all worthy craftsmen, being a good friend of Donatello and all sculptors and painters; and because in his time the sculptors found scanty employment, Cosimo in order that Donatello’s chisels might not be idle, commissioned him to make the pulpits in bronze in S of his 4 assistants… He also befriended Marsiglio, son of Ficino, a man of good talent and carriage and learned in Greek and Latin. His means were small, and to keep him from poverty Cosimo bought him a house in Florence and a farm at Careggi, Lorenzo and the doors of the sacristy. He ordered the bank to pay every week enough money to Donatello for his work and for that giving him thus income sufficient to allow him to live with one or two companions, and generally to serve his need. Vespasiano da Bisticci (Life of Cosimo de Medici)

19. Friends – tensions and enmities Better to be friends with the wealthy than the poor but be careful. ‘They treat your loans as gifts and regard your promises as obligations.’ ‘One has to be far seeing … in the face of frauds, traps and betrayals.’ Alberti ‘Test your friends a hundred times.’ Da Certaldo ‘Believe little and trust less.’ ‘You have everything to gain from managing your affairs secretly. And you will gain even more if you can do it without appearing secretive to your friends.’ Guicciardini

20. Friendship – perspectives Positive, co-operative, valuable: On the case of Bartolemeo Cederini who lacked family or neighbourhood support ‘Friendship would have constituted the most significant social bond to Florentines such as Cederini.’ FW Kent Negative , competitive and detrimental: ‘Florence was a veritable cauldron of suspicion, mistrust, and envy, fuelled by the struggles for wealth, status and reputation.’ G Brucker ‘The essential feature of the Florentine social bond was its agonistic character. By this I mean that personal relations were perceived as being, at the one and the same time, competitive encounters occurring between adversaries and supportive encounters occurring between friends sharing numerous common interests, goals and bonds.’ Weissman

21. Friends – questions for consideration and reflection • Which factors were more significant for the establishment of personal connections – family, neighbourhood, political, economic or religious? • Were friendships essentially functional and pragmatic? Or did they involve personal ties and emotional attachments? • Were they essentially co-operative and supportive, or more competitive and combative? • Were horizontal or vertical connections more significant? • Did friendship vary according to wealth and class? • Was friendship the same for women and men? • Did friendship and personal connection have a social control function for some groups?

22. Groups on the margins • Exiled and disgraced family members – usually men • Women – prostitutes, widows and nuns • Orphans • Male youth • Homosexuality • The poor • Foreigners • Servants and slaves • Jews

23. Groups on the margins • Identity, support, security, inclusion • Exclusion, alienation and marginalisation

24. Groups on the margins – perspectives Festivals: ‘Pilgrimages and processions, feasts and festivals, and moments of ritual inversion and collective celebration offered ceremonial alternatives to the competitive and richly textured social worlds of Florence, allowing Florentines opportunities to reconstruct, reshape, if only for a brief, precious moment, their community.’ Weissman p. 41 Prostitution: Although both honour and religion sternly condemned the prostitute, commerce with her had little stigma… prostitution [was] a necessary evil that served public hygiene, as did a sewer. … City fathers allowed districts of toleration. The trade protected the established sexual order, as it distracted men from seducing chaste women… Prostitutes’ customers did no harm as the women had no more shame to lose.’ Kohen and Kohen p. 281 Male youth and social control: ‘…the ambiguous, fluid, nature that Renaissance culture ascribed to adolescence, whilst troublesome in some ways, could also be put to use. The unsettled shifts from virtue to violence and back again helped express and manage, if not resolve, some of the tensions entrenched in the society.’ Kohen and Kohen p. 197

25. Groups on the margins – issues for consideration and reflection • Which groups were most provided with identity, support, security, inclusion? What factors explain this? • Which groups were most excluded, alienated and marginalised? What factors explain this? • Were strategies of inclusion and support altruistic or about community control ? • Although key private networks such as those of ‘amici, vicini and parenti’ appear to define the place of the individual in the community, the period is also marked by an increase in the amount of commune intervention and regulation. How do we account for this seeming contradiction? Does this constitute a shift in attitudes and values over the period?

26. Conclusions - the extent to which life in the community of Florence was a supportive and secure place for all its residents • Family • Neighbours • Friends • Inclusion vs marginalisation

27. References • G Brucker (ed) (1967) Two Memoirs of Renaissance Florence: The Diaries of Buonaccorso Pitti and Gregorio Dati • G Brucker (ed) (1971) The Society of Renaissance Florence: A Documentary Study • G Brucker (2005) Living on the Edge in Leonardo’s Florence • RE Chamberlin (1982) The World of the Italian Renaissance • N Eckstein (1995) The District of the Green Dragon: Neighbourhood life and social change in Renaissance Florence • L Frieda (2012) The Deadly Sisterhood: A story of women, power and intrigue in the Italian Renaissance • R Goldthwaite (1968) Private Wealth in Renaissance Florence: A study of 4 families • FW Kent (1977) Household and Lineage in Renaissance Florence: the family life of the Capponi, Ginori and Ruccellai • FW Kent (1990) Bartolemeo Cederini and His Friends: Letters to an obscure Florentine • E and T Kohen (2001) Daily Life in Renaissance Florence • M Murphy The Gonfalone of the Red Lion in 1427 • J Najemy (2008) A History of Florence, 1200-1575 • R Trexler(1991) Public Life in Renaissance Florence