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Social Roots of Renaissance

BA (Hons.) History (University of Delhi)

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Italy during the fifteenth century was the birthplace of the Renaissance. The Renaissance had its
initial flowering in Italy and then spread to other parts of Europe. Italy did not exist as a political
entity in this period. Instead, it was divided into smaller city states and territories: the Kingdom of
Naples controlled the south, the Republic of Florence and the Papal States at the center, the Genoese
and the Milanese to the north and west respectively, and the Venetians to the east. These city states
form an important subject of study as they are representative of a whirlpool of social, economic and
political changes that characterized Renaissance Italy. Burckhardt notes that many of its cities stood
among the ruins of ancient Roman buildings; it seems likely that the classical nature of the
Renaissance was linked to its origin in the Roman Empire's heartland.
In Italy, feudalism was not strong enough and centralised. Amd though it had been the centre of the
Roman Empire, it had never witnessed parcellized sovereignty and fragmentation of land. Northern
and central Italy had an exceptionally large number of towns where urban life was very sophisticated
compared to the rest of Europe. Italy thus developed a polity based on city states. During the 9 th and
10th century, the “commune” gave birth to city-states, whose economy was based on trade and
commerce, and never lost its urban character. As communes got political autonomy, it got charters to
substantiate and legalise this autonomy. Smaller city states or “contado” rose from the commune, and
thus, the city state became the absolute political authority.
The communes which developed was both the cause and effect to a loose centric polity. As in Roman
times, the medieval Italian town lived in close relation to its surrounding rural area, or contado; Italian
city folk seldom relinquished their ties to the land from which they and their families had sprung. The
most powerful groups living in these communes were Grandi, the older elites and the Popolo, the new
emerging elites. Various councils were also emerging at this point like the Council Signoria, oligarchy
of nobles or Grandi’. Popolo were of two types: the Popoplo Grasso (wealthy elites with strong guild
backing) and Popolo Minuti (artists without guild support). The office of Podesta also rose which was
a contractual post given to non-citizens to protect the cities.
In Italy, growing towns demanded self-rule and developed into city-states. Each city consisted of a
powerful city and the surrounding towns and countryside. Italian city-states conducted their own
trade, collected their own taxes, and made their own laws. Some city-states, such as Florence, were
governed by an elected council. During the Renaissance groups of guild members,
called boards, often ruled Italian city-states. Some wealthy families gained long-term control; city-
states were ruled by a single family, such as the Medicis.
Polity and Society
The principal social groups particularly in Florence consisted of three categories. At the top of the
social strata were the ‘first citizens’ or the nobli/prinicpali who monopolised the political power and
kept all the principal posts to themselves. Members of this group were well educated and travelled and
usually lived in the urban spaces. Below the nobli were the people of modest wealth- the mezzani or
populari, the bakers, wine-sellers, artsits, lawyers and civil servants. They however, functioned within
guilds and these guilds had their own distinction and gradation. The top guilds were of cloth
merchants (calimala), wool manufacturers (arte della lana), silk manufacturers (arte della seta) and
bankers (cambio) were monopolised by the grandi. The mezzani were decently educated and the
propertied classes though their participation in the government was limited. The lowest strata
consisted of the poor- the poveri, who also made up the masses. Many of them were domestic servants
or manual workers and some of them also worked in the guild of cloth manufacturers. They were
excluded from political power.
In the late 14th century, there were five important city states- Milan, Venice, Florence, Papal states and
Naples. In 1454 the Peace of Lodi was the first peace treaty signed between these five city states
which organised them into a loose diplomatic alliance. The Lega Italica was a collective defence

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which would be formed when other city states were attack. This was significant as a situation was
created where no individual ruler could assert complete political authority over the other city states.
The presence of many city states led to a cultural and political competition between them. For Denys
Hay, it was polity of the Italian city states that acted as a stimulus for cultural change. It resulted in
cultural and intellectual diversity fuelled by patronage and a competition among the nobli to hire the
best people for the development of their cities.
If we observe political structures of the city states we note that the autonomy of cities and towns
varied from state to state. Towns might have a considerable degree of independence, for the region
was a loose confederation of some hundreds of different political units, some of them independent
cities. But all cities and towns possessed certain shared characteristics: collective authority exercised
by a group which was selected or elected, and not hereditary. Political historians of the19 th century
saw in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the emergence of phenomenon of ‘modern’ nation states
with a bureaucracy, secular values in public policy and balance of power. Peter Burke referred to it as
the ushering in of a modern age. We shall look at briefly, the history of these city states.
 Venice was an important coastal trading centre. Being a republic, it controlled other regions
like Verona, Padua, etc. By the 14th century, the Popolo mercantile faction ruled the city. The
Venetian constitution was celebrated for its stability and balance, thanks to the mixture of
elements from the three main types of government, with the doge representing monarchy, the
Senate aristocracy, and the Great Council democracy. The doge had little power, though he
appeared on the coins and outward respect was paid to him. However, Peter Burke calls this
‘balance’ to be a myth and says that the state had its own share of conflict between these three
power groups.
 Florence, the “birthplace of the Renaissance” controlled small city states like Pizza and its
polity can also be recognised as a republic. By the 14th century, the Medici banking family
established firm control of the state. Cosimo de Medici was an early leader and Pope Leo X
also came from the Medicis. However, Florence was witness to political instability and Burke
compares its political system to the dystopia portrayed in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Offices in
Florence rotated more rapidly than those in Venice, the chief magistrates, or Signoria, were in
office for only two months at a time. The minority of Florentines involved in politics was
much larger than in Venice, with more than 6,000 citizens eligible for the chief magistracies
alone.
 Milan was the primary trading route to France and Germany. Before the 14 th century, the
Visconti family protected Milan. Francesco Sforza who was hired as Podesta later turned
despotic and the office of Podesta became hereditary. Its primary rival was Venice.
 Papal states had their capital in Rome and emerged from a feudal pontifical setup. The pope
was the supreme nominal head but local dukes and nobles also used to rule. During the 14 th
century, the Pope had to leave Rome and the centre of the Papacy was in France, called the
Avignon Papacy. From 1378 to 1417 there was the Great Schism, during which multiple Pope
rose, it was only in the fifteenth century that the Papacy was regained.
 Naples was the most targeted area of foreign attack and was organised on feudal lines and had
a hereditary monarchy.
In smaller states like Ferrara, Mantua and Urbino, the key institution was the court and Norbert Elias's
pioneering work on the court culture gives us a key understanding to the roots of the Renaissance.
Courts numbered hundreds of people: in 1527 the papal court, for example, was about 700 strong.
From this point of view, the small circle surrounding Lorenzo de'Medici, the first citizen of a republic,
does not qualify for the title of 'court' at all. This court population was extremely heterogeneous, and
ran from great nobles holding offices such as constable, chamberlain, steward or master of the horse,
through lesser courtiers such as gentlemen of the bedchamber, secretaries and pages right down to
servants. There were also artists, musicians and sculptors who were patronised by the court.

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The court served two functions- public, where it was the seat of administration and private, where it
was the household of the prince. If the ruler decided to move, an entrouge, which Burke describes as
big as a small town would follow him. The cultural importance of the court as an institution was that
it brought together a number of gentlemen — and ladies — of leisure. It was crucial to what Elias
calls 'the civilizing process'. Like elegant manners, an interest in art and literature developed and
showed the difference between the nobility and ordinary people. Courts existed all over Europe, and
there were city-states, in practice if not always in strict political theory, in Netherlands, Switzerland
and Germany. Courts followed their own decorum, and patronage on the behalf of the scholars was
seen as important according to the records of Baldassare Castiglione.
The Italian historian Federico Chabod asked, 'Was there a Renaissance state?' which he answered in
the affirmative and pointed it to the rise of the bureaucracy. Max Weber substantiates this with his
argument of a patrimonial or bureaucratic state. In brief, a bureaucratic state is formal, impersonal,
where a public space is demarcated and marked by professionals where merit is the base of promotion
and is based on a system of division of labour and law and reason. Some states due to urbanisation
and presence of organisations like the Catholic Church were bureaucratic in nature. There was an
institutional means of preventing officials confusing public and private to their own advantage: the
sindacato. When an official's term of office expired in Florence, Milan and Naples, he had to remain
behind until his activities had been investigated by special commissioners or 'syndics'. It was in
Renaissance Italy that diplomacy first became specialized and professionalized (Mattingly, 1955). The
importance of written records in administration was increasing. The most striking examples of the
collection of information come from the censuses, notably the Florentine catasto of 1427, dealing with
every individual under the rule of the Florentine Signoria.
However, Burke points out that this state though bureaucratic, still ran on loyalty and personal favour.
At the court of Rome, official positions were regularly sold, especially in the reign of Leo X, and the
department of the Datary grew up to deal with this business. Offices were also sold in the states of
Milan and Naples. In Venice, for example, some offices were bought, sold and given as dowries.
Thus, it was important to have connections with the right people at this time, like the Medicis who
received countless letters from people who wanted to gain their support.
Many of the political conflicts of the time were struggles between rival 'factions', in other words
between groups of patrons and clients. Local rivalries continued to give some substance to the
venerable party terms 'Guelf (originally a supporter of the pope) and 'Ghibelline' (a supporter of the
emperor) as late as the sixteenth century. The patronage of artists and writers formed part of this wider
system. The fact that the two great republics, Florence and Venice, were the cities where most artists
and writers originated leads Burke to argue that the arts flourished in these republics since they are
organized on the principle of competition. One might also expect this drive to be stronger in Florence,
where the system was more open, than in Venice, where major public offices were virtually
monopolized by the nobility. In republics there was civic patronage, at its most vigorous in Florence
in the early fifteenth century, when artisans still participated in the government, and Brunelleschi was
elected to one of the highest offices, that of 'prior', in 1425. Civic patronage was weaker in the later
fifteenth century and weaker in Venice than in Florence.
Looking at the social structure of the time, a few factors need to be taken into account- the population
was low in the city-states. Only Naples and Venice had populations crossing 100,000. There were
strong ties to the local part of town individuals were from, the village and neighbourhood became
very important. Official impersonality was hindered by the fact that citizens might know officials in
their private roles. Renaissance Florence seems in some ways more like a village than a city, in the
sense that so many of the artists and writers with whom we are concerned knew one another, often
intimately.

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However, there was great disparity with regard to income and distribution of wealth. Peter Burke
illustrates how the servant received only 40 lire and the Venetian cardinal, 140,000 lire. Burke
questions if the society was bourgeoisie or not.
The literature of Renaissance Italy suggests a society which was unusually concerned with social
mobility. Individual cases of upward mobility are striking. Nicholas V, the so-called 'humanist pope',
lived in poverty in his student days, although he was the son of a professional man, a physician.
Bartolommeo della Scala was a miller's son who became chancellor of Florence. There was
considerable interest in ancient Greek and Roman examples of men of humble origins rising to high
place. However, this theory has been contested by later American scholars and Burke also accounts
that the evidence is indeed fragmentary at this stage. All the same there are good reasons for asserting
that social mobility was relatively high in the cities of fifteenth-century Italy, and above all in early
fifteenth-century Florence, with 'new men' coming in from the countryside and becoming citizens and
holding office which alarmed the old nobility. By the later fifteenth century, however, the ranks had
closed. In Venice itself there was little opportunity for new men to enter the patriciate throughout the
period, whatever mobility there may have been at lower levels.
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Italy was one of the most highly urban societies in Europe. In
1550, about 40 Italian towns had a population of 10,000 or more. Of these, about 20 had a population
of 25,000 or more, including Milan, Rome, Venice and Naples. In the rest of Europe, from Lisbon to
Moscow, there were probably no more than another 20 towns of this size. It must not be assumed that
all these townsmen were bourgeois. Renaissance Florence and other cities rested on the backs of what
contemporaries called the popolo minuto, the 'labouring classes'. All the same, the relative importance
of Italian towns is obviously linked with the relative importance of merchants, professional men,
craftsmen and shop-keepers. All these groups are sometimes called 'bourgeois'; none of them fits the
traditional model of a society divided into clergy, nobles and peasants. Machiavelli is a master of
political calculation, but he expressed contempt for Florence as a city governed by shop-keepers and
he described himself as 'unable to talk about gains and losses, about the silk-guild or the wool-guild'.
There are other links between the social structure of Renaissance Italy and its art and literature. The
importance of the lineage and the value set upon its cohesion, in noble and patrician circles at least,
helps explain the importance of the family chapel and its tombs, the focus of a kind of ancestor
worship. Large sums of money were spent on palaces partly because they were a symbol of the
greatness of the 'house' in the sense of the family. On the other hand, a breakdown of the cohesiveness
of the extended family may well have encouraged Renaissance 'individualism'. The idea of patronage
was a very important aspect of the Renaissance, which was often motive driven. Guilds, nobles,
municipality and churches were important patrons. There were two kinds of systems of patronage-
scholars and artists who could work generally on a regular basis for the patron, and creative artist and
scholars like da Vinci who had to be hired.
There were two interesting trends noticed in the arts. One was classism wherein, classical knowledge,
that is from Greco-Roman texts was taken as the highest form of knowledge, and the Classical form
was also imbibed in the painting style and structure. There was also a move, called scholasticism
which brought in Christian theology- logic was applied in the manner prescribed by the Aristotelian
school and became a form of studies.
The ambiguous status of the painter, the musician and even, to some extent, of the humanist are
special cases of a more general problem: that of finding a place in the social structure for everyone
who was not a priest, warrior or peasant. If the status of the artist was ambiguous, so was that of the
merchant. It is probably no mere coincidence that it was in cities of shop-keepers, Florence in
particular, that the artist was accepted most easily. It was easier for the artist to excel with the right
patronage. Thus, it is no surprise to find a relatively mobile society like Florence associated with
respect for achievement and also with a high degree of creativity.

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Economy: Robert Lopez was the earliest writer to see economic and cultural growth as an inverse
thesis, and said due to economic stagnation between 1350s to 1520s, wealth was distributed equally.
Long distance trade declined, and the only option that was there was to develop culture through
patronage of art and architecture to gain status. Carlo Cippolla also agrees that trade and commerce
was on the decline bur he criticises Lopez on basing his argument on limited sources. Centres like
Florence didn’t experience decline, and hence, it want a general decline, he believed that it was a
decline in population and hence, demographic factors which led to an increase in the standard of
living.
Economic changes were integral to these states in bringing about a new and changing context for the
cultural movement. There was a commercial revolution in economy with the destruction of the old
feudal system and the emergence of a new elite based on wealth rather than birth. Social and
economic changes were a necessary prelude to the Renaissance. These changes can be seen as part of
the great expansion of 1000-1300, which was accompanied by the monetarization of the economy,
commercialization and growth of industry. The leading sectors in development after the11 th century
were towns, and international trade. In the 13th century, much of Europe experienced strong economic
growth. By the 15th century, cities such as Florence and Venice had achieved material and artistic
sophistication. According to Hale, the Italian economy began to decline starting even in the14 th
century when there was a decline of communes, establishment of signori, decline in social life,
alienation of classes from public administration, political adherences and favoring of tradition over
merit and initiative. In fact, as Hale explains, that the second half of the16 th century was called the
Indian Summer of the Italian economy.

We now look briefly at what were the elements that led to the commercial revolution. The principle
factor was the emergence of commerce and banking. In the13 th century states like Piacenza and Lucca
took the lead in establishing business connections. The travelling merchant was replaced by the
sedentary businessman who operated through agents. By 1300, Italian mercantile and banking
companies were set up all across Europe in cities like Paris. Italy became the birthplace of innovations
in business techniques, organization of fairs, manuals of commerce, techniques of accounting, check,
double entry book-keeping, joint stock companies, systematized foreign exchange market
governmental endorsement and marine and land insurance. There were other financial devices also
like arrangements for sharing profits with partners or depositors, accounting systems, letters of
exchange etc. There was an efficient system of mail with the use of private and company letters and
couriers for contact and notarized agreements. There was a building up of uniform customs and rules
of law as the spread of Italian business methods took place all over Levant and Western Europe. The
existence of these institutions encouraged a mode of thought characterized by numerate mentality.

As a result, banking became an Italian specialty. The leading firms were Bardi, Peruzzi, Naples etc.
Banking and credit were the most rewarding forms of investment. Credit operations included loans to
government; bankers came to dominate business of exchange in 16 th century Europe. There were also
communal pawnshops, which could borrow and lend money with the pay of a regular interest.
Florence also had something called a dowry fund where the investor received money back with
interest on marriage of daughter. It was also possible to insure against loss of ships in Venice
especially. In Genoa on the wife’s death in childbirth.

We now turn attention to trade which was integral to urban revolution. The Crusades had built lasting
trade links to the Levant, and the Fourth Crusade had done much to destroy the Byzantine Empire as a
commercial rival to the Venetians and Genoese. The main trade routes from the east passed through
the Byzantine Empire or the Arab lands and onwards to the ports of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. Luxury
goods bought in the Levant, such as spices, dyes, and silks were imported to Italy and then resold
throughout Europe. From France, Germany, and the Low Countries, through the medium of the
Champagne fairs, land and river trade routes brought goods such as wool, wheat, and precious metals
into the region. The extensive trade that stretched from Egypt to the Baltic generated substantial

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surpluses that allowed significant investment in mining and agriculture. Thus, while northern Italy
was not richer in resources than many other parts of Europe, the level of development, stimulated by
trade, allowed it to prosper. The trade routes of the Italian states linked with those of established
Mediterranean ports and eventually the Hanseatic League of the Baltic and northern regions of Europe
created a network economy in Europe for the first time since the 4th century. Florence became the
centre of this financial industry and the gold florin became the main currency of international trade.

Towns were the main center of the commercial revolution as urban life contributed to commerce.
Cities and towns were centers of wealth production and of creativity. In the 10 th century the first
mercantile towns such as Bari came up. By the end of the 11 th century, the crusades led to the
development of maritime cities of Northern Italy, Venice Pisa and Genoa who were engaged in trade
with areas like the eastern Mediterranean which brought wealth to towns Expenditure was not just a
personal matter; it was a matter of corporate status as well. In the towns that emerged we look at the
importance of new families from among wealthy merchant bankers and industrialists who dominated
the city’s politics. The new mercantile governing class, who gained their position through financial
skill, adapted to their purposes the feudal aristocratic model that had dominated Europe in the Middle
Ages. In much of the region, the landed nobility was poorer than the urban patriarchs in the High
Medieval money economy whose inflationary rise left land-holding aristocrats impoverished. The
decline of feudalism and the rise of cities influenced each other; for example, the demand for luxury
goods led to an increase in trade, which led to greater numbers of tradesmen becoming wealthy, who,
in turn, demanded more luxury goods

The siting of the major urban centers of Renaissance Italy owed a good deal to the communication
system inherited partly from nature and partly from ancient Rome, Genoa, Venice, Rimini, Pesaro,
Naples, Palermo. Rivers were the easiest way to move goods so towns along the rivers grew as
important trade centers also. The Danube, Rhone and Rhine rivers all became important trade routes
and the towns along their banks grew. The towns also developed in response to demands from other
places for which services were performed. In pre-industrial Europe, Burke distinguishes three types of
service and city. The first kind is a commerce city with a port, like Venice. The second is a craft-
industrial town, like Milan or Florence. The third is a service city, which is most profitable.

The fact that towns were larger and more numerous in Italy than elsewhere does a good deal to
explain the importance in the social structure of the different 'middle classes', such as the craftsmen,
merchants and lawyers. Once established, towns were able to maintain their position by their
economic policies. Cities generally controlled the countryside around them, their contado, and they
might enforce at the expense of the countryside a policy of cheap food for their own inhabitants. The
contado was also forced to pay more than its share of tax, which must have been an incentive for the
more prosperous peasants to migrate to the city. Citizens also enjoyed legal and political privileges
which inhabitants of the countryside lacked.
There was a lot of migratory movement of population, with an influx from rural areas. The reason for
this was attraction and repulsion; the “frontier” was a new and dynamic world which could break ties
with an unpleasant past and had opportunities for economic and social success. The town would fill
with people who left the feudal world without regret. The walls of the town became a boundary
between two cultures in conflict. The cities controlled the countryside around them, their Contado, at
the expense of the country. The Contado paid more than its share of taxes which became an incentive
for prosperous peasants to migrate. Citizens had political and legal privilege which inhabitants of the
country lacked. Pregnant women from Lycca would travel to the city so that their children would be
born in city.
Despite the growing importance of grain imports urban structure rested on foundation of agriculture
particularly the fertile Po valley. By 1500, 85% of land between Pavia and Cremona was under
cultivation. Dairy farming was becoming important. South of Po valley picture is less rosy. By 14 th
and 15th centuries it was going out of cultivation with 10 % villages disappearing. Southern

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agriculture was in decline and the landlords abandoned estates to the managers’ care in order to settle
down in the towns. Economic oragnisation in the towns, according to Burke, remained traditional with
small workshop within a family business. Economic oragnisation within towns was usually through
guilds. Within the guild, masters protected their position against apprentices and journeymen; the very
small scale of most industry facilitated this kind of control. Relationships between guilds were also far
from equal. Merchants belonged to elite guilds whose economic power was protected by the urban
government (which of course they constituted) or the state; artisans belonged to less prestigious guilds
which had far less stake in urban government and whose activities were closely overseen by the urban
magistrates.
One important question discussed by Burke is whether the economy is capitalist. There were rich
entrepreneurs like Averardo Di Bicci De Medici which showed that it was possible to accumulate
wealth. As in some leading industries like cloth many workers were employed who were no longer
independent craftsmen. There was a division of labour of the most highly developed kind involving
men who were paid by day. In Genoa and Lucca, silk merchants provided raw material and spinning
machines which were hired out to spinners and looms to weavers. This system was different from the
industrial capitalism of the 19th century as it was not large scale and lacked direct control of
manufacturer but it was clear that the manufacturer played a central role in the control by indirect
means.

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