An outline, era by era

Italian city-states (Venice, Florence, Genoa); early Renaissance

Medieval / Post-Classical Era · ~500 – ~1500 CE

From about the eleventh century, many towns of northern and central Italy became self-governing communes, free in practice from the rule of any king or emperor. Venice, Genoa and Florence were the best known. Venice and Genoa grew rich as sea powers trading with Byzantium and the Islamic world, while Florence rose through banking and the wool and cloth industry. They fought one another, and often fought within their own walls, but they also built new kinds of government, finance and civic life.

From the fourteenth century, scholars, artists and patrons in these cities, above all in Florence, revived interest in the writings and art of ancient Greece and Rome. This movement is called the early Renaissance, and it reached its first high point in the fifteenth century. The city-states matter because they helped shape modern banking, diplomacy and visual art, and because their wealth paid for much of what we now call Renaissance culture.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. The Venetian lagoon and the Pact with Byzantium

    Event

    What happened

    After the Lombard invasion of Italy in 568, refugees settle among the islands of the northern Adriatic lagoon. By the early eighth century the community has a leader called a doge, and it remains nominally under Byzantine authority. In 1082 Emperor Alexios I Komnenos grants Venetian merchants exemption from customs duties across the Byzantine Empire, in return for naval help against the Normans.

    The rest is history

    This privilege gave Venice a commercial advantage over its rivals in the eastern Mediterranean. Venice used it to build a trading network in Constantinople and the Levant. The city's wealth and its large fleet then made it a leading sea power, and it became a main supplier of ships to the later crusades. The grant is usually dated 1082, though historians debate some of its details.

    Sources

    1. BookNicol, Donald M. Byzantium and Venice: A Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
    2. BookLane, Frederic C. Venice: A Maritime Republic. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973.

  2. The Lombard League and the Peace of Constance

    Event

    What happened

    In the 1150s Emperor Frederick Barbarossa tries to enforce imperial rights over the towns of northern Italy. In 1167 a league of cities forms to resist him, and in 1176 its forces defeat him at the battle of Legnano. In 1183 the Peace of Constance recognises the right of the communes to elect their own officials and run their own affairs, while still acknowledging imperial overlordship.

    The rest is history

    The settlement confirmed in law what the cities had won in practice. Northern Italy stayed politically divided into many small states rather than becoming one kingdom, and the cities kept their freedom to develop their own governments and trade. This is one of the main reasons Italy was a land of city-states for the next several centuries.

    Sources

    1. BookWaley, Daniel, and Trevor Dean. The Italian City-Republics. 4th ed. London: Routledge, 2010.
    2. PrimaryPeace of Constance. Treaty between Frederick I Barbarossa and the Lombard League, 25 June 1183.

  3. The Fourth Crusade and the sack of Constantinople

    Event

    What happened

    In 1201 the leaders of the Fourth Crusade contract with Venice, under Doge Enrico Dandolo, to build a fleet to carry the army. The crusaders cannot pay the full price, and in 1202 they help Venice retake the Dalmatian city of Zara. In April 1204 they storm and sack Constantinople.

    The rest is history

    Venice gained a large share of Byzantine territory, including important ports and islands in the Aegean, and a quarter and a half of the empire in the partition treaty. This built the Venetian maritime empire in the eastern Mediterranean. Historians still debate how far the diversion was planned and how far it came from the crusaders' debts. The Byzantines recovered Constantinople in 1261.

    Sources

    1. BookQueller, Donald E., and Thomas F. Madden. The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.
    2. PrimaryVillehardouin, Geoffroi de. La Conquête de Constantinople. French chronicle, early 13th century.

  4. Genoa and the Treaty of Nymphaeum

    Event

    What happened

    In 1261 Genoa signs the Treaty of Nymphaeum with the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, who is preparing to retake Constantinople from the Latin rulers. In return for naval support, Genoa gets trading privileges and quarters in Byzantine ports. Later the Genoese settle at Galata across the Golden Horn and found colonies on the Black Sea.

    The rest is history

    The treaty gave Genoa an advantage over Venice in the Black Sea trade. The two republics fought a series of wars over the following century, ending with the War of Chioggia in 1378 to 1381, after which neither side could eliminate the other. Genoese merchants and bankers became prominent across the Mediterranean.

    Sources

    1. BookEpstein, Steven A. Genoa and the Genoese, 958-1528. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
    2. PrimaryTreaty of Nymphaeum. Agreement between Michael VIII Palaiologos and Genoa, 1261.

  5. Florentine banking and the florin

    Event

    What happened

    In 1252 Florence begins to mint a gold coin, the florin, which keeps a steady weight and purity. Florentine firms such as the Bardi and Peruzzi build branches across Europe, lending to popes and kings. In the 1340s several of the largest firms collapse after King Edward III of England defaults on his debts.

    The rest is history

    The florin became a standard coin of international trade. Banking and the cloth trade made Florence one of the largest cities in Europe by the early fourteenth century. After the failures of the 1340s, new banking families rose, among them the Medici, founded as a bank in 1397. Their wealth later paid for much Renaissance art.

    Sources

    1. BookGoldthwaite, Richard A. The Economy of Renaissance Florence. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.
    2. BookDe Roover, Raymond. The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank, 1397-1494. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963.

  6. The Serrata and Venice's constitution

    Event

    What happened

    Venice develops a government in which the doge shares power with councils. In 1297 the Great Council is closed to new families, a change called the Serrata, and by 1323 membership is largely hereditary. A Council of Ten is created in 1310 after a failed conspiracy.

    The rest is history

    The system gave Venice unusual political stability for the Middle Ages, with few coups compared with other Italian cities. Contemporaries and later writers admired it. It also limited power to a closed noble group of families, and so excluded most of the population from government.

    Sources

    1. BookLane, Frederic C. Venice: A Maritime Republic. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973.
    2. BookQueller, Donald E. The Venetian Patriciate: Reality versus Myth. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986.

  7. Petrarch and the revival of the classics

    Event

    What happened

    Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch, 1304 to 1374) collects and studies the works of Roman authors. In 1345 he finds a manuscript of Cicero's letters to Atticus at Verona. In 1341 he is crowned poet laureate on the Capitoline Hill in Rome.

    The rest is history

    Petrarch's search for ancient texts and his Latin writing helped begin humanism, a movement centred on the study of classical literature. His followers in Florence, such as Coluccio Salutati and Leonardo Bruni, took up the approach and applied it to civic life and education. Humanism became a core part of the early Renaissance.

    Sources

    1. BookKristeller, Paul Oskar. Renaissance Thought and Its Sources. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979.
    2. BookMann, Nicholas. Petrarch. Past Masters. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.

  8. The Florentine competition for the baptistery doors

    Event

    What happened

    In 1401 the Florentine cloth merchants' guild, the Arte di Calimala, holds a competition for a new set of bronze doors for the baptistery. Lorenzo Ghiberti wins over several rivals, including Filippo Brunelleschi. Brunelleschi later turns to architecture, and his dome for Florence cathedral is built between 1420 and 1436.

    The rest is history

    The commission began a period of rapid innovation in Florentine art. Ghiberti's doors took many years, and he later made a second set. Brunelleschi's dome and his work on perspective, together with Donatello's sculpture and Masaccio's painting, are seen as the start of the early Renaissance in the arts.

    Sources

    1. BookKrautheimer, Richard. Lorenzo Ghiberti. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956.
    2. BookKing, Ross. Brunelleschi's Dome. London: Chatto & Windus, 2000.

  9. Marco Polo and the tales of the East

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant, is said to have brought pasta, ice cream and gunpowder weapons back from China to Italy in 1295. The story presents his journey as the source of Italian foods and ideas.

    The rest is history

    Marco Polo did travel to Asia with his father and uncle and returned to Venice in 1295. His account, The Description of the World, was dictated to Rustichello of Pisa around 1298 while both were held prisoner in Genoa. The pasta story is a twentieth-century myth, and dried pasta is documented in Sicily and elsewhere before his return. Historians still debate how much of his book reflects his own experience.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryPolo, Marco, and Rustichello da Pisa. Il Milione (The Description of the World). Franco-Italian text, c. 1298.
    2. BookWood, Frances. Did Marco Polo Go to China? London: Secker & Warburg, 1995.
    3. BookLarner, John. Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.

  10. The Venetian horses and the doge's marriage to the sea

    Folk tale

    The legend

    Each year on Ascension Day, the doge of Venice sails out and throws a ring into the Adriatic, declaring that the sea is his bride. Venetians told that the ceremony began when a pope gave the doge the ring in a grant of power over the sea.

    The rest is history

    The Sposalizio del Mare was a real ceremony, held for centuries. It probably grew out of an earlier rite of blessing the sea, recorded around the year 1000, when Doge Pietro II Orseolo sailed against Dalmatian pirates. The tale of a papal gift of the ring, connected with Pope Alexander III and 1177, appears in later Venetian tradition and is not supported by contemporary sources. The ceremony ended when Napoleon ended the republic in 1797.

    Sources

    1. BookMuir, Edward. Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.
    2. BookLane, Frederic C. Venice: A Maritime Republic. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973.

  11. The founding of Venice on 25 March 421

    Origin story

    The legend

    Venetian tradition says the city was founded at noon on 25 March 421, when the church of San Giacomo was consecrated at Rialto. Refugees from Roman towns fleeing barbarian invaders are said to have set up the first free community there.

    The rest is history

    This date comes from later chronicles, written centuries after the event, and there is no contemporary evidence for it. Archaeology shows people living around the lagoon in Roman times, with larger settlement after the Lombard invasion of 568. The Venetians chose the date to link their city to Rome and to Christianity. The first reliable records of a Venetian duchy come from the eighth century.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryGiovanni Diacono (John the Deacon). Istoria Veneticorum. Latin chronicle, c. 1008.
    2. BookCrouzet-Pavan, Elisabeth. Venice Triumphant: The Horizons of a Myth. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
    3. BookNorwich, John Julius. A History of Venice. New York: Knopf, 1982.

  12. The Medici as secret rulers of Florence

    Popular belief

    The legend

    It is often said that the Medici family were hereditary princes who ruled Florence from the start of their rise, using their bank to buy all power and secretly run the city.

    The rest is history

    Florence was formally a republic, with offices filled by guild members chosen by lot. Cosimo de' Medici, exiled in 1433 and recalled in 1434, controlled the city through allies, patronage and influence over elections without holding a title. His grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent ruled the same way until 1492. The family were driven out in 1494 and restored in 1512. Only in 1532 was Alessandro de' Medici made hereditary duke, and in 1569 the title became grand duke of Tuscany.

    Sources

    1. BookKent, Dale. Cosimo de' Medici and the Florentine Renaissance. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
    2. BookNajemy, John M. A History of Florence, 1200-1575. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.

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