Brucker: Ch1: The Renaissance City
The Setting: view of walls and towers, NOT on a hill/fluchtburg but
on a plain.
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Water:
river, floods a danger, so too maleria, but fertile, water supply, fish, power for mills,
for cloth industry (washing, fulling, dyeing of
cloth, barge traffic.
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Town
and country. City center to rural: farms/villa, hamlets, monastery;
cypress, olive, vine. Feudal nobility with estates; also and through immigration
to town, an affluent bourgeoisie who invested their capital in commerce
and who owned land in countryside of origin. Stable conditions --> secure
food supply.
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Urban
landscape: dominated by walls, public buildings (Signoria/
palace of Podesta, Cathedral (other church buildings)
and towers.
The Changing Face of F 1350 to 1450. 100,000 inhabitants
(Franklin, Agate, 24th and Pearl).
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Life
regulated by the sun, church bells to mark hours, arrival of farmers with
food; morning mass
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Shops
and workshops open sunrise to sunset
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Given
the cost of transportation, local manufacture was important
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Underworld
and the upper class
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Presence
of clergy and soldiers (mercenaries), merchants and traders for Catalonia, France,
Adriatic, Germany, Netherlands and
from eastern Mediterranean --> indicating network of trade connections.
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Old
market for commercial affairs, piazza Signorina for political
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Winter
a low time; spring revival with pilgrims and traders.
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Working
year broken up primarily by religious festivities / holidays. Socializing
in cult-based societies. Processions and ceremonies to stimulate
community pride and its achievements, also to provide “bread
and Circuses”.
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Major
threats: war/invasion...required walls and organized defense;
natural disasters: floods, plagues, famine. Social revolution...wealthy flee to
countryside; others remain indoors. The revolutionary situatio0n discouraged
food distribution...the specter of anarchy haunted many Florentines. The
generally demoralizing effect of the plague (loss of half the population,
orphans, widows, food supply, property ownership. Conventional
to speak of such elements as disruptive, but what does that mean?