Chapter 13 Siena and Florence in the Fourteenth Century: Toward a New Humanism Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2008 by Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ All rights reserved.

How do the Sienese and Florentine republics compare? Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2008 by Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ All rights reserved.

The city halls of Florence and Siena, including the broad plazas in front of them, are eloquent symbols of the cities’ similarities as well as of the intensity of their rivalry in the fourteenth century Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio is heavy-looking, reflecting the solidity of the merchant class that erected it Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico (“public palace”) reflects artistic refinement In both Siena and Florence, the fortunes of church and state were inextricably linked Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2008 by Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ All rights reserved.

Siena: A Free Commune Siena established itself in 1125 as a free commune (a collective of people gathered together for the common good) This prospect of freedom attracted an increasing number of people to Siena, which brought prosperity to the town The town was ruled by various factions of consuls, nobles, clergy, common people, and guilds The guilds (associations of people with the same occupation) grew more and more powerful By 1368, the vying factions caused the disintegration of the government Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2008 by Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ All rights reserved.

Florence: Archrival of Siena Like Siena, Florence was extremely wealthy, and its wealth was based on trade As in Siena, it was the city’s bankers and moneylenders who made Florence a vital player in world trade Florentine bankers invented checks, credit, even life insurance In 1252, they introduced Europe’s first single currency, the gold florin As in Siena, the guilds controlled the commune, which eventually led to problems Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2008 by Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ All rights reserved.

What came to replace the Byzantine style of painting in Italy, and why? Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2008 by Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ All rights reserved.

Both Siena and Florence put themselves under the protection of Virgin Mary It did not take long before they were competing to prove who could paint her the most magnificently In the process, they began to represent her less in the stiff, abstracted manner of the Byzantine icon and more as a real person of flesh and blood Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2008 by Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ All rights reserved.

Duccio and Simone Martini One of the first artists to break from the Byzantine tradition was the Sienese native Duccio di Buonsegna (active 1278 – 1318) Duccio’s Maestà begins to abandon the conventions of the Byzantine icon and to incorporate the Gothic tendency to naturalism Simone Martini had worked as Duccio’s apprentice on the Maestà, and probably modeled his own version on it Martini’s Maestà is even more naturalistic, showing the Virgin sitting in the deep space of the canopy Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2008 by Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ All rights reserved.

Cimabue and Giotto Cimabue’s Madonna Enthroned with Angels and Prophets solidified his position as the leading painter in Florence Most remarkable are Cimabue’s concern for spatial volume and his treatment of human figures with naturalistic expressions The four prophets at the base of the throne are surprisingly individualized, suggesting the increasing prominence of the individual personality in the era The most remarkable shift toward naturalism can be seen in the work of Cimabue’s apprentice, Giotto di Bondone Giotto apparently learned to draw accurately from life, and his figures show his skill Giotto also was capable of revealing a wide range of emotion and character in the human face Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2008 by Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ All rights reserved.

What are the distinguishing characteristics of Dante’s Divine Comedy? Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2008 by Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ All rights reserved.

In the early twelfth century, authors across Europe began to write in the vernacular, the language spoken in the streets One of the greatest medieval Italian vernacular poets was Dante Alighieri (1265 – 1321) Dante’s Divine Comedy records the travels of the Christian soul from Hell to Purgatory and finally to Salvation in three books—the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso The rhyme scheme of the Divine Comedy is terza rima— an interlocking three-line pattern invented by Dante that goes a/b/a, b/c/b, c/d/c, and so on The three-line stanza is part of a numerological pattern in the poem Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2008 by Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ All rights reserved.

How did the vernacular style continue to develop after the Black Death? Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2008 by Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ All rights reserved.

In December 1347, the bubonic plague arrived in Sicily Within months, the disease spread northward throughout Europe In Tuscany, the death rate in the cities ran about 60 percent Trying to find a scapegoat, many blamed the Jews The false confession from a tortured Jew led to widespread and brutal persecution of the Jews across Europe The frank treatment of reality found in the visual arts carried over into literature The direct language of the vernacular proved an especially appropriate vehicle for rendering truth Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2008 by Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ All rights reserved.

Literature after the Black Death: Boccaccio’s Decameron One of the most remarkable accounts of the plague can be found in the Decameron (“Work of Ten Days”) by Giovanni Boccaccio (1313 – 1375), who had survived the Black Death The Florentine writer presents 100 stories as told by young noblemen and women who escaped plague- ridden Florence for the countryside Boccaccio introduces into Western literature a kind of social realism previously unexplored Perhaps reflecting the reality of death that surrounds them, the stories depict daily life as it is truly lived Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2008 by Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ All rights reserved.

Petrarch’s Sonnets One of Boccaccio’s best friends was the itinerant scholar and poet Francesco Petrarca (1304 – 1374), known as Petrarch Petrarch’s sonnets, composed in memory of the poet’s beloved Laura, inaugurate one of the most important poetic forms in Western literature Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2008 by Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ All rights reserved.

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales The first Englishman to translate Petrarch was the middle-class civil servant and diplomat Geoffrey Chaucer (ca – 1400) Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales are modeled on Boccaccio’s Decameron The Canterbury Tales is a framed collection of stories told by a group of pilgrims traveling from London to the shrine of Saint Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury Chaucer tells about life in the Middle Ages with a realism even more profound than Boccaccio’s Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2008 by Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ All rights reserved.