Map Link: Renaissance Italy: Map Link: Europe during the 15th Century: < colbeck.jpgcolbeck.jpg> constitutional oligarchies despotisms

Signoria (Council of 9 Guildsmen), incl. “Standard Bearer of Justice” 1283 Merchants of Florence exclude nobles from public office 1402 Florentines defeat Duke of Milan Cosimo de’ Medici ( ) Albizzi

Fall 1434 Pro-Medici signoria elected. Albizzi and supporters exiled Building power Patronage: Marsilio Ficino ( ) Donatello (c ) Cicero ( BC)

Piero “the Gouty” ( ) Lorenzo the Magnificent ( ) Patronage, e.g. Michelangelo ( ) Sandro Botticelli ( )

Pope Sixtus IV (p )Volterra alum 26th April 1478 Pazzi attempt to kill Lorenzo at Cathedral of Florence excommunicationinterdict Council of Seventy

Why was Italy (and particularly Florence) the cradle of the Renaissance?

Humanism: Attempt to understand world and human condition through Classical tradition Imitating example of the Classical past, to learn art of civilised living Rejecting medieval scholasticism. Concern with applied wisdom

Dante Alighieri ( ) The Divine Comedy (1321) Inferno Purgatorio Paradiso 1290s Involved in politics 1302 Exiled from Florence

Francesco Petrarch ( ) Poet and promoter of Latin texts Advocate of study original Classical Latin Seeker of forgotten Latin texts

Giovanni Boccaccio ( ) Writer and diplomat Advocate of study of Classical Greek Decameron (completed 1358)

Isotta Nogarola of Verona ( ) “Why then was I born a woman, to be scorned by men in words and deeds?” Guarino da Verona: Set your gender aside and create “a man within the woman.”

1450s Isotta corresponds with Ludovico Foscarini, leading to… Dialogue on Adam and Eve Oration on the Life of St Jerome Lauro Quirini praised her for overcoming her “own nature. For that true virtue, which is essentially male, you have sought with singular zeal.”