The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

Libri, Histoire des Sciences Mathématiques, ii. 163 sqq.

171

Varchi, Stor. Fiorent. iii. p. 56 and sqq. up to the end of the 9th book. Some obviously erroneous figures are probably no more than clerical or typographical blunders.

172

In respect of prices and of wealth in Italy, I am only able, in default of further means of investigation, to bring together some scattered facts, which I have picked up here and there. Obvious exaggerations must be put aside. The gold coins which are worth referring to are the ducat, the sequin, the ‘fiorino d’oro,’ and the ‘scudo d’oro.’ The value of all is nearly the same, 11 to 12 francs of our money.

In Venice, for example, the Doge Andrea Vendramin (1476) with 170,000 ducats passed for an exceedingly rich man (Malipiero, l. c. vii. ii. p. 666. The confiscated fortune of Colleoni amounted to 216,000 florins, l. c. p. 244.

About 1460 the Patriarch of Aquileia, Ludovico Patavino, with 200,000 ducats, was called ‘perhaps the richest of all Italians.’ (Gasp. Veroneus Vita Pauli II., in Murat. iii. ii. col. 1027.) Elsewhere fabulous statements.

Antonio Grimani paid 30,000 ducats for his son’s election as Cardinal. His ready money alone was put at 100,000 ducats. (Chron. Venetum, Murat. xxiv. col. 125.)

For notices as to the grain in commerce and on the market at Venice, see in particular Malipiero, l. c. vii. ii. p. 709 sqq. Date 1498.

In 1522 it is no longer Venice, but Genoa, next to Rome, which ranks as the richest city in Italy (only credible on the authority of Francesco. Vettori. See his history in the Archiv. Stor. Append. tom. vi. p. 343). Bandello, parte ii. novello 34 and 42, names as the richest Genoese merchant of his time Ansaldo Grimaldi.

Between 1400 and 1580 Franc. Sansovino assumes a depreciation of 50 per cent. in the value of money. (Venezia, fol. 151 bis.)

In Lombardy it is believed that the relation between the price of corn about the middle of the fifteenth and that at the middle of the present century is as 3 to 8. (Sacco di Piacenza, in Archiv. Stor. Append. tom. v. Note of editor Scarabelli.)

At Ferrara there were people at the time of Duke Borso with 50,000 to 60,000 ducats (Diario Ferrarese, Murat. xxiv. col. 207, 214, 218; an extravagant statement, col. 187). In Florence the data are exceptional and do not justify a conclusion as to averages. Of this kind are the loans to foreign princes, in which the names of one or two houses only appear, but which were in fact the work of great companies. So too the enormous fines levied on defeated parties; we read, e.g. that from 1430 to 1453 seventy-seven families paid 4,875,000 gold florins (Varchi, iii. p. 115 sqq.), and that Giannozzo Mannetti alone, of whom we shall have occasion to speak hereafter, was forced to pay a sum of 135,000 gold florins, and was reduced thereby to beggary (Reumont, i. 157).

The fortune of Giovanni Medici amounted at his death (1428) to 179,221 gold florins, but the latter alone of his two sons Cosimo and Lorenzo left at his death (1440) as much as 235,137 (Fabroni, Laur. Med. Adnot. 2). Cosimo’s son Piero left (1469) 237,982 scudi (Reumont, Lorenzo de’ Medici, i. 286).

It is a proof of the general activity of trade that the forty-four goldsmiths on the Ponte Vecchio paid in the fourteenth century a rent of 800 florins to the Government (Vasari, ii. 114, Vita di Taddeo Gaddi). The diary of Buonaccorso Pitti (in Delécluze, Florence et ses Vicissitudes, vol. ii.) is full of figures, which, however, only prove in general the high price of commodities and the low value of money.

For Rome, the income of the Curia, which was derived from all Europe, gives us no criterion; nor are statements about papal treasures and the fortunes of cardinals very trustworthy. The well-known banker Agostino Chigi left (1520) a fortune of in all 800,000 ducats (Lettere Pittoriche, i. Append. 48).

During the high prices of the year 1505 the value of the staro ferrarrese del grano, which commonly weighed from 68 to 70 pounds (German), rose to 1⅓ ducats. The semola or remolo was sold at venti soldi lo staro; in the following fruitful years the staro fetched six soldi. Bonaventura Pistofilo, p. 494. At Ferrara the rent of a house yearly in 1455 was 25 Lire; comp. Atti e memorie, Parma, vi. 250; see 265 sqq. for a documentary statement of the prices which were paid to artists and amanuenses.

From the inventory of the Medici (extracts in Muntz, Prècurseurs, 158 sqq.) it appears that the jewels were valued at 12,205 ducats; the rings at 1,792; the pearls (apparently distinguished from other jewels, S.G.C.M.) at 3,512; the medallions, cameos and mosaics at 2,579; the vases at 4,850; the reliquaries and the like at 3,600; the library at 2,700; the silver at 7,000. Giov. Rucellai reckons that in 1473(?) he has paid 60,000 gold florins in taxes, 10,000 for the dowries of his five daughters, 2,000 for the improvement of the church of Santa Maria Novella. In 1474 he lost 20,000 gold florins through the intrigues of an enemy. (Autografo dallo Tibaldone di G.R., Florence, 1872). The marriage of Barnardo Rucellai with Nannina, the sister of Lorenzo de’ Medici, cost 3,686 florins (Muntz, Précurseurs, 244, i).

173

So far as Cosimo (1433-1465) and his grandson Lorenzo Magnifico (d. 1492) are concerned, the author refrains from any criticism on their internal policy. The exaltation of both, particularly of Lorenzo, by William Roscoe (Life of Lorenzo de’ Medici, called the Magnificent, 1st ed. Liverpool, 1795; 10th ed. London, 1851), seems to have been a principal cause of the reaction of feeling against them. This reaction appeared first in Sismondi (Hist. des Rép. Italiennes, xi.), in reply to whose strictures, sometimes unreasonably severe, Roscoe again came forward (Illustrations, Historical and Critical, of the Life of Lor. d. Med., London, 1822); later in Gino Capponi (Archiv. Stor. Ital. i. (1842), pp. 315 sqq.), who afterwards (Storia della Rep. di Firenze, 2 vols. Florence, 1875) gave further proofs and explanations of his judgment. See also the work of Von Reumont (Lor. d. Med. il Magn.), 2 vols. Leipzig, 1874, distinguished no less by the judicial calmness of its views than by the mastery it displays of the extensive materials used. See also A. Castelman: Les Medicis, 2 vols. Paris, 1879. The subject here is only casually touched upon. Comp. two works of B. Buser (Leipzig, 1879) devoted to the home and foreign policy of the Medici. (1) Die Beziehungen der Medicus zu Frankreich. 1434-1494, &c. (2) Lorenzo de’ Medici als italienischen Staatsman, &c., 2nd ed., 1883.

174

Franc. Burlamacchi, father of the head of the Lucchese Protestants, Michele B. See Arch. Stor. Ital. ser. i. tom. x., pp. 435-599; Documenti, pp. 146 sqq.; further Carlo Minutoli, Storia di Fr. B., Lucca, 1844, and the important additions of Leone del Prete in the Giornale Storico degli Archiv. Toscani, iv. (1860), pp. 309 sqq. It is well known how Milan, by its hard treatment of the neighbouring cities from the eleventh to the thirteenth century, prepared the way for the foundation of a great despotic state. Even at the time of the extinction of the Visconti in 1447, Milan frustrated the deliverance of Upper Italy, principally through not accepting the plan of a confederation of equal cities. Comp. Corio, fol. 358 sqq.

175

On the third Sunday in Advent, 1494, Savonarola preached as follows on the method of bringing about a new constitution: The sixteen companies of the city were each to work out a plan, the Gonfalonieri to choose the four best of these, and the Signory to name the best of all on the reduced list. Things, however, took a different turn, under the influence indeed of the preacher himself. See P. Villari, Savonarola. Besides this sermon, S. had written a remarkable Trattato circa il regimento di Ferenze (reprinted at Lucca, 1817).

176

The latter first in 1527, after the expulsion of the Medici. See Varchi, i. 121, &c.

177

Macchiavelli, Storie Fior. l. iii. cap. 1: ‘Un Savio dator di leggi,’ could save Florence.

178

Varchi, Stor. Fior. i. p. 210.

179

‘Discorso sopra il riformar lo Stato di Firenze,’ in the Opere Minori, p. 207.

180

The same view, doubtless borrowed from here, occurs in Montesquieu.

181

Belonging to a rather later period (1532?). Compare the opinion of Guicciardini, terrible in its frankness, on the condition and inevitable organisation of the Medicean party. Lettere di Principi, iii. fol. 124, (ediz. Venez. 1577).

182

Æn. Sylvii, Apologia ad Martinum Mayer, p. 701. To the same effect Macchiavelli, Discorsi, i. 55, and elsewhere.

183

How strangely modern half-culture affected political life is shown by the party struggles of 1535. Della Valle, Lettere Sanesi, iii. p. 317. A number of small shopkeepers, excited by the study of Livy and of Macchiavelli’s Discorsi, call in all seriousness for tribunes of the people and other Roman magistrates against the misgovernment of the nobles and the official classes.

184

Piero Valeriano, De Infelicitate Literator., speaking of Bartolommeo della Rovere. (The work of P. V. written 1527 is quoted according to the edition by Menken, Analecta de Calamitate Literatorum, Leipz. 1707.) The passage here meant can only be that at p. 384, from which we cannot infer what is stated in the text, but in which we read that B. d. R. wished to make his son abandon a taste for study which he had conceived and put him into business.

185

Senarega, De reb. Genuens, in Murat. xxiv. col. 548. For the insecurity of the time see esp. col. 519, 525, 528, &c. For the frank language of the envoy on the occasion of the surrender of the state to Francesco Sforza (1464), when the envoy told him that Genoa surrendered in the hope of now living safely and comfortably, see Cagnola, Archiv. Stor. iii. p. 165 sqq. The figures of the Archbishop, Doge, Corsair, and (later) Cardinal Paolo Fregoso form a notable contrast to the general picture of the condition of Italy.

186

So Varchi, at a much later time. Stor. Fiorent. i. 57.

187

Galeazzo Maria Sforza, indeed, declared the contrary (1467) to the Venetian agent, namely, that Venetian subjects had offered to join him in making war on Venice; but this is only vapouring. Comp. Malipiero, Annali Veneti, Archiv. Stor. vii. i. p. 216 sqq. On every occasion cities and villages voluntarily surrendered to Venice, chiefly, it is true, those that escaped from the hands of some despot, while Florence had to keep down the neighbouring republics, which were used to independence, by force of arms, as Guicciardini (Ricordi, n. 29) observes.

188

Most strongly, perhaps, in an instruction to the ambassadors going to Charles VII. in the year 1452. (See Fabroni, Cosmus, Adnot. 107, fol. ii. pp. 200 sqq.) The Florentine envoys were instructed to remind the king of the centuries of friendly relations which had subsisted between France and their native city, and to recall to him that Charles the Great had delivered Florence and Italy from the barbarians (Lombards), and that Charles I. and the Romish Church were ‘fondatori della parte Guelfa. Il qual fundamento fa cagione della ruina della contraria parte e introdusse lo stato di felicità, in che noi siamo.’ When the young Lorenzo visited the Duke of Anjou, then staying at Florence, he put on a French dress. Fabroni, ii. p. 9.