Social Life in Renaissance Florence - HTAV

Suzanne Bell
St. Catherine’s School

The social structure
Popolo grasso- patricians
Power, wealth and status
Members of major guilds
10% of population
Popolo minuto- lower classes
Wide disparity in wealth- minor guildsmen to vagabonds
90% of the population

The urban landscape
Meaning of the term ‘social map’
Importance of neighbourhood
Streets and piazze as public and private space
Civic centre- Piazza della Signoria
Religious centre- Cathedral and Baptistry

Nature of Florentine society
The precarious world of Renaissance Florence- Agnolo
Acciaiuoli “a paradise inhabited by devils.”
- Ronald Weissman- ‘agonistic’
The importance of belonging to corporate groups, such as
guilds, confraternities, families, neighbourhoods in
medieval times. Did this continue?

Historiography
Jacob Burkhardt- Renaissance Italy “began to swarm with
individuality” as its men and women were freed from the
“countless bonds” of medieval solidarities and corporations,
such as clan, guilds and neighbourhoods.
Gene Brucker- “By the end of the 14 th century, these corporate
groups were declining in strength and vitality, and were
playing a less important role in Florentine life.
F.W. Kent- “Quattrocento Florentines, however… sought
advantage, protection and comfort in a bewildering variety of
groups and social bonds…which they inherited from the late
medieval commune.”

Gonfalone- social life
Historically the gonfalone brigade defended their part of the city wall
Self sufficient neighbourhoods
Families congregated in neighbourhoods
- commissioned art and architecture within their own gonfalone
- Family chapels in gonfalone
-Families buried together in gonfalone
-Marriage- change over time
-Godparenting
-Filippo Strozzi returned after generation of exile to ancestral
gonfalone
Sense of belonging. Weissman “Social and psychic support” Kent-
‘Sacred spaces’.
Marched together in civic ritual “St. John the Baptist Day”

Importance of Gonfalone- political
advantages
The Scrutiny system
Importance of gonfalone recognised in the Constitution-
16 Gonfaloniere; Gonfaloniere of Justice (rotation)
BUT
Giovanni Rucellai case study- supports Brucker’s view.

Importance of Gonfalone- economic
advantages
Taxation system, particularly the Estimo.(survived until 1458-
Catasto from 1427-1434)
Giovanni Rucellai, suspect by the regime due to Strozzi link,
wrote in 1457 that he had survived “ because I have been in the
grace and benevolence of paternal kinsmen, relatives,
neighbours and the rest of the men of my gonfalone, who are
much to be praised because always in the tax concessions that
are granted locally they have served and helped and had
compassion for me.
Families owned property in common often within their own
gonfalone.
A Florentine law stated that if a property was to be sold the
neighbour had the first right of refusal
Economic decisions were made by the family as a unit rather
than by individuals within a family.

Importance of Family
Political significance
- Congregation of families in a particular gonfalone
- A practice maintained throughout the 14 th and 15 th centuries- Catasto
records
- Families acted as a political unit- sworn pacts, laws to regulate power in
communal governments
Economic significance
- business decisions made collectively
- ownership of property together
Marriage ties
Dowries

Importance of friendship ties
Political and economic networking advantages
Paolo da Certaldo “ a man who loses his friends is worse than
dead.”
Alberti “ Fortunate and affluent men are indeed extremely
useful friends, not so much because they will help you with
their wealth and power directly, but because… they can show
you the way to acquaintance with all lesser and ordinary
persons.”
Could be cross class- eg Bartolomeo Cederni and the
Pandolfini family
Brucker argument

Civic ritual
Spiritual/cultural meaning- reciprocal relationship with the
patron saint- homage from the Florentines in return for
protection.
Refusal to allow Savonarola to ban “the devil’s work”
Gave men a sense of belonging to Florence.
Gave the government an opportunity to promote the
values of the Republic. (eg St.Anne’s Day and
republicanism. Walter di Brienne exiled on St.Anne’s Day
in 1343)
Promotion of civic pride- St. Victor and St. Barnabas
Days.

Confraternities
Spiritual purpose- laudesi and penetential. Importance of salvation
Socio economic- charity eg St Agnese and La Brucciata in Green
Dragon; Misericordia
Sense of belonging to city wide group
Possible political networking forum
- dissolution of the Confraternities 1419
- Lorenzo de’ Medici membership of 5 confraternities

Incorporation or exclusion of
marginalised groups- the poor
the differences in wealth, housing and lifestyle between the
patriciate class, who had wealth and power, and the Popolo
Minuto, who constituted 90% of the population.
Attitudes- Brucker “a mixture of distaste, compassion and
fear.”
Ritual- excluded from civic ritual but local street festivals
Institutionalised charity
Kent – vertical ties. “to be rather loved than feared”
Confraternities- usually city wide
Social map. Weissman- “social bonds (in the gonfalone) were
not only dense, but multi faceted.”

Incorporation or exclusion of
marginalised groups- women
Laws- political and economic
Marriage conventions-
- Dowry- legally the widow’s on the death of the husband
but in practice difficult to reclaim
- Tornata- right of return to own family
- If widowed they could leave with their dowries but without
their children.
Non inclusion in ritual- passive onlookers
Restricted in physical environment of the city
- law against entering the Palazzo della Signoria
- Piazza della Signoria a male domain
Marriage portraits

Incorporation or exclusion of
marginalised groups- Jews, prostitutes,
homosexuals
Reasons for incorporation and/or exclusion
Methods of incorporation/exclusion
- Laws, regulations and conventions
1406- % of interest charged on loans limited by law
1463- law to enforce wearing by Jews of an ‘O’, one
foot in circumference

Incorporation or exclusion of
marginalised groups- Jews, prostitutes,
homosexuals
Homosexuality prohibited
- reputation of the city
- against the morality of Christianity
- threatened the continuation of powerful patrician families
Laws included fines and prohibition from political office
Special committees to undertake surveillance
Financial bonuses to judges for guilty findings.
Special clothes to be worn by prostitutes
State run brothels to regulate what could not be stamped out.