Florence in the Early Renaissance

Source URL: http://smarthistory.org/Florence.html Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/courses/arth206/ (Art History 206)

Attributed to: SmartHistory

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Florence in the Early Renaissance Smart History

The Renaissance really gets going in the early years of 15th century in Florence. In this

period, which we call the Early Renaissance, Florence is not a city in the unified country of Italy,

as it is now. Instead, Italy was divided into many city-states (Florence, Milan, Venice etc.), each

with their own form of government.

Now, we normally think of a Republic as a government where everyone votes for

representatives who will represent their interests to the government (remember the pledge of

allegiance: "and to the republic for which it stands..."). However, Florence was a Republic in the

sense that there was a constitution which limited the power of the nobility (as well as laborers)

and ensured that no one person or group could have complete political control (so it was far

from our ideal of everyone voting, in fact a very small percentage of the population had the

vote). Political power resided in the hands of middle-class merchants, a few wealthy families

(such as the Medici, important art patrons who would later rule Florence) as well and the

powerful guilds.




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Florence in the Early Renaissance