Political Structures
Florence and Venice in the
Renaissance HI320
• How does Venetian and Florentine
government evolve in the period and
why?
• What are the sources of power and who
has it?
• How do you achieve stable
government?
• C11-12 communal
governments
• elected own
leaders
• riven with conflict
Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Allegory of Justice,
Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, C14th
The Venetian Commune
• general assembly elects dux (doge)
• no feudal nobility
• short terms of office
• Great Council (Maggior Consiglio)
The doge
Giovanni Bellini, Doge Leonardo
Loredan (1501-2)
Serrata• late C13th:
limiting of guild
power
• closing of the
Great Council c.
1297
• hereditary status
to nobles
Sala del Maggior Consilio, Ducal Palace
• libro d’oro
• cittadini class
• popolani excluded
Pyramid of Government
Doge: elected for life
Signoria: Doge + 6 councillors
+ 3 heads of the Forty (8
month term)
Pien Collegio: Signoria + 16 Savi
Senate (Pregadi): c.
300
(1 year term)
Maggior
Consilio: all
adult male
patricians
Council of Ten
• created 1310 after
Querini Tiepolo
conspiracy
• state security
• by-pass bigger
councils
• quick, secretive,
summary justice
Chamber of the Council of Ten, Doge’s Palace
Florence’s
Palazzo dei Priori
(Palazzo Vecchio),
1290s
The Florentine
Republic
• Signoria = 8 priors (6 month term)
• Gonfaloniere della giustizia
• 12 Buonuomini + Gonfalonieri di
compagnia + Signoria = Tre Maggiori
• scrutiny (scrutinio)
The Medici
• Giovanni di Bicci (c. 13601429) builds fortune
• banker to pope
• Cosimo di Giovanni (13891464) takes over 1420s
• 1433 exile
• 1434 triumphant return!
Medici power
• accoppiatori
• elections a mano
• use of balìa
• Cento council created 1458
• international network
• peasant army
• patronage: parenti, amici, vicini
Cosimo ‘il vecchio’ de’ Medici
Piero di Cosimo
‘the gouty’ (1416-70)
Lorenzo di Piero ‘the
Magnificent’ (1449-92)
• takes over 1469
• charisma, international
support
• ‘Golden age’ of culture
• Pazzi conspiracy 1478
• Council of 70
• Lorenzo dies 1492
•1494 son Piero di Lorenzo
kicked out
• new Great Council
• influence of Savonarola
• 1502 Gonfaloniere a vita
Piero Soderini
Lorenzo de’ Medici’s death mask
• 1512 Medici return
•1527 Florentine Republic
• Clement VII (r. 1523-34)
• 1532 Alessandro de’
Medici = ‘First Duke of the
Florentine Republic’
Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici, later
Pope Leo X
(r. 1513-21)
Duke Cosimo de’ Medici
(r. 1537-74)
Government
• contado vs. distretto
• bigger towns left to administer, judge,
tax
• negotiation with individual communities
• resistance
• revolt of Pisa 1494-1509
Italy at the
Peace of Lodi,
1454
• Rule by consent
• Degree of autonomy
• Renegotiation of statutes
• Venetian justice
• Elites could not join Great
Council
• Major ecclesiastical
Lion of St. Mark,
Verona
positions for Venetians