HIS32440

Florence is one Europe’s greatest cities and the birthplace of the artistic and cultural movement known as the Renaissance. Although a relatively unimportant centre until the thirteenth century it thereafter grew rapidly in size, wealth, power and prestige. This expansion was based on a thriving economy dominated by the textile industry, commerce and banking. Despite a decline following the devastating Black Death (1348) by the early fifteenth century Florence had become one of the leading city-states in the politics of the Italian peninsula during together with other large states such as Milan, Venice, Naples and the Papacy. At this time one of the city’s great banking families - the Medici - became rulers of the city in all but name, firstly under Cosimo il Vecchio (1434-64), and then his son Piero (1464-69) and grandson Lorenzo ( 1469-92), known as 'the Magnificent'. Art and architecture flourished under Medici patronage and Florence became the leading centre of the Italian Renaissance. However, following French and Spanish invasions of Italy in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the political importance of the city declined. The Medici were expelled and papal Rome surpassed Florence as cultural and artistic centre. The Florentine republic was revived episodically between 1494 and 1512, an era associated with such famous figures as Savonarola and Machiavelli, and again more briefly in the late 1520s, before the Medici returned to rule as Dukes of Tuscany. The module will study Florence in its heyday, paying particular attention to themes such as the tension between republicanism and family power; changes in social structure and class consciousness; factionalism and conflict; territorial expansion, war and municipal patriotism; commerce and banking; civic humanism and education; the writing of history and the shaping of the past; ecclesiastical organisation and popular piety; trends and symbolism in the private and public patronage of art, architecture and literature.