Unit 4: Area of Study 1
Social Life in Renaissance
Florence
Roslyn Halliday, Monash University
Florentines lived in close
proximity which affected
their social relationships.
Gene Brucker, Renaissance Florence, p.23
The plan for the session….
1. Key knowledge
2. More detail on some key knowledge
points
3. How to approach the essay
Study Design - Preamble
• Italian city-states such as Florence and Venice possessed distinct social structures
shaped by their economic and political bases. These social hierarchies were reflected
in many aspects of everyday life such as dress, housing, food, entertainment and the
social map of the city based on neighbourhoods. There is historical debate over just
how important neighbourhoods, gonfalone in Florence and sestieri in Venice, were to
political, economic, social and religious aspects of life at this time.
• While it is agreed that a range of social relationships were crucial to a Florentine or
Venetian citizen’s existence, historians have variously described them as competitive,
pragmatic or co-operative typified by economic and political networks, but rarely as
personal ties like love or friendship. The functional view has been shaped by evidence
of conventions such as the strategic location of families within neighbourhoods,
marriage contracts and dowries, and the institutionalisation of charity.
• Within each city, many people, such as the urban poor, foreigners and ‘deviants’, fell
outside the networks created by the dominant elite. Historians have suggested that
various means, such as legislation (e.g. controlling foreigners, prostitutes and
homosexuality), institutionalised charity and festivals were used to incorporate these
groups into, or exclude them from, city life in the interests of civic harmony.
• Students will investigate the nature and role of social conventions and relationships
based on location, wealth, gender, class, or inclusion within or exclusion from the
cities mores.
Key knowledge
This knowledge includes:
1. The social structure of Florence during the
Renaissance;
2. The social map of Florence and how it reflected social
identity, wealth, gender and class relationships;
3. The importance of aspects of social life such as family,
marriage, dowries, charity, social legislation and
festivals to the life of the city.
1. Social Structure
• Relates to one’s position within Florentine society in
terms of status, honour, wealth, political involvement
• Social hierarchies shaped by economic and political bases
2. Social Map
• Based on neighbourhoods (gonfaloni)
• The gonfalone and the relationships within it (inlcuding
those of parenti, amici, vicini, parishes)
• The nature of these relationships: whether they were
cooperative or competitive; whether they were
characterised by love and friendship as we understand it
• How important the gonfalone was to political, economic,
social and religious aspects of life at this time
• More specifically: social identity, wealth, gender, class
relationships
3. Aspects of social life
• People who fell outside the networks created by the
dominant elite
• Eg. urban poor, foreigners, ‘deviants’
• How these people were incorporated into, or excluded
from, city life in the interests of civic harmony
• Eg. through festivals, legislation, institutionalised
charity
The nature of social
relationships
• Weissman: “The essential feature of the Florentine social
bond was its agonistic character”
• ‘dense, multitextured social network’
• “The more extended one’s network, the greater were one’s
chances of worldly success”
• Alberti: ‘One has to be far seeing…in the face of frauds, traps
and betrayals’
The dowry
• Sometimes a larger dowry would be offered in order to marry “up”
• Sometimes a large dowry was to compensate for something else
(apart from low social status). Alessandra Strozzi: “Things do not go
so high unless there is a defect.”
• Poor girls who did not have a dowry usually went to a convent.
Sometimes they were donated a dowry eg. by a confraternity
• The Dowry Fund – est. 1425 by the Signoria. Fathers deposited
money in the monte for each daughter (ie. with the govt)
100 florins deposited for 7.5 yrs = 250 florins
100 florins deposited for 15 years = 500 florins
(Kirshner and Molho,’ The Dowry Fund and the Marriage Market in Early
Quattrocento Florence’ in The Journal of Modern History, Vol 50 (3), Sept 1978,
pp.403-438)
By way of comparison, Alessandra Strozzi’s dowry was 1600 florins,
although this was regarded as extraordinarily high. (Anne Crabb)
Beyond parenti, amici, vicini….
How else did Florentines forge
social networks?
1. Marriage
•Girls were usually married at the age of 16 to men who were around
30 years of age or more (Tomas)
•Linking families, creating allies for social, economic, political benefit
•Marriage was ‘the cement that bound together this elite’. (Brucker)
•Alessandra Strozzi letters.
2. Parishes
•Rich and poor came together in local parish church
•“A large part of Florence’s collective identity was created and
transformed in public ritual . . . there was little distinction between
Drago’s parish life and that of its community, and parish was most
assuredly a community – as much as an ecclesiastical - affair.” (Eckstein
p. xxiii)
Beyond parenti, amici, vicini
3. Confraternaties
•Voluntary associations – worship, charitable acts and sometimes
other rituals
•Usually membership came from all over the city – allowed for
interaction between different parishes, gonfalone and quarters
•Alsointeraction between different social classes
•Means of securing networks of friends/patrons outside of
neighbourhood
Charity was an important part of confraternaties
•eg. Company of San Frediano called Brucciata - located in poor area in
south of the Arno (gonfalone of Drago Verde). Distributed bread to
poor, buried the dead, provided dowries to poor girls.
Lorenzo de’ Medici joined 6 confraternaties
•Helped extend his networks
•Also helped keep his finger on the political pulse of potentially
disruptive groups (Nicholas Terpstra)
Beyond parenti, amici, vicini
4. Patron – client relationships
•Critical to one’s network of social relationship
•Example of Cederini
The story of Cederini
F.W. Kent, Bartolommeo Cederini and His Friends: letters to an
obscure Florentine, 1990
•Cederini (1416-1482) did not come from old extensive family like
Rucellai or Sassetti. He was without family of significance.
•His career and connections may be explained by the “horizontal and
vertical ties of clientage” that existed in quattrocento Florence. (ie.
patronage)
•Importance of “friends of friends” (p.10)
•His network didn’t centre around the gonfalone. He had a weak
position in the neighbourhood so he sought connections outside of it.
•Difference between rich and poor
•“…personal contacts and inside knowledge about personalities and
their connections were essential for advancement, if not survival.”
(p.38)
•“Friendship in this complex sense would have constituted the most
significant social bond to Florentines such as Cederini…” (p.47)
Cederini
• “Neighbourhood, kinship and friendship: these were for the
‘honourable’ classes the ingredients of social life in
Renaissance Florence. Like a good cook, the city’s historian
can and should vary the amount of each ingredient – more
friendship and less patri-lineal kinship for Cederini, a more
balanced mixture for Giovanni Rucellai and the Medici, and so
on – but cannot make do without them.” (Kent, p.47)
Inclusion and Exclusion
• Who was INCLUDED and EXCLUDED from society?
• How?
• In the interests of civic harmony
Exclusion:
• Women, Jews, homosexuals, prositutes
• Largely through legislation
Inclusion:
• Festivals
• Institutionalised charity
Inclusion and Exclusion - homosexuals
Inclusion and Exclusion - prostitutes
Gene Brucker, The Society of Renaissance Florence: a documentary study, New York,
Harper & Row, 1971
Inclusion and Exclusion - Jews
Gene Brucker, The Society of Renaissance Florence: a documentary study, New York,
Harper & Row, 1971
Essay writing
1) It sounds obvious, but ANSWER THE QUESTION!
2) Construct an ARGUMENT (don’t just write everything you
know)
3) Support your argument with EVIDENCE – primary and
secondary sources.
•
•
•
•
Quotes (from primary and secondary)
Paraphrasing (from primary and secondary)
Examples
Employ the ‘SO WHAT?’ principle. After every quote or example
say why you have put it there; what does it tell us?
Some examples…
2005 Exam Question
In his Ricordi the Florentine merchant Giovanni Morelli advised
his sons: ‘to become familiar with the men of substance in
your neighbourhood…’
Discuss how the social map of Florence reflected social
identity.
How to approach the essay
1) Turn statements into questions to be answered:
In what ways did the social map reflect social identity?
2) Highlight key words – SOCIAL MAP and SOCIAL IDENTITY. Also
in the quote - NEIGHBOURHOOD
3) Define key terms (so you know what you’re talking about!)
- Social map: to do with gonfalone; networks of
relationships including parenti, amici, vicini; also
confraternities, parishes
- Social identity: one’s position within Florentine society
in terms of status, honour, wealth, political involvement
Approaching the essay cont’d
So another way of asking the same thing would be:
How did the gonfalone/neighbourhood & the relationships
in it reflect one’s position/involvement in society?
4. Brainstorm ideas
•The gonfalone both reflected and affected social identity
•Tax and political eligibility were decided at the level of
gonfalone
•Gonfalone was central to the formation of social identity
through relationships of parenti, amici, vicini as well as parish
•Relationships beyond the gonfalone were also important to
shaping social identity eg. confraternity and patronage
5. Do an essay PLAN
INTRODUCTION
The gonfalone both reflected and shaped one’s social identity in
Renaissance Florence. The gonfalone was central to the
formation of ones’s social identity as it was at this local level
that political eligibility and taxation was decided. It provided the
Florentine with a strong sense of tradition and honour and is
described by FW Kent as being a ‘sacred space’ to families. The
relationships formed within the gonfalone, including those of
parenti, vicini and amici, were central to the formation and
development of one’s social identity; however, social bonds
formed beyond the gonfalone, including those developed
through confraternaties and patronage, were also important to
achieving social, political and economic success.
Para 1
TOPIC SENTENCE: The gonfalone provided patrician families’
with a strong sense of lineage and family honour which was
integral to maintaining or augmenting one’s social standing.
EVIDENCE
•In 1427 nearly all of the 23 houses of the Rucellai family lived
on the same street and this continued for at least the next
century (FW Kent) Geographic ties were crucial to their sense of
identity.
•Lineage was physically reflected in the large palaces they built
on ancestral land (built to reflect their wealth and to bring
honour to the family name).
Para 2
TOPIC SENTENCE: The gonfalone was important to a family’s political
success as it was at this level that political eligibility was decided.
EXPLANATION: Family solidarity within the gonfalone was particularly
important for those of the political class, as the consolidation of family
member sin the same district strengthened their political might.
Holding political office was the key to social standing (Kent and Kent)
EVIDENCE:
•Kent and Kent – ‘it was in the gonfalone that citizens set their feet on
the bottom rung of the ladder in the long climb into the ruling group
and up through it to the very top of the social pyramid.”
•Eckstein notes that ‘citizens habitually sought to guarantee political
and economic success for themselves and their families by
transforming neighbours into relatives.”
•Morelli advised his sons ‘to look first within your own gonfalone and if
you can make a marriage there you should be readier to do so than
elsewhere’.
Para 3
TOPIC SENTENCE: The relationships forged within the gonfalone could
directly affect one’s economic success through the levying of taxes.
EXPLANATION: Under the estimo system of taxation which survived
until 1458 (replaced by the Catastoin 1427-34 and after 1458), the
gonfalone held the responsibility of determining the amount of tax to
be paid by its residents. Taxation could be used by powerful men to
either promote or destroy families.
EVIDENCE
•Francesco Datini wrote a chapter in his diary called, ‘How we left the
Borgo [Santa Croce] because of the great taxes we received from our
neighbours’.
•Morelli advised his sons, ‘don’t advertise that you are rich. Instead, do
the contrary…’, so to avoid a heavy tax assessment.
Para 4
TOPIC SENTENCE: It was important that relationships outside of
the gonfalone were cultivated for political and economic success
within the city, for example through confraternities and
patronage.
EVIDENCE:
•Weissman: ‘The more extended one’s network, the greater
were one’s chances at worldly success”
•FW Kent’s study of Cederini – he had a weak position within his
gonfalone, so he sought connections outside of it, particularly
through ties of patronage.
Conclusion
The gonfalone was integral to one’s political, economic and
social success within Florentine society.
•Re-state main points (look at your topic sentences)
•Could suggest relationships within the gonfalone may have
been more important to those from patrician families (FW Kent)
Other essay questions and
examiners’ reports
2009 Examination
In what ways were the Florentines who were not part of the
dominant elite included in the social life of the city?
In your response you must draw on a range of evidence and
relevant historians’ views.
Examiners’ report
• Need to go beyond a general description of Florentine social life
• Identify the institutions, events and locations where rich and poor,
males and females interacted.
• Many students simply recited the parenti, amici and vicini and added
that it was important for all to have friends and marry well. This very
general approach was not an appropriate response to this question.
• Florentines prayed together and so the Parish would have been a useful
area to examine. The Confraternities were engaged in charitable work
and their support of the poor was evidence of the relationship between
the elite and the rest of the population. Festivals were occasions where
many of the different groups in the city came together. Although many
students touched on festivals, they often did not give examples or did
not go on to discuss the social interaction the festival provided for. Some
excellent answers considered the arrangements that were made for
poor women through the Dowry Fund and others discussed the
regulation of the lives of prostitutes and homosexuals. There was some
good writing that made use of the government control of the granary
and the distribution of grain that occurred in times of famine with the
resultant social interaction.
Examiners’ report
Following is the beginning of an excellent response to this question.
Although the dominant elite profited the most from Florentine social
life, those from a lesser social standing and background were still
included in this life. Brucker says that each gonfalone was a ‘melange
of palace and cottage’ emphasizing the social and economic
heterogeneity of each neighbourhood and thus apotheosizing this
concept of all classes taking part in social life. One of a limited social
status could ‘gain access to the networks of others’, (Weissman)
through the friendship of the elite. One could take part in the festivals
of the city, which joined rich and poor alike. Charity was another means
of ensuring that all Florentines could contribute to the city’s social life.
Despite this, there were deviant groups such as the Jews and
prostitutes, who although discriminated against were still accepted in
society.
Another one to try
2008 Examination
To what extent can neighbourhoods (gonfaloni) in Renaissance
Florence be described as competitive and/or cooperative in
relation to social life?
Examiners’ report
This question provided students with the opportunity to discuss
the cooperative aspects of Florentine neighbourhoods and the
advantages the individual could derive from the neighbourhood.
Points could have been made about the heterogeneous quality
of the neighbourhood and the cooperation that institutions like
the parish and the confraternity could bring. This could have
been balanced against the struggles that many individuals and
families experienced in their competition for political
representation and tax relief. A discussion of the desire for
advantageous marriage alliances and constructive friendships
was important for a successful response. Students could also
have commented on the differences between the experience of
neighbourhood for the rich and the poor.