Reading:
Martines, “The Ascent of the Communes,” “The Early Commune and Its
Nobility,” “The Commune around 1200,” “Populo and Popular
Commune,” and “The End of the Popular Commune” in Power
and Imagination, pp. 7-71.
Study Questions: What were communes? Who were the populo? Who had real power in these cities? What was the role of the Church and its bishops? What were Guelfs and Ghibellines? Were Tuscany and its cities prosperous? If, why? Were these towns the heirs of the political ideals and topographical remains of ancient Rome? What was the role of the emperor or the pope? Did these cities like to make war on one another? Why were they wealthy?
Readings: Reader no. XXIII. Gene Brucker, ed., “The Family” in
The Society of Renaissance Florence: A Documentary Study
Reader XI. Richard P. Saller and David I. Kertzer, “Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on Italian Family Life”
Reader IX. Alessandra Macinghi negli Strozzi, “Letters”
Reader VI. Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, “The Cruel Mother: Maternity,

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Widowhood, and Dowry in Florence in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries”.
Study Questions: What difference does class make in family life? What was the function of the family during the later Middle Ages? What were the roles of women?
What’s a household? How did families try to display their status? How has the family been studied in the past? What might be the role of anthropology? How did rich families relate to the state? Did they have the concept of “private life”? What kind of power might the rich corporate family have? Were there such things as domestic virtues? How did the dowry system work? What might a marriage “strategy” try to accomplish? What was Alessandra Strozzi trying to do? How were women viewed in this system -- their necessary virtues and the features to be avoided? Who would make these judgments? Did marriage have any religious aspects in this period? What were the roles of the kin in contracting marriages? How might these factors affect married life? Were personal attachments possible? In the case covered by Brucker in
Giovanni and Lusanna what was the problem in the relationship between Giovanni and Lusanna? Who was at fault? Is something left out? How did society react to their problems? What’s the double standard? Did class really determine the outcome of that dispute? What was Goro Dati’s life like (see his diary)? What did he want? What did he think about his family and his wife(s)? What kind of education were they supposed to attain? How did some of the ideas of Barabaro play out in society? How might these ideas affect gender relationships? Were there tensions about the roles of widows in regard to their marital families? Did society have a concept of childhood?
What were the ideals of education before and after the advent of Humanism? Did that have an effect? Was education intended to be practical? Was it to be according to class? What was the role of religion in education? How were children treated? How were they socialized?
Readings: Reader no. II. Bernardino of Siena, “On the Vanity of the
World and Especially of Women”
Reader no. V. Nicholas Davidson, “Theology, Nature and the Law:
Sexual Sin and Sexual Crime in Italy from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century”
Reader no. X. James M. Saslow, “Homosexuality in the Renaissance:
Behavior, Identity, and Artistic Expression”
Reader VII. Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, “The Griselda Complex:
Dowry and Marriage Gifts in the Quattrocento”.
Study Questions: Who was Griselda? What does she represent? How were women supposed to comport themselves? How might birth control be accomplished then?
Was it a moral question? How was sexuality viewed? Does sexuality have a history?
In other words did they think differently about it from us? What did desire mean to them or anyone then? What was the use or goal of sexuality? Does your perspective on the status of women different from that of last week -- with the additional readings? Did one think of one self or have self-identity in any way based on his or her tastes in sexuality?
Readings: Reader XIV. Alberto Tenenti, “Death in History: The Function

3 and Meaning of Death in Florentine Historiography of the
Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries”
Reader XII. Peter P. A. Biller, “Birth-Control in the West in the
Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries,”
Past and Present, 94 (February, 1982), 3-26.
Study Questions: Why would people want or not want to have children? How might this affect their emotional lives? What was the scientific understanding of reproduction and sexuality? Was it gendered? How was death treated or thought about? What were the dangers one encountered at the moment of death? What sins were of most importance? How was death handled in Florentine ritual? Did the Black
Death influence the theory and practice of dying? Did people from different classes die differently? What did people want to pass on to their descendants? How did they try to do it? How does that relate to wider family strategies? Were people attached to their children even though the children might die young only too frequently? How do these ideas about old age and dying relate to ours? How might people mourn? How might people try to evade the judgments of the afterlife? Who was in Hell? Was concern about future punishment much encouraged by the clergy? To what end? Just to get people to heaven? What kind of religious practices were spontaneously adopted by the laity? Was the mediation offered by the clergy valued, especially after the Black Death? What’s Manetti’s story about? Does it have a moral? Does it tell us anything about marriage and gender relations? Based on some of the literary sources we have read so far, can you discuss the concept of social control that might lie behind them? Do they really have anything to do with reality or are they just for entertainment or moral instruction in some strange way? When did one turn old then?
Readings: Reader VIII. Brunetto Latini, “The Book of the Treasure (an Excerpt)”
Martines, Power and Imagination, especially “The Course of Urban
Values,” pp. 72-93 and “Humanism: A Program for Ruling
Classes,” pp. 191-217
Gentile Sermini, “Scopone” in Italian Renaissance Sextet, pp. 39-68.
Study Questions: What was the active life as opposed to the contemplative? What did this mean in terms of liberty and ethical choice? What did liberty mean to a city such as Florence? Pisa? Siena? Was this period formative of European political thought? What did someone such as Alberti think should be the relationship between the state and an elite family? Was there more to this than mere rhetoric? What was to be the role of ancient political thought? What does Civic Humanism mean, as distinct from humanism?
Readings: Martines, “The Course of Political Feeling” and “Oligarchy: Renaissance
Republics” in Power and Imagination, pp. 111-29, 130-61
Baldassarri, Images, “Part One: Origins,” pp. 3-36.
Study Questions: What is a city-state? Why were they so ready to try to control their neighbors? Why was Florence eventually able to dominate it neighbors? What did the
Florentine think about themselves? What institutions were the most highly valued there and elsewhere in Tuscany? How do they fit with contemporary political ideas and ideals? Should town be run by small groups of families who theoretically might

govern in everyone’s best interest? What political ideas from ancient were popular?
What heroes? Compare Florence and it political institutions with those of Venice?
Why did Florence escape the domination of one family in the fourteenth century when so many other places were being taken over by lords?
Readings: Reader no. XXI. Francesco Petrarca, “How a Ruler Ought to Govern
His State”
Martines, “Despotism: Signories” and “The Princely Courts” in
Power and Imagination, pp. 94-110, 218-40
Baldassarri, Images, “Part Two: History and Society (First Section),” pp. 39-86.
Study Questions: How did Cosimo save his family and attain such power over the commune of Florence? What ere the sources of the family’s wealth. How did Cosimo cultivate his financial link with the papacy? How did the Medici family compare to other families of the Florentine oligarchy? How were princes supposed to rule according to Petrarch? How was the Florentine republic governed in the fourteenth century? In the fifteenth century?
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Readings: Martines, “Invasion: City States in Lightning and Twilight,” “The High
Renaissance: A Divided Consciousness,” and “The End of the
Renaissance,” in Power and Imagination, pp. 277-337
Baldassarri, Images, “Part Two: History and Society (Second Part),” pp. 88-122
Reader XX. Lorenzo de’ Medici, “Giacoppo [= “Giacoppo” in An Italian
Renaissance Sextet] transl. in Renaissance Comic Tales of
Love, Treachery, and Revenge. Eds. Valerie Martone and
Robert L. Martone.
Study Questions: Compare Lorenzo’s methods of control of the Florentine government with those of Cosimo. How did the Medici rule in either case? Why were they successful? How did Lorenzo survive the Pazzi conspiracy? What were the motives and goals of the rebels? How does this fit in with Poliziano’s ideas of good government? Did Florentine traditions and mechanisms of government lend themselves to tyranny? What issues caused violent political conflict?
Readings: Martines, “The Course of Urban Values” and “Art: An Alliance with Power” in Power and Imagination, pp. 72-93, 241-76
Baldassarri, Images, “Part Three: Literature” and “Part Four:
Art,” pp. 125-81, and 185-226”.
Study Questions: What seems to have been the relationship between society, the economy, and artistic patronage? How could difficult economic times affect investment in culture? What’s culture? How might they affect the patronage of individuals and institutions? Were times hard in either the fourteenth or fifteenthcentury Florence? How did workshops affect patronage and the status of the artist?
How were the subjects of art affected by cultural change?
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Readings: Reader no. XV. Randolph Starn, “The Republican Regime of the Room of Peace in Siena, 1338-40,” Representations,
18 (Spring) 1-33.
Study Questions: What was Lorenzetti up to in the Good Government paintings?
What were the sources of his imagery -- classical, scholastic, rhetorical, humanism?
How might art be used to propagandize and justify political regimes? What virtues were to be cultivated by those responsible for governing? Were they the same for a republic as for a “despotic” state? How were governors of either supposed to conduct government?
Readings: Antonio Manetti, “The Fat Carpenter” in Italian Renaissance Sextet, pp. 171-241; or Reader XIX. “Fatso the Carpenter (Antonio
Manetti)” in An Italian Renaissance Sextet] in Italian
Renaissance Tales. Ed. Janet Levarie Smarr
Reader XVII. Diana Webb, “Introduction” and “Conclusion” in
Patrons and Defenders: The Saints in the Italian City-States
Reader XVI. Caroline Walker Bynum, “Fast, Feast, and Flesh:
The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women”
Reader XIII. Timothy Verdon, “Christianity, the Renaissance, and the Study of History: Environments of Experience and Imagination”
Baldassarri, Images, “Part Five: Religion,” pp. 229-83.
Study Questions: How did Christianity change during what Verdon calls the
Renaissance? What were the main religious institutions in fifteenth-century Florence?
What was their main activity? Were there class differences in religious activity? What were the most popular religious practices? Was artistic production affected? What were the main religious tensions for Christians then? What was Civic Christianity?
Who were the mendicants and what were they a reaction to? What did confraternities do? What were the roles of the Papacy and its problems? Who were the most prominent saints of the era? What did they do to earn their status -- by what virtues? Were saints supposed to role-models? How did saints comport themselves?
What were their usual relationships with their families? Did ancient culture provide viable political and social role-models for conduct? How might confession and fear function in this society and culture? Did they seem to have functioned that way?
What virtues were most valued? What vice most abhorred? Were there gender or class differences? How were peasants to be treated? What was the attitude of saints, as they were portrayed in the devotional literature, toward sexuality? Did women have strange attitudes toward food? Were they strange in the context of that era?
Readings: Reader no. I. Bernardino of Siena, “On Usury”
Reader no. III. “Commerce Confronts the Usury Problem”
Martines, “Economic Trends and Attitudes” in Power and Imagination, pp. 162-90; review his “The Course of Urban Values,” pp. 72-93.

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Study Questions: What was perceived to be wrong with charging interest? How did they get around the prohibitions? How did they rationalize their conduct of business in violation of the prohibition of interest on loans? Who were they trying to protect?
What were the punishments that might befall someone who collects interest? How might all this affect economic development? What was the just price supposed to be?
Who was it supposed to protect? How was it calculated? Could it be fair? What does social status mean in a story such as Bianco Alfani? Was rules did he violate? Who was poor in these cities? Why? What was the goal of charity? Who were the deserving poor? What were Franciscan ideas about poverty? What was the general reaction to them? Were the poor responsible for their condition? Was it just a natural state for some to be poor? Could the rich save themselves by helping the poor? What was the commercial revolution? Were there new economic attitudes? What were they? What new economic institutions evolved? What did time mean to a merchant?
What was the religious context for these developments? What is the Weber thesis and how can it be related to Italy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries? How did business work? What did they trade? Where and with whom? What did they make?
What was the role of government? Did the ideas of the Church play much of a role in economic development -- especially in shaping institutions?
Readings: To be supplied
Study Questions: To be supplied.
17. November 23 Outsiders and Travelers through the Twentieth Century
Reading: Baldassarri, Images, “Part Six. Florence through Foreigners’
Eyes,” pp. 287-324.
Study Questions: Why have people found Tuscany to be so charming for so long? Did the Tuscan foster such views for the tourist business? Why would people from around 1900 find it so inviting and romantic? Do they like the same things across time? What kind of view of the place did you have when you started this course/ Did it change? If you found the region attractive, on what things might have you based that feeling? How and why did the art and architecture appeal to people – then, about 1900, and now?
20. December 2