The Ugly Renaissance (59 page)

When Giotto was made
capomaestro
:
Rubin,
Giorgio Vasari
, 292–93; Larner,
Culture and Society in Italy
, 305; Maginnis,
World of the Early Sienese Painter
, 80–81.

Similarly, writing in his
De origine civitatis Florentiae
:
Larner,
Culture and Society
, 279–80; Maginnis,
World of the Early Sienese Painter
, 80.

Although still reliant on the favor of patrons:
For an excellent discussion of contractual relationships between artists and patrons, see Welch,
Art and Society in Italy
, 103–30.

“not be subjected to the law”:
Cellini,
Autobiography
, 130.

As his biographer Paolo Giovio recorded:
Barocchi,
Scritti d’arte del cinquecento
, 1:10.

He was a man of undoubted piety:
Vasari,
Lives
, 1:423.

“Here in your lovely face”:
Michelangelo, verse 83, lines 1–4, in
Poems and Letters
, 23.

A devotee of illicit magic:
On the accusation of sodomy made against Leonardo, see Crompton,
Homosexuality and Civilization
, 265; Creighton and Marisi da Caravaggio,
Caravaggio and His Two Cardinals
, 303n96; Wittkower and Wittkower,
Born Under Saturn
, 170–71.

Benvenuto Cellini was convicted of the same offense twice:
For a detailed discussion of Cellini’s sexual life, see Rossi, “Writer and the Man.” It is also worth noting that Cellini was also accused of sodomizing a certain Caterina in 1543: Cellini,
Autobiography
, 281–83.

he killed at least two men:
Cellini,
Autobiography
, 91, 128–29.

accused of stealing the papal jewels:
Ibid., 184–89.

the music of the aristocratic composer Carlo Gesualdo:
See Grey and Heseltine,
Carlo Gesualdo, Musician and Murderer
.

While the Middle Ages could be thought of as a period:
Burckhardt,
Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
, 87, 90–91.

the social contexts of artistic production:
Burckhardt’s view of the “discovery of the individual” has been subject to considerable question. For some of the more important arguments against it, see Baron, “Burckhardt’s
Civilization of the Renaissance
a Century After Its Publication”; Maginnis,
World of the Early Sienese Painter
, 83–113; Baxandall,
Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy
; Cole,
Renaissance Artist at Work from Pisano to Titian
; Thomas,
Painter’s Practice in Renaissance Tuscany
; Becker, “Essay on the Quest for Identity in the Early Italian Renaissance”; Sheard and Paoletti,
Collaboration in Italian Renaissance Art
; Bullard, “Heroes and Their Workshops”; Guidotti, “Pubblico e privato, committenza e clientele.”

Stephen Greenblatt has recast:
Greenblatt,
Renaissance Self-Fashioning
.

the elaboration of a complete theoretical understanding:
Edgerton,
Renaissance Rediscovery of Linear Perspective
; Panofsky, “Die Perspektive als symbolische Form.” For further on Panofsky’s view of linear perspective in the Renaissance, see Landauer, “Erwin Panofsky and the Renascence of the Renaissance,” esp. 265–66; Moxey, “Perspective, Panofsky, and the Philosophy of History.”

This explosion of enthusiasm for visual exuberance:
Wohl,
Aesthetics of Italian Renaissance Art
; see also the review by Mack,
Renaissance Quarterly
.

a close—and even incestuous—relationship:
On this connection, see Gombrich, “From the Revival of Letters to the Reform of the Arts”; Weiss,
Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity
; Rowland,
Classical Tradition in Western Art
.

As a number of eminent scholars have observed:
Panofsky,
Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art
, 9; Baxandall,
Giotto and the Orators
; Gilbert,
Poets Seeing Artists’ Work
.

While Dante Alighieri celebrated the renown:
Dante,
Purg
. 11.91–96.

the language of “darkness” and “light”:
R. W. Lee, “Ut Pictura Poesis,” 199–200; Haight, “Horace on Art”; Trimpi, “Meaning of Horace’s
Ut Pictura Poesis
”; Ferguson, “Humanist Views of the Renaissance”; McLaughlin, “Humanist Concepts of Renaissance and Middle Ages in the Tre- and Quattrocento.”

Petrarch is often thought to have inaugurated:
Petrarch,
Africa
, 9.451–57. The classic interpretation of this passage remains Mommsen, “Petrarch’s Conception of the ‘Dark Ages.’ ” There is, however, some doubt as to how fully Mommsen’s reading should be accepted: see A. Lee, “Petrarch, Rome, and the ‘Dark Ages,’ ” esp. 14–17.

he was celebrated alongside Giotto:
Boccaccio,
Lettere edite ed inedite
, 187;
Decameron
, 6.5.

“Our Plato in
The Republic
”:
Ficino,
Opera omnia
, 974, trans. in A. Brown,
Renaissance
, 101.

“the first person with a talent”:
Leonardo Bruni,
Le vite di Dante e di Petrarca
, in Baron,
Humanistisch-philosophische Schriften
, 66, trans. in Thompson and Nagel,
Three Crowns of Florence
, 77; on Bruni’s view of Petrarch and Dante, see Ianziti,
Writing History in Renaissance Italy
, 177–78.

“before Giotto, painting was dead”:
Palmieri,
Vita civile
, ed. Belloni, 43–44, trans. in A. Brown,
Renaissance
, 102.

2. I
N
P
ETER’S
S
HADOW

Francesco Granacci:
Michelangelo had known Francesco Granacci (1469–1543) from childhood. They studied together in the workshop of
Domenico Ghirlandaio and were sent to
Bertoldo di Giovanni’s school at the same time. See Vasari,
Lives
, 1:330. Francesco subsequently completed several works for San Marco at the behest of Lorenzo de’ Medici, and later traveled to Rome to assist Michelangelo with the painting of the Sistine Chapel.

Because he was already ailing from an unknown illness:
Beyond a few scattered examples of his work (principally as a medalist), little has survived of the life of Bertoldo di Giovanni (ca. 1440–1491). Although ambiguous, a comment by Vasari suggests that he had already fallen sick some years before 1491, and that he was unable to continue his own work by the time of Michelangelo’s arrival. That he accompanied Lorenzo de’ Medici—who suffered from gout—to take the waters in a place referred to as Bagni di Morba in 1485 is beyond question: it is tempting to see this as more than an indication of the bond between the two men. There is, indeed, every indication that he was ailing for some months before he died at the age of around fifty-one on December 28, 1491, at Lorenzo’s villa at Poggio a
Caiano, and—this being so—Acts 5:12–16, which Masaccio depicted in
Saint Peter Healing the Sick with His Shadow
, would have had a particular resonance.

After emerging as independent states:
For a survey of the origins of the northern Italian city-states, see Waley,
Italian City-Republics
; Jones, “Communes and Despots”; Jones,
Italian City-State
; Hyde,
Society and Politics in Medieval Italy
; Martines,
Power and Imagination
.

Public officials like the Florentines:
There are two classic—if contrasting—explorations of this trend: Baron,
Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance
; Skinner,
Foundations of Modern Political Thought
. Although eminently readable, they should be read with care. Each has been controversial in its own way, and scholarly debate continues apace.

Great public buildings:
A useful and accessible introduction to this topic can be found in Norman,
Siena, Florence, and Padua
, esp. 2:7–55.

As early as 1338, as the chronicler:
Brucker,
Renaissance Florence
, 51.

In the same year, eighty banks:
Ibid., 52.

Although there were intermittent crises:
Franceschi, “Economy,” 129. There has, of course, been some fairly intensive scholarly debate as to the long-term strength of the Florentine economy, especially in the aftermath of the crises of the mid-fourteenth century, but the balance of evidence appears to suggest that there was no significant or lasting decline in business activity before the mid-sixteenth century. For an interesting and rather intimate view of Florentine economic history, see Goldthwaite,
Private Wealth in Renaissance Florence
.

In the
catasto
of 1427:
Black, “Education and the Emergence of a Literate Soci- ety,” 18.

“What city,” he asked:
Translation quoted in Brucker,
Renaissance Florence
, 29.

Despite having some doubts:
Leonardo Bruni,
Panegyric to the City of Florence
, in Kohl and Witt,
Earthly Republic
, 135.

“What in the whole world”:
Ibid., 139.

The private houses that lined the streets:
Ibid., 140.

“every traveler arriving”:
Ugolino Verino,
De illustratione urbis Florentiae
, in Baldassarri and Saiber,
Images of Quattrocento Florence
, 210.

“many people believe that our age”:
Rucellai,
Zibaldone
, 1:60, in Baldassarri and Saiber,
Images of Quattrocento Florence
, 73.

“Golden Age is inferior”:
Ugolino Verino, “Ad Andream Alamannum de laudibus poetarum et de felicitate sui saeculi,” in Baldassarri and Saiber,
Images of Quattrocento Florence
, 94.

Girolamo Savonarola, whose attacks on the rich:
Martines,
Scourge and Fire
, 103.

As mercantile fortunes rose:
The inadequacy of surviving evidence has made a fully comparative survey of prices and wages between the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries virtually impossible. There is, however, sufficient information to see a general downward trend in the real wages of unskilled workers throughout this period with some clarity. See Goldthwaite,
Economy of Renaissance Florence
, 570–74; La Roncière, “Poveri e povertà a Firenze nel XIV secolo”; Tognetti, “Prezzi e salari nella Firenze tardomedievale.”

Poverty was always around the corner:
Brucker,
Society of Renaissance Florence
, 214–18, docs. 102–4.

After receiving the massive sum:
Vasari,
Lives
, 2:42. According to
Vespasiano da Bisticci,
Cosimo had donated such a large amount of money because he was eager to atone for the nefarious means by which he had accumulated his fortune. Brucker,
Renaissance Florence
, 108. In the opinion of Domenico di Giovanni da Corella, however, Cosimo’s munificence had exceeded even that of kings. Domenico di Giovanni da Corella,
Theotocon
, in Baldassarri and Saiber,
Images of Quattrocento Florence
, 250.

“so many thousands of volumes”:
Verino,
De illustratione urbis Florentiae
, in Baldassarri and Saiber,
Images of Quattrocento Florence
, 210.

“where the Muses dwell”:
Ibid.

centerpiece of the city’s annual Epiphany celebrations:
Corella,
Theotocon
, in Baldassarri and Saiber,
Images of Quattrocento Florence
, 250.

“paradise was in these friaries”:
Trexler,
Public Life in Renaissance Florence
, 190.

Savonarola was elected prior:
For excellent surveys of Savonarola’s life and career, see Martines,
Scourge and Fire
; and, more recently, Weinstein,
Savonarola
.

briefly gave up painting:
Vasari,
Lives
, 1:227.

the sound of Savonarola’s powerful voice:
Condivi,
Vita di Michelangelo Buonarroti
, 62; Hirst,
Achievement of Fame
, 25–26.

an angry mob laid siege:
For a wonderfully vivid account of the siege of San Marco, see Martines,
Scourge and Fire
, 231–43.

“Around my door, I find huge piles”:
Michelangelo, verse 267, lines 7–9, in
Poems and Letters
, 56.

the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore:
Vasari,
Lives
, 1:160.

“worthy of heaven”:
Ibid., 1:123.

“Pandolfo lost eighteen florins”:
Baldassarri and Saiber,
Images of Quattrocento Florence
, 63.

Michelangelo would tell Miniato Pitti:
Hirst,
Achievement of Fame
, 7.

“Every morning the street is jammed”:
Brucker,
Renaissance Florence
, 40–41.

the story of Antonio Rinaldeschi:
Here, I follow Connell and Constable, “Sacrilege and Redemption in Renaissance Florence.”

the guileless Tommaso never saw:
Brucker,
Society of Renaissance Florence
, 156–57.

“six little shops”:
The report itself appears in translation in ibid., 190, doc. 89.

“Here is the congenial whorehouse”:
Beccadelli,
Hermaphrodite
, II, xxxvii (lines 9–18, 21–32), 108–11. Even though some of the more striking lines have been left out, this is one of Beccadelli’s tamest and most restrained verses.

It was planned by the priors:
The document authorizing the foundation of this brothel is given in translation at Brucker,
Society of Renaissance Florence
, 190, doc. 88.