The Peace of Constantinople - Despite the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1454, the Italian states, particularly Venice, never completely heeded the many calls to crusade promulgated by various popes. Pursuing a policy of simply maintaining naval bases where possible against Turkish incursion, Venice was more concerned with maintaining power against her Italian neighbors than with reconquering those areas falling into Turkish hands. When the Turkish leader Mohammed II took the field in 1470 Venice attempted to muster the support of her hostile neighbors to little avail. In January 1479 the Venetians signed a peace treaty with the Turks.
The Doge and the Council - Stable, functional, and wealthy, though perhaps lacking in the freedoms enjoyed by the other city-states, Venice developed a complex government designed to avoid an imbalance of power among the ruling merchant families. T he highest officer of this government, the doge, ruled with six councilors and three judicial magistrates, or the Council of Ten.Briefly, the Great Council, over 1,000 representatives from the most powerful families, elected increasingly smaller groups un til the final election resulted in the Council of Ten.
Babylonian Captivity - When Pope Boniface VIII challenged Phillip IV of France with the bull unam sanctam, claiming the church's supremacy over even secular leaders, Phillip IV responded by carrying him off to France. Boniface's short-lived successor was himself succeeded by a Frenchman, who took the name Clement V. While on his way back to Rome, Clement V, hearing of the unrest in that city, stopped in Avignon. For the next 73 years the papacy stayed there. While the colorful name Babylonia n Captivity suggests that France kept the popes in bandage as Babylon did the Israelites, the reality is that the popes in Avignon were not under the heel of the French king but were in many cases, able and active leaders of the church.
The Medici - While Milan fell early to the acknowledged domination of a ruling family, Florence followed a different path. Although it surrendered itself to the rule of the Albizzi family at the end of the fourteenth century, it did not do so happi ly. A large and growing family of merchants and bankers, and friends of the popolo minuto, or common people, the Medici family was the chief rival of the Albizzi's. Although Giovanni de' Medici was elected to the signoria and served one term as gonfaloniere, it was his son Cosimo, who cemented the Medici power over Florence. Popular and astute leader and patron of the arts and letters, Cosimo ruled from behind the scenes. His grandson, Lorenzo, called Il Magnifico, was more ope nly ruler of Florence, particularly after public outrage at the attempt on his own life and the assassination of his brother Giuliano by the Pazzi family, rallied public opinion in his favor long enough for him to make changes in the political structure o f Florence that would guarantee his continued control.However, he had not maintained a support structure against France, and, two years after his death in 1492, his son Pietro found himself ill-equipped to deal with the French invasion.
The Ciompi - In 1378, in the face of unemployment and economic decline following the Black Death, the guildless, hence unrepresented in government, cloth workers of Florence rose up against the merchants and guilds in an attempt to gain guild stat us for themselves. Their revolt was quickly suppressed, but not before they had had a chance to become the only "lower-class" group to actually rule the so-called republic.
Lorenzo Valla - Quattrocento humanist, traveler, and critical intellect, Valla is known for his work in textual analysis. Perhaps his most famous work is his argument, based on textual analysis, that the Donation of Constantine, the document suppos edly deeding authority from the Roman Emperor Constantine to the Pope, could not possibly been written during Constantine's time.
Manorialism - medieval social structure whereby lord holds land in fief from overlord and receiving responsibility from underlings
Serfs - one step up from slavery - specific duties but also some rights
Craft Guilds - organized artisans, controlling production and pricing
Hansa - norther european (part. Germany) commercial and military organisation of traders originally protecting against Danish, later grew, setting trading regulations, policy, pricing
Hohenstaufen - German (HRE) family temporarily controlling Sicily in late 12th cent. Overthrown by Angevin, later Arogonese rulers.
13th:
Guelfs - anti-imperial, supporters of Pope, strong in Florence
Ghibellines - imperialists
Communes - Italian city-state republics - late 13th early 14th cent.
podesta - hired administrators in communes
commenda - 12th,13th,early 14th. Commercial partnership where one partner contributed capital, the other labour.
Capitalism - Increasing trade/money system as opposed to agricultural/kind system
Ordinances of Justice - 1293 - effort by guilds in communes to control power of nobles, nobles cannot qualify for public office
14th:
Jacques Coeur - 1447-1449 Fench entrepreneur, rose quickly trading in Levant, disastrously involved in politics
Black Death - that curse of 1348 onward that devastated a promising Europe
15th:
Jacques Coeur - 1447-1449 Fench entrepreneur, rose quickly trading in Levant, disastrously involved in politics
Medici Family - involved in banking, commercial, and industrial activities. From 1397-1494 rose to be leaders of Florence
Papal states - central Italian states/cities suppossedly ruled by Pope.
Tuscany - area around Florence
Lombardy - area around Milan
Visconti - ruling family of Milan from 1277, ghibelline, made Dukes by HRE almost of Florence, 1402 Giangaleazzo.
Condottieri - mercenaries, sometimes became rulers
Francesco Sforza - condottiere, 1450, took Milan and ended Visconti dynasty
Peace of Lodi - 1454 - alliance between big four leading to half-century of minimal peace. Florentine-Mailanes, vs. Venice, Papal states
Albizzi faction - late 14th cent. grabbers of Florence, enemy of popolo minuto acording to Medici
Cosimo de' Medici - d. 1464 - son of Giovanni the banker, political rein-holder behind the scenes
Lorenzo de' Medici - 1443 - 1492 - Il Magnifico, son of Cosimo, more overtly political leader, patron
Pazzi conspiracy - Pazzi's in league with Sixtus IV (Francesco della Rovere) 1478 murdered Giuliano in attempt to take power in Florence.
Doge - leader of Venice
Charles VIII - weak-headed French son of Louis XI, invaded Italy in 1494
Savonarola - fiery Dominican, led Florence after French invasion, clashed with Pope Alexander VI, overthrown 1498
Louis XII - Charles VIII's successor, took over Milan, tried for Naples, until 1505
Julius II - early 16th - enemy of Borgias - warrior Pope holding papal states from French
Ludovico Sforza - Il Moro, regent usurper of Milan, routed by French d. 1508
Alexander VI - sold out to French and Spanish to retain rights to Papal states, father of Cesare Borgia
Holy League - league between papacy (Alexander VI), Venice, Milan, Emporere Aragon ostensibly against Turks but really to drive Charles from Italy
Boniface VIII - 1294-1303 - unam sanctam - papal supremacy over secular - to Philip IV
Avignon Papacy - 1305-1378 - period of french domination of papacy
Great Schism - 1378-1415 - counciliarist attempt to replace French pope with Roman
Indulgences - purchased penance, flagrant violation, great fund-raiser
Marsiglio of Padua - 1324 - defensor pacis - advocating limiting secular power of church, denied clerical ownership of land
devotio moderna - Brethren of Common Life - early 15th reformists - mystic, ascetic, meditative, ran schools of humanism, evangelical devotion to personal reform
John Wyclif - (1320 - 1384) English reformists, english bible, Lollardy
Nepotism - favorite practice of putting relatives in high positions
Pius II - (1458-1464) - Aeneus Sylvius Piccolomini - humanist, patron of arts
John Hus - reformist, activist, wine and bread, burned by Council of Constance
marranos - Spanish Jewish converts
Conciliarism - church's internal attempts to reform and end schism
Council of Constance (1417) - first big one
Council of Basel - 1431-1437 - resolves hussite problem, conciliarists vs. Pope, Pope dodges with eastern church reunioin, results in election of Martin V
Utraquists - both cup and bread
Eugenius IV - (1431-1447) - union of east and west
Nicholas V - (1447-1455) - papal devotee of real learning and the arts, library (Valla)
Divine Comedy - Dante's (d. 1321) epic poem
Canzoniere - Petrarch's vernacular poems
Ludovico Ariosto - (1474-1533) combined medieval epic with romantic
Christine de Pizan - (1364-1431) - made living from writing - peace and women
Castiglione - (1478-1529) The Courtier -
studia humanitatis - students of liberal arts
Petrarch - (1304-1374) - historical conciousness, pursuasive ideas, values
Giovani Boccaccio - (1313-1375) friend of Petrarch, Daecameron, later repoudiated
Jeremiah of Montagnone - (1320) collector of roman sayings, chronological, wide range
Philology - study of origins.meanings of words
Coluccio Salutati - (1330-1406) civic humanist, follower of Petrarch, Signoria of Florence
Verona School - research for its own sake - rigorous textual criticism, famous library
Albert Mussato - (1261 - 1329) - creative spirit of classics, life of Ecerinis
Manuel Chrysoloras - (1397) greek scholar brought over by Salutati
civic humanism - rhetoric, humanism in service to state
Leonardo Bruni - (1374-1444) - Medici tutor - chancellor, papal secretary, prolific writer
Pietro Paulo Vergerio - (1349-1420) defined liberal studies, subject matter matched to age of student
Guarino de Verona - (1370-1460) - teacher
Flavio Biondo - (1388-1463) - historian (and Bracciolini), fall of Rome
Francesco Guicciardini - (1483-1540) - history of Florence, concise, good historian
Platonic Academy - Cosimo de' Medici's summer fun with Ficino
Marsilio Ficino - Platonist, reason and fact jead to universal truth
Hermeticism - Hermes Trismegistus - humanistic mysticism ancient wisdom, basic truths
Cabalism - jewish mystery of letters/numbers
Pico della Mirandola - (1463-1494) - greek translations, unity of all things, Savonarola
Copernicus - (1473-1543) - earth around motionless sun
Pompanozzi - (1462-1524) Aristotelian humanist, philosophy as living thing
Nicholas of Cusa - (1401-1464) limitless universe, mathmatics
Paracelsus - (1493-1541) Swiss/German physician and alchemist, experimental methos but spiritualist
Andreas Vesalius - (1514-1564) - anatomist, dissections
Filippo Brunelleschi - (1377-1446) The dome
Leon Battista Alberti - (1405-1472) - On Architecture, civic arch.
Lorenzo Ghiberti - (1378-1455) - The doors
Donatello - (1386-1466)- the statues, Brunelleschi's buddy
Andrea Verrochio - (1435-1488) Leonardo's teacher, Medici busts
Giotto - (1267-1337) Bad gov't good gov't
Masaccio - (1401-1428) painting founded on nature
Paolo Ucello - (1397-1475) perspective
Piero della Francesco - (1416-1492) balance, form, light
Antonio Pollaiuolo - (1432-1498) - oils, anatomy, ten nudes
Sandro Botticelli - (1444-1510)
Leonardo da Vinci - (1452-1519)
Michelangelo - (1475-1564)
Raphael - (1483-1520)
the High Renaissance - transcending nature, heroic