08: The City on Display

Council of Florence

Councils: caused by Western Schism (1378-1417)
new theories of church authority and rule develop for and against councils

Council of Pisa 1409
Council of Constance 1414-18
Council of Basel (1431) Ferrara (1438) Florence (1439); ends 1449
- Schism with Eastern Church (1054-)
- Rise of Ottomans: need for aid
- Greek scholars, clerics in Florence
- Art, learning on display

Martin V (Oddone Colonna) (1417-1431)

Eugenius IV (Gabriele Condulmer) (1431-1447)

Filarete Door, Rome, St. Peter’s Basilica

Gozzoli, Chapel of the Magi, Palazzo Medici

Nicholas V (Tommaso Parentucelli) (1447-1555)

part of S. Marco library foundation group
Humanists, artists to Rome: rebuild city, church administration
Rome and papacy as center of Italian power dynamics

  Joseph II Patriarch of Costantinople: Benozzo Gozzoli, Palazzo Medici (1459)
            tomb: SMN

From crises to stability: Lodi (and then: to crisis again)

Expansions of contado, zones of control by Italian city-states after 1400
Condottieri mercenaries
High cost of warfare

Peace of Lodi, 1454: “Italian League”

Nicholas V at center (signs 1455)
25 years, renewable
Venice, Rome, Milan, Naples
Goals of Lodi:

keep foreign powers (notably France) out of peninsula
allow for united action against external threats: Turks (1453/Constantinople)

Problems:
Conflicts of interest among city states
Like HRE but weaker

Not all units fully sovereign
Little means for united action or meetings
No single leader of league

Lasts until 1490s

Big 5:
Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples (Regno)
Kingdom of Naples (with Sicily) “Regno”
Aragon
Angevins in Naples till 1435; succession crisis .
Rome/Papal States
Venice
Oligarchy: doge
Stato del mar; stato di terrafirma
Ottoman expansion
Milan
Signorial government.
Sforza married into Visconti; sieze control, 1450

1454