Anybody who has been to Tuscany will have pleasant memories of the sunshine striking hilltop villages. But Florence, which is one of the two cities at the centre of this study is not a hilltop village, unlike Siena, Volterra, Cortona San Gimignano or Arezzo. What is important about Florence is the river Arno. The Arno answered all Florence’s need for water, it contributed to her hygiene, fish from the river helped to feed her whilst the river’s race turned the millwheels that ground the flour for the people’s bread. Equally important was the effect of the river on the Florentine economy. A plentiful supply of water was necessary for the washing, fulling and dying of cloth which was the basis of Florentine wealth. By the end of the thirteenth century the two pillars of Florentine political policy had been well-established: the pre-eminent cloth industry which promoted the establishment of branch houses of Florentine merchants all over Europe, and an alliance with the papacy which helped to promote the independence and security of the commune of the city.

In the fifteenth century the city was dominated by an oligarchy of merchant families. The constitution was republican, but there was scope for only limited participation in government. Florence could in no way be called democratic. Government rested with the ottimati, the ‘best men’ of the community. This group itself was divided up into various parties built around family alliance systems. Over the years through marriage contracts, trading partnerships and, business ventures, patterns of association were forged which lent a certain stability to communal politics. By 1429, when Fra Angelico was about 42 years old, the leading figure in Florentine politics was Cosimo De Medici, a wealthy merchant and financier who had increased his fortune through acting as the papal banker. Cosimo’s economic activity had made him one of the richest men in Europe.