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Memory and Tradition in Sienese Political Life in the Fifteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Christine Shaw
Christine Shaw
Affiliation:
The University of Sussex
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Extract

When someone who is not a specialist thinks of Italian Renaissance politics, he or she probably thinks first of Machiavelli – Machiavelli the cynical, Machiavelli the revolutionary. But if you read the writings of Machiavelli's contemporaries – not so much perhaps the political theorists (except for Francesco Guicciardini, to my mind a far more interesting political thinker than Machiavelli), as the active politicians of the day, Machiavelli does not seem anything like so revolutionary. Next to their clear-eyed realism and knowledge of men and affairs, Machiavelli's extremism can seem naïve.

Type
Oral History, Memory and Written Tradition
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 9 , December 1999 , pp. 221 - 231
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1999

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References

1 Gilbert, Felix, ‘The Venetian Constitution in Florentine Political Thought’ in Florentine Studies: Politics and Society in Renaissance Florence, ed. Rubinstein, Nicolai (1968), 463–500Google Scholar.

2 Now called the Palazzo Pubblico, and still the seat of the civic government.

3 Southard, Edna Carter, The Frescoes in Siena's Palazzo Pubblko, 1289–1539: Studies in Imagery and Relations to Other Communal Palaces in Tuscany (New York, 1979), 268–70Google Scholar; Kawsky, Deborah Lubera, ‘The Survival and Reappraisal of Artistic Tradition: Civic Art and Civic Identity in Quattrocento Siena’ (PhD thesis, Princeton University, 1995), 126–38Google Scholar; Cecchini, G., ‘L'Arazzeria Senese’ Archwio Storico Italiano, 120 (1962), 158Google Scholar, 172.

4 For example, Siena, S. Bernardino da, Le Prediche Volgari Dette nella Piazza del Campo I'Anno MCCCCXXVII, ed. Bargellini, P. (Siena, 1936), p. 991Google Scholar.

5 For the political ideas of this group, see Pertici, P., Tra Politico e Cultura nel Primo Quattrocento Senese. Le Epistole di Andreoccw Petrucci (1426–1443) (Siena, 1990)Google Scholar; and see Pertici, P., ‘Una “Coniuratio” del reggimento di Siena nel 1450’ Bullettino Senese di Storia Patria, 99 (1992), 9–47Google Scholar.

6 Banchi, Luciano, ‘H Piccinino nello Stato di Siena e la Lega Italica’ Archivio Storico Italiano 4th series, 4 (1879), 44–58Google Scholar, 225–45.

7 Medici, Lorenzo de', Lettere V (1480–1481), ed. Mallett, Michael, 327–37Google Scholar; Shaw, Christine, ‘Politics and Institutional Innovation in Siena 1480–1498’ Bulkttirw Senese di Storia Patiia, 103 (1996), 28–30Google Scholar, 36–9, 93–5.

8 After Siena sided with Giangaleazzo Visconti in his war against the Florentines, the city became subject to him from 1399 to 1403. There were fears in the aftermath of the Pazzi War that Alfonso would use the troops he had with him in Tuscany to enforce Neapolitan suzerainty over the city, but he was summoned back to the kingdom to deal with the Turks who had captured the city of Otranto in August 1480.

9 Florence, Archivio di Stato, Archivio della Repubblica, Dieci di Balia, Carteggi, Responsive, 45, cc. 119–20: Antonio Guidotti, 11 Jan. 1496(7), Colle.

10 For a detailed account of Sienese internal politics in the later fifteenth century, see Shaw, , ‘Politics and Institutional Innovation in Siena’ Bulkttino Smese di Storia Patria, 103 (1996), 9–102Google Scholar, and 104 (1997), 194–307.

11 Fosi, Irene Polverini, ‘“La Comune, Dolcissima Patria”: Siena e Pio II’, in I Ceti Dirigenti nella Toscana del Quattrocento (Florence, 1987), 515Google Scholar.

12 Siena, Archivio di Stato (hereafter ASSiena), Balia 502, 39: Francesco Petrucci and Sinolfo da Castel'Ottieri, 3 Oct. 1480, Rome.

13 Rossi, P., ‘Carlo IV di Lussemburgo e la Repubblica di Siena (1355–1369)’ BulktUno Senese di Storia Patria, N.s., 1 (1930), 4–39Google Scholar, 178–242.

14 ASSiena, Concistoro 1638, fo. 197r, Concistoro 421, fos 38r, 43r–v, Concistoro 490, fos 41r, 44v–45r, 46r–v; Concistoro 512, fo. 23V; Nardi, Paolo, Mariano Sozzini, Giureconsulto Senese del Quattrocento (Milan, 1974), 28Google Scholar, 40, 65.

15 Milan, Archivio di Stato, Archivio Sforzesco, Potenze Estere, b. 1263: Giovanni Malavolta, 4 June 1495, Siena.

16 See Shaw, ‘Politics and Institutional Innovation in Siena’; Hook, Judith, ‘Habsburg Imperialism and Italian Particularism: The Case of Charles V and Siena’ European Studies Review, 9 (1979), 283–312CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Siena, Biblioteca Comunale degli Intronati, MS. A.VII. 26., fo. 1184r.

18 See Ascheri, Mario, ‘Siena nel Rinascimento: Dal Governo di “Popolo” al Governo Nobiliare’ in I Ceti Dirigenti nella Toscana del Quattrocento, 415–20Google Scholar; Ascheri, Mario, Siena nel Rinascimento (Siena, 1985), 31–9Google Scholar, 57–108; Shaw, Christine, ‘Political Elites in Siena and Lucca in the Fifteenth Century’ Bulletin of the Society for Renaissance Studies, 14 (10 1996), 8–12Google Scholar.

19 Ascheri, Mario, Siena nel Rinascimento, 39–42Google Scholar; Prunai, G. and Colli, S. De', ‘La Balia dagli Inizi del XIII Secolo fino alia Invasione Francese (1789)’ Bulkttino Senese di Stmia Patria, 65 (1958), 33–96Google Scholar (this account requires revision on some points).

20 Florence, Archivio di Stato, Medici avanti il Principato, b. 19, 437: Alessandro Braccesi to Piero de' Medici, 11 Oct. 1493, Siena.

21 ASSiena, Consiglio Generale 240, fo. 158V.

22 ASSiena, Consiglio Generale 241, fo. 33r.

23 ASSiena, Concistoro 2118, fos 109r–110r.

24 ASSiena, Concistoro 2118, fo. 100bisr.

25 ASSiena, Concistoro 2117, fo. 296r.

26 ASSiena, Consiglio Generale 240, fo. 79V.

27 ASSiena, Concistoro 777, fos 56v–58r.

28 For a recent, stimulating discussion of the question, see Varotti, Carlo, Gloria e Ambizione Politico net Rinascimento. Da Petrarca a Machiavelli (Milan, 1998)Google Scholar.