Dragnet in Florence

Renaissance cities were generally small by our standards, but large enough that it was possible to hide in them after committing a crime – but if the authorities really wanted to find you then eventually they would. After all, too many people knew too many others, strangers were often objects of curiosity and there are only so many places you can buy food or seek shelter. So if you really want to be safe, you get out. Given that Italy was a patchwork of independent city states, only a few miles’ or hours’ flight could get you into the jurisdiction of the neighboring city. Much in the same way that modern states often have trouble finding, let alone extraditing wanted criminals from abroad, this could well mean safety, especially if the two cities were not allies.

Of course, the authorities knew this too, and would often take steps precisely to prevent this. The most advanced response was, needless to say, in Florence. There, when a serious crime was discovered, three cannon shots were fired as an alarm. At once, the city gates were closed to anyone without a special permit to leave, river traffic along the Arno was halted and barges were inspected before they could pass on, while the officials of neighbouring villages would ring the church bells to warn local farmers to assemble to help search for fugitives.

Although it was not impossible to lie low inside the city, this was a remarkably organised system for its time. Just think how this might be in the 1510 setting, with hot-air balloons and gliders lofted to scan the surrounding territory and clockwork carriages clicking and clattering along the roads in pursuit. Of course, a criminal who has also prepared himself could well seek to flee by air, or perhaps using a clockwork bicycle of his own…

Naughty Nuns of the Renaissance

If anyone ever wondered “Why Venetian nunneries were once hotbeds of passion” then wonder no longer, as Tony Perrottet’s Sex and the Renaissance Nun discusses how “Venetian nunneries were the most liberated in Europe. In the 1400s, the skyrocketing cost of dowries meant that many of the city’s noblest families were obliged to place their teenage daughters, regardless of their wishes, in convents. Few of these developed a spiritual calling. It was openly accepted that the top convents were a ‘safety valve’ for Venice’s surplus of well-born single women, who could go on to enjoy a level of sexual freedom unique for the time.”  A fun read, and not just for the “pastinaca muranese, ’crystal turnip,’ a state-of-the-art dildo made of fine Venetian glass and filled with warm water.”

‘Italian Communes: Attractions of Autocracy’ in History Today

If you’re a subscriber to the excellent History Today (and why wouldn’t you be?), then you can read this interesting article by Alexander Lee here. The opening is:

Italian Communes: Attractions of Autocracy

Alexander Lee, History Today Volume: 61 Issue: 7 2011

The Italian Renaissance republics are regarded by many as pioneers of good governance. Yet republican rule often resulted in chaos and it was left to strong despotic rulers to restore order, as Alexander Lee demonstrates.

The defensive towers of San Gimignano, symbols of violent civic rivalry. AKG Images/Erich Lessing

With the Arab Spring ongoing we are naturally inclined to think of democracy and despotism as polar opposites. After the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and with the civil war in Libya still raging the authoritarian regimes of Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi seem to stand in stark contrast to the democratic aspirations of protesters and rebels who have been driven to revolt by worsening economic conditions and decades of repression. Indeed for most people watching events in North Africa and the Middle East democracy is commonly associated with ideas of liberty, material satisfaction, individual rights and domestic peace; despotism is linked with ideas of oppression, injustice, want and simmering resentment.

Contemporary Maps of Renaissance Italian Cities, courtesy of the HUJ

I’m always a sucker for maps. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s website hosts a stunning array of Renaissance-era maps within their Historic Cities collection, a wonderful source for games, handouts and general eye-candy. Amongst many other exceptional images, let me highlight in particular three from Braun and Hogenberg, dating back to the 1570s.

Specifically, their 1572 map of Venice:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and their equally fine map of Milan:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and of the rather smaller port of Ostia:

Götz von Berlichingen and his Iron Hand

The trouble with writing clockpunk fantasy is that sometimes history one-ups you. Gottfried ”Götz“ von Berlichingen (1480–1562) was a German knight, mercenary, sometimes bandit and all-round-badass. One of his claims to fame is his common use of  the expression “Leck mich am Arsch” (“kiss my arse”) but the other is rather more unusual. In 1504, at the siege of Landshut in Bavaria, he lost his right arm when an enemy cannon ball slammed his own sword into him. So, he had an iron prosthesis made by some unknown genius, one which allowed him still to wield a sword, write with a pen and generally carry on as before. In 1504!

It would be terribly easy to ‘clockpunk it up’, with spring-loaded muscles and the like. But quite frankly, it is amazing enough as it stands. But it does raise other questions, such as who is the unsung genius behind the arm, one of the clockpunk mechanici of the Florentine Republic or someone else independently following along the same path. At that time he was a mercenary captain, and indeed would fall foul of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in 1512; might he have had contact with some Italian condottieri?

‘Mook’s Creed II’ this Saturday

 

 

Saturday June 17, Recess, NYC: more details here. Assassino!

 

 

 

“Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia, one of the less fortunate and most cantankerous polymaths of the Italian Renaissance”

Although technically living just after the 1510 time span, the story of Niccolò Tartaglia,the stammering Brescian mathematician (and would be maritime-salvage engineer) profiled in this nice piece in History Today, illustrates the intellectual ferment of the times, and the extent to which not only could patronage make a career and a reputation, but personal rivalries could break them.