Archive for Inventing the Renaissance

Gonzaga vs Sanseverino: I Fart in Your General Direction

Buckle up, friends, it’s time for the real life “I fart in your general direction”: Marquis Francesco Gonzaga’s unforgettable reply to the 1503 duel challenge from Galeazzo Sanseverino. (Part of my countdown to “Inventing the Renaissance.”)

Meme of the image from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in which the French soldier on top of the battlements taunts the knights, sticking out his tongue and sticking his thumbs in his ears as he shouts down "I fart in your general direction!"

I posted last time introducing Galeazzo Sanseverino “Son of Fortune”, the famously handsome mercenary captain and lover of Duke Ludovico Visconti-Sforza who held such sway in his beloved’s city that the Milanese called him “the Second Duke.” Everyone doted on Galeazzo, even the French generals he fought wars against! And also the nearly-impossible-to-please Isabella d’Este, sister of the Duke of Ferrara, the famous art lover, patroness of Leonardo da Vinci, and the most easily affronted woman in the Renaissance.

Titian's portrait of Isabella d'Este. Dressed in lavish gowns, leopard fur, and with an enormous golden turban-like hat covered with pearls and gems, Isabella frowns disapprovingly at the viewer.
Titian’s portrait of Isabella d’Este. Isabella frowns disapprovingly at the viewer.

The only people who did *not* love the dashing and fortunate Galeazzo were rival mercenary commanders who lost out on valuable commissions leading Milan’s armies as Ludovico started promoting his beloved over all others.

Detail portrait of Ludovico Sforza from the "Pala Sforzesca." Ludovico has black hair down to the nape of his neck, a slightly chubby build, and wears a garment of costly pomegranate pattern light blue silk brocade with gold edging and a huge gold chain around his neck. The background shows the lavish garments of the saints who surround the duke in the complete painting, which shows him and his wife amid religious figures kneeling in prayer.
Detail portrait of Ludovico Sforza from the “Pala Sforzesca.”
Portrait possibly of Galeazzo Sanseverino. A man with auburn shoulder-length curly hair stands looking at the viewer. He wears a black cap, a costly black velvet overgarment lined with leopard fur, a red doublet partly unbuttoned down the front, and gray gloves.
Portrait possibly of Galeazzo Sanseverino.

Trusting one’s lover with one’s armies was (not a bad tactic, since your true love *will not* change sides for cash mid-war, like mercenaries so often did) – for a sample of strategic side-changing see William Caferro’s fabulous book on John Hawkwood.

William Caferro John Hawkwood: An English Mercenary in Fourteenth Century Italy

One rival who lost out through Galeazzo’s promotion was Francesco Gonzaga Marquess of Mantua, a formidable military commander and ruler of a very militarily important city-state strategically positioned in the intersection of Milan’s territory, Venice’s, and Ferrara’s.

Portrait of Francesco Gonzaga. His expression is grim and severe. He has dark brown hair down to his chin and a dark and full moustache and beard, and wears gleaming armor edged in decorative gold. He holds a strong wooden rod in his hand, which could be a spear or the handle of a weapon, or simply a stick to beat servants with.
Portrait of Francesco Gonzaga.

Francesco Gonzaga came from *extremely* noble stock: his mother and grandmother were kinswomen of the Holy Roman Emperors, his sister Elizabetta the Duke of Urbino, and he himself married the splendid Isabella d’Este (sister of Galeazzo’s lover Ludovico’s wife Beatrice, who also *loved* Galeazzo).

Painting of Isabella and Beatrice d’Este together. The sisters are both teenaged girls in Renaissance gowns, leaning near each other as if one is embracing the other. Both have their hair semi-loose, with ribbons or snoods holding it with loose netting, and wear necklaces of black beads and gowns of dark blue with many decorative ribbons showing from the edges of the white chemises underneath. The one in the foreground (probably Isabella) holds a lute.
Painting of Isabella and Beatrice d’Este together as girls, from a fresco in the family palace.

When tensions mounted until Galeazzo challenged Francesco Gonzaga to a duel (by letter), Francesco began his unforgettable reply with: “Prù—this is a fart sound I make with my mouth with the addition of a fuck-you gesture (manichetto) and a fig sign.”

Photograph of a stone statue, probably depicting Galeazzo Sanseverino as the model for Saint Victor the Martyr (statue in Milan cathedral museum). Extremely handsome with shoulder-length curly hair, he wears a cloak over decorated Roman armor, and has his arms bound behind him in a sexy pose, giving him a homoerotic look similar to depictions of Saint Sebastian but more military.
Photograph of a stone statue, probably depicting Galeazzo Sanseverino as the model for Saint Victor the Martyr (statue in Milan cathedral museum). He has his arms bound behind him much like images of Saint Sebastian but more military, a pose with strong homoerotic associations in the period (as now).

 

Black and white print portrait of Francesco Gonzaga, looking much like his earlier portrait with a full manly beard and wearing full armor. His coat of arms, covered with imperial eagle imagery, appears in the top left corner.
Print portrait of Francesco Gonzaga. His coat of arms, with imperial eagle imagery, appears in the top left corner.

Gonzaga, the letter continues, was lord of the great city of Mantua, Galeazzo a born vagabond who lived “like dogs do at the expense of others,” a prostitute famous only for his “ass favors,” adding “I have my parties at the door of others, not at mine,” i.e. when I have gay sex I’m on the top, you’re on the bottom! Such ferocious sexual language was not unusual from Gonzaga, a man who often sealed his letters, not with a signet ring with his coat of arms, but an image from an ancient Roman token depicting a couple having anal sex.

We aren’t 100% sure how these tokens were used in antiquity, but many thousands exist depicting different sex acts. One theory is that they were tokens used at brothels; one bought them at the central cashier and redeemed inside, like ordering off a menu with tokens with a photo of the food, and Gonzaga was a collector of antiquities, especially *crude* antiquities.

Image of both sides of what looks like a coin. The front depicts two naked people face down on a bed in the act of having anal sex. The back, surrounded by a Roman olive garland, depicts the Roman numeral III, indicating value and price as the token is used in a brothel.

Ancient Rome left us *thousands* of phalluses: phallus-shaped lamps, ceramic good luck phalluses displayed by the doors of shops to bring abundance, the many phalluses broken off of ancient statues by accidents or deliberate art censorship, and Gonazaga was one of many collectors.

Photograph of four ancient Roman clay oil lamps in the shape of satyrs with enormous penises, from the Secret Cabinet of the Archaeological Museum in Naples which collects a huge number of the kinds of sexually explicit antiquities that fascinated Gonzaga and his contemporaries.
Four ancient Roman clay oil lamps in the shape of satyrs with enormous penises, from the Secret Cabinet of the Archaeological Museum in Naples which collects a huge number of the kinds of sexually explicit antiquities that fascinated Gonzaga and his contemporaries.

 

From the same museum collection, an ancient Roman bronze flying phallus, with additional phalluses coming off of it, with bells hanging from it, designed to hang like a wind chime or a bell on a store's front door.
From the same museum collection, an ancient Roman bronze flying phallus, with additional phalluses coming off of it, with bells hanging from it, designed to hang like a wind chime or a bell on a store’s front door.

For those wondering, Gonzaga *did not* use the anal sex image to seal letters to his wife Isabella d’Este, he had a more formal seal for such letters– there are fascinating collections of their letters, showing their negotiated co-rule of Mantua and almost good-cop-bad-cop balancing of performance of power.

Isabella d'Este and Francesco Gonzaga: Power Sharing at the Italian Renaissance Court Sarah D.P. Cockram

Gonzaga also had a love-affair with his sister-in-law Lucrezia Borgia, wife of Isabella’s brother Duke Alfonso d’Este of Ferrara. Lucrezia’s more famous affair was with the poet-scholar Pietro Bembo, whose exchange poetic romantic letters Byron called “The Prettiest love letters in the world.”

The Prettiest Love Letters in the World: Letters between Lucrezia Borgia and Pietro Bembo 1503 to 1519 Translated and prefaced by Hugh Shankland, Wood engravings by Richard Shirley Smith

The Lucrezia-Gonzaga letters are *not like that*, and much more along the lines of “Let me describe my enormous penis.” “I love when you describe your enormous penis!” Their contrast with the Lucrezia-Bembo letters reveal Lucrezia as who enjoyed many different genres of love & relationship. Francesco Gonzaga’s refusal to duel Galeazzo Sanseverino, though hilariously dramatic, was also strategic, magnifying the differences between the two of them in order to avoid risking losing face if he lost the duel against Galeazzo. Given that this is 1503, many are surprised to see gay sex be so overt, both in Gonzaga’s letter and Galezzo’s relationship with Duke Ludovico, a gay relationship fully public in the face of all Italy.  Didn’t the Inquisition police such things with an iron fist? Yes *and* no.

Meme image of the silly Spanish Inquisition from Monty Python, with the caption "Everyone Expects the Inquisition."

The answer is that Renaissance justice was extremely malleable if one had *political influence* meaning in the period *patronage*. If you were powerful (duke, marquis, cardinal) you *and those in your favor* could get away with anything, and not just local enforcement but even the Inquisition didn’t dare interfere. There’s a letter from a friend in Rome to Machiavelli saying Rome is cracking down on homosexuality, and all their gay friends *who don’t work for cardinals* are scared & doing things like hiring female prostitutes to hang around & make them look straight. Those who work for cardinals are safe. Elite favor created bubbles of liberty beyond the law. We even have letters of inquisitors complaining to each other about dukes insisting their courtiers and favorite scholars be allowed to have and read banned books, and that they can do nothing. The Inquisition needed local authorities to cooperate with them, lend them troops, jail cells etc., and the popes were from political families and needed allies, and would rather let the Duke of Milan parade his boyfriend around than piss him off in the middle of a French invasion.

Map of central and northern Italy circa 1450, showing the Papal States surrounded by a complex colorful array of other powers, clearly a messy political situation.
Map of central and northern Italy circa 1450, showing the Papal States surrounded by a complex colorful array of other powers, clearly a messy political situation.

This applied high & low: in Florence, a carpenter who works for a middlingly-important family gets in trouble, he writes to his employer, they write to a bigger family they serve, & a letter from Lorenzo de Medici or Palla Strozzi gets the sentence on the books (death!) reduced to a small fine.

Goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini’s unreasonably interesting autobiography describes how he would wait until he had a major commission from a pope or a king & *then* murder someone he hated, knowing the patron will get him off in order to still get the art they commissioned. Cellini *boasts of this* expecting the audience to be impressed with his cleverness in manipulating the system to get away with murder, maiming, vandalism, necromancy (really!), and a variety of sexual exploits. Cellini’s idol & role model, famously gay Michelangelo, was similarly never in danger since his boss was always a pope or duke. Even a pope authorized a crackdown on the general populace, it didn’t apply to the man painting His Holiness’s ceiling.

This is why those goons at the start of Romeo & Juliet are willing to risk their lives for the Montagues & Capulets: Lord Capulet is their social safety net, who’ll care for them if they’re disabled, raise their orphans if they’re killed, get them off if they commit crimes, and protect them if they’re queer.

Meme showing a combat scene with actors in Renaissance garb stabbing each other, with the captions: "Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?" "Yes, to protect my boyfriend!"

This flexible judicial system—one sentence on the books, a much lighter one if someone important writes a letter—is how homosexuality, radical heterodoxy etc. could be illegal yet *not* covert, and how the ferocious sentence in the law (Off with his head! Off with his hands!) was so rarely enforced that it’s the aberration, not the norm. My friend Michael Roche’s brilliant book “Forbidden Friendships” shows how 40% to 60% of Florence’s male population was indicted for sodomy (a capital offense!) at some point in their lives, yet practically all indictments ended with a fine.

Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence Michael Rocke
I cannot recommend this book enough!!!!

The exception was if you fell out of the patronage system. If you pissed off your patron, suddenly you face a ferocious justice system which will happily dismember you in the town square make an example. The message: don’t commit crimes *and anger the duke* or this will happen. This is one more way the Renaissance judicial system (then as now) operated as a tool to keep elites in power, and to keep populations obedient to elites. It’s a big part of why Enlightenment thinkers thought that making standardized sentences (one crime = one punishment) would be equalizing. Elites abuse post-Enlightenment judicial systems in many ways too, but it’s neat to be reminded what the principle of “Equality under the law” hoped to end, a world in which the desire to live and love as one wished in safety (or read and think as one wished) was another chain binding you to obedience.

I treat the entanglement of patronage and law at much greater length in “Inventing the Renaissance,” how it bound every layer of society together in a system whose coercive power is a cheering reminder that, while today’s society has many flaws, we have taken some real steps toward equality.

Galeazzo Sanseverino & Milan’s Sovereign Polycule-Threesome

Time to meet one of my favorite Renaissance friends: Galeazzo Sanseverino, a mercenary whom contemporary sources describe as the sexiest thing in pants in Italy, part of the badass polycule threesome that ruled Milan in the early 1490s.

(This is part of my series counting down to the release of my new book Inventing the Renaissance!)

Photograph of a stone statue, probably depicting Galeazzo Sanseverino as the model forSaint Victor the Martyr (statue in Milan cathedr al museum). Extremely handsome with shoulder - length curly hair, he wears a cloak over decorated Roman armor, and has his arms bound behind him in a sexy pose, giving him a homoerotic look similar to depictions of Saint Sebastian but more military.
Photograph of a stone statue, probably depicting Galeazzo Sanseverino as the model for
Saint Victor the Martyr (statue in Milan cathedral museum).

Galeazzo was the third son of Roberto Sanseverino d’Aragona, one of the most celebrated mercenary generals of the 1400s, who had fathered 25 children before dying heroically in the Battle of Calliano at the age of 69!

Relief sculpture in speckled orange marble from the tomb slab of a knight, Roberto Sanseverino. He is carved wearing full plate male, with a sword at his side and a spear in his hand, standing with great confidence.
Relief sculpture, tomb slab of Roberto Sanseverino.

Suit of silvery plate armor, standing erect. It is undecorated and practical, with very hefty protection on the shoulders. The different and inferior time - pocked quality of the helmet displayed with it shows that it is a substitute, not part of the original surviving suit.

The armor Roberto died in (captured as a trophy) still survives.Roberto’s eldest son Gianfrancesco became a general in the French king’s armies, the second Fracasso the most famous jouster in Europe and a favorite of Emperor Maximilian, and practically all his sons were soldiers, so as #3 Galeazzo had to do a *lot* to stand out. Boy did he succeed!

Miniature painting of Galeazzo Sanseverino in the midst of a procession in Milan. He wears red robes and a red cap, and carries a banner with the black eagle on gold of the emperor, which is part of the Sforza crest.
Miniature painting of Galeazzo Sanseverino in the midst of a procession in Milan.

Galeazzo became the favorite lover of Ludovico Visconti-Sforza, who ruled Milan, first as regent then as duke, until his capture by the French in 1499. He made Galeazzo leader of his armies, and trusted him with so much power & sway in the city that people called him “The Second Duke”.

Detail portrait of Ludovico Sforza from the "Pala Sforzesca." Ludovico has black hair down to the nape of his neck, a slightly chubby build, and wears a garment of costly pomegranate pattern light blue silk brocade with gold edging and a huge gold chain around his neck. The background shows the lavish garments of the saints who surround the duke in the complete painting, which shows him and his wife amid religious figures kneeling in prayer.
Detail portrait of Ludovico Sforza from the “Pala Sforzesca.
Portrait possibly of Galeazzo Sanseverino. A man with auburn shoulder - length curly hair stands looking at the viewer. He wears a black cap, a costly black velvet overgarment lined with leopard fur, a red doublet partly unbuttoned down the front, and gray gloves.
Portrait possibly of Galeazzo Sanseverino.

Galeazzo was *also* a beloved favorite of Ludovico’s young wife, Beatrice d’Este–one of the noblest princesses in Italy, sister of the Duke of Ferrara–whom sources say gave Galeazzo access to her private rooms at all hours, reveled in his company, and played croquet with him every afternoon.

Sketch of Beatrice d'Este by someone in the circle of Leonardo da Vinci. She wears anelegant gown on her sloping shoulders, and has her long hair pulled back in the Neapolitan or Spanish style favored at the court of Milan, with a circlet around the top of her head and a hair net over the back of it above a long bundled braid.
Sketch of Beatrice d’Este by someone in the circle of Leonardo da Vinci.

Beatrice had *loathed* her husband’s female lovers, like Cecilia Gallerani immortalized in Leonardo’s famous painting “Lady with an Ermine” but loved Galeazzo, and happily welcomed him as family.

Leonardo's portrait of Cecilia Galleraniknown as "Lady with an Ermine." Wearing the same hairstyle as Beatrice d'Este in her portrait, Cecilia gazes to the right while holding a snow white ermine, representing purity and virtue. She wears a blue overgown lined with gold over a red gown, and a long necklace of black beads.
Leonardo’s portrait of Cecilia Gallerani known as “Lady with an Ermine.”

While contemporary sources are very explicit about the openly sexual relationship between Ludovico and Galahad, no sources (even written by enemies) ever suggested any sexual relationship between Galahad and Beatrice despite their intimate friendship and close contact.

Portrait probably of Beatrice d'Este by Bernardino de' Conti called "The Rothschild Lady." She wears the same hairstyle with a circlet cord around her forehead and a golden hairnet over the back of her head, above a long braid wrapped in blue fabric. A large red brooch with a drop pearl and a feather pins the circlet at the side of her head. Her gown is blue and gold spiral brocade with green sleeves attached with pink ribbons. She wears a necklace of large pearls, and holds a letter in her hand.
Portrait probably of Beatrice d’Este by Bernardino de’ Conti called “The Rothschild Lady.”

The young duchess *was* very close with her husband’s illegitimate daughter Bianca Giovanna Visconti-Sforza, who was nine when the sixteen-year-old duchess came to Milan in 1491, & became her dear companion/playmate.

Probable portrait drawing of Bianca Giovanna by Leonardo da Vinci. She too is depicted in profile with her hair in the Spanish style, a golden circlet holding a golden hair net in place above her long gold-bound braid. She wears a greenish gown over red and yellow underlayers.
Probable portrait drawing of Bianca Giovanna by Leonardo da Vinci.

To tie the family together, Ludovico had Galeazzo marry young Bianca Giovanna, making his lover his son-in-law (which is what most histories call him). Accounts describe the very young princess enjoying playing chastely with the husband who treated her more as a stepdaughter than a wife.

Portrait of Beatrice d'Este, a detail from the same painting of the ducal couple kneeling among their patron saints. She wears pearls in her hair, a costly brooch, and a gown of bold gold and black striped silk.
Portrait of Beatrice d’Este, a detail from the same painting as the earlier portrait of Ludovico.

Two sons born to the ducal couple (and doted on by Galeazzo & Bianca) seemed to secure the family’s future, and even when the French invaded in 1494 Duchess Beatrice (shown here as a girl with her sister Isabella d’Este) visited and charmed the French king, securing a (brief) alliance.

Painting detail of two teenaged girls in Renaissance gowns, leaning near each other as if one is embracing the other. Both have their hair semi-loose, with ribbons or snoodsholding it with loose netting, and wear necklaces of black beads and gowns of dark blue with many decorative ribbons showing from the edges of the white chemises underneath. The one in the foreground (probably Isabella) holds a lute.
Painting detail of two teenaged girls in Renaissance gowns, leaning near each other as if one is embracing the other.
Portrait of Massimiliano Sforza, eldest son of Beatrice and Ludovico, shown as a little boy with shoulder-length auburn hear wearing a red cap and child-sized armor.
Portrait of Massimiliano Sforza, eldest son of Beatrice and Ludovico.
Portrait of the ducal couple's second son Francesco as an infant, wearing a red doublet with green sleeves.
Portrait of the ducal couple’s second son Francesco as an infant.

Alas, the joy was not to last. Relations with the French soured, and Bianca died of illness in 1496 (age 14), then Beatrice in childbed the year after (age 22). Ludovico’s mourning was so extreme he locked himself away for 2 weeks, shaved his head, & started wearing only black & a ragged cloak.

Beatrice d'Este's tomb. She is carved in white marble, lying as if sleeping serently on a bed. She wears a gown elaborately patterned with diamond stripes, and her hair is curled in a halo around her forehead.
Beatrice d’Este’s tomb.
Detail of her face in profile in the carved tomb. She appears to be asleep, and the detail of her eyelashes in the marble is exquisite.
Detail of her face in profile in the carved tomb.

Soon after, amid the wars egged on by many including the ambitious Borgias, the French seized Milan and captured Ludovico, keeping him in an iron cage in which he used to display his high-status prisoners. For a great account of this see John Gangé’s book “Milan Undone“.

 

Book cover of Milan Undone

Galeazzo too was captured but charmed the French who let his brothers ransom him be. He went to emperor’s court where, not to be outdone in drama, he wore all black and *dyed his hair black* letting it grow unkempt down to his waist as a token of his grief for Ludovico’s continued imprisonment. It was in this phase that he challenged the ferocious Francesco Gonzaga to a duel (a story that’s now a new post!), but eventually he entered the service of the French King Louis and was still so charming he became the only non-Frenchman to ever receive the title of Royal Chamberlain of France. Ludovico died in his imprisonment in 1508. Galeazzo, long outliving all his dear ones from Milan, died heroically in battle defending France’s next king Francis I in the Battle of Pavia 1525, aged 65.

Tapestry probably showing Galeazzo Sanseverino as a mature man in his final battle, wearing armor and wielding a sword as he sits atop a finely-arrayed brown horse. He is still wearing a black garment over his armor.
Tapestry probably showing Galeazzo Sanseverino as a mature man in his final battle.

Queer & complex families like this usually get erased in histories, but I love to remember them through this painting by pre-Raphaelite artist Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale, imagining a happy alternate Milan where Beatrice survives & hosts visiting Leonardo da Vinci and (inexplicably) Savonarola.

A painting of the court at Milan. Standing on a checkerboard floor in front of a frescoed colonnade, Leonardo da Vinci shows a model of his flying machine to thoughtful Duke Ludovico and his son Massimiliano, who appears to be six or seven years old (older than he was when his mother died and father was captured). To the left, his mother Duchess Beatrice sits in one of a pair of fancy red chairs, while the other stands empty but a man who could easily be Galeazzo Sanseverino stands behind it, leaning close to the duchess whispering in her ear. Standing behind them are Cecilia Galerani, Elizabetta Gonzaga, and Savonarola, all recognizable from their famous portraits. A page boy behind holds a pet monkey. To the right, behind the Duke, three gentleman courtiers in gorgeous court finery watch, two looking at the model while one veils his mouth with his hat as he whispers to his companions
An imaginative 19th century painting of the court at Milan by the fantastic Pre-Raphaelite artist Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale: Leonardo da Vinci shows a model of his flying machine to thoughtful Duke Ludovico and his son Massimiliano, who appears to be six or seven years old (older than he was when his mother died and his father was captured, making this painting alternate history!). To the left, the boy’s mother Duchess Beatrice sits in one of a pair of fancy red chairs, while the other stands empty but a man who could easily be Galeazzo Sanseverino stands behind it, leaning close to the duchess whispering in her ear. Standing behind them are Cecilia Galerani, Elizabetta Gonzaga, and (inexplicably?!) Savonarola, all recognizable from their famous portraits. A page boy behind holds a pet monkey. To the right, behind the Duke, three gentleman courtiers in gorgeous court finery watch, two looking at the model while one veils his mouth with his hat as he whispers to his companions. So fantastic to see actual alternate history represented, yet another proof how linked the Pre-Raphaelite art movement was to the roots of modern fantastic, historical, and speculative fiction!

Check out my post on the Gonzaga duel story if you’d like to read more!

Resistance when the Tyrant is in Power: Florence’s Vasari Corridor

Let’s talk about resistance after a conqueror takes power. Specifically let’s talk about this bendy yellow building, and what it shows us about the moment the Florentine Republic finally fell to its kleptocratic/proto-capitalist banking-fortune Medici conquerors.

(Originally a Bluesky thread, part of my countdown to the release of Inventing the Renaissance)

Photograph of a building in Florence. A tall thin stone section rises up, from street level several stories. About the level of the second story, a yellow section sticks out from the outside of it, awkwardly wrapping around the outside of the stone part, supported by elegant sticky - outy triangular struts. The yellow section has several small circular windows, much too small for a human to climb through, barely large enough for a chubby cat.

In a post last week, I talked about how Renaissance towns used to be full of tall stone towers, built by rich families as mini-fortresses, & Florence got sick of people hiding in their fireproof towers while setting fire to rivals’ houses & letting things burn, so they made everyone knock the tops off.

Photo of a model of Bologna, with so many earthy pink tall skinny towers sticking up from every block of the terra-cotta-roofed town that it looks like plant seeds starting to come up in spring. Around the edge you can see the city's moat and battlemented walls, looking tiny compared to the towers which rise to six or seven times the height of the three-story buildings around them.

The Lost Towers of the Guelph-Ghibelline Wars

Centuries later, the stubs of former towers were still conspicuous, and owning one was a mark of prestige, that you were rich & powerful *before* the tower ban. Tower nubs symbolized patrimony and stability. With which we can now recognize our yellow thing going around one of these nubs. Why?

A photo of a street in Florence. Many tourists walk along and the buildings are all sho ps and eateries. In the center, conspicuous between buildings of yellow or beige stucco, is one building made of crude - looking yellowish stone, very rough and undecorated, with few windows and all small compared to its neighbors. A couple doors down, a sec ond conspicuous stone section like this sticks up, also strangely blank and rough amid its yellow neighbors. Both stop about half a story above the roofs of the three - story buildings on either side of them.
The stone building at center above is one of the distinctive rough stone tower nubs, originally much, much taller.
Image from further away pointing out how the yellow architectural feature, shown in the first image, wraps around one of these recognizable towers.
Our yellow architectural feature wrapping around another such tower nub.

 

The iconic Vasari Corridor was built by a conqueror who feared his people. This lovely yellow walkway over the bridge connected the old seat of government (which he symbolically had to occupy) to the new palace where he lived, keeping him from assassination behind solid walls.

Photograph of Florence's iconic Ponte Vecchio, the Old Bridge. A lower stone section with arches is covered with tiny houses in various shades of golden stucco, with little square widows with green or red shutters. Along the upper portion going across above the roofs of the tiny buildings is a long yellow corridor, matching what we saw wrap around the tower. The picturesque combination is photographed in twilight, with lights shimmering on the deep blue water. In the river below, a totally inappropriate gondola full of tourists is looking up at the bridge (Florence did not have gondolas, only Venice did, this is very silly, but very pretty!)

It was an architectural show of force, as all the families with property in the way were pressured to submit to the new duke’s demand to let him build his walkway over their roofs or even through their homes. It was also a show of fear, perhaps best personified by the fact that

Architectural diagram of the Vasari Corridor. Amid the various buildings of Florence, shown in gray, the fully colored walkway stands out. It starts in the top left at the Palazzo Vecchio, the old battlemented square palace with its tall clock tower. From there the terra cotta roof of the yellow walkway extends straight to the right to the river, then along the river to the bridge, then turns across the bridge and meanders through the buildings on the far side of the river until it reaches the large Pitti P alace complex. You can clearly see how in some sections it goes through what would have been public space, going above streets and sidewalks, but in other areas plows through private homes, and even through the small church of Santa Felicita.

around the same time that Duke Cosimo built this fortified commuter lane to avoid his people, his neighbor Duke Alfonso d’Este of Ferrara used to walk around his city buck naked (with his dick in one hand & a sword in the other) to show off his confidence that no one dared touch a d’Este.

Portrait of young Duke Cosimo I de Medici. He barely has any beard, and looks barely twenty. He wears very elaborately dec orated etched shiny armor, with a helmet in his hands, and stands in front of a velvety drape. He has no insignia of knighthood etc. but looks very warlike, and his armor has brackets for bracing a lance, for jousting.
Duke Cosimo I de Medici

 

Portrait of Duke Alfonso d'Este. He has a grizzled full beard. Wearing a red and black fur - lined brocade overgarment over a red velvet robe, he leans nonchalantly on a cannon, with his other hand on the gold - hilted sword at his b elt. A dignified chain of membership in a prestigious order of knighthood hangs around his neck (Order of Saint Michael, of France).
Duke Alfonso d’Este

The d’Este were a *very* blue blooded old family, stably in power for generations, propped up by Venice, the Holy Roman Emperor, and the papacy who all wanted stability in the duchy that was the buffer zone between their three empires, minimizing direct war.

Ma p of northern Italy. Ferrara is highlighted in yellow, positioned in between the top left section (circled in blue) which is under the dominion of the Holy Roman Emperor, the top right section which is under the ruler of Venice (circled in green), and the bottom section circled in red which is the Papal States. Tuscany is also visible as a gap between these empires to the left, but Ferrara is the skinny choke point, just south of Venice and north of Bologna.

In contrast, the Medici were mere merchant scum, commoner equals of their neighbors who, back when everyone important in Florence had a tower, hadn’t had an impressive one. Bowing before a noble-blooded prince made sense to people at the time, before that family down the street?

Machiavelli said if people are deeply invested in an institution they fight for it, so places used to monarchy (like Milan) if they became republics yield to new conquerors easily (Milan did in 1450) but peoples who truly love their would never stop fighting for their ancient liberty.

Florence did fight the ducal takeover. Cellini’s Perseus statue, the topic of my first thread in this series, commemorated Duke Cosimo crushing of one violent uprising, & his desire to cast the severed heads of his enemies in eternal bronze was a show of force, but also fear.

Left' A bronze statue of naked Perseus, beautifully muscular and youthful, holding aloft the severed head of Medusa from whose neck gore is dribbling in streams. He wears a beautiful classical helmet with wings on it, and holds a curved classical sword. In the background one can see the arched roof of the Renaissance loggia above him. Right: An orange book cover showing the same statue in much the same position, though one can also see Medusa's headless body at Perseus's triumphant feet, her neck streaming gore. The title "Inventing the Renaissance: Myths of a Golden Age" is superimposed over the statue, with the word "the" pierced by the sword.

Cellini’s Perseus & the Violence of Renaissance Art

When Duke Cosimo wanted to build his elevated private commuter tunnel, those heads on pikes were fresh memories. Most neighbors yielded to his architectural conquest, but there in his way was one old tower nub, cramped, unfashionable, cold, but patrimony of the Mannelli family who… were descended from the Roman Manlii family who’d had a consul as early as 480 BC, peers of Cicero and Caesar, who’d already owned the tower a century when Boccaccio’s friend Francesco Mannelli lived in it during the Black Death, 200 years before Duke Cosimo took power.

So when the duke unveiled his plans to blast a hole through it, the Mannelli told the young conqueror to get stuffed. Cosimo knew if he violated this symbol of ancient patrimony, every *other* propertied family would turn on him. The conqueror didn’t dare cross that line.

This wasn’t idealistic resistance; it came from one of the most oligarchic and entrenched of social forces: property rights. But it was resistance, and it worked. Around the tower the corridor went. Every generation thereafter pointed to it as a place the people drew the line, and won.

Image again of the corridor wrapping awkwardly around the tower.Portrait again of Duke Cosimo I.

This is not a story of the kind of resistance that groundswells and overthrows the tyrants. The Medici stayed in power until the family died out, they were never overthrown. But they were *kept in check.* A line the conqueror doesn’t dare cross is a powerful line, that protects much behind it.

Stories of revolution are dramatic and cathartic, but we also need stories like this, of resistance *under tyranny* that drew a line, *reducing harm* even while tyrant stayed. Nor was this the only time Florence drew such a line.

Rewinding a century, the Medici rose to power around 1430 through a combination of cunning, cash & cultural soft power under Cosimo the Elder the great-great-great-grandfather of the Duke Cosimo. Many times in that century Florence drew the line.

Portrait of Cosimo the Elder, wearing very expensive but humble - in - rank merchant's red robes and a merchant's red hat. He sits in a wooden chair. Next to him grows a laurel tree with a ribbon wrapped around it, repr e senting his noble descendants especially Lorenzo il Magnifico, his grandson.
Portrait of the original Cosimo de Medici the elder, dressed in merchant-appropriate red robes, lined with fur which shows they were extremely expensive, but very much not what a duke would wear.

 

Portrait of Duke Cosimo I again , looking much more like a nobleman in his shiny armor compared with his humble mercantile great, great, great - grandfather.
Portrait of Duke Cosimo I, wearing very warlike and splendid armor, looking very ducal exactly as his merchant-class descendants didn’t dare look in portraits. (Despite Cosimo’s grandsons in fact owning armor and jousting, but what you choose to look like in a *portrait* is different.

They drew it violently with uprisings or assassination attempts in 1433, 1466, 1478, 1494, 1430, 1437 etc., and more quietly many times between through moments of resistance like the Mannelli telling the conqueror he and his corridor to (literally) get bent (around their tower).

The tale of resistance told by the Mannelli Tower isn’t one of revolution, it’s one of slowing down the shifting baseline. The baseline did keep shifting, less liberty for all and more power for the conquerors, but it shifted * slowly*, and many lives and rights sheltered behind that line. If we define victory as preserving the republic, there’s no happy ending, the Medici won. But if their conquest started in 1430 and they still didn’t dare pierce a symbolic tower 130 years later, that is a lot of slowing the baseline compared to what Florence’s conquered neighbors endured. Slowing the baseline shift meant many generations of Medici being careful, respecting core rights, while Alfonso d’Este didn’t just parade around Ferrara buck naked, he had his artists thrown in the dungeon if he thought they weren’t painting fast enough.

Machiavelli said peoples who treasure their liberties can preserve them even through long stretches of tyranny. That it’s peoples like 1450 Milan who yield quickly to the tyrant and don’t try to hold the line who lose their liberty completely. He wasn’t wrong.

We don’t like resistance stories without a cathartic revolution, they don’t feel like blowing up the Death Star. They feel like loss. They’re not. We need to revisit these worst case scenarios to see that, even when resistance didn’t *win* it did *work*. It saved lives & livelihoods.

A detailed image of Perseus's torso as he holds up the severed head. You can see the name of the sculptor "Benvenuto Cellini" written on a strap which goes diagonally across Perseus's naked chest, holding his scabbard - the helmet and scabbard are the only clothes he wears. A pigeon sitting on the sword is humorously positioned just in the right spot to hide the penis.

 

Florence’s republic didn’t fall to the Medici only once, it kicked them out in 1433, in 1494, in 1512, in 1530, it took many conquests. But even when it *was* the worst case, the final fall, resistance kept Florence a place that with noticeably more liberty than its neighbors.

No one in Florence knew which republic was the last republic, not in 1430, 1478, 1494, 1512, or 1530, but they did know *all* resistance held the line and preserved liberties. Partial victory is powerful. We must remember that.

(To learn more “Inventing the Renaissance” comes out in a few weeks!)

 

The Lost Towers of the Guelph-Ghibelline Wars

Photo of a model of Bologna, with so many earthy pink tall skinny towers sticking up from every block of the terra-cotta-roofed town that it looks like plant seeds starting to come up in spring. Around the edge you can see the city's moat and battlemented walls, looking tiny compared to the towers which rise to six or seven times the height of the three-story buildings around them.

Looks fake, doesn’t it?  This implausible Medieval forest of towers, as dense as Manhattan skyscrapers, is our best reconstruction of the town of Bologna at its height, toward the end of the Medieval Guelph-Ghibelline wars. We don’t see many such towers today… or think we don’t, but actually their remnants are all over Italy.

Often when in Florence one sees buildings like this, where one section is rough stone standing out amid stucco neighbors.

A photo of a street in Florence. Many tourists walk along and the buildings are all shops and eateries. In the center, conspicuous between buildings of yellow or beige stucco, is one building made of crude-looking yellowish stone, very rough and undecorated, with few windows and all small compared to its neighbors. A couple doors down, a second conspicuous stone section like this sticks up, also strangely blank and rough amid its yellow neighbors. Both stop about half a story above the roofs of the three-story buildings on either side of them.

These are actually the bottom nubs of Medieval stone towers. The town of San Gimigniano (below) is famous for having several still intact. Wealthy families built these as mini-fortresses within the city, where they could defend against riots, enemy families (think Montagues and Capulets) and invasion:

A classic image of the skyline of the town of San Gimigniano, with many smaller houses three or four stories tall with the characteristic Italian yellow stucco walls and terra cotta tiled roofs, but with eleven stone towers sticking up far above them, towering twelve stories or more. The towers are very plain and blank, just squares of stone without decoration and with few windows, clearly utilitarian more than aesthetic.

Signs of wealth and prestige, these all-stone buildings were also fireproof, leading to a terrible but effective tactic: take your family, treasures & goods up into your tower then set fire to enemies’ homes and let the city burn around you while you sit safe above. This was VERY BAD for cities.

Photo of a street corner in San Gimigniano, with several plain-sided square stone towers sticking up above the roofline against a bright blue sky.
street corner in San Gimigniano

After many disasters, Florence’s solution was to BAN private buildings over a certain height, forcing everyone who had a tower to knock the top off down to regulation height, leaving these recognizable stone nubs all around the city. This round one below is the oldest (now a restaurant).

Photograph of some buildings crammed very close together. Those on the left and right are yellow stucco with large windows. In the middle, touching both of them, is a circular section made of rough nubbly stone, that really looks like it could be the bottom part of a round castle tower, it just needs battlements or a pointy cone roof. Instead it's lopped off flat just above the roofs of the other buildings.

My favorite tower stub is this one, in Via dei Cerchi. I lived on the top floor for a year as a grad student, up 111 steps! I had calves of steel by spring, but the views from the top looked like someone had put a poster of Florence on the wall except it was a window!

Photo of a street of town buildings, all squeezed together sharing walls with no gaps between. The one on the left is yellow stucco, with an archway and a "Coin" grocery store. The one on the right is yellow stucco above with decorative faux rustic stone facing on the lower floor. In between them, about the width of one storefront, is a section where the wall is rough rubbley stone, with one small and one large arched door at the bottom, and very small windows above. The large arched door would have had a fortress gate large enough for horses to enter, but is now a tabacchi shop.

 

Photograph through a semicircular window, showing a roofline and the tower of Florence's famous Palazzo Vecchio sticking up above. This window was in the bathroom! I had this view from the toilet! It was incredible!

Only city buildings were allowed to exceed the mandated height, which is why Florence’s skyline is now all special buildings: monastery bell towers, the cathedral & baptistery, Orsanmichele the city’s granary (tall to keep grain away from water & mice), the seat of government, and one special guy…

Photograph of the Florence skyline from the south side of the river. Sticking up above the sea of fairly flat tiled roofs one can see a few distinctive buildings. To the left is the battlemented Palazzo Vecchio with its tall square battlemented tower. To the right and behind it (hard to see) is the city granary. Toward the center is the red dome of San Lorenzo, and in front of it the white hexagonal pointy roof of the Baptistery. Just to the right of the baptistery is the enormous cathedral with its stripey bell tower and massive dome. In front of the cathedral are two towers, one pointy, and one square; the square one is circled in yellow and we'll zoom in on it in a moment.

The tower on the right here is part of Bargello, the prison & police fortress, but it didn’t start that way. It was built by a private family, who sold it to the city when the law banning towers was passed, and the city incorporated it into their prison fort.

A photograph taken from my tower apartment across the roofs of Florence. Two golden stone towers stick up above all the red tiled roofs. On the left is a pointy one with crosses on it, part of the Badia monastery. On the right is a square one with battlements and big open windows, connected to a fortress with more battlements.

The city jail had to be a fortress in case someone from a powerful family was arrested and the family sent goons to break them out (those guys who bite their thumbs in the opening scene of Romeo & Juliet would *totally* have stormed the jail to bust Romeo out!).

Photograph of the inside of a Medieval fortress. The interior courtyard of pale stone is surrounded by a covered loggia with rounded arches, and the walls are covered with coats of arms of past noblemen who served as captains of the police. In the center is a well, to give it is own source of water. A woman in a brown shirt stands near the well, looking very tiny in the huge courtyard.

In this photo you can see how the brick battlements are a later addition, added to the tower as part of its transformation from private fortress to public.

In the foreground is a stone wall with battlements. Sticking up behind it, against a bright blue sky, is the top of a stone tower. The tower itself is the same yellowish stone as the wall, but on top of the tower is a balcony area with battlements clearly added in red brick, and lined on top with metal sheeting to protect against the weather. The golden weathercock on top is on edge at the moment, and barely visible.

What did Florence look like back when it had all its towers? Its long-time ally across the mountains Bologna is famous for still having two intact towers, but in the Middle Ages Bologna was known as the City of 100 Towers because so many families built them. The reconstructions look absolutely incredible. Florence didn’t have so many but did have dozens, so the richest part of the city center would have looked much like this.  Much to the despair of the city fire brigade!

Photo of a model of Bologna, with so many earthy pink tall skinny towers sticking up from every block of the terra-cotta-roofed town that it looks like plant seeds starting to come up in spring. Around the edge you can see the city's moat and battlemented walls, looking tiny compared to the towers which rise to six or seven times the height of the three-story buildings around them.

So, whether in a film or on the street, if you ever see a historic Italian city and walk along a block where for some reason one chunk of wall is stone and all the others smooth, you’re probably looking at a relic of the faction feuds that Guido Ruggiero aptly calls “The Italian 300 Years’ War.”

View down a street in Florence. The buildings on both sides are yellow stucco with stone windowframes, but the one at the end is naked brownish stone all the way up, with small windows one of which has a balcony outside with flowers.

I talk about this long war in “Inventing the Renaissance,” one of many points of continuity which show how the supposed difference between a bad “Dark Ages” and Renaissance “golden age” is 100% propaganda, but fascinating propaganda with a deep history.

And I’ll share more tidbits like over the coming days as we countdown to the book’s release!

 

Cellini’s Perseus & the Violence of Renaissance Art

Inventing the Renaissance comes out in one month in the UK (2 months USA), so I’m going to try to post daily this month on social media to share cool pictures and stories of things related to the book. I thought I would also gather them here, posting them sometimes as individual posts, sometimes gathering a few together when they’re shorter. So to start here are some notes on Benvenuto Cellini’s stunning Perseus, my pick for a cover illustration (thank you, editors!)

Left: A bronze statue of naked Perseus, beautifully muscular and youthful, holding aloft the severed head of Medusa from whose neck gore is dribbling in streams. He wears a beautiful classical helmet with wings on it, and holds a curved classical sword. In the background one can see the arched roof of the Renaissance loggia above him.  
Right: An orange book cover showing the same statue in much the same position, though one can also see Medusa's headless body at Perseus's triumphant feet, her neck streaming gore. The title "Inventing the Renaissance: Myths of a Golden Age" is superimposed over the statue, with the word "the" pierced by the sword.

For me, this statue personifies the Renaissance because, by standing opposite Michelangelo’s David by the Palazzo Vecchio, it’s part of a suite of famous statues every one of which commemorates some big & often violent tumult. When we meet famous Renaissance art we often hear about the artist but not the context. The severed head is there for a reason!

Photograph of the same bronze statue of Perseus from behind. To the lower right Michelangelo's David stands cattycorner to it, with the Medieval stone wall of Florence's Palazzo Vecchio behind it. A balcony above is crowned by the flags of the European Union, Italian Republic, and Florentine Republic.

Cellini lived in the rocky decades when (after the death of the famous Lorenzo de Medici) the Medici family had been kicked out and strove to return and seize control of the city by force. Duke Cosimo I took over in the 1530s, and commissioned the Perseus in the 1540s right after a bloody revolt.

A detailed image of Perseus's torso as he holds up the severed head. You can see the name of the sculptor "Benvenuto Cellini" written on a strap which goes diagonally across Perseus's naked chest, holding his scabbard - the helmet and scabbard are the only clothes he wears. A pigeon sitting on the sword is humorously positioned just in the right spot to hide the penis.

Perseus’s face deliberately resembled the then-teenaged duke, and Florence had long displayed corpses of traitors that square, often hung from battlements, sometimes as heads on pikes. When the statue was unveiled Medusa’s head in the duke’s hand represented very real & recent rebel heads! Detail from Bronzino's painted portrait of Duke Cosimo I, his bold straight nose and face shape resembling the face of Perseus.

Detail of Perseus's face.

A zoomed-in shot of the severed head of Medusa. Her eyes are closed as if in sleep, and her face beautiful, her hair snakes curled up like the beautiful classical curls common on ancient statues. Bronze streams of gore come down from her neck as if she was just killed.

To increase the gore factor, the statue is positioned at the edge of a roof, so when it rains Perseus remains dry, but water drips down the gore streaming from her head, from the sword point, and from her severed neck!

A photograph of the same statue angled from below shows how the sword, severed head, and the body's neck streaming gore all stick out forward from the body, so they can be in the rain while the body is under the roof above.

To hammer the message home, a relief at the bottom shows Perseus rescuing Andromeda (a personified Florence). In the top right corner a cavalry battle (which does not appear in the Perseus story!) shows the defeat of the rebels, as Perseus “rescues” Florence from the “dragon” of republican rule.

A photograph of the square bronze frieze described in the main text: in the middle Andromeda sits on a stack of stones which look conspicuously like the stones the Palazzo Vecchio itself is made of (the seat of government and symbol of the city). Above her, Perseus flies down with upraised sword to slay the sea dragon which threatens her from the bottom left. To the right, mourning citizens watch the dramatic scene, but above and behind them men on horses clash and the pikes and halberds of German-style soldiers of the era the statue was made stick up above the crowd.

In the base, Jupiter, Perseus’s father, threatens to strike anyone who harms his son, a warning of reprisals from Cosimo’s allies, especially the Emperor whose Landsknecht knights Cosimo quartered under the very roof where the statue stood! Giving it its current name “Loggia dei Lanzi.”

Another angle of the same statue from below shows the elaborate white base covered with decorations, and at the center a niche with a small statue of Jupiter, holding lightning aloft to threaten the viewer.

When we celebrate Renaissance art w/o acknowledging the terror & violence that shaped it, we repeat the myth of a bad “Dark Ages” & Renaissance “golden age” a very potent piece of propaganda, which is what Inventing the Renaissance is about, and it has plenty more Cellini anecdotes, he was a wild man who lived a wild life, documented by his book which I will always call “The Implausibly Interesting Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini.”

I hope you’ll enjoy more tidbits like this in coming days!

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"Warm, generous, and inviting," Inventing the Renaissance provides a witty and irreverent journey through the fantasies historians have constructed about the supposed Dark Ages and golden Renaissance, and exposes the terrible yet often tender reality beneath.