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Friendship, Love, and Trust in Renaissance Florence
The question of whether true friendship could exist in an era of patronage occupied Renaissance Florentines as it had the ancient Greeks and Romans whose culture they admired and emulated. Rather than attempting to measure Renaissance friendship against a universal ideal defined by essentially modern notions of disinterestedness, intimacy, and sincerity, in this book Dale Kent explores the meaning of love and friendship as they were represented in the fifteenth century, particularly the relationship between heavenly and human friendship.
She documents the elements of shared experience in friendships between Florentines of various occupations and ranks, observing how these were shaped and played out in the physical spaces of the the streets, street corners, outdoor benches and loggias, family palaces, churches, confraternal meeting places, workshops of artisans and artists, taverns, dinner tables, and the baptismal font.
Finally, Kent examines the betrayal of trust, focusing on friends at moments of crisis or trial in which friendships were tested, and failed or endured. The exile of Cosimo de’ Medici in 1433 and his recall in 1434, the attempt in 1466 of the Medici family’s closest friends to take over their patronage network, and the Pazzi conspiracy to assassinate Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici in 1478 expose the complexity and ambivalence of Florentine friendship, a combination of patronage with mutual intellectual passion and love―erotic, platonic, and Christian―sublimely expressed in the poetry and art of Michelangelo.
She documents the elements of shared experience in friendships between Florentines of various occupations and ranks, observing how these were shaped and played out in the physical spaces of the the streets, street corners, outdoor benches and loggias, family palaces, churches, confraternal meeting places, workshops of artisans and artists, taverns, dinner tables, and the baptismal font.
Finally, Kent examines the betrayal of trust, focusing on friends at moments of crisis or trial in which friendships were tested, and failed or endured. The exile of Cosimo de’ Medici in 1433 and his recall in 1434, the attempt in 1466 of the Medici family’s closest friends to take over their patronage network, and the Pazzi conspiracy to assassinate Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici in 1478 expose the complexity and ambivalence of Florentine friendship, a combination of patronage with mutual intellectual passion and love―erotic, platonic, and Christian―sublimely expressed in the poetry and art of Michelangelo.
- GenresHistory
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 15, 2009
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 20, 2009
Really well turned out, especially given how other historians will balk at any attempt to historicize emotional life. Gives a better sense of the daily lives of the educated elites than practically any other social history of Florence, since it injects that crucial element that is otherwise missing from other histories of personal relationships -- you know, the acknowledgment that these people had interior lives that didn't always make it onto the page.
Actually, if you were to ask me why it is that I study what I study, I might say: this. This is why.
Actually, if you were to ask me why it is that I study what I study, I might say: this. This is why.
Displaying 1 of 1 review