The intellectual struggle for Florence : humanists and the beginnings of the Medici regime, 1420-1440 / Arthur Field.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Field, Arthur, 1948- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Medici, House of.

Florence (Italy)--History--1421-1737.

Florence (Italy).

Florence (Italy)--Intellectual life--To 1500.

Florence (Italy)--Politics and government--1421-1737.

Intellectual life.

Politics and government.

Italy--Florence.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

vii, 368 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2017.

Summary:

The Intellectual Struggle for Florence is an analysis of the ideology that developed in Florence with the rise of the Medici during the early fifteenth century-a period long recognized as the most formative of the early Renaissance. Instead of simply presenting early Renaissance ideas, this book attempts to relate them to specific social and political conflicts of the fifteenth century and to the development of the Medici regime. It first shows how the Medici party came to be viewed as fundamentally different from that of its opponents, the "oligarchs"; then it explores the intellectual world of these oligarchs (the "traditional culture"). As political conflicts sharpened, some humanists with close ties to oligarchy, for example Leonardo Bruni and Francesco Filelfo, still attempted to enrich traditional culture through classical learning, while others, such as Niccolo Niccoli and Poggio, rejected tradition outright and created a new ideology for the Medici party. What is striking here is the extent to which Niccoli and Poggio were able to turn a Latin or classicizing culture into a "popular culture" and how, on the other hand, the culture of the vernacular remained traditional and oligarchic. Book jacket.

Contents:

I Political and Social Background

1 The Oligarchs and Their Opponents, 1378-1426 3

2 The Political Collapse of the Oligarchic Regime, 1426-1434 26

II Traditional Culture

3 Traditional Culture and the Critique of Radical Humanism 75

4 Leonardo Bruni and Civic Humanism 127

5 Francesco Filelfo, Oligarchic Virtue, and Medicean Vice 187

III Medici Culture

6 Niccolo Niccoli, the Man Who Was Nothing 233

7 Poggio and the Ideology of the Medici Regime 276.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 329-350) and index.

ISBN:

0198791089

9780198791089

OCLC:

961408427