Rome reborn on the Arno: Republican spatialities and the uses of the past

Abstract

Studies on the reception and impact of ancient models in the emergence of Republican civic structures during the Renaissance have adopted, either of two competing models: continuity or reform. The purpose of this article is to engage in this debate by exploring how the ideals of ancient Roman Republicanism were adopted and utilized in the making of new civic spaces and in the formation of institutions in Renaissance Florence. The article examines four key aspects of this transformation: 1) the self-identification of the leaders of Florence with the ancient Romans in Florentine public monuments 2) the reconstruction of administrative spaces and the attempts at realizing the ideals of citizen participation in government; 3) the reformulation of the ideas of Republicanism and popular sovereignty in Florence during the corporatist-republican system exemplified by the guilds; and 4) the emerging ideas of an ideal city, such as those presented by the architect Leon Battista Alberti, and his reinterpretation of ancient Roman ideals. What the article illustrates is the complexity and strategic dynamism of relations that Florence had to not only its own past as a Roman city but to the ideal of ancient Rome and its Republics.

Keywords:

• Florence
• spatiality
• Republicanism
• public space
• reception studies

1. Introduction

When the conveners of the revolutionary National Convention at Paris in 1792 began to formulate what a republic should be like, they turned to the ancient Romans for guidance. In a similar fashion, a few years earlier, the American revolutionaries had drawn many of their ideas for the constitution from Roman examples. However, this lure of an ancient example did not end with constitutions and ideals of the state. Classical influences were very common in the physical outline of the new states, when public buildings and squares were constructed and monuments erected in the neoclassical style¹. The intellectual origins of the lure of ancient precedents, the idealization of the ancient Roman Republic in particular, have often been located in the Renaissance and specifically in the Northern Italian city states such as Florence, which were originally ancient Roman cities. Earlier studies on the reception and impact of ancient models in the emergence of Republican civic structures during the Renaissance have adopted, broadly speaking, either of two competing models: continuity or reform. For example, Chris Wickham, in his analysis of the transformation of Milan, Pisa and Rome, emphasizes the organic, even unintentional development that led to the creation of novel Republican polities (Wickham, 2015). In contrast, scholars have emphasized the example of ancient Rome and the classical past as models and ideals for cities intent on formulating and expressing their civic and cultural identity,² often as part of intense internal rivalry. These studies underline the active agency of those who mobilized the past and its cultural capital for these enterprises and the role that education played in making the use of the past a natural course of action.³

The purpose of this article is to explore how the ideals of ancient Roman and neo-Roman Republicanism were adopted and utilized in the making of new civic spaces and in the formation of institutions that used these places in Renaissance Florence. The article examines four key aspects of this transformation: 1) the self-identification of the leaders of Florence with the ancient Romans in Florentine public monuments 2) the reconstruction of administrative spaces and the attempts at realizing the Republican ideals of citizen participation in government; 3) the reformulation of the ancient Roman ideas of Republicanism and popular sovereignty in Florence during the corporatist-republican system exemplified by the guilds, both in theory by Machiavelli and in practice in the form of guilds and 4) the emerging ideas of an ideal city, such as those presented by the architect Leon Battista Alberti, and his reinterpretation of Roman ideals. The authors are a group of scholars who specialize in the spatial aspect of ancient Roman Republicanism and thus their viewpoint is inverse to that of the typical scholar of Renaissance Florence, as they focus on ancient Roman elements and their reuse and reconfiguration in new circumstances.

What this study aims to illustrate is the convergence between two major fields, intellectual history and urban history, as well as the complex interaction between antiquity and its reception: what was thought about the city, what took place in the city and how it shaped the city. Thus, the question is not simply what kind of structures were built for the new polity,⁴ but also what took place there, what motivated such building projects and how they reflected a new self-understanding. Equally, notions of historical memory and self-definition through the imitation of ancient epigraphic habits become more nuanced when juxtaposed with the way in which ancient models informed self-expression and identity-building through the definition of cultural values (Bolle et al., 2019). This study builds on the examples of scholarship that has sought to use topographical developments and urban change, especially the use of comparisons to Rome as a self-definitional vehicle.⁵

For each of the four aspects or themes, we juxtapose the ideals and practices of the ancient Roman Republican city with the ideas and practices that were formed in the emerging Florentine Republic. We define Republicanism broadly through the ideas, developed in the ancient Roman Republic, of self-governance and active civic participation, expressed through concepts such as citizenship and magistrate, rule of law, civic virtue, equality and community.⁶ The backdrop of this development was the emerging Renaissance idea of a return to ancient virtues and civilization. The main impetus is to observe how new ideas were incorporated and how they influenced the public spaces of Florence, ⁷ which of the cities of Northern Italy most has been seen in intellectual history to symbolize the resurgence of ancient Republicanism.⁸ While the focus is on Florence, the themes that the article explores have broad significance for understanding the way new ideas are turned into practice, which is ultimately visible in changes in the built environment. These themes are, e.g., the adaptation of preexistent public spaces into the new Republican reality, the influence of private spheres on public spaces, the invasion of public space by businesses, changes in the concept of citizenship and self-representation and the role of elites as visible in art.

The period under investigation covers the existence of the Florentine Republic, which was founded in 1115 as the city state declared its independence and ended in 1532 as the Medici consolidated their power and established it as a duchy. During these turbulent centuries, commercial success, artistic creativity and political experimentation coincided, leading to Florence establishing itself not only as a leading power in Northern Italy but also as a cultural center with enormous public works.⁹ This dynamism and abundance or resources make it an excellent example of changes that occurred in urban environments. However, even whether Florence was Republican in the sense now understood has been debated and thus one should not simply assume that what took place in Florence or other Italian Republics was in some sense Republican by default. This was already pointed out by Pocock, but since argued more forcefully by Muir (2000), pp. 153–58 and Ricciardelli (2015). The four themes that the article focuses have no pretense of comprehensiveness, but rather they are case studies which seek to illustrate very specific instances of influence of ideas in the built environment.

What could be seen as a spatial model of Republicanism? There is much new research on the spaces of the ancient Roman Republic and their transformation (Russell, 2016; Gargola, 2017, See Map 2). What these studies have shown is that, both in the construction and layout of the Roman Republic as well as in its usages of public spaces, there was a sense that the built environment reflected the values and ideas of the Republic, for which the equality and active participation of its citizens was crucial, while flaunting private wealth was frowned upon.¹⁰ Magistrates and public figures were subjected to intense public scrutiny. Throughout the Roman world, the Republican ideal was replicated in Roman settlements such as Florence, which copied the same basic outline: the comitium, where the assemblies convened, the forum in which the magistrates had their seats and the Senate house or curia, the basilica and the theatre, though with considerable variations. Coincidentally, these were also the spaces replicated by the Florentines in places such as the Palazzo dei Priori, Palazzo della Signoria, the Ringhiera and others. Like other Roman municipalities, Roman Florence was governed by magistrates, led by duoviri, two main executives a city council, and an assembly. Both the layout of the city and its administrative structure were based on the active participation of its inhabitants according to the Republican model.¹¹ As has been pointed out, public spaces and rituals taking place in them were extremely important for the governance of Italian Republics as both practical and symbolic reinforcement of values (Ricciardelli, 2015, pp. 75–72).

What happened to this city when Florence as it is now known was formed? During late antiquity and the middle ages, new governance structures emerged, many of which centered around the church, and supplanted the old city administration. The city itself was rebuilt many times, and its composition changed. What is important for this study is how the renewed interest in ancient Roman culture and its models, such as Republicanism and Roman law, became visible in the public spaces of the city during the Renaissance (See Map 1). Were there continuities from the ancient Roman traces within the city? How was the newly discovered ancient Roman past from the literary sources reflected in the composition of the Florentine Republic, its administration, the self-representation of its magistrates and their ideas about society, and how were these visible in physical spaces?

Map 1. The outline of Roman Florence on the modern street network.

Adapted from Francovich et al. (2007) La storia di Firenze tra tarda antichità e medioevo. Nuovi dati dallo scavo di via de’ Castellani. Annali di storia di Firenze, II: 9–48.

The methodology of this article utilizes theories on public space and its usages that have sought to make sense of how urban public spaces were designed, constructed, used and imagined and how these actions changed over time. While much research has been styled under the banner of the “Spatial Turn”, these discussions have been present in much of the literature on topography and urban studies even earlier.¹²

For the purposes of this inquiry, the interest of spatial theories may be divided into three main themes: power, symbols and memory. Most of the four aspects involve more than one of these themes. One of the basic premises of spatial theories has been the Gramscian notion of structural power, and these theories argue that the built environment acts as a petrified social structure. Not only are the palaces of rulers and the houses of the wealthy, such as the private fortresses of Florence, ways of demonstrating power and prestige, but the military architecture of walls, castles and gates act as tools of repression and control. By limiting access, by closing off areas and making boundaries that are semi-permeable, one may exercise control over public spaces.¹³ Conversely, public spaces, such as the civic palaces and public squares of Florence, may be used to demonstrate the lack of centralized power or hierarchies. What makes democracies and republics so interesting is that the agora or the forum, the houses of assembly or the spaces of magistrates are the central focus of public space. By building open spaces, which opens visibility and access, one demonstrates attachment to Republican values and norms not only factually but also symbolically. A similar kind of symbolism is apparent in the way that individual houses and private estates are not too big in comparison to other buildings, like the Swedish lagom or the Florentine mediocritas. As a part of the symbolic representation, we will examine public buildings and their decoration, statues and other memorials. Monuments act as placeholders for values, and their prominence is a sign of the esteem in which they are held, but what kinds of emotions they attach depends on the audience.¹⁴ Here, references to the past, in our case to Roman antiquity, may give places meanings that are wholly independent of their original function or intent (Nora, 1984–1992).

The novelty of the present inquiry is the combination of the different approaches, from the practices related to spaces to the ideas and the symbols that are attached to them. As is obvious from the fierce status competition that manifested itself in the support of the arts, power and beauty were inextricably intertwined in Florentine history.

2. From private players to public rulers: The individual’s use of ancient iconography in Medicean Florence

How was the ancient Republican tradition visible in the politics of memory and identity? One of the most illuminating ways of looking at issues such as identity and its spatial configurations is to examine statues and other publicly displayed art for clues of the references and ideas that their authors valued. References to ancient Rome and its Republic did not simply promote connections to antiquity, but they were tools of identification with and projection towards the perceived ideals that ancient Republicanism represented. This section focuses on how some of the major characters of Florentine society used visual references to ancient Rome during the turning point between the Florentine Republic and the Principate, and how these references gradually became more public and direct. As we will see, the idealization of Republican heroes, such as the tyrant-killing Brutus of ancient Rome, were a mark of Republicanism, just as the fall of the Republic saw the resurgence of references to Augustus, the end point of the Roman Republic.

In the guildhall of the Arte della Lana, the fresco Judgement of Brutus (painted probably around 1340s)¹⁵ depicts the founder of the Roman Republic, Iunius Brutus, as a judge, accompanied by allegorical women. They reproach certain individuals for behaving in a proud manner before the judge, a direct emphasis on Republican values and a warning of the consequences of acting against these values (Bent, 2016, p. 163). A roughly contemporary fresco Expulsion of the Duke of Athens celebrates the expulsion of Gautier de Brienne in 1343 for seeking to install himself as sole ruler. (Bent, 2016, pp. 114–115; Ricciardelli, 2015, p. 143) The reference to the legendary founding father of the Republic, who expelled the tyrannical king from Rome, can be viewed as a reminder and moral precept against and individual’s or a groups’ aspirations to power.¹⁶

A century later, this same ideology was still superficially present, but the rise of individuals had started to break the surface, and figure of “Brutus” began to give room to Roman emperors. Although he was never the titular ruler of the city, Cosimo di Giovanni de’Medici (1389–1464) became the gran maestro, who understood the importance of clients and building programs as a means of influence (Kent, 2004, p. 13).¹⁷ He was even referred to as having “renewed the ancient magnificence, both in building temples and villas and founding libraries”.¹⁸ One key aspect of Republican thought that is attested already in antiquity is the avoidance of privata luxuria, emphasizing personal riches and power, while the individual’s benefaction for the common good through publica magnificentia as patrons of art and architecture was acceptable also in Republican Florence.

Despite the fact that Cosimo was briefly expelled from the city in 1433, the Signoria of Florence posthumously declared him as pater patriae, and his memory was honored.¹⁹ The most notable predecessor of this title was the first emperor of Rome, Augustus.²⁰ Augustus was the person to whom contemporary Florentines also compared Cosimo, especially those under the Medici patronage.²¹ (Black, 2018, p. 193; Brown, 1961, p. 207).

Around 1465/69, a posthumous bronze medal was issued in Cosimo’s honor, with apparent reference to the iconography of Roman imperial coins, but with details highlighting the Florentine theme (Figure 1). The obverse holds a portrait of Cosimo, while the reverse depicts the personification of Florence sitting on a delicate throne on the base of the Florentine fleurs-de-lis. The legend surrounding the figure reads PAX LIBERTASQUE PVBLICA (can be understood as “Public peace and liberty” and “peace and public liberty”). In the ancient models, the figure is identified (depending on the coin issue) with Pax, Libertas, or Concordia (Figure 2).²² The cornucopia or scepter that often accompanies the ancient models is missing from Cosimo’s medal, but the figure is instead holding a globe, which might refer to the Medici emblem.²³

Map 2. Florence in the Renaissance. Adapted from G. Brucker (2005) Living on the edge in Leonardo’s Florence. Selected Essays. University of California Press, Berkeley.

Figure 1. Cosimo de’ Medici, 1389–1464, Pater Patriae, c. 1465/1469. Samuel H. Kress collection, accession number 1957.14.840.

Image: Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington. Open access image.

Figure 2. Pax holding a branch and a scepter. Sestertius, Vespasianus 71 CE (RIC II-1² nr. 186).

Image: Münzkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Licenced under CC BY-NC-SA licence.

Cosimo and his descendants, especially Lorenzo de’Medici il Magnifico (1449–1492), were enthusiastic collectors of antiquities, texts and artworks. (Rubin, 2000, p. 71) A copy of Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia was bought by Lorenzo has a passage about how past generations were visible in the Republican Roman house in the shape of images of ancestors (imagines maiorum), which were also carried in the funerary processions of the family members (Plin. nat. 35,6). This notion lies behind the Florentine depictions as well. In the second half of the 15th century, busts and portraits influenced by classical prototypes became popular among the Florentine patriciate and had a celebrative and/or commemorative function as examples for following generations.²⁴ (Ciappelli, 2000, pp. 33–34).

These kinds of portrait busts were mainly exhibited in private residences and funerary chapels, such as the Sassetti Chapel in Santa Trinità, open only for selected Florentines.²⁵ Francesco Sassetti was a banker in the Medici Bank, a collector of Roman coins and manuscripts who worked with both Cosimo and Lorenzo de’Medici.²⁶ The frescoes of the chapel were painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio, and they “brought past glories of Rome to the present status of Florence, the new Rome” (Rubin, 2000, p. 75). What is interesting is that the iconographic program of the chapel highlights Roman emperors as military commanders on the sidewall grisailles of the chapel, where the all’antica sarcophagi with portraits of Sassetti and his wife lie. The grisailles on the other wall show adlocutio of the emperors and two soldiers accompanied with the text CAES. AVG. S.C., and on the other, two men on horseback with the text DECVRSIO S.C., and a picture of Germanicus Caesar bringing back lost banners (Figure 3). Like on the medal of Cosimo, these depictions also draw their inspiration directly from Roman imperial coinage.²⁷ By his choice of the grisailles, Sassetti could show off his learning, but we find it possible that the themes were also chosen to show Sassetti’s connection to the Medicis, the de facto princes of the Republic and admirers of Roman emperors. ²⁸After all, Cosimo was titled pater patriae and was compared to Augustus, also depicted in the frescoes.

Figure 3. The tomb of Nera Corsi.

Image: Photograph by Sailko, via Wikimedia Commons. Licenced under the CC by 3.0 (attribution 3.0 unported) licence.

The allusions to the Medici as born-again Roman emperors became direct only when the Medici family’s rule was legitimized after their expulsion from Florence during the years 1494–1512. In 1532, Alessandro de’Medici (1510–1537) became the Duke of Florence and the new role becomes apparent in his presentation in coinage in the likeness of an ancient ruler. On his coin (testone n.d.), his all’antica profile bust, wearing a cuirass, is surrounded with the legend ALEXANDER M(EDICES) R(EI) P(VBLICAE) FLOREN(TINAE) DVX, and the Saints Cosmas and Damian, patron saints of the Medici’s and later Florence itself, are portrayed with legends on the reverse, bringing to mind how deities were portrayed in the Greek and Roman coins. Again, his medals contains clear references to the iconography of imperial coins.

Alessandro’s assassination in 1537 by his cousin, Lorenzino de’Medici (1514–1548) brought a brief resurrection of Republican and the figure of “Brutus”. In his Apologia, Lorenzino defends his action against tyranny, and states that he followed the example of Brutus.²⁹ This time, the Roman example was not the founder of the Republic but the killer of Caesar. Lorenzino identified to Brutus also materially: the reverse of his bronze medal (Figure 4) is copied from the Roman denarius of 43–42 BC, issued by Brutus himself and L. Plaetorius Cestianus, and it portrays two daggers surround a pileus (liberty cap) (Figure 5). The accompanying legend states the Roman date of the murder of Alessandro, while the obverse shows Lorenzino’s all’antica image. The theme of Brutus appears in contemporary texts, and he is utilized in aspirations to revive the Florentine Republic. It is worth noting that Michelangelo prepared a sculpture of Brutus that was finished by Calcagni.³⁰

Figure 4. The medal of Lorenzino de’Medici, 1537–48.

Image: Photograph by Andrew McCabe, via Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/ahala_rome/5942367059/in/photostream/). Licenced under the CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. licence.

Figure 5. Brutus and the Ides of March. Issued by Brutus and L. Plaetorius Cestianus. RRC 508/3.

Image: American Numismatic Society. Public domain, no copyright – United States. Images merged.

Like his Roman role model, Lorenzino was also killed, and the attempt to restore the Republic was lost. These events can be seen also in the public, direct visual manifestations of the Florentine rulers: The second duke of Florence (from 1570 onwards the Grand Duke of Tuscany), Cosimo I de’Medici (1519–1574), saw himself as Augustus and deliberately used the iconography of the first Roman emperor. Himself an eager collector, Cosimo I understood the value of cultural politics as a tool of statecraft (Gáldy, 2009, p. 33). Unlike Cosimo the Elder, Cosimo I represented himself as Augustus both directly (busts and statues) and indirectly through symbols, such as the Capricorn (he and Augustus were both born under this sign) in his impresa and medals (Figure 6).³¹ Sebastiano Sanleoni also celebrated him “as a new Augustus, a new Aeneas Pius, and a new Maecenas” in his Serenissimi Cosmi Medycis primi hetruriae magni ducis actiones (1578).³²

Figure 6. Vincenzo Danti: Cosimo I as Augustus, c. 1572.

Image: Photograph by Sailko, via Wikimedia Commons. Licenced under the CC by 3.0 (attribution 3.0 unported) licence.

Finally, when the posthumous bronze equestrian statue of Cosimo I was erected on the Piazza della Signoria, the imitation of ancient rulers was brought out from the (semi)private palaces and chapels into the daylight, into the central administrative space of Florence (Figures 7–8). The statue was the first of its kind in Florence, where the Medici “dared to follow Pliny’s account of how the memories of men in the ancient world were made immortal by inscriptions on the bases of their statues” (McHam, 1998, p. 178). The equestrian statue imitates that of Marcus Aurelius in Rome, while the inscription follows the style of ancient honorific inscriptions by stating the name of the honoree and his offices in the dative case, followed by positive attributes. The statue shows the continuity of Medici dynasty, while the public authorities of Florence are not mentioned at all, unlike earlier Medici inscriptions.

Figure 7. Giuseppe Zocchi: the Piazza della Signoria in Florence on the feast day of St John the Baptist, 1744. Print made by Carlo Gregori.

Image: Trustees of the British Museum, museum number 1922,0410.142.26. Licenced under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.

Figure 8. Giambologna: Cosimo I de Medici. 1594.

Image: Photograph by Marie-Lan Nguyen, via Wikimedia Commons. Licenced under the CC-BY 2.5. licence.

To sum up, during the Republic of Florence, it was deemed inappropriate for a political actor to show one’s individuality and name in public without connecting it to patronage of art and architecture, or other benefaction for the city and its subjects. The role model for republican actors was Iunius Brutus, the legendary founder of the Roman Republic. Interest in antiquities and scholarship brought forward ancient iconography, but the audience of such representations were still quite restricted during the times of Cosimo the Elder and Lorenzo de’Medici.³³ Ancient coins were used as models in propaganda and to build the image of the powerful and benevolent Medici individuals, but these men were not publicly presented as ancient rulers. However, when the Medici rule was legitimized, the princes began to be portrayed more in the likeness of ancient emperors, although Brutus, as a tyrannicide, emerged briefly as the symbol of the Republic and against the Medici duke. Finally, the depictions of the dukes, inspired by antiquity, were put out in public, not by the public decree but by the decree of the princes.

3. The civic palace of Florence: A common space to rule the Republic

In the practical administration of the Republic of Florence, experimentation with new forms of government represented a constant process of balancing different ideological and practical concerns. How were the inherited traditions and new ideas realized, and how were changes reflected in the built environment? Different radical experiments, such as resolving the public/private distinction by making the magistrates live in the city hall, were part and parcel of the way that ancient Roman ideals and practices were mixed with Florentine traditions. We will also see how the disappearance of Republicanism had a rapid impact even on buildings, which were transformed for the use of the autocratic government.

The partial adoption of Roman Republicanism by the intellectual elites of Florence influenced the development of a new municipal and regional entity in the 12^th century: The Comune Consolare. Between 1125 and 1138, the consular civic council was established to challenge the dominant power of the Holy Roman Empire that subjugated the city and its dominions (Hartwig, 1875, p. 185; Schevill, 1976, pp. 66–67). The common struggle against a despotic power led to a reorganization of the government in Florence. This challenge against Imperial supremacy bears similarities with the revolts that led ancient Romans to oust the monarchy. Self-government, in its several forms, means to deploy alternatives to the dominant power.

The rediscovery of the Republican tradition in the administrative life of Florence in the twelfth century has its roots in the direct influence of the Roman tradition. During the Middle Ages, many kingdoms had retained some of the features of the republican and imperial bureaucracy of Rome (Marzi, 1910, pp. 2–3). The Republic in Florence partially adopted some of the elements of the Roman tradition with the creation of the Comune Consolare, which incorporated all the policy-making spaces of civic life in one location, reproducing a similar structure to the ancient Praefectura Urbana and the Cancelleria (Mommsen, 1889, p. 478).

The composition of the administration and thus, the spatial needs of the civic bodies, derived from the various elements that constituted the Republic of Florence. The origin of the Florentine Republican administration is in the struggles between the main aristocratic families of Florence that led to several reforms of the communal institutions. To arbitrate the critical disputes between these families, the Republic of Primo Popolo and the figure of the Podestá were established in 1250. For counterbalancing the executive power of the republic, in the late 13^th century, a new institution was founded: The Priorato delle Arti (Priorate of the Guilds). The continuous struggle between the factions that controlled the city, led to a radical reform by 1280. To compensate the excessive power acquired by the communal institutions, the Capitano del Popolo obtained more authority. Again, in 1289 to re-balance the power and control the finances and the economic policy of the republic, a council of 100 men (Consiglio dei Cento) was incorporated to the communal institutions.

A key moment for the development of the republican constitutional balance is the approval of the Ordinances of Justice in 1293. In this time, the magistracy of the Gonfaloniere of Justice was founded, which served as the supreme head of the armed forces and surveilled the implementation of Ordinances of Justice. This individual had to protect the common people against the dominant magnate class. Also, presided over the collegium of the Priorate of the Guilds, an organ in charge of exercising executive power and supervising all other structures of the republic. The daily bureaucracy was managed by a series of officials that composed the Cancelleria (Faibisoff, 2018, pp. 22–28).

The performance of the bureaucratic and executive tasks of the republic required a safe environment that could offer protection to the several institutions that composed the communal administration. In the late 13^th century (Del Lungo, 1879; Gotti, 1889, 12; Rubinstein, 1995, p. 6; Trachtenberg, 1999, pp. 974–975), the local authorities decided to build a communal palace to incorporate all the main institutions of civic life in a single physical space.³⁴ This space is perhaps the most illuminating example of the integration of the Roman tradition in Florence. The civic palace inherited elements from the Roman Praefectura Urbana. The appeal to the Roman past in support of the new-born republic is visible in several aspects, for example, law, architecture³⁵ and the representation of local elites.³⁶ The Florentine city-state attempted to gain independence, cohesion, and power by merging all services in one central establishment hosted in the Palazzo dei Priori. Several bureaucratic and military offices integrated the palace. The headquarters of the Esecutore di Giustizia and the Capitano del Popolo were attached to it. The main administrative offices of the city, together with the weapons chamber and several meeting, spaces were reunited in this common space. The incorporation of these elements, i.e. the councils, the offices and the weapons chamber, resemble the consistorium-scrinia-armamentum structure of the imperial palace of proto-Byzantine Constantinople.

How was the internal life of the civic palace of Florence? As Aurelio Gotti has pointed out, the new palace not only became the office of the priors and the gonfaloniere, but their home. The officials had to reside in the same space during their tenure, sharing the same diet and sleeping quarters, and the occupants were forbidden to meet with each other secretly without the biggest part of the prior gathering in the same room. The priors had to give audiences three times per week and could not leave the palace alone or without a bodyguard. The third floor of the palace was the working space of the Notaio Dettatore, the Notaio delle Riformagioni, and the Notaio dei Priori that resided with the priors during the two-month term. (Gotti 1889, 22)

Leaving aside the problems related to the foundation of the palace and the shape of its original architectural plan³⁷ the palazzo was already used for council meetings in 1313, and the Council of 100 and the Special Council of the Captain with the heads of the twelve major guilds were using the building for their meetings a year later. (Gotti 1889, 24) We cannot isolate the Palazzo dei Priori from the surrounding space of the Plateum Comunis Florentie — the current Piazza della Signoria. (Jones, 1997) The palazzo was built as a fortified residence for the serving priors, but the piazza was constructed as a site where citizen bands from the relative gonfalone could gather to protect communal officials when necessary (Milner, 2006, pp. 88–89; Trexler, 2019, p. 256).³⁸ One of the main reasons for the creation of this new communal space was the strong moral competition with Tuscan and North Italian neighbors.³⁹

We cannot isolate the complex of the communal palace and the adjacent piazza from other essential elements that integrated the civic life of Florence during this period. Family palaces constituted a fundamental element of the republic, as both familiar accommodations and centers of local influence where the family business’ matters interacted with the governance of Florence (Preyer, 2008, pp. 361–362). We can imagine a fluid conversation among these private spaces and the communal palace, frequently questioning and dealing with authority matters. Commonly, the great families of Florence assumed that the adjacent streets of their palaces constituted a part of their private space (Najemy, 2006, pp. 22–23). Neighborhoods were part of their semi-private world but at the same time it must have been an essential platform for the deployment of their authority.

The topography of power and administration not only occur in the intercourse between private spaces and the Palazzo dei Priori. Religious spaces, such as the main churches of the city—and, of course, the seat of the religious authorities—were an essential actor in the theatre of the Florentine Republic. One magnificent example of the amalgamation of all these public/private/civil/religious interaction is the Oratory of Orsanmichele, that linked civic beneficence and corporate identity, becoming a center of political, corporate, and communal devotion (Gavitt, 2006, p. 144). Fundamentally, all these organs conflated and interacted with the heart of the city at the Palazzo dei Priori.

Between 1342 and 1343, Gautier de Brienne, the Duke of Athens, made significant changes in the structure of the communal palace that turned it into a fortified castle,⁴⁰ limiting the space for the ritual and representational practices of the Comune. In the last decades of the 14^th century, political changes such as the Ciompi revolt of 1378⁴¹ and the 1382 revolt of the wool merchants increased the number of eligible people and the necessity of a larger space to reunite all the members of the Signoria. The Loggia dei Priori was built in 1382 as a new representational space to suit these needs and to reassert the Signoria’s political authority (Atkinson, 2016, p. 153; Rubinstein, 1995, pp. 86–87).

In the early 15^th century, the halls of the palace are renewed to fit the new requirements of the councils. In 1411, the council of the 131 and the council of the Dugento (200) were created to solve problems in the executive power of the republic (Giorgi, 2017, p. 548). Initially, Cosimo the Elder tried to renovate the Sala del Consiglio in 1452—currently known as the Sala dei Dugento — but the decision was not made until 1469, when Lorenzo il Magnifico proposed a new project for the renovation (Belli, 1992, p. 152; Giorgi, 2017, p. 551, n. 4). The Sala del Consiglio on the first floor, and the original Sala dell’Udienza on the second, were renovated completely. The Sala dell’Udienza was divided into two new halls, currently known as the Sala dei Gigli — conceived for the public audiences—and the Sala dell’Udienza —for the meetings of the priors (Atkinson, 2016, p. 156). The constitution of the Council of the 500 and the Maggior Consiglio in the time of Girolamo Savonarola led to the construction of a great hall to congregate the councils (Wilde, 1944, pp. 67–68).

The coup d’etat of the Medici in 1512 marks the subsequent abolition of the democratic constitution of Florence. The great hall lost its representative function and, consequently, it was dismantled, turning it into a soldiers’ barracks—the Sala Grande della Guardia – and an office for the levy on salt (Landucci, 1985, p. 333; Wilde, 1944, p. 69, n. 5). The Medicis established a balìa to control access to the magistracies. The administrative structure of the council was reformed, and the Maggior Consiglio and the Consiglio degli Ottanta were replaced by the Consiglio dei Cento and the Consiglio dei Settanta. The changes in the administrative bodies of the republic might have a remarkable impact in the spaces of performance of the magistrates. The short revival of Republicanism between 1527 and 1530 resulted in the resurgence of the “republican space” of the Sala del Consiglio Grande. In 1530, Florence again surrendered to the Medicis, and the republican institutions were substituted for the Parlamento. A citizen assembly and a new Signoria were established. The building that had been the civic heart of the republic and primary space of executive governance for more than two centuries, being the main witness to all the vicissitudes of the communal organization, disappeared as a civic space when Cosimo I executed the final movement and established his private quarters in it (Trachtenberg, 1999, p. 967).

4. To each part its specific function – Communes and corporations in the Florentine Republic

The way that a Republic operated, be it the Roman or the Florentine, was never by a set of simple practices, but it was rather the result of a process of development and experimentation. One of the main issues that propelled change in Republican institutions was how the equal participation of citizens in public life could be promoted. In Renaissance Florence, the structure of the Republic was founded on the guilds, an institution that had little precedent in Rome, which nevertheless sought to operate under forms inspired by Roman ideals, as well as under the Roman legal tradition as developed in medieval jurisprudence. At their peak prominence, the guilds of late medieval Florence constituted a sort of web of mini-republics within the larger whole, consisting of hundreds of members, appointed leaders called consuls and exercising internal politics inspired by Roman Republican concepts and ethical goals such as loyalty and concord. The guild, in the legal language offered by medieval jurisprudence, was a person of its own, or a universitas, an association that, much in the way of the ancient Roman collegia, functioned as an organic entity and was capable of having rights or duties (Najemy, 2006, p. 42). At the same time, it constituted a part of a body politic, a res publica in the Ciceronian ideal sense.⁴² (Najemy, 2006, p. 83). The result was a tumultuous mixture of participatory ethos and class-based institutions in a peculiar corporate-republican manner, which connected notable aspects in the political and the spatial realm of the republic.

Florentine republicanism and corporatism both shared a background in the medieval doctrines pertaining to civil and professional associations. The communal movement especially played a crucial part from medieval times onward.⁴³ (Muir, 2002, p. 6). The tradition of communes (comuni, Gemeinde) developed in Europe in the period between 12^th and 15^th centuries, and survived up to the 18^th century (Black, 2003a, p. 99). During its course it gained foothold in different surroundings, but commonly adopted much of its ideals and vocabulary from ancient writings, especially Cicero (Black, 2003a, p. 102).

In the medieval context, communal existence took place in a town or village, distinct from the private sphere of households on one hand and from the sphere of lord or king on the other. This sphere of the town (Burg) was the origin of what later came to be denoted as civil society (Bürgerliche Gesellschaft). This concerned a variety of things such as roads, water supply, markets; crop rotation and harvesting; use rights in communal properties such as pasture, forest, and rivers. These were communal in the sense that all territorial members had rights in them, and such properties could not be appropriated by individuals. The result was an observable social reality, a sphere that was public (in the sense of not being private), but not controlled by a dominus or rex, nor under the church (Muir, 2002, p. 7; Black, 2003a, pp. 102–103).

This public realm, however, was far from being universally inclusive (Muir, 2002, p. 13). The precondition for recognized citizenship in Florence, for instance, was enrolment in one of the city’s twenty-one guilds, along with the payment of taxes. In the parlance of the corporate republic, the city was not composed of individuals as such, but of social groups, starting from the division between the rich and the poor (the grandi and the popolo).⁴⁴ The ideal corpus of the city-state had each part fulfilling its proper function.⁴⁵

The popolo characteristically drew its strength from guild associations, which in Florence could include about a third of the adult male population (Najemy, 2006, p. 43).⁴⁶ During the peak of guild-based republicanism, the internal politics of the guilds, just as the corporate totality of the city, followed the egalitarian maxim of “that which affects all must be approved by all” (Najemy, 2006, p. 83). This maxim fits the legal and ideological conceptualization of corporate theory, and it was used within the guilds for the purposes of extending democratic decision-making to the guild councils and member assemblies (Najemy, 1979, p. 65).

The Florentine corporate-republican system provided for its members both a sense of belonging and an externally accepted status within the city-state. Accordingly, membership in a guild served as both a formal and informal training ground for citizens to cultivate their capacity as social beings (Brucker, 1977, p. 14). This, however, did not mean that the guilds were free of internal tumult and strife. On the contrary, personal and collective antagonisms were frequent. The manner in which guilds sought to adjudicate internal disagreements was, however, clearly different from that of the elite families, which usually relied on the power of lineage and patriarchal authority. Manifesting, in their way, the Roman republican tradition, the guilds often had, apart from the consuls, a council of a dozen or more members, a written set of statutes, and an accepted custom of proper conduct (Najemy, 2006, p. 43; Witt, 2000, p. 410).

The power of the guild system bound the economic and the political spheres together, not only on the level of public decision-making but also on the street level of everyday life. There, especially among the less wealthy, the boundaries of private and economic spaces were blurry. Domestic life and the making of money were conjoined. Residential quarters on the ground floor opened directly to the streets, and the large windows on the floor above took in any nearby spectacle or commotion (Martines, 1988, pp. 75–76).

The prestige provided by a guild also served to differentiate between people inside the city in an environment of expanding commercial activity and of a growing number of inhabitants. Members of the same guild often lived close to one another, occupied the same public spaces and often developed a strong sense of esprit d’corps (Martines, 1988, p. 77). These spaces varied greatly depending on class and specialization: already in the 13^th century, the profits made in the most lucrative commercial branches such as moneylending and real estate were far above those earned by the lower artisans and minor merchants. This rift between the poor and rich bourgeoisie became necessarily visible within walled cities where space was limited and many members of the lower classes had to make do in cramped surroundings, as opposed to the magnificentia displayed in the public squares and more opulent neighborhoods (Martines, 1988, p. 68; Najemy, 2006, p. 3).⁴⁷

Another characteristic of corporate political organization was that it tended to leave disenfranchised the segment of population, which could not count itself as belonging to any commune, guild or similar organization. Accordingly, in Florence the worst off were those who were not even counted as belonging to the popolo. Among these were the poorest weavers and laborers. They, not being among the arti, could not gain political recognition via the guilds, and their presence in the city was only tolerated because of their usefulness for the merchant entrepreneurs. Through the lens of the idealized republic that saw itself as the heir to Rome, paupers and ne’er-do-wells lacked a legitimate position in the body of the city. Sots, gamblers and those who lacked a proper trade appeared as undesirables, and in order to maintain the strength and wealth of the city, they were liable to be expelled, not just from within the walls but from the whole provincia as well (Martines, 1988, p. 69; Muir, 2002, p. 15; Riesenberg, 1992, p. 161). After all, as Machiavelli put it, the virtue of every individual depended on the virtue of every other (Pocock, 1975, p. 213). A seed of corruption taking hold in the city was a danger to all.

The corruption that manifested itself in the poorest circles of the city was therefore relatively straightforward to deal with. Corruption among the wealthier classes was another matter as was the concomitant privatization of public space, a phenomenon that certainly had touched even the revered forefathers of Florence, the ancient Romans (Russell, 2016, pp. 153–195).

Republican citizenship, on a theoretical level, consisted of the acknowledgement by the individual that he or she had, as it were, a dual personality. On the one hand, he was a private person (privatus), and on the other hand, a participating member of an entity that consisted of a living multitude of individuals. Accordingly, in his panegyric the Laudatio florentinae urbis (ca. 1403), Leonardo Bruni described the government of Florence as consisting in “the action of the whole citizen-body acting according to the law and legal procedure.” Similarly, the notion of Vita civile was emphasized by Matteo Palmieri, who, drawing largely from ancient Roman sources, explained: every citizen elected to public office “before anything else understands that he is not a private person but represents the universal body of the whole city” (Palmieri, 1430 [1982] p. 132; Baker, 2013, p. 39). In the latter sense, as a public person (publicus), the individual was in special need of virtù. The dual role of privatus and publicus could easily undergo corruption and leave only the former in existence. This is why the truly inspiring buildings, monuments and spaces should evoke a sense of collective magnificence, a glory of the fatherland. For the Florentine republicans private opulence represented not only the pursuit of individual interest but also the condition of being absorbed in immediate and direct relationships, unable to perceive the larger whole.⁴⁸

Blindness to the importance of public matters may begin at the level of everyday sensual experiences: citizens, not understanding the importance of civic virtue, simply delve into the admiration of individual luxury, private opulence, economic success etc. For the civic republican tradition, this blindness manifests itself finally as a simple failure of rationality: the libertà of the fatherland is a precondition for the libertà of the individual citizen. To become blind to this is a sign of corruption, a term used by Machiavelli and many later republican theorists long after him (Haug & Merten, 2020; Honohan, 2002, p. 61; Skinner, 1990, p. 304).

The guild-based system of the Florentine Republic was certainly not a universal democracy. It rested, as did much of the communal and corporate movement in Europe, on a mixture of inclusion and ostracism (Muir, 2002, p. 15). However, those who qualified for citizenship via the guilds did have an avenue to political representation in a manner unlike anything in the oligarchic periods. The legal and political language of the guilds was rife with Roman influences, and even those Neo-Roman thinkers such as Machiavelli who deplored the sectional strife of the guilds sought to institute wide participation among the people. (Pocock, 1975, p. 184) In its way, communal representation served to ensure that citizens from various socioeconomic backgrounds had a real role in political participation, something that class-anonymous and formally wide general elections often lack (McCormick, 2011, p. 101). If the ideal corporate republic was composed of different parts, the only way to ensure that the whole truly remained a whole was to give each part its specific function.

5. Ancient and Renaissance Florence: Ideals and realities

In this section, we examine the intersection of the ideal and actual city in the Florentine self-understanding through architect Leon Battista Alberti’s (1404–1472) description of the ideal city in his book De re aedificatoria. His theories have strong ideological connections with antiquity and to a lesser degree with Republicanism. Nevertheless, it illustrates how upon imagining the ideal city, the Florentines like Alberti discussed continuities and differences between ancient Rome and contemporary Florence in how republican ideas such as the distinction between public and private, the centrality of public spaces and functions in the city but also the unstated limitations of class and wealth were evident in the urban design.

In the following, the aim is to compare Alberti’s vision of the ideal city with ancient and renaissance Florence and Rome and to trace the connections between the city planning and Republicanism (Velema & Weststeijn, 2018, pp. 7–8; Bos, 2017, pp. 20–38, 20; Straumann, 2017, pp. 40–61, 59). Alberti’s work was novel in its interpretation of renaissance historicism, which acknowledged a connection with the past while making value distinctions between the present and history (Velema & Weststeijn Ibid. 8–9; Bos, Ibid. 20–22, 24–29, 38–39).

In what way did contemporary renaissance Florence, or the historical ancient Florence, or perhaps Rome, inform Alberti’s idea of the city? What is purely imaginary and new compared to the ancient and contemporary cities in the architect’s vision?

There are three levels of the city discussed in this section: the reconstruction of ancient Florence, the reconstruction of renaissance Florence and Alberti’s ideal city. In all these cases, the examination focuses on how these levels reflect what could be considered a republican ideology in the planning of the city, by examining two features that serve as possible indications of republican influence: public-private dichotomy and city zoning. This approach brings several methodological challenges, as we do not know how much Alberti knew of the city plans of ancient Rome or Florence and how much modern plans are based on idealizing reconstructions.⁴⁹ Furthermore, Florentine renaissance writers, Leonardo Bruni and Matteo Palmieri, are integrated to investigation of renaissance city—in both cases, their vision of city is rather ideal although it connects more clearly with actual Florence than Alberti’s ideas. They both have a strong connection with republicanism and ancient tradition, but the spatial aspects play a minor role in their texts.

When comparing the core—the part that is inside the ancient city walls—of Roman Florence to Renaissance Florence, relatively little has changed as the site of the Roman Forum seems to continue to be the site of public life—a square—in the renaissance city. The only major alteration in the city space is the area of the ancient theater, which was likely transformed from a public space to a private one in the course of the centuries.⁵⁰

Historically, the concepts of public and private and their use by authors such as Vitruvius or Alberti are complicated and evolving.⁵¹ Alberti does not define the concepts or the division between public and private, although he uses them often, for example suggesting that the houses of the elite could in splendor be similar to public buildings. Alberti recommends separating the spaces in the house for official business and for family if the owner had an important role in the republic, such as a senator or judge. Mainly, Alberti appears to follow Roman views on the matter in condemning too ostentatious buildings. (Alberti De Re 5,2, 61 r—v, 5,6,63 r–64 r, 9,1). In the Roman Republic, excessively large and luxurious private dwellings were not approved.⁵² However, publica magnificentia was celebrated, in ancient Rome, while Alberti suggests even public buildings should be modest.⁵³ (Alberti, 1485, De Re 9,1,130 r–131 r). Nonetheless, the Roman view rejecting large spending of private but allowing it in the public works, such as in diverse public buildings, was well-known in renaissance Florence, as is understandable from Palmieri’s Vita Civile. (Palmieri 3,89).

Similar attitude to Alberti—the confusion of public and private—is evident already in Bruni’s Laudatio Florentinae Urbis. Spatially, the most significant place—highlighting Florence’s republican nature—is the central building, Palazzo dei Priori, where the leading magistrates of the city live. The building is described as public, but simultaneously the magistrates live inside it, providing it an essential private function. Bruni’s lauding description of the city does not follow the Roman norms of avoiding the private luxury, but rather praises the private houses among other features of the city.⁵⁴

The separation between public and private is complicated in the city plan of historical Florence. In antiquity, two centers of public life were distinguishable within the city walls: the area of the forum and the area of the theater (Scampoli, 2010, p. 10). Nonetheless, as in other Roman cities, public and private functions overlapped each other in the so-called public and private spaces.⁵⁵ The socioeconomic distribution of domestic space in renaissance Florence is better known than in ancient Florence. In general, the renaissance towers and palaces of prominent families were spread around the city space (Najemy, 2006, p. 8). This corresponds with the distribution of dwellings in Roman city space. In Pompeii, for example, the large elite houses are located all around the city (Wallace-Hadrill, 1994, p. 78; Viitanen et al., 2013, 76), while in Rome itself the written sources transmit a picture in which the elite lived just around the corner from the Forum Romanum,⁵⁶ but according to archaeological evidence, elite houses were actually distributed all around Rome.⁵⁷

There is a concentration of towers and palaces around the central square of renaissance Florence, indicating the importance of this public space. This feature is clearly present in Alberti’s description of his ideal city. Public spaces, such as the palaestra, schools and public auditoria, are locations where people can mix and exchange ideas. Alberti emphasizes that they should be placed and designed so that they are easily accessible to all⁵⁸ (Alberti De Re 5,8,65 r–66 v).

Of the locations of governance, the most essential in Alberti’s ideal city were the senate and the courts of law. The first needed to be constructed in a way that a group of citizens could be pleasantly received, decently treated and conveniently dismissed⁵⁹ (Alberti De Re 5,9). Similar qualities were required for building houses for members of the elite. They had to have large spaces for receiving crowds, but they also should be designed so that it was easy to move—despite the flow of the visitors—from the house to the forum, the center of the public life of any Republican city. (Alberti De Re 5,6,64 r). Additionally, Alberti suggests that there should be a portico in which lower judges handle litigation, but he does not advise where this building should be situated (Alberti De Re 8,8,122 r).

The forum in Alberti’s city does not need to be in the geographical center, at least such a requirement is not mentioned, but it is clearly the center of daily life as it can function as a marketplace or currency market—not to mention all the important buildings that are advised to be built around or near the forum. Alberti understands that openness—of public spaces—creates transparency, which is according to him is result of being observed by people using the space. (Alberti De Re 8,6).

For Alberti, it is essential that public spaces are open and accessible for the citizen body, and these should be planned as easily accessible as possible—even for large groups of people. Easy accessibility and openness reflect the ideas of Republicanism. However, it must be asked for whom are these ideas reflected? For Romans, it was not important that everyone could visit public spaces, but only the senatorial male elite. Already Arnold Toynbee had noted that, at the time of S. Paul, it was impossible to the majority of the Roman citizen body to visit the Forum Romanum (Toynbee, 1970, p. 62). Alberti notes that there are some spaces where the entire citizen body should be able to meet and visit, but he also reflects the Roman elitist view that there should be buildings, such as the curia or other senate locations, that are meant only for the most important citizens who deal with public matters (Alberti De Re 8,8,122 r).

Alberti’s city is a republican city but also a humanist city⁶⁰ as there is a library in addition to the buildings reserved for education. However, and more importantly, Alberti’s ideal city is a Roman city, or an imaginary Roman city. The streets and fora of this urban settlement are lined with porticoes and columns. There are also baths, triumphal arches, theaters, circuses and amphitheaters. (Alberti De Re 8) Alberti clearly knows the classical literature and the ruins, and they formed the models for his ideal and ancient city (Pearson, 2011, pp. 97–100). A clear difference of Alberti’s ideal city and—for example—Bruni’s Florence is that Alberti sets the burials outside the city—according to the ancient tradition of city planning. On the contrary, Bruni does not mention sepulcher outside the city but rather praises the villae, houses and landscapes that are outside the city limits. (Bruni Laudatio p. 22, 24, 26).

Pearson notes how Alberti does not appreciate the common people and how his Republicanism is flavored with strong, even radical conservatism (Pearson, 2011, pp. 95–97, 101–102.), although it may also be interpreted as elitist. (Alberti De Re 4,1,48 r–49 v). With regard to city planning, the architect favors the zoning of rich and common people into districts. (Alberti De Re 7,1,93 r–94 v).This, however, is not a feature that can be clearly connected to Roman⁶¹ nor was it a feature of renaissance Florence, as Richard Lindholm has demonstrated with a statistical analysis. (Lindholm, 2017, 97–126). Bruni’s Laudatio does not hint to this either, but of course, due its nature it offers very little information about the people below Florence’s upper strata, and thus its value for the analysis is low.

Alberti’s ideal republican city is a combination of Rome and Florence, ancient and renaissance. However, the architect’s idealized and imaginary vision of a Roman city is more important than any of the two (or four) historical cities. In the division of public and private, the ideal city seems to follow his contemporary Florence and ancient Rome in which private and public were not clearly defined as they are in the modern world. In the matter of zoning, the ideal city follows Alberti’s own vision or invention—or perhaps he thought that Roman cities had separate zones based on class. At the least, he mentions that the Carthaginians limited the possibility of foreigners moving in their cities, which leads in his discussion of zoning. Alberti’s relationship with Florence was difficult, and he perhaps felt more at home in Rome (Rykwert 1988, xv; Pearson, 2011, pp. 14–17). This possibly explains why his vision of an ideal city leans more towards Rome and perhaps most of all to an imagined Roman city.

6. A Rome reborn? Roman imaginaries and local contexts

In addition to the Republics of Genova, Venice and Lucca, the Florentine Republic represents a remarkable flourishing of neo-Roman thought and the reuse of ancient examples in buildings and art. From its founding in 1115 to its end in 1532, it maintained a precarious existence between the shifting alliances and power struggles of the Holy Roman Empire, balancing papal and Germanic influences. As its fellow Italian Republics, its structure and history are the product of political, economic and social developments, which began with the pervasive feudal and hereditary structures that concentrated power to families, from the interlinkages between rural and urban centers and the importance of trade. Thus, while Florence was an ancient Roman city at its inception, its transformation during late antiquity resulted in its emergence as a medieval city. From an ancient Roman city governed by Republican principles to a Renaissance Republic inspired by the image of the ancient Roman Republic, how was the Roman Republic and its urban form present in Florence?

The aim of the article was to see how the emerging ideas of Republicanism and the Renaissance, including the Roman notions of popular rule and equality and the ideals of civilization, influenced and were interpreted in Florence, and how their impact is visible in changes in its cityscape. The history of the city of Florence is extensive, as is often the case of European cities. This means that the existing urban structure is vast and does not allow easy modifications. Changes are often adjustments to the existing city plan rather than the creation of entirely new urban structures. This was also the situation when the system of government changed, as it did. As already Brucker pointed out, the Florentine communal organization was characterized by its instability and complexity (Brucker, 1962, p. 58). In the city space, new ideology cannot be manifested by a vast amount of new architecture, but a new government can modify an old one. Consequently, when the Florentine renaissance Republic was built, it could not create a new Republican city ex nihilo, such as (almost) was the case in Washington D.C. centuries later.⁶²

By many popular accounts, renaissance Florence considered itself to be a new Rome, the true heir of its glory. Florentine authors such as Machiavelli would reimagine Roman Republicanism, but they would equally discuss their contemporary Florence. As in the case of Alberti, the ideals of ancient Rome exerted a much stronger pull than what was known of the historical Rome. Thus Renaissance Florence rested upon an actual ancient Roman city, but the eyes of the Florentine authors were on the legacy of ancient Rome itself, the figurative Rome. For example, Alberti focused on public spaces and public building, overlooking the emphasis that both renaissance Florence and ancient Rome had on private houses as centers of activities and administration. In a similar manner, the ideas of active citizenship and the politics of virtue that were promoted by Machiavelli were clearly derived from Roman republican authors. The link between the Roman Republic and the corporative Florentine Republic can thus be seen in ideas but not in practice. Even the ancient Roman Republic had clear corporativist traits, but they were rarely noticed.

The practical administration of the Florentine Republic was a constant process of experimentation. In many medieval cities, including Florence, there was a tendency to adopt Roman Republican nomenclature, according to which the chief magistrates were called consuls and the city council was called the Senate and so forth. In Florence, this direct adaptation gave way to changing forms of governance and to a process of adaptation and experimentation. While there was a strong emphasis on maintaining an egalitarian system of government, this was overshadowed by a strong aristocratic influence in which families and other groups vied for dominance. In the urban space, this was manifested by conspicuous consumption in the form of magnificent palazzi and art (Najemy, 2006, p. 41). As Chittolini has demonstrated, there has been a tendency in legal and political historical scholarship to overlook these contradictions and conflicts in order to present a tidy narrative of institutions under a state, while the reality was much messier and dominated by sometimes amorphous groups (Chittolini, 1995, pp. 42–43).

The experimentation was strongly visible in the premises of administration, the public offices. There, Florentines attempted to create a radical system in which the councilors both lived and worked together in the same building, a strict departure from the medieval notion of a family and its castle. As in ancient Rome and in its offices of the urban prefect, Florence sought to bring all aspects of government into a single office. However, in Florence this was to bring to life the ideals of Republican devotion to public service, in Rome the office of the urban prefect was a symbol of the abandonment of Republican ideals and the emergence of imperial dominance. As Trexler has noted, Florentine public buildings contained a strong symbolism of unity and civic duty, one that was imbued with sacral components (Trexler, 2019, pp. 47–55). In the public offices, the physical reverence and control of public magistrates were in many ways united.

One of the fields where the Florentine Republic most consciously emulated Rome was in the relationship between the individual and the community, the distinction between private and public. In Rome, there had been a very conscious move away from emphases on the individual, a vestige of the struggle against the tyrannical kings and their single rule. Instead, the focus was on the state and the public, the individual being considered secondary. Thus, an individual could gain fame and glory only in the service of the republic: he could commemorate his own actions only through the improvement of public places, for example, by dedicating buildings, but not through private enterprises. This was emulated in Florence by the adoption of the virtue of mediocritas, the notion that an individual’s fame should not be excessive since it would disturb the balance of society. As in Rome, in the Renaissance Republics such as Florence the symbolic origin of the community was the overthrow of the rule of a single man and the establishment of an association of free men. However, both in Rome and in Florence the ideal of liberty did not include all, rather they were Republics of a restricted group of usually property-owning men (Muir, 2002, pp. 6–7). However, this did not mean that the private sphere was insignificant, quite the opposite, as the public order had an abiding interest in controlling also private lives (Klapisch-Zuber & Cochrane, 1985).

This purported egalitarianism makes it all the more notable that the antiquarian references in public monuments, the adoption of ancient Roman style and vocabulary, began to appear mostly by the end of the Florentine Republic. The Medici family began to refer to Augustus and his works, creating a subtle and not so subtle antirepublican narrative. However, the practice of commemorating one’s ancestors as an acceptable form of self-praise was adopted even in aristocratic circles. This familial accumulation of glory was a shared trait by both the Roman and the Florentine Republics, and they shared many of its motivations, such as the notion of passing on the political and cultural capital gained by one’s ancestors and the conviction that an individual was of lesser importance by themselves.

McHam has argued that Florence’s Roman roots and allusions to the ancient Roman Republican heroes were tools for self-identification that were reflected in the decoration of public places such as the Palazzo della Signoria (McHam, 2006, pp. 104–130). While we have noted that the creation of Republican imagery and places for Republican public institutions coincide with the rise of Florentine Republicanism, there is no straightforward correlation. Even characters aiming for single rule would evoke Republican heroes, although in a more subtle way.

Space is highly important for Republicanism, both ancient and Renaissance, but the way space was conceptualized and experienced varied. For instance, its core activity—voting – requires space for this purpose, which necessitates some sort of planning of the space. Yet, tangible lived space is rarely discussed in relation to Republicanism. One reason for this might be that the study of Republicanism has focused on the history of ideas, and this theoretical conversation has been difficult to connect with architecture and space.⁶³ However, as we have demonstrated, a spatial approach illustrates how even in ancient Rome the urban environment and the lived experience did not always conform to the ideals of Republicanism. Despite this, both in Rome and Florence, space and public activities such as rituals and ceremonies were vital in creating a sense of community and belonging. The collective rituals reinforced ideas such as citizenship as exclusive and symbolically elevated magistrates and other chief figures, but also the city itself, which gained an almost mythical status.⁶⁴

In all of the investigated themes in this article, there is a contradiction in that the connection that the renaissance Florentine authors sought to establish was between their contemporary city and the imaginary city of ancient Rome. While Florence was an ancient Roman city (as illustrated in Map 2), its past was too obscure and unknown to serve as an uplifting example of past glories. For that reason, they needed to reach into the reservoir of ancient Roman examples from Rome itself.

Acknowledgement

The work is part of the project “Law, Governance and Space: Questioning the Foundations of the Republican Tradition” (SpaceLaw.fi). This research has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 771874). The authors wish to thank Dr Heta Björklund, Ms Mirkka Koskimäki, Mr Pyry Koskinen and Ms Lilian Kiander for their editorial assistance. The authors also wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive criticism which has improved the article considerably, as well as other readers and commentators, especially the audience at the Medieval Seminar of the University of Helsinki.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Research Council [771874]; Next Generation EU framework of the European Commission through the programme María Zambrano for the attraction of international talent at the University of Granada.

Notes on contributors

Kaius Tuori

Kaius Tuori is Professor of European Intellectual History at the University of Helsinki, Finland and Director of the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in Law, Identity and the European Narratives (2018–2015). He is the PI of the ERC CoG SpaceLaw project.

Anna-Maria Wilskman

Anna-Maria Wilskman is a PhD candidate at the doctoral programme of History and Cultural Heritage, University of Helsinki. Her dissertation is a part of the ERC Cog SpaceLaw project, in which she concentrates on the ways especially young Roman magistrates utilised material culture in their political ambitions.

Samuli Simelius

Samuli Simelius is a teacher of ancient cultures in the University of Helsinki, Finland, and a post-doctoral researcher in the project Law, Governance and Space: Questioning the Foundations of the Republican Tradition (funded by the European Research Council). He has published a book Pompeian Peristyle Gardens (Routledge, 2022) and research articles about Pompeii, domestic space and inequality.

Antonio Lopez Garcia

Antonio Lopez Garcia is a senior researcher specialising in Roman archaeology and topography. He teaches archaeology at the University of Granada. He is also affiliated with the ERC-funded project Law, Governance and Space: Questioning the Foundations of the Republican Tradition. Previously, he was a fellow of the Royal Academy of Spain in Rome and did his PhD at the University of Florence.

Vesa Heikkinen

Vesa Heikkinen is a PhD student in Law, Governance and Space: Questioning the foundations of the Republican Tradition. His background is in public law and government transparency. He is interested in the philosophical grounds of republicanism, especially on citizenship as a political institution, as well as the influence of republican thinking on the concept of public up to the modern day.

Notes

1. On constitutional neoclassicism and the historical imagination in the Revolutionary United States, see Shalev (2009).

2. Donati (2009), pp. 131–144; Von der Höh (2006); Dartmann (2011); Faini (2018); Chastel (1954), pp. 75–79. These discussions equally took place outside of Italy, see Clemens (2018), pp. 207–225; Rollo-Koster (2022).

3. E. g. Faini (2017), pp. 189–218; Black (2007).

4. For this type of study that merges urbanism and ideas and that focuses on concrete structures, see most recently Balossino and Rao (2020); Compare Racine (1981), pp. 133–53.

5. On the application of spatial theory on Renaissance studies, see Rollo-Koster (2003), pp. 66–98.

6. On Roman Republicanism, Connolly (2015); Ando (2013), pp. 917–935; Straumann (2016); van Gelderen and Skinner (2002).

7. On the difficulties of spatial emphasis, see Reuter (2006), pp. 193–216.

8. Florentine Republicanism and its deeply ingrained nature was noted already by Brucker (1962), pp. 75–6. This has been cemented through the work of Quentin Skinner and John Pocock, see Skinner (2012); Skinner (2002); Skinner (1981); Skinner (1978); Pocock (1975).

9. See references below. On a new history of Renaissance Florence, see Diacciati et al. (2016). On the history of Florence, works such as Davidsohn (1896) and (Brucker, 1962, 1967), should be mentioned as laying out the historical foundations.

10. Cic. Mur. 76. On the re-adaptation of the theme of private luxury, see Zanker (1987).

11. On ancient Roman Florence, see references below. The aspect of approaching the total history of Florence both as an ancient Roman foundation to its later history was adopted already by Davidsohn (1964), pp. 6–20. On models of Roman colonization and urbanism, see MacMullen (2011) and the vast literature that has followed.

12. On the spatial turn, see Haug and Merten (2020); Arias and Barney Warf (2009).; Hillier and Hanson (1984).

13. A good example is the coercive uses of space such as the Panopticon. Foucault (1977) (Lefebvre, 1991; Merrifield & Lefebvre, 2006).

14. See Pousin (2005).

15. The painter of the fresco is unknown, but there are elements that suggest a connection to Andrea and Nardo di Cione. Bent (2016), pp. 164–166.

16. For a discussion on the Wool Guild and reasons for choosing this theme for a fresco, see Bent (2016), pp. 168–175.

17. For the Medici factions and patronage, see Kent (1978).

18. Giovanni Pontano, De magnificentia, quoted by Rubin (1995), p. 41. Unfortunately, due to Covid 19-pandemic, we were unable to check the citation and therefore rely on the quotation and reference presented on the website Italian Renaissance Learning Resources. In collaboration with the National Gallery of Art, “Presentation of Self”. http://www.italianrenaissanceresources.com/units/unit-5/essays/the-special-case-of-the-medici-experts-in-self-promotion/, checked 5 February 2021. Donato Acciaiuoli recorded as similar statement in his letter to Alonso da Palencia. Florence, Bibl. Naz., MS. Magl. VIII, 1390, f. 48. Cited in Brown (1961), pp. 186–221, 193.

19. Kent (2004), p. 13. The floor inscription of Cosimo’s tomb reads: COSMVS MEDICES/HIC SITVS EST/DECRETO PUBLICO/PATER PATRIAE.//VIXIT ANNOS LXXV/MENSES III DIES/XX. But the inscription did not remain unchanged: pater patriae was altered to tyrannus in 1495, changed back in 1512, again erased in 1528 and restored in 1532, always according to the current political atmosphere, as noted in article of Milner (2015), pp. 281–294, 294.

20. The Roman Senate honored established individuals, such as Cicero and Caesar, with this title during the Republic. Strothmann (2006).

21. For other established Romans, such as Maecenas, Cato, Furius Camillus, see Brown op.cit. and for and for Poggio’s parallel of Cosimo with Scipio Africanus, see Bausi (2015), pp. 239–251, 242–243.

22. Rocco Di Dio interprets Concordia as the inspiration for the figure in the Medici coin in Di Dio (2014).

23. In the Elagabalus issue, Libertas is holding a pileus. The globe as a reference to the Medici emblem is mentioned in Paoletti (1998), pp. 79–110, 100.

24. See also Johnson (1998).

25. See discussion in Bent (2016)Introduction.

26. See the comprehensive analysis on Sassetti and the ancient iconography of the chapel in Borsook and Offerhaus (1981).

27. Adlocutio scenes can be found, for example, on the issues of Galba RIC I (2^nd edition) Galba 462–468); two soldiers (Titus and Domitian) in Vespasian issues RIC II, part 1 (2^nd edition) Vespasian 142–154; a decursio scene in Nero’s issues, for example, RIC I (2^nd edition) Nero 167–176; Germanicus’ triumph in RIC I (2^nd edition) Gaius/Caligula 57. See also Borsook and Offerhaus (1981), pp. 43–44.

28. Paola Ventrone notes how the closest Medici supporters, such as Sassetti with his chapel, used the visual language of classicism and Neoplatonic hermeticism. Ventrone (2015), pp. 253–265, 263–264.

29. For Lorenzino’s Apologia and the theme of Brutus, see Baker (2007), pp. 307–327.

30. The date is discussed in Martin (1993), pp. 67–83. See also Gordon (1957) and Piccolomini (1991).

31. For the importance of iconography on identification of figures and portraying lineage on later Medici portraits, see Lewis and Trexler (1981), pp. 91–177 and Trexler (2000), pp. 101–17.

32. Gáldy (2009), p. 31 with references.

33. For the Medici semiotic methods, including Augustan poetic imagery, see Wright (2015), pp. 295–310.

34. In 1293, the Ordinamenti di Giustizia disposed that the Priors needed a space to stay and sleep. Bonaini (1855), 46: Et Ipsi Priores omnes cum Vexillifero Justitie insimul morari, stare, dormiré et conmedere debeant in una domo ubi voluerint, et quam viderint abiliorem pro eorum offitio commodius exercendo. The ordinances excluded the magnates from the governance of the city, defined the functions of the civil servants and their offices, among other things. De Rosa (1995), pp. 159–244. In 1299, the council acquired the real estate for the construction of the building around the Platea Ubertorum. See Provvisioni, 9, 120 v-121 v; Villani (1980); Rubinstein (1995), p. 8; Milner (2006), p. 89; Atkinson (2016), 112.

35. The rustication of the walls common in Florentine architecture was a replication of Roman models such as the remains of the Forum of Augustus in Rome. See Rubinstein, N (Rubinstein, 1978), 23; Tönnesmann (1984); Trachtenberg (1993), pp. 11–31.

36. As Trachtenberg (1999), p. 971 points out, the birth of the “Myth of Florence”—the daughter of Rome—materializes in this period. Based on this allegory, the conquest of Fiesole in 1125 would have been the re-conquest of the romanitas against the daughter of the Etruscans. Dante (Inferno, 15.73–75) called the Fiesolani “bestie fiesolane”, considering them as barbarians. See Gotti (1889), 366–367.

37. See Trachtenberg (1999), pp. 966–993.

38. In 1323, the Ringhiera, a raised platform on the northern façade of the Palazzo, was erected as the primary site for the representational practices of communal government. See Milner (2000), 53–82; Milner (2006), p. 90; Atkinson (2016), 156.

39. The institution of the magnificent Palazzo Pubblico of Siena had a special effect in the Florentine initiative to build the communal palace. Brandi et al. (1983), p. 417; Rubinstein (1995), p. 11; Trachtenberg (1999), 982.

40. The piazza was enlarged to use it as a defensive safeguard. The original Ringhiera was destroyed to achieve the plans of the duke, but a new Ringhiera was built in 1356. Villani (1980) n. 41; Marvin Trachtenberg (1988), pp. 14–44; Trachtenberg (1999), p. 968.

41. The replacement of the term “popolo” with “signoria” as part of the renaming of both the piazza and the palazzo suggests a more oligarchic nature of post-1378 rule. Rubinstein (1995), pp. 86–87; Milner (2006), 92.

42. For the Ciceronianism in the Renaissance Humanist tradition, see Witt (2000).

43. Antony Black argues that the debt owed by republicanism to the communal movement has been underestimated in modern scholarship due to 18^th and 19^th century prejudices in favor of classical antiquity as a model for republicanism. Black (2003b), 8.

44. Najemy (1979), 69: The notion of an abstract state being composed primarily of individuals joining together in the pursuit of the common good is emphasized in the writings of Leonardo Bruni, who downplayed the importance of corporate associations in the body politic in 13^th to 14^th century Florence. Regarding Bruni’s potential oligarchic bias in this matter, see e.g., Witt (2000), pp. 423–428; It is also notable how, like the Florentine guilds, “particular associations” such as ancient Roman collegia and modern trade unions have often met a similar fate. Jonathan S. Perry recounts how the Roman collegia increasingly came to be seen as suspect in the late Republic, and he compares this situation to the 1791 Le Chapelier laws that banned all trade unions in Revolutionary France. See Perry (2016).

45. This was also the foundational principle of Machiavelli’s political theory. See Pasquino (2009), p. 404; The term popolo, much akin to the Roman populus, can denote either the full multitude of individuals or a specific, non-elite class of citizens in the way of Roman plebeians. The emphasis in the sources used here is on the latter meaning. See Najemy (2006), 35.

46. The exclusive and sectarian character of the guild-based popolo came to influence the requirements of political citizenship in many of the city-states. These varied over time, but the requirements often included, for example: 1) five to thirty years of residence in the city, 2) membership in a guild, 3) certain property qualifications or minimum tax assessments, and 4) continuous tax disbursements for periods of up to twenty-five years. See Martines (1988), p. 67; Legally, if not always in practice, the members of the city’s twenty-one recognized guilds constituted a broad office-holding class of citizens, although the power of the seven major guilds was greater than that of the fourteen minor ones. See Baker (2013), 38.

47. Mutual recognition was commonplace among the people on the street, with corporate and family ties being easily discerned. At the other end of the class division, elite families tended to inhabit opulent palazzi, and in the early Republican era, the elites dominated the city center as a warrior class with their towers and fortified enclaves. Later on, as they discovered a new identity as international merchants and bankers, these feudalism-tinted characteristics gave way to a more modern look. While chivalric values remained attractive in many Italian cities, in Florence, the spreading of ancient literature among the patricians helped to replace to role model of the knight with the role model of the citizen. See Witt (2000), 499.

48. Denman (2019), p. 212; corporatist political theory even today sees partial associations such as guilds (or modern labor unions) as important intermediary links between the individual and the whole, which would otherwise remain too distant or abstract (Denman, 2019, p. 212).

49. (On Alberti see, Rykwert, 1988, p. ix-x)

50. On the plan of ancient and renaissance Florence, see Najemy (2006), p. 8, and Scampoli (2010), 10. According to Francovich et al. (2007), pp. 1–41, 23–20, the theater had lost its original function already in Late-Antiquity.

51. See e.g., Tuori (2015), pp. 59–61.

52. On the connection between Alberti’s text and Roman republicanism, see Pearson (2011), pp. 95–97; on Alberti’s and ancient moralists’ views on wealth, see Pearson (2011), p. 167; for Roman negative attitudes towards private luxury, sumptuary, and extravagance, see Aubert (2004), pp. 160–178, 168–169; Kuttner (2004), pp. 294–321, 305, 316, and Wallace-Hadrill (2008), pp. 197–199, 315–355.

53. On publica magnificentia, see e.g., Pietilä-Castrén (1987), p. 17, 23; Zanker (1987), pp. 5–6, 18–27, 76–77, 135–136; Wallace-Hadrill (1994), pp. 4–11; Russell (2016), p. 98, 128, 136–137. The Roman concept of the publica magnificentia was well-known during the renaissance; see, for example, its use by Ptolemy of Lucca: Straumann (2018), 55.

54. Bruni (1974), p. 20, 22, 86, 88.

55. On the privatization of public space, see e.g., Russell (2016), pp. 77–95, 153–186. On public activities in the private sphere, see e.g., Wallace-Hadrill (1994), pp. 10–12; Pesando (1997), p. 9; Zanker (1998), pp. 10–12; Hales (2003), pp. 38–39.

56. See Carandini et al. (2010), p. 5; Russell (2016), pp. 81–83.

57. See Carandini et al. (2010), pp. 5–6.

58. See also, Pearson (2011), pp. 97–100.

59. See also, Pearson (2011), 98.

60. On the connection between republicanism and humanism, see, for example, Velema and Weststeijn (2018), pp. 1–3, 10–13.

61. citiesSee e.g. Wallace-Hadrill (1994), p. 78; Viitanen et al. (2013), 76–77, Viitanen & Ynnilä (2014), 144–145, 152–153.

62. On the first plan and planning process of Washington D.C., see Reps (1991), pp. 1–9.

63. For example, a fairly new collection of papers, titled Ancient Models in the Early Modern Republican Imagination (2018), which approaches republicanism with “a broad use of sources”, lists material culture, such as paintings and images, among the objects that were studied in Velema and Weststeijn (2018), p. 14 but it does not include architecture and space. On the high theoretical level of the discussion of republicanism and the need to bring it “down back to earth”, see Velema and Weststeijn (2018), pp. 6–7.

64. As poetically described by Muir (2002), pp. 12–13.