The Medici in Florence

Fülszöveg

The crisis in Italy in the second halfofthe 15th century was morepolitical than economic: the crisis ofthe very wealthy city-states vis-á-vis the three great European monarchies, ratherthan the crisis ofthe Italian economy vis-á-vis that of Castile-Aragon, Francé and the Hapsburgs. However, from the end ofthe century onwards, the Italian economy was tofeel the effect and, before the decline, widespread stagnation was to setin. Perhaps for this very reason the cities ofthe great bankers and merchants gavefree rein to the expression oftheir accumulated and solid wealth in grand works of culture: palaces, mansions and new churches were built, fortresses ofnew concepts andforms erected, statues and paintings were commissioned along with objets d'art: justas in the weary Athens ofPericles, and perhaps for the very same reasons. A family of great bankers, in Florence which had been among thefirst cities to lend the European economy European dimensions once again, rose from bourgeois... Tovább

Fülszöveg

The crisis in Italy in the second halfofthe 15th century was morepolitical than economic: the crisis ofthe very wealthy city-states vis-á-vis the three great European monarchies, ratherthan the crisis ofthe Italian economy vis-á-vis that of Castile-Aragon, Francé and the Hapsburgs. However, from the end ofthe century onwards, the Italian economy was tofeel the effect and, before the decline, widespread stagnation was to setin. Perhaps for this very reason the cities ofthe great bankers and merchants gavefree rein to the expression oftheir accumulated and solid wealth in grand works of culture: palaces, mansions and new churches were built, fortresses ofnew concepts andforms erected, statues and paintings were commissioned along with objets d'art: justas in the weary Athens ofPericles, and perhaps for the very same reasons. A family of great bankers, in Florence which had been among thefirst cities to lend the European economy European dimensions once again, rose from bourgeois status to the rank ofruling dynasty. Heir to the cultural tradition ofthe great cosmopolitan merchants, the Medici family expressed this in the dawningforms of Renaissance monarchy and contributed like perhaps no other in thatperiod towards the launching of modern culture. The historical function ofthe Medici dynasty in the 15th andlóth centuries appears as such today. This latter period was the theme of a large-scale and highly successful Medicean exhibition in 1980 organized by the European Council; thispresent volume takes its cuefrom this, standing as a homage to an aspect and an epoch of Italian culture, homage to the origins of contemporary Western culture. Vissza