Martines’ April Blood uses the Pazzi conspiracy as a nexus from which to analyse the volatile political and economic situation in late Quattrocento Fl...moreMartines’ April Blood uses the Pazzi conspiracy as a nexus from which to analyse the volatile political and economic situation in late Quattrocento Florence. Beginning with the consolidation of power by Cosimo de’ Medici, this monograph examines rising discontent among the political elite in Florence as well as conflict among other Italian polities to shed light on the motives for and consequences of the April 21, 1478 assassination attempts. After the Pazzi revolt, overt opposition to the Medici was stamped out - yet returned in 1494 when Piero di Lorenzo de’ Medici was ousted from the power structure after negotiations with Charles VIII which the Florentines would not accept. April Blood offers a narrative of two competing visions for Florentine government: a “republican” government with hundreds (if not thousands) of voting members and an “aristocratic” government with power largely in the hands of one man whose patronage network coopts other leading families into maintaining his rule.
The reader is offered three vignettes to better illustrate how personalities affected the political situation. While Lorenzo de’ Medici is depicted as a brilliant politician and man-of-letters, his ruthlessness in entrenching himself as the de facto ruler of Florence is condemned in this work which Martines presents as counter-balancing the traditionally positive depiction of the Medici and villification of the Pazzi family and their supporters.
Of particular interest were sections on marriage alliances (see the chapters “Social Climbers” as well as the discussion of Maddalena di Lorenzo de’ Medici’s marriage to Sixtus IV’s illegitimate son), diplomatic alliances (Sforza, Neapolitan and even Papal) and economic constraints.
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I am not that thrilled with women’s studies as a field. The idea of choosing your object of study based solely on their biological sex disturbs me and...moreI am not that thrilled with women’s studies as a field. The idea of choosing your object of study based solely on their biological sex disturbs me and seems both arbitrary and demeaning somehow to the women that get studied. People worthy of study should be chosen on the merit of their thought (or its lack of merit) and not because of their gender. That said, i occasionally come across some great work that challenges my usual take on this form of work. Carla Hesse’s The Other Enlightenment(Princeton: Princeton UP, 2001) is such a piece of scholarship. I learnt something - something i needed to learn and something i would like to share because it challenges our preconceptions of the development of literature and of women as cultural producers.
"When we shift our perspective from the history of gender ideology to the study of the literary practices of women during the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, three points become clear: (1) The French Revolution marked the advent of unprecedented female participation in public debate, not its suppression; (2) women who wrote were not socially marginalized as outcasts or rebels; rather, they were at the very center of their social and political worlds, as diverse as those worlds were; and (3) there were no typical “feminine” forms of literary self-expression or “feminine” perspectives on the political and social world. Women wrote in every genre and from all sides of the political spectrum" (54). (less)
This book is so polemical i am had trouble even managing to get through it. The basic premise of a radical and moderate Enlightenment seems forced. Th...moreThis book is so polemical i am had trouble even managing to get through it. The basic premise of a radical and moderate Enlightenment seems forced. The end of Diderot's life is much less radical than Israel would have us believe AND i am having problems with any definition of "moderate" Enlightenment figure that lumps Voltaire in with Sir Edmund Burke... Sir Edmund Burke the famed conservative whose Reflections on the Revolution in France.
Avoid reading. It will just get under your skin. Antoine Lilte has published a stunning review in one of the French journals that is worth reading instead.(less)
The Kingdom of Italy, with its strategic position as a buffer between France and the Habsburg Empire, is the focus of Frederick Schneid’s monograph So...moreThe Kingdom of Italy, with its strategic position as a buffer between France and the Habsburg Empire, is the focus of Frederick Schneid’s monograph Soldiers of Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy: army, state, and society, 1800-1815. Analysing the social backgrounds of officers, NCOs and soldiers, Schneid reaches the conclusion that the army’s conscription policy was not only rational but also that it fostered the development of national sentiment through its mirroring of the actual social make-up (86).
[T:]he Italian army became one of the centers of Italian nationalism. Its supraregional character and structure reinforced the administration’s attempt to eliminate old physical and ideological boundaries. Military reform in northern Italy coincided with social and political change. The army reflected this socio-political evolution and the military administration expedited the process (16).
More radical, however, than the equation of military reform with budding national sentiment, are Schneid’s propositions that not only did Napoleon deliberately foster Italian nationalism by means of such policies as regiments with numerical rather than regional distinctions (30), but also that the population of the Kingdom of Italy was ambiguous about conscription until the end of Napoleonic rule when it was no longer possible to promote military service as a national rather than imperial endeavour (100). Discussions of rates of insoumission and desertion buttress this argument that radically contradicts the description of Italian responses to conscription offered by every other author. However, the emphasis on how the experience of Napoleonic rule fostered a sense of Italian nationalism that made Unification in 1860 possible is consistent with consensus.(less)
An okay overview dealing with the question of why, when in 1500 it looked as if France would be the dominant political player for the upcoming century...moreAn okay overview dealing with the question of why, when in 1500 it looked as if France would be the dominant political player for the upcoming century, England and the Netherlands took the lead. Answers lie in the Wars of Religion and the monarchy's fiscal policy focusing on military campaigns paid for with credit.(less)
Naples and Napoleon: Southern Italy and the European Revolutions (1780-1860) is John A. Davis’ most recent contribution to the historiography of Napol...moreNaples and Napoleon: Southern Italy and the European Revolutions (1780-1860) is John A. Davis’ most recent contribution to the historiography of Napoleonic rule in Italy. While his first work, mentioned above, adopted a thematic approach to the entire peninsula, this new monograph argues forcefully against one of the strongest held stereotypes about southern Italians using the circumstances created by three Bourbon restorations, a Republic violently repressed and a program of unprecedented reform. Davis emphasizes the problems inherited from the Bourbon monarchy, undermined by its attempts to challenge feudalism and and financial insolvency. [T:]he short period of French rule cannot be considered either as a clean break with the past or as a simple exercise in ‘rational’ modern governance, as the French and their supporters like to claim. Indeed, despite appearances the initiatives of the new government were not driven by the neatly interlocking templates that it introduced, nor even by the remarkable zeal shown by many of its agents. Ideology provided the models but contingent necessities dictates the priorities. The greatest and most pressing problems facing the new regime were direct consequences of the collapse of the ancien régime monarchy, which was the principal reason political and administrative change in the South took different and distinct forms. Davis analyses the (at least) three instances when Murat, Napoleon’s brother-in-law, was threatened with removal for failure to comply with the demands of the French government. The importance of the Kingdom of Naples, threatened by British protection of Sicily, may explain why Murat was not deposed, but the demands of a nearly bankrupted treasury, a countryside in open revolt and ecological disasters account for Murat’s repeated challenges to the Emperor’s authority. Naples and Napoleon interprets demands for constitutional reform from a large group of the populace, introduced to political action by the Bourbon monarchy’s attempts at abolishing feudalism, as radically contradictory to depictions of southern Italy as backward or pre-modern. It was, in fact, the extent of reform rather than its lack which made southern Italy exceptional.(less)
Imperial City: Rome, Romans and Napoleon, 1796-1815 focuses on the relationship between a single city and the Emperor. Susan Vandiver Nicassio acknowl...moreImperial City: Rome, Romans and Napoleon, 1796-1815 focuses on the relationship between a single city and the Emperor. Susan Vandiver Nicassio acknowledges this in a detailed bibliographical essay included at the end of the work: “This is a book about Rome and Romans rather than a book about Napoleon, though Napoleon is the never-present but always dominant figure who overshadows it.” Although Imperial City has a personable, accessible tone, “the popolo in general, and everyone’s grandmother in particular, had their own ideas about what to do about physical problems,” there is a footnote on almost every page, albeit in a tiny font face, that at the very least refers the reader to a more exhaustive account in the secondary literature, if not to a primary source. Quality scholarship can be reconciled with palatable narrative style. The first half of Imperial City describes Rome and its occupants. They are depicted as an eccentric people mainly through descriptions by well-traveled foreigners like Mrs. Eaton. With a focus on their chosen professions, with ample opportunity for independence, an unparalleled system of charities, fierce loyalties to individual neighbourhoods as well as their city and scorn for wealth, the Roman are set up a formidable opponent to Napoleon’s attempted reforms. Critical of any change, but particularly ones that were associated with anti-clericalism and the Enlightenment, the years of Napoleonic rule and the Emperor’s treatment of the Pope galvanizes a population into outright resistance. The nuns barricade themselves in their convents in opposition to the abolition of regular orders. Patrician families, like the Patrizzi, following the example of the Pontiff, permit themselves to be taken hostage rather than submit. These examples, taken from the most Catholic of cities, in many ways stand in for the smaller cities of Bologna, Ferrara, Perugia, Orvieto and Urbino that are missing from other scholarly works. The reader has a framework for understanding why the assault on the Catholic Church was so deeply troubling to the Italian peoples and undermined the legitimacy of French imperial rule. It also provides a description of how Italian urban life could be drastically opposed to Napoleonic reform in much the same way that Davis’ book on Naples provides the reader with a sense of how large landowners in the countryside were able to manipulate the changes in regime to bolster the power-structures that supported them. Despite a limited focus, Susan Vandiver Nicassio offers a wealth of information for the entire peninsula.(less)
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