Florence in the Forgotten Centuries: 1527-1800

by Eric W. Cochrane

The city of Florence has long been admired as the home of the brilliant artistic and literary achievement of the early Renaissance. But most histories of Florence go no further than the first decades of the sixteenth century. They thus give the impression that Florentine culture suddenly died with the generation of Leonardo, Machiavelli, and Andrea del Sarto.

Eric Cochrane shows that the Florentines maintained their creativity long after they had lost their position as the cultural leaders of Europe. When their political philosophy and historiography ran dry, they turned to the practical problems of civil administration. When their artists finally yielded to outside influence, they turned to music and the natural sciences. Even during the darkest days of the great economic depression of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, they succeeded in preserving—almost alone in Europe—the blessings of external peace and domestic tranquility.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

608 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1973

About the author

Eric Willam Cochrane Jr. (May 13, 1928 – November 29, 1985) was an American academic who specialized in the Italian Renaissance.

Cochrane was from Berkeley, California. He was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship from 1951 to 1953, and completed his doctorate at Harvard University in 1954. Cochrane then taught at Stanford University before serving in the United States Army. Upon his discharge, Cochrane joined the University of Chicago faculty. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1961, and the University of Chicago's Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 1965. He fell ill on a train traveling from Florence to Bologna on November 27, 1985, and died.[1][2] Cochrane was married to Lydia Goodwin Steinway, daughter of Theodore E. Steinway, with whom he had two children

Reviews

[Bob Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super Tuscan-orama

What can one say about a book that displays such erudition, such scholarship ? I am no student of Italy or Florence, but I can recognize a masterpiece when I see one. This volume represents a lifetime of study, a prodigious memory, and an organizing genius. On top of that it is well-written in a light, humanistic style ! I doubt that anyone will be able to write the history of Florence or Tuscany in the period 1527-1800 without reference to FLORENCE IN THE FORGOTTEN CENTURIES. Would-be scholars must carve out niches in this massive rock or search for topics beyond Tuscan boundaries. When I think about this work---that took me three weeks to complete the 508 pages densely packed with a huge amount of information---I can compare it only to such books as Womack's "Zapata and the Mexican Revolution" or Vansina's "Paths in the Rainforests"; works that took years of painstaking research, endless amounts of revision, and continuous thought to the exclusion of everything else. These are works that no doubt took years off the life of the authors. [Cochrane died at age 57 in 1985 though I don't know of what.]

In short, this is a unbelievable in-depth look at Florence at six points in the 272 years spanned. The narrative is fastened on six individuals, each in a different generation. Galileo is well-known, but the others----it seemed to me----are likely to be unheard of outside the scholarly community abroad. I have no idea of their stature in Italy. However, they are only the `hooks' for discussing Florentine civilization in immense detail---the political, military, economic, cultural, scientific, religious and philosophical aspects. If you want to know about Florentine historiography, it's here. If you want to know about relationships between the rulers of Tuscany and their Papal neighbors, it's here. The diet of the poor, music, theories of literature, the state of the press, the intellectual curiosity of the more educated citizens, art and architecture, the efforts of the grand dukes to modernize or preserve tranquility in their states, assassinations or Spanish garrisons--it's all here in such amazing richness that you will not be able to digest even a small percent. Scholars may delight, but the average reader will find this a kind of "Death by Chocolate" among books ! And yet, if you don't know much about Florence, this is probably not the place to begin. Cochrane gives no quarter, assuming the reader's basic knowledge. You must know the general patterns of European, Italian, and Tuscan history in those centuries. Hundreds of names are mentioned; maybe thousands, sometimes twenty on a page. Often the author supposes that you know who they are. There is not a single map of the city, yet he constantly refers to rivers, hills, buildings, and avenues. I, for one, have never been to Florence. Hmm. Difficult. This is faint criticism.

Overall, the book knocked me out. It is one of the most impressive historical works I have ever seen and I've read a fair few. I was the first to review it for Amazon and only the second to review it here. That's a shame.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was tedious but engaging. The section on Galileo was one of the best I've seen, having read numerous treatments of Galileo over the years. This volume comes highly recommended by one of my former professors and I plan to continue to make good use of it in years to come. I am quite surprised to find no reviews of it on Goodreads. I might write a longer more fitting review of it soon.

[Robert Morris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was pretty awesome. I have some really minor quibbles with the interpretation and the approach, but the wealth of information provided, and the deep historical challenge surmounted rate a five star review. The question is how do you tell the story of stagnation? Or how do you write the history of a period whose main virtue is that not a lot of big-H History actually happened?

Florence's "forgotten centuries" between the end of the Renaissance superstar Florentine Republic in the late 1520s, and the start of the Italian unification drama around 1800 or so, are neglected. Cochrane makes a convincing case that they are forgotten because the Medici dukes did a better job than republic-lovers like myself are willing to concede. Grand Duke Cosimo I managed to build a stable realm, that most survivors of Republican Florence saw as a relief. His successors, some close to as able, many not, managed to surf some very dark periods in European politics successfully, peacefully preserving Florence and all its artistic treasures long enough for the city's preservation to be funded by foreign tourists.

But after Cosimo's death in the 1574, and before the Habsburg dukes of the late 1700s, there isn't a lot of politics to go into. So Cochrane dives off into other realms to make sure that every part of these forgotten centuries gets its due. He constructs the book out of the life stories of six prominent men. One world-famous, the scientist Galileo, Cosimo I who I was aware of, and then four literary or bureaucratic figures I had never heard of before. By focusing on thinkers & writers (after Cosimo I), Cochrane can illuminate the prevailing world view of the decades when his usually long-lived subjects worked and studied. Cochrane makes a strong case that while the Florentines may have been out of the political mainstream, and their economy stagnated more and more, Florentine thinkers remained at the heart of European intellectual developments, from the Reformation, through to the Enlightenment.

This book is tremendously valuable. It fills a lot of gaps in my historical knowledge regarding Italy. The book is also a brilliant way to delve into European intellectual history. So much of what I know about the Enlightenment is inflected by the British and French experiences. Those two powers were going from strength to strength in the 1600s and 1700s. It was interesting to trace those developments through the prism of thinkers in a jurisdiction that was certainly hopeful, but not succeeding to the same degree.

I can't say that I'm wholly convinced by Cochrane that this isn't a history of stagnation. It ended up with Florence being swallowed up, after all. It's hard for me to not see the initial success of monarchy as naturally devolving into failure and stagnation. The Florentine Republic that built the Medici family, and the city's great wealth and artistic splendor is still what I choose to be more impressed by, and still see as more of a model. But Cochrane has provided an invaluable service here, vastly enriching our knowledge of Florence, "forgotten" Italy and of European intellectual history more generally.

[Kiely · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very all over the place and quite disjointed at times, though that is perhaps part of the overall structure of the book. On the whole, though, I really enjoyed this description of how the Florence of the renaissance became the Florence we know today through the 250 years no historian wants to talk about.

[Pierette]

Surprised that it is narrative, often in first person, and so easy to read! I am interested as to how others perceived this book.

[Thomas Lundy]

Fascinating, but a bit of a slog. A book to be read one chapter at a time.