Far from being harmonious, Athens experienced public disorder, plague, and uprisings, and it eventually lost that war with the Spartans. Florence, too, was a welter of dynastic conflicts, plots, regime changes, and general insecurity. Yet in both cases the humanistic ideal was central to their identities—and there is no question that Florence did become an energetic, artistic, intellectually active place through the fifteenth century, filled with larger-than-life characters and generally friendly to the activities of humanists.
