His202

What social climate inspired Boccacio's Decameron?

Trade and commerce going straight through the middle of the city. Florence is still dense. Lots of towers, mediaeval feature of the city, every family of some wealth or prosperity might build a tower and dedicate it to their family. Distinctive feature of medieval renaissance city states.

Signory

duke of naples. Naples was a wealthy, prosperous port town.

Florence established a republic, self governed under a type of oligarchy. This was called Signoria. Mediaeval term denoting feudal Lordship. 9 individuals made up this group, florentine male citizens, over 30, debt free and property owning and own or run a guild.

A very patriotic wealthy community led by the signoria. The whole sicilonian/petrarchian rhetoric. Pride in one's city state. This brought in new spaces in the city, plazas, churches, this is where things happen, in these civic and religious spaces.

After 16th century government of Florence fell out of the hands of the magistry and into the hands of the grand duke.

The triangles represent the welfs and the square turrets represent the others.

In Florence and Sienna the Pallazo Publico was the most important building. Florentine citizens saw it as a representation of their town and their independence. And their civic pride of the 13th century recalls the civic pride and humanism of petrarch et al.

Brumellesci was inspired by the dome of the pantheon in Rome. The idea was that Roman achievement could be replicated and improved upon. It's worth recognising the effort that went into these structures. Part of the reason of constructing things like these is to out do other rivals.

City states competed with each other not only in trade and commerce but symbolically. This becomes very important when Florence becomes the center of a region, Tuscany, and Florence has dominion over other cities.

This is also why the bell tower is so important in city states - you look to these structures to understand the cultural and economical supremacy of your city state.

In this physical environment tied to new ways of thinking, it was the centre of new movements, renaissance. Emerging philosophical ideals played out in these spaces. THEY WERE FANS OF WHAT OCCURED IN THE PAST

The petition asked for somebody to give a lecture by somebody well versed in Dante's work about Dante's work. This nails down the cultural mood of the 13 and 14' hundreds in Florence.

Boccacio's Commentary on the 'divina commedia'.

Shunning of vice. Acquisition of virtue. This is what they value. They take pride in their home grown public literature. Dante and other famous writers have a higher public status. The virtue of humanism, all citizens are desirous of being instructed in the book of Dante, so that even the unlearned may receive instruction. This passage displays the public interest in humanism in the 13 hundreds and it is very likely that something similar would never be sent to the government in our day and age.