S207987840001515-5-1

10.18254/S0001515-5-1

Article

Published

Volume 7 Issue 6 (50)

This paper deals with the description of internal contentions in the Renaissance Florence (end of 13th — beginning of the 14th centuries) by Dino Compagni in his “Cronicle of events happened in my times”. During the lifetime of one generation in this city people’s government was establihed, lords (grandi) were repressed, Guelphs forced out Ghibellins, then Black Guelphs banished the White ones; finally, bloody confrontation occurred between themselves. Conflicts accompanied the history of Florentine commune till the moment of establishing of Medici’s “tyranny” in the beginning of the 16th century. Considering that social and political struggle in Florence became prototype of later European troubles and revolutions, it is interesting to see, which explanations and judgements were given to it by contemporaries, first of all Compagni himself, and other writers and thinkers from Dante to Machiavelli. Among these judgements mythological, pseudo-naturalistic and transcendental motives (damnation of Mars statue, confusion of ethnic groups, intrigues of devil) are being gradually replaced by the research of social causes of conflicts and reflections on the best state order, on the costs of liberty which transform it into tyranny. Dino Compagni, on the one hand, considers events as “political realist” who takes into account interests of clans and social groups, but on the other hand he is inclined to seek the roots of calamities in his native city in the vices of its citizens: greed and ambition.

10.09.2016

15.11.2016

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