This book treats a topic that is already well represented in scholarship: Renaissance, and more specifically, Medici Florence; and uses primary sources that are just as well represented: Ghirlandaio’s fresco cycle in the Tornabuoni chapel, and the Panegyric to the City of Florence by Leonardo Bruni, to name just two. Yet, by adopting a new perspective, it enables us to see the interaction between these different sources, and the “ideology” of Renaissance Florence in a new light.
The main question driving this book’s argument is how the urban image of Florence was exploited to create the myth of the city, reclaiming the city’s ancient distinguished origins, and announcing its role in the contemporary world. It is built on two main assumptions: first, that by analogy to family chronicles the Florentines produced a “mythical” genealogy for their city, and, second, that this mythical genealogy is reflected and represented in Florentine cityscapes, thus promoting Florence as the reincarnation of the most glorious cities of the past: Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem.
Crucial to this thesis is the broad and interdisciplinary approach the author takes to these “Florentine cityscapes,” also called “urban settings”, including not just the actual physical buildings, but also literary and visual city views, as well as imaginary architecture. In different ways, and with different purposes, these “urban settings” express the complex visions of Florence as a New Athens, New Rome or New Jerusalem, most notably by highlighting specific ancient origins, or emphasizing the resemblance with these “ideal” cities. This process is connected to the idea of lineage, in that it assumes that the Florentines conceived of their city as a part of a larger family of other glorious cities, on the basis of which Florence has a “family resemblance” to them.
Accordingly, inspired by recent scholarship on the importance of lineage in Florentine culture, and on the ideology of monuments in classical literature, the author sets out to uncover the symbolic messages that were conveyed by a wide variety of architectural views of Florence.[1] And even if classical reception studies are not mentioned explicitly, they are implied by the ultimate goal of all these images, that is to present Florence as the political, civic, cultural and spiritual leader of the time, comparable to the Athens of Pericles, the Rome of Augustus, and the Jerusalem of Jesus, as well as the celestial Jerusalem of Augustine.
Chapter 1 focuses on images representing Florence as New Athens. It argues that the interest in Greek heritage and origins is more pronounced in Florence than in other cities at the time, and that the reputation and influence of prominent Florentine authors and artists is an important factor in this. Florence is seen as standing in the line of succession of Greek culture, where wise government and the patronage of intellectuals has led to power and cultural prosperity. In the urban image of Florence the connection with Athens is, for example, represented by the olive in the Allegorical Figure of Florence on the reverse of a bronze medal with the portrait of Cosimo de’ Medici, the depiction of the Contest between Poseidon and Athena in the courtyard of the Palazzo Medici, or Michelangelo’s marble relief with the Battle of the Centaurs in Lorenzo’s gardens.
The image of Florence as New Athens is also built concretely on Greek literature. To this end Chernetsky discusses the example of Leonardo Bruni’s praise of Florence, which closely mirrors Aelius Aristides’ praise of Athens. Most notably, both cities are represented as consisting of concentric rings, and are envisaged as the parent of the citizens, who are represented as children. The closing example of the chapter, the Medici villa at Poggio Caiano, further emphasizes the constant interaction between ancient Greek and Roman culture in the Florentine all’antica artistic tradition.
Chapter 2 discusses the image of Florence as New Rome, which is not only most present/prevalent in scholarship, but also, as the author rightly stresses, the most dominant among the ancient origins reflected in Florence’s cityscape(s). It is built on Florence’s foundation by the Romans, as well as on the idea of its naturally succeeding Rome in political, cultural and spiritual terms. The representation of Florence as the daughter of Rome reflects this concept of succession, and at the same time explains the architectural likeness between the cities.
This chapter starts with an analysis of the most important humanist versions of Florence’s Roman history by Villani, Salutati, Bruni, Landino and Poliziano. Besides assuming a certain likeness between Florence and Rome, they also reference specific buildings to reflect on Florence’s Roman Antiquity as well as on the topographical continuity of Florence into a New Rome. Chernetsky’s analysis of the Baptisterium of San Giovanni can stand witness to this complex interaction between Florence and Rome. Interpreted as the temple of Mars it not only testifies to the Roman origins of Florence, but also connects Mars to the Florentines as “grandfather”. At the same time in architectural terms it clearly evokes the Roman Pantheon, a likeness that is further exploited by the newly constructed Cupola of the Santa Maria del Fiore. This Cupola, which is clearly meant to outdo the Pantheon, thus marks the transition from Roman Florence to Florence as New Rome. The last part of the chapter further dives into the interaction with contemporary papal Rome that comes to the fore, among other events, in Savonarola’s attempts to cast the Roman identity of Florence in a negative light, by opposing the morally decadent Rome—seen as a New Babylon—to the aspirations of contemporary Rome to be the New Jerusalem.
Chapter 3 moves further by introducing the image of Florence as New Jerusalem, to reflect on Florence’s divine destiny. In this context the city is introduced as the cradle of Christianity, as a spiritual center, and a celestial city itself, in collaboration and competition with contemporary Rome. The chapter starts by discussing several examples in which the topography of Jerusalem was projected onto the topography of Florence as site of memory, and also to serve the practical needs of religious processions. Then it moves on to discuss how specific architectural settings were built in imitation of examples from Jerusalem, most notably the Temple of Solomon and the Holy Sepulcher. Interestingly, since no visual material of these sacred landmarks was available, they were—vice versa—conjectured on the basis of Florentine architecture. In this same context it is interesting to see how the Baptisterium not only recalled the Roman Pantheon but, through its octagonal shape, the Dome of the Rock as well. Moving from the circular shapes of these domes, to the circular shape of Jerusalem and Florence in city views, the chapter then discusses images of Florence as Paradise. It ends by showing how the imagery of Florence as New Jerusalem went hand in hand with a renewed interest in the Old Testament, and the reactivation of Hebrew studies under the patronage of the Medici. However, at the same time as Cosimo imagined his family tree as the House of David, in the view of Savonarola the Medici were the bad guys, guiding Florence away from New Jerusalem instead.
Chapter 4 finally, entitled “Florence as a New Florence”, builds neatly on the previous chapters, and thematizes the question of how Florence also became an ideal city of its own. It does so by considering the difference between real and imaginary architecture. It uses the Tornabuoni chapel with Ghirlandaio’s richly imagined architectural settings as a case study to analyze how humanist visions of ideal architecture were incorporated to create a vision of a Golden Age Florence.
The reception of classical literature was key to this project in various ways, as Vitruvius and Pliny represented the Roman ideals of architectural wall painting, just as Vitruvius’ “ideal” city, through the interpretation of Alberti’s interpretation, was incorporated in the wall paintings themselves. With this idealized architecture then, including squares, porticoes, arches, temples, and villas, Ghirlandaio not only blurs the boundaries between the biblical, Roman and the Florentine cityscapes, but also places the narrative of Florence’s lineage in this ideal imaginary urban setting.
After a concise conclusion, Chernetsky ends, in the form of an appendix, with a brief reflection on the Etruscan origins of the city of Florence, mainly to explain why it was not considered relevant for a separate chapter. This is because “they did not dwell on the idea of Etruria as much as they did on the illustrious cities of Athens, Rome and Jerusalem”, and that “no Etruscan city provided an equal model as the other cities.” The opportunity is also taken here of adding some interesting insights on how the Etruscan origin relates to the other “ancient origins.”
Given the specific focus of this book on the way in which “architecture, described in words, imagined in painting and reliefs, and realized in fact, played a critical role in the articulation of Florence’s identity and ideal”, this omission indeed makes perfect sense. And I do consider this specific focus as one of the main strengths of this book that sets it apart from other studies in this area. The focus on the city in relation to other “ideal” cities or cityscapes has a clear advantage, in that it enables a truly interdisciplinary analysis of different types of sources—both literary and visual—and thereby enriches all the disciplines involved.
However, given the other focus of the book, the idea of lineage and mythical origins, Etruria would definitively have deserved a more prominent place than the appendix. Maybe even more prominent, one could argue, than Athens or Jerusalem. Because, in terms of mythical origins, Etruria adds valuable arguments to Florence’s claim to Roman origins: exemplary Romans (like Maecenas or Camillus) were actually (also) Etruscans, and via Etruscan Fiesole, according to Villani the birthplace of Troy’s founder Dardanus, Florence can actually take pride in similar but older origins than Rome. At the same time, Etruria is also representative of Florence’s quest for local origins, as counterpart and alternative to all the other “origins” that imply a geographical transfer of some kind.[2]
Rather than arguing that the book lacks a chapter, I would suggest that the idea of lineage or “mythical origins” is less central to the book, or at least, less fundamental for all the chapters than the title may suggest. Lineage is, to be sure, a very interesting and relevant lens through which to look at Florence’s relationship with the past and at the connections between Florence and the other “ideal” cities. However, on closer scrutiny, not all the family relationships referenced or imagined in the primary sources represent a similar type of connection, and not all the connections imply “mythical origins.” In fact, lineage works much better for the chapter on Rome than it works for the chapters on Athens and Jerusalem, whose arguments are built much more prominently on analogy and typology than on “familial relations” between Florence and these cities.
This observation actually reveals that Rome (almost) always functions as the “intermediary,” and that in a certain sense the image of Florence as New Rome encapsulates the others. Rome connects Florence to Troy via the translatio imperii, as it connects Florence to Greece via the translatio studii, while it connects Florence to Jerusalem by means of Augustine’s celestial city. Had the author wished to make the “mythical origins” truly central, she could have dived deeper into the variation of such “familial relationships”. That said, she emphasizes more than once how these city images are closely intertwined, and adduces interesting visual examples where all three or even four cities are merged into one urban image. So, even if the images of Florence as New Athens, New Rome and New Jerusalem do not imply that Florence originates from these cities in the same way, it is actually the strength of this book that it separates these images, in order to analyze their complex interaction in text, image and reality, and by so doing offers a model for looking at other cities in the same way.
Notes
[1] The author explicitly mentions the following titles: P. Barolsky, Giotto’s Father and the Family of Vasari’s Lives, University Park, PA 1992; A. Vasaly, Representations: Images of the World in Ciceronian Oratory, Berkely, CA 1993 and T.S. Welch, Elegiac Cityscape. Propertius and the Meaning of Roman Monuments. Columbus 2015.
[2] For my examples with regard to Florence’s Etruscan past in this section I also build on current doctoral research by Louis Verreth at Leiden University, entitled “Claiming Ancient Rome’s Heritage: Translatio imperii as an Anchoring Device in the Neo-Latin Poetry of Florence in the Age of Lorenzo de’ Medici (1469-1492).” For the quest for local origins all throughout Renaissance Europe, see e.g. K. Christian and B. De Divitiis (eds), Local Antiquities, Local Identities. Art, Literature and Antiquarianism in Europe, c. 1400–1700, Manchester 2018.