Abstract
One of my college professor used to say that Plato's ideas are there, hanging like provolone, in the sense that he believes would not have a base or a contiguity with what it should achieved. In short, a colorful and tasty way to say they are plucked out of thin air.
I do not let me enter into the details (I will not doing an injustice to Plato and even salacious to my teacher), not only would that events and characters in the novel also became provolone going to keep company with those already pending. I mean, like the characters and events of a play they need a background scene on which to project, so will those of a novel: the reader must be able to immediately place in a nebulous and without well-defined time. Otherwise how do you imagine them living and concrete ...
For this, I have decided to enhance the blog with some information pertaining to the historical time and places as they were for the time covered by the narrative, the heroic assumption that my visitor do not be discouraged at the first lines and has the patience to go through with it.
The political situation in Italy at the end of the fifteenth
The period covered by the narrative, which stretches between 1490 and 1494, is marked by some important events: first of all, the discovery of land beyond the ocean The death of Lorenzo de 'Medici in Florence and the ascent to the papacy of Pope Rodrigo Borgia with the name of Alexander VI. Unlike other European nations, where they were consolidating large power plants, Italy is fragmented into a plethora of smaller states including the most important political influence and by extension, are:
the Kingdom of Naples, extending from the Abruzzi to Sicily and Sardinia, the expression of Aragonese monarchy;
the Papal States, including approximately Lazio, Marche and Emilia-Romagna;
the republic of Florence, subject to the rule of the Medici;
the Duchy of Milan, ruled by the Sforza dynasty, which covers almost all the current Lombardy until they touch, in the southern part, the Florentine Republic;
the Venetian Republic, which boasts a stable government attitude, and prosecute such so a policy of supremacy.
Other sovereign entities are the Duke of Mantua, ruled by the Gonzaga, the Duke of Ferrara, submitted to the lordship of Este, the Republic of Genoa, the little Republic of Lucca and Siena.
As regards the narrative, it should focus attention on the rule of the Church which is subject to a condition that distinguishes it further from political entities listed above. The central problem is the fact that in Rome there could be a dynasty, and this undoubtedly weakened the central power. In fact, the individual rulers of the Papal States, who held power in this or that city, are the latest offshoot of the feudal system, in practice they saw as the principles of independent and therefore not inclined to submit to central authority . This state of affairs was compounded by a further element of weakness: the adoption by the pontiff of a nepotism policy which, rather than aim to distribute offices and ecclesiastical offices to their relatives, tended to be within the same state of independent domains, and the staff assigned to the family of the pope. In this regard, is emblematic of the role played by Rodrigo Borgia (Pope Alexander VI) in favor of his son Cesare Borgia (the Duke Valentino). It's worth mentioning that the pope in question was already heavily discussed on charges that he stole the papal throne as a result of practices of simony.
endemic instability of the Italian states is exacerbated by the death Lorenzo de 'Medici, who goes to break the delicate balancing act all hinged on the cooperation between Milan, Florence and Naples. The disappearance of the lord of Florence makes an agreement more difficult the already poor due to progressive deterioration of relations between the efforts and the Kingdom of Naples. All this happens just before entry into Italy of Charles VIII, king of a strong French army of about four thousand men, whose assistance is invoked by those opposed to the Sforza family, the Medici family, the same Aragonese and finally to the Borgias .
La Marca Anconetana at the close of the fifteenth century
The Marche region is further fragmentation within the already fragmented the Papal States and the skirmishes between the different families vie for dominance are not uncommon. To ensure a modicum of stability, if not drive, ensure the Constitutions Egidiane, existing since 1357 and promulgated in Fano by the cardinal Egidio Albornoz, vicar general of the Papal States.
The Constitutions, a collection of laws are divided into six books. These, in addition to listing the papal provisions enacted over time, tend to govern relations between the various lords and between them and the papacy.
The territories are broken up into lordships of the March which refer to the most important families of the time, they are: the
Malatesta in Rimini and Pesaro. They obtained the lordship in 1295 and held it until 1503, when it fell to
by Cesare Borgia. One of the most prominent family, Roberto Malatesta, was seen on several occasions to fight alongside Federico da Montefeltro, the second daughter who had married the widow Elizabeth then remained in 1482. After the mourning, Elizabeth withdrew to the convent of Poor Clares at Urbino.
Elisabetta da Montefeltro is one of the secondary characters of the novel: the period of his stay in the convent of Urbino covering the period of the narrative, coinciding, and historically established, are also some details of which will be commented on in the novel, the
Montefeltro at Urbino, where the rule was consolidated from 1234. By Federico da Montefeltro of Urbino, the city experienced a period of great splendor and prestige of the Montefeltro is increased, so much so that in 1444 what was originally a county became a duchy. In 1472, Frederick succeeded by his son Guidubaldo (also mentioned in the narrative), which remains in power until 1502, when the lands of the Duchy are invaded by Cesare Borgia;
the da Varano, lords of Camerino since 1259. Achieved its peak at the end of '400.
Camerino is a town full of cultural ferment and can boast a prestigious university, the whose fame is mainly due to the extraordinary flowering of legal studies. Witness, for example by Cino da Pistoia, reported that it was not uncommon to find law schools active even in the villages.
The economy of the brand is thriving, partly because the period was marred by the alternation of the plagues which are to gradually deplete the workforce. The exception, within a social and economic context if not depressed, certainly not healthy, it is perhaps represented by Macerata, freed from the yoke in the middle of the century, the Sforza, submits again to the Church In change ' permanent institution of the General Court of Rector of the Church and the Holy of officially becoming the capital of the Marches of Ancona. Has since been kicked off the city's transformation from predominantly agricultural center, evolves in bureaucratic and political center of the region. It is in that same period that witnessed a massive influx of immigrants in the territories that brings a plethora of Macerata employees, notaries, judges, soldiers, clergymen, but also tales and characters of dubious reputation.
In any event, the event causes a strong impetus to economic and urban development: the influx of Lombard workers occurred in the early years of the century is the environment for a stable settlement and the initiation of major public works and private.
In summary, except for some excitement due to construction and in particular the construction of new defense systems of major cities - firearms (mostly bombs) had already made their appearance - if it can be concluded that the economy of the territories Marche wheel on the activities of all time: agriculture, handicrafts and trade.
culture and ideas in everyday life in late fifteenth and early sixteenth
Throughout the Middle Ages the only institution that had provided cultural continuity had been the Church. But, when the facts narrated in the novel, from now nearly three centuries there was an event that has revolutionized knowledge, all in anticipation based on the vision of the world dictated by Augustine of Hippo and the Fathers of the Church have rediscovered the works of Aristotle and, with them, its "natural". The nature, ie, be returned to the entity in which the observable phenomena occur and also the testing for some time has become an instrument of knowledge. This new approach has led to separate, however, destroy the natural world, the phenomena that fall under the senses, from the divine world and the supernatural, which remains solely within the purview of God and of His only Son. In this world, inscrutable and inaccessible to the human, the only legitimate and intermediaries are the Church and her ministers. Except that, when the facts narrated in the novel and for many decades, the corruption of the Church and its structures of government is there for all to see: nepotism, simony, clerical rapacity of a greedy and insatiable fed on the fracture created philosophical level, transfer made in the size of the newspaper. If the learned world is felt the need to reassemble matter and spirit (the flowering of ideas and Neoplatonic magic spreads to generate defections in the same body of the Church), in the minds of ordinary people the unknowable large open spaces in the commemoration of beliefs practices and mold free. And so, if not witchcraft, surely the folk magic, astrology (which by the way it is taught in universities on a par with other disciplines), alchemy and a whole set of empirical practices become archaic and ancestral heritage of everyday life.
In particular, the territory of central Italy and the Umbrian-Marche these practices are hugely popular: in 1452 the entire population of Montemonaco, a country of the Sibillini Mountains, from the outset to the end of the common people, is processed with accused of having given hospitality to throngs of necromancers and having participated in itself a practical wizards. Luckily of the population, the process ends with an acquittal in general than we were able to collect and present objective evidence to support prosecution. What
the formal rigor of the processes is another aspect of which take into account: the historical results show beyond doubt that the more that the courts of the Inquisition, were those of secular justice to produce the largest number of convictions followed by capital punishment. In general, the inquisitor was motivated by an interest, we would say so, anthropology: the aim was to understand the nature of deviance and the causes that had produced it, with the main objective of verifying if there were spaces for the recovery of the accused and his reintegration into the body of the Church. On the other hand, it is also true that the Church had something else to worry about than not considered practical for the legacy of a more superstitious mentality, and ultimately harmless. Nevertheless, we must not forget that even in the second half of the century (between 1486 and 1487, to be precise) is written by two Dominicans the infamous Malleus Maleficarum, a true manual as guidance for the recognition of witches, real or alleged to be.
In a nutshell, and even with all the approximations that only the speed of the survey can perhaps justify, the track here is the background on which the project life and adventures of the characters in the novel at this point is hope that the future reader, reading it, did not bear the feeling of having to deal with entities suspended in midair. Like
provolone, exactly.
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