Pietro Metastasio
Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, better known by his pseudonym of Pietro Metastasio, was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti. Metastasio was born in Rome, where his father, Felice Trapassi, a native of Assisi, had taken service in the Corsican regiment of the papal forces. Felice married a Bolognese woman, Francesca Galasti, became a grocer in the Via dei Cappellari; the couple had two daughters. Pietro, while still a child, is said to have attracted crowds by reciting impromptu verses on a given subject. On one such occasion in 1709, two men of distinction stopped to listen: Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina, famous for legal and literary erudition as well as his directorship of the Arcadian Academy, Lorenzini, a critic of some note. Gravina was attracted by the boy's poetic talent and personal charm, made Pietro his protégé. Felice Trapassi was glad to give his son the chance of a good education and introduction into society. Gravina hellenized the boy's name Trapassi into Metastasio, intended his adopted son to be a jurist like himself.
He therefore made the boy learn law. At the same time he cultivated his literary gifts, displayed the youthful prodigy both at his own house and in the Roman coteries. Metastasio soon found himself competing with the most celebrated improvvisatori of his time in Italy. However, his days full of study and evenings devoted to improvising poetry took a toll on Pietro's health. Gravina, making a business trip to Calabria, exhibited Metastasio in the literary circles of Naples placed him in the care of his kinsman Gregorio Caroprese at Scaléa. In country air and the quiet of the southern seashore Metastasio's health revived. Gravina decided that he should never improvise again, but should be reserved for nobler efforts, having completed his education, he might enter into competition with the greatest poets. Metastasio responded to his patron's wishes. At the age of twelve he translated the Iliad into octave stanzas, it was called Giustino, was printed in 1713. Caroprese died in 1714. Metastasio inherited a fortune of 15,000 scudi.
At a meeting of the Arcadian Academy, he recited an elegy to his patron, settled down to enjoy his wealth. Metastasio was now twenty. During the last four years he had worn the costume of abbé, having taken the minor orders without which it was useless to expect advancement in Rome, his romantic history, personal beauty, charming manners and distinguished talents made him fashionable. Within two years he increased his reputation, he decided to apply himself to the work of his profession. In Naples, he entered the office of an eminent lawyer named Castagnola, who exercised severe control over his time and energies. While slaving at the law, Metastasio in 1721 composed an epithalamium, also his first musical serenade, Endimione, on the occasion of the marriage of his patroness Donna Anna Francesca Ravaschieri Pinelli di Sangro to the Marchese Don Antonio Pignatelli. In 1722, while Naples was under Austrian rule, the birthday of Empress Elisabeth Christine had to be celebrated with more than ordinary honours, the viceroy asked Metastasio to compose a serenata for the occasion.
Metastasio kept his authorship secret. He wrote "Gli orti esperidi", set to music by Nicola Porpora, sung by Porpora's pupil, the castrato Farinelli, making a spectacular début, it won the most enthusiastic applause; the Roman prima donna, Marianna Bulgarelli, who played Venus in this opera, spared no pains until she had discovered its author. Bulgarelli persuaded the poet to give up the law, promised to secure for him fame and independence if he would devote his talents to the musical drama. In her house Metastasio became acquainted with the greatest composers of the day: Johann Adolph Hasse, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Alessandro Scarlatti, Leonardo Vinci, Leonardo Leo, Francesco Durante, Benedetto Marcello, all of whom would set his plays to melody. Here too he studied the art of singing, learned to appreciate the style of such men as Farinelli. Metastasio wrote and his plays were enhanced by being set to music and sung by the greatest singers of the day. On paper, his plots may seem conventional, his situations absurd.
Yet the music helps negate these criticisms. Metastasio lived with her husband in Rome. Moved by an affection half maternal, half romantic, by admiration for his talent, she adopted him more passionately than Gravina had done, she took the whole Trapassi family – father, brother, sisters – into her own house. She pampered his caprices. Under her influence he wrote in rapid succession Didone abbandonata, Catone in Utica, Alessandro nell' Indie, Semiramide riconosciuta and Artaserse; these dramas were set to music by the chief composers of the day, performed in the chief towns of Italy. But meanwhile Bulgarelli was growing older, he gained 300 scudi for each opera.
Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between voices that are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and contour. It has been most identified in the European classical tradition developing during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period in the Baroque; the term originates from the Latin punctus contra punctum meaning "point against point". Counterpoint has been used to designate a voice or an entire composition. Counterpoint focuses on melodic interaction—only secondarily on the harmonies produced by that interaction. In the words of John Rahn: It is hard to write a beautiful song, it is harder to write several individually beautiful songs that, when sung sound as a more beautiful polyphonic whole. The internal structures that create each of the voices separately must contribute to the emergent structure of the polyphony, which in turn must reinforce and comment on the structures of the individual voices; the way, accomplished in detail is...'counterpoint'.
Counterpoint theory has been given a mathematical foundation in the work initiated by Guerino Mazzola. In particular, his model gives a structural foundation of forbidden parallels of fifths and the dissonant fourth; the model has been extended to microtonal contexts by Octavio Agustin. Some examples of related compositional techniques include: the round, the canon, the most complex contrapuntal convention: the fugue. All of these are examples of imitative counterpoint. In 1725 Johann Joseph Fux published Gradus ad Parnassum, in which he described five species: Note against note. A succession of theorists quite imitated Fux's seminal work with some small and idiosyncratic modifications in the rules. Many of Fux's rules concerning the purely linear construction of melodies have their origin in solfeggi. Concerning the common practice era, alterations to the melodic rules were introduced to enable the function of certain harmonic forms; the combination of these melodies produced the figured bass.
The following rules apply to melodic writing in each species, for each part: The final must be approached by step. If the final is approached from below the leading tone must be raised in a minor key, but not in Phrygian or Hypophrygian mode. Thus, in the Dorian mode on D, a C♯ is necessary at the cadence. Permitted melodic intervals are the perfect fourth and octave, as well as the major and minor second and minor third, ascending minor sixth; the ascending minor sixth must be followed by motion downwards. If writing two skips in the same direction—something that must be only done—the second must be smaller than the first, the interval between the first and the third note may not be dissonant; the three notes should be from the same triad. In general, do not write more than two skips in the same direction. If writing a skip in one direction, it is best to proceed after the skip with motion in the other direction; the interval of a tritone in three notes should be avoided as is the interval of a seventh in three notes.
There must be a climax or high point in the line countering the cantus firmus. This occurs somewhere in the middle of exercise and must occur on a strong beat. An outlining of a seventh is avoided within a single line moving in the same direction. And, in all species, the following rules govern the combination of the parts: The counterpoint must begin and end on a perfect consonance. Contrary motion should predominate. Perfect consonances must be approached by contrary motion. Imperfect consonances may be approached by any type of motion; the interval of a tenth should not be exceeded between two adjacent parts. Build from the bass, upward. In first species counterpoint, each note in every added part sounds against one note in the cantus firmus. Notes in all parts are sounded and move against each other simultaneously. Since all notes in First species counterpoint are whole notes, rhythmic independence is not available. In the present context, a "step" is a melodic interval of whole step. A "skip" is an interval of a fourth.
An interval of a fifth or larger is referred to as a "leap". A few further rules given by Fux, by study of the Palestrina style, given in the works of counterpoint pedagogues, are as follows. Begin and end on either the unison, octave, or fifth, unless the added part is underneath, in which case begin and end only on unison or octave. Use no unisons except at the beginning or end. Avoid parallel fifths or octaves between any two parts. Avoid moving in parallel fourths. Avoid moving in parallel thirds or sixths for long. Attempt to keep any two adjacent parts within a tenth of each other, unless an exceptionally pleasing line can be written by moving outside that range. Avoid having any two parts move in the same direction by skip Attempt to have as much contrary motion as possible. Avoid dissonant inter
Napoleon
Napoléon Bonaparte was a French statesman and military leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars. He was Emperor of the French as Napoleon I from 1804 until 1814 and again in 1815 during the Hundred Days. Napoleon dominated European and global affairs for more than a decade while leading France against a series of coalitions in the Napoleonic Wars, he won most of these wars and the vast majority of his battles, building a large empire that ruled over much of continental Europe before its final collapse in 1815. He is considered one of the greatest commanders in history, his wars and campaigns are studied at military schools worldwide. Napoleon's political and cultural legacy has endured as one of the most celebrated and controversial leaders in human history, he was born in Corsica to a modest family of Italian origin from minor nobility. He was serving as an artillery officer in the French army when the French Revolution erupted in 1789.
He rose through the ranks of the military, seizing the new opportunities presented by the Revolution and becoming a general at age 24. The French Directory gave him command of the Army of Italy after he suppressed a revolt against the government from royalist insurgents. At age 26, he began his first military campaign against the Austrians and the Italian monarchs aligned with the Habsburgs—winning every battle, conquering the Italian Peninsula in a year while establishing "sister republics" with local support, becoming a war hero in France. In 1798, he led a military expedition to Egypt, he became First Consul of the Republic. Napoleon's ambition and public approval inspired him to go further, he became the first Emperor of the French in 1804. Intractable differences with the British meant that the French were facing a Third Coalition by 1805. Napoleon shattered this coalition with decisive victories in the Ulm Campaign and a historic triumph over the Russian Empire and Austrian Empire at the Battle of Austerlitz which led to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire.
In 1806, the Fourth Coalition took up arms against him because Prussia became worried about growing French influence on the continent. Napoleon defeated Prussia at the battles of Jena and Auerstedt marched his Grande Armée deep into Eastern Europe and annihilated the Russians in June 1807 at the Battle of Friedland. France forced the defeated nations of the Fourth Coalition to sign the Treaties of Tilsit in July 1807, bringing an uneasy peace to the continent. Tilsit signified the high-water mark of the French Empire. In 1809, the Austrians and the British challenged the French again during the War of the Fifth Coalition, but Napoleon solidified his grip over Europe after triumphing at the Battle of Wagram in July. Napoleon invaded the Iberian Peninsula, hoping to extend the Continental System and choke off British trade with the European mainland, declared his brother Joseph Bonaparte the King of Spain in 1808; the Spanish and the Portuguese revolted with British support. The Peninsular War lasted six years, featured extensive guerrilla warfare, ended in victory for the Allies against Napoleon.
The Continental System caused recurring diplomatic conflicts between France and its client states Russia. The Russians were unwilling to bear the economic consequences of reduced trade and violated the Continental System, enticing Napoleon into another war; the French launched a major invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The campaign did not yield the decisive victory Napoleon wanted, it resulted in the collapse of the Grande Armée and inspired a renewed push against Napoleon by his enemies. In 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces in the War of the Sixth Coalition against France. A lengthy military campaign culminated in a large Allied army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, but his tactical victory at the minor Battle of Hanau allowed retreat onto French soil; the Allies invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April. He was exiled to the island of Elba off the coast of Tuscany, the Bourbon dynasty was restored to power.
Napoleon took control of France once again. The Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition which defeated him at the Battle of Waterloo in June; the British exiled him to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died six years at the age of 51. Napoleon's influence on the modern world brought liberal reforms to the numerous territories that he conquered and controlled, such as the Low Countries and large parts of modern Italy and Germany, he implemented fundamental liberal policies throughout Western Europe. His Napoleonic Code has influenced the legal systems of more than 70 nations around the world. British historian Andrew Roberts states: "The ideas that underpin our modern world—meritocracy, equality before the law, property rights, religious toleration, modern secular education, sound finances, so on—were championed, consolidated and geographically extended by Napoleon. To them he added a rational and efficient local administration, an end to rural banditry, the encouragement of science and the arts, the abolition of feudalism and the greatest codification of laws since the fall of the Roman Empire".
The ancestors of Napoleon descended from minor Italian nobility of Tuscan origin who had come to Corsica fr
Turin
Turin is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Turin and of the Piedmont region, was the first capital city of Italy from 1861 to 1865; the city is located on the western bank of the Po River, in front of Susa Valley, is surrounded by the western Alpine arch and Superga Hill. The population of the city proper is 878,074 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 1.7 million inhabitants. The Turin metropolitan area is estimated by the OECD to have a population of 2.2 million. The city has a rich culture and history, being known for its numerous art galleries, churches, opera houses, parks, theatres, libraries and other venues. Turin is well known for its Renaissance, Rococo, Neo-classical, Art Nouveau architecture. Many of Turin's public squares, castles and elegant palazzi such as the Palazzo Madama, were built between the 16th and 18th centuries. A part of the historical center of Turin was inscribed in the World Heritage List under the name Residences of the Royal House of Savoy.
The city used to be a major European political center. From 1563, it was the capital of the Duchy of Savoy of the Kingdom of Sardinia ruled by the Royal House of Savoy, the first capital of the unified Italy from 1861 to 1865. Turin is sometimes called "the cradle of Italian liberty" for having been the birthplace and home of notable individuals who contributed to the Risorgimento, such as Cavour; the city hosts some of Italy's best universities, academies and gymnasia, such as the University of Turin, founded in the 15th century, the Turin Polytechnic. In addition, the city is home to museums such as the Mole Antonelliana. Turin's attractions make it one of the world's top 250 tourist destinations and the tenth most visited city in Italy in 2008. Though much of its political significance and importance had been lost by World War II, Turin became a major European crossroad for industry and trade, is part of the famous "industrial triangle" along with Milan and Genoa. Turin is ranked third after Milan and Rome, for economic strength.
With a GDP of $58 billion, Turin is the world's 78th richest city by purchasing power. As of 2018, the city has been ranked by GaWC as a Gamma World city. Turin is home to much of the Italian automotive industry. Turin is well known as the home of the Shroud of Turin, the football teams Juventus F. C. and Torino F. C. the headquarters of automobile manufacturers Fiat and Alfa Romeo, as host of the 2006 Winter Olympics. The Taurini were an ancient Celto-Ligurian Alpine people, who occupied the upper valley of the Po River, in the center of modern Piedmont. In 218 BC, they were attacked by Hannibal as he was allied with their long-standing enemies, the Insubres; the Taurini chief town was captured by Hannibal's forces after a three-day siege. As a people they are mentioned in history, it is believed that a Roman colony was established in 9 BC under the name of Julia Augusta Taurinorum. Both Livy and Strabo mention the Taurini's country as including one of the passes of the Alps, which points to a wider use of the name in earlier times.
In the 1st century BC, the Romans founded Augusta Taurinorum. The typical Roman street grid can still be seen in the modern city in the neighborhood known as the Quadrilatero Romano. Via Garibaldi traces the exact path of the Roman city's decumanus which began at the Porta Decumani incorporated into the Castello or Palazzo Madama; the Porta Palatina, on the north side of the current city centre, is still preserved in a park near the Cathedral. Remains of the Roman-period theater are preserved in the area of the Manica Nuova. Turin reached about 5,000 inhabitants at all living inside the high city walls. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the town was conquered by the Heruli and the Ostrogoths, recaptured by the Romans, but conquered again by the Lombards and the Franks of Charlemagne; the Contea di Torino was founded in the 940s and was held by the Arduinic dynasty until 1050. After the marriage of Adelaide of Susa with Humbert Biancamano's son Otto, the family of the Counts of Savoy gained control.
While the title of count was held by the Bishop as count of Turin it was ruled as a prince-bishopric by the Bishops. In 1230–1235 it was a lordship under the Marquess of Montferrat, styled Lord of Turin. At the end of the 13th century, when it was annexed to the Duchy of Savoy, the city had 20,000 inhabitants. Many of the gardens and palaces were built in the 15th century; the University of Turin was founded during this period. Emmanuel Philibert known under the nickname of Iron Head, made Turin the capital of the Duchy of Savoy in 1563. Piazza Reale and Via Nuova were added along with the first enlargement of the walls, in the first half of the 17th century. In the second half of that century, a second enlargement of the walls was planned and executed, with the building of the arcaded Via Po, connecting Piazza Castello with the bridge on the Po through the regular street grid. In 1706, during the Battle of Turin, the French besieged the city for 117 days without conquering it. By the Treaty of Utrecht the Duke of Savoy acquir
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and conductor of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, his reputation and status as a composer are such that he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs" of music, a comment made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow. Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano and voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works, he worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim. Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. An uncompromising perfectionist, Brahms left others unpublished. Brahms has been considered, by his contemporaries and by writers, as both a traditionalist and an innovator, his music is rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters.
While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The diligent constructed nature of Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers. Embedded within his meticulous structures, are romantic motifs. Brahms's father, Johann Jakob Brahms, was from the town of Heide in Holstein; the family name was sometimes spelt'Brahmst' or'Brams', derives from'Bram', the German word for the shrub broom. Against the family's will, Johann Jakob pursued a career in music, arriving in Hamburg in 1826, where he found work as a jobbing musician and a string and wind player. In 1830, he married Johanna Henrika Christiane Nissen. In the same year he was appointed as a horn player in the Hamburg militia, he became a double-bass player in the Hamburg Stadttheater and the Hamburg Philharmonic Society. As Johann Jakob prospered, the family moved over the years to better accommodation in Hamburg.
Johannes Brahms was born in 1833. Fritz became a pianist. Johann Jakob gave his son his first musical training. From 1840 he studied piano with Otto Friedrich Willibald Cossel. Cossel complained in 1842 that Brahms "could be such a good player, but he will not stop his never-ending composing." At the age of 10, Brahms made his debut as a performer in a private concert including Beethoven's quintet for piano and winds Op. 16 and a piano quartet by Mozart. He played as a solo work an étude of Henri Herz. By 1845 he had written a piano sonata in G minor. Brahms's parents disapproved of his early efforts as a composer, feeling that he had better career prospects as a performer. From 1845 to 1848 Brahms studied with Cossel's teacher composer Eduard Marxsen. Marxsen had been a personal acquaintance of Beethoven and Schubert, admired the works of Mozart and Haydn, was a devotee of the music of J. S. Bach. Marxsen conveyed to Brahms the tradition of these composers and ensured that Brahms's own compositions were grounded in that tradition.
In 1847 Brahms made his first public appearance as a solo pianist in Hamburg, playing a Fantasy of Sigismund Thalberg. His first full piano recital, in 1848, included a fugue by Bach as well as works by Marxsen and contemporary virtuosi such as Jacob Rosenhain. A second recital in April 1849 included Beethoven's Waldstein sonata and a waltz fantasia of his own composition, garnered favourable newspaper reviews. Brahms's compositions at this period are known to have included piano music, chamber music and works for male voice choir. Under the pseudonym'G. W. Marks' some piano arrangements and fantasies were published by the Hamburg firm of Cranz in 1849; the earliest of Brahms's works which he acknowledged date from 1851. However Brahms was assiduous in eliminating all his early works. Persistent stories of the impoverished adolescent Brahms playing in bars and brothels have only anecdotal provenance, many modern scholars dismiss them. In 1850 Brahms met with the Hungarian violinist Ede Reményi and accompanied him in a number of recitals over the next few years.
This was Brahms's introduction to "gypsy-style" music such as the czardas, to prove the foundation of his most lucrative and popular compositions, the two sets of Hungarian Dances. 1850 marked Brahms's first contact with Robert Schumann. In 1853 Brahms went on a concert tour with Reményi. In late May the two visited composer Joseph Joachim at Hanover. Brahms had earlier heard Joachim playing the solo part in Beethoven's violin concerto and been impressed. Brahms played some of his own solo piano pieces for Joachim, who remembered fifty years later: "Never in the course of my artist's l
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with 383,084 inhabitants in 2013, over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area. Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era, it is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, has been called "the Athens of the Middle Ages". A turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1871 the city was the capital of the established Kingdom of Italy; the Florentine dialect forms the base of Standard Italian and it became the language of culture throughout Italy due to the prestige of the masterpieces by Dante Alighieri, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini. The city attracts millions of tourists each year, the Historic Centre of Florence was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982; the city is noted for Renaissance art and architecture and monuments.
The city contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, still exerts an influence in the fields of art and politics. Due to Florence's artistic and architectural heritage, it has been ranked by Forbes as one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Florence is an important city in Italian fashion, being ranked in the top 15 fashion capitals of the world. In 2008, the city had the 17th highest average income in Italy. Florence originated as a Roman city, after a long period as a flourishing trading and banking medieval commune, it was the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, it was politically and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe and the world from the 14th to 16th centuries; the language spoken in the city during the 14th century was, still is, accepted as the Italian language. All the writers and poets in Italian literature of the golden age are in some way connected with Florence, leading to the adoption of the Florentine dialect, above all the local dialects, as a literary language of choice.
Starting from the late Middle Ages, Florentine money—in the form of the gold florin—financed the development of industry all over Europe, from Britain to Bruges, to Lyon and Hungary. Florentine bankers financed the English kings during the Hundred Years War, they financed the papacy, including the construction of their provisional capital of Avignon and, after their return to Rome, the reconstruction and Renaissance embellishment of Rome. Florence was home to the Medici, one of European history's most important noble families. Lorenzo de' Medici was considered a political and cultural mastermind of Italy in the late 15th century. Two members of the family were popes in the early 16th century: Leo X and Clement VII. Catherine de Medici married King Henry II of France and, after his death in, reigned as regent in France. Marie de' Medici married Henry IV of France and gave birth to the future King Louis XIII; the Medici reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, starting with Cosimo I de' Medici in 1569 and ending with the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici in 1737.
The Etruscans formed in 200 BC the small settlement of Fiesole, destroyed by Lucius Cornelius Sulla in 80 BC in reprisal for supporting the populares faction in Rome. The present city of Florence was established by Julius Caesar in 59 BC as a settlement for his veteran soldiers and was named Fluentia, owing to the fact that it was built between two rivers, changed to Florentia, it was built in the style of an army camp with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. Situated along the Via Cassia, the main route between Rome and the north, within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement became an important commercial centre. In centuries to come, the city experienced turbulent periods of Ostrogothic rule, during which the city was troubled by warfare between the Ostrogoths and the Byzantines, which may have caused the population to fall to as few as 1,000 people. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century. Florence was conquered by Charlemagne in 774 and became part of the Duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca as capital.
The population began to grow again and commerce prospered. In 854, Florence and Fiesole were united in one county. Margrave Hugo chose Florence as his residency instead of Lucca at about 1000 AD; the Golden Age of Florentine art began around this time. In 1013, construction began on the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte; the exterior of the church was reworked in Romanesque style between 1059 and 1128. In 1100, Florence was a "Commune"; the city's primary resource was the Arno river, providing power and access for the industry, access to the Mediterranean sea for international trade. Another great source of strength was its industrious merchant community; the Florentine merchant banking skills became recognised in Europe after they brought decisive financial innovation to medieval fairs. This period saw the eclipse of Florence's powerful rival Pisa, the exercise of power by the mercantile elite following an anti-aristocratic movement, led by Giano della Bella, that resulted in a set of laws called the Ordinances of Justice.
Of a population estimated at 94,00
