The New, New Men, and Violence

It might seem strange that in the century after the first wave of the plague and the demographic, economic, and social disruptions that followed, the Rinascimento enjoyed a cultural flowering that was flush with the sense of the superiority of its urban civiltà. Central to this was the fact that the popolo grosso had finally come to dominate most of the major cities of Italy as a political and social elite. And their victory was idealized and defended as an ongoing rebirth of first times and cultures that had been the best of times – thus the best of times were returning, literally being reborn. Such claims, and the political and social reality that stood behind them, never totally triumphed, however; in fact, if anything, the uncertainty about the extent and permanence of their victory played an important role in fueling the cultural flourishing of the time and the optimistic claims of the superiority of Italy’s urban civiltà. And, significantly, such uncertainty was accompanied both by a wide range of open conflict and violence that, in an apparent paradox, also typified the cultural flourishing and by a sense of superiority that rose from the ashes of demographic disaster, social conflict, violence, and apparently unending war.