Cities

Rome is a city like no other, though its status by the time of the fourteenth century was only a shell of its ancient self.  The population of early imperial Rome likely reached one million inhabitants, though perhaps it was as high as two million.  However, in the late years of the empire, its population was in decline; its population went from approximately 800,000 in the fourth century to about 500,000 in the early fifth century, before entering an even more dramatic phase of population decline to about 80,000 by 530.  Meanwhile, the inhabitants started moving away from the hills and outskirts of the city and toward the area where the Tiber River makes its curve.  An incredibly sullen transformation to the the capital of a once-great empire.  Welcome to medieval Rome.

Yet just as the city declined, a new force was simmering within its walls.  Christianity was beginning to spread through Europe during the first several centuries AD, and Rome was the seat of the bishop of Rome, otherwise known as the pope.  Rome also retained an important distinction among European cities because it was here that so many of the early Christian witnesses to their faith were martyred at the hands of pagan officials. Christians began to visit the tombs where these martyrs were buried outside the walls of Rome, and martyrium churches were built to protect the veneration of these relics.  These visitors started to come to Rome from all over Europe in the Middle Ages, helping to elevate Christian pilgrimage to the level of a major industry throughout the medieval period.

Pilgrimage continued to be a major economic driver for Rome into the Renaissance period, particularly during the Jubilee Years, which were designated as penitential events when pilgrims were given the opportunity to obtain plenary indulgences.  Although first initiated in 1300 by Pope Boniface VIII, it was not until 1450, when there was a pope actually residing in Rome, that the Jubilee Year became a major event. In that year, the crowds became so significant that armed militia was called in to maintain order. The masses of pilgrims that year brought a dramatic increase in offerings, so much that Nicholas V made a bank deposit of some 100,000 gold florins, an increase of 1/3 over deposits made in normal years.

By means of these Jubilee pilgrimages, Rome became the leading destination site for pilgrims in much of the West.  The printed word aided in drawing many of them in, as dozens of editions were published of the popular pilgrim guidebook, Indulgentiae ecclesiarum urbis, in the late-15^th and early-sixteenth centuries.  The effects of having a large number of pilgrims stream into Rome included the elevation of the papacy’s spiritual authority and an increase in the income of the popes.  Despite the past successes in bringing pilgrims to the city, the Jubilee Years of the Renaissance did not always fare well.  The year 1525 was one such Jubilee when the onset of Lutheranism, recent plague, the Colonna rebellion, a foreign military presence in a nearby region, and impending the Sack of Rome (and aftermath) in 1527 made travel during this decade extremely difficult. This setback was only temporary, and may have forced future popes to become more proactive in facilitating pilgrim visits to the city.

One of the popes who took a proactive role in enhancing the experience of pilgrims in Rome was Sixtus V, who initiated an intensive remodeling campaign of the city streets that made the flow of pilgrims between the old Christian churches more efficient.  When many of these churches were built in late antiquity, they were located on the periphery of the ancient city and after the Middle Ages it became difficult for the visitors entering through the Porta del Popolo to easily navigate to these sites.  Sixtus had his architect Domenico Fontana create several new avenues through the dilapidated sections of Rome so that churches like Santa Maria Maggiore, Santa Croce, and San Lorenzo were linked by streets. Connecting the major churches and shrines in Rome by roads not only benefited pilgrims, but it also reflected the papacy’s desire to show the city’s resilience during the Counter Reformation.  In doing so, Sixtus aimed to make the entire city a shrine.

Venice emerged from its medieval past in the fifteenth century to become one of the greatest cities in Italy.

Venice developed as a city unlike that of any other in Italy.  Whereas other cities in the peninsula could say they were founded by the ancient Romans, and thereby claim an ancestry related to Rome, Venice could not.  The city was founded in the early Middle Ages by people fleeing attackers such as the Lombards, who pushed the future Venetians onto the series of islands and mudflats located just off the coast of the north Adriatic Sea.  There, around the year 421 (the legendary foundation date of the city), the new residents would build their new world on these islands and the series of wooden piles and foundations that were needed to support the growing urban setting.

During the early years of Venice’s existence, it was protected and affiliated with the greatest power in the Mediterranean of the early Middle Ages, the Byzantine Empire, which had its capital in Constantinople.  By the ninth century, Venice began to assert some independence from Byzantium, although the two powers still enjoyed a close relationship which led to the replication of Byzantine forms and spaces within Venice.  The next several centuries would prove to be highly fortuitous to Venice as she completely emerged from her Byzantine shadows to assert her own claim to being a major maritime power in the Mediterranean.  Because Venice is located on the northern end of the Adriatic, she had seafaring access to lands far and wide, which enabled her to trade with cities in north Africa, the Levant, and up into the Black Sea.  Once goods flowed into Venice, they could then be sold to people from other parts of Italy and around Europe.  Thus, Venice’s engine for growth was built around its status as a commercial center.

The culminating point in Venice’s medieval history was its sack of Constantinople in 1204.  Joining with French Crusaders en route the the Holy Land, and Venetians helped conquer the city of its once-friendly-ally, removed the Byzantine emperor from power, and installed their own western emperor.  This situation would last until the Byzantines thew out their occupiers in 1261, but it reveals just how strong Venetian power had now become.  After the sack, numerous spoils were removed from Byzantine territories and brought back to Venice, where they were installed as a means of recreating aspects of the Byzantine world in Venice.  With the inflow of wealth and Byzantine artifacts, Venice was able to expand its main urban space around the Piazza San Marco and heavily decorate its basilica there, the Basilica San Marco.

 

Because Venice’s fortunes were so reliant upon sea trade, the city began to suffer when trade became more difficult as the House of Islam expanded to control more and more land around the eastern Mediterranean.  Venice’s trading posts around the Greek isles suffered, and the final nail was put in place when the city of Constantinople fell for good to the Muslims in 1453.  The Venetian response to this threat from the sea was to turn to the land in the northern Italian region surrounding the city.  By the early sixteenth century, Venetian inland territories (the “terraferma”) expanded so that Venetian patricians, who once made their money by investing in trading expeditions with the East, now were content to receive income by investing in agricultural production.  This Venetian expansion into the Italian peninsula did not, however, go unnoticed by the other reigning powers in Europe.  Alarmed by the new inland focus of the city, several powers joined together to confront Venice, at at the Battle of Agnadello in 1510, Venetian forces were conquered and many of the gains the city had made were reduced.