Medieval cities not so different from modern European cities

Medieval cities - with their agrarian societies and simple market economies - seem very different from modern European urban centers. Life in 14th-century cities centered around hierarchical institutions such as the crown, guilds, and churches. Today, companies, technologies, and a global economy dominate our lives.

Despite the dramatic changes in economic and political structures over the last 700 years, a new look at medieval cities' population sizes and distributions suggest that some urban characteristics have remained remarkably consistent.

A paper published in PLOS One highlights one major similarity: in both medieval and modern European cities, larger settlements have predictably higher population densities than smaller cities.

The authors write: "This would suggest that the institutions of Western European urban systems ca. 1300 did not substantially constrain social mixing, economic integration, or the free flow of people, ideas, and information."

In short, the social dynamics enabled by medieval cities were fundamentally similar to those of contemporary cities.

The authors analyzed data from 173 medieval cities from across Western Europe, finding that these data show statistically indistinguishable community grouping patterns among medieval capital cities in Italy, England, France, and Belgium and much younger European cities.

On the macro, institutional level, modern and historical cities may look very different, says Bettencourt. We are now finding that what we know about contemporary urban processes may be applicable to the past because of similarities in micro-level behaviors and the effects they have on the larger system, he says.

How Markets in Europe Opened Up as Guild Monopolies Declined in the Sixteenth Century

Posted on July 21, 2017 by Prateek Raj

 

Markets don’t function well if they are ridden with frictions like lack of information or lack of trust. A new working paper finds that cities in the sixteenth century where monopolies of densely networked merchant guilds declined had significantly higher levels of printing, as they were early adopters of printing technology. Additionally, these cities were found on the Atlantic coast, where traders had the greatest incentives to form new connections with unfamiliar traders.

״Portrait of a Merchant,” painted c. 1530 by Jan Gossaert, depicts a Dutch merchant writing in a ledger surrounded with tools of the trade.

In the sixteenth century, the Northwest European region of England and the Low Countries underwent transformational change. In this region, a bourgeois culture emerged and cities like Antwerp, Amsterdam, and London became centers of institutional and business innovation, whose accomplishments have influenced the modern world.

For example, one of the first permanent commodity bourses was established in Antwerp in 1531, the first stock exchange emerged in Amsterdam in 1602, and joint stock companies became a promising form of organizing business in London in the late sixteenth century. The sixteenth century transformation was followed by the seventeenth century Dutch Golden Age, and the eighteenth century English Industrial Revolution. What made the Northwest region of Europe so different? The question remains a central concern in social sciences, with scholars from diverse fields (Weber, 1905; North, 1990; Padgett and Powell, 2012; McCloskey, 2016; Rubin, 2017) researching the subject.

The medieval power of merchant guilds

 

Rembrandt’s “The Syndics of the Drapers’ Guild,” 1662

 

Markets don’t function well if they are ridden with frictions like lack of information, lack of trust, or high transaction costs. In the presence of frictions, business is often conducted via relationships.

Until the end of the fifteenth century, impartial institutions like courts and police that serve all parties generally—so ubiquitous today in the developed world—weren’t well developed in Europe. In such a world without impartial institutions, trade often was (is) heavily dependent on relationships and conducted through networks like merchant guilds. Such relationship-based trade through dense networks of merchant guilds reduced concerns of information access and reliability. Not surprisingly, because the merchant guild system was an effective system in the absence of strong formal institutions, it sustained in Europe for several centuries. In developing countries like India, lacking in developed formal institutions, networked institutions like castes still play an important role in business.

Before the fourteenth century, merchant guild networks were probably less hierarchical, more voluntary, and more inclusive. But, with time, merchant guilds started to become exclusive monopolies, placing high barriers to entry for outsiders, and they began to resemble cartels with close involvement in local politics. There were two reasons why these guilds erected such tough barriers to entry:

• Repeated committed interaction was the key to effectiveness of merchant guilds. Uncommitted outsiders could behave opportunistically and undermine the reliability of the system. Therefore, outsiders faced restrictions.

• Outsiders threatened the position of existing businessmen by increasing competition. So, even genuinely committed outsiders could be restricted to enter as they threatened the domination of existing members.

But, in the sixteenth century, the merchant guild system began to lose its significance as more impersonal markets, where traders could directly trade without the need of an affiliation, began to emerge (see Region 1 of map in Figure I) and rulers stopped granting privileges to merchant guilds. The traders began to rely less on networked and collective institutions like merchant guilds, and directly initiated partnerships with traders who they may not have known well. For example, in Antwerp the domination of intermediaries (called hostellers) who would connect foreign traders declined. Instead, the foreign traders began to conduct such trades directly with each other in facilities like bourses.

Emergence of markets in the 16^th century

 

 

A new working paper studyies the emergence of impersonal markets in Europe during the sixteenth century. The author surveys survey the 50 largest European cities during the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries (mapped in Figure I) and codify the nature of sixteenth century economic institutions in each of the cities (explore interactive data on early modern Europe). In the survey, I find that merchant guilds were declining in the Northwest region of Europe, while elsewhere in Europe they continued to dominate commerce until much later, although there were some reforms underway in the Milanese and Viennese regions of Italy.

What explains the observed pattern of emergence of impersonal markets in sixteenth century Europe? I focus on the interaction between the commercial and communication revolutions of the late fifteenth century Europe. In the paper, I argue that the Northwest European region uniquely benefited from both of these revolutions due to its unique geography.

Commercial revolution at the Atlantic coast

Rembrandt’s “The Syndics of the Drapers’ Guild,” 1662

What motivated traders to seek risky opportunities beyond close networks? If traders found partnerships with unfamiliar traders beyond their business networks to be highly beneficial, that would provide good incentives for the rise of impersonal markets. The Northwest Region was close to the sea, notably the Atlantic coast, which was at the time undergoing a commercial revolution with the discovery of new sea routes to Asia and the Americas. So, the region became a hub for long distance trade, attracting unfamiliar traders who came to its coast looking for business opportunity. I find that all cities where merchant guild privileges declined were at the sea, along the Atlantic or North Sea coast. Moreover, all cities where merchant guilds underwent reform (but didn’t decline) were within 150km of a sea port.

The communication revolution of the postal system and the printing press

What made traders feel confident about the reliability of such risky impersonal partnerships? If availability of trade-related information and business practices improved, it could increase confidence traders had in such unfamiliar partnerships. In the sixteenth century, the postal system improved across Europe. The postal system made communication between distant traders easier as traders could correspond regularly with each other and gain more accurate information. This helped expand long distance trade across Europe.

While the Northwest European region didn’t have a particular advantage over other regions in postal communication, it had an advantage in early diffusion of printed books. The Northwest European region was close to Mainz, the city where Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable time printing press in the mid fifteenth century. Dittmar (2011) showed how cities close to Mainz adopted printing sooner than many other regions of Europe in the first few decades of its introduction. So, trade-related books and new (or unknown) business practices like double-entry bookkeeping diffused early and rapidly in the region.

Figure: As impersonal markets emerged in 16th c. commercial center of Antwerp, so did double entry bookkeeping. “Allegory of Trade” (1585) shows the centrality of double bookkeeping in Antwerp where the woodcut illustrates a balanced scale with “debit” and “credit” as its two sides. Around the scale lies scenes of prosperity (ships docking at its Atlantic port) and ruin (scenes of war and decline). Antwerp emerged as an important center for double bookkeeping, with books published in Dutch, English, and French (by Jan Ympyn Christoffels) in the 1540s, adopted from the path breaking book “Summa de Arithmetica” by Luca Pacioli in Venice in 1494.

Such a high penetration of printed material reduced information barriers and improved business practices. I find that all cities where guild privileges declined or merchant guilds underwent reform in the sixteenth century enjoyed high penetration of printed material in the fifteenth century. Among cities within a 150km distance from a sea port, cities where merchant guilds declined or reformed had more than twice the number of diffused books per capita than cities where merchant guilds continued to dominate.

As a comparison, there were four major Atlantic port cities where merchant guilds declined: Hamburg, London, Antwerp, and Amsterdam; while there were four guild-based Atlantic cities: Lisbon, Seville, Rouen, and Bordeaux in the sixteenth century. The fifteenth century per capita printing penetration of the cities would stack as: Lisbon < Bordeaux < Hamburg < Seville < Rouen < London < Amsterdam < Antwerp.

The combination of both the commercial revolution along the sea coast, especially the Atlantic coast, and the communication revolution, especially near Mainz, uniquely benefited Northwest Europe, as it began to attract traders who favored impersonal market-based exchange over exchange conducted via guild networks. Rulers began to disfavor privileged monopolies when they realized the feasibility of impersonal exchange and that they could have superior sources of revenue from impersonal markets. In the region, trade democratized, as more people could participate in business.

Regions like Spain and Portugal that benefited only from the commercial revolution of trade through the sea to Asia and Americas had low levels of printing penetration. In contrast, regions like Germany, Italy, and France benefited from the communication and print revolution but didn’t enjoy a bustling Atlantic coast. Thus, no other region enjoyed the unique combination of both benefits of the commercial and communication revolution.

Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga aims to reconstitute the heart of Lisbon during the Renaissance

Unknown Netherlandish Master, View of the Rua Nova dos Mercadores 1570-1619. Oil on canvas London, Kelmscott Manor Collection, The Society of Antiquaries of London © By kind permission of The Society of Antiquaries of London, Kelmscott Manor. 33

LISBON.- The history of this exhibition begins in April of 1866, when the pre-Raphaelite painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) left his home in Chelsea, London, to evaluate a painting he had seen in a small antique shop. “A large landscape with about 120 figures of the school of Velasquez, [but] not, [I think], by the great V himself”, wrote the painter. The British art world had awakened to Spanish painting and collectors were on the lookout for works by great masters such as El Greco, Velázquez and Goya. Despite not recognising the city represented in the painting, Rossetti correctly guessed at its Iberian origin. ADVERTISING An impetuous and eclectic collector, Rossetti divided the canvas into two, probably because it did not fit on the already overcrowded walls of his London home. It is known that Rossetti took these two canvases with him, along with other works of art, when he went to live at Kelmscott Manor (Oxfordshire) with the painter William Morris (Rossetti and Morris shared this house for some months in 1871 and between 24th September, 1872 and July 11th, 1874). It is also known that the two paintings remained in Kelmscott Manor when Rossetti was forced to leave the house suddenly after a problematic love affair. They were later included in William Morris’ assets. An article by Julia Dudkiewicz (“Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s collection of Old Masters at Kelmscott Manor” in The British Art Journal, vol. XVI, No. 2, 2015) confirms that these two paintings belonged to Rossetti’s collection. The historian reports that in May Morris’ (18621938) will – daughter of William Morris and heiress of Kelmscott Manor – a list of 220 objects is attached, with descriptions that encompass their provenance. The list includes the two paintings: “two pictures of scenes in a city, part of D. G. R.’s things”. The paintings (currently owned by the Society of Antiquaries of London) have remained at Kelmscott Manor since the 19th century but the represented city was only identified in 2009, by Annemarie Jordan Gschwend and Kate Lowe. The first clue that led to its identification was the number of black people portrayed; in 16th century Europe, only Lisbon and a couple of Spanish cities had such a large percentage of Africans. The architectural details such as the tall narrow houses, the covered gallery with marble columns – 149 in total – and the iron railings led Lowe and Jordan to conclude that it was Lisbon. And, more specifically, Rua Nova dos Mercadores, Lisbon’s main trade street in the 16th century, full of merchants, acrobats, musicians, travelling salesmen, knights, jewels, silks, spices, exotic animals and other wonders imported from Africa, Brazil and Asia. This exhibition aims to reconstitute the heart of Lisbon during the Renaissance with 249 pieces belonging to 77 lenders: 64 national (institutions and private collections) and 13 international (two private collections and 11 institutions, among them the British Museum, Pitt Rivers Museum, Museo Nacional del Prado, Leiden University Libraries and Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico “Luigi Pigorini”). On display for the first time in Portugal, the two paintings representing Rua Nova dos Mercadores open the first of the exhibition’s six sections: “Lisbon City Views: historical background”, “Novelties”, “From Africa”, “Shopping in Rua Nova”, “Animals from other worlds” and “Simão de Melo’s house”. Of note within this surprising set of never before assembled pieces are the extraordinary and meticulous Panoramic View of Lisbon, c. 1570- -1580 (Leiden University Library), the Reliquary Casket containing the relics of Saint Vincent (Patriarchal Cathedral - Treasure, Lisbon), the View of Lisbon waterfront with the royal palace, the Paço da Ribeira, 1505 (Câmara Municipal de Cascais/ Condes de Castro de Guimarães Museum), the Euclidis Megarensis Philosophi atque Mathematici [...], mathematical works by Francisco de Melo, 1521 (Stadtarchiv der Hansestadt Stralsund), Terrestrial Paradise by Pieter Brueghel the Younger (Museo del Prado), Processional Cross belonging to Catherine of Bragança containing the relics of Saint Thomas Becket (Vila Viçosa Ducal Palace) and the 1579 cameo, by Jacopo da Trezzo, representing King Manuel I’s rhinoceros (Guy Ladrière Collection).

Glory of Venice: Masterworks of the Renaissance

Denver Art Museum  Oct 2, 2016 Feb. 12, 2017
North Carolina Museum of Art March 4, 2017 – June 18, 2017

From the mid-1400s to early 1500s, artists forged a Renaissance style that was distinctly Venetian. Through this artistic evolution, the city became an internationally recognized model of pictorial excellence.

Titian, Madonna and Child with Saints Catherine of Alexandria and Dominic, and a Donor, about 1513. Oil on canvas; 53-7/8 × 72-1/2 in. Fondazione Magnani Rocca, Mamiano di Traversetolo, Parma, Italy. Courtesy of Fondazione Magnani Rocca, Mamiano di Traversetolo (Parma).

Artworks on view in the exhibition will emphasize how masters during this period—whose sensitivity toward color and light remained unparalleled for centuries—veered from traditional techniques and began using oil paint to experiment with depth, emotion and dimension in their work.

Glory of Venice features about 50 significant works, and provides visitors with a rare opportunity to experience 19 artworks from Venice’s Gallerie dell’Accademia, which houses one of the greatest collections of Venetian Renaissance art in the world.

Additional masterworks on view include paintings on loan from the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice and the Fondazione Magnani Rocca in Parma, Italy, as well as signature paintings from the DAM’s collection.

 
Artworks include Christ Carrying the Cross by Giorgione, on loan from the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice,

and Sacred Conversation by Titian, from the Fondazione Magnani Rocca in Parma, Italy.


Daily guided tours of Glory of Venice will be offered throughout the exhibition at 1 p.m. Tours are included in museum admission and no reservations are required. A fully illustrated publication, produced by the DAM, will accompany the exhibition.

Giovanni Bellini, Annunciation, early 1500. Oil on canvas; 88 × 42 in., each. Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice.

Attributed to Sebastino del Piombo, Madonna and Child with Saints Catherine and John the Baptist, about 1505-1508. Oil on panel; 20-1/8 × 31-7/8 in. Gallerie dell’Accademia

A fully illustrated catalog, published by the DAM, will accompany the exhibition. Essays detailing Glory of Venice: Masterworks of the Renaissance will be included in the catalog by exhibition co-curators Angelica Daneo and Dr. Giovanna Damiani.

Re-discovered marble lions from the tomb of Charles V of France

Carved Marble Group of Two Addorsed Lions by André Beauneveu (circa 1335–1402), dating from 1364–66

This year, Christie’s Exceptional Sale will be led by a magnificent Carved Marble Group of Two Addorsed Lions by André Beauneveu (circa 1335–1402), dating from 1364–66. Originally executed to form part of the tomb of King Charles V of France at the Abbey of St. Denis, they were brought from France in 1802 by the English aristocrat Sir Thomas Neave (1761–1848), and have remained in the same collection ever since. Known to scholars only from an engraving of the 18^th century, the emergence of these lions represents a remarkable re-discovery. Celebrating the art of medieval Europe, while simultaneously representing technical brilliance, the lions’ superlative quality means that they are worthy of any major museum or private collection.

Donald Johnston, Christie’s UK, International Head of Sculpture: ‘It is extraordinarily rare to offer any medieval work of art with such a fully documented provenance. The fact that this marble group was executed by one of the most important sculptors of the period and is part of an important royal commission makes it even more remarkable. The discovery of these lions in a private English collection is wonderful news for collectors and scholars who previously thought they had been lost during the French Revolution.’

Documents show that Beauneveu was commissioned by the young King Charles V shortly after coming to the throne to execute four family tombs, including the King’s own. One of the most important sculptors of late medieval Europe, Beauneveu took two years to complete the task after which he left the employ of the French crown, spending time in Flanders and – possibly – England, before ending his career at the court of Charles’s brother, Jean, duc de Berry. The tombs in Paris were dismantled by the revolutionary government in 1793 and today only the three male effigies survive. The effigy of Charles V, lacking the lions which had rested at his feet, was restored to the Abbey of St. Denis, Paris, where it remains today.

Thought to be the first royal effigy sculpted ad vivum, the figure of Charles V has long been recognised as being superior to the other two surviving figures, and scholars suggest it is the only one entirely executed by Beauneveu’s own hand. The sensitivity of the carving of the lions is notable and, like the effigy itself, they retain a beautifully polished surface. It is likely that this was because the archaeologist Alexandre Lenoir, who created a museum of French monuments during the upheavals of the French Revolution, recognised the superiority of the effigy of Charles V and removed it for inclusion in the new museum.

It is not known how the lions became separated from the main effigy but it seems probable that they were part of the sales held to support Lenoir’s museum. It is known that Sir Thomas Neave visited Paris in 1802 during the brief period in the Napoleonic Wars when Englishmen could travel there, and that he purchased the lions at that time.

Other examples of tomb figures recently sold by Christie’s include a pair of alabaster and

a pair of marble Mourner figures from the tomb of Charles’s brother, Jean, Duc de Berry (the latter sold in Paris in 2016 for €5,025,500). The duke was also a great patron of the arts and his tomb, executed in two stages in the 15^th century, was also vandalised at the time of the Revolution.

THE LAST TWO MARBLE MOURNERS FROM THE TOMB OF THE DUC DE BERRY

The last two figures of Mourners from the tomb of Jean de France (1340-1416), duc de Berry and brother of King Charles V (1338-1380), executed by Jean de Cambrai (known from 1375 to 1438) in Bourges circa 1396-1416.

Isabelle d’Amécourt, Head of the European Sculpture and Works of Art department: “In November 2013, two alabaster figures of Mourners from the same tomb sold for over €4M, marking a significant milestone. The sale on 15 June will offer a unique opportunity to acquire the last two marble Mourners from the same collection, and executed by Jean de Cambrai, one of the most important sculptor of his time”.

Jean de France was the third son of the French King Jean II le Bon (1319-1364), and considered one of the most prestigious patrons of his time. He set out to rebuild and renovate the castles on his main estates, and commissioned many important works of arts including the celebrated Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, illuminated by the Limbourg brothers and displayed at the Condé Museum in Chantilly. The Holy Thorn Reliquary and Saint Agnes Cup, valued treasures of the British Museum in London, also came from his collection.

Following a tradition established by the French royal family, the duc de Berry commissioned his own tomb and appointed the sculptor Jean de Cambrai (died in 1438), a former collaborator of André Beauneveu (circa 1335-1400), to build it. The grave was to be built in the Sainte-Chapelle of the Ducal Palace at Bourges, and was designed with a life-size recumbent statue lying on a marble slab and a base decorated with a procession of forty mourners sheltered by architectural canopies. Jean de Cambrai executed the recumbent statue and five marble mourners, including ours, before Jean de France died in 1416, and any further construction had to be stopped. His grand-nephew and heir, King Charles VII, entrusted the completion of the mourners’ gallery circa 1450-1453 to Etienne Bobillet (active between 1416 and 1453) and Paul Mosselmann (active between 1441 and 1467). The present marble mourners were carved fully in the round, endowed with expressive faces and with contained postures, accentuated by vertical drapery folds, making them feel very contemporary.

The tomb was completed around 1453-59, and for three centuries lay in the center of the choir of the Sainte-Chapelle in Bourges. In 1756 the building was demolished and the duc de Berry’s tomb was moved into the cathedral’s crypt and likely sustained damage at that time. During the French Revolution, the tomb was vandalized: the architectural canopies were hammered, and the mourning figures ended up either destroyed or scattered. Only the black marble slab and the recumbent figure remained unscathed, and are still preserved within the cathedral of Bourges. To this day, twenty nine mourners have been identified. Most of them are kept in some of the most prestigious museums, including the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Hermitage museum.

The mourners that will be offered at auction on 15 June 2016 are the last remaining marbles to be kept in private hands. They have been in the same family since 1807, and are considered a rare artistic display of medieval statuary.

Becoming Leonardo

BECOMING LEONARDO
An Exploded View of the Life of Leonardo da Vinci
by Mike Lankford
Pub date: March 28, 2017
Hardcover • 320 pages
With more than 40 color illustrations
 ISBN 9781612195957


"One of the most intimate and
clear-sighted portraits we're likely to have of such an elusive artist."

—ROSS KING, author of Brunelleschi's Dome


Why did Leonardo da Vinci leave so many of his major works uncompleted? Why did he carry the Mona Lisa with him everywhere he went for decades, yet never quite finish it? Why did he write backwards? And was he gay?

In Becoming Leonardo (Melville House; March 28, 2017), Mike Lankford explodes every cliché about the Renaissance master and then reconstructs him based on a rich trove of available evidence—bringing to life for the modern reader the man who has been studied by scholars for centuries, yet has remained as mysterious as ever.

"Becoming Leonardo does what historians long to do, and novelists often struggle to achieve . . . A book that has the pace, elegance, and authorial omnipresence of a novel, but which will enlighten, rather than annoy, the astute historian." —NOAH CHARNEY,
author of The Art of Forgery

"One of the most gifted writers it has been my pleasure to read."
—JAMES ALAN MCPHERSON
"Fun and enlightening . . . Lankford's unconventional approach provides for deeper appreciation of a genius."
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

"Lankford's jazzy idea of how to tell a strange but perfectly credible story is his alone." —ANN BEATTIE

Mike Lankford is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop and the author of Life in Double Time: Confessions of an American Drummer, a memoir about his years as a white drummer in a black R&B band. The book was selected by eight major newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and the Austin Chronicle, as the best music book of the year.