tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/florence-27437/articlesFlorence – The Conversation2022-09-28T20:45:27Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1876622022-09-28T20:45:27Z2022-09-28T20:45:27ZWill baby drop boxes from the Italian Renaissance become more common after Meloni win?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486622/original/file-20220926-21-psj4vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=154%2C7%2C4675%2C3134&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Although pregnancy was celebrated in Renaissance paintings, like the 'Primavera' by Botticelli, the reality was quite different. Will Giorgia Meloni's far-right government reverse abortion rights in Italy?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Uffizi Gallery</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Italy, abortion has been legal since 1978. But now that Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-will-its-first-far-right-leader-since-wwii-mean-for-italy-190655">has won the national election</a> and the far-right form a majority in both the Italian Parliament and Senate, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/23/world/europe/giorgia-meloni-italy-women.html">access to abortion in Italy could face new restrictions</a>.</p>
<p>Anti-abortion supporters like Movimento per la Vita <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/italy-abortion-access-erodes-riding-united-states-wave/">have been buoyed</a> by Meloni’s recent win as well as this summer’s United States Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade. </p>
<p>As an art historian, my work has always seemed safely detached from today’s reality. However, after these recent political shifts, it seems historical artifacts and practices are now painfully relevant.</p>
<h2>Revival from ages past</h2>
<p>In Piazza di San Remigio, a few streets away from the Arno river in Florence, Italy, there’s a rectangular, box-like contraption encased in the wall about the same size as a bank machine. It sits opposite the façade of the church that gives the piazza its name. Drawings of sweetly swaddled babies are visible inside the box behind its glass pane. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477926/original/file-20220805-7920-nph7d7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477926/original/file-20220805-7920-nph7d7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477926/original/file-20220805-7920-nph7d7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477926/original/file-20220805-7920-nph7d7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477926/original/file-20220805-7920-nph7d7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477926/original/file-20220805-7920-nph7d7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477926/original/file-20220805-7920-nph7d7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477926/original/file-20220805-7920-nph7d7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A culla per la vita (baby box) in Piazza di San Remigio, Florence, Italy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sarah Wilkins</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>The contraption is a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/28/world/europe/28rome.html"><em>culla per la vita</em></a> or “cradle for life” where <a href="http://www.culleperlavita.it/dove_sono.php">desperate mothers can deposit unwanted infants</a> while retaining anonymity. Pressing a button opens the glass panel and the newborn can be placed inside the ventilated space on a receiving cloth. The partition closes automatically after ten seconds and cannot be reopened. </p>
<p>A sensor immediately notifies monitoring personnel and medical services who come to retrieve the infant.</p>
<p>This <em>culla per la vita</em> was installed in 2006 by the Florentine chapter of Movimento per la Vita, which aims to make abortions illegal in Italy. It is one of a growing national network of deposit points.</p>
<p>In the United States, there are over 100 baby boxes and, as in Italy, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/06/us/roe-safe-haven-laws-newborns.html?searchResultPosition=1">most are tied to anti-abortion, safe-haven movements</a>.</p>
<h2>No reproductive rights during the Renaissance</h2>
<p>The mechanized “baby box” or “baby hatch” is a revival of centuries-old cultural practices — first recorded as early as the 12th century and which particularly flourished during the Italian Renaissance. </p>
<p>In 15th and 16th-century Italy women had no reproductive rights. Without access to advanced medical care, women used all kinds of methods to end unwanted pregnancies, such as <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/abortion-remedies-medieval-catholic-nun/">time-honoured herbal abortifacients</a>, acidic substances, the insertion of foreign objects and folkloric practices.</p>
<p>Regardless of whether the pregnancy was wanted or not, the risk of death during childbirth was inescapable across all social classes. Although historical maternal mortality rates are hard to calculate, one estimate, using Florentine <em>Libri dei morti</em> (Books of the Dead), <a href="https://hdl-handle-net.ocadu.idm.oclc.org/2027/heb01278.0001.001">concludes that at least one out of five women of childbearing age died due to neonatal complications and trauma</a>. </p>
<p>It was not unheard of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004375871_012">for women to write wills while pregnant</a>, especially when carrying their first child. The risk of complications was amplified by the pubescent age of many Renaissance brides. </p>
<h2>The ‘Primavera’ by Botticelli</h2>
<p>In Florence today, visitors flock to the city’s historic Uffizi galleries to experience the beauty of Botticelli’s <em>Primavera</em> and other Renaissance artworks. But whether viewers of the painting realize it or not, <em>Primavera</em> draws attention to stark inequalities for women. </p>
<p>The painting, some argue, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1358279">commemorates a marriage</a>, possibly that between Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici and Semiramide Appiani in 1482. At the far right of the panel, the god Zephyr pursues the terrified nymph Chloris. Raped by Zephyr, Chloris transforms into the goddess Flora, who holds a cluster of blossoms at her abdomen, emphasizing her fertility, and to the eyes of a new bride, foreshadowing her expected pregnancies.</p>
<p>While new mothers of the elite were served sweetmeats and delicacies and given lavishly painted <em>deschi di parto</em> (birth trays) to celebrate the delivery of a child, most Italian women of the time experienced harrowing deprivation.</p>
<h2>An early baby box</h2>
<p>In 1419, Florence’s Silk Guild commissioned Filippo Brunelleschi to design the famed Ospedale degli Innocenti, which opened in 1445.</p>
<p>The building’s <em>loggia</em>, or portico, features semicircular arches made of soft grey <em>pietra serena</em>, ornamented with glazed terracotta roundels of swaddled infants by Andrea della Robbia inserted in 1487.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481337/original/file-20220826-1650-5xi5b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three arches, above the columns are terracotta figures of infants surrounded by a circular blue background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481337/original/file-20220826-1650-5xi5b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481337/original/file-20220826-1650-5xi5b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481337/original/file-20220826-1650-5xi5b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481337/original/file-20220826-1650-5xi5b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481337/original/file-20220826-1650-5xi5b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481337/original/file-20220826-1650-5xi5b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481337/original/file-20220826-1650-5xi5b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A few of the terracotta roundels in the portico of Brunelleschi’s Hospital of Innocents in Florence, Italy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>Unwanted newborns were initially left in the loggia in the <em>pila</em> — an elevated basin or pillar — followed by the <em>finestra ferrata</em>, a small gated window, with dimensions that restricted the age of those accepted. Later, infants entered via <em>la ruota degli esposti</em> (“wheel of the exposed” or “foundling wheel”) — the <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Visual-Cultures-of-Foundling-Care-in-Renaissance-Italy/Presciutti/p/book/9781138316171">preferred method</a> of surrender by the 16th century. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/after-a-newborn-was-found-in-a-recycling-bin-a-safe-haven-baby-hatch-may-save-lives-132851">After a newborn was found in a recycling bin, a safe haven baby hatch may save lives</a>
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<p>This cylindrical wooden device allowed the baby to be placed in an opening, rotated inwardly, and received inside. Infants often arrived wrapped with small talismans or a scrap with a scrawled name. Half a ribbon, a broken <a href="https://www.visitflorence.com/florence-museums/innocenti-museum.html">charm</a>, pendant, or coin, these marks of recognition were left with the child hoping for future reconciliation. The mother or relative kept the other half as proof of the long-lost familial relationship.</p>
<h2>Catholic doctrine barred burials</h2>
<p>Infant deaths were not just an earthly tragedy. Catholic doctrine forbade the baptism of deceased infants. Unbaptized infants who died quickly after birth, were officially <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11120678">barred from burial</a> in consecrated cemeteries and family chapels or tombs.</p>
<p>Midwives plunged unresponsive newborns into water or doused them with liquid in a desperate test for life. If revived, religious authorities <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/146960531770434">allowed emergency baptisms by midwives or laypeople</a>.</p>
<p>Thousands of unwanted infants nevertheless survived their births. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the compassionate retrieval of abandoned infants may be a well-intentioned outcome to a highly complicated dilemma. However, we cannot forget the systemic torment of the mother by a world that does not provide adequate healthcare.</p>
<h2>Will abortion rights change under Meloni?</h2>
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<img alt="A woman in a white suit waves." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486618/original/file-20220926-16-wvyhhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=242%2C206%2C5748%2C4041&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486618/original/file-20220926-16-wvyhhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486618/original/file-20220926-16-wvyhhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486618/original/file-20220926-16-wvyhhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486618/original/file-20220926-16-wvyhhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486618/original/file-20220926-16-wvyhhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486618/original/file-20220926-16-wvyhhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Fratelli d'Italia (‘Brothers of Italy’) leader Giorgia Meloni in Rome on Sept. 25.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)</span></span>
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<p>Despite the legality of abortion many Italian women struggle to obtain one. Almost 70 per cent of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/world/europe/on-paper-italy-allows-abortions-but-few-doctors-will-perform-them.html">gynecologists</a> — 83 per cent in Italy’s southern regions — <a href="https://www.ilpost.it/2021/03/29/aborto-obiezione-coscienza-italia/">are conscientious objectors</a>.</p>
<p>Giorgia Meloni has said that abolishing Italy’s abortion law is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/22/abortion-rights-at-risk-in-region-led-by-party-of-italys-possible-next-pm">not on her agenda</a> but her party has been <a href="https://www.repubblica.it/politica/2022/09/15/news/meloni_aborto_legge_194_reazioni-365762519/?fbclid=IwAR2u8B44TEt_2ZMyTr2kG80B4f9SmaAr0NLsc57DQ_BPYuQmNIrUE2e4QKE">accused of impeding abortion access in some regions</a>.
For example, Marche’s regional council opposes abortions using pill RU 486 in clinics outside hospitals in contrast to Ministry of Health guidelines. </p>
<p>Meloni has said she wants women <a href="https://www.repubblica.it/politica/2022/09/15/news/meloni_aborto_legge_194_reazioni-365762519/?fbclid=IwAR2u8B44TEt_2ZMyTr2kG80B4f9SmaAr0NLsc57DQ_BPYuQmNIrUE2e4QKE">“to have the right to make a different choice” other than abortion</a>. The precise meaning of this statement is yet to be seen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187662/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather Coffey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The baby drop box is a revival of centuries-old cultural practices from the Italian Renaissance when reproductive rights were zero.Heather Coffey, Assistant Professor of Art History, OCAD UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1578632021-05-02T20:05:56Z2021-05-02T20:05:56ZIf I could go anywhere: Florence’s San Marco Museum, where mystical faith and classical knowledge meet<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398003/original/file-20210430-19-1xuvvhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C53%2C3880%2C2571&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">15th century paintings and frescoes by Fra Angelico and others inside monastery Convent of San Marco, Florence. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/florence-italy-artistic-gallery-15th-century-1705937533">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/if-i-could-go-anywhere-102157">this series</a> we pay tribute to the art we wish could visit — and hope to see once travel restrictions are lifted.</em></p>
<p>In 1981, I visited the <a href="http://www.museumsinflorence.com/musei/museum_of_san_marco.html">San Marco Museum</a> on my very first visit to Italy. I had been totally overwhelmed by the volume and concentration of great art in the nearby <a href="https://www.uffizi.it/en/the-uffizi">Uffizi Gallery</a>. But in this much smaller building, the past started to make sense. An elegant structure, the San Marco Museum almost appeared to be in conversation with the mystical tradition of 15th century painter <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fra-Angelico">Fra Angelico</a>’s frescoes within its walls. Some 35 years later, when I returned to Florence, I was pleased to see that my memories had not deceived me.</p>
<p>Now, at a time when travel to Europe is impossible, San Marco is the place I would most like to see again — for its architecture, its art and for the place it holds in history.</p>
<h2>Once a convent</h2>
<p>The Convent of San Marco, consecrated in 1443, was commissioned by banker and Grand Duke of Tuscany <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cosimo-de-Medici">Cosimo de’ Medici</a> and designed by <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100155261">Michelozzi</a>, an architect who had trained as a sculptor under <a href="https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000023249">Donatello</a>. </p>
<p>The building is exquisite in the way its classical proportions work in harmony with ecclesiastical traditions. Frescoes decorate the elegant arched cloisters enclosing the gardens. On the first floor visitors see the perfectly proportioned library of Cosimo de’ Medici, the first public library of the Italian Renaissance, crucial to the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Renaissance">rediscovery of classical knowledge</a>. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The first phase in the modern restoration of Annunciation was carefully cleaning dirt and pollutants from the pictorial surface.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Fra Angelico was, with his assistants, responsible for most of the paintings. He may have painted with a <a href="https://www.wikiart.org/en/filippo-brunelleschi">growing awareness of geometric perspective</a>, but he was supremely uninterested in the revival of classical imagery and form. </p>
<p>His art in both subject and form is based on the Liturgy, and was always an expression of his faith. There are scenes from the life of Christ, with many crucifixion paintings as well as saints including St Thomas Aquinas and St Dominic, the order’s founder. The magnificent <a href="https://www.wikiart.org/en/fra-angelico/crucifixion-and-saints-1442">Crucifixion and Saints</a> fills the end wall of the Chapter House, where the monks once met as a congregation. </p>
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<span class="caption">Fra Angelico’s Crucifixion and Saints (1441–42), Basilica di San Marco, Florence, Italy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.wikiart.org/en/fra-angelico/crucifixion-and-saints-1442">Wikiart</a></span>
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Read more:
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<h2>The private lives of monks</h2>
<p>The great pleasure of San Marco is the way gives visual insights into the private meditative life the monks. </p>
<p>At the top of the stairs on the way to the dormitory the visitor is greeted with Fra Angelico’s masterpiece <a href="https://www.thegeographicalcure.com/post/guide-to-florence-s-san-marco-monastery">Annunciation</a>. It seems almost a contradiction that the monks, devoted to a life of austerity should see such overwhelming beauty every day. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398005/original/file-20210430-16-q97jeu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Religious fresco and doorway in old building" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398005/original/file-20210430-16-q97jeu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398005/original/file-20210430-16-q97jeu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398005/original/file-20210430-16-q97jeu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398005/original/file-20210430-16-q97jeu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398005/original/file-20210430-16-q97jeu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398005/original/file-20210430-16-q97jeu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398005/original/file-20210430-16-q97jeu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A monk’s cell and fresco inside the San Marco Museum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/florence-italy-april-06-2017-interior-763709896">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>The monk’s cells make San Marco even more special. Many of them are decorated with frescoes. </p>
<p>Cosimo de’ Medici was sufficiently involved in the monastery’s life that he had his own cell (naturally double the size of the monk’s cells) decorated with a magnificent <a href="https://www.wikiart.org/en/fra-angelico/adoration-of-the-magi-1434">Adoration of the Magi</a>.</p>
<p>But the cell that most intrigues me does not have a fresco. Its plain walls are hung with a single <a href="https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girolamo_Savonarola#/media/File:Hanging_and_burning_of_Girolamo_Savonarola_in_Florence.jpg">painting</a> captioned, “<em>Ignoto fiorentino della fine del sec XV/Supplizio del Savonarola in piazza della Signoria/Dipinto su tavola</em>”. This translates as: Unknown Florentine of the end of the 15th century/The Torture of Savonarola in the Piazza della Signoria/Painted on wood. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397985/original/file-20210430-16-1mzxh8g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="15th century Italian painting" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397985/original/file-20210430-16-1mzxh8g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397985/original/file-20210430-16-1mzxh8g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397985/original/file-20210430-16-1mzxh8g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397985/original/file-20210430-16-1mzxh8g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397985/original/file-20210430-16-1mzxh8g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397985/original/file-20210430-16-1mzxh8g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397985/original/file-20210430-16-1mzxh8g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hanging and burning of Girolamo Savonarola in Florence, 1498. Artist unknown.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girolamo_Savonarola#/media/File:Hanging_and_burning_of_Girolamo_Savonarola_in_Florence.jpg">Wikiart</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-werent-there-any-great-women-artists-in-gratitude-to-linda-nochlin-153099">Why weren't there any great women artists? In gratitude to Linda Nochlin</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A fiery end</h2>
<p>This is the cell of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Girolamo-Savonarola">Girolamo Savonarola</a>, Prior of San Marco. He warned Florentines the apocalypse was coming, and urged them to free themselves from fleshly sins by <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/when-fanatical-monk-took-over-florence-and-burned-bunch-vanities-180962005/">burning artworks, books, dresses and cosmetics in the original Bonfire of the Vanities</a>. </p>
<p>But the friar went from burning heretics to being convicted as one — he was <a href="https://www.historytoday.com/archive/months-past/execution-girolamo-savonarola">tortured, burnt and executed in 1498</a>. </p>
<p>This painting is not a great work of art. It is a record rather than a celebration. White-clad monks are escorted to their doom while the citizens of Florence carry on their business with apparent indifference. The only hint of partisanship by either the artist or those who commissioned the work are the angels who appear ready to celebrate the arrival of a new saint. As it dates from the approximate time of Savonarola’s execution it was probably prudent to make this record portable (and anonymous) so it could be easily hidden from those who had orchestrated his death.</p>
<p>One artist who was profoundly influenced by Savonarola’s teaching was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sandro-Botticelli">Sandro Botticelli</a>, best known for the <a href="https://www.wikiart.org/en/sandro-botticelli/the-birth-of-venus-1485">Birth of Venus</a>, who <a href="https://www.phaidon.com/agenda/art/articles/2018/may/31/the-monk-who-made-botticelli-burn-his-paintings/">destroyed some of his earlier paintings</a> at friar Savonarola’s urging. </p>
<p>In 1494, the artist painted <a href="https://www.sandro-botticelli.com/calumny-of-apelles.jsp#prettyPhoto">The Calumny of Apelles</a> in response to the way rumour and innuendo was being used to discredit Savonarola, whose ideas were a prelude to the rise of Protestant fundamentalism. After this work, Botticelli restricted his works to religious subjects in paintings that owe a great deal to the aesthetic of Fra Angelico.</p>
<p>The conjunction of these two great opposing traditions of ideas and art — mystical faith and classical knowledge — are here in one building. San Marco Museum is the visual and material representation of a debate that has lasted over 500 years. It is also incredibly beautiful. For that reason alone I need to see it again.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/globalisation-was-rife-in-the-16th-century-clues-from-renaissance-paintings-116087">Globalisation was rife in the 16th century – clues from Renaissance paintings</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157863/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Mendelssohn has in the past received funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>The Renaissance San Marco convent, now a museum, is where Fra Angelico lived and painted under the patronage of Cosimo de’ Medici. It was also where Savonarola proclaimed the Bonfire of the Vanities.Joanna Mendelssohn, Principal Fellow (Hon), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1434372020-08-11T20:12:47Z2020-08-11T20:12:47ZGuide to the Classics: Boccaccio’s Decameron, a masterpiece of plague and resilience<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349673/original/file-20200727-37-g0g031.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C201%2C2469%2C1590&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A scene from the Decameron painted by Carlo Coppede in 1916.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carlo_copped%C3%A9,_scene_del_decamerone,_1916,_03,2.jpg">Sailko/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>In the year then of our Lord 1348, there happened at Florence, the finest city in all Italy, a most terrible plague…</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Boccaccio">Giovanni Boccaccio</a> introduces his acclaimed collection of novellas, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decameron">the Decameron</a>, with a reference to the most terrifying existential crisis of his time: the decimating effects of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubonic_plague">bubonic plague</a> in the 1348 outbreak known as the Black Death. </p>
<p>Boccaccio’s book, written between 1348 and 1353, has been acclaimed as an exemplar of vernacular literary prose, and a commentary on the “<em>peste</em>” that swept through Europe that year. </p>
<p>A classic of medieval plague literature, it continues to be cited by physicians and epidemiologists to this day for its vivid depiction of a disease that held a city under siege.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351487/original/file-20200806-16-bxe4xj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351487/original/file-20200806-16-bxe4xj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351487/original/file-20200806-16-bxe4xj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351487/original/file-20200806-16-bxe4xj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351487/original/file-20200806-16-bxe4xj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351487/original/file-20200806-16-bxe4xj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1159&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351487/original/file-20200806-16-bxe4xj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1159&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351487/original/file-20200806-16-bxe4xj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1159&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p>In the introduction to his book, Boccaccio estimates that more than 100,000 people - over half of the city’s inhabitants - died within the walls of Florence between March 1348 and the following July. </p>
<p>He vividly describes physical, social and psychological sufferings, writing of people dying in the street, rotting corpses, plague boils, swollen glands known as “buboes” – some the size of eggs, others as large as apples – bruises and the blackening skin that foreshadowed death. </p>
<p>Boccaccio’s introduction is followed by ten sections containing short stories. Each of the book’s ten storytellers tells a story a day for ten days. Derived from Greek, the word <em>decameron</em> means ten days and is an allusion to Saint Ambrose’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexameron">Hexameron</a>, a poetic account of the creation story, Genesis, told over six days. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-albert-camus-the-plague-134244">Guide to the Classics: Albert Camus' The Plague</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The Decameron is a tale of renewal and recreation in defiance of a decimating pandemic. Boccaccio attributes the cause of this terrible plague to either malignant celestial influences or divine punishment for the iniquity of Florentine society. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349654/original/file-20200727-33-g6rruq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Boccaccio's 'The plague of Florence in 1348'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349654/original/file-20200727-33-g6rruq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349654/original/file-20200727-33-g6rruq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349654/original/file-20200727-33-g6rruq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349654/original/file-20200727-33-g6rruq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349654/original/file-20200727-33-g6rruq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349654/original/file-20200727-33-g6rruq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349654/original/file-20200727-33-g6rruq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The plague of Florence in 1348, as described in Boccaccio’s Decameron. Etching by L. Sabatelli after himself.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Credit: Wellcome Collection/Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Social distancing and fragrant nose coverings</h2>
<p>Unlike the plague of 1340 - which killed an estimated 15,000 Florentines - that of 1348 was, according to Boccaccio, far more contagious, spreading with greater vigour and speed.</p>
<p>It was extraordinary, in his view, that the disease did not merely spread from human to human but crossed species too. He saw two pigs dying within moments of biting infected clothing in the street. </p>
<p>Florentine officials removed household waste and contaminants from the city in attempts to eradicate the deadly pestilence, and banned infected people from entering.</p>
<p>They issued public pleas and advised residents on measures that would minimise risk of contagion, such as social distancing and increased personal hygiene. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351485/original/file-20200806-22-uhwzsg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351485/original/file-20200806-22-uhwzsg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351485/original/file-20200806-22-uhwzsg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351485/original/file-20200806-22-uhwzsg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351485/original/file-20200806-22-uhwzsg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351485/original/file-20200806-22-uhwzsg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351485/original/file-20200806-22-uhwzsg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351485/original/file-20200806-22-uhwzsg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A scene from Pasolini’s 1971 film The Decameron.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Produzioni Europee Associate (PEA), Les Productions Artistes Associés, Artemis Film</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Boccaccio, in the same introduction, takes aim at those who fled the sick to protect their own health and in doing so degraded the social fabric. </p>
<p>Extreme interpretations of social distancing led to people shunning neighbours and members of their extended and immediate families. In some cases, he writes, parents even deserted their children. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-how-marcus-aurelius-meditations-can-help-us-in-a-time-of-pandemic-142659">Guide to the Classics: how Marcus Aurelius' Meditations can help us in a time of pandemic</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>While some took conservative measures – self-isolating indoors in small numbers, eating and drinking moderately and shutting out contact from the outside – others, he writes, roamed freely, gratifying their senses and meeting their desires for food, fun and sex:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…satisfying their every yearning, laughing and mocking at every mournful accident; and so they vowed to spend day and night, for they would go to one tavern, then to another, living without any rule or measure…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Others still consumed only what their bodies needed and excluded contact with the infected. But they wandered wherever they wished, carrying bunches of fragrant flowers, herbs, or spices, or wearing them across their noses in a bid to repel the infection and the offensive odour of death. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349658/original/file-20200727-19-fa4ico.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349658/original/file-20200727-19-fa4ico.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349658/original/file-20200727-19-fa4ico.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349658/original/file-20200727-19-fa4ico.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349658/original/file-20200727-19-fa4ico.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349658/original/file-20200727-19-fa4ico.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349658/original/file-20200727-19-fa4ico.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349658/original/file-20200727-19-fa4ico.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Manuscript from the Decameron illustrated by Taddeo Crivelli.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Boccaccio’s unfavourable account, lamenting moral degradation and the enormous human suffering, is interrupted by a ray of light in the form of seven young noblewomen and three young gentlemen who appear in the Church of Santa Maria Novella on a Tuesday morning. </p>
<p>They become the storytellers of the Decameron. Collected as a brigade (<em>brigata</em>), they exhibit civility, gentility, strength and a commitment to duty.</p>
<p>Boccaccio presents them as decorous and untarnished, having each cared for their loved ones while within the city walls. He gives each a name that suits their personal qualities, choosing monikers from his own and other literary works. They are: Pampinea, Filomena, Neifile, Filostrato, Fiammetta, Elissa, Dioneo, Lauretta, Emilia and Panfilo.</p>
<h2>Refuge through story</h2>
<p>At the suggestion of the eldest noblewoman, Pampinea, the <em>brigata</em> leave the terrible pestilence and their devastated, plague-ridden city to take refuge in a rural villa in the nearby hills.</p>
<p>They are not abandoning others, she assures the group, as their relatives have either died or fled. The ten pass time by partaking in banquets, playing games, dancing, singing and telling stories. </p>
<p>Each member of the group narrates one story every day across the following ten days, under the supervision of the elected king or queen for the day. The proceedings close with singing and a dance.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349662/original/file-20200727-29-1gt4r0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349662/original/file-20200727-29-1gt4r0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349662/original/file-20200727-29-1gt4r0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349662/original/file-20200727-29-1gt4r0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349662/original/file-20200727-29-1gt4r0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349662/original/file-20200727-29-1gt4r0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349662/original/file-20200727-29-1gt4r0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349662/original/file-20200727-29-1gt4r0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John William Waterhouse, 1916, A Tale from the Decameron.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John William Waterhouse/Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over those ten days, the <em>brigata</em> tell 100 stories. In them, they name real people – historical, contemporaries and near contemporaries – who would have been recognisable to readers of the Decameron in Boccaccio’s lifetime. </p>
<p>This gives a semblance of reality to the stories told inside an otherwise imaginary scene. The stories reflect Boccaccio’s accounts of moral decay in Florence at the time. Corruption and debauchery abound. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-dantes-divine-comedy-84603">Guide to the Classics: Dante’s Divine Comedy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>How then do the pastimes of the <em>brigata</em> bring about renewal and recreation?</p>
<p>The Decameron situates vices within fiction and serves as a guide for preserving the mind during physical isolation. Retreating from a stricken city to live a simple life in a communal isolation, the <em>brigata</em> entertain each other and by following disciplined, structured rituals, recover some of the predictability and certainty that, according to Boccaccio, had been lost.</p>
<h2>Contemporary resonances</h2>
<p>The Decameron was the first prose masterpiece to be written in the Tuscan vernacular, making it more accessible to readers who could not read Latin. It was first distributed in manuscript form in the 1370’s and almost 200 copies were printed over the following two centuries. </p>
<p>The work was censured in 1564 by the Council of Trent and a “corrected” version, expunging all references to clerics, monasteries and churches, was released in 1573.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Il Decamerone di Giovanni Boccacci riccoretto cover page" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349664/original/file-20200727-15-1j6xrf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349664/original/file-20200727-15-1j6xrf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349664/original/file-20200727-15-1j6xrf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349664/original/file-20200727-15-1j6xrf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349664/original/file-20200727-15-1j6xrf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1115&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349664/original/file-20200727-15-1j6xrf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1115&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349664/original/file-20200727-15-1j6xrf0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1115&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cover page of the Decameron, heavily redacted (recorrected) in 1573 by orders of the Council of Trent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fransplace/Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Boccaccio’s introduction to the Decameron is a frame-story - a narrative that frames another story or a collection of stories. </p>
<p>This form became a popular literary model for enveloping collections of short stories that blend oral storytelling and literature. Variations and borrowings are seen in Chaucer’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canterbury_Tales">Canterbury Tales</a> and Shakespeare’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All%27s_Well_That_Ends_Well">All’s Well That Ends Well</a>.</p>
<p>The most well-known film adaptation of the Decameron is the first of a trio of masterpieces in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1971 <a href="http://www.classicartfilms.com/shop/trilogy-of-life-the-decameron-the-canterbury-tales-arabian-nights-the/">Trilogy of Life</a>. Showcasing ten of the 100 stories in the Decameron, it remains one of Italy’s<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_Italy"> most popular</a> films.</p>
<p>The Decameron will resonate with modern readers as we grapple with the horror of our own current pandemic. The book is a prescription for psychological survival, a way of mentally distancing from terrible visions, death counts and grim economic forecasts. </p>
<p>Although its framing events took place over 600 years ago, the Decameron’s modern readers, like Boccaccio’s <em>brigata</em>, will find comfort in company and optimism and a sense of certainty in the programmed rituals it describes. </p>
<p>Through its 100 stories, readers can vicariously experience situations that are out of their reach. They can be entertained, find lots to laugh about, and ultimately celebrate the joy and restorative powers of storytelling itself.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143437/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frances Di Lauro does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Written between 1348 and 1353, the Decameron is a prescription for psychological survival, a way of mentally distancing from today’s death counts and grim economic forecasts.Frances Di Lauro, Senior Lecturer, Department of Writing Studies, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1133272019-03-14T10:39:10Z2019-03-14T10:39:10ZWhat will happen to Michael Jackson’s legacy? A famed writer’s fall could offer clues<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263697/original/file-20190313-123545-1vbjluj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C108%2C880%2C546&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Norman Douglas, photographed in Florence, Italy in 1935.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Norman_Douglas_1935.jpg">Carl Van Vetchen/Library of Congress</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There’s no question that Michael Jackson changed music history. But how will history remember Michael Jackson? </p>
<p>Since HBO released the new documentary film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9573980/">Leaving Neverland</a>,” which detailed allegations by two adults who say that they were molested by Jackson as children, the musician’s legacy – already complicated – is up in the air. </p>
<p>Jackson is not the first notable artist to be accused of sexually abusing children. Some, like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jan/30/hollywood-reverence-child-rapist-roman-polanski-convicted-40-years-on-run">Roman Polanski</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/arts/moses-farrow-woody-allen-dylan-abuse.html">Woody Allen</a>, are still living and producing art that provokes discussion. </p>
<p>But there are other alleged child abusers who have died and whose works, once considered great, have faded into obscurity, in no small part because it is almost impossible to memorialize them without creating the impression of condoning their behavior.</p>
<p>The writer Norman Douglas is a prime example. The subject of a biography I’m working on, Douglas had a reputation for molesting children. After his death, he became an off-limits topic for biographers, and while he had his defenders, he ultimately couldn’t escape historical erasure.</p>
<h2>Rumors do little to dim a budding star</h2>
<p>During the first half of the 20th century, Norman Douglas was a literary star. Friends with Joseph Conrad, D.H. Lawrence and Aldous Huxley, he was best known for his bestselling 1917 novel “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=1AuGDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=south%20wind&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">South Wind</a>.”</p>
<p>Virginia Woolf <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=_bInAQAAMAAJ&q=The+Essays+of+Virginia+Woolf:+1912-1918&dq=The+Essays+of+Virginia+Woolf:+1912-1918&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQqMLrx_3gAhWjCTQIHYASD3UQ6AEIKDAA">sang its praises</a> in the Times Literary Supplement. Graham Greene <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=xX8aAQAAMAAJ&q=Graham+Greene+my+%22generation+was+brought+up+on+south+wind%22&dq=Graham+Greene+my+%22generation+was+brought+up+on+south+wind%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiz6M25yP3gAhUIsp4KHVQKDzwQ6AEIPjAE">recalled</a> how his generation “was brought up on South Wind.” When the hero of Evelyn Waugh’s “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CSE2P06rVUoC&lpg=PP1&dq=Brideshead%20Revisited&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">Brideshead Revisited</a>” arrives at Oxford after World War I, he brings with him only two novels, “South Wind” and Compton Mackenzie’s “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=RBBbAAAAMAAJ&dq=Sinister%20Street&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">Sinister Street</a>.” </p>
<p>But today Douglas is entirely forgotten.</p>
<p>The reasons why artists’ works go forgotten vary. In Douglas’ case, it’s fair to say that his erudite writing style went out of fashion. </p>
<p>But there’s more to the story. During his lifetime, Douglas was notorious for his <a href="http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/11th-december-1976/18/the-boys-in-the-sand">relationships with children</a>. In 1912, he lived with a 14-year-old boy in London while he was working at The English Review. Four years later, he was arrested in London for acts of gross indecency with a 16-year-old. After his release on bail, Douglas fled to Italy, where laws regulating sex between men and boys were more lax. He settled in Florence, where his celebrity only grew. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263742/original/file-20190313-123525-123vd7z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263742/original/file-20190313-123525-123vd7z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263742/original/file-20190313-123525-123vd7z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263742/original/file-20190313-123525-123vd7z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263742/original/file-20190313-123525-123vd7z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263742/original/file-20190313-123525-123vd7z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1062&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263742/original/file-20190313-123525-123vd7z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1062&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263742/original/file-20190313-123525-123vd7z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1062&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Norman Douglas plays with an Italian boy named Marcello, whom he likely sexually abused.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pino Orioli, 'Moving Along' (London: Chatto & Windus, 1934).</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Visitors to the city, like Huxley and Lawrence, would seek him out in the city’s cafés. The radical journalist and heiress Nancy Cunard, who met Douglas in Florence in 1923 and became a close friend, <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=NDRKAAAAMAAJ&q=nancy+cunard+grand+man&dq=nancy+cunard+grand+man&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjF1Lfzzv3gAhXRvp4KHUFOBjYQ6AEIKDAA">recalled</a> the “aureole of legend” that surrounded him.</p>
<p>Douglas was always attended to by Italian boys who worked for him as messengers or cooks, and endless rumors circulated about Douglas’ relationships with these boys. A diary entry written by a friend of Douglas’ described how Douglas performed fellatio on a boy named Marcello. Brothers Sacheverell and Osbert Sitwell <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=NDRKAAAAMAAJ&q=nancy+cunard+grand+man&dq=nancy+cunard+grand+man&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjF1Lfzzv3gAhXRvp4KHUFOBjYQ6AEIKDAA">warned Cunard</a> that Douglas was dangerous. D.H. Lawrence’s widow, Frieda, <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=XSbhuQEACAAJ&dq=tedlock+frieda+lawrence+memoirs+and+correspondence&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi7ycf6z_3gAhWVvJ4KHRtiCDwQ6AEIKDAA">told her friend</a> Dudley Nichols that Douglas was “the only wicked man I have known, in a medieval sense.”</p>
<h2>Scrutiny grows</h2>
<p>Britain’s strict libel laws, the norms of politeness and the power of Douglas’ celebrity seemed to prevent people from writing publicly about his sexual relationships with boys while he was alive. </p>
<p>But you can’t libel the dead. </p>
<p>When Douglas died in 1952, debate about his memory erupted in the press. The first signs of the battle to come appeared in the obituaries. British diplomat Harold Nicolson noted Douglas’ shocking “indulgences” <a href="http://archive.spectator.co.uk/issue/29th-february-1952">in a death notice</a> for The Spectator. </p>
<p>Nicolson’s article prompted 50 or 60 letters of protest from Douglas’ friends, but there was no holding back the tide. In 1954, Douglas’
former friend Richard Aldington published a book of vicious recollections about the writer titled “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=M9e5vQEACAAJ&dq=Pinorman&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjY3rqDq_3gAhXETd8KHeDyBKcQ6AEIKjAA">Pinorman</a>,” a portmanteau of Norman and his friend <a href="http://www.romagnadeste.it/en/i5010305-alfonsine-giuseppe-orioli-1884-1942.htm">Pino Orioli</a>. Aldington didn’t mince words. He called Douglas a <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pederast">pederast</a> whose path in life was “strewn with broken boys and empty bottles.” </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263712/original/file-20190313-123525-1g9oz77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263712/original/file-20190313-123525-1g9oz77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263712/original/file-20190313-123525-1g9oz77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=829&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263712/original/file-20190313-123525-1g9oz77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=829&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263712/original/file-20190313-123525-1g9oz77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=829&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263712/original/file-20190313-123525-1g9oz77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263712/original/file-20190313-123525-1g9oz77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263712/original/file-20190313-123525-1g9oz77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Author Graham Greene was a staunch defender of Douglas and worked to protect his reputation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Graham_Greene%2C_Bassano.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Douglas’ friends were outraged. Cunard wrote to Aldington’s publisher accusing him of libel and threatening to wage a “collective protest.” She rallied Douglas’ friends to lambaste the book in reviews. Her own review for the periodical Time and Tide was titled “Bonbons of Gall.” Graham Greene wrote to a friend that he intended to “kill” Aldington’s book, and he penned a review for The London Magazine that was so incendiary it could not be published for fear of libel charges from Aldington, who was very much alive.</p>
<p>Greene maliciously sent Aldington the review and asked for permission to publish it. Naturally, Aldington refused and reached out to friends for help putting together a pamphlet attacking Douglas’ defenders. Frieda Lawrence contributed a story about how Douglas once casually offered her a boy of 14, saying that he preferred them younger. But the pamphlet was so intemperate that a lawyer said it would run afoul of the libel laws and could not be published.</p>
<h2>The danger of choosing to forget?</h2>
<p>Aldington was forced to retreat. With “Pinorman” disparaged by its reviewers, Aldington was discredited. It seemed that Douglas’ friends had won the battle.</p>
<p>But Aldington won the war. The truth was out there, and Douglas’ reputation was permanently injured. </p>
<p>In the decades that followed many would-be biographers tried their hand at writing Douglas’ story; time and again they failed. Douglas simply could not be remembered as a great writer in the face of the allegations against him. Only one comprehensive biography, titled “<a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=CVcPAAAAMAAJ&q=holloway+norman+douglas&dq=holloway+norman+douglas&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjlqduc0v3gAhVMqZ4KHX_GDCUQ6AEIKDAA">Norman Douglas</a>,” has ever been published about him. It came out in 1976, during a rare moment of sexual openness; even so, the publisher almost nixed the manuscript after 10 years of work by its author, Mark Holloway.</p>
<p>Today Douglas is a forgotten writer. When the truth about his sexual relations with children was fully exposed after his death he became an impossible figure to memorialize. </p>
<p>Over time, it’s likely that Michael Jackson’s memory will be similarly eroded. The television show “The Simpsons” <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/08/entertainment/simpsons-michael-jackson/index.html">has already pulled its 1991 episode</a> featuring Jackson. His name will likely be taken down from public monuments. People will be hesitant to produce new versions of his music. His influence will live on, but it will be difficult to commemorate his work. </p>
<p>Perhaps that is for the best. But maybe it isn’t. </p>
<p>Reluctance to preserve the memory of the extensive history of sex between adults and children leaves society ill-equipped to recognize and handle child sexual abuse today. A culture that is caught up in narratives that identify pedophiles as monsters has a hard time recognizing when beloved figures, like Michael Jackson, <a href="https://theconversation.com/michael-jackson-as-an-expert-in-child-sexual-abuse-heres-what-i-thought-when-i-watched-leaving-neverland-113160">are molesting children right before its eyes</a>. </p>
<p>There is need for history to remember abusers and to remember them in all their complexity. If Jackson’s memory is preserved, maybe it will be easier to see the present more clearly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113327/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Hope Cleves receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p>There’s a reason many today have never heard of Norman Douglas: After his death, more and more came forward with stories of his sexual relationships with boys, and he soon faded into obscurity.Rachel Hope Cleves, Professor of History, University of VictoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1118982019-02-20T15:19:47Z2019-02-20T15:19:47ZBritain already disengaging from Europe as UK government pulls funding from unique European research institute<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259716/original/file-20190219-43252-1c3kupn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The European University Institute in Florence, Italy. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/EuropeanUniversityInstitute/photos/a.436064668570/10156538312198571/?type=3&theater">European University Institute/Facebook</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>You may not have heard of it, but students from across Europe have been studying at <a href="https://www.eui.eu/">The European University Institute</a> (EUI) since 1976. Situated in the Tuscan hills overlooking Florence, the idyllic setting plays home to a unique institution dedicated to training PhD students and enhancing Europe’s research capacity in economics, history, law, and social sciences.</p>
<p>Although not an EU institution – <a href="https://www.eui.eu/Documents/AboutEUI/Convention/Consolidated">the EUI is an international organisation in its own right</a>, born out of a desire for cooperation between EU member states. The UK currently funds up to 20 <a href="https://www.eui.eu/ServicesAndAdmin/AcademicService/DoctoralProgramme">PhD scholarships</a> at a time, contributes to running costs and participates in the High Council that governs the institution. But it looks as though this is about to change.</p>
<p>The UK government claims Brexit automatically entails leaving the European University Institute Convention – the legal document that established the <a href="https://www.eui.eu">European University Institute</a> when it was founded. But academic experts say <a href="http://europeanlawblog.eu/2019/02/15/henry-viii-arrives-in-florence-the-uks-withdrawal-from-the-convention-establishing-a-european-university-institute/">this is not actually the case</a>.</p>
<p>Despite this, the UK government has put forward what’s known as a “<a href="https://www.gov.uk/eu-withdrawal-act-2018-statutory-instruments/the-european-university-institute-eu-exit-regulations-2019">statutory instrument</a>” to complete the disentanglement of legal obligations stemming from membership of the Convention. </p>
<h2>An atmosphere of cooperation</h2>
<p>The back story of the EUI itself demonstrates why the benefits of cooperation between states does not happen automatically and requires compromises – as well as sites of mutual interaction. </p>
<p><a href="http://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/36018">Plans for a European university</a> were discussed long before the Convention was signed in 1972. Some wanted a university specialising in nuclear physics, others dreamed of launching a European rival to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – the pioneering technology university that became global leader in cutting-edge research. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259718/original/file-20190219-43291-1u3y2mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259718/original/file-20190219-43291-1u3y2mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259718/original/file-20190219-43291-1u3y2mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259718/original/file-20190219-43291-1u3y2mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259718/original/file-20190219-43291-1u3y2mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259718/original/file-20190219-43291-1u3y2mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259718/original/file-20190219-43291-1u3y2mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students collect their doctorates at the European University Institute.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/EuropeanUniversityInstitute/photos/a.436064668570/10156422989963571/?type=3&theater">European University Institute/Facebook</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The remit of the establishment was the subject of high-level negotiations. Italy pushed hard for locating it in Florence and West Germany asked for German to be an official working language. The somewhat clunky name came after France objected to the use of “university” for a small institution restricted in student size and subject scope. </p>
<p>Another problem stemmed from recognition of degrees. In some European countries (not the UK) the state is responsible for granting validity to university degrees, meaning <a href="https://www.eui.eu/ProgrammesAndFellowships/DoctoralProgramme/Recognition">legal provisions were necessary</a> to give an EUI title the same status as national doctorates. </p>
<h2>Ties that bind</h2>
<p>British universities recruit numerous EUI graduates – <a href="https://www2.aston.ac.uk/lss/staff-directory">there are four in my own medium-sized politics department</a> – who bring with them a wealth of Europe-wide contacts and often expertise in EU governance. </p>
<p>These are the skills needed for transnational research collaboration and <a href="https://www.ukri.org/innovation/excellence-with-impact/">for informing policy</a> – two central pillars of UK higher education as promoted by the government. Many EUI graduates also go on to work in the upper echelons of the public sector across Europe. </p>
<p>Since the 2016 referendum, the UK has reformulated its diplomatic strategy in a bid to cement bilateral European ties. This has <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmfaff/514/51406.htm">led to a refocus on EU capitals</a> and relocation of staff from Asia to Europe as well as, a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/more-than-2-billion-brexit-preparation-funding-awarded-to-departments-for-a-successful-eu-exit">boost in funding for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office</a> (FCO). The FCO nevertheless still faces significant <a href="https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/foreign-office-faces-challenge-in-attracting-the-best-staff-needed-for-brexit/">challenges in recruiting the right candidates</a>.</p>
<p>Reducing UK involvement in the EUI does not fit with these desires for a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-brexit-global-britain-looks-to-the-emerging-anglosphere-for-new-opportunities-77562">Global Britain</a>” agenda – nor for enhanced research collaborations. </p>
<h2>A microcosm of Brexit</h2>
<p>What may look like a mere footnote in the vast legislative process of leaving the EU, is actually extremely revealing about the hollowness of that whole enterprise. </p>
<p>For a start, this episode illustrates the way Brexit has increased the strength of the government. Outward appearances of the Conservatives in turmoil are deceptive because they mask the accumulation of legislative power granted under the <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/eu-withdrawal-act">EU Withdrawal Act</a>. This law allows ministers to put in place regulations for the greater good of enacting EU withdrawal. And these regulations have wide-ranging implications and minimal scrutiny.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.gov.uk/eu-withdrawal-act-2018-statutory-instruments/the-european-university-institute-eu-exit-regulations-2019">explanatory memorandum</a> accompanying the statutory instrument reveals the limited accountability that characterises this process. It states there is no need for an impact assessment because “<a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5c5c517c40f0b676c9e16009/EUI_EM.pdf">no, or no significant, impact on the public sector</a>” from quitting the Convention. But is this really the case?</p>
<h2>Symbolism above all else</h2>
<p>It is hard to discern what the UK wants to achieve by leaving the European University Institute Convention. The EUI must be doing something right because the government has promised to “<a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5c5c517c40f0b676c9e16009/EUI_EM.pdf">explore options for ongoing engagement with the EUI</a>”. </p>
<p>What is clear, however, is that the UK is preparing to exchange the current benefits it derives for the promise of a looser form of association. This creates uncertainty for UK doctoral students who are studying there and curtails prospects for the mobility of UK nationals. </p>
<p>It seems then that the symbolism of leaving an institution associated with the EU trumps all other considerations. In other words, the UK approach to the The European University Institute is a distillation of the very essence of Brexit.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111898/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Glencross receives funding from the European Commission. He is affiliated with the Foreign Policy Research Institute and has a PhD from the European University Institute. </span></em></p>For the UK government, the symbolism of leaving an institution associated with the EU seems to trump all other considerations.Andrew Glencross, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Aston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/916422018-03-20T19:04:56Z2018-03-20T19:04:56ZHere’s looking at: The Execution of Savonarola and Two Companions at Piazza della Signoria<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210222/original/file-20180314-131610-1o65jc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail from Francesco Rosselli (Italian) The Execution of Savonarola and Two Companions at Piazza della Signoria, 16th century, oil on canvas 112 x 138.5cm (framed)</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Galeria Corsini, Florence</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1497 the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola perpetrated <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/when-fanatical-monk-took-over-florence-and-burned-bunch-vanities-180962005/">the most infamous act of cultural desecration</a> in European history, burning artworks and books, items of clothing, perfumes and cosmetics, mirrors and musical instruments which he thought typified artistic and moral degeneracy. On February 7 in Florence’s Piazza della Signoria, Savonarola consigned to the flames works by such artists as Boccaccio, Fra Bartolomeo and Lorenzo di Credi. </p>
<p>In a city that the Medici family had transformed into an international hub for the arts, the bonfire was catastrophic. However, a year later, in 1498, Savonarola would meet the same fate in the same square, witnessed, most likely, by the same crowd. His execution is documented in a painting by the relatively unknown artist Francesco di Lorenzo Rosselli, currently on display in The Corsini Collection: Masterpieces from Florence at the Art Gallery of Western Australia. </p>
<p>Savonarola’s bonfire wasn’t the only example of cultural purging at this time, but it has become a symbol for the worst excesses of fundamentalist chauvinism. The fire, couched as a religious festival and act of cleansing, took place during the Mardi Gras festivities. Usually a day of celebration and enjoyment before the privations of Lent, Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras) was a time to indulge and enjoy, but not in 1497.</p>
<p>The fire has a particular resonance for those of us living in the aftermath of another book burning in the streets of Germany in 1933, when Nazi sympathisers burnt the works of targeted authors. A century earlier <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Heine">Heinrich Heine</a> had declared in his play Almansor: “Where they burn books, they will in the end also burn people.” And so it came to pass in Germany, as it had for Savonarola.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205867/original/file-20180212-51710-1hf1d1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205867/original/file-20180212-51710-1hf1d1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205867/original/file-20180212-51710-1hf1d1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205867/original/file-20180212-51710-1hf1d1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205867/original/file-20180212-51710-1hf1d1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205867/original/file-20180212-51710-1hf1d1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205867/original/file-20180212-51710-1hf1d1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205867/original/file-20180212-51710-1hf1d1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Francesco Rosselli (Italian) The Execution of Savonarola and Two Companions at Piazza della Signoria, 16th century, oil on canvas 112 x 138.5cm (framed)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Galeria Corsini</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Action at a distance</h2>
<p>Just one year after the bonfire, Savoranola lost favour with the pope and the people of Florence for his excessive zealotry. The pope threatened to excommunicate him for refusing to take direction. The citizens found his influence impacted on their day-to-day lives, devoid of festivals and entertainment.</p>
<p>Rosselli’s painting focuses on the moment when the flames swell up to engulf Savonarola and two compatriots hanging from a scaffold in the centre of the main piazza of the city. But it’s hard to get too emotional about the scene because everything occurs at a distance. </p>
<p>We can just see the flames rising to the feet of the dangling priests and the line of men bringing in bundles of wood to stoke the fire. In a quirky time-lapse of multiple figures, Savonarola and his compatriots are shown being tried, then found guilty, before being escorted to the gallows by their hooded executioners and kneeling penitently before the gallows, awaiting their fiery fate.</p>
<p>One soldier recoils from the heat of the flames and a small group of clergy, stage right, eagerly discuss the ramifications of the event as it unfurls before them. A couple of elegantly dressed men look over their shoulders at the public execution while in the background groups of women are transfixed. Some others pay it nodding attention, but most in the square that day are more concerned with passing time with their friends and doing business.</p>
<p>While it documents Savonarola’s demise, this is really a portrait of Florence and what it represents for its relieved citizens: order and authority. Within the strict geometry of its square, rendered in single-point perspective – made possible by the invention of the Florentine architect <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Brunelleschi">Brunelleschi</a> only 80 years before – we see the central character in this picture, the Palazzo del Bargello. Darkly ominous, it was a prison under the Medicis – the site of public executions like this one, and home to the offices of the chief of police, called the Bargello, hence the building’s name.</p>
<p>As in two other great images of civic order – Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Allegory_of_Good_and_Bad_Government">The Allegory of Good Government</a>, painted in 1339 for Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico, and Piero della Francesca’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ideal_City_(painting)">Ideal City</a>, painted just before these events in 1470 – the citizens of Florence go about their daily lives in peace and safety within the ordered space and elegant proportions of their city. </p>
<p>All of this is made possible by the imposing power of the dark palace of the Bargello. The cruel disruptions of the temporary lapse of harmony brought on by Savonarola’s four-year “popular republic” have now passed and the city has been restored to peace and order.</p>
<h2>Haunting memory</h2>
<p>Rosselli’s famous image was copied many times. In one copy, included in the Corsini Collection, the large banner held aloft by angels, perched on conveniently passing clouds, is absent. Perhaps, because it was blank in the original it was easily dismissed, or possibly it was left out because nothing further needed to be said once the city had returned to orderliness.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207984/original/file-20180227-36674-35j28z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207984/original/file-20180227-36674-35j28z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207984/original/file-20180227-36674-35j28z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207984/original/file-20180227-36674-35j28z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207984/original/file-20180227-36674-35j28z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207984/original/file-20180227-36674-35j28z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207984/original/file-20180227-36674-35j28z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207984/original/file-20180227-36674-35j28z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Florentine painter after Francesco Rosselli (Florence 1445-before 1513), The Execution of Savonarola and Two Companions at Piazza della Signoria, 16th-17th century, oil on canvas, 96 x 119cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Galleria Corsini, Florence</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Much like the crowds in the streets taking this event in their stride, Rosselli and his emulators situate us as disengaged observers, carefully scanning the rhythmic geometry of the architecture and the bustle of community life that is the city’s raison d’etre.</p>
<p>Savonarola is now just a haunting memory, a reminder of what happens when fundamentalist ideology sets out to eradicate anything it finds disagreeable. What survives is Brunelleschi’s beautiful dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, the sublime arches of the Loggia dei Lanzi, the ebullient life of the city and of course many masterpieces of visual art. </p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="http://www.artgallery.wa.gov.au/exhibitions/window-on-italy-corsini-collection.asp">A Window on Italy – The Corsini Collection: Masterpieces from Florence</a> is on display at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, February 24–June 18 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91642/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Snell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 1497 Girolamo Savonarola burned books and art in Florence in the most infamous act of European cultural desecration. A year later, he met the same fate.Ted Snell, Professor, Chief Cultural Officer, Cultural Precinct, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/844802017-09-22T09:11:47Z2017-09-22T09:11:47ZTheresa May in Florence: what advice would Machiavelli have for Brexit?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187084/original/file-20170921-7480-ek06gx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some light reading before an important speech.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tim Cox</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The choice of Santa Maria Novella in Florence as the location for Theresa May’s second set-piece speech on Brexit is <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-florence-is-the-perfect-setting-for-theresa-mays-big-brexit-speech-84245">symbolic</a>, we have been told. Less than a mile away, in the Basilica of Santa Croce, is buried Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), author of The Prince, the handbook for ruling that has guided princes and prime ministers since the Renaissance.</p>
<p>Machiavelli would have understood the bind in which May finds herself over Brexit. As he wrote in 1513:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is nothing more difficult to handle, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes in a state’s constitution. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet all is not lost. Were the prime minister to seek counsel from Machiavelli in The Prince, she would find the following advice on how to negotiate the UK’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/eu-referendum-2016">exit from the European Union</a>.</p>
<h2>Be realistic, not idealistic</h2>
<p>Machiavelli strove to represent things as they were in a “real truth, rather than as they are imagined”. In an ideal world, the UK would be able to leave the European Union swiftly and painlessly. This will probably not be the case, so the prime minister must be realistic in both her approach to, and presentation of, Brexit. If a transitional deal has to be struck to facilitate the UK’s eventual exit, then the prime minister should accept this and make the EU a serious offer. She cannot expect to receive the whole cake while offering to pay for only a slice of it.</p>
<h2>Do not try to win favour through gifts of money</h2>
<p>For Machiavelli, the most dangerous threat to a prince’s power was the hatred of the people. It is better to be feared than loved, but best of all not to be hated. Generosity, in the form of gifts of money, leads to a prince being both despised and hated. </p>
<p>Machiavelli’s logic was clear: a prince’s funds are soon exhausted, which forces him to take from others to sustain his generosity, thereby earning their hatred. Even the friendship the prince buys is worthless, for “it does not last and it yields nothing”. In other words, do not try to win the people over with <a href="https://fullfact.org/europe/350-million-week-boris-johnson-statistics-authority-misuse/">promises of financial bounties</a> after Brexit.</p>
<h2>Be flexible, especially in negotiations</h2>
<p>Machiavelli declared that “a prudent ruler cannot, and must not, honour his word when it places him at a disadvantage,” and especially “when the reasons for which he made his promise no longer exist”. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187096/original/file-20170921-17987-1kzomuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187096/original/file-20170921-17987-1kzomuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187096/original/file-20170921-17987-1kzomuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187096/original/file-20170921-17987-1kzomuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187096/original/file-20170921-17987-1kzomuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187096/original/file-20170921-17987-1kzomuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187096/original/file-20170921-17987-1kzomuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Niccolo Machiavelli’s got your back.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikipedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He was not advocating that the ends always justify the means; rather, his experience as the Florentine envoy to courts across Europe had taught him that “men are wretched creatures” who break their word when it suits them, and so a prince should not feel duty-bound to keep promises. He might therefore counsel the prime minister against intransigently remaining within certain negotiating red lines, because events will often render them invalid. Pledges made before the EU referendum need no longer apply.</p>
<h2>Do not prioritise appearances over results</h2>
<p>Even though Machiavelli acknowledged that appearances are arguably more important than actions, because “everyone sees what you appear to be,” but “few experience what you really are,” in the end “the common people are always impressed by appearances and results”. The concrete outcome of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-negotiations-heres-where-were-at-so-far-84189">negotiations</a> will matter more than any posturing before or during them.</p>
<h2>Take counsel but make the final decision yourself</h2>
<p>May should surround herself with <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-negotiations-the-key-players-75196">wise advisers</a>, in both the Cabinet and her private office, who will speak the truth to her when asked for their opinion. Once she has consulted with them over an issue, however, she should “put the policy agreed upon into effect straight away … and adhere to it rigidly,” ignoring all other opinions. This way, she will not be deceived by flatterers or tempted to change her mind repeatedly, both of which will lose her the respect of the people.</p>
<p>If this advice proves difficult to follow, the prime minister should not lose heart, because Machiavelli conceded that fortune plays just as important a part in political careers as free will. Events may change the backdrop, and even foreground, of the Brexit negotiations between now and the 2019 deadline. </p>
<p>The best defence against the vagaries of fortune is to study history and imitate the outstanding leaders of the past, for even if a prince’s “own prowess fails to compare with theirs, at least it has an air of greatness about it”.</p>
<p>The prime minister should also read the accounts of previous successes and failures, to see where others went wrong. Machiavelli’s The Prince would be a good place to start.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84480/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Campbell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pearls of wisdom for a prince will serve a prime minister, too.Andrew Campbell, Teaching Fellow, School of European Languages, Culture & Society, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/842452017-09-19T11:22:11Z2017-09-19T11:22:11ZWhy Florence is the perfect setting for Theresa May’s big Brexit speech<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186563/original/file-20170919-22705-jt4ov8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mariano-mantel/29511147621/">Mariano Mantel</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Theresa May has chosen an inspirational setting, Florence, for her Brexit speech on September 22. The British prime minister is not known for her flights of fancy, so what might link this storied Tuscan city, whose art and architecture draw millions of tourists annually, to the political project she seeks to promote?</p>
<p>Florence has served as a canvas for legions of writers in search of a backdrop to explore the enduring themes of love, conflict, creation and destruction. British novelists are no exception, so we might expect to hear May name-dropping E.M Forster. Or, if something more colourful is required, Robert Harris, the creator of cannibal killer Hannibal Lector (Harris attended the trial of the <a href="http://www.florencewebguide.com/monster-of-florence.html">Monster of Florence</a>).</p>
<p>A highbrow reference might be the once widely-read <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/34273/romola/">Romola, by George Elio</a>. This complex historical novel is set in the time of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girolamo_Savonarola">Savonarola</a>, the charismatic Dominican monk intent on purifying the city whose power reached its apogee during the <a href="https://www.historychannel.com.au/articles/bonfire-of-the-vanities/">bonfire of the vanities</a>. Then again, the monk’s fanaticism recalls some of the worst rhetorical excesses of the Brexit debate, so perhaps that’s a subject best avoided.</p>
<h2>Lessons from Florentine history</h2>
<p>A favourite way to promote a positive vision of the UK without the EU is to point to the rich history of British involvement in European affairs. The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, peppers his global Britain speeches with <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/foreign-secretary-speech-at-the-british-chamber-of-commerce">references to the British diaspora and its long history</a>. A local case in point is John Hawkwood, an infamous mercenary whose service to Florence is commemorated in a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funerary_Monument_to_Sir_John_Hawkwood">famous fresco in Santa Maria del Fiore</a>, better known on the tourist trail as the Duomo.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186578/original/file-20170919-22705-r3effr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186578/original/file-20170919-22705-r3effr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186578/original/file-20170919-22705-r3effr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186578/original/file-20170919-22705-r3effr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186578/original/file-20170919-22705-r3effr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1217&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186578/original/file-20170919-22705-r3effr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1217&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186578/original/file-20170919-22705-r3effr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1217&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hawkwood’s fresco.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funerary_Monument_to_Sir_John_Hawkwood#/media/File:Paolo_Uccello_044.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hawkwood was contracted to wage war on behalf of Italian cities constantly at odds with their neighbours in medieval times. Florence itself secured many victories over its rivals, which enabled the civic government to flourish. That success is embodied in stone by the <a href="http://www.museumsinflorence.com/musei/Palazzo_vecchio.html">Palazzo Vecchio that dominates Piazza della Signoria</a> (where Savonarola met his own fiery end).</p>
<p>But as with the UK as it embarks on departing the EU, Florentine politics always needed to take account of the world beyond. Quarrels between the <em>Guelphs</em> and <em>Ghibellines</em> – <a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/hpt/2007/00000028/00000004/art00001">in effect the first modern political parties</a> – were founded on questions of competing international allegiances since Italian cities were caught in a power struggle between the papacy and the Holy Roman Emperor.</p>
<p>There is another uncanny echo from the history of Florence’s struggles for self-government in the political writings of Machiavelli and Dante. These writers understood that the jealously guarded independence of city states such as Florence weakened Italy as a whole. The solution these thinkers promoted was Italian unity – just as 20th century Italian statesmen such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altiero_Spinelli">Altiero Spinelli</a> advocated European integration to survive international power politics.</p>
<h2>All hope abandon, ye who are about to listen?</h2>
<p>Even if Dante’s political ideas would not further May’s agenda, she could find solace in the <a href="http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Italian/Danthome.htm">Divine Comedy</a>, the masterpiece of Florence’s favourite son. The poet’s depiction of what he witnesses in his descent through the ten circles of hell is structured according to the logic of <em>contrapasso</em>. Sins are punished by the opposite action of the crime committed. Flatterers, therefore drown in a sea of their verbal diarrhoea made real. Nothing could please the pro-Brexit British tabloids more than to invoke the grotesque imagery of the Inferno to decry the EU’s demand for a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-brexit-divorce-bill-explained-74466">multi-billion euro bill</a> as punishment for daring to leave.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186588/original/file-20170919-15741-qasnrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186588/original/file-20170919-15741-qasnrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186588/original/file-20170919-15741-qasnrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186588/original/file-20170919-15741-qasnrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186588/original/file-20170919-15741-qasnrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186588/original/file-20170919-15741-qasnrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186588/original/file-20170919-15741-qasnrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dante’s Inferno.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/rutger_vos/4683231541/in/photolist-88QMzp-4dhh8-2iWv88-9c4aZ1-4ooDtU-2iWAYZ-88QSgv-e8Hcd7-tiA8k-XWa8B2-e8Hb1Q-e8BwJ4-37jivT-5nd1LK-4zKzJ6-442ZF-6wqfFr-fGHAB5-e8BwW6-naLHbk-e8Bwrg-e8Bwur-e8HcuG-STLypX-YjeDi1-su6HB-24j7CK-88QNEP-9c45Wq-65Gd9d-2j1VM5-88TYBd-aiqM4K-2iWAgz-7CEmSA-9c4chU-9c17a4-37jfor-7GHY2p-86Z4Y7-88U1Du-88QLyH-88U9qo-qpWedy-2j1Qxo-9c479y-8oVU2r-9c13me-88Ua95-88TXmu/">rutger_vos/flickr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, rumours are swirling that May will in fact concede ground on the payment dispute in order to boost the chances of securing a “special partnership” after Article 50 talks have concluded. This special partnership is a recurring theme in May’s Brexit rhetoric, just as the Madonna (for instance <a href="http://www.uffizi.org/artworks/the-ognissanti-madonna-by-giotto/">Giotto’s altar piece housed in the Uffizi</a>) was a ubiquitous reference point in Renaissance art. Perhaps because both offer a beguiling vision of something pure and worthy of devotion.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186590/original/file-20170919-22604-f8s1zk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186590/original/file-20170919-22604-f8s1zk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186590/original/file-20170919-22604-f8s1zk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186590/original/file-20170919-22604-f8s1zk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186590/original/file-20170919-22604-f8s1zk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186590/original/file-20170919-22604-f8s1zk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186590/original/file-20170919-22604-f8s1zk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Giotto’s Madonna: Inspiration for a harmonious Brexit?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AGiotto_di_Bondone_-_Ognissanti_Madonna_(detail)_-_WGA09332.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Here the prime minister ought to heed the tale of <a href="http://www.mantex.co.uk/2013/06/19/the-madonna-of-the-future/">Henry James’ short story, The Madonna of the Future</a>. If she has not read it, she can find a copy in the <a href="http://www.britishinstitute.it/en/">British Institute</a>, home to the library of Harold Acton – a personification of aristocratic free movement prior to the EU. Set in Florence, James’ story recounts the tribulations of an American artist who spends years working on a portrait of the ideal Madonna, a project he talks about incessantly. The painful climatic scene sees the narrator, unable to contain his curiosity any longer, barge his way into the artist’s studio, where he discovers a canvas “that was a mere dead blank, cracked and discoloured by time”. It’s a painful and telling lesson: the grander the setting and the more grandiloquent the discourse, the greater the potential for eventual disappointment when nothing of substance materialises.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84245/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Glencross receives funding from the European Commission.</span></em></p>With such a colourful political past, the British prime minister will be hoping for a show of substance in choosing the Tuscan city.Andrew Glencross, Senior lecturer, Aston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/589772016-05-20T04:02:34Z2016-05-20T04:02:34ZUrban density matters – but what does it mean?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122222/original/image-20160512-18165-rcenum.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Streetlife density in Florence – urban buzz or overcrowding?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kim Dovey</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In debates about urban density we often find comments about buildings being too tall or not tall enough, about too many people in a neighbourhood or too few, about streets and buildings being overcrowded or empty.</p>
<p>We are told that Melbourne is <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-09/melbourne-develops-the-city-centre-with-dire-consequences/6080146">building at four times the density of Hong Kong</a>, or that <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/be-happy-be-more-interesting-be-dense-20111019-1m809.html">density is good</a> and will make us happy. As these debates over density in Australian cities continue, what is most often missing is any clear understanding of what people mean when they use the word “density”.</p>
<p>Is it the volume or height of buildings? Or is it the numbers of people? One person’s high density may be another’s sprawl; the same tall building may be experienced as oppressive or exhilarating; a “good crowd” for one can be “overcrowded” for another. One is reminded of Humpty Dumpty’s logic in Through the Looking Glass:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>What such debate most needs is greater density literacy. Density is a concept borrowed from physics where the meaning is clear – mass divided by volume. Yet when transferred to the city nothing is so simple. </p>
<h2>Are we talking about buildings or people?</h2>
<p>First, we need to clarify whether we are talking about concentrations of people or of buildings. If we take population densities first, these are generally measured as residents per hectare based on census data. </p>
<p>But we also need to distinguish between “internal” and “external” densities – the numbers of people in a room or apartment versus those in an urban precinct. If you look at new high-rise housing in the evening, you can find many apartments unoccupied. At the other extreme, internal crowding largely defines a slum. Building density does not mean population density.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122221/original/image-20160512-18152-14tv47q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122221/original/image-20160512-18152-14tv47q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122221/original/image-20160512-18152-14tv47q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=224&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122221/original/image-20160512-18152-14tv47q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=224&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122221/original/image-20160512-18152-14tv47q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=224&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122221/original/image-20160512-18152-14tv47q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=282&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122221/original/image-20160512-18152-14tv47q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=282&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122221/original/image-20160512-18152-14tv47q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=282&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Building density does not necessarily mean population density, an example being low-occupancy housing in Melbourne Docklands.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kim Dovey</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Population densities cannot be based on residents alone since the numbers of people in a given neighbourhood at a given time include those who work there or are visiting. In a mixed-use neighbourhood, residents may be a small proportion of the population density. </p>
<p>There are also population density rhythms as people move from place to place throughout the day and week. The same urban precinct can be densely populated during work hours and empty on weekends. Population density is not only the number of residents but fluctuates over time and with functional mix.</p>
<h2>And how do you measure building density?</h2>
<p>When we shift attention to building densities, we soon encounter some unavoidable jargon. The most common measure of building density is the “floor area ratio” (known variously as FAR, FSI, FSR and plot ratio) – the ratio of floor area to land area. This is the most widely used measure for limiting the bulk of development on any given plot.</p>
<p>However, it does not control the building height, “footprint” (the area occupied by the building) or “coverage” (the proportion of land covered by buildings). Thus it is quite possible to build high-rise low-density (with very low coverage or small footprints) or low-rise high-density (with high coverage or large footprints). </p>
<p>Most high-rise public housing from the 1960s and 70s is roughly the same FAR as the low-rise housing that was demolished to build it.</p>
<p>Building height is not a measure of density, although sometimes the two align. Confusions here abound; press reports (such as <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/melbourne-city-height-limits-to-hit-new-ceiling-20160425-goec15">here</a> and <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/skyscraper-height-limits-to-reshape-melbournes-skyline/news-story/43071a2d90ea1841379167c1036bb58f">here</a>) regularly equate FAR with height control.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122223/original/image-20160512-18168-14q272r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122223/original/image-20160512-18168-14q272r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122223/original/image-20160512-18168-14q272r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122223/original/image-20160512-18168-14q272r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122223/original/image-20160512-18168-14q272r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122223/original/image-20160512-18168-14q272r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122223/original/image-20160512-18168-14q272r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122223/original/image-20160512-18168-14q272r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Areas of different heights but similar building density in Fitzroy, Melbourne.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kim Dovey, Google Earth</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another common measure of density is dwellings per hectare. This is often used as a means of assessing population and building densities at the same time. But it does neither, unless we know the size of dwellings and of households. Thus <a href="http://www.soacconference.com.au/2013-conference/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Pafka-Structure.pdf">dwellings per hectare is a very blunt measure of density</a>, although a useful proxy for comparing housing projects.</p>
<p>Then there is the distinction between gross and net densities. Urban planning controls are focused on the net density on a particular site. Yet such measures are of little use in understanding how cities work because they do not include the public space of streets and parks.</p>
<p>The gross density is always lower than net density and it is the one that matters in debates over urban density. While we might be packed in on a particular site, the street network of a car-based city tends to keep us apart. Net density is not an effective measure of urban density.</p>
<p>As we measure densities of people or buildings at larger scales, we also incorporate water bodies, freeways and unbuildable sites, so the average density diminishes. Where one draws the boundary is a crucial decision in measuring urban density, or in getting the answer one wants. </p>
<p>Even urbanists such as <a href="http://mams.rmit.edu.au/j4oa4rdaow29.pdf">Paul Mees</a> can be guilty of this when using broad metropolitan density measures to advocate for public transport at suburban densities. <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/be-happy-be-more-interesting-be-dense-20111019-1m809.html">Elizabeth Farrelly</a>, a vocal proponent of higher density, compares it to the thread-count of luxury sheets (her minimum is 1,000), yet her only measure for urban density is “dwellings per hectare” – whatever the scale, net or gross.</p>
<p>Here we encounter the politics of density literacy and return to the logic of Humpty Dumpty:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The question is which is to be master – that’s all. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is no single scale at which to measure urban density, but the larger the scale the lower the density. The best approach is to understand density as multi-scalar: for any location there is an internal density, a net density, a walkable density and a metropolitan density.</p>
<h2>High density is no guarantee of urban buzz</h2>
<p>Finally, there is the question of streetlife density – of people in public space, of crowds and crowding. Here the complexities multiply. While we can measure the outcomes in pedestrians per minute or per square metre, we are far from understanding the ways in which streetlife is geared to building and population densities. </p>
<p>These connections depend at least on numbers of jobs and visitors, functional mix, car dependency, access networks and walkability. Yet this is where density delivers its greatest benefits in social and economic encounters – what we often call the urban “buzz” or “intensity” – along with disbenefits such as congestion.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122225/original/image-20160512-18152-1qm0hms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122225/original/image-20160512-18152-1qm0hms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122225/original/image-20160512-18152-1qm0hms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122225/original/image-20160512-18152-1qm0hms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122225/original/image-20160512-18152-1qm0hms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122225/original/image-20160512-18152-1qm0hms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=821&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122225/original/image-20160512-18152-1qm0hms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=821&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122225/original/image-20160512-18152-1qm0hms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=821&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Density without intensity in the car-dependent city – in this case, Tampa, Florida.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kim Dovey</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Australian cities we have become quite good at generating high <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07293682.2013.776975">density without intensity</a>. Think of car-dominated high-rise districts where few people use the street. Yet we also have good inner-city examples of intensity without high density. </p>
<p>For many people, density has become a negative word. Those who want more of it often use other words and phrases: the “<a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02697459.2014.945376?journalCode=cppr20">compact city</a>”, “<a href="http://www.conferenz.co.nz/conferences/smart-urban-intensification-0">urban intensification</a>”, “<a href="https://msd.unimelb.edu.au/intensifying-places-transit-oriented-urban-design-resilient-australian-cities">transit-oriented development</a>” and the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-30-minute-city-how-do-we-put-the-political-rhetoric-into-practice-56136">30-minute city</a>”. </p>
<p>This can be useful language but the question of what it means remains. The challenge is to raise the standard of <a href="http://www.palgrave-journals.com/udi/journal/v19/n1/abs/udi201313a.html">urban density literacy</a> – not to make density mean one thing but, as Alice might put it, to understand the ways it is made to mean so many different things.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58977/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>One person’s high density may be another’s sprawl; the same tall building may be experienced as oppressive or exhilarating; a “good crowd” for one can be “overcrowded” for another.Kim Dovey, Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, The University of MelbourneElek Pafka, Research Fellow, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.