A beautiful Rondel Dagger with a carved horn grip, probably belonging to Emperor Maximilian I, made in Burgundy, France, ca. 1490-1500, housed at the Kunsthistorisches Museum.
In 1403, Leonardo Bruni wrote the Laudatio florentinae Urbis, or the Oration and Praise of the City
of Florence. Emulating the ancient author Aristedes’ Panathenicus (Panegyric to Athens), Bruni set the humanist movement
within a definite temporal and spatial framework, exalting Florence as a place
which cultivated excellence, learning and good fortune: “There is a wise old
saying that to be happy one must first of all have an illustrious and renowned
native land” (Bruni, Dialogues).
The Chain Map of Florence, dating to the 1470s, is derived
from an original woodcut showing a birds-eye view of the city. However, this is
much more than an objective map, but displays a subjective view of the city
which echoes the literary ideal created by Bruni in his writings. For the
humanist, Florence was a place of beauty which facilitated the flourishing of
humanism and disseminated it to the rest of Italy: “Finally, Humanistic studies
themselves, which are the best and most distinguished branches of learning and
the most appropriate to humankind, being essential to private life as well as
to public life, were embellished by our native literary tradition and came,
with the support of our city, to spread throughout Italy” (Bruni, Funeral Oration for Nanni Strozzi).
For Bruni, architecture contained essential messages of
space and time, and a city’s buildings gave insight into the cultural condition
of the city and its people. In this way, the Chain Map takes on a greater
significance. The walls of the city which, even by the 13th century,
had spread across the river, form a mandorla,
an almond-shaped vessel of sorts in which Christ was traditionally depicted in
images of the Last Judgement. The spiritual significance this affords to the
city is also reflected in the central position of the Duomo, which in reality
is not found at the very centre of the city. This depiction, however, enlarges
the religious and civic structures in the city, externalising the beauty which
Bruni argued was inherent in Florence’s streets and people (a phenomenon unique
to Florence, according to Bruni).
This view of Florence can be seen as a humanistic construction
of an ideal city, whose inner condition reflects the remarkable scene a visitor
was presented with as they approached from the hills.
Reference: Griffiths, Hankins & Thompson eds. The Humanism of Leonardo Bruni: Selected Texts. Arizona: Arizona State University Press, 1987.
Francesco & Raffaello Petrini, Lav Veduta della Catena, 1887, Palazzo Vecchi Museum.
